This month's book reviews

How a class assignment changes a girl's life

Sixth grader, Tessy LeClerc, wasn't the smartest kid or the most popular girl in her class. This was the grade in which Mrs. Ford, the most boring teacher in the world, required all the kids to give an oral report on some aspect of Vermont history. Mrs. Ford had already let it be known that the smartest kid in the room would be reporting on the great Revolutionary War figure, Ethan Allen, hero of Ticonderoga. So the smart kids were all hoping to get Ethan Allen as their assignment. Some had already started to prepare just in case they were the lucky one. But not Tessy. She was counting on some easy topic that wouldn't require much time or effort.

Tessy was a little different from the other kids. Her family lived on a small farm just out of town. Her dad had a few dairy cows and he drove the truck that picked up milk from other farmers and delivered it to the dairy. Mr. LeClerc was from a French family and his English sounded more like French than English. Most of the time he smelled like tobacco and the cow barn. Tessy loved her family but she really didn't want the kids at school to know much about them.

The big change in her life occurred when Mrs. Ford had to be absent from school because she went to stay with her daughter who just had a new baby. The substitute teacher, Mr. Santangelo, was totally unlike Mrs. Ford. First of all, he was a man. But, most surprising of all, he believed the kids should be in charge of their learning, not the teacher! He did not believe kids should be competing against each other in the classroom. He wasn't about to assign the Ethan Allen report to the smartest kid in class. So guess who got the assignment. Yes, Tessy LeClerc was to report on Ethan Allen!

In this book we learn all about Ethan Allen and the Battle of Ticonderoga. But we learn about it in the most amazing way. Tessy starts her report by talking about things she thinks the kids will find interesting and entertaining. Mr. Santangelo keeps telling her to do more preparation and come back with more important information about the famous Vermont figure. So she does. Again and again she brings in a report with new information. Again and again Mr. Santangelo tells her that she must bring in more facts about Ethan Allen.

The kids like Tessy's reports because she tells such odd things about their state hero. The funniest part of the book is when the class goes to Ticonderoga to see the battlefield. Tessy even gives one segment of her report at the historical site. Her loud and smelly father goes along as one of the parents on the field trip. Oh, such embarrassment!

To Tessy's dismay, Mrs. Ford comes back and takes over the class before Mr. Santangelo has given Tessy a grade for her report. Has she done all this work for nothing?

This is a fun book to read. It is so different from what you would expect from the title.

 

Son of Jewish immigrants placed in orphanage on death of parents in New York of 1920's

David Caros is only eleven years old when his father is killed in an accident at his work. His mother had died at his birth. His relatives had joked that he had continued to cause trouble ever since. He wasn't a bad kid. He just couldn't keep from moving around all the time. His older brother, Gideon, on the other hand, was quiet and never got into trouble.

When their father was killed, an uncle was willing to take Gideon to live with his family in Chicago. Nobody was willing to keep Dave. His stepmother and aunts took him to the Hebrew Home for Boys, an orphanage. An angry Dave found out later that the other orphans called the home HHB or "Hell Hole for Brats."

His very first night in the home Dave manages to get out by climbing over a wall. He roams the streets of New York in only his pajamas and slippers. He meets a wide array of new friends and manages to be welcomed into some unusual parties. The trouble was that on returning to the home, he was caught and punished. That's how he came to find out why Mr. Bloom, the director of the orphanage, was called "Mr. Doom" by the other boys.

Even though he was under close watch after his first outside adventure, Dave, with the help of friends both inside and outside HHB, managed to spend other nights outside the walls. He knew he could make it on his own outside, but could he bring himself to leave the good buddies he had made in the home? He was the one who had helped them deal with the bullies who previously had made their lives even more miserable than Mr. Doom had.

"Dave at Night" is a historical novel for kids that gives the readers insight into life in an orphanage and into one part of New York society of the 1920's.

 

Can a human child raised by dolphins
ever live happily among humans?

A young girl had gone down at sea in a plane crash at the age of four. Years later a strange-appearing teenage girl is recovered from an uninhabited island off the coast of Florida. She can only make the squealing sounds that dolphins make and she likes to eat raw fish. The teenager, newly named Mila, turns out to be the lost four-year-old. She had been adopted by a female dolphin and raised as a dolphin in a family group or pod of the sea animals.

Mila turns out to be extremely bright and begins to pick up human language very quickly. Government researchers are intrigued at the possibility that Mila might eventually teach the scientists working with her the language of dolphins. Mila is not happy at being separated from her dolphin family, but she tries hard to please her human captors. When music is introduced to her, she finds an outlet for her pain and, temporarily, it appears she might adjust to human society.

Gradually Mila comes to realize that she is simply an object to be studied and later used for human purposes. Her human captors can never accept her as one of them. She begins to turn inward and slowly loses the gains made early in her captivity. Will government controlled researchers ever allow her to return to her happy life with the dolphins?

Any reader who values his or her own differences from others will come to empathize with Mila and her terrible loneliness.

 

A mountain boy rebels against helping
his father make illegal whiskey

Tom Higgins is only twelve years old but his father is teaching him a trade. Tom's father, just like his ancestors, has a reputation for making the best moonshine whiskey in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. One big problem is that it is the 1920's, the era of Prohibition, and making whiskey is a violation of federal law.

Tom's mother had taken his two younger sisters and left him and his father when Tom was only a six -year-old. So his father is his only family now and Tom wants very much to please him. He tries hard to learn how to make good moonshine like his dad. His way of life is upset when a preacher moves into the hollow with his wife and a daughter who is about the same age as Tom. The preacher is constantly preaching against the evils of drinking and is even willing to tell government revenue agents where to find hidden stills where whiskey is being made. On the other hand, the preacher wants to start a school so kids like Tom can learn to read and be successful in a changing world.

The little mountain community is also being invaded by "bootleggers" from the city who want to buy up all the moonshine whiskey that the mountain people can produce. These bootleggers don't care how the whiskey is made or even if it might be dangerously poisonous. Tom also starts to see that whiskey drinking often turns men into wife beaters and brutes who terrorize their own children. How can he continue to help his father make whiskey after he has seen the havoc drinking can cause?

While you are reading "Moonshiner's Son" you feel a part of a different time and a different place. Tom Higgins' problems become your problems and you become fully involved in his efforts to live up to his newly-acquired values without losing the respect of his tough-minded father.