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My mother taught fourth and fifth grade for almost 20 years before she retired. When she was a kid in school she struggled and was never a strong student or a big reader. Because of this, she brought a depth of understanding and passion to her teaching that endeared her to her students and made her a fantastic teacher. She also read a lot of kid's books during her years as a teacher and The War with Grandpa by Robert Kimmel Smith was one of her favorites that she has enthusiastically recommended to her grandkids. You probably know Kimmel Smith's book Chocolate Fever, his first, and now a classic, that almost all kids seem to read in second grade, about a boy with a love for chocolate that leads him into some sticky situations. In The War with Grandpa, the battle begins when Peter's grandpa moves in with his family, unceremoniously booting him from his beloved bedroom. While this hurts Peter, what hurts him even more is that his parents never asked him how he felt about the situation At the advice of his friends, Peter wages a war with Grandpa that involves escalating sneak attacks and midnight maneuvers.

The War with Grandpa was published in 1984 and it feels a little dated, but I don't think it's anything a young reader today would notice. What I appreciate most about The War with Grandpa is that it's a very straightforward story with Peter narrating and it's on the shorter side, but with a story that will appeal to older readers. In some ways, The War with Grandpa reminds me of Andrew Clements's About Average. Both books are around 150 pages with characters in 5th or 6th grade and present kids trying to figure out how to handle something that's bothering them, but the similarities end there. Clements's book is a layered and nuanced and, while the main character Jordan is being bullied by a classmate while also questioning her self worth, so much of her struggle is internal, revolving around her thoughts. With Peter, his story unfolds in a much more active way. He begins his narrative by explaining, 

This is the true and real story of what happened when Grandpa came to live with us and took my room and how I went to war with him and him with me and what happened after that. I am typing it out on paper without lines on my dad's typewriter because Mrs. Klein, she's my 5th grade English teacher, said that we should write a story about something important that happened to us and to tell it 'true and real' and put in words that people said if we can and remember to put quote marks around them and everything.

Somehow, Peter's life seems a lot less complicated than Jordan's and I like that, especially since I think it's getting harder to find books like Kimmel Smith's - the kind of book that reluctant readers will read - these days. I hate to divide readership along gender lines, but I feel pretty confident that About Average, with the cover image of the main character pensively staring out the window, will attract fewer boy readers than The War with Grandpa, which makes me glad there are books out there like this one.

Playing the board game Risk with his buddies and talking about how frustrated he is by the way his parents moved his grandpa, who has a bad leg, into his bedroom on the second floor, bumping Peter to the attic room, without even discussing it with him, they convince him that he needs to declare war on his grandfather. It starts with a written declaration of war that opens up a conversation. Grandpa tries to convince Peter that wars are about power and greed, not a disagreement or a dispute, which is how he sees the situation. But Peter insists that he needs to stand up for his rights and that his peaceful methods of solving this dispute have not worked. One thing I especially like about The War with Grandpa is the way that Peter and Grandpa continue to discuss the war even as the attacks escalate, and yet the attacks continue to escalate. Peter hides Grandpa's watch and Grandpa hides Peter's school books - and shoelaces - inside various pieces of unused luggage, almost making him late for school. Grandpa slaps Peter, not out of anger but to make a point about what war really is. Peter is stunned, but it does make him think. The war with Grandpa finally ends when, after taking something of Grandpa's that he is especially attached to, Peter sees Grandpa in a different light. And Grandpa sees his situation in a different light as well, coming up with a brilliant solution to Peter's anger over his displacement. The resolution is realistic and satisfying and to the point. Interestingly enough, the bulk of the story and dialogue is between Peter and his Grandpa without much input or interaction from his parents, the people who technically caused the disruption in the first place. However, this feels completely realistic in the setting of the story.

 Silver Street Farm books coming soon . . .

For the five and under crowd:

Who's Like Me? and What Will I Be?

For everyone or seven and up as a read-alone don't miss this series of fantastic non-fiction books, including Just the Right Size and Talk, Talk, Squawk!, reviewed here.

Jason Fry is the author of Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra, a fantastic new book and a rare addition to the underrepresented (in my opinion) genre of science fiction middle grade novels - with brilliant cover art by Tom Lintern. Besides being kind of uncommon in kid's books, science fiction is a a little bit outside of my comfort zone when it comes to reading. But, Treasure Planet is one of my favorite Disney movies and I did review Treasure Island and Silver: Return to Treasure Island last year, so I decided to give Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra, which has a touch of the traditional swashbuckler to it, a try. My decision was cemented when I learned that Jason Fry is author of over twenty books, many of which are part of the canon of Star Wars books, AND that several of Fry's books are part of a genre my sons and I love that could be called "non-fiction fiction." Fry's books like Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Visual Guide, The Secret Life of Droids and Lego Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary employ a field guide format and/or similar reference book style of presenting fictional people, places and things in a realistic way. With this kind of background and experience, I figured Fry must be the perfect person to write a middle grade science fiction novel like Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra, and he is!



