Book Review: Ben Franklin: His Wit and Wisdom from A to Z, by Alan Schroeder (Holiday House, 2011)

Recommended for ages 7-12. 

While there is no shortage of books available on Ben Franklin and his amazing life, Alan Schroeder’s new picture book biography, written in an unusual almanac format uniquely suited to Franklin’s encyclopedic interests, is an attractive addition to books available for elementary school aged children. Written by Schroeder, author of other notable picture book biographies such as Minty:  A Story of Young Harriet Tubman,  and illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist and children’s book illustrator John O’Brien, this slim volume manages to pack a tremendous amount of information into the traditional 32-page picture book format.  


Each letter of the alphabet is represented by fitting entries related to Franklin and his life and work. For example, A is for Almanac (a brief three paragraph entry explains the popularity of almanacs in Colonial America and how Franklin was responsible for the most popular almanac of all, Poor Richard’s Almanac), Abiah (the name of Franklin’s mother), Apprentice (Franklin apprenticed in his brother’s printing shop), and Armonica (a musical instrument invented by Franklin).  Franklin’s witty sayings, many of which remain popular today, appear on small banners in the detailed ink and watercolor illustrations.  


While the format of this book does not present Franklin’s life and achievements in a traditional chronological order, the author and illustrator make abundant use of the almanac format to present a variety of fascinating details about the great man.  Under “H”, we discover that Franklin was a “hero” (he saved a man from drowning once) and that his mother subscribed to “hardening off” for all her offspring, meaning that the baby Ben was dunked in cold water three times a day (thought to keep infants robust and healthy!)  


I don’t envision this book so much as a classroom read-aloud; rather it’s a book I can imagine a child poring over, with or without an adult, engrossed in the many fine details of the illustrations, the pithy quotations, and the wide variety of experiences of Dr. Franklin.  

Blog Tour and Book Review: Haunting Violet, by Alyxandra Harvey (Bloomsbury, 2011)

Recommended for ages 12 and up.

I'm delighted to participate in the blog tour for Alyxandra Harvey’s new novel, Haunting Violet, set in Victorian England. It's a deliciously frightening paranormal historical fantasy just right for summer reading.  Alyxandra is also the author of The Drake Chronicles, a popular vampire series whose fourth volume is due out in November.

In Haunting Violet, our young heroine, Violet Willoughby, has been forced for years to help out in the “family business”--her stunningly beautiful mother puts on fake seances for bereaved parents, husbands and wives to contact loved ones in the beyond.  Their fortunes are picking up, and they’ve been invited to Rosefield, the luxurious country estate of Lord Jasper, a wealthy and influential earl with a strong interest in spiritualism.  Violet is looking forward to visiting with her friend Elizabeth, Lord Jasper’s goddaughter, while Violet’s mother hopes to finalize a possible match between her daughter and Xavier, a kind, handsome, and wealthy young man who’s also attending the country gathering.  But Violet is much more attracted to the unsuitable Colin, an Irish lad who is her mother’s assistant, and whose kisses make her feel “devoured, delicious, decadent..”  

Violet doesn’t believe in ghosts--how could she after her exposure to all the tricks of her mother’s medium trade?  So no one is more astonished than Violet when, at the first of her mother’s seances at Lord Jasper’s estate, she sees a girl in the shadows, dripping water.  Here’s Harvey’s creepy description of Violet’s first ghost sighting:

“She met my eyes and it was as if winter blew through the parlor.  When she opened her mouth, the sound was muffled and high-pitched, like nothing I had ever heard before.  She walked toward me, suddenly close enough that the hem of my skirt drew damp and cold.  I cringed back in my chair, looking around wildly...sweat pooled under my arm.”  

What is the ghost doing there?  It turns out she’s Rowena, who drowned the previous year--or was she murdered?  She’s desperately trying to warn her twin sister Tabitha of the danger of meeting the same fate, even using a “spirit board” to spell out messages to avert impending doom.  And there’s more ghosts who appear to Violet as well; at Lord Jasper’s ball they’re all over the ballroom, but only Violet can see them, and feel them rushing at her with their spirit hands.  Harvey’s descriptions of ghostly activity are sure to send a chill down the spine of her teen readers.  Will Violet be able to help Tabitha escape her fate, and solve the mystery of her sister’s drowning?  And what will her own future hold?


