Sarah Jamila Stevenson's Blog: Blog - Sarah Jamila Stevenson, page 38

Thursday Review: SECRET CODERS by Gene Luen Yang and Mike Holmes

Summary : I've been meaning to review this one for an embarrassingly long time. I had looked forward to reading it ever since first hearing about it—we are huge fans of our own (relatively) local Gene Yang here at FW and have not only interviewed him but have reviewed nearly all of his wonderful graphic novels (see a roundup of that here, on our post about his appointment as Children's Literature Ambassador).

Anyway, The Secret Coders--the first book in a new series that promises lots of fun and adventure (and CODE)—did not disappoint. And, especially as it comes during a time when a lot of effort is being put into STEM education for girls, and there are groups out there like Girls Who Code and so forth, it made me very happy to see this adventure into the world of programming being led by a (mixed race!) girl, Hopper.

It's not just about coding, though. This book is about the perennially relatable theme of being the new kid in school—and it just happens to be a school where something SUPER CREEPY is going on. Why is the shed door padlocked? Why is the janitor so crabby about them going near it? (MUST be something interesting in there.) Why do all the birds have FOUR EYES? Hopper is confronted with all of these questions at the same time that she's trying to make new friends at her new school, where nobody seems to be amused by her cool robot voice. Luckily, she does manage to find a friendly face, and her new friend Eni even helps her decode the secret of the four-eyed birds. But when the two of them find out what's in the locked garden shed, all craziness breaks loose…very, very slowly…

Click to embiggen Peaks : Like many of us who were kids in the 1980s, in grade school I learned to use a computer program called Turtle Graphics that taught a programming language called Logo. At the time, we had exactly TWO computers in my 4th grade classroom and you mainly got to use them as a reward for getting your other work done. Your "reward" was learning how to direct an onscreen cursor to draw really boring pictures really slowly using text commands. (That's how I remember it, anyway.)

Much as I thought at the time that this was a terribly inefficient way to draw pictures, it was one of the earliest opportunities for kids in school to start learning very simple programming. I'm sure it set the right tone for me, many years later, to be unafraid to try tackling HTML and CSS. And this graphic novel brings back those memories and provides some actual coding—and decoding—fun for a new generation of readers, with try-it-yourself coding problems that you can solve right along with the characters.

Of course, this book isn't all about learning how to translate numbers in binary and learning how to command a so-called turtle (imagine the disappointment! the "turtle" was a mere triangle!) to draw geometric shapes. Hopper is an appealing and funny main character, and one of the hilarious parts of the story is watching her make friends with Eni, who then teaches her the secrets of binary and logo. Appropriately (since many a 1980s computer had those green-on-black screens), the book is printed in green and black, but don't let the simplicity of the color choices fool you: there's plenty of fun stuff going on here, and just as the story brings us to an exciting peak with robots and angry janitors and the ultimate test of the kids' coding skills (and yours, if you choose to follow along)—you're left with a cliffhanger. Until next time, kids.

So easy, a monkey could do it! Valleys : Don't be silly. There are no valleys here, unless you don't like books that are mildly educational. This would be a great title in or out of the classroom—I could easily see my dad handing me a copy of this way back when in his unsuccessful attempts to get me to become an engineer. It might have been more effective than good old Computer Tutor Junior over there…

Conclusion : This will surely appeal to fans of other graphic novel series where kids solve the mystery of a creepy school—e.g. Gunnerkrigg Court—as well as existing fans of Gene Yang's work.

I received my copy of this book courtesy of First Second Books. You can find SECRET CODERS by Gene Luen Yang and Mike Holmes at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Monday Review: A MAD, WICKED FOLLY by Sharon Biggs Waller

The cover even LOOKS like a Libba Bray book... Summary : England in the Edwardian era…Besides bringing to mind a whole slew of fabulous Edward Gorey drawings, it was a time in which society was still stumbling out from under the long shadow of Queen Victoria; a time when women were still constrained both by corsets and by the strictures of a paternalistic era. But things were about to change, and big-time. Even before the terrifying upheaval of the Great War decimated a generation of young men with horrible new weapons forged in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, women were starting to feel the pressure, and the class system was showing signs of withering. It was the time of steamships and locomotives, the time of suffragettes urging votes for women, and it was the time of the Impressionists and Pre-Raphaelite painters.

