Review: Lalani of the Distant Sea

Lalani of the Distant Sea by Erin Entrada Kelly, illustrated by Lian Cho.
Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins, New York, 2019.
MG fantasy, 390 pages.
Lexile:  600L   .
AR Level:  4.4 (worth 7.0 points)  .

Sanlagita is a cursed isle, with harsh conditions and strict predetermined roles.  The only festival left is Sailing Day, a time of fear as the strongest Sanlagitans are sent to certain death.  But now a drought is changing things on the island for the worse.

Lalani of the Distant Sea by Erin Entrada Kelly, illustrated by Lian Cho.

This book reminded me of nothing so much as Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.  Although the story and flavor are quite different, Kelly also uses the device of stories within a longer story to great effect.  The stories are short and set off from the main text by the use of a different font and a decorative border around the margins.

Review: Ready to Hatch an Unusual Chicken?

Are You Ready to Hatch an Unusual Chicken? by Kelly Jones, illustrated by Katie Kath.
Borzoi, Alfred A. Knopf, Penguin Random House, New York, 2018.
Speculative/realistic fiction epistolary novel, 312 pages.
Lexile:  840L  .
AR Level:  not yet leveled.
NOTE:  Sequel to Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer.

Sophie is back! and now using email, receiving chicks and eggs by mail, and facing the Unusual Poultry Committee.  Can she hatch the new chicks, pass her inspection test, and help everybody get along?

If you read my review of the previous book, or the post where I wished for a sequel, then you can guess that we preordered this book as soon as I knew of its existence.  We loved the first book, and I’m thrilled that this book, unusual both in concept and format, has now become a series.

This book brings several changes.  Sophie is now corresponding by email, although she still writes long, heartfelt letters to her beloved Abuelita and other physical correspondence and ephemera are still an important part of the novel.  The previous book took place over the summer, but this one involves school.  Which means, of course, a whole new round of microaggressions as Sophie meets new teachers and students.  They are handled just as deftly as in the previous book.

Graphic Novel? Review: Tina’s Mouth

Tina’s Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary by Keshni Kashyap, illustrated by Mari Araki.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, 2011.
Illuminated realistic fiction, 247 pages.
Lexile:  not leveled
AR Level:  4.7 (worth 3.0 points)  .
NOTE: This is a YA book, not intended for younger children.

Tina Malhotra is the youngest in a family of five and a sophomore at the mostly white Yarborough Academy.  She’s taking an Honors English elective course in existential philosophy, and has taken on an assignment to write letters to Jean-Paul Satre about the process of discovering who she is and who she is becoming.

Tina’s Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary by Keshni Kashyap, illustrated by Mari Araki.

The format of this book was different to any I’ve read before.  I hesitate to call it a graphic novel (although the dust jacket does so) because large portions of the story were carried through text only.  Neither was it an illuminated work because whole pages at a time would be done in a comic style relying on both text and illustrations.

Review: The Red Pencil

The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Shane Evans.
Little, Brown, and Company, Hachette Book Group, New York, 2014.
Middle grade novel in verse, 331 pages including extras but not excerpts.
Lexile:  HL620L  (What does HL mean in Lexile?)
AR Level:  4.2 (worth 3.0 points)  .

Amira is a young village girl who dreams of going to school and learning to read the Koran.  But her mother desires a more traditional life for her.  Then the Janjaweed attack, and it seems like all dreams, and words, are gone forever.  Can a gift restore hope?

This one was a bit of a gamble.  I have yet to dislike a book by any of the Pinkneys – individually and collectively they are so talented that the name alone can sell me on a book.  Plus I have loved Shane Evans’ work, and the kids find his illustrations appealing too.

But.  This is a novel in verse.  I wasn’t actually aware that it was illuminated until after purchasing, and Shane Evans’s illustrations did take the edge off.  But as I’ve said before, novels in verse rarely work for me.  I love poetry and novels, but feel that the combination usually loses something.  For this reason, I don’t often seek those books out unless they come highly recommended or with an author/illustrator team I can’t ignore.

