Home » Posts tagged "middle school" (Page 3)

Book List: Summer Scares Recommendations (Middle Grade)

With school nearly out and summer reading just around the corner, we can probably expect to see programming and suggestions from the HWA regarding their Summer Scares program.

I think it’s really cool that Summer Scares includes middle-grade fiction. Middle-grade fiction is a slippery creature. As a children’s librarian I have always identified it as what’s appropriate for and aimed at ages 8-12.  However, there are 11 and 12 year olds who are already in sixth grade, which can be elementary or middle school depending on your district, and if sixth grade is in the middle school, then MAYBE some people stretch it  a few years later. Problem is, there starts to be an overlap with YA fiction by the end of middle school, and it’s a huge developmental leap from grade 3 (yes, there are 8 year olds in third grade) to grade 6, much less to grade 8.  In my world, middle grade fiction is ages 8-12.  If I can’t put it in the elementary library, it’s not middle grade. I don’t think this is necessarily the age range the Summer Scares committee was considering, though. Kiera Parrot, one of the committee members, made some additional recommendations for middle-grade horror, which I want to share with you.

 

 

Out of the Wild Night by Blue Balliett

I am a huge fan of Blue Balliett, so when the school librarian at my kids’ middle school handed this to me and said, “You like these kinds of books, right? I just can’t get into this, would you give it a shot?” I said yes right away. I can’t begin to tell you how disappointing Out of the Wild Night was for me. Balliett does a good job of building atmosphere but it is so slow, and the plot is confusing, while the vocabulary is advanced. Only very persistent readers will push through to the end. I would love to be able to recommend this as an outstanding ghost story for middle grade students, especially as an author’s note explains that this story was very close to her heart, but there are better ones out there, and much better books by Balliett.  I did review this one in detail here.

 

Dreaming Dangerous by Lauren DeStefano

This didn’t really strike me as horror– it’s more of a science-fictiony dystopia where scientists are experimenting on children. It’s horrific that anyone would do that, but I’d call this more of a dystopian thriller. The main character, Plum, and three of her peers, have been dreaming in tandem since they were babies, and based on the way the book starts, with the kids getting blood tests and psychological testing, it’s not terribly surprising to find out that the adults in charge don’t really have the children’s best interests at heart.  Booklist  suggested this for fans of Stranger Things (which I hope is not being watched by elementary-aged kids, although I’m sure it is) but this lacks the 1980s aesthetic or realism on the show. I can see it maybe appealing to kids who liked Gathering Blue. 

 

Nightbooks by J.A. White

This is a dark, fairytale-like story both fantastic, wondrous, and frightening, perfect for the young horror lover feeling out of place. A boy on his way to destroy the scary stories he has been writing is lured into the equivalent of a gingerbread house by the promise of getting to see his favorite movie, Night of the Living Dead. He is forced to tell the witch a new scary story each night, as he tries to find a way to escape, and comes to the realization that he actually has something to be proud of, rather than something to hide. The same librarian who gave a thumbs-down to Out of the Wild Blue ran excitedly up to me with this one, saying, “You’ve gotta read this!” At that point, I already had. It’s probably one of my favorite books for any age that I’ve read this year. J. A. White is also the author of The Thickety, and we’ve reviewed a couple of the books in that series. We are fans.

 

The Girl in the Locked Room by Mary Downing Hahn

This one starts out promisingly, with a truly disorienting beginning, but I quickly started to feel like Hahn was phoning it in. As with many a ghost story (and many of Hahn’s ghost stories) a family is involved with an old house in need of repair. In this case, Dad restores old houses, Mom is an absentminded writer, and Jules is the resentful daughter who is tired of moving from place to place. The three move into a modern addition to the old house that will be their home over the course of the renovation. Jules has nothing to do except wander around. She’s pretty sure she’s seen a ghost but her only company is her skeptical parents. She makes one friend on a visit to the library, who comes to visit and investigate the old house. There’s not a lot at stake for Jules here. The ghost is silent, afraid, and in a locked room. The backstory is interesting, but while there’s tension, this isn’t something that will make the heart race. Hahn has done so much better; her previous book, Took, was much more suspenseful and definitely scarier, with better character development, even though there were many more characters and the story was more complex. Hahn has written many excellent ghost stories, including All The Lovely Bad Ones and Deep and Dark and Dangerous. Author Grady Hendrix, also on the Summer Scares committee, recommended another, older, book of Hahn’s, Wait Til Helen Comes, which is well-known as a classic children’s ghost story. Many kids in the target age range for this book will enjoy The Girl in the Locked Room, but if I had a shelf of her ghost stories to choose a recommendation from, this wouldn’t be the first one I suggested.

