Book Review: The Cartoonist by Betsy Byars (1978)

Alfie's family home is very small and tilting to one side. His father has died, and his older brother has moved away. His mother and grandfather do the best they can, but there is very little Alfie can call his own, except for the attic. In the attic, Alfie can escape from the unhappy moments of his life by doing what he loves most: drawing cartoons. When Alfie's brother and his newly pregnant wife announce that they are coming back home to live with the family, his mother announces that she will be giving them the attic. Alfie, unable to face the loss of his private art studio, locks himself in the attic, refusing to leave until it is restored to him.

Betsy Byars writes some of the most believable - and honest - realistic fiction available for kids. This book is not about a happy child, but it is about a child many readers can relate to, even if their own situations vary a bit from his. Byars makes her readers really feel Alfie's indignation over his mother's clear favoring of his older brother, and hints about Alfie's dad's death and his grandfather's longing for the past help paint a perfect portrait of this family's particular dysfunctions and difficulties.

As is the case with many Byars books, this one ends on a note that feels a little bit unresolved. There is a resolution to Alfie's problem of losing the attic, but there is also a sense of defeat and an understanding that Alfie's life, even if he continues escaping into his cartoons, is not going to get any easier any time soon. At least one Goodreads reviewer seems to think this somewhat messy ending means the book is "horribly depressing" and has "no redeeming value," but I disagree. This story simply reflects the way things are sometimes, and, because its author is ever-respectful of the intelligence of young readers, she doesn't interpret the ending or use it as an opportunity to preach a moral. Rather, the interpretation of her message is left for readers to ponder themselves, and I'm sure there are as many impressions of the ending of this book as there are kids who have read it.

The Cartoonist was a quick, but deep read. Though it is short, I'd recommend it to kids in the upper elementary and middle school grades, as they are most likely to understand Alfie's longing for a place of his own and his nostalgia for a past life lost.

Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge: February 2018 Link-Up

This is the official Old School Kidlit Reading Challenge link-up post for February! In comments, please share your reviews and posts about any "old school" books you have read this month. (Even if you're not officially signed up for the challenge you're welcome to participate with anything you've posted about a book published in the decade of your birth or before.)

Here are the "old school' books I reviewed this month:

• The Password to Larkspur Lane by Carolyn Keene (1933)
• Clementine by Betsy Byars (1962)
• Life Story by Virginia Lee Burton (1962)
• The 18th Emergency by Betsy Byars (1973)
• Meaning Well by Sheila R. Cole (1975)
• The Glory Girl by Betsy Byars (1983)
• Thatcher Payne-in-the Neck by Betty Bates (1985)
• A Fine White Dust by Cynthia Rylant (1986)

What did you read? What will you read in the month ahead?

The RAHM Report for 2/26/18

What My Kids Are Reading

This week's Read-at-Home Kids Report features a wide variety of books, including an excellent audiobook we heard in the car and a retelling of Noah's Ark that I read as a kid.

What I Finished Reading

• Twelve Kinds of Ice by Ellen Bryan Obed, illustrated by Barbara McClintock
  This was my second time reading this book, and this time I read it aloud to my kids. I never reviewed it back when it came out in 2012, so I'm going to try to review it this time around. 
• Bingo Brown's Guide to Romance by Betsy Byars
  I didn't like this last book of the quartet as much as the first one or two. In this one, Bingo reconnects briefly with his long-lost girlfriend, Melissa, who moved away. The book was okay, but not as deep or beautifully written as other Byars books.
• Ellen Grae by Vera and Bill Cleaver, illustrated by Ellen Raskin
  This short novel is about a girl who often exaggerates the truth. When an unusual man in her community confides in her his darkest secret, she must decide whether to share it with others or keep it to herself. The writing is really interesting, and though the book is short, it gives readers a lot to think about it. 
• Sunny by Jason Reynolds (ARC)
  This was very different from the first two books of the Track series, and there are parts of the story that did not work for me. Reynolds is a brilliant writer, but for me, this book felt a little off. I'll be reviewing it in April, closer to its publication date. 
• A Song for Kate by Lynnette Kent
  This is another one of those Harlequin Heartwarming books. It was a quick read, and it reminded me a little bit of Up at Butternut Lake by Mary McNear. I have another Heartwarming title to read - an ARC this time - but it won't come out until June, so I'm going to wait a bit before jumping in.
• The Julius House by Charlaine Harris
  I really am not crazy about Aurora's new husband, but this was another quick, light read. I'll probably read the next book in a month or so. 

