Hilarious…
Unless you’re Hamlet…
The Total Tragedy of a Girl named Hamlet (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2010) by Erin Dionne is one funny book. Here’s an intro:
It’s the first day of 8th grade and Hamlet wants to be invisible. Her mother, in full Shakespearean regalia, insists on walking Hamlet and her 7-year-old sister to the school office. 7-year-old Desdemona (Dezzie) is a genius who has been homeschooled and can’t go to college yet because she doesn’t have art or music, so here she is at Howard Hoffer Junior High to make up for the deficit. And Hamlet has to escort her from class to class. What could be more embarrassing?
Don’t ask, because it’s going to happen.
On Erin’s website it says “Her books are for teens, tweens, and anyone who survived junior high” and I have to agree after reading her first book and this one.
Category: MG Novels
middle grade novels (for 8-12 yo)
The Books of Elsewhere
Delightfully Dangerous!
The Books of Elsewhere (The Shadows, Volume 1, Dial Books for Young Readers, 2010) by JacquelineWest is one on those hard-to-put-down books. I felt sympathy right away for Olive in this wonderful story.
Here’s a brief summary, without of course revealing the end:
11-year-old Olive and her parents visit the creepy old McMartin house. Her mathematic parents are thrilled when they see the library and buy the house right then and there. Olive, who doesn’t take after her parents in math–she’s a creative person–senses that there’s something strange going on in this house. After they move in, she discovers a pair of old spectacles that allow her to go into the paintings in the house. Olive also meets a talking cat who warns her about dangers. And, yes, she’s going to be in danger!
I’m looking forward to more by this author! Volume Two: Spellbound will be released on July 12, 2011. You can watch a talk about the books on Jacqueline’s site.
Ashes
Something a bit different…
In some ways there are so many books written about Nazi Germany and the holocaust that one might think, how can there be another? But Kathryn Lasky has done it well with Ashes (Viking, 2010). The book gives a view into what was happening before much of the world was aware of the looming danger.
From the viewpoint of 13-year-old Gaby, we see the rise of Hitler Germany’s Chancellor in 1932. Gaby witnesses things she worries about – some she shares with her parents, some not. She reads material that is later banned. Her family is friends with Einstein, which gets them called “white Jews.” Later in the story some tough decisions are made in this award winning book.
I like reading the Q&A about the book on Kathryn’s site and what she herself says about the book.
Countdown
Countdown (Scholastic, 2010) by Deborah Wiles is a story about fearful stuff.
It’s 1962 and 11-year-old Franny has so much to worry about: her great uncle doing crazy stuff and thinking he’s in one of the great wars, her little brother Drew who is perfect, her older sister Jo Ellen who disappears, her best friend Margie who is her friend no longer due to handsome Gale moving back to the neighborhood and wanting to hang out with Franny, Communists, and the atomic bomb. Oh, yeah, throw in the Cuban missile crisis, too. Yikes–life’s definitely not easy at her house.
This historical novel is very well written. Just today I read this quote from Deborah: “Story is everything. It’s all around us, and it’s every breath we take, every thought we think, every word we utter, every experience we have. It’s both inner and outer. There is always an outer story-what’s happening here?-and an inner story: how do I feel about that? That exchange sets up a cause-and-effect that becomes story.” That’s definitely what she’s done in Countdown!
And added bonus in this story is the graphic novel feel with the inserts from ads, news reports, etc. from the time period.
Going to Deborah’s site, I discovered Countdown is book one of a sixties trilogy! I’ll definitely be reading the others.
How to Survive Middle School
How to Survive Middle School (Delacorte, 2010) by Donna Gephart is both humorous and touching.
11-year-old David Greenberg wants to be a superstar talk host like his idol, Jon Stewart. David has top 6 ½ lists that he records on his videos which he posts on you-tube. The start of middle school doesn’t go well when he tells his best friend Elliot, who has been mooning over a girl all summer who put two hearts in his yearbook, that she put two hearts in everyone’s yearbook. Then he meets a new girl named Sophie, who helps his videos go viral by sharing with her homeschool network. Unfortunately, the “today’s acne forecast” on his sister gets him in trouble with her and his dad. Mom has gone awol and he can’t even call her. Then his hamster, the star of his show, dies.
Donna, a winner of the Sid Fleischman award for as if being 12-3/4 isn’t bad enough, my mother is running for president!, has another funny book coming out in spring 2012. See more details on her site.