middle grade

Book Review: The Abduction

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The Abduction
Theodore Boone #2
by John Grisham
read by Richard Thomas


My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fiction

When thirteen-year-old Theodore Boone’s best friend April goes missing, he knows he can’t just sit idly by and leave it up to the cops to find her.

I enjoyed this second story in the series as much as the first. Compared to the previous, this one involves a lot less of the courtroom side and more of the investigative side of Theo’s interests. He does get to help out in pet court though, up against a real lawyer, which was fun. One of the things I appreciate the most about this series is that Theo doesn’t get up to things that kids could never really do or get away with in real life. Whether alone or with the help of his uncle that was so instrumental in the previous book as well, Theo has to weigh the consequences of every action and make his decisions based on that. When I compare this book and series to others for the same age group that I’ve read that are full of action and adventure, this one might seem a little slow, but it’s so much more real.

Richard Thomas does a great job with the narration, too. For some reason I can’t really explain, every time he says, “Hello, Theo,” I smile. Overall, I’d say whether or not a teenager or pre-teen will be interested in this book will depend on what kind of fiction they like—if fast-paced action is important, this probably won’t suit them. If they’re interested in realistic fiction about crime and law and trials, this could be fascinating for them. There is a brief mention of the story from the previous book, but overall, I don’t think it’s necessary to read them in order (so far).

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Book Review: Mandie and the Cherokee Legend

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Mandie and the Cherokee Legend
Mandie #2
by Lois Gladys Leppard

My rating: 2 / 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. I would expect nostalgia to affect my reviews for this series, but I sadly have to say that this book did not hold up nearly as well as the first one did for me. There are three main areas in this book that really bug me. Mandie’s too-perfect characterization stands out in this book. I think the author tried to combat that some by having Mandie struggle with her hatred toward her rude Cherokee cousin, but it was a small part of the book, and she didn’t struggle with it that much. Plus, he miraculously changes his tune by the end of the book for no reason, which is one of the other issues I had.

On top of all of that, this book introduces a trope in the series that I remember my sister complaining about when we were younger, though somehow it didn’t bother me. It does now. Every guy that meets Mandie is attracted to her, charmed by her, jealous of other guys’ attention of her…. She inspires a lot of attention for a 12-year-old (though the guys are all at least a year or two older). Of course, Mandie is completely oblivious and doesn’t understand why these guys are so competitive around her. It’s unnecessary at best and a little disturbing at worse. I do hope that some of the issues I had with this book smooth out as the series continues, because I plan to keep going and don’t want to continue to be this annoyed.

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Book Review: The Crossover Graphic Novel

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The Crossover Graphic Novel
The Giver series
by Kwame Alexander
illustrated by Dawud Anyabwile

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade graphic novel

Josh and Jordan bell are 12-year-old basketball stars and sons of a man who was a player in his own time. Told from Josh’s perspective in a mixture of free-verse poetry and prose, their lives are all about basketball until Jordan gets a girlfriend. Then it seems like things only get worse from there.

I was recommended this book by a friend and had no idea what it was about, other than clearly a heavy focus on basketball. I’m sure I’m the completely wrong audience for it, being in my 40s with not much connection to basketball and not much of a poetry person either. Yet the basketball and poetry combinations appealed to me quite a bit, and when the greater story began to take shape, I was drawn into it. Josh struggles with the changes in his life and can’t really put words to his feelings, and I feel the author handled everything really well.

I have not read the original book that this was adapted from, so I can offer no comparison in that regard. But I believe this story in general and the graphic novel in particular would appeal to a demographic that might not be as interested in reading. And the poetic sections could definitely give some early exposure to an art form that is definitely not as widespread as it used to be. Overall, I recommend this book for preteens, male or female, and they don’t even have to be into basketball.

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Book Review: How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse

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How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse
How to Train Your Dragon #4
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

When Fishlegs is diagnosed with a deadly dragon’s curse, the cure for which can only be found by raiding a particularly crazy band of barbarians, Hiccup defies his father to go on a quest for the cure.

This book brings a refreshing break in the formula, with Hiccup not just failing some kind of training and happening into a situation where he has to save the day. Instead, he deliberately sets out to save the day and even takes a different cohort along—Camicazi, his female counterpart from another tribe, who is a lot of fun in this book too. I wasn’t sure about this series after the first couple of books, but I find I’m quite enjoying it now. The narration is brilliant as always, and I recommend the audiobook for readers young and old alike, and really the book in general.

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Book Review: House of Many Ways

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House of Many Ways
Howl’s Moving Castle #3
by Diana Wynne Jones
read by Jenny Sterlin

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Charmain just wants to be left alone to read her books, and when she’s sent to house-sit for her great uncle, she think she’ll finally be able to read as much as she wants. But this is no ordinary house. Charmain’s great uncle is a wizard and his house is full of magic, which, along with the young apprentice who shows up looking for Great-Uncle William, encroach on Charmain’s reading time.

