The Lemonade War

September's Children's Book Club selection was The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies.

This amusing tale about sibling rivalry, friends, enemies, and lemonade stands is a great read for both boys and girls. When Jessie skips grades and ends up in her brother's fourth grade class, the siblings' once unbreakable bond is tested. Evan starts acting distant and Jessie doesn't know what to do. Jessie may be a math whiz but she is awful at figuring people out. It becomes all out war between the brother and sister...a lemonade war.

This month's Book Club pick was very well liked. Our third and fourth grade readers really appreciated the humor in the book, as well as the very relatable emotions that siblings feel. Every kid can relate to running a lemonade stand and every kid can relate to being in a fight with a friend.

September's Children's Book Club selection is Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman. I look forward to seeing you all there!

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg

August's Children's Book Club selection was The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick.

This funny, engaging, suspenseful, action-packed novel was a 2011 Newbery Honor Book. And for good reason. The tightly-woven story about a young boy seeking his older brother follows an interesting path. The narrator tends to lie...well, he says he's just telling stories and making the truth more interesting. Following this somewhat unreliable narrator on his journey to find his brother (and happiness) is very fun.

"Philbrick (Freak the Mighty) offers rip-roaring adventure in this Civil War–era novel featuring a mistreated orphan who doesn't let truth stand in the way of spinning a good yarn. When his guardian, Uncle Squinton—the meanest man in the entire state of Maine—sells off Homer P. Figg's older brother, Harold, to take a rich man's son's place in the Union army, Homer can't just stand around doing nothing. Determined to alert the authorities (and his brother) that Harold is too young to be a soldier, the plucky narrator traces the path of the regiment. He faces many dangers, including an abduction or two, and being robbed and thrown in with the pigs, and joining the Caravan of Miracles before landing smack in the middle of the Battle of Gettysburg, where he reunites with his brother and more or less drives the Confederates away. The book wouldn't be nearly as much fun without Homer's tall tales, but there are serious moments, too, and the horror of war and injustice of slavery ring clearly above the din of playful exaggerations" (Publisher's Weekly).

This month's Book Club pick was very well liked. One of the members thought that the beginning of the story was a little slow but "it got way better! 5 1/2 out of 5 stars!" Another club member said that the book is "funny. The beginning was slow. Overall, it was a great book. The beginning needed more detail and excitement. 4 1/2 out of 5 stars!"

September's Children's Book Club selection is The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies. I look forward to seeing you all there!

And please stay tuned for details on another Book Club which will be starting after the start of school!

The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall

July’s Children's Book Club selection was The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall by Mary Downing Hahn.

This ghost story, set in early 1800’s England, borrows quite heavily from the gothic novels popular in that time period. And it’s a good thing that it does. The atmospheric setting, suspense, and language all add up to an enjoyable read.

When twelve year old orphan Florence Crutchfield is summoned to her unknown uncle’s estate in rural England, Florence thinks that her fortunes have definitely changed for the better. She will soon gain a loving great aunt, uncle, and cousin. But upon her arrival at the sprawling house, Florence is met with hostility by her aunt and realizes that she is a relatively unwelcome intrusion in her newfound family’s lives. When Florence starts to hear voices and sense things that aren’t what they seem, she has to use her wits in order to survive the Ghost of Crutchfield Hall.

This month's Book Club pick was generally well-received. One of the members thought that the story was a little too scary. However, most members felt that the story had a good balance of suspense and story. One member felt that the tale ended too abruptly and left the story a little too much up in the air; was this a cliffhanger for a sequel? It was agreed that most members would read the next installment of Florence’s adventures at the haunted mansion.

August’s Children's Book Club selection is The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by W. Rodman Philbrick. I look forward to seeing you all there!

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

The Children's Book Club selection for June was Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin.

This fairytale, set in medieval China, tells the tale of Minli and her quest for good fortune. Minli lives with her parents in a small village under the shadow of Fruitless Mountain, a barren behemoth that yields no food. The villagers spend their days planting enough rice to feed themselves and they can never "get ahead". Minli toils with her parents all day in the fields; her only true happiness is listening to her father's fairytales that he tells in the evenings. Minli's mother, however, views these stories as frivolous and is certain that they give Minli unrealistic ideas of what her life could be like.

Worn down by her mother's constant complaining, Minli decides to set off on her own in order to find her fortune from the Old Man on the Moon. Thus begins this thrilling tale filled with dragons, talking fish, magic threads, evil emperors, and action galore! This Kids Reading Across Rhode Island book (and Rooster Book nominee) is a modern classic.

