Wishtree

Wishtree. Katherine Applegate. 2017. 224 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: It's hard to talk to trees. We're not big on chitchat. That's not to say we can't do amazing things, things you'll probably never do.

Premise/plot: The narrator of Katherine Applegate's newest novel is a tree named Red. Red is a wishing tree--a raggy tree. Every year people write their wishes and tie them to the branches by May 1. Red has seen a lot of years come and go--he's over two hundred years old--but this wishing season is different. The new girl in the neighborhood, Samar, has wished for a friend. Perhaps because some bully carved the word LEAVE on Red's bark, perhaps because Samar comes to visit him each night, perhaps because Red has a feeling that his days are numbered, Red decides to get involved with the human drama unfolding before her eyes. Find a friend for Samar--that is Red's number one priority. 

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this one. I enjoyed Red more than I ever thought I could--or would. I enjoyed all the animals that made Red their home. It was a lovely read.

"We grow as we must grow, as our seeds decided long ago." (39)

"For two hundred and sixteen rings, I've sat on my roots and listened to people hope for things. And a lot of times, those wishes never happened, I'm guessing."
Bongo tucked a feather into place. "Sometimes that's for the best. Remember that kindergartner who wanted a bulldozer?"
"I'm passive. I just sit here watching the world."
"You're a tree, Red. That's kind of the job description."
"This is a good wish. And it's a wish I can make happen." I paused. "Well, we can make happen." (88)

© 2017 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Rain Reign (2014)

 Rain Reign. Ann M. Martin. 2014. Feiwel & Friends. 240 pages. [Source: Library]

Rose Howard loves her dog Rain. She probably loves Rain more than homonyms and prime numbers. Maybe. It would be hard to know for sure. These are just a few of the things readers should know about Rose. Oh, I almost forgot rules. Rose Howard loves rules, loves living by rules, loves holding other people to high standards of abiding by rules. Which doesn't make her many friends among her peers, or, even the adults in her life. For example, she's no longer allowed on the bus because the bus driver couldn't take it anymore--the constant criticism of her driving. To help facilitate her needs in the classroom, she has an aide assigned to her. This helps. It may even help a great deal. Rose has worked with an aide for a year or two, I believe, but even so Rose's behavior in and out of the classroom is far from perfect. I'll qualify that. Her behavior is still not good enough, not perfect enough, not "normal" enough to please her father. I think there are enough indicators in the text that show that others in Rose's life are more forgiving and accepting. (Rose has Asperger's syndrome and OCD.)

So what is Rain Reign about? It's a story about a girl, a dog, a hurricane, and a brave act on Rose's part. There are some things Rose will tell readers from the start. I don't consider these facts to be spoilers. 1) There is a storm, a hurricane. 2) Rose's Dad puts the dog out of the house in the midst of the storm. 3) Rose doesn't know why her Dad did this.

I liked Rose well enough as a narrator. I did. But I think for me, the big surprise perhaps, was how much I loved her uncle. I think Uncle Weldon was my favorite part of this novel.

© 2015 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Monument 14 (YA)

Monument 14. Emmy Laybourne. 2012. Feiwel & Friends. 294 pages.

Monument 14 was a quick and mostly compelling read. The book has an interesting premise, for the most part. Life as we know it has ended, at least for the near future, and a dozen (or so) students find themselves for better or worse "trapped" in a superstore. The students vary in age, of course, from kindergartners to seniors or juniors. They must find a way to work together to make the best of a very bad situation: the outside world has turned hostile and there is no guarantee that they'll be able to leave the store in the next few months. 

The narrator is one of the older students, a guy named Dean; he happens to be trapped with his brother, Alex. While there are plenty of characters, I didn't really feel connected to anyone. This one was not great at characterization or relationships. Dean happens to have a big, big crush on one of the girls he's trapped with...but she has a boyfriend, another one of the characters. And Dean is having to balance his "love" for her with his need to not make a bigger-than-him enemy.

For those who don't mind a premise-driven post-apocalyptic, this one may work well enough. It was definitely interesting in places, and intense too. But I didn't love it.

Read Monument 14

• If you like survival-catastrophe-thrillers 
• If you don't mind a little teen drama (high school stereotypes abound)

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Eyeball Collector (MG/YA)

The Eyeball Collector. F.E. Higgins. 2009. Feiwel and Friends. 250 pages.

"Tartri flammis!" cursed Hector as his stomach tightened in a knot and his chest jerked violently with every beat of his heart. He rotated slowly on the spot, panting from the chase. His nose tingled with the stench that filled the air. Already his ears were pricking to the menacing sounds around him: screeches and wails, scraping and dragging, and the ominous unrelenting moaning. So this is fear, he thought. In a strange way it excited him.

