Charlie and the Grandmothers by Katy Towell

Charlie is afraid of everything.  Ever since the terrifying day when his father was killed in a mill accident, Charlie can't help fearing the worst.  Even when there seems to be nothing to fear, Charlie can't help concocting worst-case scenarios in his ever-wakeful, overactive imagination.  Most of the danger lives inside Charlie's head, but even his sister Georgie and their mother recognize the oddity of the numerous children leaving their neighborhood to visit their grandmothers and seemingly never returning. 

One night, darkness sweeps over their house and Charlie, still awake in the night, can hear a strange voice whispering to his mother.  Days later, the impossible is happening.  Charlie and Georgie's mother has taken ill and the two children are being sent away to their grandmother's house while she recovers, which wouldn't be so strange...if they actually had any living grandparents.  Instead of a charming getaway to the safety of their grandmother's house, Charlie and Georgie are plunged into the stuff of nightmares.  These grandmothers are distinctly evil, and only terrified Charlie is equipped to save them.

Katy Towell has crafted a deliciously and imaginatively creepy horror story for kids that worked for this adult reader, too.  Sure, the premise is unlikely.  Charlie's unnatural terror and weird attachment is a little exaggerated, but here, it works. 

While Charlie and the Grandmothers is undeniably unique, I couldn't help being reminded of books like Neil Gaiman's Coraline with a little James and the Giant Peach thrown in.  I love stories like this, fast-paced and full of adventure, where a kid left to their own devices in a world that should be heart-stoppingly petrifying finds his courage and steps up to become the hero of his own story.

(Review copy received at no cost in exchange for review consideration.)

Sparrow Road by Sheila O'Connor

When Raine O'Rourke finds out her mother has signed her up for a summer at a ramshackle old mansion called Sparrow Road, she's desperate to escape. Raine can hardly believe that she's being forced to give up a summer with her beloved Grandpa Mac at his store in Milwaukee to spend long days in a mysterious country mansion while her mom cooks and cleans for a bunch of live-in artists. Even worse, the artists demand silence which means, no TV, no radio, no talking. What good could come of a summer spent like that? More good than Raine could ever have expected, as it turns out.

You can see, taste, and feel O'Connor's idyllic country summer at Sparrow Road. The long, silent days filled with mysteries and dreams stretch out like magic luring readers into Raine's journey of imagination and self-discovery. The surreal, almost dreamlike quality of a summer at Sparrow Road balances a story filled with unpleasant truths about lives lived at a former orphanage and Raine's own troubled past.

Let's just get to the point, though. I loved Sparrow Road. It's not surprising that you can often expect that the younger an audience a book is aimed at the more things like character development get neglected in favor of action. Not so with Sparrow Road. These characters leap off the page. Raine is a vivid protagonist coming to terms with family secrets. Her mother is a steady presence who wants to do the right thing but is still working out just what that is. The artists aren't the dark and broody sort, but the sort that burst off the page with their uniqueness and the joy they find in the act of creating. Josie, Diego, and even slightly loopy Lillian all do their part showing Raine how to get in touch with the art that's inside of her.

Even though O'Connor doesn't scrimp on her characters, there is still plenty of action to keep the pages turning as mysteries unfold and still other characters reveal themselves to be more than they seem. O'Connor skillfully weaves clues into her story keeping readers hungry for more. Sparrow Road is, above all, a satisfying read, filled with love and committed to revealing the ghosts of the past. It is the kind of book I would have loved as a kid and a book that I love now, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to both the young and the young at heart.

Sparrow Road hits shelves May 12!

(Thanks to Stacey at Penguin Young Readers Group for the review copy.)

The Trouble With Half a Moon by Danette Vigilante

It's time again for my periodic sojourn into the land of middle grade fiction. It's not a place I visit often, but my experience with it has been more pleasurable than I could have expected. The Trouble With Half a Moon, author Danette Vigilante's debut effort, is a great continuation of that trend. It took me almost less than a full day to read it, despite being very distracted by recent life events of the sad sort. Even though it's a short book, it's one that packs a punch.


