August 2004     Vol.5 Issue 8

This month's book reviews

Tradition and family relationships
play a part in an ancient Korean sport

Linda Sue Park, author of "The Kite Fighters," already has won a Newbery Medal for her earlier book about medieval Korea, titled "A Single Shard." As the earlier book was structured around the art of pottery making, this book centers around the sport of kite fighting. Park uses the excitement surrounding competitive kite flying as a device to involve her young readers in the life and traditions of 15th century Korea. Her books are a great way to broaden kids' interests in the wider world around them - past and present.

• Buy this book from

A story of a miracle in a convent in old
Sante Fe is retold in a girl's adventure novel

"The Staircase' by Ann Rinaldi uses an actual staircase in a chapel in Sante Fe, New Mexico, as the centerpiece for her novel. The story behind the unusual spiral staircase is that it was built by a mysterious carpenter with primitive tools. When the carpenter disappeared, all the lumberyards in the area denied supplying any of the rare wood used in construction of the stairway.

Young girls readers will readily identify with Lizzy who has just lost her mother and then is left behind in a convent school when her father slips off to continue West. Her mistreatment at the hands of the cliquish girls in the convent will arouse sympathy and further involve the readers in the assortment of details surrounding Lizzy's adventure-filled year.

• Buy this book from

A kids' book from 1964 is
repackaged with a more colorful cover

"The Alley" by Eleanor Estes was reviewed as "whimsical" and "lively and amusing" in early reviews forty years ago. It's possible some of today's parents might have read it when they were kids. It is quite different from most of today's books for kids. It focuses more on creating an atmosphere and depicting characters than on advancing a plot. The author is clearly having fun in telling her story from ten-year-old Connie Ives' perspective. A patient reader will have fun as well.

• Buy this book from

A crush on a student teacher helps
turn around a seventh grade loser

"Losers, Inc." by Claudia Mills is a light and humorous paperback. Its main characters, seventh graders, Ethan and Julius, think they are being "cool" when they try to excel at being "losers". Their self-images change considerably when they exert what is unusual effort (for them) to excel in school in order to impress a beautiful young student teacher. Ethan even comes to admire fellow classmate, Lizzie Archer, aka "the Lizard," and appreciate her tendency to write poetry.

• Buy this book from