Monday Book Review: Saving Kabul Corner by N.H. Senzai

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Here’s the second in my reviews of juvenile mysteries for these year’s Edgar nominees!

IMG_3252Title: Saving Kabul Corner

Author: N.H. Senzai

Genre: mystery

Age group: middle grade

Synopsis: Twelve-year-old Ariana is a bit perturbed that her perfect cousin Laila, who just moved from Afghanistan to California, has honed in not only on her bedroom, but also on her best friend Mariam! Ariana dreams of the day when Laila’s father will return from his job in Afghanistan and she and her family can move into their new home where she’ll finally have her own room. But things never go as planned, and both Ariana’s and Laila’s worlds get turned upside down when a rival Afghan grocery store opens up in the same shopping plaza as Ariana’s family store. This reignites an old family feud that was long thought to be buried back in Afghanistan. When the family store, Kabul Corner, is vandalized, Ariana and her friends decide to find out who’s trying to destroy their business. Is it really the Afghan family who runs the rival store, or is somebody else out to get them?

If you’ve been around the blog for a while, you might remember that I also reviewed Shooting Kabul, N.H. Senzai’s first book (sort of a prequel to this one) two years ago. While I enjoyed that one, I think I enjoyed this second book even more–probably because it seemed, at least to me, to follow a more traditional mystery plot. There are clear suspects, clear clues, and a good old-fashioned wrap-up of whodunit at the end.

Another thing I really enjoy about N.H. Senzai’s books is that she gives us such a lovely glimpse into the true Muslim culture. I teach at a very ethnically diverse school, and it’s fun for me to see characters with names like that of some of my students: Fadi, Zayd, Naj, Nasreen. Some of my students’ families have fled Afghanistan for the same reasons as the characters in this book, so it helps me to understand what their life might be like at home as they worry about family members who may still be there or may even be helping U.S. forces in the area.

Kudos to N.H. Senzai for a fun mystery! I think I may be adding this as an option for summer reading for next year’s group of incoming sixth graders.

Monday Book Review: Fake ID by Lamar Giles

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It’s time to review another Edgar nominee, this time for best young adult mystery.

Title: Fake ID

Author: Lamar Giles

Genre: mystery

Age group: young adult

Synopsis: Teenager Nick Pearson has been living in the Witness Protection Program for years. His father, a former mob ally, is a key witness in a case against a big-time mobster–or at least, will be a key witness once the police capture the mobster. Unfortunately, Nick’s dad has problems playing by the rules; thus, Nick’s family is forced to change names and locations several times. When Nick lands in the small town of Stepton, things go wrong quickly. A student at school commits suicide, but Nick isn’t convinced it wasn’t murder. Worse yet, he fears his dad is messed up in the whole deal.

Giles provides several nice plot twists to a story that keeps getting more complicated as Nick investigates, so I can see why it’s been nominated for an Edgar. After years of reading so many mysteries, it’s a little hard to surprise me so I’ll admit that there was one plot twist that got me.

Parents may want to be forewarned that there is foul language in the book, but it didn’t seem gratuitous to me. I’m sure high school students hear similar or worse language on a daily basis. There are also brief mentions of sex and one short make-out scene. Nick certainly isn’t the perfect hero of a romance novel, but he’s a kid trying to do the right thing despite his father’s mistakes, so we root for him to succeed, and there are definitely some humorous lines in here.

One other thing I feel compelled to mention is that after the questionable suicide, one character mentions that another character says there won’t be a Catholic funeral because it was a suicide. I don’t know if Giles purposely included this erroneous idea or if he’s unaware himself. However, as a Catholic with a book about teen suicide due out in just a couple months, I thought I should clear the air. Someone who has committed suicide can have a Catholic funeral Mass. If you’d like an explanation, feel free to see this article.

 

 

Monday Book Review: Nick and Tesla’s Super-Cyborg Gadget Glove by “Science Bob” Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith

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The full title of this book is Nick and Tesla’s Super-Cyborg Gadget Glove: A Mystery with a Blinking, Beeping, Voice-Recording Gadget Glove You Can Build Yourself. Whew! How’s that for a title! It’s the first of my 2015 Edgar-nominated books to review.

