The Tiger Rising- Kate DiCamillo

Today's extra special guest blog comes courtesy of the awesomely- monikered Book Monster. Get ready for an in-depth look at a relatively unknown book from an extremely well known author...

-Sir Readsalot

I read The Tiger Rising, a Newberry Honor book, by Kate DiCamillo. In this book someone named Rob saw a tiger in a cage in the woods and Beauchamp owned him and asked Rob to feed the tiger. Then Sistene, one of Rob’s close friends talked Rob into using the keys to the tiger’s cage Beauchamp gave him to set the tiger free. I think Kate DiCamillo was good at showing Rob’s emotions. When describing Rob’s discovery she wrote, “He was so astounded at his discovery, so amazed, that he stood and stared.”
At times The Tiger Rising was hard to follow, for example when Beauchamp randomly decided to have Rob feed the tiger out of everybody and gave Rob the keys to the cage. I also think this book had interesting vocabulary, like when Kate DiCamillo wrote, “The fog was hugging the ground.” I did not like how The Tiger Rising ended with a problem. I was drawn to this book because I have read other books by Kate DiCamillo and liked them, though I do not like tigers. I recommend this book to people that like moving, as opposed to thrilling stories.

Tiger Rising was a National Book Award Finalist in 2001.

Kate Dicamillo's Website

H.I.V.E.- Mark Walden

I was ready to dislike H.I.V.E., the debut novel from former video game programmer Mark Walden, from the start. It seemed a little too emblematic of everything I dislike about children's literature today: formulaic and designed solely to generate revenue through inevitable sequels indistinguishable from the first. Take a little Artemis Fowl, add a dash of the Mysterious Benedict Society, marinate with the everything is not what it seems school setting from Harry Potter, and viola! you have yourself a best seller. Over the course of the story, I was won over slightly, but I still had some reservations.

H.I.V.E., the Higher Institute for Villainous Education, is a training academy for evil geniuses. It accepts only the best and the brightest, and of course only those with the most potential for mayhem and criminal enterprise. It is situated on a remote volcano compound at an undisclosed location somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The novel centers around Otto Malpense (really? Malpense? Literally "Bad Thoughts.") an orphan from London. Otto's known he was exceptional from an early age, and now, at the tender age of 13, he runs the orphanage where he lives by slightly bribing/blackmailing the director. Otto immediately sets about improving the dilapidated nature of the orphanage, but it's not out of any sense of responsibility and obligation. It's mainly so he can continue to do/exploit/manipulate whatever or whoever he wants whenever he wants. In fact, it's my main beef with the book. Despite his actions later in the book, Otto remains largely unlikable (brilliant and charismatic yes, but still largely unlikable.) Nevertheless, it's easy to see what H.I.V.E. sees in him.

The story begins with Otto regaining consciousness on a helicopter en route to the school. With him is Wng Fanchu as somewhat stereotypical Asian martial arts expert. They quickly ascertain what has happened (they were shot with stun guns and essentially kidnapped) and shortly thereafter they arrive at the school. There they meet the school's director, the nefarious Dr. Nero.

As the perspectives shift we also meet Raven, a beautiful assassin who rocks twin katanas AND an invisibility suit, as well as Professor Pike, a mad scientist type, Colonel Francisco, the instructor of tactical maneuvers, and stealth/reconnaissance instructor who inhabits the body of a cat due to a botched experiment, and H.I.V.E. Mind, a melancholy and surprisingly pliable artificial intelligence who runs H.I.V.E.'s day to day protocols. The reader also briefly meets the mysterious Number One (who has a particularly keen interest in Otto) who even Dr. Nero fears. Otto and Wing also meet other students: Shelby an American cat burglar extraordinaire, Shelby a Scottish computer and technology expert, Nigel Darkdoom, a legacy student hoping to live up to his late father's formidable legacy, and Franz, the German son of a candy magnate/Criminal Mastermind. Franz reminds me of the hilariously rotund German exchange student Uter on The Simpsons.

The students are forced to attend classes like Villainy Studies, Tactical Education, Practical Technology, Biotechnology, and Stealth and Evasion. Otto, used to having his own way and doing whatever he likes whenever he likes, immediately decides to work on an escape plan. Once again, he wants to escape, not because he is philosophically opposed to a school designed to train him in evil, but because he resents its intrusion upon his autonomy. Soon he convinces some of the other students to go along with him.

The rest of the story follows the escape attempt and, believe it or not, a giant mutant carnivorous plant. The action scenes are plentiful, but overall H.I.V.E. serves only as a gateway to its sequel The Overlord Protocol. There is very little resolution in the initial story. Instead of a self-contained narrative, the reader is left hanging and unsatisfied. What is Number 1's interest in Otto? How is Dr. Nero connected to Wing? What will happen to the students of H.I.V.E.? If you really do care, you can read The Overlord Protocol to find out, but I don't think I'll be joining you there.

