Dash

From Publisher's Weekly…
Scott O'Dell Historical Fiction Award

As she did in Duke (2013), Larson centers this trenchant novel on a child dealing with hardships on the home front during WWII, including separation from a beloved dog. Inspired by real-life wartime events, the novel vividly communicates the emotional and physical ordeals endured by Japanese-Americans evacuated to relocation camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. A pall descends early in the story, as 11-year-old Mitsi Kashino contends with classmates’ slurs and snubs, including some from her two best friends. After learning of her family’s impending relocation, Mitsi is devastated to discover that her one steadfast ally, her dog Dash, cannot accompany them. Asking a neighbor to take care of Dash, “Mitsi thought she had cried out all her tears, but a couple more leaked out.” Reprising the narrative conceit used in Duke, Larson incorporates correspondence between the girl and Dash, whose letters are the work of a surprising ghostwriter. Despite the hurdles Mitsi faces, hope, resourcefulness, and a new friend help this relatable heroine triumph. Ages 8–12. Agent: Jill Grinberg, Grinberg Literary Management. (Aug.)

Very good, but a little young for ms.  

This Side of Wild

From Publisher's Weekly…
2016 National Book Award long list

Paulsen ventures into nonfiction in this anecdotal account of animals—pets and others—that have influenced him. The stories' diverse settings reflect Paulsen's peripatetic and adventurous life, beginning in Wyoming, where he acquired his first horses, on which both he and his border collie, Josh, rode ("I had never seen it before and never since, with other dogs and horses"). During an episode in the Alaskan wilderness, Paulsen recounts how a toy poodle he rescued from a shelter proved an effective, if unlikely, kind of "early-warning radar" when grizzlies were nearby. Some of the most engrossing entries portray animals' imitation of human behavior: while stationed at Fort Bliss, Tex., Paulsen met Betty, a mynah that could mimic President Kennedy, and Gretchen, a dog that lapped coffee from a mug and demonstrated a startling ability to communicate with people. Despite the astounding animal behavior, intelligence, and intuitiveness Paulsen describes, he avoids a sensational "believe it or not" tone, instead offering down-to-earth reflections on human-animal interdependence. An absorbing read for animal lovers of any age. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 10–up. (Sept.)

Excellent….great stories!

This Strange Wilderness

From Kirkus….
2016 Nonfiction for Young Adults finalist

KIRKUS REVIEW

John James Audubon’s 1838 masterpiece, The Birds of America, “marked the beginning of modern ornithology,” and this volume dramatizes the life and times of the man who devoted his life to creating it.

Audubon’s life was a high-risk adventure story set in the early days of the United States, when Lewis and Clark had completed their explorations, settlers were beginning to head west, and the Trail of Tears—witnessed by Audubon—was an American tragedy. Audubon suffered the deaths of two baby girls and business failures, and he put his marriage at risk to do what he loved more than anything—tramp across the country and paint birds. In an age before photography, he created detailed, lifelike paintings of 489 species of birds, each bird looking real enough “to hop off the page and fly away.” The beautifully designed volume includes many reproductions of Audubon’s paintings, from the owls on the cover to the many full-page, full-color interior illustrations. Though occasionally florid, Plain’s writing—drawing largely on Audubon’s own—is lively and colorful, perfect for describing the swamps, forest, rivers and prairies Audubon so loved. Like Audubon’s paintings, this volume “glow[s] with life.”

A superb introduction to the life and times of a great American artist and naturalist. (appendix, glossary, source notes, bibliography, illustration credits, index) (Biography. 9-14)

Beautiful and lovely!  

Gone Crazy in Alabama

From Publisher's Weekly…
2016 Coretta Scott King Award

For their third outing, the irrepressible Gaither sisters of Brooklyn get on a Greyhound bus bound for Alabama. It's 1969, and Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are spending the summer with Big Ma, their father's mother, and a passel of other vividly drawn relatives. Delphine, now 12, again narrates (which must make Vonetta spitting mad). The bickering between these sisters is as annoying as it is authentic, and it mirrors a long-simmering feud between Ma Charles (Big Ma's mother) and her half-sister, Miss Trotter, who uses Vonetta to send spiteful messages back to Ma Charles. The back-and-forth allows Williams-Garcia to unspool the Gaithers' complex family history: as slaves, as blacks in the segregated south, and in relation to the Native Americans who once called the area home. As a plot device, an argument between two grannies can't quite match the events that drove One Crazy Summer and P.S. Be Eleven. But it's reward enough just to spend more time with this feisty, close-knit family, whose loyalty to and love for each other trump everything else. Ages 8–12. 

