Review of Front and Center by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Murdock, Catherine Gilbert. Front and Center. Houghton Mifflin, 2009.

I feel a little guilty reading these 2009 books when I should be frantically catching up on 2010. After all, the ALA award announcements are just a little more than a month away, and it sure is embarrassing not to have read the Newbery or Printz winners.

On the other hand, this title fairly leaped out at me from the library shelves. Having loved Dairy Queen and The Off Season, I couldn't believe I had missed the third in the trilogy. And having just read an interesting but rather grim zombie (er, I mean "undead") novel, I needed a bit of light and wonderful teen fiction.

D.J. is a junior at her small high school in a small Wisconsin town. When she isn't playing basketball, milking cows, missing her ex-boyfriend Brian, or agonizing about which college to go to, she's worrying about how her desire to be part of the background keeps making her unhappy. See, not only does it keep her from having fun when out with new friends, but it also means that all the big 10 universities that are courting her for their basketball teams are freaking her out. I mean - the pressure! People expect big stuff from D.J., and she doesn't want to let anyone down.

As her many fans know, D.J. is a straightforward jock of a girl who would much rather shoot a jillion hoops than get all introspective or angsty. But life is complicated, and so D.J. has to do some deep thinking about herself and other people - and it's so fun to watch her figure stuff out. She is self-deprecating, and yet she manages to express herself well in a folksy, simple, yet affecting way.

My ONLY complaint about the book is that the photo on the jacket looks nothing like my idea of D.J. But that's a tiny quibble. If you're seeking realistic YA fiction with a strong, unusual, and extremely likable heroine, this is an excellent trilogy. If you listen to the audiobook editions with narrator Natalie Moore, you're in for a treat - she does a fine Midwestern accent.

Highly recommended for ages 12 and up.

Review of The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity by Mac Barnett

Barnett, Mac. The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity (#1, The Brixton Brothers). Illustrated by Adam Rex. Simon & Schuster, 2009.

This was published last year, but better read late than never, especially as it features secret ninja-like Librarians with a capital L.

12-year-old Steve Brixton is a big fan of the Bailey Brothers detective novels, a fictional version of the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew mysteries, not only reading them but taking much of their wisdom about detecting and derring-do to heart. But when a visit to the library plunges him into a sinister web of mystery and intrigue, Steve and his chum Dana discover that much of the advice in the Bailey Brothers' Detective Handbook, from using disguises to how to land a "haymaker punch," doesn't really work in real life. Luckily, Steve has wonderful luck, a stalwart chum, and bones apparently made of rubber, as he keeps falling from great heights.

Steve's faith in the dated, stilted Bailey Brothers novels and handbook to teach him everything he needs to know about detecting is hilarious, both because it's clearly misguided and also because, strangely, everyone he runs across, from criminals to policemen, takes it for granted that he must be a detective, even though Steve himself insists he's just a kid. There's something delightful about adults taking his ludicrous mail-order Bailey Brothers detective license seriously and saying things like "You private eyes are all the same. Too good for us regular police - until you get into some real trouble, that is. Then you come crying to us for help."

The wild and improbable adventures (including being chased by a bookmobile, being trapped in a library by those ninja Librarians, being locked in the hold of a boat, and much more) are reminiscent of classic kids' mystery series, as are the short and choppy sentences and self-consciously corny dialogue. Excerpts from the Bailey Brothers' Detective Handbook add a bit of old-fashioned flair, as in "The Bailey Brothers aren't just ace detectives and terrific students - they're swell athletes, too!"

Rex Adams' drawings were created digitally but look just like the retro pen and ink drawings in a typical Hardy Boys book; all that's missing is a roadster or coupe (as the boys get around on bicycles). The endpapers are sprinkled with small illustrations of Steve and Dana being chased by a giant bird and parachuting away from a mid-air explosion.

I don't know if kids will understand the goofy allusions to the Hardy Boys, but it seems certain that they will be as charmed by the humor and adventure in this first installment of the Brixton Brothers series as I was. Now I'm ready to read #2, The Ghostwriter Secret, which came out last month.

