children’s fiction

Book Review: Boy-Crazy Stacey

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Boy-Crazy Stacey
The Baby-Sitters Club #8
by Ann M. Martin

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic

I am so disappointed in this book. Stacey has been tasked with helping babysit a large group of kids when the family goes on vacation. She ends up spending the entire time distracted by a guy she has a crush on, leaving the other babysitter to do all of the work. Yes, she apologizes in the end, but only because she spots the guy making out with another girl. Mary Anne, the other babysitter on the trip, lets her off really easily, and then Stacey proceeds to find another guy to crush on and spend time with. She doesn’t act as badly that time, but mostly due to different circumstances, not because she’s really learned her lesson.

It reminded me so much of when I was younger—my family used to go on camping trips every summer, and my oldest sister would basically end up with a “boyfriend” at every campground. It’s entirely possible that younger me was a little jealous of her, but I also remember knowing that the whole thing was weird, ridiculous, and pointless—they’d never see each other again after everyone went home anyway! And let’s not forget that these girls are only 13 years old (my sister was older than that), which is way too young for this storyline anyway. On top of all of that, Stacey is very proud of her skimpy (make that “very skimpy”) bikini. That is just too much!

Now let’s address for a moment the tendency of publishing companies to “update” and re-release some of these older books. I don’t know why kids can’t just read about the actual time the book was written in, but whatever. The issue, though, is that until I realize I’m reading an updated version, I’m just confused, like when cell phones are mentioned in a book originally published in the 1980s. And more specifically in this book, apparently the guy that Stacey crushes on (who does flirt with her as well) is college age in the original version! So when they re-released it, they made him 15. But she and Mary Anne still talk a lot about how he’s too old for her (2 years isn’t remotely enough to be worth all that discussion), and he still checks out a college-age girl himself, so…frankly, they didn’t do very well with the updating.

This was my least favorite book in the series so far and in general is just not a book I’d recommend for kids.

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Book Review: Out of Darkness

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Out of Darkness
The Lightseeker Series #1
by Daniel J. Atkins

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade Christian fantasy

When your entire civilization is underground, sources of light are important. Many of the inhabitants of the underground world are stone hunters, digging for increasingly more rare glowstones, which provide a safer, more efficient means of light than fire does. Fin and Sky, both 12-year-old stone hunters, begin to hear more and more about forgotten, forbidden mysteries and are compelled to seek the answers and the light. This leads them on a wild and dangerous adventure as they unravel the truth that some people want to stay hidden.

I think Fin is meant to be the main character in this book, but Sky really drives the plot. She’s the one who first has a reason to go on this adventure, and though Fin is not exactly dragged along reluctantly, his motivations aren’t as clear. Fin, though, is the one who is more dynamic in this book, growing up a bit throughout the journey. I really like the Christian allegory that’s present in this book; it’s not exactly subtle, but it’s also not over-the-top or preachy. I found myself looking forward to the next way that the “All Mighty” would clearly work in the story. In a book like this meant for older kids and young teens, a clear hand of guidance is a good way to introduce them to the very real, but not always so easily discerned, providence that God can provide in real life. I feel the need to mention that Fin and Sky do defy adults and authorities a bit, since I know parents can be bothered by that, especially if there are no consequences, but my hope is that as Fin and Sky come to learn more about the All Mighty and the light they’re seeking, maybe their actions will be less questionable. And this can be something for parents to discuss with younger readers.

The author’s writing style is…”unusual” is the best way I can think to describe it. He tends to pause the story to share background info with the reader in a very conversational tone. I never had an issue with this, but I wonder if some others might. (I don’t think the target audience would be bothered by it at all.) At least one of these interjections even provides a little humor. There are a few things that did bother me a little, though, like the confusion I had about the fact that the powers that be claim that people have just always lived underground, yet comparisons are often made to “normal” life (like underground goats have larger eyes than normal goats, and it’s mentioned at least once that undergrounders have adapted to living underground). For people who don’t really know their history or origins, it’s strange that they seem to know plenty about how life above ground might be different. I also wish that the author had interjected one less giant snake encounter, maybe including a different peril; it was just a little repetitive after a bit. That being said, the world that the author has set up is rich and intriguing and makes me want to know more about what happens to Fin and Sky.

When I read a self-published book, it is my intention not to let things that a professional editor would help with affect my view too much. I’m not saying that there is no burden of responsibility here, but it’s harder for self-published authors. So while it did not affect my rating, I will at least mention that there are several issues throughout the text—mostly comma errors and formatting issues that I couldn’t help but be distracted by. (This might be as much because I’m self-published myself and have spent a lot of time looking for and correcting formatting issues in my own books before publishing them, so most others may not notice those at all.)

