Roxie and the hooligans

This morning I finished reading Roxie and the hooligans by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. It’s a fast paced adventure story with a plucky and resourceful heroine, and a whimsically illustrated beginning chapter book. It’s also on the Texas Bluebonnet Award 2007-2008 Master List, a list sponsored by the Texas Library Association “to encourage free voluntary reading.”

Roxie and the hooligans / by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor ; with illustrations by Alexandra Boiger.-- New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2006.

Description: 115 p. ; ill. : 22 cm.

ISBN: 9781416902430

Subjects:

Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction.
Bullying in schools -- Fiction.
Resourcefulness -- Fiction.
Survival -- Fiction.

Annotation:

Roxie Warbler wishes she could be as brave as her uncle. He accompanies the famous Lord Thistlebottom, author of Lord Thistlebottom's Book of Pitfalls and How to Survive Them, on his adventures in the wild. Roxie just wants to survive the hooligans of Public School Thirty-Seven, who torment her because of her “wonderful, round, pink, handles-on-a-sugar bowl ears” that stick straight out from her head. She knows Lord Thistlebottom’s advise for confronting wild beasts, and what to do if you’re caught in an avalanche, but she’s not sure there’s anything in his book about dealing with school bullies.

813.54

Team Moon

Last night I finished reading Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon by Catherine Thimmesh, the winner of the 2007 Sibert Medal for Children’s nonfiction.

Thimmesh, Catherine.

Team Moon : how 400,000 people landed Apollo 11 on the moon / by Catherine Thimmesh.

Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

80 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 29 cm.

ISBN: 9780618507573

Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-77) and index.

A Junior Library Guild selection.

Winner of the 2007 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal.

Subjects:

Apollo 11 (Spacecraft).

Project Apollo (U.S.)

Space flight to the moon -- History.

629.454

Annotation:

Moments after the Lunar Module Eagle had separated from the Command Module Columbia, above the surface of the moon to begin its decent, an alarm sounded. The speech for President Nixon in the event the astronauts died on the moon had already been written. Would he need to deliver it?

Back on earth at mission control in Houston the Flight Controller called on the expertise of the Apollo team. 400,000 people were working with the astronauts, everyone in Mission Control, the engineers working for the contractors that built the Eagle, the Columbia and the parachute system that would return them to earth, the computer programmers, the seamstresses who sewed the spacesuits for the moonwalk, and the radio telescope operators in Australia battling 70 miles an hour winds to capture the television signal and transmit it to an anxious planet. Twenty seconds after the call from Eagle the astronauts were told to proceed with the landing as long as the alarm was not constant. Eleven minutes later Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land a spacecraft on the moon.

Review:

It’s July 1969, moments after the Lunar Module Eagle had separated from the Command Module Columbia, and 33, 500 feet above the surface of the moon. The Eagle is just beginning its decent.

Suddenly, the master alarm in the lunar module rang out for attention with all the racket of a fire bell going off in a broom closet. “Program alarm,” astronaut Neil Armstrong called from the LM (‘LEM’) in a clipped but calm voice. “It’s a twelve-oh-two.”

…

Translation: We have a problem! What is it? Do we land? Do we abort? Are we in danger? Are we blowing up? Tell us what to do. Hurry!

The speech for President Nixon to deliver in the event the astronauts died on the moon had already been written. Fortunately, other back-up plans were in place. Back on earth at mission control in Houston, the Flight Controller looked to mission controller for guidance and navigation, who intern was in touch with the computer programmer in the backroom, meanwhile the Capsule Communicator (CapCom) recalled a similar alarm in a simulated training mission. The LM’s computer was momentarily too busy. Twenty seconds from the call from Eagle the CapCom relayed the message to proceed with the landing as long as the alarm was not constant. Eleven minutes later Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land a spacecraft on the moon.

The subtitle says it all, 400,000 people were working with the astronauts, everyone in Mission Control, the engineers working for the contractors that built the Eagle, the Columbia and the parachute system that would return them to earth, the computer programmers, the seamstresses who sewed the spacesuits for the moonwalk, and the radio telescope operators in Australia battling 70 mile an hour winds to capture the television signal and transmit it to an anxious planet.

Thimmesh has carefully selected stories of people behind the headlines and presented them in a marvelously illustrated chronicle of the near-crisis by near-crisis events from lift off to splash down during the first moon landing. The Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association awarded the author the 2007 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal for the most distinguished informational book published in English during the preceding year.

Flotsam and American born Chinese

Last night was a productive evening of reading. I finished Flotsam, the 2007 Caldecott medal winner and American born Chinese, the 2007 Printz award winner.

Yang, Gene.

American born Chinese / Gene Luen Yang ; color by Lark Pien.-- New York : First Second, 2006.

