Moonpenny Island

Flor loves Moonpenny Island ~ especially when the summer people leave and all that are left are the true islanders.  Flor and her best friend, Sylvie, are the only 11-year olds on the island and that’s just fine with Flor.  They are perfect together.

As the summer between fifth and sixth grade comes to an end, changes begin happening … one after the other after the other.  Flor’s parents have been arguing more.  When Flor’s grandmother gets sick on the mainland, her mother leaves to care for her but  doesn’t come back.  Next, Sylvie’s parents decide to send her to school on the mainland and she’ll be staying with her aunt and uncle.  Now Flor is alone.  Worse, Sylvie really likes her new school and all the new opportunities she didn’t have on the island.  Finally Flor’s perfect student sister is acting less perfect.  Something’s up and Flor has a feeling it’s not anything good – there’s a secret and it might be a dangerous one.

Meanwhile a geologist and his peculiar daughter come to Moonpenny in search of trilobites  – one of the first creatures known to develop sight.  Flor realizes seeing and understanding can be more challenging than she had thought.  What it going on?   What is true?  What matters?  Flor’s search for answers helps her see more clearly and leads her toward a new understanding of what’s important.

I really like how Tricia Springstubb develops her characters.  Each one is polished and unique, while at the same time just like someone you know.  If you haven’t read her other books, give them a try.

Happy Reading!  📚

Sunshine

Ben has always been a kid without a mom, but he wants a family like everyone else.  He has a mom, but she left eight years ago.  Ben has a plan.  If he can show her he’s a good kid, then he’ll be able to bring her home where she belongs.

Ben puts his plan in motion.  His mom and dad agree that Ben will spend a week with his mom on the island she inherited from her grandfather.  While waiting for her to arrive, Ben absently strokes the red golden hair of Sunshine, the dog that is always by his side whenever he needs her.

When his mom finally comes into view, nothing is as he expects.  The boat is a canoe – no motor.  He won’t need his tablet – no electricity.  He won’t have daily check-ins with his dad – no phone.  Still, it is his mom and he still has his plan, so Ben decides to give it a go.

Ben finds the isolation frightening, but Sunshine seems okay with it.  Ben thinks the primitive cabin is dark and spooky, but Sunshine seems okay with it.  Ben feels afraid of the wild animals right outside the door, but Sunshine seems okay with it.  Ben is determined to see his plan through no matter what.  But when fire threatens his mom’s island, Ben is forced to face all he’s been trying to forget and find some answers:  What makes a family?  What causes worry?  What happens when you try to understand?

Sunshine is an important and poignant exploration of family, guilt and forgiveness.

Happy Reading! 📚

What Happened on Fox Street

Fox Street has everything Maureen Jewel Wren, usually called Mo, could want.  Her family lives in the heart of the dead end street – Mo considers this end one of its best traits.   Her family’s home is surrounded by all the things they need – a person who cuts hair perfectly, a fix-it man who makes things work, a piano player who adds beauty, her best friend’s grandmother who insures summers together, some wild boys who add spice and a creepy lady who adds to the intrigue   of the street.  Everything is there,  but most importantly for Mo are the memories Fox Street holds.  Fox Street holds all her memories of her mom.  It’s where they lived as a family before the accident that took her away.

Mo’s never seen a fox on Fox Street, but she always looks.  In fact, she and her best friend, Mercedes, have a secret place beyond the guardrail, down in the scrubby ditch at the end of the street.  They call it the Fox’s Den – they’ve always gone there to share their secrets, to solve their problems and to have a little away time from Mo’s little sister,  “Wild Child” Dottie.  That is until this summer when everything is changing.

This is the story of that unforgettable summer where everything changes ~ and yet somehow Mo finds a way to stay connected to the important things ~ family, friends, home and memories.

Read What Happened on Fox Street by Tricia Springstubb to find out Mo manages all this and  perhaps sees, saves…? the first fox on Fox Street.

I really loved these characters.  I hope you do too.  Each one of them is developed as a unique sparkling gem.  I can’t wait to read the sequel.

Happy Reading!📚

A Year of Miss Agnes

The Year of Miss Agnes begins:

“What will happen now?” I asked Mamma and we watched the plane take the teacher away.

“Maybe no more school.” Mamma twitched her shoulder a little to show she didn’t care.Mamma never went to school much, just a few months here and there when her family wasn’t trapping or out at the spring muskrat camp.She said she hated school when she was little.”

10-year old Frederika (Fred for short) has had six different teachers already.  Some of them stay the whole school year, but most do not. 

