Masterpiece
is a thoroughly original novel about James, a boy who lives with his mother, stepfather, and baby brother in New York, and his unlikely friendship with a beetle who lives in his kitchen named Marvin. One night, Marvin draws a painting for James using the ink that James' father gave him as a birthday present, and this simple act leads them both into a plot to steal an Albrecht Durer masterpiece. Broach approaches this unlikely friendship with such creativity that it's amazing to see how it progresses, especially since the two can't communicate by talking. I was left guessing until the very end as to how James and Marvin would solve the theft; Broach does an impressive job of tying up the ends in a believable and touching finish.
series of books for some time, as they look very fun. I wasn't disappointed. Greg Heffley is a new middle schooler where he thinks that students should be placed in grades based on their size, so the big kids can't bully the smaller ones. Greg isn't a very popular kid, but that doesn't stop him from making a running commentary on all the other losers in his school. You realize half way through that Greg also isn't the most sympathetic kid you've ever met, but by the end of the book he's learned some lessons.
is an incredible alphabet book like none I've ever seen before. Johnson, who is a fantastic artist, doesn't portray apples and zebras -- each letter is a painting that uses that letter in really creative ways. For example, the letter F is a painting of "Fourteen hundred and fifty-five fake French fries were flipped, flicked, and flung onto a full-size field of faint fuchsia." WOW! I can't imagine how he thought up all these pieces, much less created them. Johnson also wrote Alphabet City, where he created paintings of normal city scenes that contained letters hidden in them.
is the second book I've read by Siobhan Dowd, and the first one that was published after her death at the young age of 47 of cancer. She published four books in all. Bog Child isn't as lighthearted as The London Eye Mystery but she is a very good writer. This one is set in Northern Ireland in 1981 when Fergus McCann is getting ready for the school exams that will help him get to med school. While he and his uncle are digging peat, Fergus finds the body of a girl buried in the bog. She is from the Iron Age, and Fergus becomes friends with the archaeologist who is examining her and her daughter Cora, who is Fergus' age. 
is a great book for two reasons: the mystery is quite compelling and is solved in a very satisfying way, and the narrator, Ted, has Asperger's -- a milder form of autism. Ted and his sister Kat take their cousin, Salim, to ride on the London Eye (the giant Ferris wheel in the middle of London). They watch him enter a pod, which then rises into the air. Thirty minutes later, the pod comes back down, but Salim is not in it. With Ted and Kat feelng responsible, they must put their heads together to solve the mystery. Ted's head is "wired differently" so he thinks differently from others, and Kat is a little bit impatient, but they manage to come up with and test nine theories of what happened to Salim. In the end, it is Ted's method of thinking that allows him to crack the case and end up a hero. 
evokes the film noir genre of the 40's and 50's -- I can just see Fred MacMurray playing the role of Joe. It takes place right after the war, when Evie's stepdad Joe returns from Europe and everybody is in a mood of excess. The family takes a vacation to Florida where Evie meets and falls for Peter, a handsome young man who soon attaches himself to the family. Evie is the quintessential young girl who falls for (perhaps?) the wrong guy. Her inexperience in the ways of love causes her to miss all the warning signs until a terrible tragedy lands her parents in court.
is one of those books!
is the story of an unlikely family -- a bloodhound named Ranger, a calico cat, and her two kittens, Sabine and Puck -- who live underneath the house of Ranger's owner, a social outcast who lives to hunt animals. When Puck, against his mother's warnings, adventures out from under the house, all of their lives change in ways they couldn't have imagined. Woven into their stories is the story of Grandmother Snake, her beloved daughter, Night Music, her husband Hawk Man, and their daughter. 
is the story of Kit, whose family has just moved to the coal-mining town of Stoneygate to be with Kit's grandfather after the death of his wife. Kit meets John Askew, a boy in his school, who soon involves him in his game called Death. In death, kids take turns going into an old abandoned mining tunnel. Kit discovers that he and John Askew have a shared history in the mine. In the meantime, Kit's grandfather tells him stories about his days in the mine and about the families of Stoneygate; soon, Kit is seeing Silky, the little boy with blond hair who plays tricks on the miners in his grandfather's day, along with the spirits of other people from the mine.
is fourteen years old at the beginning of the novel, a freshman at Alabaster Prep, a prestigious boarding school. Frankie is nothing special, but over the summer she grows into a beauty and manages to snag Matthew Livingston, one of the most popular senior boys at Alabaster, in her sophomore year. Matthew and his friends, most noticeably his best friend, a boy named Alpha (for being the alpha dog), are members of a secret society. When Matthew refuses to even acknowledge the existence of the secret club to her, Frankie decides, rather than getting even, she'll prove to Matthew and the others that she is worthy of becoming a member. In an ingenious plan, she soon has the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds doing her bidding, pulling off such memorable pranks on campus as the Ladies, the Doggies in the Window, and the ultimate heist of the Guppy, the traditional symbol of the campus.
