Plain Kate Review

Book Talk: Plain Kate's mother died in childbirth, and after her father catches witch's fever and follows her mother Kate is left alone in the world.  Fortunately, although Kate's looks may be plain she is extraordinarily talented with a knife.  In fact she's so good that some people think she's a witch herself.  When a stranger with actual magical abilities comes to down and starts making it look as if she's casting spells she's forced to sell him her shadow for the chance to flee town before she's burned at the stake.  She has to find a new place to fit in before the spell is completed and her shadow disappears completely, but where could a shadowless orphan possibly belong?  When a new, strange sickness starts causing a panic people start looking for someone to blame, and Kate is a perfect candidate.

Rocks my Socks:  Kate's sidekick is a talking cat.  That's enough to sell me.  Cats have such amusing personalities that it's always entertaining to give their haughty pride a voice.  There are also a lot of strong female characters, which I always enjoy.  Kate herself is a great example.  She manages to survive on her own through skill and persevering, she is willing to risk herself for others and her beliefs, she is able to see the sparks of goodness despite all the horrible things happening around her, and she is able to forgive and move on with her life.  She works hard at her skill in addition to being born with talent.  She's a great role model as far as I'm concerned.  I also really enjoyed the character Linay, who steals her shadow. He's definitely not a good role model, but he is wonderfully morally ambiguous.  There's a lot of meat and subtleties to his character.

Rocks in my Socks: I read a lot of glowing reviews of this book before reading it, so I came in with really high expectations, and they weren't quite met.  The book is a well-written fantasy novel, but I wouldn't call it exceptional.  The plot is enjoyable, but not particularly original or striking.  The moral, while handled well enough, is the same lesson about the treatment of outsiders that appears in virtually every book involving witchcraft and small towns.

Every Book its Reader: I'd give this book to 7th grade and up fantasy fans, especially those who enjoy talking animals.  The female presence is stronger than the male presence in the book, but there's no romantic subplot or particularly feminine elements, although it does spend some time talking about periods.  Still, I think it could be enjoyed by boys as well.

*************Animal Status Spoiler Alert*************************
I've added this in because I know some people won't read books that involve animals without knowing whether or not they survive in the end.  If you are one of those people (and you know who you are) rest assured that although the cat seems to die at the end, he is brought back to life.


Plain Kate by Erin Bow
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Crunch Review

Book Talk: Dewey's parents are off on their annual anniversary trip, and he's in charge of the family bike repair shop while they're away.  Normally they'd have a baby-sitter, but now that his older sister is 18 they convinced their parents that they could take care of themselves and Dewey is eager to prove that he can handle the responsibility. If only they had known what they were getting themselves into.  Suddenly the oil supplies that had been running low run out entirely and Dewey's parents are stranded where they are, along with the rest of the country.  With all the cars out of commission, the business in the bike shop really picks up.  The repair jobs pile up faster by the minute, parts start costing more, bike thieves multiply, and if the crisis isn't resolved soon mob rule threatens to take over.  Dewey's never missed his parents more, and they're never been farther away.  How will he ever be able to cope until they get back?

Rocks my Socks: With all the oil running out this book has a very realistic post-apocalyptic air, but it's also the most charming post-apocalyptic book I've ever read.  Bad things happen and everyone is pushed to their limits, but the kids are able to constantly rise above it and focus on the good things that are happening as well.  They end up trusting people they shouldn't, but that doesn't cause them to stop trusting everyone and their trust in other people is rewarded.  It's a wonderful moral, but it's conveyed in a very realistic way and not at all heavy-handed.  There are also other nice themes woven into the plot such as them growing some of their own food, and biking, and taking junk and recycling it into art--I think it will go over very well in Marin county, where I live.  Plus the main character is named Dewey, so as a student of library science I have to like it.  It's my favorite juvenile fiction book of the year--and I don't even know how to ride a bike!

Rocks in my Socks: If I was pressed to find something I didn't like about the book it would be that the gender roles aren't very balanced.  The female daughter is in charge of watching the five-year-old twins while the two boys handle the bike repair shop.  The adult female characters also seem to be mainly involved with child-rearing while the male characters are truck drivers and cops and bike repairers.  Not that there's anything wrong with a woman devoting herself to children, heck I work at an elementary school library myself and I love my job, but it would be nice to also have a female character who was a bike repair expert or a cop.

Every Book its Reader: I think that this book has really broad appeal.  It has some meat to it, but its overall tone remains pretty light-hearted and outright humorous at times.  I'd recommend it to any kid who enjoys realistic fiction.  It would be a great read aloud for a class, too.

