Saving Shiloh

Saving Shiloh by Phyliss Reynolds Naylor

This is the third book in the series starting with Newbery award winning Shiloh.  I am really glad we read all three, in a row,  and I recommend doing exactly that. The entire story (from book one) takes place in a span of less than one year in the life of eleven year old Marty. It really is one story and the end of the third book really leaves you in a satisfying place.

The thing that I admire most about this author is the way she explores the complexity of issues which we often try and make black and white. In this story the broken life of Judd Travers begins to mend. And it ends on a very hopeful note.

Shiloh Season

Shiloh Season by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
sequel to the 1992 Newbery Medal Winner Shiloh
Also won several Children's Choice awards in various states.

After reading Shiloh out loud to my son Jabu age 10, I looked up the other two books in the series and checked them out of the library.

In some ways I liked Shiloh Season even more than Shiloh. It wasn't quite as action packed, but had some great conversations between Marty (the 11 year old boy telling the story) and "Doc" the doctor that patched up his dog. The author is especially good at delving into moral ethical issues that don't fall neatly into black and white, right and wrong.

In this book Judd Travers is drinking hard and even scarier than he was in the first book.

Marty keeps reaching to build a bridge between his family and Judd despite everything that has happened. And in fact the whole mountain community comes forward to help Judd out in a time of need.

Doc has told Marty that "people have to learn kindness, just like you have to learn to tie your shoes." And Marty has quizzed a vet in town about whether dogs as mean as Judds could ever be nice dogs again; the vet thinks, yes, that it wouldn't be easy, but step by step they could learn to trust someone. Marty tries to put this into practice with Judd himself, hoping by showing him kindness he might learn a little bit of it.

Nice book. I'd recommend it. And we're keeping on with the last book in the series starting bed time tomorrow!

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline
Chirstopher Award 2007 for children ages 8-10

I loved Because of Winn Dixie and so I've been interested to read any other books by Kate DiCamillo and nearly everything she's written has won an award or honor of some kind. But so far, nothing has topped Winn Dixie for me.

There were cool things about this story. But it didn't pull me in and swallow me up as I like a book to do. It's a story about a toy rabbit made of china and it's adventures. And through it's adventures, from the bottom of the sea, to the depths of a garbage dump, on the road with a hobo, and so on, it's journey of love and loss and gathering the courage to love again.

It's got a little essence of Velveteen Rabbit. Maybe because his adventures with each person is somewhat distinct it is more a series of stories than one big story, and the big frame that kept it a novel rather than being a series of stories, just didn't quite work for me.

I'm interested to know what others think since I think it's a well loved book! It just didn't really grab ME.

The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo

I actually thought this was a Newbery honor book when I picked it up, but I realize now the silver medal on the book cover was actually for the National Book Award Finalist distinction. . . so now I have yet another book list to peruse! I read this one in one gulp during the hours of 1 a.m. -3 a.m. one night when I couldn't sleep! (It's a very manageable  short read.)

It doesn't rank with Because of Winn Dixie (also by Kate DiCamillo) but I still enjoyed the read. Like Winn Dixie it takes place in Florida, a place the author knows well because she grew up in a small town in Florida. It involves a boy named Rob and a girl named Sistine (like the chapel). Rob's mom has died and he hasn't cried even one tear since his dad stopped him from crying at the funeral 6 months earlier. Rob and his dad live in a Hotel where his dad also works as a handy man. Rob is also an artist. Sistine is an odd "new girl" at school who "odd new kid" Rob befriends. Rob has discovered a tiger in a cage in the woods behind the hotel. He's also been sent home from school on the pretext that he has a rash on his legs that some parents are afraid might be contagious. With assorted odd characters and unusual circumstances, a story unfolds about friendship and the healing power of grief.  I don't want to give away too many of the details!

The Secret Life of Bees; Three By Cynthia Voigt

Originally posted October 24, 2003

Secret Life of Bees (not actually on any of these award lists!)

Come a Stranger; Sons from Afar; Building Blocks---- all by Cynthia Voigt

OK, here I clear my recent reading list of various tangents that are often by Newbery authors, but not actually medal winners...!

The Secret Life of Bee's- I read this one because it's the Pittsboro Libraries project to get every one in the community to read this book in a Community Read project. I really enjoyed it a lot, and actually think teen readers would like it very much as well. The very beginning of the book is brutal and I almost wondered if I'd ever like it, with such a harsh start, but it quickly turns into a very good and gentle story. I wouldn't recommend it for young readers though for this reason. I think anyone 14 on up would do fine with it and some younger ones if they had some one to talk about it with could also do fine.

It's basically a coming of age story involving a girl who is being raised by her father as her mother is dead. Her dad is not a kind man, and she runs away along with a black woman who worked in their home. They end up finding a safe haven that leads to the disclosing of many aspects of the girls personal history that she was in search of. Plenty of thought provoking stuff on race relations in the south, womanhood, sisterhood, mothers and daughters, etc.

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Now I begin the book reports on my massive Cythia Voigt tangent. After loving Dicey's Song so much I wanted to read more from this author. There are a couple of other books that follow the Tillerman family. . .

Come a Stranger is about Dicey's good friend Mina, who is African American. It deals with her dream of being a ballet dancer, the painful extinguishment of that dream, and the following rebuilding of her self concept and self esteem. It also deals in depth with the experience of an African American girl in a elite white world (the world of the dance camp she had won a scholarship to) and the many tensions and conflicts with in that experience. It's a good read. I'd suggest this one for 10 and up. Nothing scary that I remember, but I think the issues involved would be more of interest to the older reader.

Sons from Afar is the story of the two boys in the Tillerman family. Having lost their mother, and lived most of their lives with their Grandmother, the two Tillerman boys finally face the question of their father and go off in search of him, and really, in hope of learning more of themselves. The journey itself answers many of their questions and they eventually, after some dead ends and a harrowing adventure, come to peace with the issues at hand. I'd call this one for the 10 or 12 and up crowd. There is some scary stuff in the final encounter in the search.

Building Blocks is a different kind of a book, not about the Tillerman's and with more of a twist of fantasy than the other Cynthia Voigt books I read. It is about a boy who's mother and father are in conflict about what to do with an inheritance, and really in conflict in their relationship at the core. The boy ends up time traveling back to meet and know his dad as a boy, and returns with a much fuller understanding of his father. This might work for a slightly younger reader, maybe 8 or 9 and up if reading with a parent, but I still think it would be best appreciated by the 10 and older crowd. Her books are kind of introspective by nature and I'm not sure all the emotional, relational stuff would really be appreciated by the younger ones, but maybe I'm underestimating. There's some mildly scary stuff in this one, a getting lost in a cave scene, and some just mean dysfunctional family stuff in the family of the dad.

All in all, Cynthia Voigts mark as a writer is the depth with which she knows and presents her characters. They are stories about people. I found all her books good, but Dicey's Song (the medal winner) easily the very very best of the batch. She has a Newbery Honor book as well, A Solitary Blue, so I'll have to get my hands on that one eventually.

What are you reading?

Love, Louise