What I'm Currently Reading

• All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot
  I didn't even touch this book this week, but I am technically still reading it. 
• The Little Oratory by David Clayton & Leila Marie Lawler
  I also didn't touch this book this week, partly because I don't want to read it too early and forget everything before my book club meets. I'll probably get into it later this week. 
• Fatal Frost by Karen MacInerney
  I own this book, so it took a bit of a backseat this week while I tried to read expiring library ebooks and ARCs with publication dates in the near future. It does seem a little slow to start, but I think once I get a few chapters in, it will go more quickly. 
• Carbs & Cadavers by Ellery Adams (ARC)
  I have heard a lot about this book in the cozy mystery groups I am in on Facebook, so when I saw that it was being re-released and that there was an ARC on NetGalley, I decided to give it a try. So far, after just one chapter, the writing is of the high quality I expect from Ellery Adams and I'm enjoying the characters. 
• Zucchini by Barbara Dana
  I'm reading this book, which I found randomly on Open Library, as my Z title for the A to Z Reading Challenge. It's an animal story about a boy and his ferret so I'm skeptical, but I'm hoping it will be better than I expect.

Challenge Progress

I forgot to take note of my challenge progress last week, so this is my progress for the past two weeks:

• I fulfilled four letters for the A to Z Challenge: E (Ellen Grae); I (I Know You, Al by Constance C. Greene); L (Lucky Enough by Fred Bowen); S (Sunny) and two letters for Alphabet Soup: J (The Julius House); S (A Song for Kate). Ellen Grae and I Know You, Al also count for the Old School Kidlit Challenge, along with Happy Little Family by Rebecca Caudill and Life Story by Virginia Lee Burton. 
• I read two books by Betsy Byars for the Author Love challenge: The Dark Stairs and Bingo Brown's Guide to Romance. 
• I read three mysteries that counted toward both the Cloak and Dagger challenge and the Craving for Cozies Challenge: Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien; Clouds in My Coffee by Julie Mulhern; and The Julius House by Charlaine Harris. Clouds in my Coffee and The Julius House also count for the Library Love challenge, along with A Song for Kate.
• Finally, I posted the following reviews for the Writing Reviews Challenge: 

• Meaning Well by Sheila R. Cole
• The 18th Emergency by Betsy Byars
• Hooper by Geoff Herbach
• Thatcher Payne-in-the-Neck by Betty Bates
• Life Story by Virginia Lee Burton
• Clouds in my Coffee by Julie Mulhern
• Death by Dumpling by Vivien Chien
• Lucky Enough by Fred Bowen
• Hard to Resist by Kara Lennox
• Hamlet and Cheese by Megan McDonald

I'll be linking up today with Unleashing Readers/Teach Mentor Texts and Book Date for It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

The RAHK Report for 2/25/18

A very eclectic list of books this week. Our interests are very broad!

• Twelve Kinds of Ice by Ellen Bryan Obed, illustrated by Barbara McClintock
  We finished this lunch-time read aloud in just a few days. It felt a bit silly reading about ice when it's been in the 70s here lately, and by the end of the book, only Miss Muffet (4 years, 3 months) was really interested, but it was still a worthwhile choice. The writing is lovely, as are the illustrations. 
• Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, read by Cherry Jones
  Miss Muffet has finished reading this book independently so when we took a drive to a used book sale yesterday, we listened to the audiobook in the car. The narrator is excellent, and I especially enjoy the fiddle interludes at the beginnings of the some of the chapters, as well as the fact that the narrator sings whenever the text calls for it. Miss Muffet paid more attention than Bo Peep (2 years, 5 months) but even she was interested in a good portion of the book. 
• Penny and Peter by Carolyn Haywood
  This is the next chapter book we've selected for Miss Muffet. She has been narrating the events of the story quite animatedly so I would say she's enjoying it. Carolyn Haywood is such a gift to very early readers.
• Story of the Presidents of the United States by Maud and Miska Petersham
  We started reading this on Presidents Day and a week later, we've read about Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren, and Harrison. Bo Peep has no patience at all for nonfiction right now, so she has a fit every time I pick up this book in her presence. I'm actually not reading it for her, so Miss Muffet and I have had to look for times when Bo Peep is doing something else to sneak in a little reading. Miss Muffet definitely does not understand everything she hears in this book, but she does seem to like the general idea of tracing the history of our country. 