The year is 2893 AD and the hero of Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra is Tycho Hashoone (the character names in this book are fantastic), the twelve-year-old midshipman of his family's starship, the Shadow Comet. The Hashoones are natives of the Jovian Union, which declared its independence from Earth in 2590 and has fought several wars with Earth since then. Tycho's mother Diocletia is the captain of the Shadow Comet, his father, Marvy Malone is the first mate and his older brother Carlo and twin sister Yana are also both midshipmen. Then there's Huff Hashoone, former captain of the Comet, father to Diocletia and an old-school pirate with several artificial limbs making him sort of a cyborg Long John Silver. The Hashoones make a living privateering, although Huff considers what they do not too different from being a pirate. While manning the helm in the middle of the night, Tyhco commandeers an Orion starship, a decision that sets in motion a chain of events that leads to an appearance in admiralty court, undercover work for that is just shy of blackmail and a suspenseful fight with a long-lost pirate ship captained by the legendary, supposedly dead, Thoadbone Mox.

Art by Jeff Nentrup

Art by Jeff Nentrup

Fry's world building is so immediate and descriptively thorough that, with the help of having seen a few sci-fi movies and read a few sci-fi "non-fiction fiction" books, images of everything described in Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra came to my mind instantly. In addition to Fry's skill as a writer, the book begins with a schematic of the Shadow Comet and a map of Jupiter and its moons and ends with an index - two things I absolutely love in a book. One detail I love in this Jovian world is that, instead of flying a Jolly Roger or other flag, the ships in Fry's space have transponders that signal their purpose to other ships, transponders that can broadcast false identities. Fry's descriptions of the locales the Hashoones visit are also memorable, like that of the family's homestead on the moon of Callisto, built around the mine shaft that made them wealthy over four centuries ago when they first settled there after leaving Earth. Then there's High Port, which Fry describes as a:

cluster of habitation modules orbiting Ganymede. The space station's largest dome had been converted to a luxurious reception hall for the Jovian Union's notable visitors. One side of the hall was dominated by the massive radiation-shielded windows that looked out over the cratered surface of the moon below and beyond to Jupiter. The gas giant had rotated so that huge storm known as the Great Red Spot was visible. It stared out at them like a baleful eye, churning through Jupiter's upper atmosphere as it had for more than a thousand years. 

The surface of Ceres is described as a "maze of tunnels and pressure domes filled with merchant warehouses, provisioning yards, hydroponic greenhouses, repair shops, kips, eateries, and grog houses, advertising their wares with everything from 3D holographic displays to ancient neon tubes." And the starships, for the most part, are described using traditional language (stern, mast, cuddy, bilge, all of which are defined in the index) although they do have, "bulky, long-range fuel tanks" that are left high in orbit while ships are in port, meaning that "every planet in the solar system wore a permanent necklace made up of bulbous tanks, lumbering fuel tankers, and gunboats on patrol." That's some pretty cool imagery!

Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra has been described as a "space-opera in the classic style,"  "Ranger's Apprentice meets Ender's Game," and "Star Wars meets Treasure Island," all of which are apt. However you choose to describe it, Jason Fry has kicked of a great new series that I know will grab the attention of starship-loads of readers!

Jason Fry, immortalized in Star Wars: The Essential Atlas, which he cowrote with Daniel Wallace.


Source: Review Copy

Here Where the Sunbeams are Green is author Helen Phillips' stand-out debut novel. And, while this is not strictly a work of fantasy, this book is filled with magic. There are so many out of the ordinary things about this wonderful novel that I almost don't know where to start, but I think that sisters Madeline and Ruby (Mad and Roo) are a good place to begin. I have read a lot of books since I started this blog, and I one trend that I noticed is the predominant presence of a boy and a girl as the main characters, as if authors want to cover all the bases and make sure their book appeals to the widest audience. And I completely understand this - if I wrote a book I would do everything I could to make sure it is read. In light of that, I always admire a book immensely when the author has the courage to write main characters who are the same gender, especially two girls. Everyone knows that girls will read "boy" books (Diary of a Wimpy Kid) but that boys will never read a book with girls as the main characters (The Penderwicks.) And, while there is a great boy character in this book, as I said above, this story is really about the sisters and Phillips does a fantastic job creating the characters of Mad and Roo and giving depth to them and their relationship. The other amazingly wonderful, out of the ordinary aspect of Here Where the Sunbeams are Green is the jungle where the story takes place, but I'll get to that in a minute. The fantastic cover art was created by Jennifer Bricking and the title was hand lettered by Sarah Hoy.

