Here's a 'no' right from the title. I refuse to have anything to do with novel that from the very title on down makes its main character and appendage of someone else, so Salisbury has a lto at stake.... "Twylla’s special gift" Twylla? Really? That's the best you got? "...makes her both valuable and dangerous — she can kill with a single touch. Isolated in the castle and waiting to be married to a prince, she meets a guard who doesn’t seem afraid of her power" of course she doe sbecause no matter what her power is, it;s inevitbalr the case that any woman in a YA novel absolutely requires a guy to save and vlaidate her. She;s utterly useless on ehr own. YA writers have this established in the constitution now. Woe betide anyone who disobeys their law. Barf.
Monday, November 1, 2021
The Gratitude Car by Isabelle Child, Vanity Olaires, Lana Mol
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This work is translated from the original Spanish, I assume, and I think it lost something in the translation. Curiously this did not appear to be a language issue! I would have loved to have seen the original version, but all I get is the ebook version which unfortunately too often leaves something to be desired. I'm not Spanish speaker by any means, but I feel I understand enough of it that - in a children's book like this - I could probably have got more out of the original than I did out of this.
I enjoyed the sentiment in this much more than the execution. The idea behind it is that not everyone gets what they want. No surprises there! But you can at least enjoy what you did get or what you already have. The idea is that this one family created a little paper 'car' which was actually a truck. I'm not sure why the original 'camion' (Spanish for 'truck') was translated this way unless it's because it's hard to get good rhymes with 'truck', but since car (In Spanish, that is 'coche') is only used in a rhyme once (with jar) in the entire book, it seems like a better choice would be 'cab', maybe.
However, this book was designed as a paperback with cutout plans for your own truck, which you can glue or stick together, so they were really rather locked into the original scheme. Anyway the idea is that they fill the back of the truck with their own grateful notes - about something they got which may not have been ideal, but for which they were thankful. This is a great attitude to have, but is the irony that the artwork in this book is so poor that one really needs to fill out a note saying how grateful we are for the bad artwork, because it's better than none at all?
I honestly do not know how this English version was made, but the feeling I got, right or wrong, is that maybe there never was an electronic version of this and in order to create the English review version, the original had to be scanned into a computer and maybe have English text added to it? Whatever it was, the end result is completely unacceptable.
The electronic version I got was appallingly scrappy, with very grainy artwork and poor positioning of the English text. I can't commend a version like this. Like I said, I never get to see the print version, but I sincerely hope it's better than this; however, given that all I have to judge this by is the version I was allowed to download, I cannot commend it because the design and quality of it are a disaster. Children - especially the impoverished ones this is evidently aimed at - deserve a lot better than this.
Jake and Ava A Boy and a Fish by Jonathan Balcombe, Rebecca Evans
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
I had thought this would be another grandpa fishing story, but it turned out to be a whole other kettle of fish, and being a lifelong vegetarian myself, I fully approved! It's a great book to be reviewing as the COP26 goes on right now.
I admired the stance taken here, because it's a very hard sell in the USA where everyone grows up feeling they have the innate right to rape and pillage nature and the hell with the consequences, and very few people ever truly question it - not really question it. But the fact is that life doesn't work the way most Americans like to comfortably think it does. The world isn't our oyster. Nature isn't here for us, and it isn't endlessly resilient. Now this self-centered 'I own it' attitude is coming back around to bite us, and we're starting to learn some hard lessons.
Fortunately Jake learns an easy lesson when he goes on the traditional fishing trip with grandpa. I never did go an any trips with any grandpas, but I would definitely have been Jake had I done so! They find a nice creek to set a lure and sit there waiting for a bite. This is how we mimic the manly man 'conquering' nature. Sad, isn't it? Meanwhile we get the underwater story too, as an uncle and his niece - archer fish - go out hunting themselves, and Ava is the fish who mistakenly bites on Jake's lure.
Jake chooses compassion for the fish and lets her go. He will never know it was Ava, and she will never know it was Jake, but that was decidedly a magical moment! I fully commend this book as both a worthy read and an unexpected and unusual bonus. And I wish it all the success in the world.
I'll Go Rhythm by Justin Webb, Kayla Stark
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This was a sweet and up-to-the-minute book of about 20 pages, creatively illustrated by Stark, and written in rhyme by Webb. It's about how people are herded and misled by the social media that most of us are hobbled to. I loved the title! Very much my kind of a play on words!
If you wanted to watch something truly scary for Halloween, you should have ditched the usual fare and watched a documentary on Netflix titled The Social Dilemma which is about how the social networks drill down on you and record your every nuance every time you do anything online. They know you better than you know yourself and they have algorithms in place to take advantage of the vast database that they own and that is you, and they will feed you things that are not intended to be necessarily in your best interest, but which are certainly intended to stroke your ego and keep you addicted to the platform you're on. There's a reason people who avail themselves of these services are called 'users'. It's the reason I have zero social media presence.
