Book Review: The World Beneath by Janice Warman

The World Beneath by Janice Warman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Reposted from my review on Kidliterati 

This historical novel opens up in Cape Town, South Africa, 1976 during apartheid.

Twelve-year-old, Joshua dreams about his big brother, who works in Johannesburg, and he fears for his life. His mother, they call Beauty, not her Xhosa name is the maid in a white household, and she assures Joshua his brother’s fine.

Sent to live with his mother and the wealthy Malherbe’s while he recovers from tuberculosis, Joshua hides his presence. He’s not supposed to be seen. There’s a cupboard under the stairs, where he keeps out of everyone’s way, listening to the sounds of the house.

One day, he finds himself on a “whites only” street with money in his pocket. His mother had told him, “You must never let the police see you. You are not supposed to be here. You must be invisible.”

But when kind-hearted, Joshua comes across Tsumalo, a black man being hunted down by the police the outside world enters to the house of the Malherbe’s, and Joshua hides him in the shack no one visits. Tsumalo explains the cruel injustices taking place in South Africa.

“We are fighting for freedom, Joshua. The whites have the power, and they don’t want to share it with us. They call it apartheid.”

The two become very close, Tsumalo much like the father he never had. Joshua wants to return home to Ciske, where his grandparents live with his younger brother and sister. But he also wants to help, be like his brother, and fight for justice. Only he has to get an education, first, which is denied black people under apartheid.

An explosive incident happens at the Malherbe’s, and Joshua is separated from his mother and Tsumalo. But two years later, Joshua returns to the town he grew up, and to the house his mother worked, knowing he has to make a choice, a choice that could send him to prison without a trial.

Difficult and heartbreaking, readers follow Joshua through what he has to endure; be prepared to become angry when reminded of the ignorance of racism and apartheid. This book is a good starting point for discussions about human rights and democracy, but some passages may not be clear enough for young readers. The author is a reporter now, who lived in South Africa during this time.



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My Book Review: The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett.

This is a repost from my review on Kidliterati blog from June.  
Chelsea Sedoti's book is too good not to share again! Kudos to the author. 

I read an ARC on NetGalley. 

From the first page, I was intrigued by what was happening to Lizzie Lovett. I had to know, and the MC's voice impressed more urgency for me to know. The author, Chelsea Sedoti’s voice is spot on, creating much tension and curiosity.

Quirky seventeen-year-old, Hawthorne Creely has a lot of thoughts, and when she learns that perfect Miss Lizzie Lovett, whom she once had an unpleasant run-in with, during her freshman year, has disappeared, her curiosity takes over. The mystery of Lizzie’s disappearance snags Hawthorne and doesn’t let her go. She goes into full detective mode. She learns about Lizzie’s camping trip with the boyfriend many would blame. Say he killed her and hid the body. Surprised a girl like Lizzie would even go camping. Hawthorne goes on a search, and her unique view of the world helps snag the twenty-something boyfriend Lizzie Lovett left behind, convincing him that Lizzie turned into a werewolf. She did have a wolf necklace and liked wolves.

He pushes her away at first, but Hawthorne convinces him (with that ever-convincing way of hers) and he follows along. They search for Lizzie until they come closer to an answer. Confusion and more thoughts rule Lizzie’s mind. She has some pretty creative thoughts, almost like poetry on occasion. A couple of my favorites:

“I knew that even though someone seemed perfect it didn’t mean they weren’t hurting inside.”

“It was a little crazy to think about. That while you were envying other people, they could be envying you too.”

“Nothing ends; it just turns into a different story.”

Chelsea Sedoti has a great teen voice, with the added doubts and troubles, a little obnoxious, she says what’s on her mind. Often getting her in trouble (sound familiar?) There’s so much to love in this book. I was eager to know what happened to Lizzie, and by the end, I was glad to have closure. There was a good amount of suspense, and I raced through this because the voice was so intriguing. I would have followed it anywhere. Glad to have this unique book to read. Hawthorne is a great character, with feelings many of us can relate to.

Pub date: January 3rd, 2017 from Sourcebooks. 

Happy Friday!

Just something I made on Canva today, playing around. I paid $1.00 for this image. Not a bad deal. It's a great tool for promotion. I've only just begun, but I think I'm going to enjoy myself too much with the images and possibilities of creation.  Here's a link to Canva.

Do you have other go-to sites for designing your promotions?  Let me know. I'm gathering resources.  Thanks!  

