The Runaways by Holly Webb and Knight's Castle by Edward Eager

Both of these books are middle grade and (surprise!) I read an e-book! You know how often that happens. 

The Runaways by Holly Webb is a WWII story about a young London girl whose mother refuses to evacuate her to the countryside when war is coming. She is a widow and wants to keep her remaining family (two children, one of whom is a teenager) close and needs help running her shop. 

Molly is already upset about her friends leaving when she finds out her mum is going to have the dog and cat put to sleep in preparation for possible bombing. So she packs up, takes the animals, and runs away. 

The cat gets out of her basket and runs back home (which naturally gave the cat lover in me anxiety) but Molly continues on with the dog and eventually comes across two children who are also runaways but from an abusive home. The three travel together until they find a place to settle. But, even that may not end up well. 

Recommended - I thought The Runaways was a very good story, although the writing was occasionally a bit awkward. The occasional awkward sentence, though, certainly wasn't enough to stop the momentum. I felt like you really got a feel for the hunger, the dirt, the grief, and the general horror of war in The Runaways and I'll be watching for more by Holly Webb. 

Knight's Castle by Edward Eager is an older book, the second in the "Tales of Magic" series, copyrighted in 1956. It sat on my wish list for many months (because of last year's book-buying ban) after I read that it was the childhood favorite of an author I admire. 

After I added the book to my wish list, I threw away the interview in which Knight's Castle was mentioned, so I have no idea who recommended it but she said she'd been waiting for it to have it's time in the sun as she thought it was better than Harry Potter. While I'm not a huge fan of Harry Potter, I tend to disagree, but I still enjoyed Knight's Castle.

Knight's Castle is the story of a boy who has a collection of toy soldiers that have been passed down through his family. The oldest one is in terrible shape but when the boy closes his hand around it and makes a wish, he's transported back in time and the way he's positioned the toy soldiers around a play castle is how they are when he materializes in this magical world and the toys become human. 

There's a whole backstory with the boy, his sister, and two cousins. The boy and his sister end up at their cousins' house because something's wrong with their father and he must urgently go to the hospital.The boy is originally transported through time when he makes his wish and then the other children eventually begin to travel back in time with him. But, his wish can't come true until he proves himself worthy. And, he's running out of time.

Recommended - While I wouldn't call Knight's Castle a favorite, I enjoyed it enough to wish I had the entire series to read. I always enjoy time travel and there's a silliness to the book that tickled me. When the soldier's talk, it's like they're trying to speak as if they live in the Middle Ages but they don't quite know how, so it's a bit gibberish and quite funny. I can definitely see how this story would have left an impression on a child. 

©2022 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Summer of a Thousand Pies by Margaret Dilloway and No Flying in the House by Betty Brock

Since I screwed up and made my On Democracy post so lengthy, I'm going to double up and keep these two reviews short. Both are children's books and I presume they're for around the same age range but No Flying in the House may skew a bit younger.

Summer of a Thousand Pies by Margaret Dilloway is the story of 12-year-old Cady. Cady's father has been arrested and she has to stay with her Aunt Chelle while he's in jail. Chelle owns a pie ship that isn't doing well. She lives in a small, tourist town with several pie shops and she only sells two flavors. Cady wants to help salvage the pie shop. But, first Aunt Chelle insists that Cady must learn how to make the perfect pie and the best way to do that is with practice. She tells Cady that she must bake 1,000 pies. Cady sets to work and while she's practicing and learning, she experiments with different flavors. Cady thinks part of the reason Aunt Chelle's shop isn't doing all that well has to do with their limited offerings so she's determined to find some unique flavors and convince Aunt Chelle to sell them. When she's not at the pie shop she's getting to know the town and making friends. When things go terribly wrong and Cady's afraid she may return to being homeless, can she and her new friends come up with a plan to save the pie shop?

Recommended - I was unsure about Summer of a Thousand Pies, at first. Middle grade books don't always interest me as much as I hope they will and it seemed fairly bland, at first. But I'm glad I stuck it out. There are some timely themes including homelessness and how traumatizing it can be for a child and the broken immigration system. Cady also has the challenge of learning how to forgive the people in her life who have let her down. Aunt Chelle is LGBT but her partnership is presented in a very matter-of-fact way, not as a problematic element, which I liked. There are also recipes in the book — always a plus!

No Flying in the House by Betty Brock is an older title, originally published in 1970. I bought a copy of it when I saw a photo of one woman's favorite childhood books. I'm actually quite surprised that I've never heard of it because I would have been the right age for it a year or two after publication and books starring little girls with special abilities (or magical cats – both for obvious reasons) were among my favorites. But, nope, I'd never heard of it.

