Poking a Dead Frog by Mike Sacks

Recently a childhood friend posted on Facebook that he was struggling to find the humor in Parks and Recreation, a show all his friends had told him was worth watching. After I recovered from my various levels of disbelief (You’re just now watching Parks and Recreation? You don’t find the character of Ron Swanson hilarious? Leslie Knope bothers you?), I thought about that most elemental of questions: What is Funny? The answer (other than farts, of course) may be unknowable, but Mike Sacks provides us with some of the smartest thinking about the question in his impressive Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations With Today’s Top Comedy Writers.

POACHED by Stuart Gibbs

I thought BELLY UP by Stuart Gibbs was terrifically hilarious when I read it a few years ago so I decided to try another one of his books. 

Teddy is back solving mysteries at FunJungle and causing havoc in the process.  Living at a zoo evidently isn't exciting enough for Teddy.  His penchant for playing practical jokes has gotten him in some hot water in the past, but the occasion to investigate the kidnapping of the zoo's borrowed koala, Teddy takes things very seriously.

When it is revealed that Teddy is the prime suspect in Kazoo's disappearance, he knows he must take things into his own hands.  He is suddenly extremely busy dealing with Large Marge, a security guard out to get him, and handling a bully named Vance and his sidekicks who are harassing him at school and at the zoo.  Can he find the kidnapper before the koala starves?  Is it a disgruntled employee or one of the keepers hoping to strike it rich with a huge ransom?

POACHED is classic Stuart Gibbs with plenty of humor, non-stop action sequences, and amateur sleuthing.  It is perfect for middle grade readers looking for a fast, fun read.

Previously posted at readingjunky.blogspot.com.

When Vampires Blog

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is Holly Black's (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Tithe, Doll Bones) first vampire novel, based on her short story of the same name from the collection The Poison Eaters and Other Stories.

After passing out in a bathtub at a party the night before, seventeen year-old Tana wakes up prepared to be embarrassed about whatever kind of fool she's made of herself. But she's not prepared to find nearly everyone else from the party dead, attacked by vampires and drained of blood. It's horrifying, it's shocking, but it's the scale of the killings that's notable, not the attackers.

In Tana's world--like our own reality in every other respect--vampires are common. When Tana was six vampires were "Muppets, endlessly counting, or cartoon villains in black cloaks with red polyester linings." Sometime after that, a vampire from Springfield, MA, named Caspar Morales set about spreading vampirism as widely as he fancied. And now, the world has "gone cold." In some parts of the world, streets "teem with vampires," held in check only by vampire hunters who take out the undead in the usual ways: beheadings, wooden stakes to hearts, fire.

In the US, the problem is handled differently.

Grab Bag Post: League of Seven sequel, Six of Crows, and Zander Cannon's KAIJUMAX!

   

Just a bunch of quick notes this month about a couple of books and a comics series I've been reading that have me really excited.

All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

Violet Markey and Theodore Finch do not meet cute—they meet dire. Atop the bell tower at their school, each looking for a way out. A way out of relentless grief, in Violet’s case, and a way out of the darkness of depression, in Theodore’s case.  For Violet, this is the first time she’s been on this ledge, literally and figuratively. Finch, on the other hand, has become a morbid authority on the subject of suicide. Finch talks Violet down from the ledge and then joins her in safety, gallantly creating the public image that she was only up there to rescue him, someone all his classmates already know to be a “Freak.”

Neither Violet nor Finch jump or fall in the opening of Jennifer Niven’s emotionally charged young adult novel, All The Bright Places. But they do fall for each other, as the manic pixie dream boy antics of Finch prove an elixir for Violet, who has entombed herself in grief since the car accident that killed her older sister, Eleanor. And Violet’s embrace of Finch’s essential goodness allows him to rise above the “Freak” label his undiagnosed bipolar disorder has burdened him with for years.

When Finch offers/insists on being Violet’s partner for their Indiana state history project, one that involves “wandering” around the state in search of notable sites, All The Bright Places becomes, for a time, a clever gender twist on the “manic pixie dream girl” trope. Finch brings a brightness and spontaneity into Violet’s life that chips away been at her grief and survivor’s guilt.

But Finch is more than a manic pixie dream boy—he is also a depressed gnomic nightmare boy, one who has always ridden out his depressive episodes alone, as one would growing up with an abusive father and an emotionally absent mother.  And despite the brightness Violet has brought to his life, Finch finds himself unable to accept help, mostly because of his misguided but understandable notion that to accept such help means to assent to a label. Having endured the “Freak” label throughout his adolescence, Finch fears the yoke the “bipolar” label will add.

Using the shared narration of Finch and Violet, Nevin has crafted a moving depiction of a complicated teenage romance. She has also, to her credit, avoided any semblance of a simplistic happy ending, showing a respect for her teenage (and adult) readers that the young adult genre is too often without, particularly when dealing with weighty issues like mental illness and suicidal ideation.

Finch is a musician and a songwriter, and Violet is a writer, though writing too fell away in her passionless post-Eleanor life. Words, beyond their denotations, mean something to these characters. So I leave you with some words from Scottish songwriter Roddy Woomble, words that would fit well in Nevin’s plaintive author’s note:

“Don’t let the darkness become another form of light.”

Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar

Wayside School was supposed to be a one-story building with thirty classrooms. The builder accidentally made each classroom an entire level, making the building look more like a skyscraper than a school! (Oh, and no matter what anyone tells you, there is no nineteenth story.)

