OVER THE MOON ABOUT MOON OVER MANIFEST

Have you ever finished reading a book and you want to immediately go back to the first page and read it again?  That's exactly what happened to me with Moon over Manifest.  If I could, I would give it 6 stars on Goodreads -- yes, it's that good.  This is the story of a girl, sent by her father to live with friends one summer during the Depression.  But it is a story of so much more.  In her search for her father's history in town, she discovers the history of the town through the era of the immigration, the coal mine and the company store, and WWI, and revives the heart of the town.  Yes, I cried.  And so will you.

Trailer for Windblowne by Stephen Messer

Here is my second book trailer.  This is for a book which I just love for so many reasons.  I hope everyone that reads this post will read the book.  And yesterday I got a message from the author that he had seen and liked the trailer.  It really doesn't get any better than that.







Trapped by Michael Northrop

I just created my first book trailer.  Quite exciting (at least for me).  One thing I learned from doing this is that you have to be passionate about the book.  I can't imagine doing this much work for a book that didn't excite me.  So here it is -  my Trapped trailer:

"Okay for Now" is A-OK

This is going to be a longer post than usual, so if all you are interested in is the new Gary Schmidt book, just go to the second half.  I feel compelled to tell you how I started reading Gary Schmidt.  One summer while I was shelving books at the Westport Public Library a friend came to the Children's Room.  She was looking for a copy of "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy".  She told me that her family had listened to "Lizzie Bright" in the car and the language was so beautiful she had to actually read it.  Of course I took it out next.  It took me few tries to get into it - I thought it was 'yet another' sports book.  I know, how wrong could I be?  I would say I was blown away by it, but given that Schmidt's writing is so good he even makes the air a character, that would be hackneyed.

That parent was right.  And if I were an English teacher, I would give every student a copy of "Lizzie Bright" as an example of how to have your reader experience the book, rather than merely reading it.

So then a colleague started talking about "The Wednesday Wars".  And I'm thinking - Vietnam, Long Island - can Schmidt pull it off?  So I delayed and delayed until I had to read it for a course last year.  And that's when Gary Schmidt became my new favorite author.  Yes, it was just like the cliche - I laughed, I cried.  But I didn't just laugh, I was shrieking with laughter.  And I didn't just cry, I was sobbing.  A truly phenomenal book (and it doesn't hurt that I'm a Yankees fan).

So when I heard that the sequel was coming out, I felt a great deal of trepidation.  Could Schmidt succeed again?  I got the book last week and waited to read it.  I kept telling myself not to expect a book as good as "The Wednesday Wars".  I started it Saturday night and put it down after a few pages.  I was so upset that the book was not about Holling Hoodhood, but about Doug Swieteck.  I really didn't care about Doug Swieteck; I wanted to find out how Holling's family was doing.

But on Sunday, faced with my taxes and assigning Library of Congress call numbers to my imaginary library for class, "Okay for Now" was much more appealing.  So I read it.  And yes, I laughed (not out loud) and I cried (maybe not sobbing but more than just a few tears).  And it's a really good book.  Almost as good as "The Wednesday Wars".  Let's put it this way -- if on a scale of 1 to 10, "The Wednesday Wars" is a 12, "Okay for Now" is a solid 10, maybe even a 10 and a 1/2.

A few personal notes:
When my son was in elementary school, he did a huge project on John James Audubon.
My daughter and I still laugh about a joke about the arctic tern from Whose Line Is It Anyway?
If you want to know what these have to do with Okay for Now, you'll have to read the book.

And those smart-ass things Doug Swieteck says to his teachers -- that would be me.

WINDBLOWNE

I am one of those people who has always been unsettled by the wind.  I don't know why, because it's not like I was ever in a house or a car on which a tree fell.  But for some reason, on those nights when the wind picks up speed and howls, I feel an anxiousness not justified by my life experience.  This book may help me with this in the future.

I don't want to give away the plot, and I wish I could somehow convey how charming this book is.  It's about a boy who lives in the town of Windblowne, which is a town in the tops of the oak trees.  It's about family.  It's about finding yourself.  It's about saving the world.  It's about sentient kites.  It's wonderful.  Stop reading blogs and go read this book.

STOLEN CHILDREN

This book, by Peg Kehret, is one of the nominees for the 2012 Nutmeg Award for grades 4 - 6.  It has to be one of the most terrifying books I have ever read.  I am curious whether others will agree.  Is this book so scary to me because I'm a mom, and will the parts I find most terrifying not cause even a blip for a 4th grader?  Or will they find the parts that I find a little too unbelievable the most scary?

Here's the basic premise of the book:  Amy, a 14-year-old girl, takes a babysitting job.  While there, she and the 3-year-old she is babysitting are kidnapped.  The rest of the book deals with Amy's attempts to escape.  These attempts are complicated by the fact that she won't leave the 3-year-old behind.

Amy had previously disappointed her parents by failing to follow through on a pet-sitting job for a neighbor.  When the neighbor told her father, her father returned to the house to talk with Amy about it and thus was late leaving the house for work.  Then a driver ran a red light and killed her father.  So Amy feels guilty:

1.  If her father hadn't been late because of her, he would have been through the intersection and wouldn't be dead.
2.  Her last word's to her father - "You aren't perfect."
3.  Her father's last words to her - "I'm ashamed of you."

So now we have a widow with her only child kidnapped and the parents of a 3-year-old whose child was kidnapped.  This is the stuff of nightmares for parents, as are those last words.

As someone who can vividly remember Hitchcock stories read when I was in elementary school, I wonder if this book will give kids nightmares.  What do you think?

Wild Thing

Knitted Wild Animals: 15 Adorable, Easy-To-Knit Toys

by Sarah Keen

Words can't do this book justice, but I'm going to try anyway.  I confess I haven't made anything from the book, but my daughter has already selected the rhino for my next project.  What I love about these patterns is that the animals look like real stuffed (is that an oxymoron?) animals, not those oddly shaped creatures that look like you were on drugs when you made them.  The pictures in the book are clear, close-up and cute.  The patterns read as easy-to-understand.  There even is information about the real animals.  Best of all, it really doesn't matter if you have the correct weight yarn or knit to the correct gauge -- the only difference at the end of the day will be the size of the animal you create!  Sounds just like the ideal project for the knitter who wants to move on from making rectangles of various sizes (shawls, scarfs, blankets).

I told a friend of mine that I was going to buy this book.  She asked me to order a copy for her.  As she put it, "If I start now, by the time I have grandchildren [her oldest is 20 with no spouse in sight], I may have one animal done."