Mateo's favourite books

Adams, Douglas.  The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

---.  The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Adams, Richard.  Watership Down (in progress)

Alexander, Lloyd.  Chronicles of Prydain.

---Time Cat.

Applegate, K.A. Animorphs (series).

Baccalario, P.D.  Century Quartet (series).

---.  Ulysses Moore (series).

Barrie, James.  Peter Pan.

Baum, L.Frank.  The Wizard of Oz (series).

Bell, Hilari.  The Wizard Test.

Carroll, Lewis.  Alice in Wonderland; Through the Looking-Glass.

Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl  (series).

---. The Supernaturalists.

Collins, Suzanne.  Underland Chronicles (series).

Creech, Sharon. Ruby Holler.

Crossley Holland, Kevin.  Arthur: The Seeing Stone.

Curtis, Christopher Paul.  Bud, Not Buddy.

---.  Elijah of Buxton.

---. The Watsons go to Birmingham.

DiTerlizzi, Tony and Holly Black.  The Spiderwick Chronicles.

Dixon, Franklin.  The Tower Treasure (Hardy Boys)

Downer, Ann.  Hatching Magic.

D’Lacey, Chris.  The Last Dragon Chronicles. (series).

Duane, Diane.  So You Want to be a Wizard.

DuPrau, Jeanne.  The City of Ember; The People of Sparks (series).

Eddings, David.  Belgariad (multiple series)

Flanagan, John.  Ranger’s Apprentice (series).

Funke, Cornelia.  Inkspell (series).

---. The Thief Lord.

Gaiman, Neil.  Coraline

Gordon, Roderick and Brian Williams.  Tunnels (series).

Hiassen, Carl.  Hoot.

Hunter, Erin.  Warriors (multiple series)

---.Seekers (series).

Ibbotson.  Which Witch?

Jacques, Brian.  Castaways of the Flying Dutchman.

---Redwall.

Juster, Norton.  The Phantom Tollbooth.

Kinney, Jeff.  Diary of a Wimpy Kid (series).

Korman, Gordon.   Everest (series).

---. Dive (series).

---. Island (series).

---.  The 6^th Grade Nickname Game

---. Kidnapped (series).

---. I Want to Go Home.

--- Swindle; Zoobreak.

Landy, Derek.  Skulduggery Pleasant.

---.  Playing with Fire.

Lasky, Katherine.  Guardians of Ga’Hoole (series)

Lewis, C.S. The Chronicles of Narnia. (series)

McMullan, Kate.  Dragon Slayers’ Academy (series).

---.  Myth-O-Mania (series). 

Morpurgo, Michael.  The Wreck of the Zanzibar.

--- Kensuke’s Kingdom.

Oppel, Kenneth.  Silverwing; Sunwing; Firewing.

---.  Darkwing.

---.  Airborn, Skywatcher, Starclimber.

Paolini, Christopher.  Eragon; Eldest; Brisingr.

Pierce, Tamora.  The Circle Opens (series).

Pyle, Howard.  The WonderClock.

Pullman, Philip.  His Dark Materials (series).

Rhodda, Emily. Deltora Quest (series).

Riordan, Rick.  Percy Jackson and the Olympians (series).

---.  The Lost Hero.

---The Red Pyramid.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter (series).

Sachar, Louis.  Holes.

---. There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom.

Sage, Angie.  Septimus Heap (series).

Said, S.F. Varjak Paw.

Scott, Michael.  The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flammel  (series)

Selznick, Brian.  The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Skelton, Matthew.  Endymion Spring.

Sleator, William.  Strange Attractors.

---Interstellar Pig.

Stewart, Paul and Chris Riddell.  The Edge Chronicles (series).

Steward, Sharon.  Raven Quest.

Steward, Trenton Lee.  The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey.

Stone, David Lee.  The Ratastrophe Catastrophe.

Stroud, Jonathan.  Bartimaeus Trilogy.

Tolkein, J.R.R. The Hobbit

Verne, Jules.  Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Watson, Jude.  Star Wars Jedi Quest (series)

Multiple Authors.  The Thirty-Nine Clues (series).

Braver than a Ninja: A Review of Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus

Mateo says: I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.   This book is about a Japanese fisher boy named Manjiro who is 14 years old.  One day, he goes on a boat with 4 of his friends (Denzo, Jusuke, Goemon, and Toraemon). Suddenly, he and his friends get shipwrecked, landing on a barren rock. The 5 have only raw birds to eat, and no drinking water. After a long time on the island, they get rescued by the blue-eyed Americans. But does this “rescue” mean freedom and glory, or death as the so-called barbarians throw them out to sea? Unlike other books, this book deals with racism in an interesting manner.

Danielle's review:

Heart of a Samurai: Based on the True Story of Manjiro Nakahama by Margi Preus

A confession: I do not like books set on boats.  Moby Dick, Lord Jim . . . I have read them, but I won’t be rereading them.  So I approached Heart of a Samurai A Novel Inspired by a True Adventure on the High Seas with trepidation.  It turns out, though, that the part of this historical fiction set on the whaling ship is the best part, as we witness the culture clash between the shipwrecked Japanese fishermen and the American whalers who rescue them.  The novel flags when it arrives on dry land, in New England.  