 

City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

I first encountered Victoria Schwab when we were sent her first book, The Near Witch, for review, many years back. Since then, she’s written the Shades of Magic books as V.E. Schwab, but on the cover of City of Ghosts, she is back to Victoria Schwab again. Our main character, Cassidy, fell into an icy river with her new camera and drowned a year ago, but was brought back by Jacob, a ghost, who is now her best friend. Cassidy can now cross the “Veil” and see ghosts. Her camera, altered by her fall, can capture photos of the ghosts. When Cassidy starts losing track of herself, Jacob is always with her to bring her back from beyond the Veil.

Cassidy’s parents are “ghost hunters.” One is a historian, the other is a storyteller, and while they don’t actually believe in ghosts, they do make a living writing and talking about them. Her parents are offered a “reality” show where they will travel to haunted places, tour them, and talk about them. They decide to take Cassidy with them, and their first stop is Edinburgh, in Scotland. The catacombs, cemeteries, and execution grounds they visit are not for the weak even if they can’t see ghosts, but Cassidy’s ability means we experience her panic and dread.

City of Ghosts is creepy, ominous, and at times terrifying. Schwab is great at creating atmosphere; you feel like you are in Edinburgh, especially the oppressiveness of the “haunted” areas.  It is compelling and, at times, truly scary. There’s also a mystery– clearly unsolved– that will lead to sequels I can only look forward to.

The House in Poplar Wood  by K.E. Ormsbee

Reminiscent of Tuck Everlasting, this fable/fairytale feels “out of time”.  Twin brothers Felix and Lee are the sons of the apprentices of Death and Memory, tricked by Passion into falling in love. While they live in the same house, Felix must live with his father in Death’s half of the house and Lee must live with his mother in Memory’s half of the house. Their parents are not allowed to meet or see each other. Their father can only see Felix, and their mother can only see Lee. Outside the house, the two boys can meet, but never inside. When they come of age, both boys will have to choose whether to also become apprentices or to walk away. Gretchen is the daughter of the town’s Summoner, who is responsible for keeping the balance between Death, Memory, and Passion to benefit the town. When Passion’s apprentice dies in a mysterious accident, and her father covers it up, Gretchen decides to do some detective work, and involves Felix and Lee in her schemes. Death in particular is horrific in this book, abusing his power and disciplining Felix in an abusive manner that his father is unable to act against. At heart this is a story about family, friendship, and self-determination, but with strong mythic bones that take it out of the everyday and into the universal.

 

Well, that’s all for now. I’m compiling some additional middle-grade recommendations, but this should get you, and the young readers you know, started with your summer reading!

 

 

 

 

Posted on May 29, 2019 by , 1 comment

Book Review: Out of the Wild Night by Blue Balliett

Out of the Wild Night by Blue Balliett

Scholastic, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-0545867566

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

 

Blue Balliett is a gifted writer with a lyrical voice and quirky tone to her books. Typically she writes what I would describe as puzzle-box mysteries– they have many complex and seemingly unrelated pieces that have to be pulled into place at the right time by their child protagonists to solve a crime that involves a literary or artistic work of some kind. Since her first book, Chasing Vermeer,  was published, a number of other children’s books that require the characters to solve puzzles and codes have come out, but hers remained an outstanding and unique voice, although her narratives have gotten more difficult to navigate, and some books have been better than others. I picked this one up when a colleague told me she was unable to get more than 20 pages in. Surely she couldn’t be speaking of a book by Blue Balliett?

In Out of the Wild Night,  Balliett is trying something completely new– a ghost story, told by a ghost, that takes place on Nantucket, where a greedy real estate investor is buying up historic houses and gutting them to replace the original interiors with modern, updated ones, much to the consternation of some local children and, apparently, some very unhappy ghosts. Balliet’s stories often involve object conservation or historic preservation, and in this case, the absent mother of Phoebe, one of the children, is away studying historic preservation while the houses on Nantucket are being subjected to “renovation.”