called The Lightening Thief. Percy is a kid with dyslexia and ADHD who is constantly kicked out of schools for creating problems, even though he has no control over them. It turns out that he is what is called a half-blood, a child of one of the gods of Olympus and a mortal. After "accidentally" vaporizing his math teacher, Percy is literally chased to Camp Half-Blood by the Minotaur. Camp Half-Blood is where all the other kids with one mortal parent and one parent who is a Greek god.
is about Lizzie and her dad, who are trying to get on since her mother died. The dad is obviously not handling it very well, as he decides to become a bird in order to enter the Great Human Bird Competition. He stays at home, builds a nest, creates wings for himself, and eats worms and bugs.
Christopher Paul Curtis. The Watsons leave Flint, Michigan to travel to see family in Birmingham, where they witness the bombing of the African-American church that killed four young girls. Hilarious and poignant.
Louis Sachar. It's incredible how Sachar weaves so many disparate stories into a neat little package at the end of the book. Better than the movie!
Gennifer Choldenko. Moose lives on Alcatraz with his family where Al Capone is the biggest celebrity.
Pam Munoz Ryan. Naomi Leon travels to Oaxaca with her mother to finally meet her father, and to take part in the Noche de los rabanos (Night of the Radishes).
Jacqueline Woodson. If you haven't read this African-American author, you should, but Locomotion is my favorite. It's written as poems by Lonnie, who lost his parents in a fire and learns to live with his foster mother.
Jean DuPrau. The first in a series about a city that is gradually going dark, leading Doon and Lina, two children, to discover the secret about their dying city.
Irene Hunt. One of the older Newbery winners, this is a poignant coming-of-age story of a young girl.
Joseph Bruchac. Bruchac is one of the best Native American authors out there, and this is my favorite. It captures the experience of a cntemporary young Native American boy who must learn to live between two cultures.
Gary Paulsen. One of Paulsen's less known books, Harris and Me is absolutely laugh out loud funny.
E. L. Konigsburg. I love books about misfits, and this is a great one, about four misfit children who come together to create a formidable quiz team.
Ruth Sawyer. One of the very first Newbery winners, Roller Skates takes place in New York in the 1890's. Lucinda is an irrepresible young girl who meets all kinds of interesting people while she roller skates around town.
by Cynthia Rylant: What a wonderful place for cats! and I adore the folk style paintings of cats enjoying their eternal play.
written by Barbara Hicks, illustrated by Dan Santat: A take-off on the James Thurber short story, Walter Kitty goes by his secret name: Fang!
by Howie Schneider: If you've ever had a puppy, you will love how Chewy Louie chews through the whole house!
by Melanie Watt. Another cat on a mission, Chester keeps re-writing the story that Melanie is trying to tell.
by Ian Falcolner. If you haven't read any of the Olivia books yet, you are missing out!
by David Wiesner. Wiesner takes the story of the three pigs and turns it inside out, as the pigs escape the pages of the book to take care of the big bad wolf.
is an award-winning graphic novel about Chinese and Chinese-Americans that recognizes the difficulties of being part of a culture that is often misunderstood or stereotyped. The novel follows the stories of three seemingly unrelated characters: the Chinese Monkey King, one of the most beloved characters in Chinese folk stories; Jin Wang, a young Chinese-American boy whose family moves from Chinatown in San Francisco to a mid-western town where is an anomaly; and Danny, a nondescript teenager who has to endure the yearly visit of his inappropriate Chinese cousin, Chin-Kee. Each of the three stories deals with the difficulty of being an "outsider".
were written by one of my favorite children's authors, Lloyd Alexander, in the 1960's. The first is The Book of Three, and the final one, The High King, won the Newbery in 1968. The books follow the story of Taran, an Assistant Pig-Keeper, the magical pig Hen Wen, and Taran's friends Gurgi, the bard Fllewddur Fllam, and the princess Eilonwy, as they battle to defeat the evil Arawn. It's your basic hero's quest, complete with comic relief, a princess who can take care of herself, and a very scary bad guy. Lloyd based the series on ancient Welsh legends. This series is similar to the Hobbit stories, but as a child I enjoyed these more because they were written for children. These would make great read-aloud books for kids as well.
about a boy who time travels with a cat through various time periods when cats were worshipped or feared, and Westmark, his series that features a female hero.
