Esperanza Rising, by Pam Munoz Ryan, 2000

In 1930, on the eve of Esperanza's thirteenth birthday, tragedy strikes her family when her father is ambushed and murdered by bandits while mending the fences around his large, prosperous Rancho de las Rosas in Mexico. Papa's stepbrothers hold their assets, and in months Esperanza and her mother flee to the San Joaquin Valley in California, assisted by their former servants, to join the campesinos and pick fruits and vegetables year-round. Esperanza's growth to maturity and compassion prevents this riches-to-rags story from feeling tragic, and the graceful and loving hand that wrote this tribute to her own grandmother skillfully employed the fruits and vegetables harvested by the campesinos to add fragrance and texture to an already well-ripened story. Strongly recommended.

Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia Wrede, 1990 *audio

Cimorene's impatience with propriety prompts a career change from betrothed princess to dragon's princess, when she volunteers to be the servant of the dragon Kazul. In a fractured fairy-tale world that playfully jumbles fairy tale motifs, Cimorene deals not only with politically plotting dragons, but sinister wizards, matrimony-minded princesses, and doggedly rescuing knights. Dragons that feel like kittens, characters and dialogue that fall flat, a meandering and indecisive plot, and a lack of personal risks or emotional stakes for the main character obscured the pleasure that the novel's premise suggested. Not recommended.

*I could have been influenced by the poorly-acted full-cast narration of the audio version, which I found insufferable -- though in its defense, my 8-year old enjoyed it. In preparing my annotation I tried hard to focus on the narrative itself and not the narration, but perhaps it biased me.

Ida B, and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World, by Katherine Hannigan, 2004 *audio

Ida B. Applewood talks to the trees in her apple orchard, the brook, and the bare tree on the top of her mountain -- and they, in their unique voices, talk back. She loves her homeschooled life on the farm, her Mama and Daddy, her slobbering dog Rufus and smug cat Lulu, and incessantly making plans. Her plans go awry when Mama's cancer forces Daddy to sell part of the apple orchard, and forces Ida B to return to public school at the start of fourth grade. Ida B's character rings true thoughout with honest emotions and sharp self-awareness, a wild imagination, clever wit, and a talent for simile. A graceful and poignant narrative from a first-time novelist; strongly recommended.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi, 1990 *audio

At 13, after finishing her year at a British school for "better girls," Charlotte embarks from Liverpool, white gloves in tow, on the brig "Seahawk" to return to her parents in Providence, RI. Her chaperones never appear, and so, in 1832, Charlotte finds herself in the scandalous position of solitary female on a ship sailed by as nefarious-looking a bunch of scalawags as literature has yet offered us, with a black-hearted captain for good measure. Charlotte's ensuing adventures prove that even better girls can have high adventures upon the rolling seas, and teach her, in natural and convincing ways, to question the class, gender, and race assumptions upon which her privileges as a "better girl" rest. Full of shivering timbers and jibbing the mainsail, nautical fun and perilous danger. Strongly recommended.

Little Lord Fauntleroy, by Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1886

Cedric Erroll is a well-loved fatherless American boy with a sweet widowed mother and an irresistable head of curly golden hair. Armed with these assets, the world is his to conquer with kindness, and what more straightforward route could there be than to discover that he is heir to England's most wealthy earldom? Cedric cum Fauntleroy travels to England and melts his crusty grandfather's heart with his lovelocks and lordly legs. All proceeds smoothly until another claimant to the earldom appears...

Though LLF enjoyed considerable popularity in its day, and for a generation afterwards, Secret Garden and Little Princess have kept Burnett alive in children's literature, and LLF has been all but forgotten. For modern readers, there are some reasons why: it's hopelessly sentimental; characters are flat; it's a class monologue that constantly reinforces the innate worthiness of the aristocracy to rule and the eagerness of the lower classes to be ruled; and it persistently equates beauty with virtue. If you can set all that aside, LLF has an undeniable sweetness, and as an almost-rags to riches story mixed with sensationalism, it's fun. I'm sure I would have devoured this as a child; as an adult it's a bit harder to swallow, but taking it for what it is, good fodder for a nostalgia binge, and so sentimental as to be harmless for young readers.