Once again, there was no group consensus on this month's Book Club pick. A few members thought that the magical apsects of the story were really interesting, though maybe there were too many fairytales told by Minli's father. One member felt that the story jumped around too much and was a little confusing. Most members agreed that Minli's mother should not have been so unhappy with her life, as she had her daughter, husband, and the wonderful tales he told in order to keep her happy.

July's Children's Book Club selection is The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall by Mary Downing Hahn. This Gothic-inspired ghost story is filled with suspense, action, and drama to spare!

My Life as a Book

The Children's Book Club selection for May was My Life as a Book, by Janet Tashjian with cartoons by her son, Jake Tashjian.

This story, set in modern-day California and Martha's Vineyard, tells the struggle that reluctant reader Derek has with completing his summer reading AND staying out of trouble. His antics include pelting avocados at the mail truck, playing with a trained monkey that is under his veterinarian mother's care, and generally trying to cause as much havoc as possible. It is only when Derek stumbles upon a faded newspaper article about a drowning in Martha's Vineyard a decade before that he becomes focused on a task: to find out the truth about the drowned teenager in the article. This quest leads Derek 3,000 miles from home and further away from completing his summer reading. Derek must decide which is more important.

This book has been compared to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. Although both are about mischievous boys and use cartoons, the Book Club felt that Kinney's books use the drawings to highlight the action and add to the story while Tashjian's drawings are more a method of explaining, in picture, some of the harder vocabulary words within the book.

There was no group consensus on My Life as a Book. Some of the club members felt that this was a really interesting read, combining humor with mystery in order to create a unique reading experience. Other club members thought that the story jumped around too much to be truly enjoyable.

June's Children's Book Club selection is Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. This book was a Rhode Island Children's Book Award (Rooster Games) nominee for 2011 and is the Kids Reading Across Rhode Island book. (Grace Lin will be speaking on Saturday, May 14 at the RI State House) The Book Club is excited to read this fairy-tale adventure set in medieval China!

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

This month, the Book Club read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (adapted by Malvina G. Vogel with illustrations by Brendan Lynch). There were three separate short stories in this volume: The Red-Headed League, The Adventure of the Speckled Band, and The Adventure of the Copper Beeches.

Unfortunately, our group found several problems with this book. First of all, it should be mentioned that everyone agreed that the book was too easy to read for our group's age bracket. There were too many pictures and not enough words...these kids want to READ! Other issues with the book can be summed up in some of the comments made:

Nick: "It was too British...I didn't like Sherlock because he was too annoying."

Ben: "Sherlock was too full of himself. He brags a lot and he is too nerdy."

Liam: "The plots of the stories were too revised."

However, there were some positive comments about the book:

Cameron: "The stories were awesome because they had snakes...Sherlock and Watson didn't know what was going to happpen but I did!"

Liam: "I liked that they solved mysteries."

Alas, this was not one of the better reviewed books that our club has read. Here's hoping that next month's book, My Life as a Book, fares better!

Toward the end of the discussion, Miss Lisa handed out materials that were adapted from a Scholastic, Inc. exercise. These worksheets highlighted the "Ingredients for a Mystery" and the steps to "Planning Your Mystery" through determining the Setting, the Problem, the Suspects, the Detective, the Clues, and a Sequence of Events. These worksheets are a great way to get kids to write their own stories.

Please check back soon for the submitted mysteries, written by our very own Book Club authors!

The Giant-Slayer

In March, the Book Club read The Giant-Slayer by Iain Lawrence. This tale, set in 1950's Massachusetts in the midst of the polio epidemic sweeping America, works on multiple levels. It is a historical fiction account of a specific time and place in history, with characters either battling polio or worried that they might get the disease. The main protagonist, Laurie Valentine, spends much of her time on the polio ward, visiting her sick friend. It is there that she meets the other patients in their iron lungs and begins to weave a magical story of a tiny boy (not young, but tiny) who sets off to slay a giant in order to gain acceptance. The back and forth narration, between the 1950's and a time long ago, keeps readers on their toes, drawing similarities between the past and present, and between their lives and those characters in Laurie's tale.

As a group, we found this book to be well-written but too confusing for the grade levels we cover. The whole idea of polio is foreign to the group and much time was spent in discussing polio itself and the iron lung "treatment." The jumping back and forth between stories was also a little too complex. We'll wait and try to re-read this in a couple of years as the adults who read it just raved about the book!