Let's Hear it for the Boys!

      
This week I read four of the books on the 2012-13 Maud Hart Lovelace list and all of them featured male main characters written by talented male authors! Let's hear it for the boys!

Top of the Order by John Coy 

John Coy is a Minnesota author from Minneapolis and I always have a special spot for the authors from our state.  Top of the Order is a sports story about baseball and teamwork. The story features four friends in 5th grade who are ready to go to middle school and play on sports teams together. Of course they encounter problems along the way.  One problem happens to be a girl who joins their baseball team and shows up to play with a pink glove! So embarrassing.

 As I was nearing the end of this book, I realized that I had read it before! The story has a lot of baseball scenes and I think I may have tuned some of that out. So, despite the fact that the book was forgettable to me, I think sports fan will enjoy the book.  This is beginning of a series of four books and the following will be about basketball, football, and soccer as the boys play together at different sports all year long. A great read for the boys!


Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs

Will Hobbs is usually the author I look for when a boy is looking for an outdoor adventure story.  Go Big or Go Home is set in the Badlands of South Dakota. I have visited the area several times and so it was fun to picture the places he writes about in the book.

 In the story, Brady is watching a meteorite storm from his rooftop when a meteor hits his house and goes through his bed.  Turns out the meteorite is from Mars and is very rare and  it gives Brady some extra super athletic powers through the bacteria it contains. However, there are some side affects that put Brady in jeopardy for his life. Brady and his cousin are wild about adventure and doing things to the extreme. For some reason the parents in this book leave the boys alone and as a result they do things that perhaps most kids would never be able to accomplish under parental watch. It is a great outdoor adventure and science fiction read!


After Ever After by Jordan Sonnenblick

This book is a sequel to Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, but could stand alone. Drums was about 8th grader Steven and how he dealt with his four year old brother Jeffrey, who had cancer. In After Ever After, Jeffrey is in 8th grade and in remission. He has to deal with the side effects of his treatments which includes limping and learning difficulties. In this story, he encounters first love, state testing problems, and a best friend who has some secrets he is not willing to share. Another wonderful story by Sonnenblick about the not so typical lives of young teens. I also recommend Notes from a Midnight Rider. I haven't read Zen and the Art of Faking It yet, but it will be on my list.


The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity (Brixton Brothers) by Mac Barnett

This mystery is the first in a series called Brixton Brothers. The main character is Steve Brixton and he loves a series of mysteries called the Bailey Brothers. (Think "Hardy Boys")  He is given an assignment by his teacher to do a research paper on needlework over the weekend.  When he checks out a book on quilts at the public library, he is mistaken for a detective and and gets wrapped up in a madcap adventure/mystery/detective case. There is kidnapping, car chases, running from cops, avoiding thugs, secret passages, and everything you expect from a detective story.  Steve eventually solves this mystery which revolves around librarians and their secret identities and what they protect. Although he doesn't have a brother, he and his best friend become "The Brixton Brothers" because it sounds good and go on to solve more mysteries in the next books in the series.  It is a fun read and hopefully lots of boys will get hooked on the mystery genre and keep reading!

Diamond Willow by Helen Frost

Maud Hart Lovelace Nominee 2012-13

     

I just finished reading Diamond Willow which is one of the nominees  for the Maud Hart Lovelace book award this year.  Since I read with the Rochester group who nominees the nominees, I had already taken a peek at this book and alas, had abandoned it after reading a few pages a year or so ago.  So, back to reading the book in its entirety since it is now on the reading list.

The book is a short story written in poetic form. The shape of each page is in a type of diamond shape, similar to the look you would find on a diamond willow branch once you rub the bark off.  The author also bold faced a few words on the page to form a secret message...a type of short summary...or message between the lines of the story.   The reason I abandoned the book was because it was so frustrating for me to stop on each page and read the message. So I just ignored the message this time and I was able to hook into the book.

The story is about a family in Alaska and their sled dogs and a family secret. Willow, the main character is 13 years old and feels lonely and sad. An accident with her sled dog causes the family secret to be told as Willow struggles with the injury of her dog Roxy. Throughout the book, Frost changes the character to an animal which is the spirit of a relative. These pages are not written in the diamond shape.  I'm not sure if this is part of  Native American spirituality teachings, however, it was interesting to see how she shows that family is always watching out from our past.

Lots of extra teaching material at the end of the book with questions and ideas for writing your own unusual poem with special rules.  I found that once I was hooked and ignored the bold print, I enjoyed reading the book.
I give the book 3 out of 4 stars.