All Kinds of Trouble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.