Children’s Literature

The Jupiter Pirates (2 Of Them)

2015, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

One of the Jupiter Pirates books is on the Cybils shortlist and since there are only two published (so far) and they’re middle grade scifi, I figured I’d just reserve them both. I’m glad I did. They were both a lot of fun and super quick to read.

The captain of the ship is a woman (a mom) and her husband is the first mate. There are three kids competing against each other to be the captain when their mom retires but they also have to work together because they’re crew. The female child is the one who’s most into “firepower” — that’s a nice change from the girl being the smart, bossy one.

I can see the first book (or the second) being a great action movie for kids. Great characters, interesting plot, lots of special effects. Someone should option these now.

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6 Poetry Books from the Cybils Shortlist

2015, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Poetry, Young Adult /

I really wish the Cybils didn’t put children’s poetry in with the middle grade/YA poetry. It seems… not right. Whatever. It is what it is and we’ll just go with it, I guess.

So I read six. Finally.

– Dear Wandering Wildebeest and Other Poems From the Water Hole was fine. I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it. It was fine.

– Firefly July was a cute seasonal poetry book. Nice mix of poetry from typical favorites and lesser known poets.

– Hi, Koo!: A Year of Seasons was fun. It was haiku but not the traditional haiku, which I appreciated. I was also amused by the hidden A, B, Cs — though that’s probably not super useful, I was just amused by it.

– Santa Clauses was better than I expected it to be. More haiku, which I wasn’t thrilled about but ended up liking quite a lot.

– Voices From the March on Washington was super interesting. (Again, why this and Brown Girl Dreaming are in the category with these younger children’s poetry… ugh.) I liked it very much. Kids who aren’t into poetry might like this. I highly recommend it.

– Water Rolls, Water Rises Water Rolls, Water Rises was excellent. I was surprised by how much I liked this one. I think it might have been my favorite of the bunch.

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Greenglass House

2015, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

Greenglass House is from the Cybils shortlist and we listened to it on audio.

I had a little trouble settling into the story in the beginning because I didn’t particularly like Milo. Also all of the folks arriving at the Inn all at once made for a bit of confusion. Weird names, hard to keep people straight, but it all settled down and started making sense.

Even the ghost part. (Oddly, TW didn’t realize the ghost was a ghost until Milo did. I was surprised by that.)

I liked the mystery. I liked the role-playing game aspect. I liked the adoption storylines. I did not love the storyline that had Clem and Georgie trying to steal the guy’s heart. That bothered me. Which is probably the reason why I didn’t give the book 5 stars (TW asked me about that a couple of days ago and I couldn’t really tell her why… now I can. I really loved both of those characters until the reason they were both at Greenglass House came out. I didn’t like that. I didn’t think it was necessary. I don’t particularly want kids to read that and think that this is how young women behave. Or should behave. Or even consider behaving. That’s now how relationships work…)

Anyway. Good book. I enjoyed it.

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3 Graphic Novels

2015, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge /

Look at me finishing up a category from the Cybils shortlist. (Unfortunately it’s an easy category. Hah.)

The Dumbest Idea Ever was ok. A little long and I didn’t much like the kid. Or his friends. The illustrations were good, though.

Hidden: A Child’s Story of the Holocaust was very good. I liked it a lot. I can see a grandmother telling that story to her grandchild but not to her son.

Ballad was beautiful. Really beautiful. But, I did not love the story that went along with it. It was too choppy and I don’t think it needed to be. Definitely worth reading just for the illustrations.

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Four Graphic Novels

2015, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Cybil Challenge, Don't Read This, Favorites /

I’m only about a month late but I’ve started the whole Cybils shortlist thing and am slowly making a dent in the list. Graphic novels were a good way to dive in.

El Deafo was excellent. Really. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it — so much hype around it! But, it was well deserved hype.

Bad Machinery: The Case of the Good Boy, sigh. I just don’t like Bad Machinery. I don’t get why everyone else does. This one was better than the last one I read (or tried to read) but I had to force myself to get through this one, too. If it makes the Cybils next year, I’m just not going to read it. Blah.

Gaijin: American Prisoner of War — I liked it. The art was excellent.

Bird & Squirrel on Ice was super cute. I particularly like Sakari and her role in the story.

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7 Non-Fiction Children’s Books from the Cybils

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

I think this means I’ve wrapped up my Cybils shortlist challenge but I should double check…

Locomotive was pretty good. Not great but not bad. Lots of technical info about steam engines.

Look Up! Backyard Bird Watching In Your Own Backyard was awesome. I loved it.

How Big Were Dinosaurs was a little boring — I’ve read quite a few that are better than this one.

Barbed Wire Baseball was excellent. Interesting person that a lot of kids will never have heard of. Nice illustrations.

Volcano Rising was ok, not great. Unless you have a kid really into volcanoes or a kid who has never thought about volcanoes at all.

The Boy Who Loved Math was pretty good, though oddly enough I felt like I’d already read it. Which is weird but there you go. Is there another children’s book about Paul Erdos? That would seem odd but of course it must be possible. The whole Paul didn’t know how to take care of himself and everyone helped him — that part, seemed awfully familiar. Even the illustrations of him trying to butter bread — very familiar. Anyway — it was good. I liked it.

Anubis Speaks was… I’m torn. I was bored, which is saying something since the stories shouldn’t have been boring. I think this one could have been better. Should have been better. It just wasn’t and I wanted it to be.

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Prisoner B-3087

2014, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Fiction /

Prisoner B-3087 wasn’t a bad book, it also wasn’t a great book. It covered too much ground, far too quickly – Jack Gruener’s story is amazing and hard to convey in a short middle grade fiction novel.

It was hard to feel a bond with Yanek though of course you feel all of the horror that comes with a story about a Jewish child in the Holocaust. I get it though, Yanek’s story is complex, really complex. Done properly, it would probably be a 3 book series so I see why the author took the course he did. It just made this book not great and only good. Hopefully kids who read this will go look for more information about Gruener.

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