See what reading one great book can do?! It can lead you to reading other great books! Yesterday, I was oh-so-happy to have read F.E. Higgin's The Bone Magician. And I was oh-so-happy that I'd thought ahead to check out all of her books at the same time. Because I just couldn't wait to get to The Eyeball Collector! And it did NOT disappoint. It was absolutely wonderful!

Six or seven years have passed since the events of The Black Book of Secrets and The Bone Magician. The Eyeball Collector is set in the same town as The Bone Magician, the dreadfully unpleasant city of Urbs Umida. (One thing you might notice if you read both books is that it seems Beag Hickory has made it as a poet at last. This novel is not only dedicated to Beag, it opens with one of Beag's poems, and in passing a reference is made in a bookshop to a book of Beag's poetry!) The Eyeball Collector can definitely be read on its own as a standalone--it's nice to know just in case you've got access to one but not all. But I do think that after getting a taste of Higgins' writing, you'll want to read them all.

The hero of The Eyeball Collector is a young boy, Hector Fitzbaudly. He's from the good side of town. (All the somebodies live on the North side of town.) Which makes him being on the wrong side of town--the South side, the too-close-to-the-stinky-river-side--a big mistake on his part. But he wanted adventure, excitement, he wanted to see how the other side lived. He didn't quite expect to be so completely robbed. But if that was the worst that happened to young Hector, he'd consider himself fortunate. For it isn't too long after that he witnesses someone--a one-eyed someone--trying to blackmail his father. His father gives in to the blackmailer's demands, but the blackmailer sells his story to the papers anyway. So all was for nothing. Long story short, Hector's father isn't long for this world. And soon he's an orphan, an orphan determined to find the man responsible for his father's downfall and death. He's determined to find this one-eyed man and kill him.

Of course, that's just one aspect of the story...

I loved so much about The Eyeball Collector. I loved the atmosphere and setting, the tone of this one. There is something delightfully-and-charmingly creepy about this one. The villains and even the heroes are a bit eccentric, you might say. And the storytelling, well, it kept me reading.

Read The Eyeball Collector

• If you are a fan of F.E. Higgins
• If you are a fan of middle grade or young adult fantasy
• If you aren't quite a Dickens fan but you've always thought you should be
• If you like atmospheric shady-gothic reads full of eccentric characters
• If you're a cat lover who can forgive a book for killing off two cats

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Bone Magician (YA)

The Bone Magician. F.E. Higgins. 2008. Feiwel and Friends. 274 pages.

How I have come to hate this place of evil, this city of nightmares. Urbs Umida they call it, Dank City, and well it deserves its name. It has taken everything that was precious to me. But I shall leave one day, soon, when I know the truth. I shall pass through those gates and it would please me greatly to not look back. Imagine, never again to inhale the stink of rot and decay, never again to see despairing eyes in the shadows, and never again to hear the name Deodonatus Snoad or to read the lies from his poisonous quill. 

Don't judge a book by its cover. Just don't.  Especially don't judge this book by its cover. (I prefer the original cover, though even that doesn't seem like a good enough cover for the contents.)

In 2009, I reviewed F.E. Higgins novel, The Black Book of Secrets. And it was love. It really was. I fell in love with the atmosphere and tone created by Higgins. I just loved his writing. Sure it was a little over-the-top, but it worked really, really well. The way he created such quirky characters, how each quirky character had a name that suited them just so.

I was not disappointed with The Bone Magician. In fact reading the Bone Magician made me want to go out and reread The Black Book of Secrets. Not to mention picking up The Eyeball Collector and The Lunatics Curse.

So in this non-sequel, readers meet quite a cast of characters. The hero is a young might-as-well-be-an-orphan named Pin Carpue. (Pin's mother is dead; his father is just on the run, supposedly because he's murdered Pin's uncle, but Pin isn't really sure that is true and Pin's father could have just disappeared the day his uncle died by pure coincidence). And the heroine is a young girl with plenty of secrets named Juno Catchpole. I could tell you that readers first meet Pin after he's been drugged seemingly unconscious by Juno and her associates. I could tell you that Pin witnesses something incredible and unbelievable: he witnesses Juno 'raising' the dead corpse in the coffin on display at the undertakers. Or I could tell you about Benedict Pantagus, Madame de Bona, Deodonatus Snoad, Aluph Buncombe, or Beag Hickory. But I won't. I think the magic of this fantasy is in letting it surprise you.