“Sometimes we could see the look on their faces the first week they were here, cleaning out their little cabin, putting up pictures on the walls.  The ones who looked mean from the very first lasted the longest.   It was the ones who smiled all the time and pretended to like everything who didn’t last.”

Coming to teach in a remote Alaskan village is a different kind of challenge.  It’s definitely not for every teacher.   First off, school is an extra – kids attend when they can.   It’s not that schooling isn’t important,  it’s just that survival is more important.  Secondly, there are very few supplies, and what there is are cast-offs from other places.  And finally, if you don’t try to understand the culture and traditions of the children you’re trying to teach, it’s impossible to help anyone learn.

Most of children don’t care much for school.  They go when they can, but they don’t mind missing a week or two.   Fred is different.  She lives with her grandparents, her mom and her deaf sister, Bokko.  Now that her grandparents are older, they don’t do as much fishing, hunting and trapping so Fred is in town.  She likes how school changes things up.  She helps out where she can in the store.  She want to learn to read as fast as Mr. Anderson and she want to write better too, so when Sam,  the bush pilot drops off the new teacher, Fred rushes to check her out.

She is older.  She’s wearing pants.   She’s English and she offers tea and cookies to Fred for the help she has given.  She appreciates Fred for who she is and what she has to offer.  That’s different and exciting.  From that first moment, school is different.  Miss Agnes makes the schoolhouse a place all the kids want to come to.  She cleans the window and fills it with  their art.  She shows them how important they are in the world and their place in history.  Miss. Agnes knows how to make each one of the children feel special.  She highlights their strengths and helps them help each other learn even more.  She even finds a way to include Bokko in school for the first time.

The schoolhouse becomes an exciting place of laughter and learning.  The whole community recognizes the importance of school and learning because. of Miss. Agnes.  A year isn’t very long when it is exciting and full – but a good year can stay with you for a lifetime as you “remember when…” Is a year enough to change everything?  Read A Year of Miss Agnes to find out.

If you’d like to read more about living and growing up on Alaska in the early 1900’s check out these other books terrific by Kirkpatrick Hill:

I loved them!

Happy Reading!📚

The Unintentional Adventures of the Bland Sisters

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Unintentional Adventures of the Bland Sisters trilogy – The Jolly Regina, The Uncanny Express, The Flight of the Bluebird – is funny. Jaundice and Kale Bland live in Dullsville.  You can tell the twins apart if you look closely.  Jaundice favors gray.  Her hair is parted in the middle.  She is left handed and sports a multi-pocketed smock she stitched herself from old curtains and couch upholstery.  Kale prefers brown.  Her hair is parted on the side.  She is right. Handed and is rarely without her backpack where she carries her handy reference book. – Dr. Snoote’s Illustrated Dictionary for Children, Tillie’s Tips or Taking Off with Trip Winger.

Aside from those differences, the Bland sisters are just about the same as you can see from this passage on page 3 from The Jolly Regina. 

“Jaundice and Kale pride. Themselves on their exacting routine.After breakfast (plain oatmeal with skim milk and a cup of weak, tepid tea on the side) they tend to their. Business of darning other people’s socks, with tased the better part of the day.Each allows herself one ten-minute break, during which she eats a cheese. Sandwich on day-old bread and drinks a glass of flat soda while gazing out the window, watching the grass grow.…It should be mentioned the Jaundice and Kale have parents.Several years ago, they left quite suddenly to run an errand of an unspecified nature, The Bland Sisters don’t tend to dwell on it. Too much, as they are sure their parents will return any day now.”

While Jaundice and Kale avoid excitement and surprise in every way possible, it seems that adventure and intrigue seek them out.  First, they are kidnapped by an all-female band of pirates  from the Jolly Regina ~ but when they finally arrive at Gilly Gunns Island, their once marooned parents are no longer there.  Second, rather than meeting their Aunt Shallot at the train station and bringing her home as planned, they are whisked away to become assistants of Magique and later to Detective Hugo Fromage as they attempt to solve the magician mysterious disappearance from the express train to Uncanny Valley.  And finally, they are spirited away almost immediately by Beatrix Airedale, pilot of the Bluebird, who has been sent by the Bland’s parents in the hope that Kale and Jaundice will finally rescue them from their pursuer and bring them home.

The series is made more fun by the ironic details and puns inserted throughout.  I snickered at the pirate named Captain Ann Tennille.  It took me until the 3rd book to catch onto the connection of getting lost and Gilly Gunns Island – Good Lord! 😁. Other names like Port Innastorm, Countess Ima Goudenoff (maiden name Nutt), Vera Dreary and the villain team, Victor and Uggo made me smile right away.  There are references to classic books, movies, and historical figures throughout to increase the fun, but I wondered if student readers would notice them.  Maybe- maybe not.  To increase the odds, these books would be great choices for a parent/child book or multi-age book club with a challenge to collect funny details from each reading.  

