Peeled

I’m crazy for books with an agricultural setting / theme / issue. You can take the girl out of the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the girl, I guess. So Joan Bauer’s newest book, Peeled, set in an apple-farming community, was a”peel”ing to me from the get go (first and last bad apple-related pun, I swear).

Confession… the only other Joan Bauer title I’ve read is Backwater which I enjoyed immensely. After reading Peeled, I’ve since moved Hope was Here and Bauer’s other books high up on the TBR list. Peeled is the story of Hildy Biddle, whose family runs a small apple farm in New York state. When she isn’t helping out in the family business, Hildy is a reporter for her school newspaper, The Core, and journalism comes naturally to her. She’s eager to report the truth, so when ghostly happenings at the old Ludlow place leads the local newspaper to some sketchy reporting, Hildy grabs her chance to get to the bottom of things.

What I love about this book:

1. The layers. I like a book that has several well-developed plot threads that interplay with each other in interesting ways and work together to create the major themes of the text. Bauer seems to be a master at this. There is just enough going on in the plot and sub-plots that you’re curious about all of the elements of the narrative without losing track of what’s happening where and to whom.

2. The main character. Hildy is feisty, in a way that is not in-your-face. She finds the courage to act in difficult situations because she knows what is important to her and she can’t stand by and just let the things that bother her happen. I liked her. Completely. I liked how she grew in a way that was believable. If she was a real teen, I’d be keeping my eye on her to track the awesome things she’d be doing down the road.

3. The descriptions of the bounty of apple goodies: Nan’s applesauce, apple cake, apple brownies, apple chutney, apple syrup, apple bread, apple cider… apple EVERYTHING! Perhaps it’s the former pasty chef in me that cannot resist a story that shows a healthy appreciation for homemade treats. Which leads to my Tiny Quibble: Peeled is calling out for a recipe, or two, at the back. If not in this story, then when?

Read this story in October, in apple season, or anytime you want to think about the media’s fear-mongering powers and what good journalism looks like. A crisp, tangy, satisfying treat of a book. (*Crunch*)

Additional reviews from:

Sarah Miller
Becky’s Book Reviews
And Another Book Read
bookshelves of doom
Oops…Wrong Cookie
Teen Reads

Elf Envy: Random Round Up

A few tidbits from around and about.

Miss Erin offers us a fab interview with “the 3 Hales” behind Rapunzel’s Revenge.

I enjoyed the interview with Sophie Blackhall over at 7 Imp. Love it that those girls aren’t afraid to do a great, big, juicy, LONG interview. Keep ‘em coming.

Head over to Oops…Wrong Cookie to join in the discussion about a recent Publisher’s Weekly Article on the appropriateness of YA for younger readers. This is a tricky one.

For anyone out there who is sort of, kind of, beginning to write something that might turn out to be a really long story or a novel-ish type creation, read Barbara O’Connor’s recent Writing Tip re Character. Makes me feel better.

And finally, this has NOTHING to do with books or children or reading or anything (but I did find it over at Laini Taylor’s blog and she has everything to do with books and children and reading, so anyway…):

(Cool title letters created at Spell with Flickr. Fun times)

Manfish: A Story of Jacques Cousteau

It is steamy-on-the-streets August, and so by rights I should be snorkeling on some shiny reef or scubadiving in turquoisey waters. But alas… I am city-bound. Are you? Well then I recommend Jennifer Berne’s beautiful picture book on the life of Jaques Cousteau: Manfish. (See! I can read books that are not YA, and I can even write about them. Hah!)

My knowledge of M. Cousteau, prior to this book, was entirely based upon watching the occasional undersea adventure program in my childhood. Berne’s story introduces us to Jacques as a boy on the French seashore, and follows his dream to someday be able to breathe underwater and experience the sea from within. Readers learn that Cousteau was an inventor, a film-maker, an environmentalist, a sailor and a dreamer. I appreciated Berne’s direct, and quitely poetic style, matched in every way by French illustrator Eric Puybaret’s evocative illustrations. I propose that every pet fish henceforth given to a child be accompanied by Manfish. 

