Reviews of Children's Books
All ratings are out of a possible five stars
TITLE: The Great Turkey Walk
AUTHOR: Katharine Kerr
PUBLISHER/DATE: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux/1995
GENRE: YA Fiction
BOOK REVIEWER: Mary Combrink
RATING: ****
When fifteen-year-old Simon Green is told that the time has come for him to leave school (after all, he can't stay in the second grade forever), he comes up with an idea that he hopes will make him rich -- walk a flock of one thousand turkeys across the Great Plains to Denver. On the way, Simon has many adventures, including a run in with some not-so-savage Indians, and a brush with prairie madness. Simon's voice and the author's humor are wonderful. For me, the book lacked tension, but Simon's adventures will keep you reading.
TITLE: Swallowing Stones
AUTHOR: Joyce McDonald
PUBLISHER/DATE: Delacorte/1997
GENRE: YA Fiction
BOOK REVIEWER: Mary Combrink
RATING: *****
On July Fourth, a bullet falls from the sky, striking and killing a man named Charlie Ward. The aftermath of this incident is told from
alternating points of view � that of Charlie�s teenage daughter Jenna; and of Michael MacKenzie, who fired a gun into the air for fun and now must live with the knowledge that he may have killed a man. The characters and their reactions are very believable, and the tension keeps building until the end of the book.
TITLE: My Own Two Feet
AUTHOR: Beverly Cleary
PUBLISHER/DATE: William Morrow/1995
GENRE: YA Non-Fiction/autobiography
BOOK REVIEWER: Mary Combrink
RATING: *****
This is the second volume of Beverly Cleary�s memoirs. (A Girl from Yamhill is the first.) Her stories of going to college during the Depression, dealing with a controlling mother, trying to make a living, and how she finally found the time to start writing children�s books are fascinating, and may surprise a lot of readers who think they know the "real" Beverly Cleary from her books for young readers. I�d recommend the first volume (A Girl from Yamhill), too. In that one, you can see hints of the novels she would write in her recollections of her own (often difficult) childhood.
TITLE: The Chinese Cinderella
AUTHOR: Adeline Yen Mah
PUBLISHER/DATE: Delacorte/1999
GENRE: YA Non-Fiction/ Autobiography
BOOK REVIEWER: Mary Combrink
RATING: *****
This heart-breaking book is billed as "the true story of an unwanted daughter", and in her preface, the author dedicates it to all neglected and unloved children, with the fervent wish that they, too, will be able to transcend the events of their childhood. Adeline�s mother died giving birth to her, so her older siblings hate her for killing their mother. Her younger half-siblings are spoiled and petted by her father and step-mother, and Adeline is ignored, until the day she speaks up against her step-mother. After that, Adeline is sent from one orphanage to another, kept out of sight and trying to learn to survive in a world turned upside down by war and hatred.
TITLE: The Midwife�s Apprentice
AUTHOR: Karen Cushman
PUBLISHER/DATE: HarperCollins/1995
GENRE: MG fiction
BOOK REVIEWER: Mary Combrink
RATING: *****
This Newbery winner is the story of a girl who shows up in a medieval town one cold night with no family, no home and no name. She is taken in by the local midwife, and thinks she has found her place in the world, even giving herself a new name, until she fails while trying to help deliver a baby, and must decide if she has made the right choices for her life. This is Karen Cushman�s first novel, and the way that she draws the reader into the setting and Alyce�s life is truly remarkable.
TITLE: Catherine, Called Birdy
AUTHOR: Karen Cushman
PUBLISHER/DATE: HarperCollins/1997
GENRE: MG fiction
BOOK REVIEWER: Mary Combrink
RATING: *****
If I could, I�d give this book 6 stars. The voice, the details, the characters are so authentic � this is the ultimate in historical fiction. The main character, Catherine, is the daughter of a knight and lives a pleasant life in a manor in medieval England. Catherine, however, longs to be someone she�s not : a monk, a crusader, a traveling entertainer. How Catherine finally learns to be content with who she is told in detailed, sometimes laugh-out-loud, diary form. Cushman also includes author�s notes that give even more information about how life would have been for most people at this time, and how the way they looked at the world was shaped by environment, politics and religion.
TITLE: The Lottie Project
AUTHOR: Jacqueline Wilson
PUBLISHER/DATE: Dell Yearling/1999 (Orig. Transworld Pub./1997)
GENRE: MG Fiction
BOOK REVIEWER: Mary Combrink
RATING: ***1/2
Eleven-year-old Charlotte "Charlie" Enright is having a rough time in the sixth form � her new teacher is ultrastrict, her mother has lost her job, and (horrors!) she has to share a desk with Jamie Edwards, the most revolting, horrible boy in the whole class. When her teacher assigns a year-long project on the Victorian era, Charlie creates a diary written by an eleven-year-old Victorian nursery-maid, and she uses the diary to reflect her own thoughts and feelings about what is going on in her life.
The book is very well-written and the diary entries sound authentically eleven-year-old. I like the back and forth format between Charlie�s life and that of her Victorian counterpart Lottie.
I picked up this book because an editor from Random House/KDD, recommended British author Jacqueline Wilson as one of her favorite authors, and one who tackled tough issues for middle graders with humor. There definitely are tough issues in this book: unemployment, preadolescence, unkind grandparents, hard teachers, single motherhood, having your mother begin dating again, divorce, running away from home. But, that�s where the book fell short of the mark for me. There were so many issues � all of them neatly resolved � that I didn�t feel a great sense of tension. This is definitely a personal opinion � I feel that this is a book that my nine-year-old daughter will absolutely love, and I would recommend it for anyone who wants to write for middle graders, because I feel that Wilson has captured the thoughts and worries of that age group perfectly. I�m planning to read her other books.
TITLE: The Giggler Treatment
AUTHOR: Roddy Doyle
PUBLISHER/DATE: Arthur A. Levine/2000 (paperback available through Scholastic/2001)
GENRE: Early chapter book
BOOK REVIEWER: Mary Combrink
RATING: ***1/2
A fair warning � this book, by Irish author Roddy Doyle (who also wrote Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha, which won the Booker Prize, and The Commitments) � is not going to be everyone�s cup of tea. The book tells the story of Mister Mack, who yelled at his children and sent them to their rooms and who now must face "The Giggler Treatment"�stepping into a steaming fresh pile of dog poo (placed directly in his path by a group of pro-child creatures called the Gigglers). Unfortunately, Mr. Mack doesn�t deserve the Giggler Treatment (he immediately rescinded his punishment, but the Gigglers didn�t hear him), and it�s up to the neighborhood dog and Mr. Mack�s family to save him from his ignoble fate.
The book spans just a little over five minutes in Mr. Mack�s day and changes point of view so quickly that it�s sometimes hard to keep up. It includes talking dogs, talking seagulls, talking dog paws (don�t ask), and includes a wild race to the local railway station by way of Egypt. It also introduces American children to fun Irish terms such as bum (butt) and "doing rudies" (farting), and includes a glossary in the back. It contains flashbacks, alternate endings, and crazy chapter titles ("This chapter is named after ELVIS PRESLEY because he lives under the shed in our back garden"). I read it out loud to my six-year-old son, and he loved it.
If you want a story with a pro-parental authority message and no potty talk, this isn�t the book to read. But, if you secretly admire Dav Pilkey�s Captain Underpants series, and want to introduce your children to another author in the same vein, get them this book.
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