Middle Grade Pick: On Snowden Mountain

On Snowden Mountain
by Jeri Watts
Candlewick Press
2019
193 pages
ISBN: 9780763697440

Twelve year old Ellen's father goes off to fight World War II, and her mother sinks into her deepest depression yet. Ellen has nowhere to turn except her distant Aunt Pearl. Pearl shows up, takes everything into her own hands and packs the family up to live in her small frame home at the base of the mountains in West Virginia.

Ellen is used to big city Baltimore and going to school with children her age. In the mountains, there's nothing but a one room schoolhouse, a gruff teacher, farm kids, mountain kids and a stinky skunk kid. There's nothing to do in the small village and Ellen isn't one to explore the mountain. Her mother is like a walking zombie, and Ellen fears she may end up with her mother's illness after she learns her grandmother also suffered depression.

Aunt Pearl's distance thaws out over time, and Ellen enjoys spending time with her and hearing about the past. Although her mother doesn't seem any better, Ellen gets a letter with news her father is coming home.

Issues of abuse, mental illness, poverty, depression, war and friendship are deftly handled by author Jeri Watts. Although the issues seem for a much older crowd this is a lower middle grade read that could easily be read by age eight and up.

Recommended grade 4 and up and for introspective readers who enjoy a "quiet" story.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Thriller Pick: Ask the Dark

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Ask the Dark

by Henry Turner

Clarion Books

2015

250 pages

ISBN: 9780544308275

 

 

What a story! What a character!

 

You know that kid in school who's always in trouble? The one who is usually a loner, who's quiet and breaks the law? The kid who's out late at night and maybe shows up to class or maybe doesn't? The kid whose mother died? The kid whose father can't make enough money to pay the hospital  debt and save their family home? The kid with the sister who dresses like a prostitute and hangs out with the neighborhood bad boy? Billy Zeets is that kid, but you need to know more about him and he's ready to tell his story in Ask the Dark.

 

Billy is a young juvenile delinquent usually in minor trouble for petty theft or sneaking around places he shouldn't be. In fact, that's why he knows what he does. When young neighborhood boys start to disappear, Billy tries to piece together all the clues he knows he's seen. Sneaking around at night in dark places and abandoned houses gives Billy all the information he will need, but can he put the pieces together before another boy is killed? Try as he might, there's something that he's missing and if he can just wrap his head around it, he'll solve the crime.

 

In a voice that's as fresh as country air, Billy shines as an unforgettable storyteller. The reader will empathize with him as he takes odd jobs to help his father save their home. The reward for the arrest of the child snatcher/murderer is $100,000, and Billy aims to capture that reward. Time is running out for everyone involved: for the kidnapped boys it means their lives, for Billy, it means saving his home and proving himself, for his father it means keeping the family together.

 

Billy knows he'll need more than just a scrap of paper or a pair of mittens to prove who the killer is. He'll need to find the missing boys and save them. Only then will the police believe him. For a boy who's usually on the wrong side of the law, Billy is on the right side of morality. He has no choice. He alone can save those boys and secure  his family's destiny.

 

Author Henry Turner's debut novel Ask the Dark is a fast paced page turner with a protagonist every reader will root for. Billy is unforgettable.

 

 

Highly, highly recommended grade 8-up with this consideration: Book contains profanity and well-placed "F-bombs," but it is the way Billy  would talk. If language is a problem with your readership, you may want to place this book grade 9 and up. It's so well written that readers will not be shocked at F-bombs at all. I believe they will accept it as Billy's natural diction.

 

 

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

 

 

 

Extraordinary Pick: The Key to Extraordinary

The Key to Extraordinary
by Natalie Lloyd
Scholastic Press
2016
240 pages
ISBN: 97805454552745

Available March 2016

Magical, extraordinary, quaint, rare, and shining, the Key to Extraordinary sings off the pages. Set in the mountain hollows lies an extraordinary village with an extraordinary restaurant run by a family of extraordinary individuals. Everyone in Emma's family has a Destiny Dream; she's still waiting for hers. In it, the dreamer dreams of what his/her destiny is to be. Emma knows Grandma Blue had a destiny dream; her mother had one, too. As Emma awaits her destiny, she reads the Book of Days where those who proceeded her recorded their own dreams.