Against this backdrop of extremely rapid change, our narrator Victoria Darling embodies some of these radical departures from the norm. As the story begins, we see her in her art atelier, which she attends when she isn't going to finishing school in France. That day's session, alas, is without a figure model…and, after some trepidation, Victoria decides to take her turn. The young men in the class have had to do it from time to time, after all, so why not her?

Why not indeed. Part of the reason there are so few female Impressionist painters who have made the history books is that they were usually prevented from drawing from the live model—and yet drawing from the live nude was a necessary prerequisite to being a serious artist. Painting still-lifes and domestic scenes was a mere hobby for young ladies. Women had to resort to dressing as men and sneaking into art classes, or they had to have the support of a husband or father to gain art training, and even then, it was not a "suitable" pursuit for a young lady, but rather a mad, wicked folly.

Plus, you couldn't go about on your own or consort with people of the lower classes if you were someone like Victoria. But she's determined to be a serious artist. Even when her father finds out about her scandalous disrobing and brings her home to London to be married off, Victoria plans to try to gain admission to the Royal College of Art. While implementing her plans, she meets suffragettes campaigning for the vote (getting her in further trouble), a handsome young constable (SO off limits), and continues to be dogged by scandal—and of course, at a certain point she ends up having difficult choices to make, between her family and her social position and her own goals and what she thinks is right.

Peaks : This is a great period piece for showing the incredible social and technological change that was taking place at the time, but it's also a story of a character whose moxie and determination will appeal to contemporary readers. There are multiple love interests, there's Victoria's fascination as she discovers what life might be like if women had more power, and there are very real repercussions to her actions, ranging from family disappointment to a frightening night in jail. The characters are varied and well drawn, and the contrast is made stark and clear between the older generation represented by Victoria's staid parents and the changes taking place before their very eyes. The fact of her mother's frustrated artistic inclinations makes this particularly poignant.

Valleys : Victoria does have a tendency to rush headlong into things without thinking about what might happen, and that was a bit frustrating as well as discomfiting, especially when she lands in trouble through very little fault of her own, simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And yet, for all the times she lands in trouble, the results were hardly ever grievous. I found myself the most excited when her explorations finally result in her having to make a major change in her life (I won't give away spoilers) but this part of the story wasn't developed quite as much as the earlier portions.

Conclusion : Besides the minor pacing issues, I really enjoyed (for obvious personal reasons) this story of a young woman determined to be an artist in a world that is dead set against her…but which is in the process of changing. The fact of it being a time period of upheaval and change keeps Victoria's character from feeling anachronistic, and she meets plenty of like-minded sympathizers in her journey. Readers who enjoy stories set in the Victorian era or the early 20th century (e.g. fans of Libba Bray) will want to check this one out.

I received my copy of this book courtesy of my library's ebook collection. You can find A MAD, WICKED FOLLY by Sharon Biggs Waller at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

#ReadYourWorld and Celebrate MULTICULTURAL CHILDREN'S BOOK DAY!

Hey everyone! It's Multicultural Children's Book Day, and in honor of that, I will be posting what I think is my FIRST EVER picture book review. First, though, I'd like to sincerely thank all the organizers of MCCBD, especially Mia Wenjen (Pragmatic Mom) and Becky Flansburg. This has been a fun and well-organized online event, and it is a GREAT cause—promoting multicultural books for kids. I also want to thank Author Sponsor for MCCBD2016 and co-founder of GIFT Family Services, Gayle Swift, the author of ABC, Adoption & Me: A Multicultural Picture Book for kindly providing me with an ebook review copy.

Summary : Cross-cultural and transracial adoption is a great topic for a children's book, and families who have chosen to be open about adoption from the very beginning will be pleased to see an addition to the small but growing shelf of books for young children that address this topic. It's something that we as a society are increasingly aware of—and yet there is shockingly little statistical information available. According to ChildWelfare.gov, a program of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services:

"There are no national statistics on the number of children who are living in transracial adoptions; that is, children who are living in an adoptive family in which they differ from at least one of their adoptive parents in terms of racial/ethnic characteristics. In statistics drawn from FY 2000–2004, about 28 percent of the children placed with public agency involvement were placed transracially, as defined above. Many intercountry adoptions are also transracial adoptions."