This was an overall fun read. I really think that things that made me stop and scratch my head would not be noticed at all by younger readers. It’s easy for me to recommend this for kids around age 10 and up, anyone that enjoys an adventure with a positive message or fantasy with a Christian worldview. I could also easily see it being a book that parents read with/to kids even younger than that.

I received a copy of this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: Murdle, Jr.: Sleuths on the Loose

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Murdle, Jr.: Sleuths on the Loose
by G.T. Karber & Chris Grabenstein

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade mystery

Jake is a junior detective who learned everything she knows from the great Deductive Logico (of Murdle fame) himself. When a teacher at her school goes missing, after Jake watched a scuffle between that teacher and an unknown person, Jake, her sidekick Sterling, and school bully Brick sniff around for clues and use logic to try to find the teacher.

Murdle is a daily online logic puzzle, which several printed books also full of logic puzzles. For those that know it, they know that the suspects all have color-based names (Miss Saffron, Sister Lapis, Major Red, etc.) and that each puzzle boils down to figuring out who committed a murder, with which weapon, and in what location. I have to admit that that doesn’t necessarily translate very well to the real world, but Grabenstein does a great job with it anyway. I don’t know what leads Jake to assume that only one weapon could have been present in each of the four possible locations that the suspects were in, but other than that, the story flows decently well. Jake, Sterling, and Brick are are a fun trio of characters, even if they are fairly stereotypical in their individual archetypes. There are several funny moments and jokes in the book, including one related to Sterling’s name, which may have been the entire reason he was given that name in the first place. The book pauses shortly before the resolution, giving the reader a chance to think through what they’ve read so far and see if they can solve the mystery themselves. I kind of wish that, instead of the deduction grid being filled in by Jake along the way, the reader had been given a blank grid and instructed to fill it in for him/herself along the way. But the mystery was more involved than the basic “4 suspects, 4 weapons, 4 locations” it’s set up to be, and I was really glad for that extra depth. I did follow the clues to the right answer, which I’m sure some kids would be able to do as well, just as I’m sure that many will miss some of them. Overall, this is a fun adventure for kids aged 10-14 to enjoy.

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Book Review: Mandie and the Medicine Man

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Mandie and the Medicine Man
Mandie #6
by Lois Gladys Leppard

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Children’s Christian historical fiction

I read a lot of this series when I was a kid/pre-teen, and I read some of them to my now-teen daughter when she was younger. Nostalgia definitely affects my reviews for this series, and I’m okay with that.

This book felt a like a rehash of book #2, Mandie and the Cherokee Legend, in several ways. Mandie and friends traipse around the Cherokee lands, some of the kids end up tied up by bad people, and Tsa’ni is a jerk. That last one is particularly odd, considering how he was suddenly kinder at the end of book #2. He actually has some POV scenes in this book, though, which I think could have been really good, if the author had delved just a little more into the reasonings behind his choices, rather than him just thinking about how he’d pretend to do nice things but not do them or lie about whatever he was asked but not ever really explaining his justifications for these things other than him not liking white people. Though I suppose that’s about as complicated as anything ever gets in this series meant for 9-12-year-old kids. Overall, though, this book is a decent one for the series. I didn’t care for Mandie’s continued disrespect for her mom, which she gets away with again and is probably something that kids who read the book should be made aware of as something they should not do. So while I think these books can still be good for younger people to read, especially if you’re looking for something with Christian content, I strongly recommend discussing what’s good and bad in them with your kid(s) after they read it.

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Book Review: Beatrice and the Basilisk

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Beatrice and the Basilisk
by Bruce McCandless III

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Children’s fantasy

Beatrice and the Basilisk is a very short parable about a girl who tends to take on too much, and that’s before she starts to be stalked by a basilisk (dragon). There’s a clear lesson to be learned here, though I’m not sure who the lesson is meant for—I’m not sure how many kids Beatrice’s age are quite as “do it yourself” as Beatrice is here. Some of the vocabulary, descriptions, and a somewhat disturbing death scene, also lean more toward an older audience. But the main character is a child, and the book is less than 100 pages, which certainly make the book seem like it’s meant for kids.