Harvey imbues this romantic tale with a mystery, romance, and above all, a wry sense of humor; Violet is particularly aware of the irony of her ridiculous situation:  “The real problem was that I didn’t actually believe in ghosts.  But they clearly believed in me.”  They should have the decency to stay dead, she quips at one point.  The reader has the distinct impression that Harvey, and her heroine, are winking at us through the pages!

Readers who enjoy this novel might also want to read Laura Amy Schlitz’s A Drowned Maiden’s Hair, another gothic tale which also revolves around a young girl caught up in the schemes of fake mediums, this time in early 20th century New England.  

Book Review: Karma: A Verse Novel, by Cathy Ostlere (Razorbill, 2011)

Recommended for ages 12 and up.


I was immediately drawn into Cathy Ostlere's stunning debut novel, Karma, written in free verse and set in India during the turbulent period immediately after the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984.  Her 15-year old heroine, Maya, a Canadian teenager who’s half-Hindu, and half-Sikh, is traveling with her grief-stricken father to India with the ashes of her mother and a new diary to record her thoughts.  On the night they arrive, the prime minister is killed in her own garden by her Sikh guards, and In the turmoil and harrowing violence that erupt immediately after the assassination, Maya and her father are separated.  With no time to think, Maya cuts off her hair and disguises herself as a boy, running to the train station to try to find her father.  When he doesn’t arrive, she gets on a train anyway, not knowing exactly where she is headed in the chaos.  On the train journey, she witnesses unimaginable horrors, and is so traumatized she is unable to speak.  


Taken in by a kind doctor’s family, where no one knows who she is or where she comes from, Maya struggles to come back to life, with the help of Sandeep, an orphan boy who she’s just met.  She has lost everything--but she will find love, open her heart, and recover her voice with Sandeep, who eventually takes her back to Dehli to try to find her father.  While Maya is mute, Sandeep takes over the narration in the second half of the novel, giving the book two distinct voices.  Toward the end of the novel, Maya resumes the narration.  


This is a deeply romantic story of young love, passion, family, and trauma, where the evocative poetry serves to heighten the drama and suspense of the story.  Because of the suspense of the story line, you will want to hurry along to find out what happens, but don’t forget to take the time to admire Ostlere’s elegant poetry, sometimes written in two columns.  Asked often why the novel is written in free verse, she eloquently replies:  “The best answer I have to this question is that Karma’s poetic form suits the emotional lives of Maya and Sandeep. Their feelings are intense, their insights into the world are sharp and critical, and their understanding of what it means to be human is fresh, ragged, not yet smoothed by maturity, not yet smoothed by conventional narrative. Poetry is the perfect medium for their age. The short sentence. The precise image. The outbursts of feeling. Maya and Sandeep invite the reader to look inside their diaries where they reveal an intimate world of secrets, confessions and longings, and where poetry is a fire.”


Although this book looks imposing at over 500 pages, it is actually a relatively quick read because of the free verse format, and like the books of YA authors Ellen Hopkins and Sonya Sones, would be a good recommendation for reluctant readers.  With its exotic setting, it’s also a great fit with this year’s One World, Many Stories summer reading theme.  


Ostlere’s website gives additional background on the genesis of this novel, which took root during her own travels in India in 1984, and the origin of the character of Maya, who is inspired by a young Indian girl she knew growing up in Canada, as well as some stunning photographs evoking the brilliant colors of India.

Book Review: For the Love of Music: The Remarkable Story of Maria Anna Mozart, by Elizabeth Rusch (2011, Tricycle Press)

Recommended for ages 8 to 12.

I started studying classical piano when I was six years old, and some of my fondest reading memories are checking out children’s biographies of great composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach from our local public library.  I was especially fascinated by Mozart, with his seemingly glamorous childhood travelling to all the courts of Europe.  My young self would have been delighted with Elizabeth Rusch’s new picture book biography about Mozart’s gifted older sister, Maria Anna Mozart, which is a perfect book to share with budding young musicians.