You’ll feel like you’ve been on a diving adventure - without the seaweed, or the seasickness.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

While I was away in paradise (aka the beautiful, rocky, cottagey place by the water), I read a bunch of great, great books. This is one of them. E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks is pretty close to perfect. One of the many impressive things about this book is that it makes you think about a lot of interesting and complex issues, and yet it is pretty short. In fact, I’ll bet that once you’ve finished reading, you’ll realize that you could have spent a whole lot more time with Frankie, without any trouble at all. This story feels restrained, like you’re getting just a glimpse into a brief period in a character’s complicated life. I love it when a book seems like a snapshot of a whole lot more, rather than tries to explain and reveal each and every thing that ever happened in the main character’s past. Suggestive is so much better than encyclopedic.

If you go (or have gone) to a boarding school, especially one of those Important Ivy League-ish type feeder schools, then you must must read this book. If you’ve gone to a pompous sort of college or university where you wore academic gowns to dinner and drank port in the common room and witnessed much revelry in the quad, then you must must read this book. Frankie Landau-Banks goes to Alabaster Prep, a New England boarding school where many of the students are the offspring of Important Rich People, and the rest just happen to be smart enough to get there on their own. Frankie’s year at Alabaster is off to a different start, since she experienced a transformation into a new state of super-cuteness over the summer. She now has a smart, adorable, very rich boyfriend, and she’s getting used to hanging out with his smart, adorable, very rich pals. Soon Frankie hears whisperings of Alabaster’s not-so-secret all-male secret society: The Loyal Order of the Bassett Hounds, famous for masterminding goofy pranks. The Order has been around for fifty years or so, and Matthew (Frankie’s boyfriend) is a current member. It isn’t long before Frankie starts feeling that no matter how close she gets, she’ll never be a part of Matthew’s inner circle, and frankly (har har har), this starts to get to her. So Frankie takes action, infiltrating the Order and becoming its commander-in-chief, without a single Bassett member’s notice. From this position, she engineers a series of wild misadventures, surprising everyone around her, not to mention herself, in the process.

There’s a lot of depth to Frankie’s story, and I like it. Read this book and then talk about where rules come from and why we follow them, the deep roots of paternalism, the structures and ideals that control us and lots of other pithy stuff besides. E. Lockhart has written a great book, deserving of many readers and much acclaim. Visit her blog and website for all kinds of related links, interviews, and further info on all of her work.

Here are a few more glowing reviews of The Disreputable History:

TeenReads
Booktopia
Oops…Wrong Cookie
Bookshelves of Doom
3 Evil Cousins
Reading Rants

Elf Vacation #1

I am off for a few days to sit on a rock (and read lots of books). I expect to take in views such as this:

I expect to clock some serious hammock time too. See you on the weekend!

Are you Savvy yet?

There’s been much buzz about the kidlitosphere recently related to Ingrid Law’s new book: Savvy. So it seemed like the right moment to grab the audiobook and start listening. I can see what all the kerfuffle is about, let me tell you. Great voice. GREAT premise. (Great cover too, by the way). This is the tale of the Beaumont family, more specifically, the Beaumont kids - Mibs, Rocket, Fish, Samson and Gypsy. In addition to their unusual names, the Beaumont kids have their fair share of strangeness, since when a Beaumont turns thirteen, said kid discovers his or her special talent, or “savvy.” And we’re not talking tap-dancing or baseball or playing the clarinet here. A savvy is a seriously powerful force, like creating hurricanes just by thinking about it, or making things levitate. Crazy.

Now, I’m only about half way through listening - and loving every second - so I won’t offer a review now. Instead I present some Savvy-licious treats:

Official Savvy Website

Ingrid Law’s Website

Straight from the Jar (The author’s blog)

Ingrid Law gets interviewed by the intrepid Fuse #8

A little clue as to the kookiness of some of the savvies in the Beaumont family:

And finally, the book trailer:

Enola Holmes: The Case of the Left-Handed Lady

I’m feeling pretty lucky at the mo’ because I’ve been fortunate enough to run across another fabulous sequel in my recent reading (the first being Hate that Cat - see post below). This one’s the second Enola Holmes mystery, and I’m just going to say it straight up, “I love these books.” Love them. Every reader has a certain type of book that is almost guaranteed to yank them out of a terrible funk. For some it might be mindless chicklit, or goofy romances, or great fantasy epics. For me it’s mysteries. A great mystery with Victorian flavour? Better still. Nancy Springer’s mystery series delivers in every way, and for that reason, I’m a firm believer in Enola’s happy-making powers.

