Children's Review: My Brigadista Year

My Brigadista Year
by Katherine Paterson

Final Rating: 4.5/5
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Writing: 5/5

Newbery Award-winning author Katherine Paterson presents a historical fiction story from a bright young Cuban girl who volunteers to take part in the Cuban literacy campaign of 1961. Lora leaves her comfortable home in Havana to trek deep into the mountains to teach the compesinos, the farmers living in the countryside, to read and write. She tells the reader about her year as a brigadista, one of those teachers who strived to teach and learn beside their students until Cuba could be declared by the United Nations in 1962 as an illiteracy-free country.

Through Lora's eyes, Paterson finds the voice of a young girl in an entirely different country, who sees race and social standing from a Cuban perspective. Her passion for literacy brings Lora into conflict with her family and her father refuses to allow her to sign up for the program until her grandmother convinces him how important it is.

Included at the end is Lora's epilogue, telling the reader where she went, where those families went, how their lives have changed. Her story is almost a call to action, describing the doctors fighting Ebola in Africa and reminding the reader that she wasn't and never has been a hero, but she still made a difference in those people's. How could she not go?

This book should be in every library. If Katherine Paterson isn't nominated for an award this year, I will eat something one would not normally eat (I don't have any hats). The story is powerful, the characters are memorable, and the message stands loud and proud: we can overcome fear and ignorance to be better people together than we were before. Read it. Read it to your friends. Share it with people on the street. It's worth it.

Fanfiction Review: The Billionaire and the Bellboy

Trump Temptations: The Billionaire and the Bellboy
By Elijah Daniel

Total Rating: that smell somewhere between skunk spray and old coffee grounds
Characters: 2/5
Plot: 3/5
Writing: 2/5
Giggle Factor: 8/5

Okay, guys, time to face facts. If you were fool enough to read this story, as I was by the eager pushing of my teen Pathfinder group you know as well as I do that this is terrible prose at its finest. Are there mistakes? Oh, yes. Is the grammar atrocious? Definitely. Did the main character have as much to define him as a squashed avocado? That'd probably be generous.

Did I laugh? Hell, yes.

In three short chapters, Elijah Daniel manages to send up both the romance genre (and its amateur offspring, the fanfic) and our current president before he was in a position to throw paper towels at Puerto Rican survivors of a natural disaster with all the personal empathy of a constipated moose. It reads like some of the worst earnestly written fanfiction I've ever read and still manages to grasp all the parts of Trump that I would never, ever want to grasp.

I think my favorite line will always be "his oily orange skin glistening in the sunlight as if he were a soggy cheeto." Bravo, Mr. Daniel. Bravo.

Teen Review: A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls
By Patrick Ness
Inspired by an idea by Siobhan Dowd
Illustrated by Jim Kay

Overall Rating: 5/5 
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Illustrations: 5/5

A Monster Calls tells the story of Conor, a teen living with his mother. His mother is in the advanced stages of cancer and continually tired from chemotherapy, leaving Conor mostly on his own.

And then the Monster shows up. Dark and imposing and utterly tree-like (without resembling Groot in text or in illustration), the monster says he came walking to answer Conor's call and would tell him three stories.

I read this in one day. At the desk and in the window at work, then in a wild desperate sprint at home that evening. I cried so hard by the ending. This is a masterfully-told story about a young boy coming to terms with the unthinkable, with survivor's guilt, with all the things that come before the after. Conor's story is heartbreaking and so very, very true to the experiences of anyone who has watched a loved one dying. The very idea of the book is gut-wrenching, terrifying and still holds a fragile, resilient hope at its center. That there will be an after. That we can move on.

The illustrations are intense, beautiful black-and-white pieces that mix pen and ink drawing with block cuts and stamping to produce the wildness of the untamed wilderness in a stark world that no longer cares for it. It evokes emotions of longing, of loneliness, of that feeling of watching a single crow flying overhead on a cloudy day. I could not review this book without gushing about the visuals. They added so much to the story, literally framing the narrative and giving the reader a sense of how important certain scenes were to Conor and the people around him.

I intend to watch the recent film release in the near future in order to post a book-to-film essay on Books by Day, Films by Night. There should also be a video forthcoming (I swear!) talking about what this book did better than the movie and vice versa on my (much neglected) YouTube channel.

Children's Review: Not a Box

Not a Box
Antoinette Portis

Rating: 5/5
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Illustrations: 5/5

I have forever been in love with this book. Not a Box details the inner lives of millions of imaginative children who can go on adventures with little flash and just the assistance of a box and a garden hose. The story is simple, the writing clean and unadorned. The images are the truth of the story, showing first the main character's physical reality with the box and followed by a red-sketched version of the same image only improved by the character's imagination.

One of the joys of this book for me is that the main character is entirely without gender. This story is designed to appeal to girls or boys or kids who haven't figured it out yet. Being a rabbit, the main character is also without human ethnicity and the simple style of storytelling transports any child into the not-a-box of this character. This is also an excellent choice for read-aloud storytimes, as the limited story and bold strokes of the illustration are very easy for children to grasp and expand on. Highly recommended for anyone who ever went to the moon in a box.

Childrens Review: Chickens to the Rescue

Chickens to the Rescue
John Himmelman

Rating: 5/5
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Writing: 5/5

Chickens to the Rescue is one of my favorite childrens' books of all time. I am eternally disappointed that this book wasn't around when I was a kid. It follows the adventures of the family that live on the Greenstalk farm. As the story progresses, each member of the family has a puzzle they can't figure out and then the next page is always a two-page spread of a wild conglomeration of chickens solving the humans' problems.

Each page is full of life and activity and the chicken pages are the sort of hunt-and-find images that remind me of Steven Kellog's illustrations for Meg Karper's Jimmy's Boa books. There are dozens of things happening on every page and there is such delight in finding the weird things this or that chicken might be doing just on the edge of a page.

The story itself is straightforward and simple as each Greenstalk laments their problem where the chickens can hear them. It really isn't any more complicated than that, with most of the storytelling being supported in the illustrations. Himmelman's chickens are whimsical and wild, mischievous and with their own personalities throughout.

I highly recommend this book and it's sister books, Cows to the Rescue, Pigs to the Rescue, and Duck to the Rescue. Yes, just the one duck. He's a wonder-duck.

Blog Entry: I Live!

So, some of you may have noticed that there were two blog postings recently with no content. They have since been removed and I wanted to explain what's going on around here.

I let my schedule get away from me. I'm way behind in books I wanted to review, videos I wanted to make, and pretty much everything associated with this blog and its associated YouTube channel. I am still here and I am still planning to continue with reviews and vlogs. I'm just horribly behind at the moment.

Stay tuned to this space and the channel for more news.

PS: No, the Trump fanfic did not kill me dead. *significant glare at Avery*

Adult Review: Black Widow: The Finely Woven Thread

Black Widow: The Finely Woven Thread
written by Nathan Edmondson
illustrated by Phil Noto

Overall Rating: 4/5
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
Artwork: 5/5

This graphic novel follows a solo story arc of Black Widow, Marvel's talented black ops assassin. Filled with action and beautiful artwork, it's a solid addition to the Marvel comic universe and a pleasure to read and view.

While I enjoyed the artwork and the story progression, I didn't take away a great deal from the story itself. There were no new revelations about the character or her background, but it was fun to spend the time with Natasha. Not groundbreaking, but still an excellent story arc.