The Year of the Bomb review

The Year of the Bomb

by Ronald Kidd

Simon & Schuster

2009

In Sierra Madre, California, 1955, Paul and his three best friends Oz, Crank and Arnie are obsessed with monster movies. The horror-movie fake-out at the beginning of the book really drew me in.  Shortly after leaving the theater, Paul and his friends are overjoyed to learn that Invasion of the Body Snatchers will be coming to film in their downtown.

It really is amazing to think that this juxtaposition of events: monster movies and world altering break-throughs in physics, including work on nuclear bombs were all happening within a 15 mile radius. While Paul and his friends enjoy a lot of freedom - they ride their bikes, or bus around town, with no fear of crime, the negative sides to the 1950's are also highlighted. Hollywood Boulevard has yet to become a seedy (and later still, commercialized and gentrified) place.  The book touches lightly on the Hollywood blacklist as well as the pressures that families (especially fathers) felt at that time to financially keep up with the Joneses.  

There's a wonderful contrast in this novel between the (artificial) fear that Paul loves to inspire in himself watching monster movie matinees vs. the very real daily fears that he struggles with.  He genuinely fears nuclear attack, and family dynamics are tense as his father slogs away in a top-secret military job that he hates in order to pay the bills.  The other boys families have similar problems.  Paul is soon drawn into some FBI intrigue, as one of the female extras on the set (who Paul immediately develops an innocent crush on) starts spying on her fellow castmates, looking for signs of Communist sympathizers.

I thought it strained credulity that the four boys would gain such easy access to the movie set, as well as famed physicist Richard Feynman's office.  They literally show up and start grilling Feynman with questions.  Feynman answers them in full and pours his heart out to the boys.  Still, it's an enjoyable read and Kidd definitely manages to transport you to another time.

I would recommend this book for readers, especially boys, aged 9-12.

I borrowed this book from my local library.

Swag, beautiful swag

I have to admit, I was getting pretty worried. I shipped all the Advance Reader Copies I'd obtained at ALA this year, but when my package failed to arrive I started to get impatient. And then, nervous. What if it'd been lost in the mail? Or sent to the wrong address? What if I never saw all those lovely, lovely ARCs ever again? Happily, after some double-checking, it turns out it did get here all right. Here it is! My sweet, sweet haul from ALA Annual 2010. I promised myself I wouldn't go to hog-wild... but then, the box the shipping company provided still had so much room in it, I ended up going back for more. The books are (very roughly) arranged in order of publishing date.

I picked up a few book bags as well. Everyone was jealous of my Judy Moody bag. I never did manage to track down the much-coveted Vladimir Tod bag, or the cute Hello Kitty book bag.  I'm psyched to dig in and start reading all of these!

Spaceheadz review

Spaceheadz
by Jon Scieszka and Francesco Sedita, illustrated by Shane Prigmore
Simon & Schuster
2010

Hurrah! Scieszka and Company are in rare form, with this humorous science-fiction middle-grade adventure. Fifth-grader Michael K. gets stuck with the task of showing two new kids, Bob and Jennifer, the ropes in Mrs. Halley's classroom.  He quickly realizes that they are both out-of-this world... literally, from another planet.  The only information that Jennifer, Bob and their hamster leader, Major Fluffy, have about planet Earth is from television commercials, beamed into space.  Media-savvy readers will recognize many of the catchphrases and slogans that Bob and Jennifer employ in their conversation.

The kids manage to stay one step ahead of bumbling Agent Umber of the Anti-Alien Agency despite his phalanx of super-spy gadgets, including the Pickle Phone, a box of cereal that turns into a laptop computer and a giant taco disguise.

I found the spelling of Spaceheads - rendered throughout the text as SPHDZ - a little distracting at first but after a little while I got used to it.

Some of the best story content is featured on accompanying websites, full of Easter eggs and additional jokes and information, including www.mrshalleyscomets.com. This website is a brilliant send-up of many teachers' poorly designed efforts, complete with plenty of clashing colors, busy patterns, flashing extras, Comic Sans font and cheery "inspirational" quotes.  Agent Umber's somewhat official looking "government" website www.antialienagency.com has most links leading to an ominous pop-up reading, "Access Denied. You do not have sufficient security clearance to view this page."  However, some careful poking around will lead to case file reports of The Fried Santa Incident, and a rather silly set of highly bureaucratic forms, including Shoe Replacement and Suit Pocket Addition Forms.

Similar in theme, but weightier than Daniel Pinkwater's Fat Men from Space novella, less scatological than but just as fast paced and hilarious as Andy Griffith's The Day My Butt Went Psycho, I would recommend this for readers aged 8-10.