Annabel Tippens has a strange guardian, a 3" dog named Gloria. When Gloria shows up at a wealthy woman's home and asks to live with her, she doesn't admit to the fact that she's caretaker for a little girl until the woman says yes. When Annabel finds out she's half fairy, she makes a nuisance of herself by trying to learn how to fly. My favorite passage:

"If I were a fairy, I'd be able to fly, wouldn't I?" Annabel asked Miss Peach one day. 
"In my opinion," said Miss Peach, "that's the best part of being a fairy."
"Would I need wings?"
"Not necessarily," said Miss Peach. "But wings would undoubtedly help."
After that, when no one was looking, Annabel practiced flying. She started by jumping off the terrace. 

That cracked me up.

Recommended for little girls - I am absolutely certain I would have loved this book if I'd found it when I was in the right age range. Unfortunately, I found it a little too silly. Gettin' old. But, I'll find a happy new home for it.

I bought both of these books and will either donate them or pass them on to my granddaughters.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Minis: Al Franken, Giant of the Senate by Franken and The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

I've decided I'm going to do several sets of mini reviews to get myself caught up (again) since a good portion of the books I have left to review are from my personal stacks. Any books from publishers will get separate, full reviews.

I ordered Al Franken, Giant of the Senate because I figured it would be a funny book about life in the Senate and I've liked Al for as long as I can remember. Boy, was I surprised. Al Franken, Giant of the Senate is more than I could have imagined. It's funny, yes, but it's also educational. Rather than just describing his senate years, Franken goes back to his early life and explains how and why he became a liberal, a satirist (he prefers "satirist" over "comedian"), a Harvard grad, and a senator, his difficult entry into politics, and the challenges he faced specifically because of his background in show business.

The only things I really knew about Franken as a senator (as opposed to Franken the satirist) before reading Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, were the facts that he's a Democrat and that he asked by far the best questions of any senator when he vetted people for cabinet seats in the current administration. I'd paid little attention to him, otherwise, but I was definitely impressed at the precision of what he asked and the clear knowledge and/or research behind his questions. And, it turns out there's good reason for his amazing questioning skills: Al Franken did his research.

By the time I read Al Franken, Giant of the Senate, Franken had already been forced out of the Senate by female senators who ganged up on him without granting him the investigation he was willing to go through and deserved. So, it was particularly interesting to read about the ways he had to defend himself in the past, the challenge of trying to get the Democratic party to endorse him, the vetting he submitted to in order to make sure that nothing like what ended his career in the Senate would happen, and the sacrifices of Franken and his family to do a job that he felt driven to do because of his passion to help others. I never believed he got a fair shake, in the end, and I'm doubly convinced after reading his story; but, I do believe I understand why he gave up so easily. Al Franken was one of those rare politicians who was in it for his constituents, not to make himself piles of money. An excellent book, highly recommended. I'd like to go back and read some of his older books, when I have the time.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is a book I read with an online book group. Seemingly everyone else on the planet has read and reviewed the book, so I feel like I'm a little late to the ballgame and I liked it perhaps a bit less than most, but it's a powerful story that I'm very glad I read.

16-year-old Starr lives in an impoverished neighborhood but attends a school in an upscale part of town, so she's learned to shift between the two worlds. On her home turf, she speaks the dialect of those around her; in school, she softens her language to match that of her fellow students. Putting on a different front at school takes effort, but it becomes even harder to hide her true feelings and self after an old friend is killed by a police officer when the officer mistakes the handle of a hairbrush for a gun. Starr is in the car when he's shot and sees him die.

Shocked by her experience, Starr does everything she can to see justice served but is stunned to find that nobody takes her seriously. Is there anything Starr can do to change the outcome and prevent more of the same, or will Starr's childhood friend always be known as just another drug-dealing black guy who made the wrong move, even though he did nothing wrong?

I thought The Hate U Give was excellent, powerful, important, and necessary. I only had one real problem with it and that was the vernacular. I did try to look up some of the words and expressions that I didn't know but was unable to find all of them. In general, I tend to really dislike books that are written in dialect. But, it was crucial to Starr's character to show the two sides of her. So, I looked up what I could and guessed at other words. Fortunately, I was eventually able to ask around and find out the meaning of the words I was unable to locate definitions for online. But, not knowing while I read frustrated me and that's why I gave the book 4 stars. Still . . . an emotional read that is truly of the moment. The Hate U Give shines a light on a uniquely American problem.

I read The Hate U Give electronically, so it won't appear on my stack of February reads when I get around to posting my Month in Review (running late on that, clearly). It was a good one to read for discussion because of both the difficulty I had with the lingo and the fact that the people in my discussion group had a lot of unique insight to contribute. I really appreciated reading other viewpoints. Recommended.


©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.