I liked this book a fair bit more than the 2nd in the series, but not quite as much as the first. It did bring back some of the charm of Howl’s Moving Castle, but Charmain is not a terribly likeable character. She’s naïve and fairly selfish, though I can’t that it’s all her fault, since she was clearly brought up to be entirely helpless. Like the other books, the story meanders for a while, which got a little tedious for me. There are hints at the plot here or there, but nothing particularly solid, at least until it started to come together further into it. Plus, characters from the first book show up around halfway in, and I certainly enjoyed that (and they’re more “present” than they were in the previous book). Overall, it’s not a bad follow-up to the whimsical first book in the series, and for others who have read the first and wonder if they should read more, I’d say at least this third one is worth it. For me, I may someday re-read Howl’s Moving Castle, but I won’t feel the need to re-read the rest.

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Book Review: How to Speak Dragonese

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How to Speak Dragonese
How to Train Your Dragon #3
by Cressida Cowell
read by David Tennant

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

When another Viking training exercise goes wrong, Hiccup and Fishlegs find themselves at the mercy of Romans and a nanodragon named Ziggerastica.

This was my favorite book in the series so far. The tiny-but-arrogant Ziggerastica is a lot of fun, Hiccup meets the heir to another Viking clan who also provides some enjoyable moments, and we get the return of a dastardly villain. Though I’m not a huge fan of the formula these books tend to have with Toothless and Fishlegs screwing up and happening upon something they otherwise wouldn’t, I enjoyed the overall journey more this time. I was considering stopping with the series after this book, but I enjoyed it too much to not keep going. Plus, I really do enjoy David Tennant’s narration, and even his interpretation of Toothless is growing on me more and more. For that matter, Toothless himself, though so different from the movie version I knew first, is growing on me with every book.

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Book Review: The Minor Rescue

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The Minor Rescue
The Amazing Adventures of Noah Minor #2
by Meredith Davis

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the previous book, The Minor Miracle.

In the aftermath of his encounter with Uncle Saul, anger is nearly always lurking beneath the surface of Noah Minor’s mind. He’s angry about his friend Haley’s loss of one of her gravitar abilities. Angry about his other friend Rodney’s loss of his musical know-how. Angry that the Gravitas organization has demoted him because he broke the rules involving his great uncle. And mostly angry that Uncle Saul caused all of this destruction and got away. Noah’s anger seems to make his gravitar abilities stronger, though, so he’s happy to lean into it. But when 26 middle schoolers are kidnapped, his anger may be a liability in the search for the missing kids.

This book definitely had some ups and downs for me. Noah is impulsive and impatient, and though I understood his anger at the beginning of the book, it made him a fairly unlikeable character, especially when he actually bullies others with his power. On the other hand, it is resolved in a way that is meaningful; I only wish he hadn’t been quite so harsh for quite so long. I liked the story arcs for both Haley and Rodney, though. And there’s a serious plot twist in this book that I think will have kids on the edge of their seats. Overall, this is a decent follow-up for the previous book, and I’ll keep an eye out for more to the series, especially now that Noah has gotten past his anger issues. I think kids around age 8-12 will enjoy the book, though it would make more sense to start with the first book.

Thank you to Netgalley and WaterBrook & Multnomah for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics, the Graphic Novel

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Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics, the Graphic Novel
Mr. Lemoncello’s Library series
by Chris Grabenstein
illustrated by Douglas Holgate

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Children’s adventure, graphic novel

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the first book in the series, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library.

After their big win in Mr. Lemoncello’s escape game, Team Keeley is challenged by basically every kid in the country. They all want their chance at stardom (starring in commercials for Mr. Lemoncello games) and are unhappy that the contest was so localized. So Mr. Lemoncello grants them their wish, because hey, that means he gets to create more games! The top teams in each region of the country are chosen and invited to Ohio to compete for full college scholarships—against Kyle’s team. The only problem is that Kyle isn’t so sure he’s up to the challenge this time.