Margi Preus should be given credit for her extensive research on Manjiro, and the book uses Manjiro’s own delicate illustrations.   I appreciated the historical note, glossary, and bibliography.  Preus does an admirable job of informing her readers on the prejudices, indeed the racism, arising from ignorance, and the abilities of some people, including Manjiro and Captain Whitfield, to overcome then. 

Worth buying? Hmmm.  Borrow from the library!

Awards:  Newbery Runner-up (2011)

Publication Information: Preus, Margi.  Heart of a Samurai: Based on the True Story of Manjiro Nakahama.  New York: Amulet, 2010.

Pulled Under: The Underneath by Kathi Appelt; drawings by David Small

At first, I thought The Underneath (nominated for the 2009 Newbery Award) was too precious: whispering trees, a singing hound, cute kittens.  As I read on, however, I was won over by the sheer quirkiness of Appelt’s story-telling method, her ability to bring the bayous of East Texas to life, and her melodious prose; Appelt clearly relishes language.  The “underneath” of the title refers not only to Grandmother Snake, caught in a clay jar in the earth, the one-hundred foot alligator deep in the water, Ranger the hound’s place under the porch, and Puck’s little burrow, but also the underlying connections between these creatures, who will, of course, be brought together at the end of the novel.  The “underneath” is also the hidden stories which we become privy to: of Gar Face’s wounds, of the transformations of Grandmother Snake, Hawk Man, and Night Song.  Appelt is excellent with the one-word sentence: “Soon” (65); “Bait” (221); “Trouble” (261).  No doubt, if a chained hound could sing the blues, it would sing exactly as Ranger does: “Oh, I woke up on this bayou, / Got a chain around my heart” (6).  Opening the book to almost any page, we find examples of Appelt’s sensitivity to language; see how she plays with the different meanings of the word “struck” on page 14: “Lightning struck a tree.  A father struck his son.  A boy struck out” (and in the last case, “struck out” describes not only the unnamed boy’s departure from his father, but the reality that he has indeed lost out in being the son of a monstrous father).  

We should give extra praise to this book for its magnificent illustrations.  I wish more books aimed at older readers were as well illustrated as this one.  David Small is the more famous name on the title page (one of my favorite picture books has to be The Library, written by Sarah Stewart and illustrated by David Small).  His black and white drawings provide startling shifts in perspective: the large alligator lurking under Gar Face’s tiny boat (21); the cramped snake who is illustrated across the bottom of pages 44 and 45); Puck leaping, running across the fallen tree (275).

I highly recommend this novel, for children and adults alike, but haven’t yet convinced my children to read it (Son #2 expressed interest when he heard there was a one-hundred foot alligator, but that’s because he thought I meant an alligator with one-hundred feet.)  I’ll probably follow my tactic of leaving it lying it around—eventually someone else will pick it up and become immersed in Kathi Appelt’s world.

Worth buying? Yes!  

 

Awards:  Newbery Runner-up(2009); National Book Award Finalist (2008)

Publication Information: Appelt, Kathi.  The Underneath.  Illus. by David Small. New York: Atheneum, 2008.

Traveling Well: A Wrinkle in Time. By Madeleine L’Engle

My 1975 copy of L’Engle’s most famous novel has yellow pages, a $1.25 price and a cover illustration showing Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace astride a noble centaur with rainbow wings.  In 1975, when I was nine, I thought both the cover and the book were perfect.  Now that the book is approaching its fiftieth anniversary, I was curious to see how it held up.  Was it as perfect as I remembered? 

The answer is “yes.”  A Wrinkle in Time has traveled well, perhaps because it’s not cluttered with pop culture references, so it doesn’t feel dated.  Perhaps because I just couldn’t and still can’t resist Meg Murray, with her unruly hair, her braces and glasses, and most of all her impatience and intelligence.   Who could resist a heroine whose faults become tools in a cosmic mission to save her father?  Mrs. Whatsit, one of several guides/godmothers, on handing out gifts to the three journeyers, says, “Meg, I give you your faults” (100).  Meg, of course, would prefer another gift “(“But I’m always trying to get rid of my faults”[100]), but her faults, and her virtues, are exactly what’s needed. 

The general theme of acceptance pervades the novel: both self-acceptance and the acceptance of others.  Meg, her little brother Charles Wallace, and a teenage neighbor, Calvin, are all different from their peers.  (I remember quite clearly learning a particular meaning of the word “sport” from the novel—“sport” as genetic anomaly.  Calvin and Charles Wallace both claim to be “sports”).   This acceptance, though, accompanies the high seriousness of the novel.  I think, even at age nine, particularly at age nine, I appreciated that seriousness, and the way it co-existed with the ordinary reality of life (Meg’s often wounded feelings, for example).  I appreciated L’Engle’s refusal to talk down to her child reader.  Mrs. Who spouts quotations in other languages? Great!