• Professor Noah's Spaceship by Brian Wildsmith
  I've had this book since I was a kid, and in all that time, I think I've only read it twice. Despite the fact that I haven't read it to them in a long time, both Bo Peep and Miss Muffet have been seen carrying it around with them this past week. I think Miss Muffet has actually been reading it, whereas Bo Peep was telling a story of her own. One afternoon, I heard her saying goodnight to each of the animals as though they were about to take naps.
• Of Swans, Sugarplums, and Satin Slippers: Ballet Stories for Children by Violette Verdy, illustrated by Marcia Brown
  Bo Peep has grown fond of this book, though I don't think anyone has actually read any of the stories to her yet. Both she and Miss Muffet like to put on tutus and pretend to be ballerinas so I think it is the illustrations of people dancing that are mainly interesting to her right now.
• Ten Little Babies by Gyo Fujikawa
  I occasionally ask Bo Peep to choose what we should read to Jumping Joan (4 months). This was her pick this week, most likely because the babies reminded her of her favorite book, Oh What a Busy Day, also by Fujikawa. Jumping Joan isn't picky, and she was very attentive to the pictures as I read.

Book Review: Life Story by Virginia Lee Burton (1962)

Life Story is Virginia Lee Burton's seventh and final book, published in 1962. In a prologue and five acts, Burton traces the story of life on earth, beginning with the birth of the sun and the formation of our planet, and highlighting major periods of the paleozoic, mesozoic, cenozoic, and recent eras, before concluding with a section on the seasons of the year and times of the day. Illustrated with full-color paintings and black-and-white diagrams, this book helps young children place themselves in time, space, and history, and provides them with an overview of natural history and evolution that can serve as a scaffold on which later deeper study can build.

This book is truly a masterpiece. I don't think I have ever read a more engaging, more attractive, or more emotionally resonant nonfiction book for children, or for any other audience. Burton includes details that are interesting to children - what creatures ate, the fact that cephalapods had feet on their heads, volcanic activity, the discovery of fire by early human beings - but she also drives home the fleeting nature of our own lives and the brevity of our era as compared with all those eons that have gone before.

Though there is no explicit mention of religion in this book, I found it very easy to see God's hand in everything Burton describes. For me, as a Catholic, I accept evolution as the means by which God accomplished his creation, and it was easy to present that worldview to my four-year-old as I shared the book with her. The details in the illustrations also make it possible for kids who don't read yet to enjoy the book and to gain a basic understanding of the changes to our planet and its inhabitants over time.

Apparently, this book was updated in 2009 to correct some outdated information (about Pluto, and brontosauruses, and other similar details), but I own the original edition and plan to stick with it. With the Internet at our fingertips, and other books in our collection, we'll be able to fill in any newly-discovered information that has been left out without having to try and figure out which pieces of Burton's text have been changed. It also saves me from the annoying political correctness of seeing "prehistoric man" changed to "prehistoric humans," which seems like such a petty little edit to make to such a wonderful book. Even my four-year-old understands that "man" (or "men" as she hears it in the Nicene creed at Mass) is a generic term intended to include all people and not an oppressive word designed to keep her and other girls out.

This is a book to own, to cherish, and to read many times over. I cannot say enough about how much I enjoyed it or how wonderfully it makes a big concept - the very nature of life on Earth - into something a child can easily wrap his mind around.

Book Review: Thatcher Payne-in-the-Neck by Betty Bates (1985)

In this 1985 middle grade novel, Kimberly "Kib" Slocum, the narrator, and Thatcher Payne are best friends who spend their summers together at Trout Lake. A few years ago, Kib's mom and Thatcher's dad were killed when the small plane in which they were traveling during a storm crashed. Now there is lots of enmity between the adults in both families, which occasionally puts on a strain on Kib and Thatcher's friendship. A desire to fix the rift between their families drives the two friends to hatch a scheme to bring their widowed parents together romantically. When it looks their plan might work, however, Kib begins to second-guess wanting to be in the same family as her best friend.