H.I.V.E. website

The Wanderer- Sharon Creech

Today's blog comes courtesy of Ephos Sapphire, to date the only person to leave the meaning of the name of this blog in comments. Batten down the hatches because the weather's about to get nasty...

-Sir Readsalot

The Wanderer, by Sharon Creech, is an intriguing book. It is a book about a girl named Sophie. She sails across the ocean with her cousins on their ship-The Wanderer-to her grandfather who she calls Bompie. She is an adventurous and tough girl who does everything to help her ship. They go through many storms, especially a very bad one where The Wanderer is thrashed around and everyone is severely hurt. She realizes she is an orphan after telling Bompie and her cousins about her life. You never know what really happens to her parents, but there is a brief hint about it.
This story is all about the hazards of riding a ship. It is a perfect story for children. This book is so interesting you can’t put it down! It’s adventure, and could absolutely happen!

Escape! The Story of the Great Houdini- Sid Fleischman

As a wee lad I remember our school librarian reading Sid Fleischman's The Whipping Boy aloud to us after it won the Newberry Medal. Unfortunately, Mr. Fleischman and I parted ways shortly thereafter, and I didn't read another of his many, many books until quite recently. Shame on me.

Escape is Fleischman's biography of Harry Houdini, who, if he wasn't the greatest magician of all time, was at least the person who worked tirelessly to make sure that he was remembered as the greatest magician of all time.

Fleischman starts at the beginning, when the great Harry Houdini was still just the humble Hungarian immigrant and Rabbi's son, Erich Weiss. From there, Fleischman chronicles every step of Houdini's journey: running away from home, failed attempts at legitimate labor, traveling circuses and vaudeville shows, to finally headlining and international superstardom.

Along the way we are shown the world of professional magic, a subject that Fleischman, a former professional magician himself, writes knowledgeably and passionately about. However, Fleischman remains frustratingly true to the magician's code and refuses to divulge any of the mysteries surrounding Houdini's tricks, even though he, as he constantly reminds the reader, not only knows the secrets, but has performed them on many an occasion.

Thus, the secrets of the disappearing elephant, walking through walls, the metamorphosis trunk, and all of those wonderful death-defying escapes remain just those: secrets. Fleischman never shies away from Houdini the showman and Houdini the egomaniac. Like all great biographies, Fleischman portrays his subject warts and all. Not only does he cover Houdini as the greatest showman of his (or perhaps any other) time, but he also recounts Houdini as restless, insecure and petty, doing everything possible (airbrushing other people out of a photograph of him and Teddy Roosevelt, and embellishing the stories surrounding his greatest escapes) to destroy the reputations of his competition and ensure that the spotlight shone on him alone. Houdini even wrote a book called The Unmasking, which trashed the memory of the great French magician Robert Houdin, the man responsible for inspiring Houdini to become a magician. Houdini was such a fan that he adopted his stage name because someone mistakenly told him that an "i" at the end of a name meant like that person. Therefore, Houdin"i" means Like Houdin. As Fleischman writes, "I think this. Each field has its great icon. Einstein in science. Picasso in art. Edison in invention. There wasn't room for two icons in magic. Robert Houdin had to go."

Of course the real bread and butter (and in this case even the title) of any Houdini biography is going to be the escapes. Breaking out of everything from ropes, to handcuffs, to chains, to jails, to Siberian Prison Vans, to the belly of a sea monster (!), to locked trunks thrown into rivers, Houdini escaped from them all. Not only did he escape, but he usually escaped in minutes to the delight and amazement of his audiences. Later, once he realized how to read and work an audience, it was said that he would escape in minutes as usual, but read the paper or play solitaire for 20 minutes or so as the tension and horror in his audience built. He would challenge audience members to present manacles, chains or ropes for him to escape from, and if no one was forthcoming, he would have one of his plants in the audience "volunteer" something for him to escape from.

Later in his life, there was one thing even the great Houdini could escape from: death. He had become obsessed with debunking spiritualists and mediums, those who preyed upon the grief and sadness of others by claiming to be able to talk to the ghosts of the departed. However, despite his skepticism, Houdini always held out hope that there would be someone who could legitimately communicate with the dead. These contrary impulses probably stemmed from the death of Houdini's beloved mother.

While traveling the country exposing these charlatans as the frauds they were, Houdini also had a standing offer of a monetary reward for anyone who could conclusively communicate with the dead. Upon his own death, Houdini had an agreement with his wife. Anyone claiming to have a communication from the beyond from him would include a code phrase that only hi wife would know. Houdini passed away on Halloween 1926, and I'll leave it to you to determine if he was ever able to escape from his final challenge, death.