Like her more famous brother, Maria Anna (usually known by her nickname, Nannerl), showed an early gift for music.  Her father was a court musician, and the house was filled with music.  Her brother, Wolfgang, was born when she was five, and by the time she was ten, the two of them were giving concerts all over Europe.  She, too, was considered one of the great pianists of Europe, and the family toured for three years.  She was the first to write down her brother’s compositions, and his first duets were for the two of them to play together. But by the time of their next tour, Maria was left at home with her mother, although she continued performing in private concerts and even composed her own music (sadly, none of her own music survives).  Without saying so directly, the book makes it clear that Maria did not have the opportunities of her brother; she eventually married and moved to a tiny town far from Salzburg, taking her piano with her.  At the end of her life, she moved back to Salzburg, where she taught piano to many children.  The book concludes with a moving scene of Maria as an elderly lady, making music with her nephew, Wolfgang’s son.  

Author Elizabeth Rusch, together with illustrator/designers Lou Fancher and Steve Johnson, have constructed a design for this picture book biography that pays tribute to the elegant perfection we associate with Mozart’s piano music.  The illustrations are collages of remnants of 18th century style fabric, reproductions of Mozart’s letters and musical scores, along with oil and acrylic paintings on canvas.  The elaborate fabrics in the 18th century clothing worn by the figures in the paintings is echoed in the patchwork remnants which surround the printed text.  Moreover, the narrative is written in sonata-allegro form, the musical structure which underlies classical sonatas.  In other words, the narrative is divided into movements in lieu of short chapters:  first movement, development, recapitulation, coda, etc.  This sophistication will go completely over the heads of young children who are not immersed in classical music lessons, but is not entirely necessary to enjoy the story.  This book can therefore be enjoyed on several levels, one requiring some musical knowledge and sophistication, but also just on the level of a compelling story of an unsung musical genius of the 18th century.

The book includes an afterword with additional biographical information on Maria, as well as a brief bibliography.  

Tweens and other young readers interested in learning more about Mozart’s gifted sister should seek out Carolyn Meyer’s excellent novel, In Mozart’s Shadow:  His Sister’s Story (Harcourt, 2008).  

Nonfiction Monday Book Review: Miss Dorothy and her Bookmobile, by Gloria Houston (Harper Collins, 2011)

Recommended for ages 6-9.

Author Gloria Houston and illustrator Susan Condie Lamb, who last teamed up for the beloved award-winning picture book My Great Aunt Arizona, have created another heartwarming and inspiring story about the special people who love books and sharing them with others.

Miss Dorothy decided to be a librarian as a young girl, because she loved books and loved people, so what could be better?  But when she fell in love and moved with her husband to the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, there was no library there.  But that didn't stop Miss Dorothy, and soon the community raised money for a bookmobile, with Miss Dorothy as the librarian.  We see her delivering books all over town, and Miss Dorothy "smiling the broad smile of a happy librarian, who enjoys nothing so much as sharing her books with her friends."  Eventually a little house is donated as a library, and Miss Dorothy finally has a real library building.  At the end, we see an elderly Miss Dorothy receiving letters from her readers, near and far.  An author's note tells us a little more about the real Dorothy Thomas, who was one of the author's heroes as a child growing up.

This is a charming book for anyone who loves books, libraries, and the power of words to change lives.  Highly recommended!

Book Review: Between shades of gray, by Ruta Sepetys (Philomel Books, 2011)

Recommended for ages 12 and up.

Debut novelist Ruta Sepetys has written a heart-wrenching and riveting account of a little-known episode of recent history--the Soviet reign of terror in Lithuania from 1940-1953, when the Soviets arrested and deported more than 300,000 Lithuanians, sending them in cattle cars across Europe and Asia to forced labor camps and finally to nearly certain death in the forests of Siberia.

Our heroine is the 15-year old Lina, whose great excitement is her acceptance into a prestigious art school for the summer.  However, her upper-middle class life along with her hopes and dreams are shattered when the Soviet Secret Police storm into her house one night in 1941, arresting her along with her mother and younger brother.  Her university professor father had already been arrested and sent to a prison camp.  "They took me in my nightgown," her saga begins, told in spare prose that heightens the intrinsic drama of the narrative.  Their harrowing six-week journey in cattle cars, with little food and water, to an unknown destination recalls numerous Holocaust narratives.  Dead bodies, of which there are more daily, are thrown from the trains.  They finally arrive at their destination--a collective farm in Siberia where they all became beet farmers.  "I hated beets," remarks Lina.

