Just Too Cute and Other Adorable Stories for Horrible Children, by Mike Reiss

Ahem. We are having some technical difficulties with this post, as our typist keeps giggling. This is NOT a funny book.

(Okay, Miss Ami, we really find it distasteful when you cackle like that.)
 
"Just Too Cute?" Try just too demented! Add this to your list of books to keep away from young children.  It would seem even our young picture book readers are not safe from the twisted minds of those who would call themselves writers. The innocent-looking cover hides a collection of stories and poems about cute animals gone terribly wrong. Performing bears who eat the audience? Exploding dodos? Even the penguin story, while nonviolent, promotes a shocking lack of conformity. Penguins are black and white. Period. Oh, and the rhythm on "Rabbits, Rabbits, Rabbits" is awkward at the end. So there.

Not what our young children should be exposed to. No, animals should always be portrayed as cute, fluffy, and vegetarian.
 
(Wait...Miss Ami, we did NOT authorize you to add the 'favorites' tag! Remove that at once! Are you even listening to us any more??)

Skulduggery Pleasant: Scepter of the Ancients, by Derek Landy

Meet Skulduggery Pleasant

Ace detective

Snappy dresser

Razor-tongued wit

Crackerjack sorcerer

and walking, talking, fire-throwing skeleton

As well as ally, protector, and mentor of Stephanie Edgely, a very unusual and darkly talented twelve-year-old.

These two alone stand in the way of an all-consuming ancient evil.

How fun was that!!! We found ourselves on a long lunch hour without the book we were reading, and picked this up to pass the time. We don't even remember what we were in the middle of reading before, because Skulduggery and Stephanie's banter kept our attention to the end. A couple examples:

Skulduggery switched off the engine and looked at her.
"Okay then, you wait here."
"Yes."
He got out. Two seconds passed...she got out and he looked at her.
"Stephanie, I'm not altogether sure you're respecting my authority."
"Yes, I'm not."
"I see. Okay then."

or:

"I try not to depend on magic these days; I try to get by on what's up here." He tapped his head.
"There's empty space up there."

How have Americans by and large missed this one? Harry Potter fans will love it (but it's not like Harry Potter). Lemony Snicket fans will love it (but it's not like Lemony Snicket). Douglas Adams (but it's not) or Gerald Morris (but not). It's sort of a mix of all those, with the tone of the first Men in Black (but no aliens) thrown in.
 
There are currently five in the series, with the fifth just recently published - unfortunately, only in the UK and Canada so far. Hopefully by the time we catch up it will be available here as well! We read the HarperCollins version we earned from our Scholastic Book Fair last month, which has some extras in the back - make sure you read those, too! In fact, if you aren't sure whether you will like it (as if the word of three turtles shouldn't be enough), just read the short story at the end. If you aren't at least giggling by the time you finish that, put the book down and go out and buy yourself a personality.
 
We give this an enthusiastic
 
5 out of 5

After Ever After, by Jordan Sonnenblick, reviewed by Miss Ami

Wow. He did it again.

When I finished reading Sonnenblick's first book, "Drums, Girls and Dengerous Pie" (and after I had finished crying), I read over his bio to find out what personal experience he was writing from. I still can't believe that the answer was, basically, none. I mean, he got it. Every little bit of what the family of a child with cancer goes through, down to the exact words the doctors use in some places! And yes, I am speaking from experience, but I don't know that I could have portrayed things so well. Amazing book!

So then we get "After Ever After", the sequel. One of those sequels you can't wait to read, because you want to know what happened next, but you are dreading it at the same time - can Sonnenblick possibly pull it off a second time? Can he suck us in from the first page, make every character real, stay away from stereotypes but still hit on the feelings and experiences of cancer survivors worldwide? In short, does he still get it?

As you can gather from my first sentence, the answer is a resounding "YES"! Little brother Jeff is now in 8th grade, cancer-free but not without some lasting effects. Treatment has affected his gait and his learning abilities. More important to an adolescent, his bout with cancer has affected the way people see him. As he tells us on the very first page, "There isn't a kid in the grade who hasn't eaten spaghetti at the church hall's annual Alper Family 'Fun-Raiser' Dinner, or gotten dragged to a high school jazz concert in my honor, or - God help me - bought a Save Jeffrey T-shirt." Kind of hard to develop your own identity when people are constantly mentally adding the moniker "The-Kid-Who-Had-Cancer" to the end of your name.

This is not a depressing read, though. As I told my teenage daughter, this is the funniest book about a kid with cancer (see, I'm doing it too) that I have ever read. Some people push books to their kids by giving them a plot synopsis, or by telling them how much they will identify with the main character. Blah. I prefer the drive-them-crazy approach;

Me: This is the funniest book about a kid with cancer I have ever read! Oh my gosh, and the part with the testing! I mean, you knew they were planning something, but that was so cool! But you had better not EVER try to pull something like that.

Her: Why? What did they do?

Me: Oh, and then when the teacher tried to stop them? And Tad? Ohmigosh! I could have cried! I think I did cry.

Her: What???? What did he do??? Wait, who's Tad?