When we first meet our narrator, Madeline, almost thirteen, is on a small plane headed into the jungles of Central America with her little sister Ruby, her mom and the annoying, odd Kenneth Candy, referred to as Ken/Neth by Mad who refuses to go along with his presence in their lives. Seven months earlier, their father, the renowned bird watcher Dr James Wade, was invited by La Lava Resort and Spa, a green, environmentally friendly vacation spot for the rich and famous, to track and help preserve the habitats of the birds around them. As the months pass and the trip keeps getting extended, the girls and their mother hear less and less often from him and when they do his conversations are odd and his letters are strange and unlike the father they know. When Ken Candy shows up in Denver to treat Dr Wade's family to what seem increasingly like diversionary activities more than perks of Dr Wade's job, Madeline grows increasingly suspicious and openly rude to Ken/Neth, especially since it seems like he is moving in on her mother. One aspect of Here Where the Sunbeams are Green that I think Phillips handles so well as an author is the delicate development of Madeline's personality. She is on the cusp of being a teenager, too old to be cute and get the cuddles that Ruby does and just worldly enough to know that there is something not right about Ken Candy's goofy jokes, shoulder rubs and pockets filled with mini-Snickers. She is also just old enough to notice the golden eyes of a boy and think vaguely romantic thoughts about him. I usually flinch when romance comes into a middle grade novel. I feel like it opens up a can of worms that are better left for teen books. However, I am the first to admit that girls think about boys and I always admire when an author can write innocently about relationships of this nature, which Phillips does remarkably well. Madeline's observations about Kyle, the teenage boy in the story are chaste and thoughtful enough that I think I would feel comfortable with a certain ten-year-old I know reading this book.

Mad and Roo are not polar opposites, but they are different and Madeline is aware enough and comfortable enough with this that she knows when to step back and let Roo have the stage. She also knows when to turn to Roo. Madeline is cautious and thoughtful and has taken up the project of writing one poem every night before bed. She observes the world around her and knows that something is definitely not right and is especially sensitive to the changes she sees in both of her parents over the course of the story, referring to it in her impeccably tween way as "The Weirdness." Ruby is boisterous, brave and always moving forward and, while she doesn't see the world the way Mad does, she has her own ideas about things not being right and pores over the last letter from her father, convinced there is a hidden message in it. Madeline refers to this letter as "The Very Strange and Incredibly Creepy Letter" and refuses to look at it because it is so unlike her father that it upsets her just to see it. Madeline fluctuates between being just a little bit jealous of Ruby, who, miraculously has picked up Spanish so much faster and more fluently than Mad, is suspicious of no one and makes friends instantly, and being grateful that Ruby is who she is. Together the two make a great team.

Add to this team Kyle Nelson Villalobos, native of Ohio who spends the summers at his grandparents' lodge. Kyle is also an avid bird watcher and fan of Dr Wade's. A bit warily at first, he and Madeline establish a friendship with Roo as their bond. Like Kyle, Roo is a bird watcher, learning everything she knows from outings with her dad. Once in the jungle, the story unfolds quickly with the girls learning that the Lava-Throated Volcano trogon, a species declared extinct four years earlier, is actually a Lazarus species - one that seems to have come back from the dead. Dr Wade is tracking the bird but, as the girls learn about the history of the bird and the volcano that it is named for, they soon suspect that their father might be doing something illegal for La Lava, or even worse, maybe La Lava is forcing him to do something illegal be threatening his wife and children. What was meant to be a relaxing vacation and visit with their father quickly becomes a race against time to save their father, the Lava-Throated Volcano trogon and the people living at the base of the volcano, as well as all the visitors to the sumptuous La Lava. Phillips' writing about the jungle is magical and she creates a vivid picture with her words. As I mentioned above, this really isn't a work of fantasy, but Phillips's weaves magical aspects into her story, mostly in the form of the flora and fauna of the jungle. One of my favorite scenes finds Roo waking up one morning after having been on a secret trek through the forest, with delicate yellow flowers growing from her toes. Even better, these flowers prove to be more than decorative as Roo instinctively uses them at a crucial moment in the story. Phillips also creates a believable local folk tale surrounding the volcano, the birds and the villagers, that plays out in a somewhat magical way in Here Where the Sunbeams are Green. Phillips also invents (I'm assuming these were inventions) magical flowers that, when plucked just the right way, inflate and act as umbrellas as well as an orange flower that blooms and wilts almost instantly only after La Lluvia, the torrential rain that happens at almost the same time every day.

As I said at the start of this review, Here Where the Sunbeams are Green is a stand-out novel for many reasons. If nothing else, I honestly can't think of another middle grade novel I have read in the last four years that is like Here Where the Sunbeams are Green. However, there are a few books I can think of that have elements that are similar to Phillips' wonderful debut novel.