Importance of an Epipen: Sidekicks

I rushed Dan Santat's Sidekicks to the top of my reading pile when the library called it home, and I had so much fun reading it that I immediately passed it along to P, who also completed it within the hour. This middle grade Cybils Graphic Novel finalist has bright colors, nifty super powers, and an internal family drama that keeps the emotions real even as the hamster and chameleon fight crime with the help of the superpowered cat and dog.

We do have to point out that the clock in the first panels is drawn incorrectly -- at 6:45 the hour hand of a clock does not point to six but is much closer to seven. This bugged my child from the first page, but luckily the clock does not return after that initial scene.

Anyway, the driving conflict of Captain Amazing's neglect of his pets because of his demanding superhero job clearly resonates with many kids, but the sugar coating of delivering the message through anthropomorphic pets keeps the tone light, even as they deal with sibling rivalries and devotion. This was a fun and lighthearted read that charmed adults and kids (X had read it weeks ago, when I first checked it out).

Pumpkin Wars: Me and the Pumpkin Queen

Last year I read about Rhode Island hobbyists and their quest for the biggest pumpkin, so when I saw this gourd centered book on the shelf during my Reading My Library selections I grabbed it up.  (And this one takes place in Ohio, so another state knocked of Where Am I Reading this year).  Marlane Kennedy's Me and the Pumpkin Queen follows the pumpkin season with eleven year old Mildred, who started growing pumpkins the year her mother died.

I felt smugly knowledgeable as Mildred explains many of the details of growing giant pumpkins, some of which are actually easier for a kid (less packing down of the dirt walking around if you only weigh sixty pounds anyway). She fertilizes, prunes, protects, and selects while hanging with her chess playing friend, fending off her well-meaning aunt who thinks pumpkin growing isn't all that feminine, and playing with the dogs her vet father keeps bringing home.

The ending is predictable (she wins the prize!) but disappointing in that she stops growing competitive pumpkins. It turns out that growing pumpkins was just a stage in her grief over losing her mom, not a real interest in an intelligent kid, which I found profoundly sad.

48 Hour Book Challenge Rapidly Approaching

This weekend is MotherReader's 7th Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge.  We'll go from Friday night (starting as close to 9 pm as I can manage, because it depends on when my book club ends) through Sunday night.  X has signed up, and I think I'll drag P along for the fun as well.

This year they are hosting an official charity, Reading Is Fundamental through Book People Unite. This poses me a bit of a problem, because I traditionally pledge money to our school library, so I feel like my donation money is already bespoke (no one else tends to sponsor me). I guess the best thing to do is double pledge, so I'll give both the school library and the book people $1 per hour, $5 per book finished, and $1 per comment, up to a limit of $100 dollars each.

My goal is 25 hours, which leaves me time to actually interact with people.  I may be able to exceed this, of course.  On the other hand, both Saturday and Sunday have activites scheduled that I can't miss, so not only will that eat up some of my time, but it means that on Sunday afternoon I have to be awake enough to drive, which means no all-nighters on Saturday night. So this will be a real challenge to me. (If I bring a note from the Challenge, can I read through part of a piano recital?)

X (the seventh grader) has a goal of twelve hours .  I need to make sure he has enough reading material to last him. In a move reminiscent of last year, he has gulped down several thousand pages in the past week, using up all the books I meant for him to read this weekend (the complete Bartemeus trilogy by Jonathan Strouss, for example). Maybe I should buy him Bitterblue. I have to think of the children, right?

I think I'll assign P the lowly goal of five hours, because pressure makes him panic. A has a goal of five hours as well; if Saturday the clouds turn to rain she has a chance at it. I need to revisit my meal plans to make sure they don't require any effort on my part; it may behoove me to stock up on frozen lasagna or something.

This will be my chance to get through as many of the Best of the Best books as I can, as well as to knock of some more Cybils books and in general catch up on all partly finished books I've got. I'll also try to get ahead on the various online book clubs I've been following and reread our selection for July.

Make It a Goal: The Reading Promise

The premise of Alice Ozma's The Reading Promise delights my very soul.  A father and his nine year old daughter pledge to read at least ten minutes every night for 100 days, no, 1000 days, no, FOREVER (or until college, whichever comes first). This combines two things I love -- reading, especially with my kids, and lists and goals for their own sake, so that the process become more important than the goal.

The book concentrates on the relationship between Alice and her dad rather than the books they read. Sometimes they can't even agree on what book they were reading when, and sometimes they get caught out and read any scrap of paper available since they can't get home to their current read (remember what I said about I love promises kept regardless of their orginial purpose?). And I wonder how often she spent time with her mom after the divorce -- were there few overnight visits? Did it feel awkward to call back to her dad for the daily reading time?

Although part of me wanted more about the books, especially since I find it harder to keep reading aloud with my kids --  we still do picture books but they prefer reading chapter books to themselves and we find youtube videos a better cuddle-time. But instead Ozma concentrates on how reading gives a prism to their connection.  Her father is not demonstrative, so reading together gives her several years of cozying up to his shoulder that would be impossible in any other event, and when one evening they quarrel right before reading and she sulkily stays on the far side of the bed, they never again feel comfortable squashed up together.

