Miss Hagensee's Summer Reading

END OF THE SUMMER

2011-08-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that the summer is almost over and we will be back in school next week. I have 3 more books to tell you about before I begin concentrating on the 2012 Rebecca Caudill nominees. First is an historical fiction by Caroline B. Cooney, one of my favorite authors. The Ransom of Mercy Carter tells the story of a young girl captured by Canadian Indians during the French and Indian War. Mercy sees her village destroyed and many of her friends and neighbors killed. Then she, her brothers, and most of the children of her village are marched hundreds of miles to Indian villages where they are adopted by Indian families. Mercy shows great courage and curiosity as she adapts to Indian life. When ransom finally comes she must decide if she wants to return to her English home or stay in her Indian home.

Rosemary Wells's Red Moon at Sharpsburg features another courageous girl India who lives in Virginia during the Civil War. Not only does India believe in the cause of the Confederacy, but she is fascinated by the chemistry and biology she learns from a neighbor, Emory Trimble. Repeatedly told that girls do not study the sciences, India holds on to her dream to go to college when the war is over. What India sees of the war and the medicine of the time is quite sickening, but the ending gives hope for a brighter future.

I end the summer with a science fiction book - Across the Universe, by Beth Revis - that takes the reader on a three-hundred year space journey to a new life on a new planet. In alternating chapters we learn the story of Amy, a girl from our time who is frozen along with her parents for the space journey, and Elder, a boy who has grown up on the ship as part of the multi-generation crew. Together these two teenagers solve the mystery of what has been happening on the ship and why the journey is taking much longer than expected -- so long that a totally different society has evolved aboard the ship.

Thank you to those who have shared your summer reading with me. I look forward to hearing from more of you as we meet in the new school year.

ESPECIALLY FOR THE GUYS

2011-08-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

Guys, are you tired of hearing your parents and teachers insist that you spend the summer reading? Well, so is Derek in Janet Tashijian's My Life as a Book. Derek expects to spend his summer lying in the grass with his dog Bodi or hanging out with his best friend Matt. But his teacher has assigned 3 books for summer reading and his parents are sending him to Learning Camp! A big extra in this book are the margin drawings by the author's teenage son Jake. In the story they are Derek's drawings of vocabulary words. These stick figure, cartoon-like drawings add to the fun of the book.

A dead body discovered in a nearby river starts off Todd's summer in Tedd Arnold's Rat Life. Although Todd helps out at his parents' motel, he gets no allowance or salary. So when he is offered a paying job at the local drive-in movie theater, he figures this is the best summer ever. At the drive-in he meets Rat and that leads to a host of strange adventures including another dead body, a dangerous flood, and the answers to his questions about Rat. A tinkling murder mystery with all kinds of puzzles to solve in the space of one exciting summer.

NONFICTION THAT READS LIKE FICTION

2011-08-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

James L. Swanson has adapted two of his adult books for younger readers. Both books are concerned with the end of the American Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In Chasing Lincoln's Killer, Swanson tells how the assassination of Lincoln was accomplished and of the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth, the assassin, and his accomplices. It is a fast-paced thriller where you have to keep reminding yourself that communication in those days was so slow that it took two weeks before Booth was finally tracked down! Even though you know the end of the story, Swanson's day-by-day account builds with suspense.
Following that book Swanson has given us Bloody Times, the story of the funeral of Lincoln and the manhunt for Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. While the North mourns the loss of Lincoln and a funeral train slowly brings his body back to Illinois passing millions of mourners, Davis moves further south as the states of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina become too dangerous for him. Both men were respected by their people, but came to such different ends.
Both books are filled with illustrations, many of them photographs, which helps you get a real sense of time period. I found that I had a hard time putting down either book.

CATCH-UP TIME

2011-07-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I blogged about my summer reading, so I need to catch up. First, there is Avi's new Poppy book, Poppy and Ereth, which he says is the last Poppy book. If you haven't read the Poppy books, you may need to catch up. Poppy is a deer mouse who lives in Dinwood Forest. Her books are full of adventure and friendship. Poppy and Ereth is no different. Here Poppy loses her husband, is propelled through the air and caught by a bat, and manages to escape a forest fire. There's never a dull moment with Poppy!

