The Star of Kazan - Eva Ibbotson

I started reading The Star of Kazan while on a car trip to Vermont. By the time I'd finished the first chapter, I was so taken with Eva Ibbotson's writing style that I turned the radio off and re-read the first chapter aloud to my husband. We both agreed that this is a book that makes a great family read-aloud or audio book listen. Ibbotson has a bright sense of humor that comes across in her writing voice. She develops her characters by giving them concise, but telling dialogue and through wonderful description of the character's physical features and mannerisms. Of course, it helps, too, that she has a tip-top story to tell!

In the first chapter, Ellie and Sigrid, two Austrian domestic servants, take to the mountains on their day off to get fresh air and a brief escape from the whirl of Vienna. While off on their hike, Ellie's feet tire, so she stops into a wayside chapel to say a prayer for her deceased mother (and rest her feet from the new shoes she's wearing). Ellie nods off in the silence of the church and when she awakes she hears a tiny chirp or is it a mew? No! It's a baby - a foundling that has been left with a note pleading for the child to be taken to the nun's orphanage in Vienna.

Ellie and Sigrid can't possibly leave this little mite of a baby girl, so they take her back to Vienna with them, but alas! the nunnery is smack dab in the middle of an outbreak of typhus and all the residents are quarantined! So ... the child goes 'home' to their place of employment and the moment the little girl opens her eyes and looks at the three professors who employ the two women, the fate of the baby is sealed. She is named Annika and from that day on, she grows more dear to all the adults of the household and the residents of the little square on which the house is situated.

Ibbotson weaves a tale of family, childhood friendships, and neighborly relationships that is heart-warming. Annika grows into a bright, responsible, kind child, but she always wishes she could know her true mother even though Ellie adopts her and acts the part splendidly. And then one day, a tall elegant woman comes to the house on the square and introduces herself. Annika's mother has found her ... and THAT'S when things get really interesting!

Ibbotson's characters all have their own small stories that all come together to make a story that will have kids reading far past bedtime or begging for one more chapter. Her story was extremely well-received when it was published in 2004. It was short-listed for a Carnegie Medal and won the Nestle Children's Book Prize - Silver Award. It has since had two audio versions released and read by Patricia Connelly and Ruth Jones.  So, read it aloud to your favorite children or give them one of the audio versions. It's a funny, fun, magically wonderful story!

Note: In researching for this post, I found that Eva Ibbotson has since passed away - such a shame, as she told a good story! Rest in peace, dear lady!

The Witches - Roald Dahl

We always did read-aloud time in our family. All three of the kids were read to right up through elementary school and into middle school, too. Consequently, I miss reading aloud and being read to!

The popularity of books on tape, though, never really caught on with me until I retired and found myself home alone, the kids having grown and flown. Nowadays, you can usually find an audio book on the kitchen table with an accompanying book. I listen to audio books while I cook or putter in the kitchen at dishes and housework. 

The past couple days have been great fun, as I've reacquainted myself with Roald Dahl's fun adventure story called The Witches. This is the perfect read/listen for the Halloween season! I've known the story for ages, as the kids read it when they were young and we used to watch the movie adaptation of the book every Halloween. Anjelica Huston is just so perfect in the character of the Grand High Witch!

When I first joined in on this year's Readers (R) Imbibing (I) Peril (P) reading challenge at Carl Anderson's Stainless Steel Droppings blog (see link here RIP-IX reading event,) I noticed the title of Dahl's kid classic as the number one entry on the link up page. "Oh!, I thought, I haven't thought about that old story in sooo long!"  That's when I knew I'd seek out an audio version of the book to see how it would feel to have it read to me! 

What fun! The version I received from my public library's inter-library loan program is quite old, but the CD's are still in pretty good condition. The story is narrated by the actor, Ron Keith. He does a great job. It was really fun to hear his voice develop 'a smile' in it when he read particularly funny or clever parts of the story. You can hear the delight he is taking in the story and that adds to the charm of the experience.

I found myself cheering on the young protagonist of the story, as he came face to face with the dreaded witches that his dear grandmother warned him of in her many stories and tales of witches that live right among us! Imagine the smarts and derring-do it would take to outsmart a whole convention of withces! Therein lies the fun in Dahl's fast-moving romp of a story! It's a delight and one book that most elementary kids would love to experience! It's the perfect Halloween week read!

The Apothecary - Maile Meloy

Ever since I stopped teaching, I have missed the classroom read-aloud time just about as much as I have missed the kids. Consequently, I keep my eyes out for a good middle reader that has the action, the content that is ripe for discussion, setting and events that bring 'teachable moments' to discussion, and a book that I know will lead kids to want more, more, more at the end of each chapter.

I have found it in this kid's novel by Maile Meloy. Her style is fast-paced. She has an excellent way with dialogue that makes it sound 'real and true' to and between her characters. She can tell a tale with mystery and yes, violence without having things get out of hand and too graphic.

In this particular book, she deals with the Cold War that is in full swing after World War II. Her young protagonist Janie Scott is a transplanted Californian in London. Janie's parents have been placed on the suspicion list of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Rather than stay in the States and face blacklisting, they move to London and get work in the British film industry. Janie is unceremoniously uprooted from her California high school and moved with her parents to England. She is homesick, nervous, and confused about her parents' predicament.