"I'm pleased you had mind enough to ask," Miss Shirley says. She walks over to the moon and uses her finger to trace where the other half should be. "Just because we cannot see this half of the moon doesn't mean it's not there," she says, studying me. "We know this without having to actually see it." She points to her eyes. Her fingernails are sparkly gold. "You have to believe it's there. Faith, young one," she says, balling up her fist, "is powerful."

When Dellie's little brother is killed in an accident, her life turns upside down and stays that way. Even though her brother has been gone for months, Dellie's mom still cries almost daily over his picture, and Dellie can't even walk to school without her father going along. She's hardly allowed outside for fear that something might happen. Dellie's home in the projects might not be the safest place, but what she wouldn't give for a little freedom to hang out with her best friend Kayla or to take a walk with Michael Ortiz and find out if he really likes her.

Little does Dellie know that life will get tougher before it gets easier. When a hungry little boy named Corey who lives on the first floor of her building shows up at her door, she can't help desperately wanting to save him from his neglectful mother and his mother's no-good boyfriend. She hopes almost without realizing it that saving Corey will absolve her from the guilt she carries about her brother's death, but at the same time she's terrified that he will believe in her and she will fail him like she thinks she failed her brother.

The Trouble With Half a Moon is a bittersweet story about a girl growing up with grief and a family going through the long process of healing. Vigilante presents Dellie in an engaging first-person narration that slowly reveals Dellie's many fears and the terrible guilt she carries with her without revealing the circumstances until late in the story. Even while pursuing her larger themes Vigilante doesn't spare the everyday details of Dellie's life. She vividly captures the embarassment and unfairness of bullying as well as the excitement and uncertainty of first "love" in a way that can make even an older reader feel all those feelings all over again. The heart of the book, though, is Dellie and her family's journey out of their grief. It's heartwrenching to see the fear Dellie has of loving after enduring such a loss, and heartwarming to see how a mysterious new neighbor named Miss Shirley and Corey bring Dellie and her family back to life.

The Trouble With Half a Moon releases on January 6th, 2011.

(Thanks to Stacey at Penguin Young Readers Group for my review copy!)

Leaving Gee's Bend by Irene Latham

This is one of those books that I read too long ago, that I've meant to review and haven't. Honestly, despite the beautiful cover and the interesting sounding plot, I was a little skeptical about opening the door to middle grade fiction again. As much as I love to dig into some YA on occasion, I worried that getting into books with too young of a target audience would start to leave me a little cold. As it happens, I had nothing to worry about. Leaving Gee's Bend by Irene Latham is a charming historical adventure story with a lot of heart and it turned out to be one of the many contributing books to my amazing streak of awesome reads.

Ten-year-old Ludelphia Bennett has never stepped food out of her tiny hometown of Gee's Bend, Alabama. Honestly, she's never seen a reason to. Her family, her small community of sharecroppers, and her quilting are more than enough to keep her busy and happy right at home. Even though she's only got one working eye, Lu's a natural at stitching, though she doesn't always have the materials she needs for a good quilt. Mama says that every quilt tells a story, and Lu dreams of stitching a quilt that will tell a great story and make her mama smile.

Suddenly, though, things in Ludelphia's life go awry, and she finds her story changing in a big way. When Mama falls ill and is near death and the only advice forthcoming is to wait it out, Lu knows she can't just stand by and watch while her mama slips away. Soon she determines that the only way to save Mama is to leave Gee's Bend and travel to Camden in search of a doctor. Thus begins a journey fraught with danger but also with excitement during which Lu will meet both good and evil people and hopefully emerge on the other side with a better story for her quilt than she could have ever imagined.

Drawing inspiration from the real Gee's Bend's rich quilting history, Irene Latham has crafted a beautiful story of her own. Leaving Gee's Bend is a coming of age story set in a vividly drawn 1930s sharecropping community. In it, readers can find a realistic few of the hardscrabble lives lived by sharecroppers and the fine line between getting by and dire unsurvivable poverty. Ludelphia is a precocious and lovable narrator, always with the best of intentions, but occasionally getting into some scrapes due to her impulsiveness and trusting nature. Seeing her grow through her journey and collect the many experiences and pieces that will go into her quilt makes Leaving Gee's Bend a heartwarming story and a satisfying read.



Thanks to Stacey from Penguin Young Readers Group for providing me with a copy for review.