Another adventurous book is North by Donna Jo Napoli. Alvin is tired of his overprotective mother's restrictions on his life and intrigued by the adventures of Arctic explorer Matthew Henson, so he decides to leave home and make his way north to the Arctic. Though he is a runaway he is aided by strangers along the way and makes it to Bylot Island where he lives with a trapper and learns of the dangers and the joys of Arctic life.

For fantasy lovers I read Serendipity Market, by Penny Blubaugh. When the world gets out of balance Mother Inez calls a group of storytellers to Sependipity Market to tell their stories and restore the world's balance. These stores are from familiar fairy tales and folklore but with a different perspective. It was fun hearing about Cinderella from a mouse or the "prince" and the pea or the shoemaker and the elves from the elves point of view. There are ten tales in all for you to enjoy.

Another fantasy is in a new series from Kathryn Lasky called Daughters of the Sea. The first book, Hannah, which I read, tells the story of an orphan in 1899 who gets a job with a wealthy family as a scullery maid. However Hannah feels an unusual pull to the ocean. When the family goes to their summer house on a spit of land that juts out into the sea, Hannah finds that pull so strong that she cannot ignore it.
In the humorous genre I read I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President, by Josh Lieb. Besides the incredibly long title which I kept laughing at, the book features Oliver who appears to be fat, lazy, and not too smart, but he is really a genius and a billionaire with his own plan to dominate the world. Unfortunately Oliver wants the approved of his milk-toast father and goes to extraordinary lengths to prove himself by becoming class president at his middle school.

Not to ignore my favorite genre, science fiction, I read Neptune's Children, by Bonnie Dobkin, an Illinois author. Terrorists have released a toxin to kill their enemies that works too well and kills all people over the age of twelve. Several thousand children who were at the amusement park known as the Isles of Wonder with their families and survive the toxin are organized by Milo to create their own community using the resources of the park. This may sound like a great future with no adults to interfere, but problems arise inside and outside the park to threaten the children's safety and Milo's rule.

Finally for nonfiction readers, there is The Secret of the Yellow Death, by Suzanne Jurmain. This book looks at the hunt for the cause and a cure for Yellow Fever that was lead by Walter Reed in Cuba at the beginning of the twentieth century. At that time no one suspected that mosquitoes could transmit disease. Just comparing the medical techniques of that time to what we have today is fascinating. The book is loaded with photographs that are as interesting as the text describing this search.

I hope are enjoying your summer reading as much as I am. Please share your choices with me through this blog or when we come back to school in August.

All Winners

2011-07-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I blogged and a lot has happened in that time -- BUT I DIDN'T STOP READING! I have finished 6 terrific books. Let's start with --
The Red Blazer Girls is a new series by Michael D. Bell. I read the first book The Ring of Rocamadour. The cover advertises "A puzzling mystery! A mystery with puzzles!" and it is as Sophie, Margaret, Rebecca, and Leigh Ann try to find a birthday present that has been hidden for 20 years!

Lois Lowry's new book Bless This Mouse is a sweet story about a community of church mice who try to keep a low profile so the parishioners won't demand the Great X - Exterminator. Each mouse character has a very human-type personality and the illustrations reflect that personality.

Finishing the Crispin trilogy by Avi is Crispin: The End of Time. Now Crispin is stranded in France with the loss of his friends Bear who died and Troth who stays at an abbey to help with her healing skills. Crispin is still trying to make his way to Iceland where he believes he can live free when he falls in the a murdering thief band disguised as musicians. He risks his life to escape with a new friend Owen. Set in the Middle Ages you have a window into life of the the rich, the poor, and the criminal.

Storm Runners by Roland Smith is an exciting and dangerous adventure with Chase Masters and his father who travel the country turning up wherever there has been or is about to be a disaster. This time they are in Florida just before a hurricane with an unpredictable path hits. Chase and his father each have their own survival tale to tell. It seems that this book is going to be followed by another book continuing the story of survival after the hurricane's landfall. Please let me know if you would like the IMC to purchase this sequel.