Me: And that girl who hates him! So sweet!

Her: Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad! Make her stop!!!

Bet she'll read it:) And you should too! You do not need to have read the first book, as this one stands on its own, but we definitely recommend reading both. We give it a:

6 out of 5. Because we can.

Chapter Book Thursday: A Conspiracy of Kings, by Megan Whelan Turner

We are spent. We have finished reading Turner's series (so far - please don't let this be the last one!). We highly recommend that everyone read these books (if there is anyone left in the world besides us who didn't discover them long ago), We do NOT recommend you read them back-to-back in one giant marathon - for the simple reason that you will be useless to anyone else, as we were. You may TRY to stop reading and, say, cook a meal for your family, but your mind will be so entrenched in Attolia/Eddis/Sounis and the various political intrigues, that you will see conspiracies everywhere, probably giving your toddler a little more credit for planning and sneakiness than you should (then again, maybe not).

For long-time fans of the series, this one should not disappoint. The first chapter immediately answers a burning question from the last and gives readers a huge sigh of relief. If parts of the ending are less than surprising, it is because we have grown accustomed to Turner's characters being smarter than us, and thus getting themselves out of jams we would stay hopelessly mired in.

So, Ms. Turner...is the next one ready yet??!!

As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth, by Lynne Rae Perkins

Small problem with our new weekly structure: it meant we had to wait (picture three turtles bouncing up and down in anticipation) until today to review this one!


Perkins (Newbery winner for Criss-Cross) has another award-winner on her hands! We weren't sure what to expect from the cover and title, and the ARC (provided by publisher) didn't have a jacket description. We try not to read the promotional blurbs until after the book, so we sort of delved in blindly. And started alternately laughing and groaning almost immediately!

Ry is having a Judith Viorst kind of day (you know; terrible, horrible, no good, very bad...). He is on a train headed towards camp, while his parents are on their way to the Bahamas for a loosely structured vacation. He remembers a last-minute letter from the camp (they had been peppering him with daily missives like, "don't forget your sunscreen") that he had jammed in his backpack, and pulls it out to read. In brief: camp has been cancelled. Don't come. Oops!

Of course, he can't get cell service on the train to call either his parents' cell, or his grandfather, who is house/dogsitting for them (in the house and town they just moved into). Fortunately, the train has to stop in the middle of nowhere for repairs, which will take at least 45 minutes. Plenty of time for Ry to slip off the train, hike up a nearby hill, and see if he can get a few bars, right? Right? Darn those quick mechanics.

Within a few pages, Ry is stranded in the desert with a black eye, numerous scratches, a useless cell phone, about $80, and only one shoe. The phone thing doesn't really matter anyway, since his parents' cell phone has been stolen by a monkey, and his grandfather bonked his head while walking the dogs and is wandering around with short-term amnesia, in the town Ry's family just moved to, while the dogs take off on their own cross-country trip. Just a little bit of bad luck there. Then he meets Del, and his luck begins to change - or does it? It's a little hard to tell in places, but sometimes you just have to let things happen and trust them to fall into place eventually. Or not. Well, if nothing else, you can at least enjoy the ride!

There are so many great lines we want to quote. Anyone who came within range while we were reading it was hit with, "Wait, you have to let me read this part to you." A few that are within pages of each other:

"Ry glanced back at the truck as they headed down the shoulder of the road. It seemed at home there in the timeless earthy expanse. It blended right in. It looked like it was planning to stay. Marry a local rock and put down roots. By the time they got back there would probably be young tumbleweds nesting and mating in the cab." (pg 103)

Quite a feat to use words like "timeless earthy expanse" and be so funny in the same breath.

"The sediment of dirt deposited evenly across the windshield, punctuated by the dried fluids of unfortunate insects, glowed incandescent in the sunlight. It was like trying to see through dandelion fluff." (pg. 107-8)

Great description! Here's another:

"Del's face did its trick where without actually moving any of its parts, you could tell he was smiling. You could tell he was amused. If you want to see how this is done, watch an old Clint Eastwood movie." (pg. 165)

And one more:

" 'So, do you really have errands between Montana and Wisconsin?' he asked Del. Because looking around, he couldn't think what anyone would do here. No offense to North Dakota, but it was pretty subtle so far." (pg. 130)

Having trouble getting your students to stop using boring adjectives, like...well, "boring"? What better example than the North Dakota line! (Note: quotes and page numbers are from the ARC, and may differ slightly in the final version.)

And then there are the characters. Del is the kind of free spirit (and ninja cowboy repairman) we wish we could be. Carl, the semi-blind probable car thief with the two-minute memory span and no feeling below his knees...well, you just have to admire his joie d'vive! Some characters appear for only short bits, while others reappear periodically. All are memorable, as is this book!

As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth released two days ago, so run right out to your local library and check it out - and if it isn't there yet, stand on the counter and refuse to leave until they order and/or finish processing it! Better yet, order your own copy by clicking on the picture link. That way you can underline your favorite parts and dog-ear it all you want, and we will get a small portion of the proceeds for our library.