Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff

Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff -- LaVaughn has high aspirations: she wants to go to college, something that people in her neighborhood rarely do. To make money for college, she takes a job babysitting Jeremy and Jilly, the two children of a girl only a few years older than LaVaughn herself. Can LaVaughn work and keep up with her studies, or will she get pulled into the drama of the struggling family she's working for?

This verse novel is a quick, thought-provoking read as LaVaughn searches for balance. I enjoyed it, but probably will not bother with the sequels.

(Reviewed from my personally purchased copy.)

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander is this year's Newbery Medalist.

Twelve-year-old Josh Bell is a basketball player, just like his dad, hoping to be as famous as his dad was, someday. Josh and his twin brother Jordan have been inseparable, on the court and off, all their lives. This year, though, things are changing. Jordan has a girlfriend, and Josh is, let's face it, a little bit jealous. When a spur-of-the-moment bad choice leads to Josh's suspension from the basketball team, he has to face up to more than one issue in his life and in his family.

More than a novel about basketball, this is a story of family dynamics that tugs the heartstrings with its pitch-perfect voice. I'm loving the fact that this Newbery medal winner is a book that I'll be able to recommend to all kinds of readers: sports fans, lovers of verse novels, readers who like a good story about siblings and families . . . really, anyone who enjoys a good, solid read.

(Reviewed from a copy borrowed through my library system.)

Salt by Helen Frost

Salt: A Story of Friendship in a Time of War by Helen Frost is a verse novel set in Fort Wayne, Indiana in the fall of 1812.

James is a young American settler living near Fort Wayne. His father runs the trading post there. Anikwa is a Native American boy living with his family in a nearby village. The two boys play, hunt, and fish together, and the families are on friendly terms and trade for the things they need -- salt to cure the meat Anikwa's family hunts, moccasins for James, which he finds more comfortable than the stiff boots his friends wear. But war is coming. Neither James' family nor the Miami tribe want to fight, but they may not have a choice when troops of British and American soldiers are pouring into the area, and nearby tribes have made agreements with the British that they will fight with them in exchange for land rights. Can James and Anikwa's friendship survive the turmoil of war?

I find stories like this bittersweet, since we all know where the story goes from here for Anikwa's people. I felt the sensitive cultural details were handled better in this book than in some, though the scant text of a verse novel leaves little room for any kind of description, context, or development. Perhaps the verse format is my largest issue with this book: I have read many verse novels, but few stand out as exemplary either as verse or as novels. I often feel constricted by the format, or frustrated at the sparseness of the text. Many times it just seems like chopped-up prose, and though there were a few pages where I felt that the format of this book worked, in most cases it was just an interesting visual effect. The author has chosen to arrange Anikwa's segments of the story in an undulating pattern resembling Miami ribbonwork, while James' lines run in stripes across the page -- my initial thought was that it was meant to bring to mind a log cabin, but the author's note indicated that it's meant to represent the stripes of the American flag. I did enjoy reading this book, don't get me wrong -- I'm just not sold on the format, which I think undercuts some of what the author is trying to accomplish in this story. However, readers who enjoy verse novels in general might find this one worth a look.

I'm attending a seminar later this week where this book will be one of the titles up for discussion, and it promises to be an interesting talk.

(Reviewed from a copy borrowed through my library system.)

Playing catch-up again

 So, the only way I can possibly manage to catch up on my backlog of books to review is to give some of them a very brief treatment, then (hopefully soon) write longer reviews of the books I have more to say about.  Here are the mini-reviews:

The Spy Princess by Sherwood Smith is another story of a young woman trying to find her place in a country on the brink of revolution. She has loyalties to both sides, and her attempts to help are not always successful -- in fact, they are often detrimental. The action is fairly good, but the characterization could be stronger. Also, I'd probably have enjoyed this more if I hadn't recently read Palace of Stone.


The Far West by Patricia C. Wrede probably deserves more than a mini-review, since I really did enjoy it, but it is the third in the series and hard to describe without spoilers. Suffice it to say that it is definitely worth reading if you enjoyed the first two books. If you're unfamiliar with them, the first book in the series is Thirteenth Child, and it's an alternate history of the Westward Expansion, but with magic. The Far West wraps things up pretty well, so I think it may be the conclusion of the series.


May B. by Caroline Starr Rose is also set on the western frontier, but without magic. It's a verse novel about May, a young girl who dreams of getting her teaching certificate, despite the fact that she finds reading extremely difficult. However, her parents need her to help in another way -- they take her out of school and send her to live as companion to a woman who has recently come west to marry a homesteader and is homesick. When disaster strikes, May learns that she is more capable than anyone might have supposed. There's a lot going on in this book, though the plot itself leans heavily on scenes from some of the Little House on the Prairie books. Readers who can't get enough of those stories should definitely read this one.

(Reviewed from copies borrowed through my library system.)

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate is many things: a verse novel, a tear-jerker, based on a true story. Ivan is a gorilla who has spent nearly 30 years as the main attraction in a run-down circus-themed shopping mall. He's been alone so long that, for all he knows, he might be the only gorilla left in the world -- despite the fact that, at his age, he should be the head of a gorilla family, resposible for protecting and leading his pack. His best friends are a scrappy homeless dog named Bob, and Stella, the elephant who is the mall's other main attraction. Ivan and Stella are resigned to living life in their small cages, but when the mall's owner Mack brings in Ruby, a baby elephant, Ivan finds that he does have something worth protecting, after all. How can he save Ruby from a lifetime of imprisonment at the shopping mall?

Ivan is a gorilla of great understanding but few words, so the spare format of the verse novel suits this book well. It's written as a middle-grade novel, and though it does contain a few emotionally distressing scenes, there are no overt instances of cruelty such as you might expect in an adult novel. The characters are complex -- even Mack, the owner of the shopping mall, is not simply painted as the Bad Guy. The book tackles a lot of thought-provoking issues about animal rights, without ever becoming too preachy -- and though I shed a few tears in the middle, the ending of the story is ultimately hopeful.

(Reviewed from a copy borrowed through my library system.)

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

I'm on top of things this year -- with only three new Newbery books to read, I should be able to tackle them fairly quickly!

My first read of the three is Newbery honor book and National Book Award winner Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai, a somewhat autobiographical verse novel about a ten-year-old Vietnamese girl.

It's 1975, and Hà lives in Saigon with her mother and brothers. Money is tight, but she is happy with her life there. The impending threat from the Communist regime, however, makes her mother uneasy. Should the family stay, or should they try to make their way out of Vietnam to France, Canada, or America? Eventually, Hà and her family find places on a boat leaving Vietnam on April 29th, the day before the Fall of Saigon. After a difficult voyage and a period of adjustment in a refugee camp, Hà's family is sponsored by a man from Alabama. How will Hà and her family adjust to life in a new country, where the language is strange and difficult and not all of the citizens are welcoming?

As with any verse novel, this is a fast read, even with taking time to savor a poetic thought here and there. However, even in this spare, bare-bones format, Hà's personality shines through. She's a little bit spunky, a little bit stubborn, and reminds me a lot of another Newbery Honor-winning heroine -- Ramona Quimby. Hà's struggles with schoolwork, brothers, and schoolyard bullies will resonate with readers, even those who have little knowledge of the politics surrounding the Vietnam War.

So, is this charming book deserving of the honors it has received? Yes, definitely.

(Review copy borrowed through my library system.)