Each chapter in Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar focuses on a different character from one class in particular: the class on the thirteenth story. Mrs. Gorf is known for being the meanest teacher at the school. She turns bad kids into apples. Then something unbelievable happens (shh - only the kids in her class know what happened!) and she is replaced by Mrs. Jewls, a very nice lady who is incredibly nervous about her new job. Luckily, the kids take to her, and she stays.

Mrs. Jewls could not have known how very . . . unique these students would be. Take Sharie, who "spen(ds) all of her time either looking out the window or sleeping," then falls out of the window and stays fast sleep until she is caught by Louis, the yard teacher. Consider Kathy, who does not like anyone, or Maurecia, who is liked by everyone (except Kathy) but only really likes ice cream. Meet artistic Bebe, gum-chewing Joy, mysterious Sammy, the three Erics, and more.

The characters reappear in Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger and Wayside School is Falling Down, each aptly titled, each illustrated in a similar manner. Just when you think things can't get any stranger at Wayside School, they do! Look at the cafeteria food closely, and watch out for the cows. Young readers will wish their school was as silly as Wayside School. Prepare to laugh 'til the cows come home. Really.

The last two books in the line, Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School and More Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School combine quizzes and logic puzzles with story bits. There's a new student at Wayside, and she doesn't quite understand how YOU + ME is a math problem. Oh, but it is!

These books are fun to read out loud in an elementary school classroom. Have kids discuss their favorite character, or vote for the character with the coolest-sounding name. The chapters are very short, so it's also great for kids who are just latching on to chapter books as well as reluctant readers. Students could also create a new character - a new student, a new teacher, a new....rat? - and write a new chapter mimicking the author's writing style.

The books in order:
- Sideways Stories from Wayside School
- Wayside School is Falling Down
- Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger
- Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School
- More Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School

Read this book: Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson

I rarely say this, but you have to read this book. Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad by M.T. Anderson is the kind of history writing that teachers dream about it. It's factually accurate, for westerners covers a little known period of history, is passionately written and filled with riveting prose. Simply put, this is the book you have to read if you want to understand modern Russia.

Have I persuaded you yet?

I was fairly surprised that Anderson would be the one to write a book like Symphony as it is straight up history and built around an adult protagonist (composer Dmitri Shostakovich). Anderson is a great writer, but still, for all that he has written historical fiction in the past,  this title does not give him the room to manufacture drama. He had to follow the story exactly where it took him and let it tell itself as events occurred. As a Russian story set first in the time of the last tsar and then under Lenin and Stalin, there is a lot of politics and some of the pages are far less gripping than others. But Anderson is patient and smart and so exceedingly skilled that he makes the machinations of the Soviet state in the Russian breadbasket during the 1920s read as incredibly exciting.

I don't know how he does it, I just know that he does and you have got to read this book.

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

It all started with a post on tumblr. Simon Spier was checking out his high school’s unofficial tumblr, supposedly “a place where you can post anonymous confessions and secret random thoughts, and people can comment, but no one really judges you. Except it all kind of devolved into this sinkhole of gossip and bad poetry and misspelled Bible quotes. And,” as Simon puts it, “I guess it’s kind of addictive either way.”

Anyway, this post by someone calling himself Blue was different and it just resonated by Simon. It put into words some of the things Simon felt and stuck with him so much that he had to comment on it, pseudonymously (using his secret Gmail address), hoping that Blue would respond. And Blue did.

Now Simon and Blue are emailing each other. A lot. About being gay. About their families. About pretty much everything, except their true identities. Blue doesn’t know the person he’s corresponding with is actually Simon, and Simon doesn’t know who Blue really is. Which Simon would really like to change, because he is totally falling for Blue.

Then Martin Addison—seemingly harmless Martin Addison—uses a library computer right after Simon, heads to Google, notices that Simon forgot to log out of his secret Gmail account, and reads some of the emails Simon and Blue have exchanged. And, well, you know, it’s not that Simon is ashamed or afraid of being gay. Because he’s not. It’s just that he hasn’t told anyone about it yet (except for Blue, who doesn’t even know the person behind hourtohour.notetonote@gmail.com is Simon), and it’s not Martin’s place to share this with anyone. But Martin has a crush on Abby, one of Simon’s best friends, and if Simon doesn’t help him out with Abby… Well, Martin just wants to let Simon know he has screenshots of the emails, and who knows what could happen with them.

Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia

Former underground fighter Owen Z. Pitt thought he had turned his life around, thought he'd finally found a way to have a perfectly boring, respectable life. After all, what's more boring and respectable than being an accountant, right? But when his boss turns out to be an out-of-control werewolf, those less-respectable skills at buttkicking allow Owen to survive a vicious attack. Of course, the whole werewolf thing comes as a bit of a shock, but it all begins to come into focus when Owen is recruited by a mercenary bounty-hunting organization called Monster Hunter International, devoted to hunting and exterminating paranormal threats to the planet, and making big bucks in the process.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Freedom. Love. Family. Tyranny. Trust. 

All words that come to mind in relation to the epic story Sabaa Tahir has woven for her readers. 

The more I read, the more I wanted to know about the lives and society she had created for us. I wanted to know how far she would push her male and female protagonists and the cast of characters around them. What each of them was willing to do to secure freedom, to love, for their family - or in spite of it, all in the face of a tyrannical regime. 

Who could be trusted to help Elias and Laia - could they even trust each other? 

I thoroughly enjoyed finding out! For all of those readers out there looking for a new world to sink their teeth in to with new protagonists to cheer for - even if you don't really WANT to cheer for them - I highly recommend An Ember in the Ashes. I seriously hope that she gets to continue this story for us in the VERY near future!