Living in a small shack with very little food and plenty of work, Lina and her family fight despair and sickness, yet manage to celebrate Christmas with their countrymen, with everyone providing bits of food they had pilfered from the Russians.  Lina even begins to have a bit of a romance with another young prisoner.  But things are to get much worse for Lina and her family when they are transferred to a camp in the Arctic Circle, where they are forced to build dwellings for the Soviets out of bricks, furnished with good stoves and American canned food, while they must survive in huts built from driftwood and mud and tiny rations of bread.  Can Lina and her family survive the freezing storms and starvation?  Will they ever see their home in Lithuania again?

Like Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken (reviewed last month on this blog) and so many Holocaust memoirs and novels, this book is ultimately about the best and the worst humanity has to offer, a testament to the tremendous power of the human spirit to survive in the face of unimaginable horrors and hardship.  Despite the nightmares she endures, Lina wants desperately to survive, and makes herself and her brother repeat the mantra, "we're going home."

Sepetys' book, which debuted in March, landed on the New York Times bestseller list and has received glowing reviews in major newspapers around the country as well as starred reviews in Booklist, School Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and Kirkus.  While the book is being marketed in the U.S. as a young adult book, it is equally compelling for adult readers, and in fact,  in 16 of the 23 countries in which the book was sold, it is being released as an adult title, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A website for the book features a discussion guide for book club or classroom use.  This would be an excellent book to compare with The Diary of Anne Frank, and I hope it will find its way into high school curricula.  While it is certainly not a typical "light" summer read, its international setting makes it well suited for promotion during summer reading this year, for those libraries who are participating in the World Culture/Travel theme.

Related articles

• An Unlikely Story for Teens: 'Between Shades of Gray' (online.wsj.com)

Book Review: The Revenant, by Sonia Gensler (Alfred A. Knopf Books, 2011)

Recommended for ages 12 and up.

With The Revenant, which hits bookstores this week, debut author Sonia Gensler has crafted a historical fiction/paranormal romance page turner perfect for summer reading. Our heroine is seventeen year old Willie--a self-described liar and a cheat. Desperate to avoid having to return home to help her mother take care of her half-brothers, she fakes educational credentials to get hired as an English teacher at the Cherokee Female Seminary in Indian Territory.

It’s 1896, and Willie doesn’t know what to expect from her new position, but she certainly doesn’t expect to find a her pupils are mostly mixed-race, upper-class young Cherokee ladies who are much more sophisticated and privileged than she is. Nor does she expect the school to be shrouded in mystery--one of their students had supposedly drowned and now her classmates believe that the young girl’s spirit haunts Willie’s room. Willie doesn’t believe in ghosts, but she can’t explain the peculiar noises and the strange events happening at school. Could it be a revenant--one who returns from the dead?

She also doesn’t know what to make of her attraction to a handsome, charming young man, Eli Sevenstar, who’s a student at the nearby Cherokee academy for boys. Romance between an instructor and a student is surely prohibited, not to mention a romance with a native. But in the meantime Willie has to figure out how to grade all the English assignments she has given out, organize the students in a Shakespeare play, and solve a murder mystery--a hefty load for any proper young lady. Can she survive long enough to figure out her own destiny?

This book offers plenty of suspense and entertainment for fans of ghost stories, mysteries and the paranormal, with a good dose of history in the mix as well. My favorite element of the book was definitely the detailed historical setting. While I was familiar with the outlines of the Cherokee Trail of Tears, when the tribe was forced to move from Georgia to what is now Oklahoma, I was unfamiliar with the existence of a small group of wealthy Cherokees who signed a treaty with the Jackson administration and moved voluntarily to what was then Indian territory. An author’s note describes Gensler’s extensive research with primary sources at the Oklahoma Historical Society and Northeastern State University’s archives. This research provided accurate historical background, including depicting the tension on campus between Cherokee students of different economic classes. The main characters are highly appealing, and teens will enjoy the bit of forbidden romance as well.

Gensler’s website provides links to further information on the real Cherokee Female Seminary, which was staffed by graduates of Mount Holyoke and other Eastern colleges.




Disclosure: ARC provided by publisher.