Nick and TeslaTitle: Nick and Tesla’s Super-Cyborg Gadget Glove: A Mystery with a Blinking, Beeping, Voice-Recording Gadget Glove You Can Build Yourself

Authors: “Science Bob” Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith

Genre: mystery

Age group: middle grade

Summary: Twins Nick and Tesla Holt are named after the famous (although really not as famous as he should be) engineer and inventor Nikola Tesla. The eleven-year-old twins are staying with their Uncle Newt, a scientist asked to fix a brand-new interactive display of animatronic representations of famous scientists at a local museum about to have a grand re-opening. However, someone seems set on ruining the museum’s celebration. When Uncle Newt and his friend Hiroko think they’ve got everything ready, they activate the animatronic version of Nikola Tesla to give it a test run. At first, everything seems fine, but suddenly all the robotic-like figures start talking at once, and then at high speed until a beaker flies out of Louis Pasteur’s hand, Charles Darwin’s head falls off, and everyone is suddenly plunged into darkness. When the lights come back on, Uncle Newt and Hiroko work on repairing the broken robots while Nick, Tesla, and their two friends decide to investigate who is out to ruin the museum’s big night.

Super Cyborg GloveWhile Nick, Tesla, and their friends work on the mystery, they decide they need a special glove to help them. At first, the glove needs an LED light that can be activated by touching two fingers together. Later, they need to record someone talking, so they add a small recorder to the glove. As the mystery progresses, more devices get added to their super-cyborg glove. What makes this more fun is that the directions for the glove are included in the book so that kids (with the help of their parents) could actually build their own super-cyborg glove if they wanted to.

The mystery part of the book is pretty fun, too. While I may have predicted what was going to happen at times, I think the ending would surprise most young readers, and I definitely think the authors captured the voice of eleven-year-olds pretty well. (Seeing as I spend my days with eleven and twelve-year-olds, I like to think I know what they sound like!)

A fair warning to parents who don’t like adult characters to seem “stupid”: Nick and Tesla’s Uncle Newt is kind of your stereotypical “mad scientist.” He’s brilliant with his science, but lacks a bit of common sense, and he’s definitely not good at keeping an eye on his niece and nephew. They are allowed to roam the museum unsupervised because he’s too distracted fixing the museum display.

That being said, it’s really nice to see woman and girls portrayed as being not only interested in science but also very good at it. Uncle Newt’s friend Hiroko is a smart, female scientist, and Tesla is a bright young woman who makes for a strong heroine and counterpoint to her more cautious but still smart twin brother. I would recommend this book to those in grades 3-6 who like mysteries and/or are interested in science.

My To-Be-Read Pile

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This past Monday I didn’t get a Monday Book Review posted. I did, however, trek on out to my local public library to pick up some new books after getting my car out of the aftereffects of the Blizzard of 2015.

Parking at the library was at a premium since they hadn’t managed to plow half the lot yet. I had to circle the lot for ten minutes to get a spot. Once inside, though, I found several fun picks.

image

Recognize any titles? Two of the books are up for the Edgar Award for best juvenile mystery, and the other two are up for best YA (young adult) mystery. Every year I try to read through as many of the nominees as possible before the winners are announced in April.

So here are some books you’ll probably being seeingg reviews on in the near future:

  • Nick and Testla’s Super-Cyborg Gadget Glove by “Science Bob” Pflugfelder and Steve Hockensmith
  • Saving Kabul Corner by N.H. Senzai
  • Fake ID by Lamar Giles
  • Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano

Monday Book Review: Ungifted by Gordon Korman

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Last summer, this book was so popular around the summer school kids that even the principal asked to borrow my copy so she could read it. After she returned it to me, it took a while before I had time to read it. And then it took even a couple more months before I had time to write this review, but here goes!

UngiftedTitle: Ungifted

Author: Gordon Korman

Genre: contemporary realistic fiction

Age group: middle grade

Inside cover flap: “The word gifted has never been applied to a kid like Donovan Curtis. It’s usually more like Don’t try this at home. So when the troublemaker pulls a major prank at his middle school, he thinks he’s finally gone too far. But thanks to a mix-up by one of the administrators, instead of getting in trouble, Donovan is sent to the Academy of Scholastic Distinction (ASD), a special program for gifted and talented students. It wasn’t exactly what Donovan had intended, but there couldn’t be a more perfect hideout for someone like him. That is, if he can manage to fool people whose IQs are above genius level. And that becomes harder and harder as the students and teacher of ASD grow to realize that Donovan may not be good at math or science (or just about anything).”

