#grl4

It's not possible to write a review of Wendy Mass' bouyant new book 11 Birthdays without comparing it to the 1993 movie Groundhog Day. Like Bill Murray, Amanda Ellerby is forced to repeat the day of her eleventh birthday, Friday, June 5th, over and over again until she gets it right. That is where the similarities end, however. Mass takes the idea of having to repeat the same day over and over, puts it in the hands of her characters and lets them run with it.

Each named for a great-great grandparent, Amanda Ellerby and Leo Fitzgerald are born on the same in the same birthing center. Unbeknownst to them, their great-great-grandfathers carried on a legendary feud that turned town upside down until they ended it, instantly and mysteriously, and were friends for the rest of their lives. Also unbeknownst to Leo and Amanda is the presence at their births of Angelina D'Angelo, the woman who, with a little bit of magic, brought about the end of the Fitzgerald and Ellerby feud. However, these details aren't revealed until almost the end of the book. And, while they are interesting, the bulk of the plot, which has Amanda, the narrator, reliving the same day over and over again - eleven times in all - until she gets it right, is so much more compelling and entertaining that I didn't even need the magic to make sense of the glitch in time.

Amanda and Leo have always celebrated their birthdays with a joint party. At the start of their tenth birthday parts, Amanda overhears Leo telling a group of boys that he doesn't like having his party with Amanda. Amanda is so hurt by this that she runs out of the party and doesn't speak to Leo again for a year. Aside from losing her best friend, Amanda's grudge also means that there will now be two different parties competing for guests on the same night. Without Leo, Amanda has clung to Stephanie, who sided with Amanda after the fight. Stephanie is a gymnast who wants to make the team and be friends with the popular girls. Amanda is willing to practice her back handspring and try out for the team, but she knows that she's not as good as the other girls and, being a drummer, would rather be trying out for the marching band. Repeating her birthday over and over gives Amanda the chance to work through these tough situations. And, after she and Leo figure out that they are both repeating their birthday, they team up, first to take advantage of the fact that they can do whatever they want and when they wake up in the morning it will all have been erased, and eventually to get to the bottom of the situation and whatever it is that is keeping them stuck.

In case you have never read a Wendy Mass book before, she is a sneaky philosopher. She is a teacher of important life lessons - behind your back. I am sure that as an adult reader I see this more readily in her works than an eleven year old would. Even so, I have no doubt that Amanda's insecurities and refusal to forgive her friend Leo for his hurtful words will resonate with young readers. Just as she did with Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Mass comes up with a creatively clever device that serves as a teaching tool for the main characters of her books. For Jeremy, a box with four different locks that is inscribed with the words, "THE MEANING OF LIFE: FOR JEREMY FINK TO OPEN ON HIS 13th BIRTHDAY," sends him and his best friend Lizzy on a scavenger hunt around New York City that reveals more answers to the question, "What is the meaning of life?" than there are locks on the box. For Amanda, the opportunity, which to her seems like a curse, to repeat a day over and over, fixing her mistakes as well as doing some good deeds - at first to try to keep the day from repeating, but eventually just because it feels good - ultimately leads her to discover truths about herself and ways to find a balance between her interests and her desire to be a good friend.