For those of you who are not fond of science fiction, Ally Condie's book Mismatched may change your mind. In a story that takes place sometime in the future, society has rebuilt after a total breakdown into a world where all choices are controlled by the society for the betterment of the society. Cassie is excited about her Match Banquet where she will find out who she will marry. Surprised and delighted that her selected partner is announced to be her childhood friend and neighbor Xander, she becomes confused when her microcard shows a different boy. She is further confused when at her grandfather's mandatory death at 80, he tells her about a smuggled poem he wants her to have. This is a story about love, romance, and questioning a society where all choices are programmed.

All of the previous books will be new to our collection in the fall, but I also finished a book that is already on our shelves -- The Water Seeker, by Kimberly Willis Holt. Set in pioneer days this tells life story of Amos, son of a beaver trapper who is also a dowser, someone who can find water using a forked stick. Since his mother dies giving him birth, Amos has a series of mother figures in his life while his father Jake is away most of the time trapping. When Jake and his Indian wife Blue Owl finally collect Amos, they head west eventually joining a wagon party going to the Oregon territory. Amos's story is so intriguing that you find you can't wait to turn the page to learn what new adventure or experience is coming his way.

Two More Great Reads

2011-06-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

I love Caroline Cooney's books and I found a great new one to read this summer. If The Witness Lied presents a family filled with tragedy. First the mother dies with the birth of her fourth child Tris. Then in a horrible accident the family car rolls over the father killing him. The only one in the car at the time of the accident is Tris who somehow as a two-year-old was able to release the emergency brake causing the accident. After the accident the family split apart. Smithy goes away to boarding school, Madison goes to leave with her godparents, and Jack stays at home with Tris and his Aunt Cheryl who delights in completely remodeling the family home. One year after the accident Aunt Cheryl has contacted a TV producer who wants to do a series on the tragic family. The siblings are appalled, and come together to protect Tris, about to celebrate his third birthday, from the media. With all that is going on, Jack begins to question the circumstances of the accident and wonders what really happened. Part mystery, part media spectacle, Cooney has again captured a story that could be right out of the headlines.
Tragedy on a larger scale is presented in John Marsden's Tomorrow, When the War Began. Set in Australia, the story follows a group of teenagers who go off on a camping trip for five days in a wild area called Hell. When they return they find their world has changed for the worse. Some unknown army has taken over their rural community and apparently all of Australia. All the teens' parents and community are imprisoned and the teens are on their own. After a terrifying expedition to check on their homes, the teen decide to retreat back to Hell and to plan their next move. Should they hide out until the world returns to normal or should they take action and mount a guerrilla war against the invaders?

Welcome to My Summer Reading Blog

2011-06-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

I am starting off the summer finishing off 3 great books. First, I am reading The Throne of Fire, the sequel to Rick Riordan's The Red Pyramid. Like the first book in this series there is lots of action, danger, and a whole lot of Egyptian mythology. This time Sadie and Carter Kane have to stop Apophis, the God of Chaos, from escaping his centuries-old prison -- and they only have 5 days to do it. There is a touch of romance for each of the Kane kids as well as a few new god helpers like Bes, a dwarf god considered lucky by the common people in ancient Egypt.

Next I am finishing Black Mirror, by Nancy Werlin. I started reading this one as a possible addition to the Romeo and Juliet Book Reports list since it deals with the suicide by drug overdose. Now I am beginning to see that it is also a mystery and the death of Frances' older brother Daniel may have been murder. All the action takes place on a preppy boarding school campus where Frances and Daniel are recipients of scholarships sponsored by a showy charitable organization known as Unity that may be involved in criminal activities.