As a teacher of gifted students, I always like to see them featured in books. Unfortunately, they are often stereotyped, and I felt this occurred in Ungifted. For example, gifted students are often perceived as socially awkward and nerdy. However, that is certainly not always the case. While some gifted children may fall within the autism spectrum, most of them do not. And most of them are very aware of their social interactions with their peers. In fact, many specialists in gifted education talk about the varying types of “intensities” gifted children can experience, including being hyperaware of their social interactions and emotions.

As a quick example of the bad stereotyping, in the book Ungifted, a boy named Noah (who has the highest IQ in the school) is completely unaware of YouTube and has to be introduced to it. Not only do my gifted students know what YouTube is, they have their own YouTube channels with faithful followers (900 of them!) and post videos weekly.

Later in the book, Noah says he wishes he could go to a regular school because the gifted kids are under such pressure that they never laugh. Ha! I’ll laugh at that. If I had a dime for every time, my gifted students laugh in school, my salary would double. Sure, some of them are under tremendous pressure from their parents, but most of them still find plenty of reasons to laugh. In fact, a good sense of humor is usually a sign of intelligence, so gifted kids tend to get jokes some other students might not.

That being said, I did like the character Chloe, who is a gifted girl who just wants to prove that not all gifted kids are social outcasts. She has some funny lines, too. For example, she’s always coming up with hypotheses, and when her dad says she looks beautiful after getting ready for her first ever school dance, she comes up with the hypothesis “The compliment loses credibility in direct proportion to how closely related you are to the speaker.” Ha! So true!

My problem is that Chloe shouldn’t have to prove to everyone that gifted kids aren’t social outcasts. I’d like to see a book with gifted children that shows their depth and complexity. One that includes a gifted kid who’s also a sports jock or a theater prodigy or the most popular kid in school.

While I found some of the book’s lines to be funny, I won’t be recommending it to my students. They deserve a better representation of who they are.

Monday Book Review: Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool

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Today I’m bringing you one of  last year’s nominees for the Rebecca Caudill Award. I had it on my to-be-read list for a while and finally got around to it. I enjoyed it very much and can see why it was recommended for an award.

Navigating EarlyTitle: Navigating Early

Author: Clare Vanderpool

Genre: historical fiction

Age group: middle grade

Insider cover flap: “After his mother’s death at the end of World War II, Jack Baker is suddenly uprooted from his home in Kansas and placed in a boys’ boarding school in Maine. There he meets Early Auden, the strangest of boys, who reads the number pi as an unending story and collects clippings about sightings of a black bear in the nearby mountains. Feeling lost and adrift, Jack can’t help being drawn to Early, who refuses to believe what everyone accepts to be the truth about the great Appalachian bear, timber rattlesnakes, and the legendary school hero known as the Fish, who was lost in the war. When Jack and Early find themselves alone at school, they set out for the Appalachian Trail on a quest for the great black bear. Along the way, they meet some truly strange characters, several of them dangerous, all lost in some way, and each a part of the pi story Early continues to reveal. Jack’s ability to be a steadfast friend to Early will be tested as the boys discover things they never know about themselves and others.”

I really admire authors who can do an authentic historical voice. I’d love to write a 1940s era story, but I’m not sure I could pull off the proper voice for it. Clare Vanderpool does a fantastic job with creating that 1950s voice. This book is sort of a cross between Dead Poets Society (with its all boys boarding school) and Stand by Me (with its cast of quirky boys setting on a quest).

The story is very enjoyable with the two boys meeting some fascinating (if slightly unbelievable) characters along their journey. I also enjoyed how Vanderpool wove the pi story that Early creates into the journey that Jack and Early take together. This is a highly enjoyable coming-of-age story that I’d recommend to both boys and girls who like stories of kids on a quest.