I loved this one. I just loved it. I like the writing, the storytelling, the characterization. It is just charming and funny. True, the humor could be seen as being on the dark side. And perhaps dark dramas aren't usually considered to be all that charming. But in this case, it all works. It is not as dark and as creepy as the cover would have you believe. It is not a creepy-scary book. Even if it does feature the Silver Apple killer.

An example of the writing:

Whether or not Hickory Reds were the preferred choice of a potato thrower, it was certainly true that when it came to projecting medium-sized weighty objects through the air, there was no one to match Beag. It wasn't just the distance, you understand, it was also the accuracy with which he threw them.
Beag was a man with many talents and he had left his home village at a young age to see the world, to learn, and to seek his fortune. He was not going to let his lack of stature be an obstacle and by the ripe old age of twenty-four he had achieved two out of three of his fine objectives. He had certainly traveled extensively and had written songs and poems to prove it. Aluph was not wrong in saying he was an intellectual giant. Beag had acquired knowledge that few Urbs Umidians would believe, let alone remember, and he had forgotten more than most could even know. But on the third, the matter of his fortune, Beag had been well and truly thwarted. Of all the facts he had learned, the hardest had to be that there was no money to be made from poetry and singing. But perhaps there was a living to be earned from potato throwing. Certainly it was a talent that appealed to the stunted imaginations of the Urbs Umidians. (91-92)

Read The Bone Magician

• If setting, tone, and atmosphere are important to you; this one has it in abundance!
• If you enjoy quirky, charming, slightly-dark, but mostly-all-in-good-fun fantasy novels
• If you want to like Dickens but don't quite; OR if you love Dickens for his eccentric, shady characters
• If you're looking for a good YA fantasy

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Cinder (YA)

Cinder. (The Lunar Chronicles #1). Marissa Meyer. 2012. Feiwel & Friends. 400 pages.

The screw through Cinder's ankle had rusted, the engraved cross marks worn to a mangled circle. 

Cinder is an outcast. Not just a hardworking orphan with a horribly mean stepmother who 'owns' her, but a teen girl whose very humanity is in question. After her parents' death, Cinder was adopted, but the accident that killed her parents left her adoptive father little choice but to 'make' her a cyborg. Since he died too, Cinder has found little comfort in human companionship. No, she's a cyborg and a mechanic. She may not be popular; she may not be planning to attend the ball. But she's a clever, resourceful girl who doesn't really mind not going to the Prince's ball. Especially since there are more important things on her mind. Like her stepsister, Peony, who's caught the deadly plague, letumosis. Like repairing the prince's android. Like trying to help Kai, the prince, outwit the evil Queen Levana so that the Lunars don't invade Earth.

Cinder is very, very futuristic. If you don't like science fiction, then this one probably isn't for you. If aliens, cyborgs, and deadly plagues that threaten humanity's very existence, don't thrill you, then Cinder won't offer you much. But if you're looking for more than just a romantic, familiar retelling of Cinderella, then I think Cinder will surprise you. It is a very original retelling!

Read Cinder

• If you like, no, love, science fiction
• If you like futuristic stories
• If you like Cinderella retellings, but if you don't at least like science fiction, it may not be enough for you

Listen to Chapter One,



© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Haunting of Charles Dickens (MG)

The Haunting of Charles Dickens. Lewis Buzbee. With illustrations by Greg Ruth. 2010. October 2010. Feiwel & Friends. 368 pages.

London. Mid-summer night nearly upon us. Meg Pickel stood, as she had every night for six months now, at the edge of her family's roof-garden, and stared into the City, towards the massive black dome of St. Paul's Cathedral.

Meg, our heroine, is searching for her missing brother, Orion, while Mr. Charles Dickens, our heroine's godfather, is "searching" for his next novel. Can they succeed if they work together? Read and see for yourself in The Haunting of Charles Dickens by Lewis Buzbee.

I really enjoyed reading Steinbeck's Ghost. So I was excited to see Lewis Buzbee's next novel. While Steinbeck's Ghost had a modern day hero "discovering" Steinbeck through his works, The Haunting of Charles Dickens goes beyond that. Meg knows Charles Dickens. Or she knows certain aspects of him at least. He is more than an author she loves and adores. He is her friend. Readers "meet" Charles Dickens--as envisioned by Lewis Buzbee. (I'm not convinced Buzbee's Dickens resembles the actual Charles Dickens, but that's another story. Readers meet a kid-friendly Dickens minus some of his flaws.) It's a book about social injustices.