Lastly I am half way through X Isle, by Steve Augarde. In a drowned world, people in the mainland try to arrange for their children to be chosen for the X Isle which is said to be a paradise. Baz and Ray are picked but find that the island is run by a religious fanatic and his brutish sons and the boys are slave labor. Rather than a paradise, the boys each get one can of food a day and have to do all kinds of manual labor without knowing why and are terrorized by the adults and their older teen assistants. The boys are beginning to see an advantage in working together. Their current plan is to create some kind of bomb that will kill the adults so the boys can take over the island. I can hardly wait to find out how it ends.
Please let me know what you are reading or if you have read of the same books I am. Books that I am reading this summer will be available for check out at Lakeview in the fall. Have a great summer and participate in Read S'More, Lakeview' Summer Reading Programs. Details are available on the Lakeview Library webpage.

All Kinds of Trouble

2010-07-29T07:10:00.000-07:00

Two books I read this summer deal with Trouble with a capital T. In Tracey Porter's book, Billy Creekmore, young orphans are in trouble at the orphanage. In this early 1900s story Billy and other orphans and abandoned children at the Guardian Angel Home for Boys are sent to work in the glassworks factory as young as ten years old. Their dangerous jobs lead to crippling or fatal situations. Billy, abandoned by his father, is determined to escape this fate. Just in the nick of time his unknown aunt and uncle appear to take Billy to live in a coal mining town. This seeming salvation doesn't last long, for the miners are organizing to strike for better wages and conditions. When his uncle is killed in a raid by mine owner troops, Billy is on the run. He finds temporary shelter with a circus and a friend from the orphanage. This, too, is short lived when Billy's father appears working for a rival circus that cheats its customers. Will Billy ever escape the trouble that seems to follow him and find a real home and family?

In Gary Schmidt's book Trouble, Henry and his family have moved far away from Trouble, but Trouble seems to have found them anyway. Henry's older brother is killed when he is struck by a truck driven by a Cambodian classmate. To honor his brother Henry decides to fulfill his brother's dying wish that he climb Mount Katahdin even though his brother claimed Henry couldn't do it. The journey that Henry and his best friend take to Mount Katahdin involves all kinds of trouble including getting a ride from Chay, the Cambodian refugee who killed his brother. The journey makes Henry take a good long look at his life, his brother, and his family and the Trouble that seems to be all around him.

Billy Creekmore is on Oprah's Kids' Reading List and is already in the Lakeview collection. Trouble is a 2011 Rebecca Caudill nominee and multiple copies will be added to the Lakeview collection in the fall.

Two Fairy Tales Retold

2010-07-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of buzz in the young adult literature world about looking back to traditional fairy tales, folklore, and legends for story ideas. note the success of Rick Riodan's Percy Jackson series. I just finished two such books and enjoyed both of them.

In Elizabeth C. Bunce's book A Curse Dark as Gold, we have a retelling of the Rumpelsliltskin story set in a small English village. The village grew up around a river-operated mill owned by the Miller family through many generations. The Millers have had all kinds of tragedies - breakdowns at the mill, unexplained accidents, and deaths of male children in the family. Finally the last of the Miller family, Charlotte and Rosie, are trying to keep the mill going through debt, accidents, and sabotage. One dark night a strange-looking man calling himself Jack Spinner appears and offers to help. Well, you know that part of the story, but Bunce adds witchcraft, mystery, and romance to this fairy tale and gives us a compelling story. This book is already in the Lakeview collection and is listed on Oprah's Kids Reading List.

Shannon Hale has retold a little-known Grimm's fairy tale in Book of a Thousand Days. While I didn't recognize the fairy tale, I was quickly caught up in the story which Hale has placed in a central Asian setting to add an intriguing element. The story is told in a journal/diary kept by a young servant girl Dashti who follows her royal mistress Lady Saren into banishment for not marrying her father's choice. This banishment is to be sealed up in a tower for seven years with enough food and fuel, but little light and no contact with the outside world. The girls are able to escape after about four years but find their world completely changed. The kingdom has been reduced to rubble. No one is left alive. To find out what has happened the girls travel to Lady Saren's true love's city and disguise themselves as kitchen maids. While there is a happy ending, it may not be the one you expect. This book will be added to the Lakeview collection in the fall.