That was very much a documentary aimed at grown-ups; this book could well be the young children-accessible equivalent, right here. The story explains in terms children can understand, how your 'phantom friend' will come and lure you into seeking approval, getting those all-important likes, going down rabbit holes that reinforce themselves all along the way, and essentially wasting time getting depressed about your life and feeling bad about yourself, buoyed up just enough, now and then from the occasional thrill of finding something you like or that seems designed especially with you in mind, to keep you coming back. It's a sad and dependent way to live, and this book illustrated the dangers admirably - along with the wise choice of the girl to go her own way and follow the beat of her own drum. I commend it as a worthy read.
The Adventures of Johnny Butterflyseed by Tarisa Parrish, Stephanie Richoll
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
The United States is a nation not known for its love of monarchs - in fact, its very existence is due to overturning one. Whether that historical lack of respect has any bearing on the plight of the present day monarch butterfly is an open question, but these are modern day monarchs which are suffering every bit as much as King George 3rd did with his mystery illness. They're just suffering in a different way.
With the solid words of Parrish, based on real-life experience, and the beautiful art of Richoll and her charming butterfly girls, this book tells a short story of how every one of us can become a 'butterfly farmer' and help grow the milkweed that in turns grows the monarchs, and will help them recover from farming practices that have not been the monarch's friend - nor the friend to a host of other wildlife either.
For me the language of the story was a bit overly-florid at times, but it was about flowers and butterflies after all, so I guess I can't complain about that! I did love the story, and especially the can-do positivity, as well as the idea that everybody can pitch in here, and I fully commend this as a worthy read.
The Happy Owls by Celestino Piatti
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Boldly drawn and colored by the author, this book is short and sweet and very much to the point, if only you're open to the message! The owls always seem content, cooing softly in their tumble-down ruin of a building. Meanwhile in the nearby farmyard, the animals are always feeding their faces and then squabbling. The wise owls try to explain that they should enjoy the moment, live for the now, and enjoy each new season as it comes around once more, but the impatient farmyard critters don't seem to get it. The owls do though and that's all that matters to them! They can't force others to understand. The story was entertaining and surprisingly deep and warm, and I commend this as a worthy read.
The Power of Kindness Through the Eyes of Children by Ruth Maille
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
Written by Ruth Maille, with art by the Pencilmaster Studio, this book of about twenty nicely-illustrated and colorful pages talks children through not only what kindness actually is, but also encourages them to share examples of kind things that a child might do, thereby illustrating and reinforcing an important lesson. There are many ways to be kind, and this book certainly gives a wide variety of options, ideas, and suggestions. The artwork is wonderfully diverse, although it would not have hurt to have had a disability represented in there. Other than that, it was very well done and I commend this as a worthy read.
Feeling Lonely by Mary Lindeen
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This is the third of three books by this author for young kids I'll be reviewing this month, which focus on difficult feelings that children may have, and may not even have a name for, much less understand, but which are an important part of life; sometimes a debilitating one, and which cover topics such as sadness, shyness, and in this case, loneliness. The book does a great job of dissociating minor, transient feelings of being alone, from a more serious condition of feeling lonely and not a part of things, even when there are others around you having fun and enjoying company.
The book is about thirty pages long and consists of a series of photographs, mostly of children, accompanied by short captions discussing the topic, asking questions, offering ideas and suggestions about what to do if you have these feelings, how to recognize them, and how to deal with them if you think you see these same feelings in others.
The captions are not overly dramatic. They're quite nuanced and very reasonable, and indicate that some people might not just be alone on occasion, but more commonly feel apart and isolated from everyone else even when there are others around. I felt this was a good approach in that it leads children to think more about their feelings and to distinguish better between something that's not a worry, and something else that might need their attention, and even the help of others.
The book is very diverse in its imagery, featuring children of all ethnicities, but for me there was a complete lack of pictures showing children with any sort of disability. While I can see how that could distract somewhat from the main topic, or perhaps even lead to some confusion, my own feeling is that it would not hurt to have shown a child with crutches or in a wheelchair or something like that. A disability might well be a root cause of feelings of loneliness, sadness, or shyness.
That was my only concern about the book. Otherwise it was wonderful, and I commend this one as a worthy read to both educate children to the problem of loneliness, which is not easy to pin down, and also to encourage those who are experiencing such feelings to open up and perhaps even encourage them to reach out and seek the help they need as well as promote awareness in other children of these conditions.