Adorable!  

The Savage

Horn Book Magazine Reviews

"He had no famly and he had no pals and he didn't know where he come from and he culdn't talk." The savage is a product of Blue Baker's imagination -- or so he thinks. His father has died, and Blue has turned to writing a peculiar story about a savage kid, but the line between fantasy and reality blurs -- as it so often does in Almond's work -- when one night the savage visits the bully who has been hounding Blue unmercifully. This illustrated novella, a graphic novel within a novel, is grounded in the idiom and setting of northern England and recapitulates many familiar Almond motifs: the sensitive boy, the harassing bully, the family tested by illness or death, and the wild and mysterious creature. McKean's illustrations -- ink and watercolor rendered in various shades of black, blue, and green -- add an appropriately eerie touch. A welcome addition to Almond's body of work, The Savage should pique the interest of newcomers and satisfy devoted fans awaiting his next full-bodied novel. Similar in many respects to A Monster Calls…full of raw emotion and how one boy handles the death of his father.

A Monster Calls

From Publisher's Weekly..

In his introduction to this profoundly moving, expertly crafted tale of unaccountable loss, Ness explains how he developed the story from a set of notes left by Siobhan Dowd, who died in 2007 before she had completed a first draft. "I felt—and feel—as if I've been handed a baton, like a particularly fine writer has given me her story and said, ‘Go. Run with it. Make trouble.' " What Ness has produced is a singular masterpiece, exceptionally well-served by Kay's atmospheric and ominous illustrations. Conor O'Malley is 13. His mother is being treated for cancer; his father, Liam, has remarried and lives in America; and Conor is left in the care of a grandmother who cares more for her antique wall clock than her grandson. This grim existence is compounded by bullies at school who make fun of his mother's baldness, and an actual nightmare that wakes Conor, screaming, on a recurring basis. Then comes the monster—part human, part arboreal—a hulking yew tree that walks to his window just after midnight and tells three inscrutable parables, each of which disappoints Conor because the good guy is continually wronged. "Many things that are true feel like a cheat," the monster explains. In return for the monster's stories, Conor must tell his own, and the monster demands it be true, forcing Conor, a good boy, a dutiful son, to face up to his feelings: rage and, worse still, fear. If one point of writing is to leave something that transcends human existence, Ness has pulled a fast one on the Grim Reaper, finishing the story death kept Dowd from giving us. It is a story that not only does honor to her memory, it tackles the toughest of subjects by refusing to flinch, meeting the ugly truth about life head-on with compassion, bravery, and insight. Ages 12–up. (Sept.)

Excellent!

Hurt Go Happy

From School Library Journal..
2016 teen Scheider Award

Grade 6-9–Joey Willis is deaf, and her mother won't allow her to learn American Sign Language. Her isolated existence is turned upside down, however, when she meets her elderly neighbor, Dr. Charles Mansell, and his sign-language-using chimpanzee, Sukari. Against her mother's wishes, Joey begins to learn to sign, and Charlie, whose parents were deaf, opens her eyes to a future filled with possibilities. When he dies, Sukari's fate is left in Joey's hands. Rorby has clearly done her research. From the dialogue gaps that allow youngsters to share the frustration even a skilled lip reader feels, to a brutal scene in a chimp-filled research facility, the wealth of details support but, unfortunately, often overwhelm the story. The tale is so dense that many plot threads are abruptly abandoned, and the narrative skips ahead at random intervals. Laden with issues–parent-child relationships, the treatment of research animals, and child abuse (Joey's deafness is the result of a beating by her father)–the book often gets bogged down in its own seriousness. However, the writing shines when Rorby focuses on what is obviously her true passion: Sukari and the fate of chimpanzees like her.–Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD 

Good, although intense in parts.  It is a little difficult to follow sometimes.  

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