Two Powerful Stories

2010-06-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in my summer reading reports, but between storms and power failures it has been difficult to add to this blog. However, those difficulties did not interfere with my reading. I finished two incredibly powerful stories that deserve nominations for the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award.

First, a new book by Gordon Korman, one of my favorite authors, takes up a very serious problem facing many families today. In Pop, Marcus Jordan moves to a new town and wants to pick up his high school football career where he left off. While practicing in the park over summer he is challenged to work his hardest by Charlie, a senior citizen who likes the "pop" of football - crashing into his opponent with everything he's got. When school starts Marcus is sidelined by an undefeated record lead by the star quarterback. But something is strange about his Charlie and the star quarterback. As Marcus puts the pieces together he finds himself getting into trouble with law and carries off an amazing deception. Though the book ends on a tragic note, this story is about family, friends, and football.

Susan Shaw's book One of the Survivors is an equally powerful story of a school fire as told by a survivor. What happened is slowly revealed in Joey Campbell's journal as he tries to cope with the death of 23 students and his teacher. Joey is not only dealing with his guilt and sorrow, but is accused by many people in the town of having set the fire himself as an explanation of why he survived. This story of a painful summer will keep you reading to find out what has happened and what will happen.

Both of these books will be added to the Lakeview collection in the fall.

Hello Summer Readers

2010-06-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

I hope you are all enjoying your summer vacation. The weather has been up and down, but there have been some lovely days for reading. So let's dive into summer reading. After one week of vacation I have finished 3 books on my list -- each one different, each one a great read!

Just last night I finished Ridley Pearson's Kingdom Keepers, a perfect book for summer reading because it takes place in Disney World, Florida. Five young people chosen to be hologram hosts at the park now find themselves crossing over when they go to sleep and roaming the park as their holograms chased by evil characters come to life like pirates and Maleficent. Together they must solve the mystery code left by Walt Disney which will stop the evil characters from taking over the park. You rmay ecognize Ridley Pearson as the co-author of the Peter and the Starcatchers series. Kingdom Keepers is equally exciting and adventurous. I can't wait to start the sequel.

Caroline B. Cooney's book Enter Three Witches is also exciting and adventurous but in a completely different way. This is the story from the Shakespeare play Macbeth spotlighting a side character Lady Mary who does not appear in the play. All the main characters are there -- Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, Macduff, the three witches, and more. All the action of the play happens as well as play quotes to start each chapter and snatches of dialogue directly from the play. Even though I knew what has to happen, I found myself caught up in the lives of all these characters and breathless awaiting their fates.

Finally I read a new book by Andrew Clements called Extra Credit. Sixth grader Abby learns that she will have to repeat 6th grade. Desperate to move to 7th grade, she pleads for a chance to improve her grades. Besides promising to do her homework every night till the end of the year, she gets an extra credit project to start a pen pal in another country, make a bulletin board display of her correspondence, and give an speech about what she has learned. Since she loves rock climbing, she chooses a pen pal in a small village north of Kabul, Afghanistan. What really makes this story come alive is that we meet the pen pal as well and hear his/her side of the story. In this small village it is a point of honor for the best English student to write the letters but that is Sadeed and the village elders consider it improper for a boy to write to a girl of the same age. Since Sadeed has a younger sister, he ends up writing the letters for her, sort of. This is a story which brings home to us the differences with people who live half way around the world.

I hope you have found some great reads for this summer too. Please send me your comments about these books or whatever books you are diving into this summer. I plan to be back next week with a new update on the books I've read.

Till Next Summer

2008-10-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

The time has come to say goodbye to our summer reading program. Thank you to all of you who participated. Mrs. Warkentien and I had lots of fun picking books to tell you about and reading your book reports. I look forward to next summer and another summer reading program.

Newbery Gold for Boys

2008-08-14T06:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry, guys, for the long wait. I was off for a couple of weeks, but here is the promised list of Newbery winners for you. These are some of the books I read in my junior high days and they all promise a lot of adventure.