Feeling Sad by Mary Lindeen
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This is the second of three books by this author for young kids I'll be reviewing this month, which focus on difficult feelings that children may have, and may not even have a name for, much less understand, but which are an important part of life; sometimes a debilitating one, and which cover topics such as loneliness, shyness, and in this case, sadness.
The book is about thirty pages long and consists of a series of photographs, mostly of children, accompanied by short captions discussing the topic, asking questions, offering ideas and suggestions about what to do if you have these feelings, how to recognize them, and how to deal with them if you think you see these same feelings in others. Feelings of sadness can derive from a variety of sources and this book does a great job is indicating this.
The captions are not overly dramatic. They're nuanced and reasonable, and indicate that some people might experience some of these feelings part of the time, but otherwise feel fine. In other cases, the feelings might be more pressing. I felt this was a good approach in that it leads thoughts into these areas without risking making children feel like they might be experiencing something they're really not.
Some of the children are so small in these pictures, and so perfectly-formed tiny human beings that it's really a grave pain in the heart to imagine any of them might have feelings such as those that this - and the other books - try to address, but it is a fact of life, and the sooner it's addressed, the better off we all are, not just the child who might be experiencing unaccountable feelings of sadness.
The book is commendably diverse in the imagery it employs, featuring children of all ethnicities. I did note a complete lack of pictures showing children with any sort of disability. I can see how that might distract somewhat from the main topic, or perhaps even lend some confusion, but I honestly do not think it would have hurt to have shown a child with crutches or in a wheelchair. A disability might well be a root cause of feelings of loneliness, sadness, or shyness.
That was my only concern about the book. Otherwise it was wonderful, and I commend this one as a worthy read to both educate children to the issue of sadness in young children, especially when they have been, and are going, through hell with the pandemic, and hopefully to encourage those who don't feel at their happiest, to reach out to others instead of withdrawing.
Feeling Shy by Mary Lindeen
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This is the first of three books by this author for young kids I'll be reviewing this month, which focus on difficult feelings that children may have, and may not even have a name for, much less understand, but which are an important part of life; sometimes a debilitating one, and which cover topics such as loneliness, sadness, and in this case, shyness. I can relate since I was terribly shy as a kid. Actually maybe not terribly - I was rather good at being shy!
The book is about thirty pages long and consists of a series of photographs, mostly of children, accompanied by short captions discussing the topic, asking questions, offering ideas and suggestions about what to do if you have these feelings, how to recognize them, and how to deal with them if you think you see these same feelings in others.
The captions are not overly dramatic. They're nuanced and reasonable, and indicate that some people might experience some of these feelings part of the time, but otherwise feel fine. In other cases, the feelings might be more pressing. I felt this was a good approach in that it leads thoughts into these areas without risking making children feel like they might be experiencing something they're really not.
The book is very diverse in its imagery, featuring children of all ethnicities. I did note a complete lack of pictures showing children with any sort of disability. I can see how that might distract somewhat from the main topic, or perhaps even lend some confusion, but I honestly do not think it would have hurt to have shown a child with crutches or in a wheelchair. A disability might well be a root cause of feelings of loneliness, sadness, or shyness.
That was my only concern about the book. Otherwise it was wonderful, and I commend this one as a worthy read to both educate children to this problem, and to encourage those who are shy to perhaps find ways out of that shell of isolation.
Twas the Night by Marin Darmonkow
From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.
This was a beautifully-done book, with twelve pages (double page spreads that is - very likely for each of the twelve days of Christmas!) and no text at all. It tells itself: a young wheelchair-traveling boy finds an injured dove and takes it home and cares for it until it's well, and in doing so dreams of flying away from his own confinement, just as the dove must also dream. Sweet story, beautiful sentiments, gorgeous Christmassy illustrations. I commend it fully as a worthy seasonal read.
Apocalypse by Kyle West
"On his first trip outside the underground bunker where he was born, Alex Keener finds a barren landscape where humans have been transformed into monsters and every breath is a fight for survival." Any word on how many scores of times this exact same story has been told? What a great original title though. Not.
Emerge by Melissa A Craven
Is Melissa a craven cloner of previously published stories, because this shtick: "Socially awkward Allie finds her life transformed when she meets her mysterious new next-door neighbor, Aidan" has been done to death. There's nothing new here. Yawn.
Watching the Detectives by Julie Mulhern
Taking its title, perhaps, from Elvis Costello's 1977 single, this book launches right in with a problematic blurb: "Inspired Amateur sleuth" - that's me out right there. No sleuths, please. "Ellison Russell is searching high and low for a murderer." That's why the murderer is hiding out at middle height, where Ellison, for some reason, seems particularly squeamish about searching. "Her country club society is filled with gossips, scoundrels, and unsavory gentlemen" so why does she inhabit it? This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, and especially not when another amateur meddler like this is screwing-up the crime scenes and more than likely withholding crucial evidence from the actual police. Yawn.