In mixing the mundane and the cosmic, L’Engle is like nobody if she isn’t like C.S. Lewis (could any reader of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe forget how Edmund’s love for Turkish delight leads him astray?).   Though A Wrinkle in Time doesn’t come across as a missionary text as Lewis’s do, her novel, like his works, is shot through with Christian paradoxes (the weak, in particular the child, shall defeat the strong;  faults become virtues; passion and love are stronger than reason).  But Meg is a richer character than any of the Pevensie children, more complicated, more fully developed.  And when she has her epiphany . . .well, even after all these years, I was still moved.   

I know that L’Engle’s text has been read as a response to the Cold War, and her evil society, Camazotz, as a communist society.  The novel, however, loses nothing if we see it as a critique of group think more generally, or of relinquishing individual thought to technology.  I’m reading the book to son #2 right now; he’s engrossed, and wants to read out loud all of Mrs. Who’s interesting quotations.   I’ll have him give his own report when we’re done.

Worth buying? Yes!  

Awards: Newbery Award (1963); runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award  (1964;) Sequoyah Book Award; Lewis Carroll Shelf Award

 Publication Information: L’Engle, Madeleine.  A Wrinkle in Time.  New York: Dell-Yearling, 1962.

HOLES by Louis Sachar

Stefan says:
You will like this book if you like adventure stories.  You would not like this book if you are impatient.  This book is for people who like mysteries. 
5 STARS!!!
Stanley Yelnats is sent to a discipline camp named camp Green Lake.  The campers have to dig holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep.  Stanley senses something wrong with this hole digging!

You Reached Me!: A Review of Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me

An anonymous note sender gives Miranda a puzzling task: to write a detailed letter about events that have not yet happened.   It is 1978; twelve-year old Miranda is a latchkey child who lives in a grotty New York apartment with her single mother.  Miranda tells her story as it unfolds over half a year, speaking directly to the mysterious note dropper.  The book is full of mysteries big and small: why does her best friend Sal no longer like her? why does Marcus punch Sal? what is the crazy man on the corner doing? will Miranda’s mother win on the $20,000 Pyramid? and most importantly, who is this person who seems to know all about Miranda’s future?

Rebecca Stead’s novel grabbed me from the moment I learned that Miranda carries around a worn copy of A Wrinkle in Time, which she has read hundreds of times.  It seems only fitting that Stead’s Newbery award winner would pay tribute to Madeleine L’Engle’s classic Newbery winner from 1963.  And Miranda doesn’t just reread the novel; she tells the story to Belle, who runs the grocery store, and discusses its physics with her schoolmate Marcus.  And yet the mention of L’Engle’s novel also makes me conscious of the difference between L’Engle’s book and this one: the prose.  My memory of L’Engle’s novel is, among other things, the memory of particular words and phrases (“There is such a thing as a tesseract”).  L’Engle’s third-person prose has a dignity to it which is hard to find in Stead’s novel, filled as it is with all the markers of “genuine speech”: the incomplete sentences, the weak qualifiers (“slightly,” “mostly,”“kind of”).  Sometimes, in spite of the prose, there are wonderful sentiments, as when Miranda describes those moments when the individual can truly perceive the world around her (with some homage, it seems, to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians—“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face”—but divested of religious significance):

“But sometimes our veils are pushed away for a few moments, like there’s a wind blowing it from our faces.  And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again.  We see all the beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love.  But mostly we are happy not to” (71).

At the book’s climax, though, Stead does make the decision, which I think works, to describe what happens in the form of a list.  This form builds tension, and seems to fit with Miranda’s desire to narrate carefully, step by step, what happened on the book’s fateful day.

When You Reach Me is a smart coming-of-age novel that is more about finding friendship than finding love.  Stead should be commended for populating Miranda’s world with interesting secondary characters in Miranda’s peers.  Sal, Annemarie, Marcus, Julia: Stead carves them well enough to take them beyond the usual “friends of the main character” category.  Stead does the same with place.  The sixth- grade students in the novel are working on a miniature city, which becomes a symbol for Stead’s own creation here: Belle’s grocery store, the parking garage where the tough guys hang out, Jimmy’s sandwich place, Annemarie’s apartment, even the corner mailbox that the homeless man sleeps under.   Even those of us who don’t live in New York City can imagine walking these streets on Manhattan’s West Side.

Stead’s novel is worth reading more than once—it’s central mystery proves chilling and poignant.   Adult readers might sniff out an allusion to Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife (2003).  We all might be encouraged to pick up A Wrinkle in Time.  It’s time to search for my own well-loved copy of that novel, and give it another read.

Worth buying? Yes!

Awards: Newbery Award (2010)

Publication Information: Stead, Rebecca.  When You Reach Me.  New York: Random, 2009.  197pp.

Mateo's Review

Genre: Mystery

Rating: 4 out of 5

This book is about a girl named Miranda.  Her mother receives a letter from the quiz show “The $20,000 Pyramid,” stating that she is going to be one of the contestants.  Her friend Sal gets punched in the stomach for no reason and he stops playing with Miranda.  The kid who punched him, Marcus, starts being Miranda’s friend.  And now she starts receiving notes from a mysterious person.

You would like this book if you:

• ·        are patient
• ·        like mysteries
• ·        like suspense
• ·        can wait long periods of time with no important things happening.