First, let's start with an American Revolution book called Johnny Tremain, by Esther Forbes. I picked up this book after I saw the Walt Disney movie based on the book. Johnny was an apprentice silvesmith in Boston just before the start of the revolution against England. In a tragic accident his right hand is burned and horribly crippled. Though his career is over, he finds a new life among the American rebels and fights for a new country.

Two favorite books about the Middle Ages are Adam of the Road and A Door in the Wall. In Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Gray, young Adam travels the roads of medieval England searching for his missing minstrel father and his stolen dog, Nick. As you join Adam in his travels, you meet the various other travelers he mets - "rich merchants, pilgrims with cockle shells on their hats, farming folk driving pigs to the fair, noblemen with retinue, minstrels and priests, saints and thieves and honest country bodies." Somewhere among these people are the father and the dog he is searching for.

In A Door in the Wall, we meet Robin, son of a noble family. Young Robin is stricken with a fever that leaves him crippled. He is sent out to the country to avoid the plague in London and recover from his illness. When one of the towns where he is staying is beseiged, it will be Robin's courage that overcomes his handicap and sends him to bring help to the town.

My favorite adventure book from the Newbery winners is 21 Balloons by Willian Pene Du Bois. In 1883 Professor William Sherman is tired of teaching arithmetic at a school for boys, so he decides to fly a hot-air balloon across the Pacific Ocean. Three weeks later he is found clinging in the Atlantic Ocean to the wreck of a platform attached to twenty-one balloons. This book is the Professor's amazing story of his travels and his brief stop on a mysterious island with an incredible secret. Unfortunately the name of the island is Krakatoa which is really a volcano and 1883 is the year of its eruption.

There is still time this summer to read and enjoy one of these books. And Mrs. Warkentien and I are still accepting book reports for the Lakeview Summer Reading Program. The last date to turn in reports is September 2nd. So keep on reading!

Newbery Gold for Girls

2008-07-21T13:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys, but you will have to wait till next week for your special edition. This week I would like to speak to the girls about some Newbery winners that they might enjoy.

A couple of early winners that I really enjoyed when I was growing up are Miss Hickory and Hitty, Her First Hundred Years. Both of these books are about dolls made from wood, but they had very different lives. Miss Hickory, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, is a doll made of twigs and a hickory nut for a head. She lives in a neat little house made of corncobs glued together and placed under a lilac bush. When her neighbor Crow warns her that the coming winter will be a hard one and the two-leggers (humans) are moving to the city, she stamps her foot and refuses to leave her little house. This charming fantasy follows Miss Hickory and her survival that winter along with her friends Crow, Bull Frog, and Ground Hog. Besides the danger from the winter Miss Hickory must also defend her head from animals who want to eat it.

Hitty, the doll in Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field, is a tiny doll carved of ash-wood from Ireland. She tells her own story of all the people and creatures who owned her or took care of her. While Hitty is a lady and always tries to be proper, I see many connections to a modern book, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate DiCamillo. Both dolls go on sailing journeys and have many adventures. If you have already enjoyed reading about Edward Tulane, take a look at Hitty's story.

Thinking about Edward Tulane brings me to another book by Kate DiCamillo that won the Newbery - The Tale of Despereaux. This fantasy follows the adventures of a mouse who is in love with a princess. When his princess is kidnapped, Despereaux makes it his quest to save her. There are side stories about a servant girl who wants to be a princess and a rat's longing for soup which has been banned when the queen died because a rat fell in her soup. Humor and fairy tale blend in this story of love.

And the Winner Is...

2008-07-14T10:54:00.000-07:00

Join me on a journey across time to the years when I was growing up and reading books. Although I didn't know it then, many of the books I really enjoyed at that time had won Newbery Gold or Silver. The Newbery Award - gold for winner and silver for runners-up - is presented to living authors each year for books that show excellence and uniqueness in their stories and craftmanship.

You may not believe this, but I was not born when the first Newbery Medal was awarded in 1922. I know I have been around for a long time, but not that long. I was reading avidly in the 1950s and 1960s. You already know many of the my favorites from those years. Books like The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Island of the Blue Dolphins, and A Wrinkle in Time. Those were all gold winners. I bet you also know these runners-up -- Charlotte's Web, Old Yeller, It's Like This, Cat, and The Cricket in Times Square. If you haven't had a chance to enjoy these, take some time to try them out and tell me if you think the stories have stood the test of time. I would love to hear your opinions.

