James Preller

I just reread this old favorite of mine and, damn, it's short but as good as I remembered.

It's just the story of a baseball match, a little league final between two teams called "Northeast Gas & Electric" vs "Earl Grubb's Pool Supplies". It's basically a play by play description of the game, from the point of view of the "Earl Grubb's" players.

That sounds awful, I know, but it's written with so much passion for the game, and with such a heart-felt examination of the characters, their show more motivations, their hopes and fears, that it's more entertaining and moving than it has any right to be. It's a book about baseball, of course, but also about friendship, and the joys and sorrows of team sports.

If you have no familiarity at all with baseball you can get a bit lost in the technicalities, but the passion still comes through.

Just another reminder that really good children's literature can be enjoyed by adults, and if you have a kid who likes sports, this is a great choice as a gift. show less

First sentence: Two ballerinas. One in red. One in blue. Look at their fancy clothes. Look at their pointy toes. Me too! I want to dance too!

Premise/plot: Can a Moose dance ballet? Maybe. Maybe not. The other two dancers--to be fair--are also animals.

My thoughts: I like this one well enough. I do. Do I love, love, love it? No. Is it silly? Yes. For an early reader does it have an enjoyable enough story? Yes.

Why has no one ever thought to do this before? James Preller is starting a new series of scary stories for young readers. The book is just under 100 pages, has plenty of spooky black and white illustrations, and it looks like they will be retellings of classic scary tales.

Eight-year-old Liam is as thrilled as any other kid to move to a new house in a new town, especially when it turns out to basically be the haunted house of the neighborhood. In other words: Not much. He's even more nervous show more when he hears mysterious noises and sees mysterious things he can't explain. Then his big sister Kelly and her best friend Mitali think it would be fun to play a scary game; Bloody Mary. To their shock, the horror becomes real. Dum dum DUM. There is an appropriately terrifying but ultimately happy ending and readers are ready for the next tale of thrills and chills.

The black and white illustrations are appropriately grim and gruesome without being too terrifyingly graphic. The illustrator even manages to make a simple unplugged cord look menacing! Preller manages to be scary without being overly dramatic or silly and while I wouldn't hand this series to parents who have concerns about ghosts, witchcraft, etc. the average kid will gobble them up with delight.

Verdict: This is AWESOME. Perfect for kids who desperately want scary stories, but aren't ready for Goosebumps or Alvin Schwartz. Buy several copies and I promise you will not regret it.

ISBN: 9781250018861; Published July 2013 by Feiwel and Friends/Macmillan; ARC provided by the publisher at ALA Midwinter 2013; Purchased for the library show less

I am very careful about books I put in our school library that are about suicide. I don’t want to have any books that glorify it, which I feel some of the YA books do these days. I bought this one because of the many reviews that I read that said it was appropriate for middle school. It is a very quick, easy read and is a good book for reluctant readers. It has very short chapters and keeps your interest (for the most part). The author did a good job of helping the reader to feel the guilt show more and pain that the main character, Sam, was feeling. I liked that it was obvious that Morgan’s decision (the girl who committed suicide) wasn’t just about one person or one event. There were many things, along with her own poor choices, that factored into her depression and ultimate decision about suicide. Those puzzle pieces are placed together as the book progresses, because at the beginning you feel like you know exactly who and what is to blame. Aren’t those the kind of judgments we always make when someone commits suicide? We want to have a nice little package that tells us exactly what led to it and who or what is to blame. But we can never accurately judge because that person is now gone and can’t tell us what they were thinking or feeling. But as this book evolves, we are led to see there were many other influences at work. Towards the end of the book, there is a very telling conversation:

“I never loved anyone, she said. Ever. Please make that your gift to me.
‘What?’
Love someone. Live long and love someone with all your heart, she told me.”

One thing that was kind of distracting was that I believe this was set in middle school – at least the voices felt very young to me – but the timeline of events didn’t seem to work for middle school. If it was middle school, the characters had to have been in 7th grade because Morgan’s older sister was still at the school, and Mr. Laneway, the counselor, mentions that he liked Sam’s essay from last year. That means that the event that set off the mean girl would have had to happen in 5th or 6th grade, and I just didn’t buy that, so that was a little distracting.

All in all, I think this is a sensitive and thoughtful look at teenage suicide. It demonstrated the lasting effects that one person can have, whether he or she even knows it. Hopefully any middle schoolers who read this will realize what an impact they can have when they choose to be kind, even if it is just to say a weak, “hi”.

Areas of concern:
*Teenage suicide.
*Serious cyberbullying goes on.
*Talk of “hooking up” at a very young age.
*Several uses of the “s” word and a couple of the “a” word.

http://read-me-maybe.blogspot.com show less