Review: Absolutely True Diary Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: A Novel by Sherman Alexie, illustrated by Ellen Forney.
Little, Brown, and Company, Hachette Book Group, New York, 2007, my edition 2009.
YA realistic fiction, 230 pages not including extras.
Winner of many awards including a National Book Award.
Lexile:  600L  .
AR Level:  4.0 (worth 6.0 points)  .
NOTE: Due to content, this is not generally recommended for middle school students.

EDIT 3/23/2018: Based on new information about Sherman Alexie, I no longer feel comfortable recommending any of his books.

Junior is a Spokane Indian with a life from a Greek tragedy – medical woes, funerals, poverty, and picked on, he still tries to find the humor in life and look for the hope in his future in this semi-autobiographical novel.

Despite all the accolades, and my recent positive experiences of Alexie’s work, I did not expect to love this book the way I did.  Alexie seems mostly known for his literary fiction.  Diary is a YA book still interesting to the general adult fiction reader.  Unlike The Sun is Also a Star, which I might recommend to certain adults, The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian is a teen coming-of-age story that I would recommend to almost any adult reader.  Arnold Spirit, Junior, is a Spokane Indian with hydrocephalus, a stutter, and a few other challenges, like dire poverty and 30-year-old textbooks.

Despite a life where the cards seem stacked against him, Junior perseveres, chasing his hope through tragic deaths and ridiculous logistics (how do you get to school 22 miles away when you’re incredibly poor and there’s no bus?  Answer: sometimes you don’t.  Sometimes you walk.)

Review: Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer by Kelly Jones, illustrated by Katie Kath.
Borzoi, Alfred A. Knopf, Random House, New York, 2015.
Speculative/realistic fiction epistolary novel, 216 pages.
Lexile:  880L
AR Level:  5.2 (worth 5.0 points)

Sophie Brown’s family has moved from LA to Gravenstein, California.  They’ve traded their apartment for a house and farm filled with all the many things her great-uncle Jim had saved.  A farm doesn’t feel right without any animals, but they’ll have to be cheap because money is tight since Dad lost his job and they started relying on Mom’s income as a freelance writer.  Then a chicken turns up… a very special chicken.

Amazon kept recommending this book to me since I started buying diverse books.  Nothing in the description suggests a PoC is in this book and in the tiny cover preview, Sophie didn’t look dark-skinned.  Eventually I ordered a copy – but mistakenly got a hardcover instead of the paperback.  Once it arrived I was glad for the mistake, because as soon as he saw this book, our reluctant reader started insisting that I read it to him that night.  I don’t turn down his book requests, and they are loving it so far.

This book was a wonderful surprise.  The format is unusual (just like those chickens).  There also is a paranormal/science fiction aspect that would be a major spoiler to discuss.

Review: Dara Palmer’s Major Drama

Dara Palmer’s Major Drama by Emma Shevah.
UK: The Chicken House.  US reprint: Scholastic, New York, 2015.
Middle grade realistic fiction, illuminated book, 282 pages (including extras).
Lexile: 760L
AR Level: 4.8 (worth 7.0 points)

Dara Palmer’s life is sooo dramatic.  She was clearly born to be a star, you can tell by how much TV she watches!  It’s life or death that she gets the part of Maria in her school’s production of The Sound of Music, so when she doesn’t, some family members feel that it’s her dark skin keeping her from a part in the musical, not her overacting.

Dara Palmer’s Major Drama by Emma Shevah

This was entirely an impulse buy.  When I opened the book and discovered that it was illuminated (text is complemented/completed by pictures drawn around the margins and in the white space of the book), I was surprised.  Another surprise followed as I found out the book was set in Great Britain.  This edition is slightly Americanized (5th grade instead of 6th year), but the characters are still very British.

Dara Palmer is a pretty unlikeable character.  She literally states this at the end of the first chapter:

“This all happened a while ago now.  Let me just say, I was a different person back then.  I don’t know if you’re going to like the old me much when you hear what I was like, but I’ve changed.  Stuff happened along the way – all kinds of stuff, actually.  Nuns and noodles were just the beginning.” ~page 2

Dara is self-absorbed, overly dramatic, and yet somehow magnetic.  She comes off as very unsympathetic, until we get to know her a little more.  If it wasn’t for the caveat in the first chapter, I might not have made it past the second.  And that would have been a shame.