Either way, this short read is intriguing; I understand that the dragon and other fantasy elements aren’t necessarily the point of this book, but I have to admit I’d like to know a lot more about the dragon, Mrs. Knowles, and why Beatrice is tied up with all of this. Still, even with these questions, I could see children enjoying this short story, though parents may want to read through it first or along with their kids, if only to help them understand what may be above their heads.

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Book Review: Mandie and the Trunk’s Secret

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Mandie and the Trunk’s Secret
Mandie #5
by Lois Gladys Leppard

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s Christian historical fiction

I read a lot of this series when I was a kid/pre-teen, and I read some of them to my now-teen daughter when she was younger. Nostalgia definitely affects my reviews for this series, and I’m okay with that. It’s good to at least see some consequences from Mandie’s disobedience in the previous book, though of course the consequence ends up being fun for her and Celia and leads them into another mystery. I appreciate that they are trying to behave better here as well, though she questions whether she should really be meeting with Uncle Ned at night while still doing it anyway. Uncle Ned himself clearly thinks it’s important to adhere to the rules but still visits in secret. Overall, though, this book was better than the previous. While I think these books can still be good for younger people to read, especially if you’re looking for something with Christian content, I strongly recommend discussing what’s good and bad in them with your kid(s) after they read it.

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Book Review: Lily Tripp: Diary of an Accidental Time Traveler

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Lily Tripp: Diary of an Accidental Time Traveler
by Amelia Tait

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Lily Tripp is approaching her birthday, which is January 1. But when the clock strikes midnight, the new year (and her birthday) finds Lily hundreds of years in the past. This isn’t the first time this has happened—she’s lived in Roman times, Victorian times, and 1922, for a year each. But she’s spent the last year back in 2025, so she was sure it wouldn’t happen again. It did. Everyone she knows, including her cat, time travels with her, except they don’t know they’re time traveling. Lily has to figure out the world around her, while everyone else believes they’ve always been from that year.

Told through a series of diary entries, this is an intriguing and unique read. Lily has to navigate rocky friendships and persistent bullies, not to mention the perils of growing up (which sometimes includes middle school and sometimes doesn’t). The details about everyday life in past time periods, especially as seen through the eyes of someone for whom they are foreign, are a large part of what I enjoyed about this book. Even those eras that Lily “visited” before the start of the book are shared with us a bit as she recounts some of what happened to her before she started writing in the diary. The time travel is only part of the plot, though, providing interesting, changing settings for the story, which involves a lot around fitting in, growing up, and friendships. The story is charming and fun.

The diary format never really landed for me, though. For one thing, there are pages sprinkled throughout where the font is a handwriting kind of font and the background is lined paper. But the bulk of the book is diary entries presented with regular computer font and a blank background. It seems like it should have been all one or the other. Plus, both kinds of font had italics for emphasis (and quite a bit of it), but it’s really hard to write in italics; to me, at least, underlining for emphasis would have been a lot more on theme. Plus, Lily’s tendency to be writing things as they are happening just didn’t feel realistic to me. Then there’s the romance, which is taken a bit too seriously for my preference in a book where the main character is 12/13. But it kind of turned out in a way that I didn’t mind. There’s actually a smallish side character in the story that ended up intriguing me a lot by the end. I see that this is the beginning of a series, and I am really hoping to learn more about him as the series progresses. I’m also kind of hoping that the author decides to bring in some kind of explanation for the time travel; maybe that isn’t really the point of this book/series, but that doesn’t mean I’m not curious! I do tend to think that boys would like this book less than girls, considering the amount of time spent on discussing Lily’s first bra (not in a graphic way, but enough to possibly make boys uncomfortable or at least bored). But overall, readers around 11-15 that are interested in history, or even those that aren’t, would probably enjoy this book a lot.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Toofer & The Giblet

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Toofer & The Giblet
by Paulette LeBlanc

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Children’s fiction

Toofer and The Giblet are mice that live in a tree in Nimblewood. The Giblet is adventurous and doesn’t always think things through, while Toofer is more serious and thoughtful. This book is a collection of vignettes of their lives—often trouble The Giblet gets into that Toofer helps him out of and lessons learned along the way. The end of the very first story brought a heart-warming “awww” moment for me and set the stage for the rest of the book. Each story includes an illustration, and the pictures are beautiful additions to the stories.