"We're all haunted, my friends," Mr. Dickens practically sang. "By what we forget. Now that we are un-forgetting, we must cease to be haunted. We must act...We must find Orion, Campion," he said. "You and Julia and myself, and Meg--Meg most of all--we must find Orion!"
Her father stood awkwardly and moved away from Mr. Dickens, his back to him. Aunt Julia leaned forward, suspended. Mr. Dickens waited. Her father turned.
"Charles, don't be so melodramatic. This isn't one of your novels."
"Not yet it isn't!" (83)

To call this head-dress a hat would be a gross injustice to all hats. What the lady wore on her head seemed quite undecided; it could not choose whether it wanted to be a very small piece of architecture or a rather large piece of French pastry. It was a head-dress, Meg thought, of considerable ambition. Along with its ambition, and its height--which matched its ambition--were the golden ornaments that hung about it, hiding here and there in the massive structure like sparrows in a hedge. (182)

I thought there were times when the writing worked well--Buzbee's descriptions were a nice touch. But it's not a perfect novel. There were times the writing seemed forced--like it was trying too hard, if that makes sense. (I'm not sure the Beatles references exactly fit.) But. I enjoyed reading this imagined behind-the-scenes story of Our Mutual Friend. And I enjoyed the illustrations. So while I didn't love, love, love it, I did like it.



© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Gardener (YA)

The Gardener. S.A. Bodeen. 2010. May 2010. Feiwel & Friends. 240 pages.

The videotape of my father was never meant to be seen by me, and were it not for a chow mix ripping apart half my face, the man might have remained only a mysterious void. But it was that day when I was five, that day of growls and blood and pain and screams, when I first heard my father's voice.

Mason is a sophomore who loves biology, loves science. And he's hoping that he'll be able to get a scholarship from TroDyn--when the time comes--so he can go to the college. True, he'd have to commit to working in TroDyn's labs for five years. But what could be so awful about that? But his mom has other ideas for her son. And she believes strongly that TroDyn is no place for her son to be. Ever. Ever. Ever.

It is when he goes to confront his mom about something--he found an ID card when he was snooping through his mom's filing cabinet--that the story really begins. He sneaks into her workplace. He confronts her. She stalls. Then he meets the girl. The girl that will bring so-many-complications to his life. But the girl he couldn't forget in a hundred years.

All the things that I liked most about this one are things that I think you should discover on your own. The fewer spoilers you know, the more you'll enjoy this one.

I liked this one. It's dark. It's creepy. It's compelling.

The Compound is another novel by S.A. Bodeen.


© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Into The Wild Nerd Yonder (YA)

Into The Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern. 2009. Feiwel & Friends. 256 pages.

I so used to love the first day of school.

Meet Jessie, our heroine, who for various reasons is about to go to 'the dork side'. But since Bizza and Char her best friends have abandoned her for the punk crowd--Bizza even going so far as to shave her head--Jessie is left on her own to make new friends. And for reasons she can't quite explain, she's drawn to the dorks, the nerds. She's afraid of what she might become if she goes with it, but she can't deny that Dottie and Henry are both really fun to be around. And that game they play, Dungeons and Dragons, well, it's super-fun. And the fact that they accept her for who she is and aren't all about using her, well, that's a plus, of course. You see, Bizza and Char loved hanging out with Jessie because Jessie's brother, Barrett, is in a punk band named Crudhoppers. And the drummer of that punk band, Van, is oh-so-cute-and-dreamy. Even Jessie has to admit that. She's been crushing on him for years and years. But when Van and Bizza hook up--albeit only for one night--well, Jessie has to draw the line somewhere. (As does her brother.)

One of the things I enjoyed most about this one is that Jessie is a reader. She's always listening to an audio book or reading a book. And it really made me smile to see that she just loved Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. (If you haven't read that one, you should.) To see how books were a part of her life, her normal every day life, was a nice touch. I also loved to see such a strong portrayal of friendship between siblings. Barrett and Jessie were close, and it was really nice to see that family is important to her. (Unfortunately, Jessie's parents were of the barely-there-variety.)

I liked this coming-of-age novel about the importance of being true to yourself. It's got humor and romance. I would recommend this one.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Bystander (MG)

Preller, James. 2009. Bystander. Feiwel and Friends. 226 pages.

The first time Eric Hayes ever saw him, David Hallenback was running, if you could call it that, running in a halting, choppy-stepped, stumpy-legged shamble, slowing down to look back over his shoulder, stumbling forward, pausing to catch his breath, then lurching forward again.

Bystander is a book about bullying. Eric, our narrator, fits strangely into his new school. New and slightly confused, he begins associating with the wrong crowd. Kids he knows to be bullies. Because--at least at first--he's not the target of the bullying, he accepts everything. There are a few instances here and there that make him squirm. But at the same time, it's easy to laugh along with the other kids, the other witnesses or bystanders. As long as the bullying isn't too much--then he's not willing to speak up about it. But there comes a time when it does get to be too much. When what he witnesses makes him so uncomfortable that he wakes up and gets a conscience. But now that he doesn't want to be all buddy-buddy with his former friends, will he become the next target? Will standing up for what he knows to be right lead to his own fall? And can he live with that if it is?