233 p. : col. ill. ; 22 cm.
ISBN: 9781596431522

Subjects:
Chinese Americans--Comic books, strips, etc.
Christian fiction
Graphic novels
Identity--Comic books, strips, etc.
Schools--Comic books, strips, etc.
Self-acceptance in adolescence--Comic books, strips, etc.
Self-acceptance--Comic books, strips, etc.

741.5973

Annotation:
The stories of Monkey, Sovereign Ruler of Flower-Fruit Mountain, who wants to be accepted into heaven, Jin Wang desperately trying to fit in to his new suburban American school, and Danny a high school student mortified by visits from his outrageously behaved cousin from China, Chin-Kee are expertly drawn together in this graphic novel

Review:
The stories of Monkey, Sovereign Ruler of Flower-Fruit Mountain, who wants to be accepted into heaven, Jin Wang desperately trying to fit in to his new suburban American school, and Danny a high school student mortified by visits from his outrageously behaved cousin from China, Chin-Kee are as expertly drawn together in this graphic novel as are narrative and illustration. Both in drawing and telling Yang has captured vivid essential elements to excite the reader’s imagination. His faces are expressive and his characters act realistically, even in the most imaginative fantasy sequences. His smoothly inked lines make this a work that could easily be transformed into animation without loss of characteristic style.

In one sequence Jin Wang chides his friend Wei-Chen to “Stop acting like such an F.O.B!” someone Fresh Off the Boat, still an alien to American culture. At the Chinese Community Center in Bellaire, Texas, the Chinese American students learning Mandarin use another acronym, A.B.C., American Born Chinese. It’s sometime used as a synonym for the uncomplimentary terms, “banana, or Twinkie," someone who has so assimilated into American Anglo culture that they have lost all connection to Chinese culture. In Yang’s work Danny is a banana. He wants so desperately to be accepted by his peers in high school that he cannot accept himself.

The Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, gave the 2007 Printz Award to Yang for American Born Chinese. It is the first time that a graphic novel has been honored in this way. The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature.

Wiesner, David.

Flotsam / David Wiesner. -- New York : Clarion Books, c2006.

[40] p. : chiefly ill. ; 24 x 30 cm.
ISBN: 9780618194575

Subjects:
Beaches--Pictorial works
Cameras--Pictorial works
Seas and oceans--Pictorial works
Stories without words.

759.13

Annotation:
In a series of imaginative watercolors Wiesner depicts a boy on a beach. He finds a camera as a bit of flotsam. When he has the film developed he discovers a series of fantastic images: mechanical fish, octopi lounging on overstuffed chairs in their living room, starfish islands rising up to stretch, tiny underwater flying saucers, and finally, a self-portrait of the last child who found the camera holding a picture of the previous child who found the camera, holding a picture of the previous child who found the camera, holding a picture of the previous child who found the camera, and so forth for ten regressions. The boy takes a picture of himself and casts the camera upon the waves to continue its cycle.

The Higher Power of Lucky

Last night I finished reading The Higher Power of Lucky, this year’s Newbery award winner. It’s a truly wonderful story fully populated with memorably eccentric adult and juvenile characters.

Patron, Susan.

The higher power of Lucky / Susan Patron ; with illustrations by Matt Phelan. – 1st ed. – New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers,© 2006.

134 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

ISBN : 978-1-4169-0194-5
"A Richard Jackson book."
Awarded the 2007 John Newbery Medal by the Association of Library Services for Children, a division of the American Library Association

Subjects:
Abandoned children – California – Fiction
Interpersonal relations – Fiction
Mojave Desert (Calif.) – Fiction
JUVENILE FICTION / Family / Orphans & Foster Homes

Annotation:
Ten-year-old Lucky Trimble lives in a trailer in Hard Pan, California (pop. 43) in the northern Mojave Desert. She has a job cleaning up around the Found Object Wind Chime Museum and Visitor Center, which is where all the anonymous groups hold their meetings. She cleans up all the cigarette butts left by the recovering alcoholics so they won’t offend the recovering smokers in the Smokers Anonymous meeting, and then all their candy wrappers so the wrappers won’t offend the recovering overeaters when they meet. Lucky eavesdrops. All the people at these meetings got over the bad problems in their lives by finding a Higher Power, and Lucky wants to know how they did it because she has a bad problem. Two years ago, after her mother died, her father – who never wanted children – sent for his first ex-wife to come and take care of Lucky. Now Lucky is afraid that she is planning to leave, and Lucky will need a new mother, one that will not be so foolish as to marry a man who doesn’t want children and one cautious enough to avoid downed power lines after a thunderstorm so as to not get electrocuted.