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Book 59 reminded me along the whole way why I LOVE to read. It’s books like this — so gloriously dark and with so many amazing turns of phrase and such brilliant characterization! The sense of place and time is vividly palpable. Only potential issues: it might be deemed too sophisticated/old for the Newbery criteria, and the ending is a bit convenient and too “bright” in contrast with the mostly dark tone through the book.

Yay! Book 59 is in THIRD PERSON, PAST TENSE — and it starts off beautifully with quite a bit of intriguing bits of information: plus, the cover is done with slightly coarse paper. It feels different and interesting to the touch. I think this will be a wonderful read but probably not for young/middle grade readers.

Book 58 is a fun read while you’re at it — because you DO, like the characters, want to find out what happens to each of the characters and the relationships in the neighborhood. And I appreciate that author’s letting the young protagonist grapple with some moral gray areas in the tale — although since EVERYTHING works out so perfectly and beautifully, and since all the morally questionable deeds the young child performed resulted in her being viewed as the true heroine of the town, the end of the story feels really black and white and the questionable becomes celebrated. I don’t know that I feel entirely comfortable with this outcome. A couple other potential problems: The action that offers the central conceit through out the book is just not plausible; and the first person narrator slips into super grown-up talk mode once in a while.

The Epilogue of 53 thoroughly changed how I view the book (at this point — I know I’ll have to rethink and reread and reconsider many times — and change my minds over and over, too) — there is a great honesty and a passion for teaching — not just being didactic — young people how to evaluate and review evidences and how to care deeply for so many aspects of each issue.

I kept not finishing book 30 but eventually did it today. My final impression of this well researched, handsomely designed and laid-out book of an important historical event is quite positive. Although I feel that along the way the main threads regularly got distracted by very detailed recounts of the background information and lost the momentum several times, the ending brings all the lines back to a strong crescendo. I applaud the clarity, the hard research work, the conscientious documentation, and the palpable sincerity and earnestness.

This slim volume of a verse novel works quite well: the poems flow and twist and turn and convey the emotions and the storyline with ease that came obviously from much work and rework of the poet. I enjoyed it even if it didn’t move me deeply. Wondering about verse novels often: what subject matter or storyline is worthy of the distilled and condensed form of poetry telling? This one, although features plenty of potential dangers and stated feelings from the protagonist, does not quite reach the level of emotional depth that I usually associate great verse novels with.

There is so much to love about book 55 — chiefly because, I realize that, after closing the book with a very satisfying and lovely closing paragraph, the misfit characters really come to life and are entirely endearing and the stakes are actually high to justify the adventures these characters must embark on. This is a children’s book that features almost no children (although some of the actions taken can be easily seen as childish and can be easily understood by child readers.) I was surprised at the honestly brutal descriptions of some of the violent actions in the book and the cover definitely does not prepare a reader for those moments.

I cannot quite decide how I feel about the emotional gap between my delight at the often jokey and light-hearted (and clever) narrative tone and my dismay at the cruel behaviors a couple of characters exhibit throughout the book. It’s almost dizzying — the changing of pacing and sensibilities. That said, I wasn’t distraught, just aware of the idiosyncrasy.

A few words about the glorious illustrations: Although I’m only to evaluate based on the text as a member of the Newbery committee, I can’t help but responding positively and being impressed by the skill of the book’s illustrator — those few full page illustrations are done flawlessly: I want to scan, print, and frame them!

I and Book 54 started off on the totally wrong foot — and I have no idea whether it will get better as I read on. Once again, we have a narrator who is EXTREMELY poetic and literary while has no apparent schooling or environment that fostered such sophisticated usage of language (and … actually, some of the figurative speeches are plain confusing: they sound good but if you stop and consider what they actually try to say…. you are baffled and start questioning the mind of the narrator or the author.) I am going to trudge on since there are a few thematic elements that I feel obligated to explore as my own professional responsibility to the children’s lit. field at large.

Having trouble pinning down my views on book 53. Some of the claims included in book 53 seem much less substantiated by evidence than others. This is due to the fact that the widely-read author includes both highly respected scholarly sources and sources that are out of the left field including claims that are not widely accepted in the academic world. In a way, I admire the author’s reaching to find less conventional sources but since the young readers will not have the knowledge of knowing which sources are more established than the others, the responsibility lies on the biographer’s shoulder to make it clear which source might not be reliable… which the author did in the detailed back matter notes… but not in the body of the text. Are we demanding the young readers to examine the back matter in such details these days that we can leave things less clear in the main body of the text?

