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July 2003 Vol.4 Issue 7
This
month's book reviews
Just
about all kids would like to
feel famous at least once in their lives
We all know the
feeling. Why is it only certain people get all the fame and
newspaper coverage? We never get recognized for anything we
might do. Judy Moody is no exception. She wants her fifteen
minutes of fame. Encouraged by her friends, she tries some
unusual stunts to get famous - none of which works. She does
one good deed just because she wants to and, all of a sudden,
she's the talk of the town.
"Judy Moody
Gets Famous" is a little book with lots of space around
the lines. It is also cleverly illustrated. It's just the
paperback to entice a kid who says he or she doesn't want
to read a book.
Skullduggery
- an appropriate name for
a book about digging up skulls from graves
"Skullduggery"
by Kathleen Karr is an adventure story for boys that follows
the model of a Charles Dickens or a Robert Louis Stevenson
novel. Of course, "Skullduggery" is briefer and
less ponderous, but it does follow the adventures of an orphaned
young boy who falls in among some very eccentric characters
as he tries to make his way in the world. The book's focus
on the now outmoded science of phrenology certainly makes
it unique among paperback adventure novels available for preteens
and young teenagers.
A
summer without her high-spirited
grandmother for a lonely nine-year-old
in Halleluia, Mississippi
As you might guess
from the title "Love, Ruby Lavender" a big part
of this book is based on an exchange of letters - in this
case, letters between nine-year-old Ruby Lavender and her
grandmother, Miss Eula. As with a number of other novels for
adults set in the rural south, this kids' novel has an underlying
mystery that runs throughout the book, while the surface offers
an otherwise hilarious spoof of small town life.
The serious part
of "Love, Ruby Lavender" is concerned with how a
young girl comes to deal with the unjustified guilt she feels
for the accidental death of her much loved grandfather. A
discussion guide in included in the back of this little paperback.
A
"message" book by a
popular children's author
Peg Kehret, author
of a couple of dozen kids' books, in "My Brother Made
Me Do It," has written about juvenile arthritis and the
efforts of one spunky eleven-year-old girl to deal with this
debilitating disease. The title itself has a double meaning.
It's true, the heroine, Julie Welsh, does get in trouble through
involvement in the weird schemes of her younger brother. But,
this same brother is a strong asset for her because he entices
and cajoles her to push herself to test the limits of her
physical handicap.
There are other
secondary messages in the book as well. Through Julie's correspondence
with an eighty-nine-year-old pen pal, young readers are led
to a better understanding of old age and how the elderly confined
in nursing homes need interaction with others. The importance
of caring parents and sensitive friends is also highlighted.
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