I was floored to read this, considering how many people I have known throughout my life from families with transracial or transnational adoptees. As we know, though, kids need books in which they can see their own situation reflected. ABC, Adoption & Me provides families with very young children that mirror in which they can see their own family as part of the varied spectrum of happy, loving families.

Peaks : The cute, happy cartoon illustrations by Paul Griffin put a smile on my face. There is a wonderful variety of families and children depicted in this book, in various permutations of race and ethnicity. At the same time that it shows adoptive families as normal, happy families, though, the great thing about this title is that it also gives kids and parents the opportunity to talk about adoption and encourages kids to ask questions and feel whatever it is they feel, positive or negative. For instance: "Q is for questions. It's OK to have questions about what being adopted means." Some pages have simple and clearly worded facts about adoption and adoption-related terminology (e.g., birth parents, open adoptions) while others provide affirmations that it's OK to miss your birth parents or wonder about who you will look like when you grow up.

Valleys : I had a few quibbles with the design/layout of some of the pages, but the fact is, the strength of this book lies in the chance it provides families to talk and laugh together, and address a topic that can be very difficult to bring up. Adoption in general can be an uncomfortable discussion for families, let alone the specific questions that come up in regard to transracial or cross-cultural adoption. This book addresses many of these questions, and provides helpful strategies for parents who are wondering how they might use the book as a discussion tool and a way to bring their family together.

Conclusion : It's no surprise this book has won various awards and accolades (see the author's website here). You can find it on Amazon, where it has earned an impressive 5 stars, and you can view the rest of the wonderful MCCBD blog reviews over at the #ReadYourWorld linky.

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Toon Thursday Redux: Writerly Daydreams

During this early part of the year, there have been a lot of conversations about writing goals, and what we all plan to accomplish by hook or by crook (or, in some cases, by copious amounts of caffeine and/or wine). Often, though, despite our best efforts we spend time dawdling and dreaming...something I drew a cartoon about a while back:


One of my many writing-related goals this year is to whip up a few more brand-new Toon Thursday cartoons here and there--we'll see how I manage. And I'll have some new book reviews commencing next week, and picking up again after this year's Cybils Round 2 is done. In the meantime, enjoy Tanita's reviews and have a creativity-filled weekend, replete with writing, daydreaming, and possibly donuts. (Or pie. Pie's good, too...)

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

January 27th is Multicultural Children's Book Day!

At Finding Wonderland, we have always been committed to reviewing a wide range of diverse and multicultural books, which is why we're very excited to see that this year the folks at Multicultural Children's Book Day are making a supreme effort to get the word out and provide all kinds of opportunities for bloggers, authors, teachers, and parents to do so as well.

Bloggers can sign up to review a book, donated by publishers eager to support this effort--go read more about it here.

Authors, and other interested individuals, can donate to the cause via sponsorship and get a little love in return--here's that info.

Lastly, don't miss the TRULY MASSIVE amount of information and links to diversity book lists for kids and other resources.

And, of course, stay tuned for the upcoming celebration! In the meantime, did you know you can check out all of our multicultural and diverse book reviews in one place (well, two places)? Thanks to the magic of tagging, you can read all of our reviews tagged with Multicultural Fiction or with Diversity just by clicking those links right there.

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Congrats, Mr. Ambassador! Celebrating Gene Luen Yang

Photo courtesy of the author and First SecondFrom the press release: The Children’s Book Council (CBC), Every Child a Reader (ECAR), and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress (CFB) have announced the appointment of Gene Luen Yang, Printz Award winner and two-time National Book Award finalist, as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

The Kidlitosphere's own Betsy Bird was part of the selection committee, and having met Gene on a few occasions, I know it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. We're longtime fans, and we've featured his books here on Finding Wonderland several times (with a review of his latest, Secret Coders, still upcoming); we've hosted him for interviews, too. In honor of his appointment as the 5th Ambassador, here's a roundup of our posts featuring Gene and his books:

Interviews:

Kids Comics Q&A Blog Tour: Interview with Gene Luen Yang  - 5/11/2015

Diversity in YA Kicks Off Tour at SFPL - 5/9/2011

Summer Blog Blast Tour Kick-Off: Gene Yang - 6/16/2007

Reviews and such:

Reviews in Tandem: THE SHADOW HERO by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew - 6/30/2014

Waiting on Wednesday: Some GENE LUEN YANG Love - 2/13/2013

Thursday Review: LEVEL UP by Gene Luen Yang - 5/26/2011

May Graphic Novels Roundup, Part Two: Prime Baby, Mercury, and Stitches - 6/6/2010

Two from :01 (The Eternal Smile) - 6/26/2009

Learning Your ABCs (American Born Chinese) - 2/1/2007

CONGRATULATIONS, GENE!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

To Another Year of Reading and Writing

From Writers on Writing, Volume II

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Anticipation....

There's a very special day coming up, and I wanted to drum up a little buzz--I'm talking about New Year's Day, yes, but it also happens to be CYBILS SHORTLIST DAY, a red-letter day around the kidlitosphere. January 1st is when all 10 Cybils Award categories announce their shortlists to the world. These shortlists are an invaluable tool for parents, librarians, and booksellers who are interested in the grassroots blogging world's favorite titles of the year. Personally, I find them amazing for gift-giving as well as for my own reading enjoyment.

Of course, after that comes the Round 2 judging process, when a second slate of judges in each category picks a winner (heh heh...sorry) to receive the 2015 Cybils Award. Those will be announced on Valentine's Day. Tanita and I are excited to be serving together on the Round 2 panel for YA Spec Fic--we read a lot of the same stuff, but we also encounter plenty of different books in our reading explorations, so it will be a lot of fun to booktalk the same titles this time. I suspect you might see a few tandem reviews in the future...

Anyway, go to the Cybils site on Friday to check out the shortlists! And you can always peruse a selection of nominated titles reviewed on the Cybils blog by hardworking volunteers.

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Monday Review: THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING by Robyn Schneider

Summary : It takes some serious stones to start a story off with a decapitation. But I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that, yes, in some ways that WAS the beginning of everything for narrator Ezra Faulkner. It wasn't fatal for HIM, obviously, but that day when he and his best friend Toby were twelve years old and witnessed something horrific and gruesome was the day their lives were changed forever. And, life being the way it is, it wasn't the last life-changing moment, either.

Fast-forward about five years. Ezra and Toby aren't close any more. Ezra, in fact, is kind of the King of School these days—varsity tennis champ, popular crowd, keggers every Friday night, and so forth. Until one night, he leaves one of his tennis teammates' keggers and his car is hit by another vehicle that blows a stop sign. His leg is shattered, as is his tennis career, and he finds out how easy it is for everything he knew in his comfortable life to fall apart.

Don't get me wrong; this isn't the kind of story where the narrator's life does a total 180. One of the things I like about this book is that the changes are realistic and believable. Ezra may not have a picture-perfect family life, but he has a comfortable upper-upper-middle-class existence to fall back on. He may have lost his brawn, but he actually does have brains and is fine with using them, especially now that his free ticket to college is kaput. And, after all these years, he has his friend Toby. They haven't been close, but they've stayed on decent terms, and now Toby's got what Ezra lost: a group of loyal true friends and a sense of his own core self. And so, what seemed like the end may in fact be another beginning. Especially when the new girl, Cassidy, comes along…

Peaks : Like I said, I enjoyed the fact that the life-changing moments in this story were believable and human-scale, and didn't go all the way over the line into Major Tragic Emo. Those types of stories don't appeal to me and I generally don't read them. I guess I prefer stories that deal with the everyday sorts of tragedies, the kind that might happen to someone you know—the kind in, say, a Sarah Dessen novel.

I also got a lot of pleasure from the depiction of the Southern-California setting in this book. I've written about very VERY similar settings because it's where I grew up and went to high school—not quite in the OC, where this story takes place, but basically 30 minutes east. The palm trees decorated with Christmas lights, the Santa Ana winds, the ability to drive out to the beach or into L.A. in about an hour, give or take…it's a very particular growing-up experience, and it was portrayed well.