Monday Book Review: Bird Face by Cynthia T. Toney

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I’d heard a lot about Bird Face from a lot of my fellow ACFW authors (of which Cynthia T. Toney is one), so I was excited when I got the chance to read her sweet coming-of-age story.

BIRD.FACE.FC.reducedTitle: Bird Face

Author: Cynthia T. Toney

Genre: contemporary fiction

Age group: upper middle grade (11-14)

Synopsis: Thirteen-year-old Wendy Robichaud has a lot going on in her life. She’s quiet and artistic, but usually lets her own talents takes a second seat behind her ballerina of a best friend Jennifer. Wendy’s parents have divorced, and her dad’s remarried. She may not care that much that she’s not popular like Tookie and the Sticks, but she does care when a brainiac named John bullies her with taunts of “Bird Face” because of her beak-like nose. And she does wonder who’s been leaving yellow sticky notes for her. Add to all that, preparations for a spring arts program, caring for a bunch of abandoned puppies, and trying out for the school track team, and Wendy’s going to have her hands full as she makes the transition from eighth grade to high school.

I found this to be a very sweet and often humorous look at growing up in the face of bullying and trying to figure out what constitutes a good and valid friendship. Wendy struggles with issues lots of middle school students do, and Ms. Toney tackles these issues in a realistic yet funny way (Seriously, I think Tookie and the Sticks needs to be the name of a band!).

Throughout the story, we get a few glimpses into how Wendy’s Catholic faith is helping to guide her through the murky waters of early adolescence. One moment I found particularly humorous was when Wendy is helping her mom with some laundry, and she accidentally gets a towel snagged on a glass parrot her mom had “rescued” during a roadside scavenger hunt. Wendy’s reaction made me laugh:

“Oh. . . .!” I clamped my lips together, having made a promise to Father Gerard at my last confession not to cuss.

Lots of Christian authors find various ways to get around the swearing, but I liked how Ms. Toney handled it by acknowledging that a lot of young teens would be tempted to let a little swear slip, but still have her character be a girl trying to doing the right thing.

You can learn more about author Cynthia T. Toney on her website.

Monday Book Review: The First Principle by Marissa Shrock

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Today I’m bringing you another young adult dystopian book by one of my fellow ACFW authors, and I’ve got to give her kudos for tackling tough subjects: teen pregnancy and abortion.

First PrincipleTitle: The First Principle

Author: Marissa Schrock

Genre: dystopian

Age group: young adult

Back-cover blurb: “In the not-too-distant future, the United Regions of North America has formed. Governors hold territories instead of states, and while Washington, D.C., is gone, the government has more control than ever before. For sixteen-year-old Vivica Wilkins, the daughter of a governor, this is life as usual. High school seems pretty much the same–until one day, that controlling power steps right through the door during study hall. When Vivica speaks out to defend a pregnant student against the harsh treatment of Populations Management officer Martina Ward, she has no idea she’s sowing the seeds of a revolution in her own life. But it isn’t long before she discovers her own illegal pregnancy. Now she has to decide whether to get the mandatory termination–or to follow her heart, try to keep the baby, and possibly ruin her mother’s chances at becoming president.”

Like I said at the beginning, kudos to Marissa Shrock for tackling the tough subject of abortion. In this futuristic society, all teens take mandatory pregnancy tests every three months, and if they are found to be pregnant, they are required to have the pregnancy “terminated” because, of course, having a baby would “ruin” the girl’s life. She’s not even allowed the option of giving it up for adoption. In other words, abortion is not only legal, it’s required. And in a law that’s rather communist in nature, even the adults are allowed only two babies. If an adult woman gets pregnant a third time, she must pay a special fee for the third child or “terminate” it.

Unlike last week’s young adult dystopian Impervious which I reviewed and found more allegorical in its Christian nature, this one is much more straightforward. It’s what I would consider “textbook Christian fiction.” In other words, you can expect scenes about one character trying to convince another character to accept Jesus as her Lord and savior, as well as a “Come to Jesus” moment.

Will this book change anyone’s mind on the pro-life/pro-choice debate? I don’t think anyone heavily entrenched in the pro-choice camp will change their mind after reading this book, but I think teens would find Shrock’s fast-paced story an interesting read, and I think it could open the doorway to some very good conversations between parents and their teenage children about sex, pregnancy, and valuing life.