Review: I Woke Up Dead at the Mall

I Woke Up Dead at the Mall by Judy Sheehan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I needed a book to review and quick and remembered the title, I WOKE UP DEAD AT THE MALL, a title that startles you with a laugh. I opened up the sample chapters—and that first page took hold of me. Judy Sheehan’s voice is immediate and so funny!

Sixteen-year-old, Sarah, wakes up dead at the Mall of America. It’s in Minnesota! Still wearing the mango chiffon bridesmaid gown and murdered with no idea how or who would have killed her. It’s not as if she had a trail of enemy’s. She kept to herself and didn’t make too many waves. It’s been this way since her mother died years ago. Things haven’t been the same. Now it’s just her dad and his new girlfriend, Karen, a godsend, she’s helped Sarah and her dad reconnect.

But now, Sarah walks among the living, busy doing living people things. Mixed among the living are the walking dead. The walking dead move silently through the crowds unseen because they haven’t moved on. They’re still attached to the world. Sarah will be too if she can’t let go. Dissolve into ash, and never, ever return to Earth.

While at the mall, which is a sort of wait station, Sarah meets a couple other teens that were murdered and also last lived in New York City. We meet Bertha, the team organizer. Head honcho. She shows the teens the ropes. Each has quite a story of how they came to be there. There’s Sassy Lacey, Ancient Alice, Happy Harry (once cancer-stricken), and Nick, whose mind was “so different and intriguing”—and cute! They have some fun running around the mall (reminding me of Dawn of the Dead).

Before they move on, the teens must return to Earth and watch their funerals. This is supposed to help them let go of this world. Sarah uses her funeral to figure out who killed her. But Earth life still haunts Sarah. Her long-dead mother is visiting her dreams (the dead don’t dream) and neither knows why. She has unfinished business back on Earth. Will her new friends help?

Such a fun read. That last chapter made me gasp! I had chills and tears. I think teens (12-17) are going to gobble this up. The author has had theater training and you can feel this throughout the book. Very entertaining. Bravo!


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MG Book Review: ALL FOUR STARS

All Four Stars by Tara Dairman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Eleven-year-old, Gladys Gatsby has kept her cooking a secret for years. Until the day her parents come home early from work and discover she’s torched the kitchen curtains.
Gladys simply wanted to caramelize the crème brûlée she’d made. If she had the proper tools it would never have happened. Now she’s banned from cooking altogether, banned from the Planet Food channel, even from cook books for the next sixth months.

Her parents want Gladys to do “normal” kid things, like play more computer games, or go to the mall, and make more friends in general, instead of this cooking thing, which they don’t understand. Her parents’ idea of cooking is to not follow the directions, and throw everything into a microwave. Everything! Even chocolate chip cookies. Though most nights her parents would rather just stop at Pathetti’s Pizza, Fred’s Fried Fowl, or Sticky burgers. Gladys fears she’ll starve over the next sixth months.

Her Aunt Lydia, who lives in Paris, has been the beacon of good food in Glady’s life. “On any given day she might offer her niece a dried persimmon dipped in chocolate, a lavender-flavored sandwich cookie, or a pretzel coated with a green powder called wasabi . . .” When Glady was seven, she secretly brought Gladys into New York City to taste what a real restaurant was like. Gladys’s life changed.

It’s a new year. Glady’s enters the sixth grade, and dreams of pho bo—the Vietnamese beef and noodle-filled breakfast soup she cooked in fourth grade. She keeps notes in the food journal her aunt Lydia sent. But Gladys would never tell the kids at school about her gourmet tastes or talents—they’d only think she was even more of a freak.

Gladys’s new teacher Ms. Quincy wants the class to write an essay for the New York Standard about what they want to do in the future. One will be chosen to represent the school. Gladys is hesitant because she doesn’t want the kids to know that ever since she read her first dinning section of the New York Standard--the newspaper banned by her town--she’s wanted to write food reviews for them. Gladys struggles to write the essay. She doesn’t want to be singled out by her classmates--and if her parents find out what she really wants to do they’d “totally freak” and probably extend her sentence.

But the new boy next-door, Sandy, pushes Gladys to write about what’s really in her heart. A twist of fate turns the tide, and Gladys finds herself the position she’s only ever dreamed of. She will be challenged, and she’ll have to figure out a way to make her dreams happen on her own. I loved this story. This is an ideal book to give to any young budding chefs, or foodies.