I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Old Spice Guy video

Old Spice Guy shares some of his thoughts on libraries.

Twilighting the Classics

Wow!  Check out this line-up of seemingly Twilight-inspired covers on classics put out by HarperTeen.  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, and Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, quite a triptych, eh?

Here's the British edition of Wuthering Heights by the same publisher.  It's billed as "Bella & Edward's Favourite Book."

And here's a cover for Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre by Amazon's publishing house, CreateSpace.  Look familiar?

Okay, these last few aren't classics... but the cover of Kissed by Angel, by Elizabeth Chandler looked so Twilight inspired, I had to include it.  The American edition is on the left, the UK edition is on the right.  I don't think you can see in this picture, but the British edition also has the tagline, "True Love Lasts Forever" in tiny lettering at the bottom.

And here, the cover for Sleepless by Cyn Balog, also features a flower on a black background.

Wondrous Strange review

Wondrous Strange

by Lesley Livingston

HarperTeen

2008

Having read Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely novels I was looking for something in the same vein, and was not disappointed by Wondrous Strange. Kelley Winslow is a young actress in New York working on a production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in the park. While I thought some of the Shakespeare allusions came across as a little heavy-handed, readers who aren't as familiar with the Bard's works will probably appreciate a lot of the exposition.  Rescuing what she believes to be a drowning horse (actually, a kelpie) Kelley is  dismayed when the horse reappears in the bathtub of her upper-story apartment. This whole exchange is played with humor, as Kelley frets over what she will feed it (turns out the kelpie has a taste for Lucky Charms cereal) or how she will clean up after it (luckily, the supernatural horse doesn't leave any messes behind.)

Angry, lonely Sonny is a changeling - a human child raised by faeries and sworn to service as a protector of them. Upon meeting Kelley in the Central Park one night, he quickly begins to suspect that she could be Faerie King Auberon's long-lost daughter.  A strained romance begins between the two, as Sonny struggles to keep the faery world and his duties within it a secret from Kelley for as long as he can.

One of the surprises in the book is one of Kelley's fellow actors, Bob, turns out to be the real Puck, a wisecracking, sticky-fingered guy, who's secretly been keeping an eye on Kelley, and manipulating things behind-the-scenes for years.

The climax of the book takes place on actual midsummer night, as the portal between human and faery worlds threatens to open, and hell hounds chase through Central Park.  Sonny and his fellow members of the Janus Guard are prepared to do battle to keep the rest of Manhattan safe, but ultimately, it is Kelley's faery heritage which saves the day.

This novel's blend of Celtic mythology, Shakespeare and romance will more than satisfy fans of urban paranormal fantasy. There is a sequel, Darklight, released earlier this year, which is sitting on my "To Be Read" pile.


I blogged this during the 48-Hour Reading Challenge.
I borrowed this book from the library.

Lucky Breaks review

Lucky Breaks
by Susan Patron, illustrated by Matt Phelan
Ginee Seo Books
2009

In this wonderful sequel to The Higher Power of Lucky, we return to the dusty micro-town of Hard Pan, California. Lucky's meandering thoughts and careful appreciation of little details is explored in a quirky and whimsical fashion.  She sees eleven as being intrepid and cherishes the "secret 11" in the straps of her new training bra. At eleven years of age, she is clearly looking forward to growing up, wearing make-up and other such things that are just ahead of her... yet she is still happy to not-quite be there yet. Lucky reminded me of Fern from Charlotte's Web in many ways.

Lucky has settled into a much more comfortable relationship with her adoptive mother Brigitte, who has started a new business, a small cafe. Geologists are up to study the rocks in Hard Pan, which affords Lucky the rare opportunity to make friends with a visiting girl her own age, Paloma.  Again, Lucky stirs up trouble with her misunderstandings

Patron defiantly returns to the matter of Roy's dog, who's scrotum so famously caused a flurry of censorship after the Newbery win of The Higher Power of Lucky. To be honest, in the first book, the incident is so seamlessly part of the story, I didn't even notice the "offending" word on my first read-through. The thing that I found most interesting about the whole controversy surrounding the first book, were the justifications that I heard about the word, including everything from "It's not like she was talking about a person!" to, "But, it's the actual medical term!"  The inclusion in the second book felt a bit forced to me, but not at all objectionable.


Birgitte's speech to Paloma's overprotective mother about how the world is full of danger, but full of adventure and wonderful things too, to let children experience things and try being brave is a rallying call against helicopter parenting.

Lucky's reverence for science, including her hero worship of Charles Darwin and, in general, her unique way of looking at the world will continue to charm those who enjoyed the finely-wrought world introduced in The Higher Power of Lucky. I am eagerly awaiting the final book in the trilogy.