The Book Search

 School started this week and I'm a little behind the power curve on the SSYRA books this year.  I blame the shortened summer-we started late last year and so we ended three weeks late -three weeks less vacation.  Uh, gosh, that sounds like a first world problem, doesn't it?  Let's get to the book reviews, shall we? The first one is a terrific speculative fiction title called The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez by Adrianna Cuevas.  It's about Nestor, who has just moved to New Haven.  His dad is in the Army and they've moved often.  His dad is currently deployed in Afghanistan and Nestor misses him a LOT.  Nestor and his mom have moved in with Nestor's Abuela-his dad's mom, so there are lots of pieces of his dad around, like his dad's old baseball glove and the animal encyclopedia his dad made when he was a kid.  Nestor is very interested in animals too, and he can talk to them .  To his surprise, Nestor finds school to be ok.  He find...

 I LOVE the SSYRA (Sunshine State Young Reader Award) list.  In case you've never heard of it, librarians from across the state of Florida choose 15 books and kids from across the state read them and the kids get to vote on which one is best.  The books sometimes are ones that lots of people are talking about, and often are ones that haven't been on my radar, which makes it really fun.  They are always wonderful stories so it's a treat to get to read them!   I just finished "From the Desk of Zoe Washington" by Janae Marks.  It's about Zoe, who is an aspiring baker and almost middle school student.  One of her best friends has moved away, her other best friend is away for summer vacation and Zoe's really mad at her next-door neighbor best friend, because he didn't stand up for her when he was talking to some of his basketball buddies.  When Zoe comes home from her birthday party, there's a kind of surprise in the mail-a card from her dad, who is in...

I'm always surprised when the SSYRA list comes out that there are so many great books that I missed reading this year!  People who know me always say I read a lot, but CLEARLY, I'm missing a big chunk of great stuff because there are always surprises on the list!  These two titles were terrific surprises. The first one is realistic fiction.  It's called Caterpillar Summer by Gillian McDunn.  It's about a girl named Cat who lives with her mom and her little brother.  Her dad died awhile back and her mom struggles to make a living as an author and illustrator.  They are planning to spend some time with some friends who have moved far away over the summer but their friends have an unexpected emergency and so Cat and her little brother end up at the their grandparents' house in NC.  Except that they've never actually met their grandparents because they had a falling out with Cat's mom before the kids were born.  To complicate matters further, Cat's...

The new SSYRA lists (and FTR) have been announced and what a great job the committees did choosing books!  I know the kids are going to be super excited to see what fun books there are to read this year!  I'd read (and reviewed) a few of them already, including Inkling , but there were a lot more that I hadn't read.  Here are two that I was able to read this weekend. The first one is called Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat #1 by Johnny Marciano and Emily Chenoweth.  It's about a cat named Klawde, who lives on a planet called Lyttyrboks and it turns out that he's a pretty terrible cat.  He's been dethroned by General Ffangg and has only one loyal minion left-Floofee-Fyr.  He has been banished to Earth, a planet known to be desolate and inhabited by ogres.  Lucky for Klawde, he ends up in an ogre's house that actually wants him to be there-Raj's family has just moved to Oregon (where Klawde lands) and Raj has always really wanted a cat.  Raj convinc...

So we've got the new list for the Sunshine State Young Readers for the middle grades.  I'm starting with the 3rd to 5th grade, because those are for my students, but I'm hoping I'll have time to read the 6-8 as well, because some of my favorites are on there too! The first one I read this summer is called "Castle Hangnail" by Ursula Vernon.  I just got a series of books by Ursula Vernon for my school library about Harriet the Hamster Princess which is hilarious so I was looking forward to "Castle Hangnail" and I was NOT disappointed.  Castle Hangnail belongs to a witches guild and is in transition.  The old witch is gone and they are looking for a new witch.  There is a cast of minions that includes the caretaker (who has no name), a haunted suit of armor, a stuffed doll named Pins who takes care of wardrobe and furnishings, a minotaur that is the cook, and the cleaner, Serenissima, who is a water spirit that steams every thing clean.  They are a b...