Warning: You will become very, very hungry while reading this book. It inspired me to get back in the kitchen and cook up something exotic and delicious. And was so much fun to read. ALL FOUR STARS gets five stars by me.







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100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith

100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book began with a curious statement about a boy, who isn’t exactly sure where he comes from. And he’s not the only one to believe he came from his father’s work of fiction. The story he wrote about a boy, named Finn, just like his son, who was an epileptic, just like his son, with clipped wings –unlike his son. Though Finn does have markings from the childhood accident that left him with vertebrae pins and a dead mother when a horse fell from a bridge—100 Sideways Miles on top of them. It doesn’t help that the human eating aliens in his father’s book have the exact scars Finn has on his back. Finn has to remind everyone it’s just a story. Fiction. Get over it. But Finn cannot.

Sixteen year-old, Finn Easton carries the weight of believing he is the character in the pages of his father’s book. But he wants to write his own story. Like many adolescents who fall under the weight of their parents’ beliefs, and life styles, we try and break free. It’s only when we become adults and move away from our parents that we can charts our own course, and see our own free will in action. Until then, we struggle to map our individual identity.

And Finn has a good buddy Cade Hernandez, to help on his journey, the extrovert, and Cade looks after him. Finn, the introvert, idolizes all the crazy antics Cade does and is. Cade Hernandez was like a God. He had the ability to make anyone do what ever he wanted. Including Finn. I couldn’t help thinking about the similarity of the friendship between Gene and Phineas in the classic, Separate Peace by John Knowles, with how much Gene idolized Phineas. Cade and Finn are complete opposites, the yin and yan of each other, and have been good friends since Finn was ten years old. Though Finn’s father doesn’t care for Cade, because he’s everything he doesn’t want his son to become. Cade is brash, and reckless, outspoken, and speaks in some pretty graphic dialogue. The dialogue rang true for teen boys (I have two teen boys), messing around. And Cade, the prankster and joker, messes with everyone.
There’s a lot of quirk in this story, which I love. Finn believes distance is more important than time. Twenty miles per second, which is how fast the Earth is spinning. I love Finn’s internal dialogue, the way he thinks. How everything is on a much grander scale than what we see. The poetic lens he sees through.

The smell of sweet flowers, always signal to Finn he’s about to have an epileptic seizer. He usually wakes up from these episodes, covered in urine, angry, and empty of all thoughts, until his life returns, until he can remember where he is.

One day, after his father, and the only Mom he remembers, leave for New York City, Finn collapses at home.
Naked and soaked in urine, with his ever faithful dog by his side—he is discovered by the “most beautiful girl he’d ever seen” Julia Bishop. She’s new at school and turns out she lives up the canyon from him.

So between Cade and Julia, they help show Finn a way to write his own story. Adventure ensues. Love blossoms. And the boys become heroes in the process. I enjoyed this book very much, and I think my sixteen year old will find many truths he can to relate to.


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Middle Grade Book Review! ~ The Wig in the Window.

The Wig in the Window by Kristen Kittscher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I read the blurb for THE WIG IN THE WINDOW, Kristen Kittscher’s middle-grade mystery with its premise: two seventh-graders, midnight steak outs, spying, suspicious neighbors, walkie-talkies, secret codes, and mistaken identities, all rolled into a humorous and creepy mystery, I had to read this.

I loved this book! The humor of the mc, Sophie Young, together with her best friend, Grace Yang, as they turn into self-appointed agents, Young and Yang— slayed me.
The girls become tangled up in a caper after spying on their creepy neighbor, who is also, Sophie’s middle school guidance counselor, “Dr. Awkward.”

But is what Sophie and Grace saw true, or a case of the girls over active imaginations? The school counselor sure gives Sophie reason to believe it.

The pressure of the situation wears on the girls and tests their friendship. Assumptions are tested. But the girls never let the case go—and for good reason, because there are a couple plot twists before it’s all over. The plotting, and the details woven into this mystery are so well done, I’m still thinking about them. I also love how Sophie uses quotes from military general, Sun Tzu, as her philosophy throughout. She’s a smart cookie, that one, and I loved her. I enjoyed many of the characters, especially Sophie’s grandpa, who adds kindle to her imaginative fire.

This is a book I wish I had in middle school. I would have acted out the scenes with my friends, over and over. This book is so much fun, intriguing, surprising, and the friendship, heartfelt, I’m adding it to my top MG picks for this year.


~ karen

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