Recommended for kids ages 9 to 12.

Read with Janet and Mark

LA Times columnist and blogger Carolyn Kellogg has a series called School Reading, in which she asks authors about books they read as students.

In today's column, Mary Cappello (author of Awkward and the upcoming Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration, and the Curious Doctor Who Extracted Them) waxes intense about a book from the Dick and Jane series, which holds an enduring fascination for her because this was the first book she ever read.

"The book's red ball, my red ball, was like Helen Keller's water pump and well," she says. Every little bit of this book was entrancing to her, including "a lock of hair (a ringlet or flip) and the pie crust ripple of an ankle sock...I also have a vivid memory of hyphens...The hyphens were just as mesmerizing to me as the letters."

In 1969, California schools adopted the Janet and Mark series by Mabel O'Donnell, and that series, rather than Dick and Jane, is what I remember reading in 1st grade circa 1971. I remember very few specifics about the series, except for an episode in which Mark loses his library book or something of that sort; this resonated, as my mother was a librarian. Otherwise, I remember being both puzzled and attracted by the exotic suburban setting and tone of the books. I didn't know any children who resembled the neatly clad, rosy-cheeked Janet and Mark, and their mom and dad were even more alien. Their mom wore GLOVES!! My mom wore a hand-crocheted bikini. The streets of Janet and Mark's town were mostly empty except for a few smiling passersby. The streets of my town were festooned with graffiti and thronged with hippies, winos, skateboarders, Holocaust survivors, poets, and flocks of somewhat grimy children.

Apparently my brain was being warped by sexist, racist rhetoric even while I marveled at Janet and Mark's smooth and clean lives. It's a good thing I was busily sucking up all manner of diverse reading material at home, or I might have grown up to wear aprons and gloves.

Mary Capello sounds so intelligent and eccentric in Kellogg's interview that I will certainly read Awkward and Swallow. Best of all is her last paragraph, when she is asked what book she would assign first graders.

"If I were teaching a similar class today, I'd bring students into a room filled with books and let them find the one that called to them. Their choice would be equivalent to their own mysterious relationship to the world."

Lovely! I do believe Capello might be a librarian at heart, and certainly she must be a true book addict.

Review of Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson

Anderson, Laurie Halse. Forge. Atheneum, 2010.

In the sequel to Chains, Curzon takes up the story of what happened to Isabel and him after their hair-raising escape from New York City. After a few months together, Curzon finds himself alone and on the run, and almost immediately (and certainly unintentionally) he becomes a soldier in the 16th Massachusetts Regiment of the Northern Continental Army of the United States of America.

This is an integrated regiment, and Curzon's fellow soldiers are a mostly young, friendly bunch (with one notable exception). After spending a hideous winter at Valley Forge, the approach of spring brings hope - until Curzon runs into his former master Bellingham. Bellingham, who had agreed to set him free, reneges on his agreement and forces him back into slavery as his house boy. Surprisingly, Isabel is also a household slave of Bellingham, and together they plot their escape.

Except for that last bit of credulity-straining coincidence, this is a smooth-flowing, quick-paced, extremely satisfying novel. Curzon is a hugely likable chap, with a fine sense of humor and intelligence to match Isabel's own. Unlike Isabel, he isn't inclined by nature to be broody or angry, and so his narration is sprightly and fresh. In fact, although slavery, war, and Valley Forge are not light topics, the tone remains bouyant, reminding me a bit of Mark Twain or Philbrick's The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg (although a different time period, of course).

The details about Valley Forge are fascinating and horrifying. Soldiers went barefoot in the snow, had so few rations that they half-starved, and had to construct their own rough huts with insufficient tools. And yet Curzon loves being a soldier because he is doing it of his own free will and for a cause he believes in. It's only when he is forced back into slavery that Curzon is filled with a smoldering and almost uncontrollable anger.