I read and reviewed the original book (see review here), so this review is less about the story and content than it is about the graphic novel format. That being said, I enjoyed the story a little more this time than the previous, and I think that might just be because the graphic novel format lends itself so well to this series! Mr. Lemoncello is such a character as it is, and he’s really brought to life in images. (Maybe they should have gone with animation when they made a movie out of the first book.) It’s fun to see the library itself, as well, and being shown the puzzles feels more natural this way (not that I’m complaining about Grabenstein including visual puzzles in the original books). As for this book, though, I think that fans of the series will enjoy this new format, but I’d imagine that the idea for it is more to encourage kids who don’t care to read regular books to pick up this illustrated version and enjoy the story. Since I had already read the original book, I can’t say for sure how the story will come across to a newcomer, but I think it would be a fun read for 8-12-year-olds!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Children’s Books for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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Book Review: Castle in the Air

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Castle in the Air
Howl’s Moving Castle #2
by Diana Wynne Jones
read by Jenny Sterlin

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fantasy

When Abdullah purchases a magical flying carpet, he quickly meets and falls in love with a sheltered princess who is then snatched away by a very powerful creature. In his attempt to rescue her, Abdullah ends up traveling with a band of magical and non-magical creatures alike.

I’m really sad about this follow-up to Howl’s Moving Castle, which overall was an enjoyable, whimsical book with characters that I fell in love with. Though Abdullah grew on me throughout this story, most of the rest of the characters were kind of flat or ended up being…something unexpected. The story is at least as meandering and difficult to follow as its predecessor, but without as much of the charm I enjoyed in the previous book. On top of all of that, I was really surprised by some of the choices Diana Wynne Jones made with this book. Two overweight women are used as compensation and grateful that at least they’re able to get married. In fact, there was so much degradation of women in this book that I kept forgetting that it was published in 1990 and not decades before AND written by a woman. I’m not normally one to point out this kind of thing, but it really threw me off. Plus, I’m not a fan of insta-love, which is a major point in this book.

Because of the connections to the previous book, there was a point nearish the end that I began to speculate about how Howl, Sophie, or even Calcifer might be included in this story, and that probably ended up being my favorite thing about the book. Of course, being near the end of the story, it just wasn’t enough to redeem the rest of the book. And to explain any further would involve spoilers, but I will at least say that I have read many reviews that lamented how little characters from the previous book were involved here, whereas I was pretty satisfied with it overall (after all, this isn’t a continuation of their story, but a separate story that they are involved in, and I think that’s pretty clear from the synopsis). If you read the previous and loved the characters enough to want to see anything else involving them, you might give this book a try. Otherwise, I don’t think there’s much to recommend about this book. There is one more book left in the series, and since it’s also narrated by Jenny Sterlin (who does a spectacular job), I’m looking forward to seeing if the last book brings back the charm of the first.

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Book Review: Ms. Pennypickle’s Puzzle Quest

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Ms. Pennypickle’s Puzzle Quest
by Chris Grabenstein

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade adventure

Twelve-year-old Benjamin Broderick is into puzzles and random knowledge. Eighteen-year-old Ethan Broderick is into sports and girls. These brothers don’t have much in common and aren’t very close, and it won’t get any better once Ethan leaves for college in the fall. Though being coerced into taking a road trip together isn’t how Ethan wants to spend the beginning of his summer, he can’t deny that the perks might just be worth it. Especially when Benjamin wins them a chance at a million-dollar prize, and all they have to do is work together to solve a series of puzzles set up by the eccentric puzzle purveyor, Ms. Pennypickle—before their competition beats them to it.

This book was a lot of fun overall to read. I really felt for Benjamin, who keeps trying to connect with his brother without being pushy. And Ethan isn’t mean or bad, he’s just an 18-year-old about to go out into the world and not exactly thinking about how his little brother fits into his life anymore. There were parts to this book that felt a little too convenient or coincidental or just unrealistic, but it all made sense in the end, and in a way that I really enjoyed. There’s a twist to this book that I didn’t see coming, and then a second, smaller twist that I anticipated, based on the first twist, though that doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy to be right. It actually reminded me of one of my favorite movies, but to even say what that movie is would be a spoiler for this book, to those who know the movie.

The book has a lot of interesting trivia in it, especially about Route 66, introducing me to locations that I’ve never heard of and probably never would have, but I have to admit that it made me want to take a road trip to experience some of these places. There is also plenty of humor and a fun shout-out to Grabenstein’s much-loved Lemoncello series. And speaking of that, I appreciate Grabenstein wanting to go in a new direction from that popular series yet still wanting to include puzzles in this book. I felt there was more diversity in puzzle types in this book, and I really liked trying to solve some of them along with the characters. And while it’s difficult to avoid comparing Ms. Pennypickle with Mr. Lemoncello, due to them both being eccentric, rich, genius puzzle creators, I noted some personality differences in Ms. Pennypickle that made her her own person. And the story focuses more on family and relationships than the end goal. I don’t know that this book can become a series, but I do hope Grabenstein continues to write puzzle-filled, adventurous books like this. I really recommend this book for kids around 8-12, and for parents too—any age, really, especially those who like games.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Children’s Books for providing me a copy of this book to review.

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