However, some of the Newberys I did not discover until I was in library school and I can't imagine how I missed them. Here are a couple of examples. The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw is a mystery that takes place in ancient Egypt (mystery and historical -- my favorite combination). Ranofer, a young slave boy, finds a golden goblet that was obviously stolen from one of the great tombs in the City of the Dead. He must keep the goblet hidden until he can prove who really stole it or he will be blamed and killed.

In The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall, the land of the Minnipins have a contest to see which town will be the best and win the Gammage Cup. The town of Slipper-on-the-Water decides to redecorate all of the houses in the same color scheme to impress the judges. When five people refuse to follow this idea, they are banished from the town to the mountains beyond. While the story could end here, it doesn't. The people banished to the mountains are the first to see danger coming their way and must decide if they should warn the town that threw them out.

Great Fantasy Overlooked!

2008-06-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

I know that many of you are fantasy fans looking for new and exciting adventures now that Harry Potter has saved the magic world from the forces of evil. Here are two great fantasy series that seem to be overlooked. They both have lots of action, high adventure, and plenty of evil and ugly monsters to conquer. Please consider them the next time you are looking for a fantasy book.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy, by Jonathan Stroud - In book one, The Amulet of Samarkand, we first meet Bartimaeus, a five-thousand-year-old djinni, who is called to our world by Nathaniel, a young boy apprenticed to a rather pathetic magician. We quickly learn that Nathaniel is much more powerful than his master, powerful enough to summon Bartimaeus and set him the task of obtaining the Amulet of Samarkand from the possession of Simon Lovelace, an incredibly powerful and ruthless magician. Several things set this story apart from other fantasies. First the narration of the story alternates between Nathaniel and Bartimaeus so we see the story from the point-of-view of an oft-timed scared, but powerful apprentice and a powerful but rude djinni. Then the story takes place in modern-day London, England, but a very different London from the one we would expect. This London, England, and the British Empire are secretly run by magicians who have high positions in the government. Finally Bartimaeus often tells funny stories and makes rude comments about his life and the people around him, but in the footnotes! So don't skip them as you read along. The adventures of young magician and djinni continue in The Golem's Eye and the series ends in Ptolemy's Gate.

Children of the Lamp, by P.B. Kerr - In the first book of this series, The Akhenaten Adventure, we meet the twins John and Philippa Gaunt as they discover that they are descended from a long line of djinn. All of a sudden they have the power to grant wishes, travel to extraordinary places, and make people and objects disappear. While their parents preferred the twins not knowing about their heritage, their eccentric and fun-loving Uncle Nimrod is very willing to be their guide and teacher as they learn to control their powers. This first adventure takes the twins and their uncle to Egypt where they have to find the ancient, dead pharoah Akhenaten and release the seventy lost djinn he is holding to restore the balance betwwen good and evil in the world. The adventure moves at breakneck speed from the deserts of Egypt to the British Museum in London with thrills and laughs all along the way. The twin's adventures continue in The Blue Djinn of Babylon and The Cobra King of Katmandu. What may have started out as a trilogy now boasts and fourth book The Day of the Djinn Warriors. I see a pattern in the titles that may indicated many books are planned for the future.

Tales of Suspense

2008-06-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

Do you like a story that keeps you guessing? Then you need to take a look at the books by Margaret Peterson Haddix. You may already be familiar with the Shadow Children series that begins with Among the Hidden. The suspense in that book was always wondering if Luke would get caught by the Population Police as a third child. This science fiction story that takes place in the near future deals with a society with dwindling resources so families are only allowed to have two children. Luke is a third child and is considered illegal. This book which was a Rebecca Caudill nominee lead to six sequels: Among the Imposters, Among the Betrayed, Among the Barons, Among the Brave, Among the Enemy, and Among the Free. I enjoyed the books where Luke was a character better than those where he did not appear, but all of these books kept that element of suspense wondering whether Luke or his friends would be found out. In the final book when the Population Police are overthrown, there is the suspense of wondering what kind of society will take the place of the Shadow Children one.