This is another book I discovered via @yearlingreads on Instagram, and which I then borrowed from Open Library. Despite the sad backstory, this is actually a very humorous little novel, which explores the fantasy some kids have of having their best friends become their siblings. The road to romance is pretty smooth for the parents, which doesn't feel particularly realistic, especially given the strain on the relationship between the two families, but the kids' adjustment to being year-round siblings instead of just seasonal best friends does have the ring of truth.

The illustrations are by Linda Strauss Edwards, who also illustrated a lot of Jamie Gilson's books that I remember from childhood. Each chapter has one pen-and-ink drawing, showing a key moment from the text. The faces on Edwards's figures remind me a little bit of Mercer Mayer, and I like the way she captures the details of clothing and facial expressions. She does a good job of bringing out the various emotions involved in Kib and Thatcher's unusual situation, and the clothes they wear are decidedly a product of their time. 

This book moved a little too quickly and tied things up a little too neatly for my taste as an adult, but as a kid, I know the upbeat tone of the text, and the quickness with which problems are resolved would have been necessary to distract me from the sadness of the characters having lost their parents. This isn't a book I feel I would ever need to own, but I'm glad to have read it, and would gladly read more by this author.

Book Review: Hooper by Geoff Herbach (2018)

Adam Reed, formerly Adam Sobieski, spent his childhood in Poland in less-than-ideal circumstances. Now that he has been adopted by Renata, his American mother, he lives in Minnesota and attends the local high school, where he is an up-and-coming basketball star and best friend to outsider Barry, who has a number of family issues himself. Though Adam knows that basketball is his passport to all the good things life has to offer, and has in fact been invited to join a prestigious travel team called the Fury, there are some roadblocks standing between him and success. He lacks confidence in his skills as an English speaker, so he often does not talk to his classmates or teammates, leading them to assume he is either disabled in some way or a snob. He also has problems managing his anger and worries about losing his temper as he sometimes did in Poland, which would jeopardize his career. With the help of Carli Anderson, another basketball star who has great empathy for Adam, and his teammates on the Fury, Adam slowly begins to come to terms with his past and to come into his own as both a person and a basketball player.

I have yet to read a Geoff Herbach book I didn't love. While Hooper is more serious than Herbach's wonderful Stupid Fast trilogy, it is every bit as engrossing and fast-paced. Herbach has such a talent for creating believable characters, and Adam may be his most layered protagonist yet. Though many issues are touched on in this book - identity, diversity, racism, child abuse, immigration - the strength of the main character keeps the story from becoming bogged down in political messages. The motivation to keep reading is not the desire to see how one particular conflict is resolved, but to find out what happens to the endearing Adam in all aspects of his life.

The descriptions of sports in this book are also great. I am not someone who follows sports, but I love sports fiction, and the basketball action in this book is as entertaining as everything else. Herbach does a perfect job of balancing descriptions of plays with Adam's thoughts during games and practices, and even someone like me who knows very little about sports vocabulary has no problem following everything that takes place. Herbach always reminds me of Chris Crutcher; with this book, the comparison becomes even more apt. But whereas Crutcher's characters are often very obvious representations of particular causes and problems, Herbach's Adam is just a completely believable and well-rounded person who happens to face some issues. Even after he ceases to have these problems, he would still be interesting to read about.

Hooper  is geared toward a teen audience, but the content is certainly appropriate for younger readers as well. There is some romance, but nothing particularly steamy, and the interplay between Adam and his teammates is very reminiscent of the way characters interact in Jason Reynolds's middle grade Track series. Kids who like Fred Bowen as fourth and fifth graders could also easily move on to this book in middle school and enjoy it, especially if they are big basketball fans.

It's early in the year, but I'm already fairly certain Hooper will make my list of favorite books of the year. I'd love to see Herbach also receive some award recognition for his consistently excellent writing. Maybe in 2019? Either way, Hooper is a must-read for fans of YA sports novels. (Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. Hooper is out today, February 20th.)