Wicked by EM Lindsey
"Hawke takes refuge from his difficult past in the Broken Chains motorcycle club — and he’ll do absolutely anything for his brothers. But Jax" Hawke and Jax? seriously? That's the best you got? I could barely stop laughing for long enough to even type these words. What a dumb-ass, retreaded, piece of shit story this is! Barf! I can guarantee you that there's nothing remotely wicked in it.
Wolf Point by Ian K Smith
"When a prominent Chicagoan’s watery death is ruled a suicide, PI Ashe Cayne" Ashe Cayne? Seriously? That's the dumb-ass name you came up with? The dumb-asses at Publishers Weekly supposedly claimed, "This is smart, smooth escapism. Readers will hope Cayne will be back soon" But no. We don't. What we hope is that smart, inventive, original, and truly imaginative authors will come back soon.
Nightmares! by Jason Segel, Kirsten Miller
“Coraline meets Monsters, Inc." That's me out right there. It's insulting when someone compares you as an author to a mashup of two other authors, or your work to a blend of two other works - like you ripped it off. "Charlie must learn to conquer his fears when his nightmares start crossing over into the real world"? Seriously? Doesn't he have a chocolate factory to run, too! There's a serious problem here and Charlie is right to be scared that his nightmares are coming out onto Elm Street. Oh, wait: now there's a third mashup! Ye gads!
Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton
Reese Witherspoon apparently declared this to be "A beautiful novel that’s full of forbidden passions, family secrets, and a lot of courage and sacrifice" I mean, who cares what it's about! "She" recommends it! Well, if she recommends it, I'm out. This is the woman who, in 2013, was arrested for disorderly conduct after her husband was stopped on suspicion of DWI. She then had the snotty pretentiousness to ask the police officer, doing his job, "Do you know my name? You’re about to find out who I am! You’re about to be on national news." In short, she's an asshole and I would never want any book I wrote to be remotely associated with her name.
Ninth City Burning by J Patrick Black
"On a devastated future Earth, military cadet Jax and migrant Naomi join an epic quest to stop a terrifying alien invasion!" as opposed to those invasions that aren't remotely terrifying and in fact are quite fun? Barf. And once again, we have the most over-employed go-to guy Jack - or in this futuristic version, Jax, which is just as bad. Do these authors have no imagination? So, no thanks. I'll catch the next "terrifying invasion." And what's with that ninth city? I'll bet it's the ninth US city, not the ninth in the world, because who cares if the rest of the world is burning?!
Looking for Rachel Wallace by Robert B Parker
"When the woman private eye Spenser was hired to protect disappears," it means he's an utterly incompetent, useless asshole and we shouldn't read anything more about him. Any novel with a woman's name in the title prefixed by a 'looking for' or an 'in search of' is an automatic piece of shit, so the decision is a no-brainer - as is his story.
Zero Cool by Michael Crichton aka John Lange
"A lively thriller about an American doctor whose European vacation turns into a death-defying hunt for ancient secrets." So, Crichton has outright lied to people about who he is and now he's owning up to it, we're expecting to reward his estate by buying more of his right-wing diatribes? No. Not me.
Her Best Friend’s Lie by Laura Wolfe
"Five college friends rent a remote cabin on a lake, expecting an idyllic reunion. But some of them are keeping chilling secrets" Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how many times has this exact same story has been told already? Far too many, that's for sure. Barf. Some authors seriously need to get a clue.
Billionaire’s Matchmaker by Sierra Cartwright
"For professional matchmaker Hope, finding a wife for Rafe is just another job — until the sexy billionaire decides to claim her for his own." Ri-ight, because she's not a person, she's a piece of property to be claimed and owned. If any book needs to be banned, it's this kind of fucked up shit, for sure. Authors who write this trash should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. I wish them all the lack of sales in the world.
The Scarlet Rose by Valia Lind
"An enchanting Beauty and the Beast retelling." Of course it is, because if there's one thing this planet so desperately needs, it's yet another tired retelling of yet another tired fairytale that's only been done a score of dozens of times already. Yawn.
The Ghosts of Marshley Park by Amanda Innes
"When 16-year-old Jade wakes up in a graveyard and realizes she’s dead, she meets Victorian ghost Julian." Of course she does because if there's one thing that so many female YA authors have worked so very hard to so consistently establish it's that a woman, even a ghost woman, is utterly useless without a guy to prop her up. Barf. So this sixteen year old girl is now dating a hundred year old guy, who nevertheless behaves as though he's the same age as she is? Okay. And despite being around for a century, observing society changing, Julian is going to be utterly overwhelmed by this thoroughly modern force of nature that is sixteen year old Jade? Yawn. I've read more interesting tombstones.