To begin, read my review of the first book here. Now, don’t go running away to get the first book just yet. You might as well read my review of #2 and then go searching for both. Enola is in hiding in London, still searching for her mother, with her brother Sherlock doing all that he can to find his younger sister. But Miss Enola isn’t a Holmes for nothing. She shares many of her famed brother’s skills in disguise and detection and she decides to put those abilities into practice when a certain young lady, Cecily Alistair, disappears without a trace. Lady Cecily turns out to be a young woman far more complex and secretive than Enola imagined, and the spirited detective ends up on quite the journey into London’s seedy and sinister streets as she journeys towards solving the mystery.

Best Bits: The atmosphere in this story and in its predecessor is spot on, without being overdone. You do feel caught up in the sights and sounds of Victorian London. Enola herself is completely charming - clever and bold but with a streak of insecurity and uncertainty about the unorthodox path she has chosen. While the cover and larger-print format of the book might make you think it’s more middle grade, it is quite dark (deliciously so), and so is just right for teenage readers.

There’s a third Enola mystery out already (The Case of the Bizarre Bouquets), and a fourth slated for September (The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan). Good news for all mystery-lovers.

Hate that Cat

Ah Sharon Creech. You’ve done it again. I wouldn’t have imagined it was possible to approach the cleverness and charm and massive cute-factor of Love That Dog, but it would seem that the impossible has in fact happened. Enter Hate that Cat. I want to be a sequel lover, and sometimes I am. It’s just that so often the second isn’t as good as the first. I’m happy to report that Hate that Cat is a very fine sequel.

So, for starters, if you haven’t read Love that Dog, take a break from whatever you think you need to do right now (laundry, making dinner, writing the Great American Novel) and go get your hands on this book. All you need is about half and hour (ish) and you’ll meet Jack (reluctant poet), Miss Stretchberry (teacher extraordinaire) and Sky (beloved hound / poetic inspiration). When you’re done, you’ll have laughed and cried and you’ll feel good about life, the universe and everything. You will be all set for Hate that Cat.

Jack is back, and he’s lucky enough to be in Miss Stretchberry’s class for a second time. Lucky again because he’s heading into another year of poetic discovery, as both a reader and writer. This time, Jack learns a lot about finding inspiration in unexpected places and in the process, he becomes more sophisticated and self-aware as a writer. Once again, Sharon Creech has chosen the most delightful poems for Miss Stretchberry’s use in the classroom - a little Poe, T.S. Eliot, Valerie Worth and of course, William Carlos Williams. This slim book is practically glowing with teacher goodness. It’s impossible not to feel inspired to teach, read, and share poems with your students after reading Creech’s books. This is a story about finding your voice, appreciating language in its diverse forms, great teaching, and of course, grouchy/wonderful felines. You will be charmed.

Other reviews:

Sarah Miller
Fuse 8
A Year of Reading
Welcome to my Tweendom
Literate Lives

Hate that Cat will be available in September. Read Love that Dog now.

Elf Envy: Random Roundup

Sorry for the lapse in posting. I’ve been reading. Honest. But I’ve also been cooking and painting and cleaning and lying in front of bad television, with a bottomless glass of lemonade clutched in my hot little hands.

So today I made a point of visiting a bunch of my blogish haunts, just to see what’s been keeping you busy. Here is some good stuff:

Miss Erin points us to a great article by Margo Rabb in the NY Times.

Check out Mother Reader’s Interview with Jenny Han. Love her. Love Shug. Perfect time to read it.

I am SO eager to get my hands on Allegra Goodman’s first YA book, and Jen Robinson’s review just makes me want it even more. I loved Intuition.

Kelly’s got a great interview of Thomas the College Guy over at Guys Lit Wire, all about the fav books and reading habits of a second year English major.

This weekend I did a little browsing (and book buying… naughty me). I can’t wait to read Savvy by Ingrid Law. If you haven’t visited her blog, Straight from the Jar, you ought to.

Over at 7 Imp’s 7 Kicks you’ll find Laini Taylor featured this week. Yay!

So many goodies.

An Interview with Chris Rettstatt

Today I’m pleased to host Chris Rettstatt, author of Kaimira: The Sky Village. He’s on a Blog Tour this week, and this is his second stop. So, welcome Chris!

What tends to inspire you (situations / works of art / places / foods / people)?

Music inspires me. Sometimes I’ll hear a song that strikes a deep emotional chord with me, and I’ll listen to it over and over, dozens of times, and then I’ll try to write a scene that strikes the same chord.

The other thing that inspires me is losing myself in cultures very different from my own.