Not all of the stories are quite as sweet as that first one, and some have little lessons while others just seem like silly fun (like a monkey taking The Giblet on a ride and only being stopped by the offer of peanut butter). Though the chapters are individual stories, they do build on each other in a way that makes the reading all the more enjoyable. I can easily imagine reading 1 chapter at a time at bedtime to/with young children (depending on their reading level) and being able to point back to references to past stories. The overall tale told is one of friendship and adventure that is well-suited to early readers, or even kids younger than that if the book is read to them. There’s also a map of Nimblewood, which I think would add another layer of enjoyment for younger readers.

(Some parents might appreciate knowing that there is a reference to a frog being “hopped up on pond juice,” in case that’s something that would bother them.)

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Book Review: Shepherds & Kings

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Shepherds & Kings
by Christina Minoli

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s Christmas story

Though apparently Ishan has beat up other kids plenty in the past, it’s not pre-meditated when he punches the most gentle kid in school. And since he’s been told that one more infraction will cost him some awards that are dear to him, at first, he’s just devastated over the loss of the rewards. But then the boy doesn’t return to school for a while and there don’t seem to be any consequences for Ishan. What follows is an internal battle that opens the door for a lesson that Ishan would never have been open to before.

The bulk of this story is Ishan grappling with himself over the violence he’s committed on a fellow student and the lack of any kind of backlash. He spends his days constantly dreading the hammer that is sure to fall. Then his grandfather gives him something of a Bible lesson using an old, apparently creepy, nativity set as the vehicle. The lesson hits home with Ishan, though I have to say that this scene went a little strangely for me. The lesson is fairly messy or shallow to start with, though maybe that’s just because Grandpa isn’t intending to deliver a gospel message, but Ishan understands these concepts a little too easily to me. I’m not sure if Ishan’s age is ever given, and the book seems to take place in India (though I got that from context, because I don’t remember any indication being given), so I can only guess that the grade he is in means he’s around 10 or 11 years old. Between that and the fact that he doesn’t seem to have been brought up in a Christian household, some of his thought processes just felt far too advanced. Not that a kid at that age can’t understand Christ’s sacrifice and his/her need for a Savior, but it’s how quickly he picks up on it and the wording that is used that seems a little farfetched to me.

I think the story could have used some fleshing out, especially for some of the side characters. The new teacher that starts the upset that leads to Ishan lashing out, for example, seems more involved at the beginning than she ends up being. I’d have liked to know a little more about Ishan’s grandfather—he seems actually kind of grumpy or strict when he’s first introduced, and then he pulls out this Bible lesson like he’s a completely different person. And probably the biggest is Anton, the kid that Ishan punches; I really felt that he was short-changed as a character, only being used as the foil for Ishan. I would have liked more. And though Ishan himself is the most developed character, I have to say that I would love to know how a kid who is clearly widely known as the school bully, who is only one step away from losing his end-of-year awards, is a house captain? Aren’t those generally kids of better standing in the school than Ishan could possibly have? On the other hand, apparently he’s really smart, gets good grades, and even participates eagerly in various school activities…yet he’s the school bully. So maybe more development would have been good there after all. It should be noted that a desire to know more about some of these characters is a good thing, though, because it means I was invested in the story enough to wish for more.

So all of that being said, the story is touching and would make for a great read around Christmas time. I had to look up a couple of things to understand what was even being referenced (like “string hopper” and “baba”), which is what led me to deduce that we were in India for this story, but that didn’t bother me. It’s difficult to really say whether kids around the age this is meant for (10-12?) would follow it well and enjoy the story, since it’s more introspection than anything else. However, that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t recommend it to those kids. I think that parents reading it with them or before them, so they can discuss any questions along the way, would be a great way for families to read this story during Christmas time.

I received a copy of this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review: Claudia and Mean Janine

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Claudia and Mean Janine
The Baby-Sitters Club #7
by Ann M. Martin

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic

For complete transparency, I’ll say up front that I read a lot of this series when I was a kid/pre-teen. And at the time, my name was the same as the founder of the BSC (with the first name spelled slightly different). Nostalgia will hugely affect my reviews for this series, and I have no plans to try to be objective.

The main story in this book revolves around Claudia and her family, both her strained relationship with her sister as the title suggests, but also her grandmother, who has health trouble in this book. There are some really sweet moments on both of these fronts, and though maybe the conclusion to the conflict between Claudia and Janine is predictable, it’s still satisfying. The babysitting actually takes a bit of a backseat in this book, but I think the balance still works well, especially given the depth of the main story.

Whether or not this book will translate well to kids and pre-teens now, I couldn’t say. I wish I had thought to start reading this series to/with my daughter when she was around 8-10, because I think she would have enjoyed it, and we could have discussed the good and the bad of the books.

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