I have also found it a bit burdensome as a reader to never know which source (title) by which scholar (author/editor) is cited to support the claims on each page. I can see the benefit of not interrupting the flow of the narrative with parenthetical citations or footnotes, but too many of the (paraphrasing here) “according to one highly respected scholar” or “based on two famous researchers’ data” do become intrusive and mentally exhausting for someone who wonders about how an author obtained his/her facts or made the inferences.

Granted, almost everything is cited and discussed in details in the back matter… but it’s a lot of detective work to figure out anything I had a question for. (I enjoyed it… but don’t know about its effectiveness when used by young folks.) Also — there is at least one incident where the author makes an affirmative claim in the body of the text based on a particular source while in the source notes, the validity of that source is questioned and the young researchers are urged to seek out other sources to further validate (or discount) this source. So, for me, the verdict is still out.

Will keep looking for reviews and seek others’ opinions before really settle on a final verdict — which might never happen. I’m grateful for an intriguing read that made me think really hard on nonfiction/biography writing and the matter of the back matters…

Reading a heavy-hitting nonfiction (biography) and am totally engrossed.

Finished the slim volume of book 52 with a smile on my face. This is indeed a fun book for beginning competent readers: there is quite a bit of smart humor and definitely enough action to keep the reader’s interest high. The thematic query of whether fate determines (or should determine) the course of one’s life is presented in ways that will inspire young readers (7 or 8) to ponder without overwhelming them with confusing ideas. Well done.

Book 51 gave me such pleasure that I didn’t stop to take notes (except to jot down some really fun and fresh phrases and observations and a couple of wise advices) or to consider if it is “worthy.” It definitely is quite a wonderful book and I can see recommending it to kids and teachers alike. It has the right tension, the right “heart,” and the right comic relief — all in the right times and places. This is a tale unlike most I’ve read, this year or another, mostly because it has a really likable and unique young narrator who never shape-shifts into a much older author-in-disguise persona and also because the makeshift family is so unusually quirky and warm. It’s a contemporary American tall tale (for those who might not quite believe some of the turns of events — here you go, it’s a tall tale!) The author keeps so faithfully and dexterously to the view point and the mindset of this young narrator — a stark contrast to book 50’s unbelievable young person’s tone.

Another one that makes me ponder if the choice of a child first person narrative voice is the best for certain books or stories… book 50 is giving me a lot of trouble right now because there is a fairly young and not the most worldly child who keeps using highly sophisticated words (which might be explained away by her being super bright… being into words… being a storyteller, etc.) AND has so many incredibly mature observations about people, self, and the world. It just sounds suspiciously like the author – and not the child character – talking to the readers.

Book 49: Good… very realistic with great characters and full of tender hearts…. I’ll def. put it in my YA section because I think 7th grade and up readers are needed to appreciate the scenarios and dilemmas presented here. I am unsure of one particular character’s dialog (done to reflect his strong regional accent) — it really stopped the flow of the reading because there is SO much inconsistency (ya, yer, you, your — all in one stretch of the same speech… — plus other awkward spellings that simply do not give me a great mental “sound picture” — I am baffled as to why this author felt the need to highlight this particular supporting character’s accent while where the character originally came from has no bearing in the story whatsoever, and while everyone else in the story has no special speech patterns at all.

I was just going to give this author some brownie points of describing not quite traditionally or lazily this strikingly beautiful girl who has some distinctive features that definitely made me “see” her (and she’s NOT blond!) when I read that she also has “the palest blue eyes in the world.” Haha. I just can’t win. But, hey, I also can’t deny the fact that I find icy blue eyes (since they are non-existent in my youth amongst my friends in Asia and since blue IS a beautiful color in my opinion) highly attractive, too!

Out of all the stories, almost half of them are really really effective, fun, inventive, spooky, sad, scary. The rest range from quite good to just all right. But I can totally see sharing at least two at this year’s Halloween library story times — for 6th grade and older. It will be superbly chilling. The author manages to give different and mostly authentic voices to the characters, all telling their first person stories, from different eras. I just realized that the stories I like most are told from kids who are not despicable themselves — those who didn’t deserve their tragic fates as much. The sense of melancholy is stronger and thus my level of sympathy becomes higher. My original assessment of the frame story stands, though — it’s definitely not strong enough to hold the whole volume together and the lack of a convincing explanation of why these characters all being together is also problematic. But, I’m glad that I read it!