And her dad rehearses his reading, both for quality of performance and in case any content needs to be censored. His inability to read the passage in Dicey's Song where Dicey and her grandmother uncomfortably discuss the big issues of female puberty amuses and perplexes her -- she thinks it would have been much easier than his complete failure to do it on his own anyway.  Both of them cling to the letter of their promise, as Ozma shows when she is humiliated and also relieved when he shows up to spring her from an endless show meeting that threatens to cross over the sacred midnight line, or when she waits impatiently for him to return from a baseball game with a friend. They move together from a child with unquestioning faith in her dad to an adolescent watching him date and then fighting for his job as a librarian.

It's definitely more a memoir than a reading journal, so expectations may differ, but I enjoyed this peek into how someone's memories tie so strongly to the importance of books to her family.

Can't Touch This: Within the Flames

Within the Flames, the latest (eleventh?) book in the Dirk and Steele series by Marjorie M. Liu, pairs firestarter Eddie with a lost dragon shifter girl, who lives a hidden life with her arm permanently scaled as a dragon ever since the mysterious demon witches who still pursue her attacked her parents, secure in the knowledge that both families had abandoned the couple because of the forbidden nature of their love. Despite the twists of that paragraph, this book didn't have quite as many plot twists and additions as the best of Liu's books, which lightheartedly throw everything and the kitchen sink at the paranormal couples at their core.

I expect this is because at this point in the series there is so much already in place that adding more because redundant as well as difficult to squeeze in between all the back story -- there's the Dirk and Steele detective agency itself, with its reclusive telepath chief and its alliance with the hidden family of magicians against the evil family branch of magicians called the Consortium, and there are the gargoyles with the elaborate loyalties and fears of witches, and the various shape-shifters, and I don't think the mermaids get mentioned at all this time, and, and and. So the new dangers of blood-seeking demonspawn barely gets an eyebrow raise.

I felt a bit disconnected from Eddie -- I vaguely remembered him from previous books, where I think he was a strong secondary character, but not enough that the outlines of his current super-angsty position made much of a connection. And Lissa never really seemed real -- the poor girl of a Romeo & Juliet style marriage who is shunned by friends and stalked by foe -- oh well. It's all right for fans of the series, but I don't recommend it as an entry point. I put up with their mournful and lost glances at each other because I felt confident that something crazy would happen soon, but new readers may not have the patience.

Back on Monday on Monday!

I have another new plan for controlling my reading -- I'm only starting one new book a day. Unless I'm not reading anything, of course; if I run out of book I'll probably relax this rule. Right now that doesn't seem to be a concern, and I keep picking up books but not quite finishing them.

Well, I did finish a handful of books this week:

• Big Nate and Friends
• The Case of the Horrified Heirs (book club selection)
• Sidekicks (Cybils)
• Gabriel's Ghost  (Felicia Day's book club pick)
• Mary Ingalls On Her Own (Reading My Library book)

All of these are books I picked up this week, so everything I still had bookmarks in last week is still unfinished! You see the need for my new rule.


What am I still reading? At least I have actually been reading most of them, even if not productively:

• Angelfall, Susan Ee. NOOK. (Cybils) This disappeared from my NOOK for a while, but now it's back. Odd.
• Wanderlust, Ann Aguirre. NOOK. Second in Jax series and good clean fun. Well, maybe a bit smutty.
• Willie Mays, The Life, The Legend, James S. Hirsch. Still lost in the mystery of my house.  Dang.
• Shattered Bonds, Dorothy Roberts. X found this! Somehow I put it down in the closet of the playroom. I don't remember going in there, but it's back, so I can read it now.
• Angel's Flight, Nalini Singh. I've finished two stories, read the third in another anthology, and am enjoying the fourth.
• Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater. This is for the Best of the Best Challenge, but I like the characters and I don't think good things are going to happen to them. So I've only read a few pages.
• The Galacteran Legacy: Galaxy Watch, Michelle Izmaylov. (RML) I still find the plot very awkward, although I know it didn't bother my seventh grader at all.
• Bunheads, Sophie Flack. (Cybils). Her career is picking up, which means her social life isn't.
• Infamous Scribblers, Eric Burns. I've done Ben Franklin and Zengler in my colonial news printers chapter.
• Smart But Scattered, Peg Dawson & Richard Guare.  Making plans -- for waking up, heading for school, etc.
• The Same Stuff as Stars, Katherine Paterson. Nothing is so bad that a social worker can't make it worse.
• Honored Enemy, Raymond Feist & William R Forstchen.  Nemesis has backstory.
• Knight of a Trillion Stars, Dara Joy. Isn't it hot when he literally rips her clothes off? Wait, no, because she's trying to get away.
• The Catholic Church in the Modern World, E.E.Y. Hales. Pope looks bad when he condemns liberalism.
• Close Range: Wyoming Stories, Annie Proulx. Wow, are all the stories depressing?
• The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, Jeanne Birdsall. Audio. Moose watch.
• Young Fredle, Cynthia Voight. Audio. Uh oh, raccoons. Fifth grader is liking it.
• The Ring of Solomon, Jonathan Stroud. Audio. With 7th grader. CD 2. We do love the narrator.
• Beauty Queens, Libby Bray. Audio. This is great! CD 9.  Nine sounds negative, but it's really positive!