Fate will deliver her an adventure that will bring magic and mystery into her life, though. Janie meets some interesting new schoolmates at her small private school that also share mysterious backgrounds. On Janie's first day of school, she meets Benjamin Burrows and Sergei Shiskin. Benjamin's father is an apothecary in a shop near Janie's new flat. Sergei's father is a mysterious presence in the park near the school. As Janie gets to know Benjamin, she finds he wants more than to be an apothecary like his father, but events will transpire that make Benjamin develop more than a passing interest in what his father does in his apothecary shop. Sergei will be dragged into exciting events that develop around a pharmacoepia manual that Benjamin's father guards with unatural and mysterious zeal and his father's involvement with Mr. Burrows. When Mr. Burrows is kidnapped by agents with German accents, Benjamin and Janie become steward of the mysterious and valuable pharmacoepia manual and dash fast to understand just what tiger they have grabbed by the tail! Spies, questionable allies, lies and secrets, and yes, just a bit of teen romance ... what a fun read-aloud for a winter vacation trip, in a classroom in the weeks before school vacation, or curled up before bed each night.

The beauty of the book is that it has a follow-up novel that I really think will inspire kids to follow up on Janie's and Benjamin's adventures ... The Apprentice.  Appropriate for readers from about ten and upward to fourteen or fifteen. ... Christmas is coming ... enjoy!

Ghost Knight - Cornelia Funke

Another fantasy from Cornelia Funke ... I love her fun and fanciful approach to children's literature. She places her stories in a setting that will lend itself to educating kids without overwhelming them with the minutiae of history or detail. In the Inkheart series, it was all about allusion to and quotes from classic literature. In The Thief Lord, it was the geography of Venice, Italy. In Reckless, it was the vast collections of fairy tales and folklore, that was the stage for the drama of the story. Here in Ghost Knight, readers will have fun learning a bit about Medieval English history as they follow the adventures of Jon Whitcroft and his new friend, Ella Littlejohn, as they enter the haunted world of Salisbury, England and help to squelch an age-old curse that has befallen Jon's ancestors and dragged him into the haunted world of medieval knights and ne'er-do-wells.

This book moves fast and has not got the depth that Funke's Inkheart series has. It will, though, appeal to young boys and any child that is enthralled with a good ghost story.  I am always pleased to see a good solid story that appeals to young boys, as I often feel that their reading interests get short shrift in the kid's literature field. The quality of some of the stuff aimed at boys is ludicrous, at best (Can anyone say Captain Underpants or Diary of a Wimp ? ... sorry, if I offend.) Finding a story that has adventure, a bit of 'naughtiness', kids with real feelings, and a bit of history makes my old teacher heart beat a little faster and steadier.

So... keep on writing,Cornelia Funke ! There's room in this world for a few more of your stories !

Boys Without Names - Kashmiri Sheth

 

 

The upper level of the building is cramped with bodies and trays of beads, frames, a smelly glue pot, the rolled up tatters of jute bedding and sundry little personal items. Six young boys work feverishly placing small beads onto blunt needles and then sticking them into position on wooden frames. They work quietly, so as not to raise the ire of their Boss, who sits in an easy chair in the room below. The television rumbles sometimes or the Boss can be heard snoring as he naps the day away. The doors are all locked; there are bars on the windows. From the outside the building resembles a ramshackle warehouse. Inside, though it is a prison of work and deprivation.

Thus, is the story of Gopal and his cohorts. How Gopal comes to this bleak sweatshop in an alley in Mumbai and how his cohorts cope with such a brutal life is the story that Kashmiri Sheth tells. It is, at times, heart-breaking and at others, hopeful. It brings the reader in contact with good people and people who are broken and brutal. Gopal is a resourceful and strong protagonist who never loses hope that he will be reunited with his family, who uses his wits and savvy to survive under circumstances that would make many of us despair.

The issue of child labor and sweatshop evils has come more and more into the public eye, over the past few years, as the commercial consumption remains high and the supply of cheap, but well-made goods streams into the country from third world nations. American consumers, being so far removed from the source of products, can easily buy everything from jewelry to hangbags to picture frames to clothing to fireworks to coffee and never connect their consumption patterns with the practice of slave labor ... slave labor. That's what it is ... in bold black and white. Within our own country, there are wide-spread abuses of  workers within the agricultural fields, as everything from tomatoes to oranges to celery is brought to market. A practice that this nation turned its back on so many years ago continues to this day and we consumers unwittingly (or blythely) ignore its continuance in the blind need to consume without investigating the source of our 'stuff'.

Kashmiri Sheth has put faces and names to the nameless workers who labor every day in sweatshops, in writing this powerful novel. While hers is a book written for a young adult audience, there are plenty more out there to read and think about. There are agencies to investigate and support that work toward economic equality, fair labor practices, humane treatment within the work place, and education of workers. I know I will never look at an inexpensive picture frame again without wondering whose young fingers might have created it.

Kashmiri Sheth traveled to India to research her novel and I am very glad that she did. I can only hope that more people read this book and discuss the important topic of economic justice with their friends and families. I would recommend this book as a family read-aloud, a class or church youth group book club read, or as a scout troop read and investigation project. It is a vivid story that has all the brutal components of the issue without such graphic horrors that it would traumatize kids. It would be a real eye-opener for those ten years and older. An important book ...

 

The Magician's Elephant - Kate DiCamillo

Once in a while a book comes along that makes you believe that you are actually sitting in the presence of a great storyteller and that they are telling you the story within the covers of the book ... the voice within their writing is just THAT strong. Such is the case with Kate DiCamillo's latest book,  The Magician's Elephant .  For that reason, I really believe that this is the perfect book for a family read-aloud - a book for the summer vacation road trip or a couple nights around the campfire, or a few lazy afternoons in the backyard hammock. The language and dialogue is magical and the phrasing is paced so gorgeously. You feel like you are listening to an antiquated recitation of a story from long ago. There are also quirky illustrations that do a beautiful job of complementing the storyline. Each illustration gives a glimpse of a key event or key character (s).