So many wonderful, wonderful books and so little time! Here are a few middle-grade and young adult books I read in the last couple of months.Gorilla DawnI know a little about gorillas being endangered because I began to read up bits and pieces about it when I saw articles linking the fate of gorillas to the largescale use of palm oil. But even in the articles I read, I had no idea about coltan and its use in every electronic device we use. The threat that mining poses to gorilla habitat is real and frightening.(And so, first of all, all those who've been telling me I need to get a new phone, read this book.)I read Gill Lewis's White Dolphin years ago, but it stayed fresh in my mind because it is such a powerful story. I also had a fan girl moment recently when Gill Lewis retweeted a review I posted of Me and Mister P. Sky Hawk has been on my … [Read more...]
Touching Spirit Bear
I'm usually not one of those readers who sits and finishes a book in a day. Unless a story is really compelling, I get distracted easily. I have a hundred other things to do each day, and I do them without being drawn back to my book. I also usually keep track of a storyline, so I can return to a book a month later and continue where I left off.But Touching Spirit Bear drew me in and held me in the story. It moved me to tears more than once and was compelling enough to keep me reading, pushing away the guilt I usually feel when I ought to be doing something else but find myself reading instead.First off, I need to say that I am no one to talk about whether the references to Tlingit traditions are true or not. I honestly have no idea. Before this book, I had no clue about the concept of Circle Justice.I loved the story because it struck a chord. The rawness of emotion wrung … [Read more...]
The One and Only Ivan
I just went onto Goodreads and saw that The One and Only Ivan has over 110,000 reviews. I'm not surprised, though. It's exactly that kind of book, the kind that makes you want to tell everyone about it. It's achingly sweet: a lovely story that leaves you sad, happy and everything else in between. Things aren't perfect, but somehow, in the only possible way given the circumstances, amends have been made.Ivan is a gorilla who deludes himself into believing that the glass cage in which he lives is his domain. He is a silverback, the leader of his troop. Except that in his new domain - with a tyre swing and paintings of nature - there are no other gorillas. Instead, next door, he has Stella the elephant, who has a sore foot, a remnant of her time in a circus. She does tricks to entertain human visitors.Ivan, who watches TV and draws, never gets his hopes up too high. He has learnt … [Read more...]
The Mumbelievable Challenge
Isn't the name itself delightful? Mumbelievable is such a fun word!The Mumbelievable Challenge, true to its name is a lovely read. It's one of those rare books that is part of a series but does not require you to read the first one first! In fact, I didn't even know that this was the second Dadventure (another fun word) until I started writing this post.Mum has a challenge for Holly and her dad - a screen-free five days in a log cabin. Not only does Holly have to live without access to any kind of screen, but she also finds that her mum has set a challenge for her to complete each day. What starts off as a drag ends up being fun and even exciting, especially when Holly meets Zeb, who is camping in the forest with his dad. The best thing of all is that Holly finds that Zeb is as embarrassed by his father as she is by hers.Zeb becomes part of the challenge too and together, … [Read more...]
Moin and the Monster
Moin and the Monster has been on my list of books to read for a long time, and I finally got around to reading it mainly because of the essay I did for The Curious Reader on "The Problem With Monster Stereotypes In Literature". Of course, it was impossible to read every book on monsters for a 1000-word essay, but finally, I had the perfect reason to put everything aside and read this one.It was excellent: deliciously funny and wholly unusual. I chuckled at Moin's uneasy relationship with a monster that is full of rules that it spouts all the time. Moin is, unfortunately, stuck with this monster who loves to sing, for one of the rules states that a monster must stay with the human who gives it shape by drawing it.From joining singing class so that he can justify the constant singing from his room to trying to explain away the disappearance of hundreds of bananas, … [Read more...]
Before We Were Free
All of us know stories of the Holocaust. Recently, I read something on social media that claimed that The Diary of a Young Girl is among the ten most widely read books in the world. Don't get me wrong; stories of the Holocaust are crucial. They teach us lessons that are horrifyingly relevant today.Yet, when we read stories about Germany, Hitler and the Jews to the exclusion of stories of horrors that have occurred - and continue to occur - in other parts of the world, we feed into the age-old problem of Eurocentricism. We need other stories so that we don't think of the Holocaust as one terrible period in history, which is over and done with.Before We Were Free is the story of a child living under a dictator in the Dominican Republic. Twelve-year-old Anita does not believe that she is not free. What does that even mean? She lives with her extended family and … [Read more...]
The 13-Storey Treehouse
Have you ever read a book that was not at all "your" kind of book, but you ended up enjoying it anyway? The 13-Storey Treehouse was exactly that, for me. It was a gentle reminder that I never know what my "kind" of book is until I read it.Why was it not my kind of book?Two reasons immediately come to mind.One, I don't like books with so many pictures unless they're picture books.Two, I often don't like the kind of humour we find in The 13-Storey Treehouse.Why did I pick it up?One huge reason: children love it. When I conducted workshops for the British Council's Big Friendly Read Reading Challenge, everyone's favourite book was The 13-Storey Treehouse. This was several years ago, but the number of children who said it was the best book in the collection made me remember the title and look out for it.Even when I picked it up, I … [Read more...]
The Explorer
With some writers, I feel I just cannot go wrong. Katherine Rundell is one of them. Sure, I like some books more than others, but at the end of each one, I find myself smiling, deeply contented. I didn't write about the first two books I read by Rundell (The Girl Savage and Rooftoppers), but I did review The Wolf Wilder, which was one of the top ten middle-grade books I read in 2018.The Explorer began slowly, just like The Wolf Wilder. I took a while to get into the story and feel for the characters - I even read another book in between. Yet, when I came back to The Explorer, I stayed, sucked into the secrets of the jungle.A six-seater plane crashes into the Amazon rainforest. The pilot dies, leaving four children who barely know one another. There's Lila, who is fiercely protective of her five-year-old brother Max. Then there's Con, who seems … [Read more...]
The Case of the Candy Bandit
There were so many things I liked about The Case of the Candy Bandit! For one, I enjoyed the fact that the Superlative Supersleuths were a pair of girls - aided (temporarily) by another girl. I liked the seriousness with which Rachita went about the business of being a detective, and I loved all the sprinklings of humour, particularly the outrageous hypotheses the girls came up with. Could the candy bandit be the counsellor conducting some sort of secret research experiment on the children?At Rachita and Aarti's school, to encourage the children to finish their lunch, the counsellor suggests that they be given a treat--which is to be denied if the children do not eat their lunch. One day, though, many of the treats disappear. And this happens not once, but a number of times. Aided (maybe ... somewhat ...) by the idea of the centre of gravity, Rachita must … [Read more...]
His Royal Whiskers
I giggled and gasped at how imaginative this crazy story is. Full of puns and clever humour, I chuckled at Empurrer Alexander, six-year-old prince who is turned into a cat by a young alchemist, Teresa. It could have been a CATastrophe; instead it was purrfect.I know lots of people would not recommend this book to children; I wonder whether I would have enjoyed it as a child, for there are parts that are gloomy, other parts that are gory, and still others that are gruesome. Yet, I enjoyed the book. Sam Gayton's imagination is incredible!The first book I read by him was Lilliput. I loved it, but somehow ended up writing just a one-line review. I later read The Snow Merchant, which I enjoyed too, though not as much.His Royal Whiskers was a roller-coaster ride for the imagination, with every twist and turn as plausible as the previous one, but as gasp-worthy. Teresa and Pieter … [Read more...]