 

Monday Book Review: Impervious by Heather Letto

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It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to do a Monday Book Review, so I’m starting off what I hope will be a series of them in the upcoming months by discussing Impervious, a young adult dystopian novel by my fellow ACFW author Heather Letto!

Impervious

Doesn’t she have a cool cover? 🙂

Title: Impervious

Author: Heather Letto

Genre: dystopian

Age group: young adult

Synopsis: (taken from back cover): “The residents of Impervious are the remnant–the survivors of the War of Annihilation. And though the city is chockfull of pleasures to tantalize and entertain, a beast lurks in the corners, haunting the residents with its presence. The Beast–a mysterious and terminal illness killed off most of Generations One, Two, and Three. And as Gen-Four prepares to take the stage, a provocative, yet questionable, new method to avoid an untimely death incites a cultural rage. But Fran lives counter-culture, off the grid in true rebel fashion. With a life far from opulent, she scurries through dark tunnels, searching for hot meals with Pete while ditching the holographic security team. To her, it’s a healthy trade-off. Unaccountability means The Council can’t steal her sliver of hope–a belief that she’ll see The Epoch arrive before The Beast can pull her into its fetid embrace.”

If you’re a fan of dystopian stories like The Hunger Games and Divergent, you’ll probably be able to get into this story pretty easily. Heather Letto does a great job of creating a very detailed dystopian world quite different from our own, where fifteen years old is considered “mid-life.” This is also definitely a world where those familiar with sci-fi terms will probably feel comfortable, lots of terms like “holographic acquaintances,” “gaming hubs,” “sleeping-niches,” and “cybernetic vacation pods.” The book also reminded me a bit of The City of Ember, a sort of underground post-apocalyptic world in which the citizens have been tricked into believing nothing good can exist beyond the lights of their little inner world.

The book starts with a quote from the Gospel of Mark (4:23–“If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear”), but it is more allegorical in its Christian nature thus far. From a few conversations I’ve had with the author, I know she has plans for a second and third book in the trilogy, and I’d be interested in seeing how these allegorical pieces she’s set into motion play out in the next two books.

If you’re interested, you can learn more about Heather Letto on her website or Twitter.

Shake It Off!

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This week on the Spin Cycle, Ginny Marie is giving us free rein to discuss whatever we’d like for her linkup, so I’ve decided to share a funny, little story from last week.

On Thursday, I met with my spiritual director. (If you’ve never heard of a spiritual director, just think of it as an adviser or mentor who helps you in your spiritual life.)

During our session, we started talking about the fears I have regarding my book coming out next year. What if people hate it? What if they read something into it that I didn’t mean to be read there? Oh, I’m sure so-and-so is going to hate it. And what about this other person? Oh, I can just imagine the hate mail and the bad reviews!

My spiritual director responded by saying, “Well, you know someone’s not going to like it because that’s just how things are. There are people out there who are just haters. It’s their mission to put down other people. They’re going to hate simply because that’s what they do.”

And immediately my mind flipped to that Taylor Swift song “Shake It Off.”

‘Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
Shake it off, Shake it off

After my brief pop-culture-induced ADD moment, I was able to pull myself back into listening to my spiritual director who had moved on to talking about how Jesus had his haters too. He had been scorned, ridiculed, ambushed–even betrayed by one of his closest friends! We can take comfort in knowing that he dealt with his share of haters, too.

And that’s when I burst out laughing. I held up a hand. “Wait,” I said to my spiritual director. “Wait right there. I just got the funniest picture in my head. First, you mentioned haters having to hate, and I thought of the lyrics ‘haters gonna hate’ from Taylor Swift. Then you mentioned Jesus having haters, and I thought of that passage where Jesus tells his disciples that if they enter a town where the people won’t listen to them, they should just leave and shake the dust of the town off their feet, so now I’m picturing Jesus leaving a town and shaking the dust off his feet, all while singing ‘Shake it off, shake it off.””

Moral of the story: When criticism comes your way (or even when the fear of criticism keeps you from moving forward), just remember the advice of Taylor Swift and Jesus–and shake it off.

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