Price, Nora TITLE: Zoe Lettting Go, A Novel RATING: A
PUBLISHER: Razorbill, 2012 PRICE: $17.99
ISBN: 978-1-59514-466-9 INTEREST: 9 up
ILLUSTRATOR: PAGES: 279
16 year old Zoe’s mother has told her to pack a bag with enough things for six weeks, puts her in the car and drives her to a remote mansion, checks her in and drives away. Zoe has no idea what the place is or why she is there. She manages to snag a brochure and hides it in her pocket to examine later. The reader however, is pretty sure Zoe is suffering from an eating disorder and this is a treatment center. The clues are not subtle. Zoe meets the other five girls and just can’t see that she has anything in common with them. They obviously have eating issues. Zoe doesn’t thing she does and the reader will suspect an unreliable narrator. Zoe is allowed no electronics at all so she writes letters to her best friend, Elise, who also has issues with food and body image and through these letters, Zoe reveals more about her own issues. In her meetings with her counselor, it is clear there is more than her eating disorder that Zoe needs to face. The pacing is slow. It is hard to care about any of the girls, even Zoe. The ending is abrupt, and I had to make sure I didn’t skip a chapter when suddenly the girls start leaving. Have they resolved anything? Changed their ways? Learning anything? Nothing is clear, not even with our main character. I’m not sure teen readers will stick with this and if they do the ending will probably frustrate them. The first of the book had so much promise. I loved the mystery of her mother leaving her in the middle of nowhere and the idea of being in such a rich atmosphere with six other girls. Then it just got lost in menus and girls being mean. Additional purchase.
Patti Tjomsland, Mark Morris High School.
Proimos, James TITLE: Knuckle & Potty RATING: A
PUBLISHER: Henry Holt @ 2012 PRICE: 12.99
ISBN: 9780805091557 INTEREST LEVEL: 2nd-5th
ILLUSTRATOR: PAGES: 80
I am a little worried when a character is called Potty; that the story might be about bathroom noises and bathroom antics. I am delighted that I was wrong. This high energy story about Knuckle and Potty wanting to be tough guys; starts with the author and illustrator. They want to be erased from a cartoon place called Happy World. Sometimes the wordy text needs a second read through so you don’t miss what the author is trying to portray. The illustrations help the humor shine through.
Reviewer: Carol Steen, Columbia Valley Gardens Elementary
Proimos, James TITLE: The Best Bike Ride Ever RATING: R PUBLISHER: Dial Books ã 2012 PRICE: $16.99
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3850-8 INTEREST LEVEL: Pre-K-2nd ILLUSTRATOR: Johanna Wright PAGES: 29
O Boy, O Boy biking it declares the child’s freedom of constraint. What happens if you never learned how to stop? Would you go all “willy-nilly?” Where would you go if you could go anywhere you want? The best bike ride in the world is what would happen. Bonnie gets a bike and propels her bike into the greatest bike ride ever for about a well… for a about a week until…Hey what about a pony? Wrights illustrations are whimsical and fit the text and the character of Bonnie. I spirits me away maybe I need a bike ride?
REVIEWER: Tyra K. Smith, Head Start/EHS/ECEAP
Puttock, Simon TITLE: The Baby That Roared RATING: R PUBLISHER: Candlewick Press 2012 PRICE: $15.99
Mr. and Mrs. Dear have no baby to call their own…sad right…Well one arrives on their doorstep and begins to roar. Thinking that it is a deer they call all their friends and relatives to see what is wrong with their baby, but one by one they disappear. Until Granny Bear comes and begins to pat the baby’s back and yes an entire page of BURP mouth open green paint splotches flying out of the baby’s mouth. Also, all of the visitors tumble out too! So, they discover that this not a deer little baby but instead a little monster. He runs away into the night, until the deer family adopts and sweet little kitten?! The illustration are well done and fun. The book is venturing on the precipice of…Why would I add this to my library? Maybe older kids would find this funny and get the humor, but it leans heavily on boy humor, but with the right reader it could strike a cord.
REVIEWER: Tyra K. Smith, Head Start/EHS/ECEAP
Pyle, Kevin C. TITLE: Take What You Can Carry RATING: R
The two-tone paperback graphic novel tells two tales that are brought together in the end. Told in alternating chapters one is a wordless historical tale of a teen Japanese-American boy whose father has been arrested by the government and whose family is forced to move to a relocation camp during World War II. The boy tries to make the best of it until soldiers make a routine sweep of the camp and confiscate the woodcarving tools of an old man who was teaching him to carve. The boy is caught by a solider attempting to steal them back. The soldier takes pity on him and allows him to take the items. The other tale is a modern Japanese-American boy who moves to a new community and begins to hang out with a bad crowd which leads him to participate in vandalism and shoplifting. The boy and a friend are finally caught shoplifting by the store’s owner and taken to the police station. The store’s owner doesn’t press charges but has the boy work at the store as restitution. The boy starts turning his life around and the store’s owner reveals his life, including the stealing, in the intern camp to the boy. This is a thoughtful read that will appeal to those interested in the historical aspect of the internment camps as well as students interested in a modern story. It really is a brilliant blend of both worlds.
This book has full coverage of North Korea including maps, graphs, flags, recipes, fact file, and a timeline. I liked that this was easy to read and has some beautiful pictures in each chapter.
Sixteen-year-old Violet is spending time with her artist father while her mom is in Italy. She hasn’t had much of a relationship with him in recent years and isn’t sure what to expect. Van Gogh drawings from one of her father’s clients, the Yamadas, are stolen right before her father’s trip to Japan to paint artwork in the Yamadas’ nephew’s business building. Violet is thrilled to be able to go to Japan with him. She is a huge manga fan and is writing her own story, Kimono Girl, in which she inserts the real life events of the art heist as characters. Once in Japan she unexpectedly meets up with one of her friends, Reika, and together they help solve the mystery of the missing artwork. The alternate storyline of Kimono Girl gets distracting at times. Fans of maga will find this mystery interesting.
REVIEWER: Debby Iverson, Coweeman Middle School
Riehecky, Janet TITLE: Slime, Poop, and other wacky Defenses RATING: M
PUBLISHER: capstone @ 2012 PRICE:
ISBN: 9781429665094 INTEREST LEVEL: 3rd-6th
ILLUSTRATOR: PAGES: 32
After reading parts of this book to several library classes, we decided the title could be shortened to “Wacky Animal Defenses”. Publishing companies fascination with the work ‘poop” is beyond explanation. Sure it causes kids to giggle but I don’t think that should be the purpose of this nonfiction book. Out of the 13 animals highlighted, in brief but very interesting text, only one is about poop. And next time you want to write about this particular bodily function how about using the word “feces”. Students can handle the grown-up words. Some photographs are better than others. If poop is so important why not have a photo of it on the thrush page.