All in all, Fleischman does an admirable job summing up this last obsession of Houdini's: "[...] otherwise intelligent people can be duped into believing anything, no matter how absurd." I know all of my readers are intelligent, so check out Escape! in order to look into the life of one of the twentieth century's most fascinating individuals.

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles- Julie Andrews Edwards

Today's extra special guest blogger is Emerald Roogsberg! Get ready for some knowledge...

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, by Julie Andrews Edwards is an amazing book. It is about three kids, Ben, Tom, and Lindy Potter, who met a man and go on a quest. They want to find the last of an intelligent species, the whangdoodles. (The word whangdoodle, can be found in a really big dictionary). On their quest to Whangdoodleland, Prock, the Prime Minister, tries to stop them. They meet the Splintercat, who brings Lindy and keeps her captive, the Whiffle Bird who always warns the kids, and other wacky characters. The end is awesome and rewarding.

The quest, the training to go to Whangdoodle land, the trouble they get into, and the crazy creatures are so amazing that you won’t want to stop reading! This classic book is adventurous, fascinating, mysterious, and fun at the same time. The book is unusual, and it is unlike any other book you’ve ever read!

Shakespeare's Secret- Elise Broach

Today's review comes courtesy of extra special guest blogger Melody Howder! She is the first in what I hope to be a long series of extra special guest bloggers.


-Sir Readsalot


Shakespeare’s Secret is about a girl named Hero who moves to Maryland and doesn’t quite fit in. One day she meets a woman who tells her that the former owner of Hero’s houses wife died and left a diamond hidden somewhere inside. Hero goes crazy because she could be famous if she finds it. As she becomes friends with the woman, she meets a boy named Danny who insists that Hero solve the mystery with him. Soon Hero finds that the former owner of her houses wife’s ancestor may be the real William Shakespeare! Is he the real Shakespeare or is it just a myth? Read this book and you’ll find out!

Shakespeare’s Secret is a story that will blow your mind! It will take you on an adventure that you never have seen before. If you are a mystery fan this is the right book for you. This is a recommended book from the Massachusetts Children’s Book Award Master List.

The Illyrian Adventure- Lloyd Alexander

The work of Lloyd Alexander, particularly his Prydain Chronicles, contains some of the very earliest books I can remember being crazy about. I think he remains just as relevant today as he did when I was younger. Suffice to say, I consider myself to be a fan.

So, imagine my surprise when, while browsing the shelves at the glorious Myopic Books, I stumbled on to an Alexander book I'd never seen or heard of. Vesper Holly, a blazing torch grasped in her hand, stares wryly out out you as a city burns behind her? Did she set the fire? Is she running away from it? I couldn't tell, but I was suddenly overcome with the need to find out, for I (despite what you may have heard as sound advice to the contrary) do not hesitate to judge a book by its cover.

My curiosity piqued, I turned to the first page. I was hooked immediately, and I'm going to let Alexander do the talking for me. The following is the opening paragraph in its entirety:
Miss Vesper Holly has the digestive talents of a goat and the mind of a chess master. She is familiar with half a dozen different languages and can swear fluently in all of them. She understands the use of a slide rule but prefers doing calculations in her head. She does not hesitate to risk life and limb- mine as well as her own. No doubt she has other qualities yet undiscovered. I hope not.

Needless to say, that's all I needed to read.

The book is narrated by Vesper's uncle Brinton Garret, who she insists on calling Brinnie, and is set in 1876 . The story opens in Philadelphia as Brinnie and his wife travel to meet Vesper. Her father (an old friend and colleague of Brinnie's) has recently passed away, and he named Brinnie as Vesper's legal guardian in his room.

Soon thereafter, Vesper has strong-armed poor Brinnie into an expedition to the fictional country of Illyria (which may have some basis in fact upon a tiny bit of further research) where they will research one of her late father's last adventures, the existence of a mystical army from the bybgone days of Illyrian history.

Apparently Illyria (located on the Adriatic Sea, apparently near where Albania or Montenegro is today) has been torn by internal conflict between the rulingVentans and the native Illyrians who have been oppressed and discriminated against for centuries.

Vesper and Brinnie arrive just as tensions boil over. Despite the support of the kind and generous Ventan king Osman, they are plunged into political intrigues and revolutions and noone is sure who to trust. Danger lurks around every corner, and it is up to Vesper to try and heal the rift caused by centuries of infighting and mistrust.

Can even the mighty Vesper Holly pullt his off? Read and find out. If Indiana Jones was smarter, younger, and a girl, then he would be Vesper Holly. Personally, I can't wait to seek out her further adventures