This Month's Book Reviews

A biography for kids of a popular past president
still talked about today

A relatively new paperback series featuring the lives of famous people is the DK Biographies, heavily illustrated and explicitly written for kids throughout the English speaking world. The books in the series sell for only $4.99 in bookstores in the U.S. and there are more than two dozen titles published so far. Reviewed this month is "John F. Kennedy" authored by Howard S. Kaplan, who has previously written books for children. It seems especially pertinent that middle graders today know something of the details of the life of this former president since so many references are continually being made to his life and times both in the news and in adult discussions. The short and highly readable DK biography provides a quick and accessible way for young readers to be well-briefed on the JFK mystique.

 

Do kids really have to get tougher
when they become fourth graders?

Author Jerry Spinelli is famous as the author of the Newbery-award-winning "Maniac Magee." So his short, tongue-in-cheek paperback, "Fourth Grade Rats" follows a pattern found in others of his kids' books. In this one, a "wimpy" kid tries to live up to a classmate's demand that as a fourth-grader he "toughen up", even to the point of bullying younger kids. It turns out the two boys' mothers have something to say about that. It's a short book that doesn't place much demand on a young reader's reading skills.

A novelization of a recent animated movie
based on a prize-winning novel

"The Tale of Despereaux" is a little novel with an interesting history. Written by Kate DiCamillo, the original novel won the Newbery Award for Children's Literature in 2003. In 2008, an animated movie was released based on the original novel. The book reviewed here, published in 2008, is based on the script of the film. The story itself is very different from DiCamillo's earlier writing, which tended to be realistic and based on modern day kids ("Because of Winn-Dixie", YSL review October 2001 and "The Tiger Rising", YSL review October 2007). Despereaux is actually a huge-eared little mouse who aspires to engage in heroic actions. And so he does, in the fanciful novel. The original novel, as is often the case, is able to leisurely develop the characters and the plot more so than the movie version. A serious reader normally would be better off reading the original rather than script-based version. However, some kids would prefer to read the book based on the movie, especially if they had seen the film version first. Of course, this second version contains color photographs from the movie as well.

A young girl finds strength in the positive memories
of her lost sister

"Kira-kira" by Cynthia Kadohata was winner of the 2004 Newbery Medal for the Most Distinguished Contribution to American Literature for Children. It is the story of two Japanese-American sisters in late 1950's America - Katie and Lynn Takeshima. The little novel does deal with the racism of the American South in that era. However, its main focus is how one younger sister's memories of her positive-thinking older sister help her cope with life after the older sister succumbs to a terminal illness. The memories of Lynn not only help the younger Katie cope with her own problems but help her provide strength for her overly-stressed family.