Valleys : If there are any weaknesses here, it's that some of Ezra's previous jock-and-cheerleader friends are sometimes a little two-dimensional, but having said that, the author does make sure that the most important characters are well-rounded—namely, Ezra's ex-girlfriend Charlotte, who is not simply a hot-mess megabeeyatch but a real person, albeit quite flawed.

Conclusion : I recommend this one for fans of the contemporary coming-of-age tale, done realistically, with a focus on friends and school relationships. Because the characters are high school seniors, there's definitely mature language and behavior—it's not a "young YA" story. Again, if you like Sarah Dessen, or (I feel like such a dork for tooting my own horn here, but I really did think about the similarities) my second book Underneath, I'd suggest picking it up. Good male narrator, so there's guy interest here, too.

I received my copy of this book courtesy of my library's ebook collection. You can find THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING by Robyn Schneider at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.

Thursday Review: THESE SHALLOW GRAVES by Jennifer Donnelly

Pretty cool cover, except the tagline is kind of uninformative. Summary : I like me a good period mystery, and I enjoyed Donnelly's award-winning book A Northern Light, so I was excited to find this one in my library's ebook collection. I also tend to be interested in books that engage issues of social class, as this one does, and in a way that makes for an absorbing and page-turning read. These Shallow Graves, though primarily a mystery set in the Victoria era, has plenty of suspense and action, and even a bit of romance, so it has something to offer a wide range of readers, along with really solid storytelling and a plucky heroine.

About our heroine: Narrator Jo Montfort is a member of one of the honorable old New York families. She's wealthy, all but engaged to her equally wealthy friend Bram Aldrich, and wants for nothing…except maybe to become a newspaper reporter like Nellie Bly. Then she finds out her father is dead, allegedly due to an "unfortunate accident" while cleaning his gun. Jo immediately becomes suspicious: her father was nothing if not conscientious and safe with his weaponry. When she overhears a reporter voicing a theory that it was suicide, Jo becomes bound and determined to find out what really happened to her father. In the process, she finds out more than she ever wanted to know about her family's shipping fortune, encounters plenty of danger and dastardly doings (and more dead bodies), and, of course, falls in love with a boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

Peaks : This was a well-crafted mystery. I like stories that keep me guessing, and while I did guess correctly a few times, there are plenty of twists and turns to make things interesting. I also thought there was a vivid cast of characters, especially the narrator, Jo, and her new friends from the seedier side of town. Jo is, as I said, plucky, and too clever and curious to be just another wealthy society wife. Once she sets out on the trail of the mystery, it's easy to stay right there with her as events unfold. There is, of course, the constant threat of discovery by her staid mother and friends or the nosy butler, and this maintains an ongoing tension throughout the book that culminates in a surprising, frightening turn towards the end of the book.

As I mentioned, one of the most interesting parts of this book was its depiction of social class, which ends up being a major theme, as Jo ends up repeatedly slumming it in less savory parts of town and meeting a wide range of new friends who humanize for her the aspects of life that she would normally never encounter in her sheltered existence. That transition from sheltered to (all too) worldly happens in a way that is true to the genre of historical Victorian fiction but still remains plausible, and it's most satisfying when Jo is proactive about it, taking responsibility for her own mistakes and her own personal growth.

Valleys : I wouldn't say the story goes too far beyond existing tropes of this genre, but in my opinion, that's what makes it fun. I can't even call it a guilty pleasure because it's hard to feel guilt for reading a solidly written mystery with three-dimensional characters who don't rely too heavily on Victorian "types" like the wilting flower, ambitious young reporter, or patronizing paternal figure. The book plays off of such tropes rather than duplicating them, which is nice.

Conclusion : I found this one to be a page-turner—I cared about Jo and wanted her to find out the truth about her father's death, and bring the bad guys to justice. And kudos to the author for ultimately not making it a love triangle, which is a refreshing change.

I received my copy of this book courtesy of my library's ebook collection. You can find THESE SHALLOW GRAVES by Jennifer Donnelly at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

This work is copyrighted material. All opinions are those of the writer, unless otherwise indicated. All book reviews are UNSOLICITED, and no money has exchanged hands, unless otherwise indicated. Please contact the weblog owner for further details.