Since last week ended on Tuesday, this week lost a few days, so it should be easier for me to check in with the meme that Book Journey does, where everyone notes what they read, are reading, and intent to read. Teach Mentor Texts echos this with a concentration on children's books, which is good for me since that's most of what I read this week.

What will I read next? I've got a pile of Best of the Best books next to a comfortable chair, and maybe I can read 8 more in the next month. Hmm.  I'm eyeing  Jane, Bronxwood, and Leverage. I have to read a Wimpy Kids book for the school book club, and I also need to get back to work on the Cybils challenge.

Challenges:

1. Cybils: 56/73.  Finished Feynman.
2. Global Reading Challenge: 13/21. No change.
3. Where Am I Reading?:  19/50. I read an Iowa, so there's another review waiting.
4. Science Book Challenge: 1.141/3.14159. No change, but a qualified book is out from the library.
5. Reading My Library:  Finished one, which is good. On Ks.
6. Eclectic Challenge: 8/10. Perry Mason book counts as mystery.
7. Best of the Best: 17/25. I've stalled! Argh!

Cybils Picture Books

My house is still a big fan of picture books, although P usually reads them with me while X takes them off to read by himself. So we enjoyed this years crop of Cybils Finalists, with the boys now old enough to talk about why they liked or disliked things, and to appreciate the art as separate from the text.


Blackout,  John Rocco.  X, P and I cosied up under the covers to read our first Cybils of the year.  We enjoyed the energy of the pictures and the interaction between the text and the illustrations, sometimes contrary and sometimes supportive.  It brought back some good family memories -- the free ice cream we got when the cafe freezer lost power, my New Years Resolution to play more table games, the mom who found a flashlight in seconds flat (not always in my capability, but I've had some lucky moments).  A strong start.

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Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow?, Susan A. Shea.  I tossed this one to the fifth graders on the way home from the library, and they were in a jaded mood.  How stupid does a kid have to be not to know that inorganic things don't grow?  I tried to push them towards thinking about younger kids, and that maybe the book was more in fun than a quiz, but it was hard.  Even N later took a while to warm up, but at the end the opening pages lured him into the fun.  The transformation were eye-catching; some favorites were cupcake-to-cake and shovel-to-plow.  I knew I had hooked N when he complained that the baby was missing from the final summary page, and then I triumphantly turned to the very last page with the kid waving good-bye, and he was warmly satisfied.

I Had a Favorite Dress, Boni Ashburn.  This bright book is based around the folktale of Joseph's overcoat, as a talented mom adverts disaster by skillfully remaking outgrown items into smaller options -- the dress becomes a shirt, becomes a top, a skirt, down through hair doo-dads and finally an illustration.  The pictures are painted on white and the text hovers on the edge of poetry, while the mom and kid step back a few paces from cloying.  I liked the mom's motto of not making mountains of molehills which the girl is applying by the end, although I'm not sure she knows what a molehill is.  The boys really enjoyed this one, especially N, and A found it relieved the tedium of being sick.

I Want My Hat Back, Jon Klassen.  We actually read this one last year, which gives me a smug, special, in-crowd feeling.  P especially found the understated humor and grisly ending enchanting; I also enjoyed the take-no-prisoners finale. Although the smallest kids might miss the deadpan humor and find the bear's feelings uncomfortable, older and more sophisticated three year olds (and up) should have a blast.

Me... Jane, Patrick McDonnell. We had fun reading this biography of Jane Goodall, from the finely detailed illustrations done in soft colors the the actual science entries from her juvenile notebook. My boys found the life of an actual scientist to be a good nonfiction relief from the frivolity of most picture books, especially with the good humor on each page.

Press Here, Herve Tullet.  Both of my boys embraced the conceit for this book (5th grade and 7th grade), although 7th grade X couldn't resist cheating a bit.  He recommends it for "kids who like the follow the rules," and P just looks forward to reading books like this with his younger sister in a year or so. N kept this book for extra days, and A gave it a "Good for kids" seal of approval.

The Princess and the Pig, Jonathan Emmett. Both boys gave this book an enthusiastic thumbs up, enjoying both the energetic pictures and the happy ending, with the human staying with the family that loves her and the foolish royals embracing a pig.



So, time for the votes!  X, P, and I all loved Jon Klassen's I Want My Hat Back.  Even though we first read it last year, we clearly remembered it with joy and fun. I did ask them what they would buy as a gift for a child, and P and I would give Herve Tullet's Press Here to the small set. X would prefer to give The Princess and the Pig, unless the kid was a baby, in which case he thinks Press Here is the only one appropriate for the under one crowd.