There is magic in the town and among the dead in the graveyard. No amount of magic is going to help Emma's family who is  bound to lose their business unless they can find some cash...fast! Emma dreams of solving the riddle of the Daisy song  and finding the conductor's treasure--a great treasure buried somewhere near the woods. Everyone is out  treasure hunting, but Emma is determined to find it first. With the help of a new arrival who never speaks and her best friend Cody Belle, Emma sets out to solve the mystery and save the family business.

Quirky, charming  and full of fun, The Key To Extraordinary is that rare book that is like bottled up magic. Open the book and see what I mean. This is a great middle grades read that will satisfy younger readers.

Highly recommended grade 4-up.

FTC Required Disclaimer; I received the ARC from the publisher.  I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Novel in Verse: Serafina's Promise

Serfina's Promise
by Ann E. Burg
Scholastic Press
2013
304 pages

Available October 2013

(image from author's website)

Poignant, beautiful, and precious, Serafina's Promise tells the story of extreme poverty and hardship through the eyes of eleven-year-old Serafina. Serafina longs to play games and run around with her friends but her family needs her to haul water several times a day. Her Manman and Gogo depend on her. There is no one else to do all the chores. Papa works in Port-au-Prince, miles from their home.

Serafina dreams of going to school to learn how to write and read. She wants to become a doctor and save sick babies, like her little brother who died. She knows she has to convince her parents that she must go to school. There is no money for school uniforms or pencils, but Serafina decides that she will work for the money somehow.

A flood destroys their village and their home. They have lost everything but they still have each other. Serafina's dream is put on hold until the family clears land and rebuilds. A series of tragedies does little to hinder this young girl's spirit, and Serafina begins to realize her dream.

Written in verse (similar to Out of the Dust by Hesse), Serafina's Promise is an easy read for reluctant readers and sure to please those readers who love poetry. Young readers will gain insight into a country they may never have known about--Haiti--with its poverty, hunger, and tragedy. Ann E. Burk is donating a portion of her royalties to Haitian People's Support Project and Pure Water for the World.

Highly, highly recommended for middle grades 4-up. Add this to any collection of free verse and poetry.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the arc from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano
By Sonia Manzano
Scholastic Press
2012
224 pages



Evelyn (Maria) Serrano is sick of the barrio; she’s sick of Mami’s plastic flowers and cheesy slipcovers, sick of the lacy doilies Mami puts under every knick-knack, and sick to death of her mother’s pathetic attitude and slave like behavior (the book is set in the 1960s). Evelyn will never become a slave to her husband or household. She’s a free-thinking girl with moxie and a mouth that sometimes gets her into trouble!

When Abuela comes to visit, tension soon fills the apartment. Mami and Abuela fight over everything. Abuela was raised in Puerto Rico and remembers the turmoil and people being fired upon by the army. She doesn’t want her people to forget their struggles. Her cause is now the barrio. She wants to join the young men who are marching and protesting for better housing, jobs, education, and cleaning up their tenements. Mami wants nothing to do with the young “hippies” and forbids Evelyn from joining their ranks—forbidding something--the one way to insure that your child will do just what you don’t want them to do!

Evelyn fights the good fight and sees what her countrymen (and women) are fighting for. She has an “a-ha” moment or two and finally embraces her given name: Maria.
The back cover quotes from Julia Alvarez, Pam Munoz Ryan and others believe that this book is important for history and the Latino struggle. This is a good book to pair with common core non-fiction and Latino studies. The cover has no wide ya appeal; however, maybe the publisher was trying to attract the historical fiction few (I won't say crowd because historical fiction is not a "cool" genre to most teens).