What's a boy to do when so many of the kids around him are bullies? True, not everyone bullies with kicks and punches, but there are so many different ways of bullying. Why does everyone have to be so mean in middle school?

This is more of a message-oriented novel.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

The Black Book of Secrets

Higgins, F.E. 2007. The Black Book of Secrets. Feiwel and Friends. 273 pages.

When I opened my eyes I knew that nothing in my miserable life prior to that moment could possibly be as bad as what was about to happen.

And our narrator, Ludlow Fitch*, wasn't lying. What his parents had planned for him? So not good! Just thinking about it makes my jaws ache! Fortunately for both of us, he is able to make a daring dash of an escape. After a rather close call, Ludlow finds himself escaping the City and going away...where...he doesn't know. But anyplace has to be better than where he's been, right? Where Ludlow ends up is in the company of Joe Zabbidou** in his pawn shop of secrets. Both Joe and Ludlow are new to the village of Pagus Parvus. And their destinies are tied together now. Ludlow becomes an apprentice of sort. It's a good thing Ludlow knows how to read and write and has such good penmanship! For Joe has a very special job in mind for the boy. Pagus Parvus is an interesting little place with plenty of interesting people. It's a town full of secrets. And that's just what Joe is in the market for. Good and juicy secrets. You unburden your soul, tell Old Joe all while Ludlow records it all in his black book, and in exchange....you leave with a nice sum of money. Enough money to make a difference. But can old Joe be trusted? What does he want with all those secrets? What is he hoping to gain out of the exchange? Was Ludlow right to trust him?

This one is just deliciously atmospheric. I loved everything about it: the setting, the characterizations, the language. (Especially the names.) I can only imagine this one would be fun to hear aloud.

*Don't you just love that name?
**Again, an awesome, awesome name!


© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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Eyes Like Stars

Mantchev, Lisa. 2009. (July Publication) Eyes Like Stars. Feiwel and Friends. 368 pages.

Part of me knows that it's mean to tease you. To taunt you with how very very wonderful a book is...and then reveal that it isn't going to be available until July. But. I can't resist. Why? Because I am head over heels in love with this book. I didn't just love it. I didn't just love, love, love it. I LOVED it. Take my normal enthusiasm of a book that I've gushed about in the past and multiply it a couple of times. Then you'll begin to understand how giddy this book made me.

The fairies flew suspended on wires despite their tendency to get tangled together.

Who are these fairies? None other than Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed. (These four are from Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream). Our heroine, Beatrice Shakespeare Smith, counts these four fairies as her closest friends. And they do have a bit in common: they're all mischievous. (In a good way.) Beatrice--as far back as she can remember--has lived in the Theatre. Her bedroom? One of the sets. Her friends? The characters from all the plays ever written. Her love interest? A minor player, a pirate from The Little Mermaid. (He's only ever had one line.) Her forbidden playmate whom she loves-to-hate and hates-to-love? Ariel from The Tempest.

When we first meet Beatrice, she's in trouble and doesn't even know it. The Theatre Manager has decided that it is time--past time really--for Beatrice to go. To leave her home, her friends, the only life she's ever known. His excuse? She's not contributing to the theatre. She--and others along side her--plead with him; he grants her a few more days to prove that she has what it takes, that she belongs there.

Her idea? To be a director! Though their productions generally never require a director--after all the originals know their lines backwards and forwards and then some--but if she were to change it up, change it around...then...maybe just maybe she'd find her place. Thus she seeks to recreate Hamlet...to give it an ancient Egyptian setting.

But life is never this easy, right? You know there are bound to be conflicts! I am not going to say much more. I don't want to spoil it. But it is oh-so-magical. It is fun and playful. It is giddy-making.

Here's the blurb--in case I haven't already persuaded you to put this on your wish list:

All her world's a stage.
Beatrice Shakespeare Smith is not an actress, yet she lives in a theater.
She's not an orphan, but she has no parents.
She knows every part, but she has no lines of her own.
Until now.

Welcome to the Theatre Illuminata, where the characters of every play ever written can be found behind the curtain. They were born to play their parts, and are bound to the Theatre by The Book--an ancient and magical tome of scripts. Bertie is not one of them, but they are her family--and she is about to lose them all and the only home she has ever known.

Great premise, great characters, great writing, great cover...this book has it all.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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