Crunch by Leslie Connor
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The Birthday Ball Review

Book Talk: Princess Patricia Priscilla is not looking forward to her sixteenth birthday ball.  At it she will have to decide who to marry and each of her suitors is more repulsive than the next: Duke Desmond of Dyspepsia who is as ugly and irritable as a warthog and forbids all mirrors in his kingdom, Prince Percival of Pustula who has altogether too many mirrors and a heart as black as his oily hair, and the Conjoint Counts Colin and Cuthbert who never have enough time to care about something like mirrors because they are constantly squabbling.  So, Princess Priscilla decides to escape her boring castle life for one week before her ball and see what it's like to go to school as a normal village child.  Her birthday is fast approaching, but she doubts she will ever get her wish.

Rocks my Socks: This book was absolutely charming.  A light-hearted fairy tale full of rhymes, alliteration, and simple morals.  The characters are the kind of ridiculous caricatures you'd expect from a fairy tale and the ending and the whole story is satisfying in the simplicity with which it wraps up everyone's problems.  The illustrations by Feiffer are delightful and set the perfect tone.

Rocks in my Socks: The plot is definitely basic and predictable, but it's meant to be.  There wasn't anything to really sink your teeth into and all the characters and morals were pretty superficial, but that's also appropriate to the style Lowry seemed to be going for.

Every Book its Reader: I'd recommend it for children of all ages.  I don't know if many boys would read it based on its title and cover, but there's actually a fair amount of potty humor in there thanks to the twins (along with the much-needed moral that this isn't always appropriate) so I think that they'd enjoy it if they did pick it up.  For that reason it might make a good read-aloud book.  The book is, as I said, really basic and juvenile so I wouldn't recommend it to adults as a serious read, but because it's a very quick read it might be a fun few hours for adults wishing to reconnect with their inner child.

The Birthday Ball by Lois Lowry, illustrated by Jules Feiffer
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Luna Review

Book Talk: Regan loves her brother and wants him to be happy, but his secret is keeping her up at night, literally.  Although her brother seems like any other boy, he feels like he's a girl.  He knows what might happen if his secret is discovered, but constantly hiding who he is takes its toll.  His one refuge is sneaking into Regan's room at night to try on dresses and apply make-up.  It's the only place he can be himself.  But eventually there comes a day when night-time excursions aren't enough.  He longs to show the world who he is, but even though Regan loves and accepts him, she's afraid that the rest of the world might not.

Rocks my Socks: I really enjoyed the characterization in this story, especially for Regan and Liam/Luna.  The characters really have some meat to them and they protagonists are not perfect and they make mistakes and I love that.  I also found the issues explored fascinating and am glad that someone wrote a YA book about it.  The story was also compelling and I found myself staying up late to finish it in one sitting.

Rocks in my Socks: I felt like the focus of the novel was too split.  The narrator is Regan and I feel like she's supposed to be the protagonist, but the way the novel is told it feels like the main character is really Liam/Luna.  Liam/Luna is the character that has the biggest change from beginning to end and is the center of the story arc.  But there is also a fair amount that's just about Regan and parts of Liam/Luna's story that are left untold.  The most frustrating part for me was that I really like Regan's story line as well and I felt that the novel ended at the completion of Liam/Luna's story arc and left Regan's unfinished.  I suppose part of the point of the story is that Regan's life is focused around Liam/Luna rather than herself but that didn't make it any less frustrating.  There were also a lot of flashback scenes peppered throughout the novel that eventually seemed a bit redundant.  Since I stayed up late to finish the novel I ended up skimming over the flashback sequences near the end of the novel so that I could get on to find out what was happening in the plot.

Every Book its Reader: I'd recommend it to 9th grade and up who enjoy contemporary issues fiction in general or glbtq fiction specifically.

Luna by Julie Anne Peters
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The Ribbajack Review

Book Talk: This collection of short stories may be by the author of Redwall, but if you're looking for cuddly animals you're looking in the wrong place.  These stories mostly revolve around school-aged human youth and the creatures that do appear in the stories are anything but cuddly.  If you want to find out what a Ribbajack is and what it can do, then pick up this book.  I'd wait until day light to read it, though.

Rocks my Socks: These stories are wonderfully atmospheric and perfectly capture the horror that literature has taught me to associate with English boarding schools and the countryside of Great Britain and Ireland in general.  Thank goodness I was raised in America!  On a more serious note, these stories have a dahl-esque sense of dark justice that I simply adore.  The sense of justice, albeit dark, means that there are also some nice little morals in the stories.  Also like Dahl, the stories are definitely dark, but they're actually not terribly violent.  The violent bits that do exist are mostly left up to the imagination rather than described in detail, which I prefer.