Recommended books from Fall '05 semester

Frindle by Andrew Clements (middle school)
Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken (first in a long series, fun)
Skellig by David Almond
Whales on Stilts by M.T. Anderson
Sabriel by Garth Nix (interesting fantasy, first in a trilogy, great audio by Tim Curry)
Thirsty by M.T. Anderson. (darkly funny vampire book)
Shiva’s Fire by Suzanne Fisher Staples.
The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler by James Cross Giblin. (great YA biography)
Kalpana’s Dream by Judith Clarke
Lucie Babbidge’s House by Sylvia Cassedy
Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohata
A Wreath for Emmett Till by Marilyn Nelson (if you like poetry)
Monster by Walter Dean Myers (a bit unsettling, provocative and worth the read)

Just Juice, by Karen Hesse, 1998

Juice Faulstich hasn't been to school in a while, despite the truant officer's best efforts, because she can't get reading right and she hates feeling stupid. Instead she spends her time walking with Pa, who's been out of work for a while and needs comforting. Food and money are lean at the Faulstich home, though Ma isn't, what with the baby on the way, and gestational diabetes this time around. A spare and brief realistic story of renewing hope where there was little to be found. The novel offers its unromanticized heroine a chance at heroism, without Pollyanna-izing the solution to her family's problems. Recommended.

Alice, I Think, by Susan Juby, 2003 *audio

Following an unfortunate misunderstanding over her Hobbit costume worn to first grade, Alice is home-schooled for ten years by her hippie mom and near-derelict, romance-novel-writing wannabe dad. She has a knack for forcing therapists at the Teens in Transition club into early retirement. She records in her diary her progress toward achieving her Life Goals, which include choosing a vocation ("cultural critic"), reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy, achieving a new look, and having some boy-girl interaction. Her voice, her observations on the parade of nut-jobs that drift through her house and life, and her escapades are wry, dark, and hilarious. Considered as a book for young people, it feels like a romp without restraint through attempts at irresponsibility. A portion of the ending threw me out of the text -- out of character, I thought. Re: recommendations: If you're a grownup in the mood for an irreverent laugh at everyone, I recommend it. If you're in my youth Sunday School class, I absolutely do NOT recommend it. Otherwise, you're on your own. Enjoy.

Getting Near to Baby, by Audrey Couloumbis, 2000

With remarkable pacing, this novel begins and ends in a single day spent on a rooftop by Willa Jo and Little Sister, who have come to stay with Aunt Patty and Uncle Hobart while their mother copes with her grief at the loss of Baby. But Willa Jo and Little Sister have grief of their own to bear, none of which is lightened by Aunt Patty's determined and overbearing efforts to raise them her own way. Perhaps I've read too many coming-to-terms-with-grief novels lately, but I cried anyway. Willa Jo, Uncle Hobart, and Aunt Patty are memorable, well-rounded characters (Patty especially ;). Recommended.

The Fire-Eaters, by David Almond, 2004

World War II is a recent memory for Bobby Burns' father, a British veteran who fought in Burma, and he believes mankind would never again be so stupid as to start another world war. 13-year old Bobby, living in Keely Bay, a coal town in northern England, in 1962, isn't so sure as he sees Kennedy and Kruschev on the nightly news, and watches the Bay of Pigs crisis unfold. McNulty, a shellshocked Burma veteran turned escapologist and fire-breather that Bobby meets on a daytrip to Newcastle puts a living human face on some of war's costs, while Bobby's new friend Daniel shows what to fight for at an abusive parochial school. Poignant and hopeful, lovely in its telling, strongly recommended.

The Graduation of Jake Moon, by Barbara Park, 2002

Skelly, Jake’s grandfather, raised him, along with his mother, even signing up to be his first grade classroom mom. By the time Jake’s in middle school, Skelly has Alzheimer’s disease; by the time Jake graduates from middle school, his grandfather’s dementia has turned his entire family upside-down. Funny and thoughtful, the text is a worthwhile read, even if a few plot weaknesses disrupt the flow. Jake is a likeably imperfect, often immature character, which makes his growth through the text more meaningful. The text stops short of resolving some of the questions it raises about the impact of dementia on families – and by doing so may seem to sentimentalize and minimize those concerns. Still, recommended.

A Parcel of Patterns, by Jill Paton Walsh, 1983

Mall Percival is a child of Eyam, a small village in Derbyshire, now grown to adulthood in 1665 and set to marry Thomas, a shepherd and her childhood sweetheart. An errant package of dressmaking patterns sent from London to Eyam infects the village tailor with the plague, launching a year of terror in which the town is almost decimated by disease, and places itself under town-wide quarantine. Based upon a true history of the actual village of Eyam, though using fictional main characters, this is a heartbreaking and lovely book, written as Mall’s diary account of Eyam’s sorrows. Recommended for historical fiction fans.