My original thought was that Balliett wanted to write about Nantucket more than she wanted to write a good ghost story for children, and a well-hidden author’s note at the back bears that out. Balliett lived in Nantucket more than once, as a teenager and young adult, and it is clear that she deeply loves it and wants to share it with her readers… and for her, living in Nantucket is inextricably intertwined with ghosts.  But her choice of a a 100-year-old ghost woman unable to impact her world or even feel much as a narrator, instead of a child protagonist led to a faded story and atmosphere, and the characters seem like they are afterthoughts. It’s unlike Balliett to leave ends dangling, but while I struggled to get through a majority of the book, in which it seemed that nothing happened, after several rereads of the end chapters I’m still unsure of what actually happened to resolve events as they did. You’d have to be a very careful reader to arrive at her big reveal without being completely confused.

Despite her love of Nantucket and its ghosts, and as lyrical as her writing can be, Balliett fails to evoke the sense of place she’s working to create in her fiction that I’ve felt in books that do bring similar locations to life, such as Rass Island in Jacob Have I Loved, where the environment was intimately tied to the protagonist’s emotional intensity. In her follow-up note, Balliett’s evocation of Nantucket is much stronger than it is in the novel, and I’m left thinking that she wrote the wrong book, and would have done better to create a connected collection of ghost stories of and nonfiction sketches about Nantucket.

As much as I love Balliett’s work, especially Chasing Vermeer, she failed her readers in this book. It does not completely develop either the small world of Nantucket or the Gothic feel of a ghost story, but the pieces aren’t there to put a mystery together; the pacing is slow, the characters aren’t given the space they need to develop, the narrator is ineffective at communicating, and the plot does not hang together. As it is, the primary thing it accomplishes is to briefly bring attention to Nantucket, the importance of restoring the interiors of historic houses, and of building a sense of community. Balliett is clever and creative in her writing, but it’s frustrating to get to the payoff, and more work that the children in the target age range for this book are probably willing to do.

I hope to see another great book from Balliett soon. Sad to say, this one isn’t worth the time and work it takes to read it. Appropriate for ages 9-12, and middle school library collections.

Contains: violence, attempted murder

 

 

Posted on September 7, 2018 by , Reply

Book Review: Tell The Story To Its End by Simon P. Clark

Tell The Story To Its End by Simon P. Clark

St. Martin’s Griffin, 2015

ISBN-13: 978-1250066756

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

 

Oli’s mum has suddenly, and without explanation, decided the two of them should go to the country and visit his uncle, Rob. Rob has been estranged from Oli’s parents for many years, and although no one is telling him anything, Oli knows something bad has happened. In an effort to distract him, Rob suggests that Oli explore the attic, and once the attic door is opened, strange things begin to happen in the house.

As Oli explores the village it becomes clear that something about his family is being held against him, but no one will tell him exactly what it is. He becomes friends with Em, who is fascinated by local legends and stories, and shares with him the tale of Full Lot Jack, who offers children their heart’s desire in exchange for their dreams. Her stories, in combination with the strange things that have been happening since the attic door was opened, and a need to escape his family’s lies, drive him to explore the attic, where he meets Eren, a creature that lives in the attic and feeds on stories. As frightening as Eren is, Oli can’t stay away. There is more truth to Eren’s dark stories than in Oli’s everyday life, and Oli must make a decision about which one he most wants to escape.

In some ways, this book reminded me of A Monster Calls. There’s a lonely boy with nightmares, who calls a monster to him in an effort to make sense out of fear and lies, with a parent who has something seriously wrong going on. As in A Monster Calls. there is a great deal about the power of story. But there the similarities end. Tell The Story To Its End lacks the powerful illustrations combined with primal emotion that make A Monster Calls an outstanding read. Instead, it’s a story packed in cotton wool, with muted emotions and dissociated relationships. The beginning of the book suggests its end, and Clark’s skill with creating gothic nightmares instills a sense of dread from the very first page, that only increases as the reader turns the pages, knowing what is likely to unwind. Despite that feeling of inevitability, the book doesn’t unfold in a predictable manner. Readers who enjoy dark tales that play cleverly with plot, structure, and narrative will be surprised, and may find something to like, but those seeking deep emotional connection or expecting a happy ending will want to look elsewhere.  Appropriate for ages 11 and up.

Posted on June 18, 2017 by , Reply
First « 1234 » Last