An earlier book by Margaret Haddix is Running Out of Time. Another Rebecca Caudill nominee, this book looked like it took place in the 1840s. However it was a science experiment where families of the 1990s lived in a protected community made to look like the 1840s. A major disagreement arose when a diphtheria epidemic breaks out and the scientists running the project will not allow 1990's medicine be used to stop the epidemic. Only young Jessie can save the people of the experiment by escaping and finding the necessary medicine in the world of the 1990s that she never knew existed.

In my school-year blog What's New on the Book Shelves I wrote about 2 other Haddix books - Double Identity and The House on the Gulf - both of which will keep you guessing about what is really going on. Two other Haddix books in the IMC collection are Just Ella, a twist on the Cinderella story, and Take-offs and Landings, about two children reconnecting with their mother while flying around the country on a two-week speaking tour. In the fall you can look forward to Escape from Memory, about a girl who reveals another life under hypnosis, as one of our new books. For a complete list of books by Margaret Peterson Haddix, consult Novelist on the IMC webpage. If you have forgotten the ID and password, just e-mail me and I'll send it to you.

Action and Adventure Time

2008-06-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

Hi, Summer Readers! I hope you are enjoying this lovely cool weather by taking some time to read. This week I would like to highlight one of my favorite authors for action and adventure - Will Hobbs. I don't remember now which book was the first one I read by Hobbs, but I can tell you that when I read Downriver, I was hooked! Downriver is the story of a group of teenagers who have ditched an outdoor education program to start their own adventure white-water rafting down the heart of the Grand Canyon. As I read this book I could almost feel the water spraying in my face as the two-boat group navigates the rapids. Of course with no adult or experienced guide, everything that could go wrong does for this group. Plus the fact that there are helicopters out looking for them just seems to add to the excitement. Once I read Downriver, I couldn't wait for the sequel River Thunder.

After that I anxiously waited for each new Will Hobbs book I could get for the Lakeview library. Some of my favorites are: Jason's Gold - about the Alaskan Gold Rush; Kokopelli's Flute - about a boy who changes into an animal to thwart robbers at a cliff dwellers site like Mesa Verde; The Maze - about an escaping teen who teams up with a bird biologist and almost loses his life in a canyon flash flood; Jackie's Wild Seattle - about two kids who spend an exciting summer with their uncle working for an animal rescue and shelter; and Far North - about two teens stranded after a small plane crashes in the Alaskan tundra. And this is only a short list of Hobbs's books at Lakeview. Check the I.P.A.C. for a complete list, and check in the fall for two new books by Hobbs - Go Big or Go Home and The Big Wander.

If you are looking for adventure this summer, Will Hobbs is the name to remember.

The Lightning Thief Tie-ins

2008-06-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

If you have already read Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief or any of the books in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, you may be ready to enter the incredible world of Greek mythology. Riordan's series unites mythology with twenty-first century characters. But reading the original myths is as adventure-packed as the Percy Jackson adventures. It is best to start with the stories of the gods - Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, Athena, Aphrodite, Artemis, Hera, Hermes. Each god or goddess has his or her own story of powers, symbols, and rivalries. Athena and Aphrodite have very unusual birth stories. You won't believe them! Then there are the stories of the heroes like Heracles, Perseus, Jason and the Argonauts, and, of course, Achilles, Hector, Odysseus in the Trojan War. All the blood and gore you could want!

You probably already know the story of the Golden Touch. Well, that's a Greek myth, too. My favorite is the story of Queen Cassiopeia whose kingdom was rescued from Poseidon's sea-monster by Perseus. As a reward Perseus got to marry her daughter Andromeda. Cassiopeia ended up as a constellation in the sky - the "w" that we find pointing to the North Star. I always liked the astronomy connections in the Greek myths.

Do you have a favorite myth? Let me know what you like best.