Recommended grades 7-up. No language. No sex.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

This review has been posted in compliance with the FTC requirements set forth in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (available at ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf)

Thrilling Pick: Trash

Trash
by Andy Mulligan
David Fickling Books
2010
240 pages

Soon to be a thrilling movie!

Set in the future a few years from now, two dumpsite boys find a treasure in the mountains of garbage they sift through on a daily basis. Raphael and and Gardo live in severe poverty, part of the dump itself. They rarely have enough to eat, they live in large families with four or five children to a bed, they go to school only once in a while, and disease and sickness surround them. The government is corrupt and the police are brutal and on the take.


When what seems like the entire police force shows up at the dump, Raphael knows he did the right thing by hiding his treasure. They offer a huge reward, and he realizes that there is more to what he found than just a note, a key, a map, and some money. The two boys seek out Rat, another dumpsite boy who lives under a pile deep in the garbage, and he helps them with the mystery.

The boys realize that the man whose wallet they found is dead--no doubt murdered by the police. Why do the police want his wallet so badly? Who was this man? It is said he stole millions of dollars from the Senator. Is that why the police will stop at nothing to find out who found the wallet? What does the key open? What about the cryptic letter and mysterious map?

Raphael is taken in, questioned, beaten, and finally released when the police can't "break" him. Three uneducated boys will take on the entire corrupt system. They enlist the help of a British social worker and the priest who runs their school. Gardo visits a prisoner who tells them about a secret Bible code. The boys--remember uneducated boys---break the code and beat the system.

The fast-paced plot is told in chapters by each boy, the social worker, the priest, and a gravestone maker. This thrilling page turner will likely dominate the box office.

Recommended grade 7-up. No sex, some violence, police brutality, murder.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

A Novel That Makes a Difference: Shine

Shine
by Lauren Myracle
Amulet, 2011
384 pages

Due May 2011

Passionate, powerful, and poignant, this novel will cause a cacophony in libraries, book stores, blogs, and hopefully, even forward-thinking classrooms. Myracle leaves her girl/chick-lit earlier novels behind her, and steps to the center stage with this complex and grim read.

Shine is a gritty novel that will stick with readers making them uncomfortable and even angry, but it is also a novel that will cause discussion/debate on a number of issues: poverty, ignorance, illegal drug use, alcoholism, hatred, race relations, gay/lesbian/transgender issues, brutality, bullying, and the human capacity to forgive.

Cat Robinson is a sixteen year old girl growing up in the backwoods of rural America where the Internet/I-phones and laptops are non-existent. Cat has to go to the next town by bus to use a computer at the public library. People who live in Black Creek, North Carolina, are for the most part poor and uneducated. Most drop out in high school; in fact, only Cat and two others are going on to their senior year. Many jobs have been lost in the town and people turn to alcohol and meth for relief. Teen boys work peddling meth for the local meth cooker Wally.

It is in these hills that Cat's best friend Patrick is brutally attacked, bludgeoned and left for dead. The sheriff calls it a hate crime since Patrick is known to be gay. Cat knows better; she knows that the sheriff isn't looking for the guilty person. The official report says Patrick was probably hurt by college kids who stopped at the convenience store where he works. Cat goes from a shrinking violet to a determined and strong girl who fights for what's right.

As Cat uncovers clues, readers will be saddened and disgusted by this picture of Americana--a town where dreams are best left not dreamed and the future only looks brighter through the bottom of a bottle or the haze of meth.

This book will be widely read among teens who read authors David Levithan and Alex Sanchez. Shine is a novel that will stand the test of time. It is The Outsiders of the 21st Century.

In the end, the reader is left with a feeling of optimism as the guilty person is found and Patrick turns the corner. Cat and Patrick find it within themselves to forgive and continue to heal.

Highly, highly recommended for high school collections.
Warning: too mature for middle school. Sex, language, violence, gay issues, drugs, mature content.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive any monetary compensation for this review.