As with Chains, the reader is plunged right into Curzon's world, circa 1777/1778. Even the typeface has a period look, adding to the verisimilitude of the experience - and yet there is nothing stilted or "old-fashioned" about this novel. It carried me along like a stable boat on a smooth and swift river, and when it ended (at another turning point for Curzon and Isabel), I jumped without pause into Anderson's fabulous, informative appendix.

We stil don't know the fate of Isabel's little sister Ruth, much less what will happen to Isabel and Curzon, so I'm waiting eagerly for part 3!

Highly recommended for ages 11 to 15.

Review of Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

Westerfeld, Scott. Behemoth (#2, Leviathan Trilogy). Illustrated by Keith Thompson. Simon Pulse, 2010.

In the follow-up to last year's Leviathan, Deryn (or Midshipman Dylan Sharp of the British Air Service, as she is known) and Alek (who happens to be the heir to the Austria-Hungarian empire) are only on the airship Leviathan a short time together before Alek decides it is time to escape into Istanbul. Deryn, meanwhile, leads a dangerous mission that lands her in the streets of Istanbul as well. Joining forces with a rebel group called the Committee of Union and Progress, they hatch a plan to wrench control of the Ottoman Empire away from the Germans.

There is, as Westerfeld notes in his afterword, some distinct resemblance to events that actually took place in 1914, including the names of German ships, the Orient-Express, the fascinating mash-up of cultures in Istanbul, and much more. But the steam-powered, mechanized Clanker culture of the German-speaking countries and the biological engineering of the Darwinists in Great Britain transform this into an imaginative and glorious Steampunk saga.

I made sure to read this (rather than listen to it as an audiobook, as I did with Leviathan) in order to savor Thompson's intricate illustrations, laden with metal pipes and gears and tentacles. The descriptions of life in Istanbul, which has been partially modernized by the Clankers and so boasts a library with quite an astounding mechanized method of finding and retrieving books (sort of a precursor to RFID technology), are fascinating; rich folks get around in strange steam-powered vehicles that boast six beetle-like legs instead of wheels.

Deryn has of course fallen hard for Alek and is tempted to tell him she's a girl, especially when a gorgeous, fierce rebel named Lilit appears on the scene. She retains her usual bluster and bravery, however, and remains the most vivid and wonderful character. Alek is still very idealistic and upright, but that's okay - we wouldn't want a potential ruler to be any other way, and luckily he has a sense of humor.

Second books in series or trilogies are often maligned as being "bridge books," short on action and long on either filling in the background or setting the stage for the third book. I find them very satisfying, however, because the reader is already familiar with the characters, the setting, and the world, and can immediately plunge right into the story. And so it was with Behemoth, which has so many details to ponder and relish.

The last book in the trilogy promises to take place in Japan, a Darwinist country in this alternate world history.

Sugoi!!

Video break

I'm too busy for a REAL post, but here are a couple videos that made me laugh.

First - the stars of Harry Potter attempt American accents (found on 100 Scope Notes):

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

And now "Gandolf Goes to the World Cup," starring our favorite noise maker (found on Charlotte's Library):

Central Library is the place to be

Really, anytime (except Sundays and Mondays) is a good time to visit Central Library. But here are two reasons to drop by this Saturday, November 20:

1. The Friends of Children and Literature (FOCAL) are selling 2 gently used children's fiction books for the price of 1! Yes, 2 novels for the price of 1 - what a bargain (and they're super inexpensive to begin with). And a bunch of brand-new VHS movies are selling for only $1 a piece. Nov. 20, 10 am to noon, in the 2nd floor rotunda.

2. Hang out downtown for a while (maybe take the Dash to Olvera Street or MOCA), then come back for a performance of Belinda and the Glass Slipper, part of our Performing Books series. You'll hear the book read aloud, but will also see it acted out by 2 ballet dancers, accompanied by a pianist. Performances at 2 pm and 3 pm in the Taper Auditorium on the first floor.

See - could a Saturday get any better?!