This month's book reviews

In 15th century Korea, kite fighting
brings two brothers together

Young-sup is a natural at kite flying. His other brother, Kee-sup, can design and build kites that are beautiful and perfectly balanced. Their father expects Kee-sup to compete in the New Years Day kite-fighting competition. By tradition, the eldest son is the family member who is expected to fly the kite. But both boys know that the younger brother is by far the best kite flyer. Young-sup is resentful but he knows he must defer to his father and only help Kee-sup in the contest.

To the brothers' surprise, the King, who is only a boy himself, has been watching the boys practice their kite flying. Almost secretly, he asks the brothers to teach him to fly. The young King comes to realize that each boy has special talents that set him apart from others. He asks Kee-sup to build him a special kite. Then he asks the younger son, Young-sup, to fly it for him (the King) in the contest. The arrangement must be kept secret or other contestants would simply let the King's kite win, out of respect.

In combining their special talents, the brothers take part in an exciting contest. They plan to introduce new techniques that will revolutionize kite fighting. In the process, they hope to bring honor to their family and earn their father's approval and the favor of the King. But there are other competitors who are older and have had much more experience. Can they really expect to win?

A teenage girl in 1870's Sante Fe wonders
if she has been part of a miracle

On the way west, Lizzy Enders loses her mother to a deadly fever. After she and her father reach Sante Fe, Lizzy is shocked when her father enrolls her in a convent school for girls and slips away, leaving her behind. After all, she is a Methodist and everybody in the convent - nuns and students - are all Catholics. The life there, centered on religious practices, is all foreign to her.

The nuns and students spend a lot of time in the new chapel that the Bishop has had built for them. Strangely, the chapel has a choir loft but no stairway to get up to it. The money for building has run out. Besides, no one can figure out how to build a stairway without taking up too much space in the chapel.

Lizzy gets into trouble right away. She finds out what hypocrites some of the girls are, especially her pampered and spoiled cousin who is there also - Elinora is her name. Because Lizzy tells the teachers of some of the behavior that is going on, she is shunned by all the girls.

When Lizzy befriends an old and poor carpenter named Jose, he offers to build a stairway to the chapels choir loft. The Bishop approves, but the girls try to stop the attempt. They want a miracle instead. They claim that St. Joseph, to whom they have been praying, would be angry if someone tries to build a stairway in the usual manner. Besides they are jealous of Lizzy and don't want her to have any part in solving the staircase problem.

Lizzie and the old carpenter, Jose, get caught in the middle between the convent girls and the Bishop. Will the Bishop give in to pressure from the girls and send Jose away? Can Lizzie ever hope to have any kind of a normal life there in the convent, when the girls hate her so? Can poor Jose use his few primitive tools to build a proper stairway? Will Lizzie ever be able to join her father, who has set up a new life on a ranch in Texas? In finding an answer to all of these questions, the reader will be enjoying an exciting adventure story.

A burglary changes life in a quiet neighborhood

The alley isn't really an alley. It's a fenced in neighborhood on the campus of Grandby College in the heart of the city of Brooklyn. It has 27 houses and Connie Ives, a fifth grader aged ten, knows who lives in every one. Every house had a garden with flowers such as tulips, irises, and lilacs. In June there were roses - all colors. Connie spends a lot of time in her swing just looking over the neighborhood. She is even known as "the swinger" because she is usually swinging and watching everything that goes on in the Alley.

Connie didn't have any brothers or sisters, but there were lots of kids in the Alley. There was Katy Starr, a grade ahead of Connie, the bossiest kid in the neighborhood. Katy made the "rules" for all the kids in the Alley and none of them wanted to argue with her. There was Billy Maloon, Connie's best friend. There was Hugsy Goode and the four Carroll kids, and a lot more.

There hadn't been any burglaries in the Alley for years, but Connie thought about burglars a lot. And sure enough on a campus holiday when they were all away from home, Connie's house was burglarized. Such excitement! The police came - actually two sets of police. Because they acted so strangely and spent so much time in the house, Connie's mom suspected the first pair of policeman of taking some of her jewelry that the burglars overlooked. Oh my! Connie had so much to tell all the people in the Alley.

Looking back on the day, Connie remembered some strange guys outside the fence on the college campus that had seemed to be acting weird. Maybe they had been the burglars that broke in when everybody was gone. So Connie became the self-appointed look-out to make sure that there were no more burglaries. Billy Maloon was even more of a watchdog; He was always looking for strangers who might be "casing" a house to rob.

There is a lot of talk and there are lots and lots of details in this story. But the plot tends to center on catching the bad guys - whoever they are and if they show up again.

A book that asks the question,
"Do real losers have to work at it?"

Ethan Winfield and Julius Zimmerman were best friends. Both were seventh graders at West Creek Middle School. They both would have the shortest book reports in English class. Their science fair projects were always the worst ones submitted. They were the poorest basketball players in their age range. Finally, Julius proposed that they form a two man club and call it "Losers, Inc." He would be president and Ethan would be vice-president. Ethan thought that was great, since who would be a bigger loser than a guy who was vice-president of a two person club?

On a Monday morning, early in the school year, the boys had ridden their bikes to school and something happened that began to undermine their pride in being champion losers. She was beautiful. She had long golden hair that was almost to her knees. The boys thought she was just like Rapunzel in the story of Rumplestiltskin! Sure she was a little older than the boys, maybe twenty-years-old or even more. But there she was - in their school. It turns out that it was Ms. Grace Gunderson, the new student teacher. For the next five weeks she was to be doing her student teaching in science at West Creek Middle School. She would be in the boys' science class everyday for those five weeks. Wow!

Julius might have seen her first, but no way was Ethan not going to do everything in his power to be noticed by Ms. Gunderson. Things seemed to get off to a bad start in science class. To brainstorm science fair projects, Ethan found himself assigned to a small group that this time did not include Julius. But the group did include Lizzie Archer, the smartest girl in seventh grade. The kids called her "the Lizard" behind her back and made fun of her, especially, because she was writing poetry all the time. How could Ethan come up with a dumb project when he was dealing not only with "the Lizard" but with the breathtaking Ms. Gunderson?

The two boys learned quickly that situations can change rapidly. With the right motivation, losers can lose their pride in being losers! With a change in attitude, they might even work at becoming "winners." Can they manage to change that much?