What inspired you to write The Sky Village, and to create the Kaimira world? Did you just wake up one morning thinking, “Hmmm, perhaps today I will write about a flying city and teenagers who can conjure demonic creatures and communicate with each other using a magic book…”?

I was thinking about science, how it’s racing toward places that would seem to us to be magic. Once we pass through to the other side, and we’re faced with a post-scarcity world (at least for those with access to advanced science), where will we find meaning and structure? So much of the structure of the world we know now is tied to limitations. When those limitations vanish, my feeling is that we’ll look to mythology of various sorts for meaning and structure. So Kaimira emerged as a hybrid of science and mythology.

The best Fantasy (or Sci-fi) book of all time is…

This is impossible to answer. If Lord of the Rings had been published as a single volume, as originally intended, I’d have to choose it, simply due to the impact it’s had.

If you could live inside a kids’ book, which book would you choose?

Where the Wild Things Are. Every day a wild rumpus and back home in time for dinner.

How tough was it to create a rich, realistic fantasy world that would appeal to hard-core, Sci-fi/Fantasy fans, but that would still be accessible enough to engage typical readers too (i.e. those unaccustomed to enjoying books about biotech chimera)?

Putting it that way, it sounds really tough. But from the beginning I wanted the book to be a Sci-Fi story that feels like a Fantasy. I felt like this approach would fit best with the science-meets-mythology themes in the story.

If this approach also makes the book appealing to a wider range of readers, I’ll be very excited about it. I never thought Kaimira would appeal to everyone, but I do know the sort of person I’m writing for, and there are a lot of us.

How do you hope that the online aspect of your work, at www.kaimiracode.com, will enrich readers’ experiences of the world you’ve created?

The website currently has short pieces I wrote that provide glimpses into different parts of the overall Kaimira story, from stories about Dragonfly and Breaker as they would appear in the Tree Book to journal entries written in the Kaimira Code.

Once we’ve rolled out the more interactive elements of the site, readers will be able to help build out the storyverse in a number of ways, from fan fiction to gaming.

Can you imagine this sort of cross-media initiative working as effectively in other genres, not just Sci-Fi or Fantasy?

It does work for other genres until you start getting into gaming. Sci-Fi and Fantasy tend to have pretty solid building blocks for gaming, but there are other genres that have it as well, such as thrillers and military action.

But I think there’s just something about Sci-Fi/Fantasy fans that attracts them to big, immersive stories. Maybe there’s a Sci-Fi gene we haven’t discovered yet.

I think that The Sky Village has the potential to appeal to both teen boys and girls because of the strong male and female characters, awesome action sequences and rich thematic elements. However, I can imagine some might think the series is pitched more towards boys (gaming tie-ins, focus on weaponry, fight sequences etc). I’m interested to hear your thoughts concerning “boy vs. girl” stories. During writing, were you consciously working to keep the narrative as gender neutral as possible?

It’s true that some have said the series seems to be skewed more toward boys, but there are others who say it’s more girl-focused. The truth is that I didn’t think much about gender when I was writing The Sky Village. I thought more about the kinds of readers I was writing for, the ones who love to get lost in a story and who, once it’s over, find creative ways to keep that experience alive.

What part of The Sky Village are you most proud of, because you think it’s the most creative or dramatic or just plain fun aspect of the book?

The chapter where the Sky Village encounters a storm. This was a late addition. I met with a group of students who gave me feedback on an earlier draft of the story. One of the students asked what would happen if the Sky Village ran into a storm. I thought it was a great question, and it lead to the creation of that chapter. And I had so much fun writing it.

This first novel in your series doesn’t present science and technology in the most positive light. What drew you to write about the destructive potential of these fields?

It’s true that science isn’t shown in the best light in The Sky Village. But Mei’s and Rom’s powers, and the Tree Book, are all products of the same science. With the right wisdom and balance, this wonderful and terrible technology might be put to more harmonious use.

And finally, a little randomness:

If you were forced to engage in a little gladiator-style fighting yourself, which element – human, beast or mek – do you think would likely dominate in you?

People who know me would probably say mek because I tend to stay very calm and focused. But in truth, I’d have to say human. When logic fails, there’s nothing like human instinct to carry you across the finish line.

Thanks so much to Chris for stopping by Shelf Elf. Tomorrow’s stop on the tour is at a wrung sponge. On Friday, you can read my review of The Sky Village at Guys Lit Wire.