Recent Read: Amelia Lost

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart by Candace Fleming

In this wonderful nonfiction title, author Fleming draws on a multitude of resources to provide a thorough overview of Amelia Earhart’s life and the search that took place after her disappearance.  Fleming alternates straightfoward biographical chapters with short chapters describing the search for Earhart and her plane after she failed to arrive at her intended stop on Howland Island in the Pacific.  These fascinating chapters about the search often focus on young people around the US who claimed to have heard a distress call from Earhart in the hours and days following her disappearance.

While Amelia Earhart, and more specifically her mysterious disappearance, are fascinating subjects already, Fleming enhances the tale with photos and news articles from her research.  Fleming also presents Earhart as a real person, even one with flaws.  While sharing with readers what made Amelia special and a pioneer in aviation, she doesn’t shy away from some of Earhart’s more negative aspects, such as her resistance to learn how to use her radio equipment, an error in judgment that may have contributed to Earhart’s death.

I would highly recommend this title to young readers and anyone interested in Earhart, aviation history, or women’s history.  This title is also being buzzed about as a possible Newbery contender.  I guess we’ll find out later this month!

Recent Read: Horton Halfpott

Horton Halfpott: or, the Fiendish Mystery of Smudgwick Manor, or, the Loosening of M’Lady Luggertuck’s Corset by Tom Angleberger

I’m a big fan of pretty much everything Abrams is publishing these days.  I really loved Tom Angleberger’s The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, and I was excited about reading a new book from him.  This one did not disappoint.  While definitely different from Origami Yoda, it was a very entertaining read in its own right.

The titular hero, Horton Halfpott, is a kitchen boy trying to support his family by working in the manor home of the Luggertuck family.  The Manor is a miserable place to work, until one day, when Lady Luggertuck’s corset is loosened, the strict rules of the manor seem to be loosened as well.  In the midst of all the hubbub caused by the corset-loosening, a priceless family heirloom, the Luggertuck Lump, goes missing, and the family calls in famous detective Portnoy St. Pomfrey to solve the mystery.  St. Pomfrey, who is not quite the expert in detection that he has made everyone believe he is, enlists the help of the manor’s stableboys to solve the crime.   While others suspect Horton of taking the Lump, his friends the stableboys know he is innocent and set about to find the true thief.

The book has a large cast of characters, including the Luggertuck family, their many servants, and other guests to the manor, but each character is distinct and has a particular role to play in the story.  The story is a mixture of mystery, historical fiction, and even a little romance, but above all, it is very funny.  The narrator of the story speaks directly to the reader, somewhat in the manner of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and in this aspect reminded me a bit of the also very well-written The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood.

Overall, this was a really entertaining read, and should appeal to kids who like their humor a little on the dark side and tongue-in-cheek.  They’ll be rooting for underdog Horton to overcome the obstacles in his way as he tries to clear his name and get ahead in life.

Recent Read: The Reading Promise

I first read about this great father-daughter bonding experience in this NY Times article.  To summarize, when his younger daughter was in fourth grade father and librarian Jim Brozina made a pact with her to read to her for 100 nights straight.  They did manage to reach the 100 night goal of their “Reading Streak.”  They didn’t stop there though – they continued reading until the daughter’s first day of college!  You can watch a video about the “Reading Streak” from CBS here.

Well, it turns out that the daughter, Alice Ozma, went on to write a book about her experience with the “Reading Streak” called The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared.

It’s a sweet story about how she and her father bonded over all those hours of reading together, as well as the (not always so sweet) story of their life together during those years, which included divorce, the older sister’s departure for study abroad and college, and of course, Alice’s own growing up.  The Reading Promise is a really inspiring read for parents about the importance of reading and just spending quality time with your children.

As a parent, the book really made me excited thinking about what books Little L and I will be able to share as he gets older.  There’s a great list of some of the books Alice and her father read together over the years in the back of the book I’ll probably use for ideas!  As a librarian, I found the section of the book on Mr. Brozina’s challenges late in his career particularly interesting.  It’s an unfortunate reflection of what so many school librarians are facing today – testing and technology vs. the importance of helping kids discover the joy of reading.  Highly recommended!

Recent Read: NurtureShock

I actually read this book a couple of months ago, but I loved it so much that I wanted to post about it.  I can’t remember exactly where I first heard about this book, but I know it was in an article that had something to do with how parents, particularly white parents, talk (or actually, don’t talk) to their children about race.  I’m very interested in this topic because I’m the white parent of a biracial child (my husband is Asian), and I’ve thought a lot about how I’ll talk to Little L about this as he gets older.

So, this article about race (I feel like a terrible librarian for not tracking it down) led me to the book NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.   The subject of race is only one of the chapters in the book, and I ended up being fascinated by the entire book.  I highly recommend this book to anyone who has children or works with children.  Each chapter is devoted to a different topic related to child development and explores the new research that has been done on that topic.  In many cases, the new research actually challenges the traditionally-held beliefs about child development.  Some of the other topics covered in the book include lying, sibling rivalry, self-control, teen rebellion, and language development.  I think this could actually be a book that I’d like to refer to again as Little L reaches new developmental stages, because it really does cover topics from birth through the teen years.

I’ve been reading a lot of light fiction lately, but this nonfiction book was a great page-turner, too!

The authors originally worked together on articles for Newsweek, and you can find out more at their website.

Recent Read: Storm Runners

Storm Runners by Roland Smith

I picked up a copy of this title at ALA Midwinter.  The fine folks at Scholastic put on a lovely reception and author panel discussion about their upcoming spring titles that I was lucky enough to attend.

Storm Runners is a fast-paced adventure story.  Chase Masters and his father travel the country in the wake of big storms – tornadoes, hurricanes, floods – so that Chase’s father can make a living helping people rebuild after the destruction.  This time though, they’re a little too close to the action when a hurricane hits the Florida town where they’ve attempted to take shelter away from the storm.  Chase is even stranded with two of his new schoolmates after their school bus runs off the road during the height of the hurricane.  Oh, and don’t forget the riled-up gators and the escaped circus animals!  Such a fun, exciting read that is perfect for its middle-grade audience.  Highly recommended, and I can’t wait to read the sequel since this one ended on a cliffhanger.