Rocks in my Socks:   As much as I enjoyed the atmosphere of these stories the pacing was a bit slow at times.  I started reading this book in the spring and only finished it in November.  The stories were good and I enjoyed them when I eventually sat down to read one, but I never felt particularly compelled to keep on reading.

Every Book its Reader: I'd recommend this to fans of suspense/horror or anyone with a taste for dark literature.  The gender of the main characters switches depending on the story so I think it would be great for both boys and girls.  As I said it's not graphically violent, but it is rather dark.  I'd suggest it for 7th and up.

The Ribbajack by Brian Jacques
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Runemarks review

Book Talk: Ragnarök has come and gone and new gods are rising to replace the old.  The first order of business for the new religion is to stamp out any remaining traces of the old.  This involves casting suspicion on anything that has a hint of the old religion about it.  This is an unfortunate set of circumstances for anyone so unlucky as to be born with a runemark of the old region on their skin.  Which is exactly what happens to Maddy.  Bad luck seems to follow Maddy wherever she goes, that is until one day when she finds out that it's harder to kill a god than people supposed, that the old religion isn't entirely gone, and her rune mark could be lucky after all.  

Rocks my Socks: The book is post-Ragnarök, which means post-apocalyptic-Norse mythology- fiction.  What's not to love?  The market is completely saturated with Greek mythology spin offs right now, which makes this book a refreshing change of pace.  Don't get me wrong, I love Greek mythology but it's just nice to see something different, besides I'm a total sucker for trickster gods and Loki plays a major part in this book.  Maddy is also a refreshingly strong female lead who isn't burdened by any romantic subplots to make her act goofy.  

Rocks in my Socks: Magic comes a bit too easily to Maddy.  I wish she had to work a bit harder and take more time learning to train her skills.  Instead I feel as if she's just endowed with skill and it gives her a free pass to get them out of any tight situation they find themselves in.  I feel that her being lucky and endowed with power isn't a great lesson for kids whereas being endowed with power but still needing to work to learn how to use it properly is a much better moral and more realistic.  

Every Book its Reader: I'd recommend this to fans of fantasy adventure and mythology, especially Norse.  Some previous knowledge of Norse mythology would be helpful, but I don't think it's really necessary.  There's some violence in the novel, but nothing more than your average fantasy adventure novel and no romance.  I'd recommend it to boys and girls middle school and up.  I think it could be easily enjoyed by adults as well, especially with the dearth of Norse mythology fiction out there.  

Runemarks by Joanne Harris

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Tunnels Review

Book Talk: Every kid has their hobby: some do sports, some play videogames, but for Will, it's digging.  Will's father guides him in digging tunnels likely to unearth archaeological finds around town, and some of the stuff they find is amazing.  Will never thought he'd find a friend his own age who understood his passion, but one day he befriends fellow-outcast Chester and he shares his tunnel with him.  It's a good thing too, because Will has never needed a friend more.  His father has disappeared, his mother has never really been there for him, and his over-achieving sister has just about had it with all of them.  Finding out what happened to his father is difficult enough, even with the help of his friend.  But there's more than Will's father waiting for them underground, and soon Will and Chester are in a world of danger.

Rocks My Socks:  Once Will and Chester make it to the underground world the pace is very fast and engaging.  The descriptions of the other world are detailed and interesting.  There are several endearing characters in the world and a lovable pet as well.  I enjoyed reading about Will's passion for digging and the descriptions of what that entailed.

Rocks In My Socks: The books spends entirely too much time on events that take place before Will discovers the underground world and it makes the novel very slow to take off as well as making the novel feel very lop-sided.  The characters are mostly two dimensional and predictable.  Even with suspension of disbelief there were many aspects that just didn't make sense to me in the world of the novel or felt shoe-horned in without real justification for the sake of amusement or to advance the plot.  The world is well described but built on rather flimsy foundations.  The book is also another sufferer of Useless Adult Syndrome with almost all of the adults laughably helpless or inexplicably evil and bent on torturing children. The pictures are good, but there will be none for hundreds of pages and then two just a few pages apart and what was chosen for illustration seems more or less random.

Every Book Its Reader: This book is definitely aimed at a male audience, but could be enjoyed by girls as well.  I don't think this book would be engaging enough for adult readers, but I could see middle school fantasy adventure fans enjoying the book--especially if they can make it through the slow beginning to the fast-paced underground world.  There is a fair amount of violence and some torture, but nothing too gruesome.


Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams
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