The Midwife’s Apprentice, by Karen Cushman, 1996 *audio

Brat, sometimes called Beetle, short for Dungbeetle, has neither family, home, nor name, but wanders from town to town in medieval England, begging for food and work, finding shelter and warmth in moldering dungheaps. Almost by accident she becomes the servant and assistant to Jane Sharpe, the village midwife, and herb by herb and birth by birth, she builds for herself an identity and a place. She chooses for herself the name “Alyce.” Rich characterization, setting, and humor successfully transport readers to the past, however, I found the culmination of Alyce’s quest for identity, place, and worth puzzling and underwhelming. I’m surprised it won the 1996 Newbery.

Shiloh, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, 1992 *audio

Right and wrong get fuzzy (and wiggly) for 11-year old Marty Preston when he meets Shiloh, a mistreated beagle pup who clearly prefers Marty over his abusive owner, Judd Travers. Marty is a wonderfully real character from a loving though impoverished home in rural West Virginia. A classic boy-and-dog tale, pitting Marty against a gristly moral dilemma which he tackles with true grit. Recommended.

Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech, 1994

Salamanca Tree Hiddle sets out with her grandparents on a summer roadtrip to Lewiston, Idaho, to see her mother who went there a year ago and didn’t come back. Along the way Sal tells the story of her friend Phoebe Winterbottom, whose mother also left her family. Middle-grade realism; funny, tender, sad, hopeful; entirely worthwhile. Strongly recommended.

Tending to Grace, by Kimberly Newton Fusco, 2004

Cornelia’s stuttering makes those around her look away, including her mother, who ultimately fades away from mothering her ninth-grade daughter. When the mother and her boyfriend light out for Vegas, they leave Corny with her great-aunt Agatha in a tumbledown New England farmhouse, and neither of the unwilling new roommates seems suited to the other. Young adult realism poetically and sensitively written; Cornelia’s voice on the page is as true as her spoken voice is halting. Strongly recommended.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry, 1993

Instead of being assigned to his future vocation, Jonas is selected, at his Ceremony of Twelve, to be his community’s next Receiver of Memory. Tutored by the Giver, he tastes sadness, war, happiness, love, even color, until his eyes are opened to the repressive inhumanity of his world, where “sameness” and “precise language” are valued over variety and emotion, and where deviance or weakness results in “release.” A compelling dystopic illustration of the worth and price of personal freedoms. Strongly recommended.

Keeper of the Isis Light, Monica Hughes, 1984

For longer than she can remember, Olwen has lived on the hot and arid Planet Isis, as keeper of its interplanetary lighthouse and observation station. With only her Guardian for company, she has never seen herself in a mirror, or through another’s eyes, until a spaceship of colonists from overcrowded Earth arrives. A futuristic science fiction approach to coming-of-age literature that explores tolerance and self-acceptance, albeit in a dated and two-dimensional manner.

Enchantress from the Stars, by Sylvia Louise Engdahl, 1970

A dragon threatens Goeryn’s village, and none who venture to slay it return; Medical Officer Jarel regrets joining the colonizing expedition to Andrecia, where Imperial fire-breathing machinery devours the virgin landscape; Federation Field Agent-to-be Elana stows away on a mission to save the planet Andrecia from colonization. Heroes from different worlds and phases of societal evolution come together on pristine Andrecia in an ambitious braiding of narrative styles, viewpoints, and philosophies. A modern retelling of “The Fairy Queen” enabled by futuristic science fantasy, and an argument for ethics, and enlightened faith, to restrain and direct mankind’s march toward progress.

The Owl Service, by Alan Garner, 1967

Gwyn and his mother came to work as servants; Alison and her stepbrother Roger came for a summer holiday to Alison’s Welsh estate. When Gwyn and Alison discover a dish service covered in a floral pattern that, when carefully traced, shapes owls, the three teens are swept into replaying ancient Welsh myth. With extraordinary characterization and storytelling relying almost wholly on dialogue and inner monologue, the text moves with swift intensity. Mythical and mystical, with the suspense of mystery and the tumult of epic, as well as the psychological complexity of superb realism. Strongly recommended, for multiple readings.