This trilogy is great fun!   It’s okay to be bland, but finding time of new things and a bit of adventure is okay too.

Happy Reading! 📚 These books are best enjoyed with with day old cheese sandwiches or stale hardtack washed down with tepid tea or flat ginger ale. 

PS – Here are some other books by Kara LaReau you might enjoy –

Are You Ready to Hatch an Unusual Chicken?

A few weeks ago I read this book’s  companion Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer.  It was such fun, I quickly found the next book.  In it, Sophie continues her work with Unusual Chickens and begins to revitalize her recently inherited, Redwood Farm.  Hortensia  James, reaches out to Sophie through email to return two new Unusual Chickens that Agnes had loaned her when she could no longer care for them.  She also sends Sophie her first clutch of eggs.  This means lots of learning about incubators and caring for the eggs as a mother hen would.  Thankfully she has friends to help her with this – Chris, Sam and Gregory.  They know about poultry and they know about Unusual Chickens.

In addition to those friend’s, Sophie’s cousin, Lupe, comes to stay with them when she begins college close by. Sophie is thrilled to have more of her family on the farm.  Unfortunately not everyone is as welcoming to people with brown skin.   As Sophie learns how to care for chicks and to discover all she can about each species of unusual chicken, middle school begins, Sophie holds a potluck work party to clean up Redwood Farm and she finds a way to help Lupe and Sam solve problems that come their way.

What kinds of Unusual Chickens will Sophie hatch?  How will she learn about them and care for them?  What will she do to make sure they are safe?  How will she bring Redwood Farm back to its past glory?  Will Sophie pass the inspection conducted by the Unusual Poultry Committee, Northern California Division?Will Mrs. Griegson help, or hurt the farm? What will happen next?  Read to find out – you’ll be glad you did.

Happy Reading! 📚

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer

Sophie’s summer vacation has just begun.  She’s moved from LA to  the very small town of Gravenstein, California. She’s living on the farm her dad inherited from his Uncle Jim.  There’s nothing but dust and junk and grapevines with no grapes.  It’s lonely, but Sophie is determined to make the best of things.  She will, if she can figure out what to do.  Tacked on the wall inside the barn, Sophie finds a flier advertising “unusual chickens” along with an address to inquire about a catalogue.  Sophie thinks a farm with chickens could be more interesting than what she is living with now.  She asks about getting the catalogue.  Her mom agrees it can’t hurt, and suggests she write a business letter to Redwood Farm requesting one.  Sophie gives her letter to Gregory, the mailman, who says he’ll deliver it the next day.

While she waits, Sophie decides to organize some of stuff Great Uncle Jim has collected all over the farm.  She discovers a typewriter in the hayloft and makes a space for herself there.  It is peaceful.  Typing reminds her of her Abuelita, and Sophie begins to write to her, sort of like a diary.  She knows her grandmother won’t answer, but it eases her loneliness to connect with someone. she knows loves her.  

Sophie continues to explore the farm looking for things to do.  She finds a little tipped over house and wonders what it’s for.    She soon discovers it’s likely for an angry little white chicken who appears from the blackberry bushes the next day.  Sophie decides to care for it while she figures out what to do.  Now she really needs to hear from Redwood Farm Supply because she has a chicken that is indeed “unusual.”  Henrietta (named after the chicken in The Hoboken Chicken Emergency) has telekinetic powers.   

After Sophie discovers this chicken has powers, several things happen at once.  Sophie receives a response from Agnes, the owner of Redwood Farm Supplies, telling her that Henrietta is one of Great Uncle Jim’s chickens and admonishes her to keep the chicken a secret in order to keep her safe.  Someone named Sue Griegson (who’s about the same age as Sophie’s parents) claims to be missing chickens and tries to steal Henrietta.  More of  Great Uncle Jim unusual chickens come home to roost with Henrietta.

Using information she learns from library books and the librarian, from talking to Gregory, the mailman, from the i chicken-care correspondence course sent to her by Agnes, and help she receives from other poultry loving kids in town, Sophie knows she has a lot of work to do to keep her flock happy, healthy and safe.   She is determined to do what is right, even when it is challenging and makes her reach outside her comfort zone.

Read Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer by Kelly Jones with illustrations by Katie Kath. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it – and hope for more.  It is fun.  The writing is great.  The format is unique.  The illustrations are funny.  It’s a lighthearted story that will make you smile and think at the same time.

Happy Reading!📚

PS – If anyone reads this who knows Vera M please tell her about this book.  She’ll definitely appreciate the chickens!