Heather Vogel Frederick has written a series of books that hit my sweet spot so perfectly that reading them feels like a guilty pleasure. But, the pleasures of reading The Mother-Daughter Book Club and the sequels Much Ado About Anne and Dear Pen Pal are entirely guilt free. As I have mentioned in the past, especially when writing about Jeanne Birdsall's magnificent book for girls, The Penderwicks, I love it when one kid's book refers to another, hopefully sparking interest in the reader that will lead her to seek out that book next. With The Mother-Daughter Book Club, Heather Vogel Frederick has found an ingenious way to write a whole book around this idea while also inventing some of the most endearing, absorbing and sometimes annoying characters in young adult literature! As a mother (of a daughter), children's bookseller and lover of books, there was almost no way I could have not loved The Mother-Daughter Book Club. Fortunately, Heather Vogel Frederick is such a great writer that she manages to imbue an already engrossing plot - mothers and daughters reading and discussing Louisa May Alcott's Little Women over the course of a school year - with so many other absorbing aspects that I could not put this book down. In addition to a great cast of characters, some of whom are almost over the top sometimes, Frederick manages to add many touches of historical and literary interest. The book is set in the literary and historical gold mine of Concord, Massachusetts, home of the Alcotts, Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne as well as the site of the Battle of Concord, the first battle in the Revolutionary War and Walden Pond. Frederick works these aspects of life in Concord into her story seamlessly and completely, her characters even commenting at times on what it feels like to live with the physical remnants of history all around them. Frederick brings together a diverse group of girls and mothers in Mother-Daughter Book Club. Emma, Jess, Cassidy and Megan take turns narrating the chapters. Every chapter, as well as each of the four seasonal sections of the book, begins with a quote from Little Women that perfectly sets off the action. The book begins with Emma Hawthorne, who's mom is a librarian at the Concord Public Library and who's dad is a freelance writer, ensuring, as Emma says, that "books are a frequent topic of discussion around our house." Emma, along with her older brother Darcy, have been named for characters from a Jane Austen book by their bibliophile mother. Jess lives on Half Moon Farm, which dates back to the Revolutionary War period, with her father and younger twin brothers. Her mother has recently returned to New York City to resume her acting career in a soap opera after a very long hiatus. Every afternoon when she gets home from school, Jess turns on her TV and talks to her mother as she watches Heartbeats. Cassidy is new in town, having moved from Southern California after losing her father in a car accident. She is a burping, hockey playing tomboy who is making her mother, a former fashion model with a kind of smile named after her, increasingly distressed. Megan is sort of the odd girl out in the group. She had been best friends with Emma since kindergarten, but when her father invents something that earns the family millions, they build themselves a shinning new house and Megan gets herself a new set of friends, becoming part of the catty "Fab Four." This new group of girls is headed by Becca Chadwick, a Queen Bee who makes it her business to loudly insult the other girls whenever possible. Calliope Chadwick, Becca's mother, is the kind of interfering, snobbish person who make the perfect villain, along with her daughter. Megan's shift to a new group of friends and her mother pulling her back into her old group of friends makes for some very interesting plot developments as the story unfolds over the course of the sixth grade year. The mothers in this book don't get as much page time as the girls, and rightly so, but, I found them and their interactions every bit as interesting as those of the girls. Emma's mom, Phoebe, is the one who comes up with the idea for the mother-daughter book group and organizes it as well as picks the book. She is the calm, proper guiding force for the group. Jess's mom, Shannon, is largely absent, sending gifts to the girls that are delivered at each meeting. Her prolonged absence causes the shy, quiet Jess to gradually learn to speak up for herself. Cassidy's mom, Clementine, gets a bit more page time. As well as coping with the loss of her husband, she is desperately worried that Cassidy's sports related interests will land her in the hospital or worse, and she will suffer another loss. Despite having been a fashion model and the fact that Cassidy looks nothing like her, the conflict between mother and daughter comes not from Clementine wanting Cassidy to be something that she is not but from her wanting to protect her daughter from her passions. Megan's mom, Lily, cracks me up. She is a very well meaning person, but on a little bit of a high horse when it comes to her causes. After becoming wealthy, Lily good-heartedly begins supporting various charities and causes as well as touting her healthy, organic, sometimes vegan lifestyle. She also ramps up the pressure on Megan to be the "studious Chinese-American girl who's a whiz at math and science," as Megan sees it, and go to MIT like her father did then change the world for the better. Unfortunately, what Megan loves is the frivolous (to her mother, anyway) world of fashion and design. What I liked most about the mothers is that they didn't always get along and they had to resolves their conflicts, much as the girls found themselves doing over the course of the book.

The final chapter of the book, narrated by Jess, begins with the quote from Little Women, "Now and then, in this workaday world, things do happen in he delightful storybook fashion, and what a comfort that is." Of course there is a visit to Orchard House, the home of the Alcotts that is now a museum, in the course of Mother-Daughter Book Club. Coming at the end of the book after the group has finished reading Little Women, it is the setting for the storybook ending that the chapter quote promises. As the girls get a private tour through the house, Jess thinks to herself, "I've been through Orchard House a zillion times before - with my mother, with my school, with my Brownie troop, plus Emma and I ride our bikes over almost every summer - but somehow it's different this time." I think that quote perfectly sums up the experiences of the girls and the mothers in the book as well. They have all participated in doing something they have done "a zillion times before" - read a book - but by doing it together, as a group, they have made the experience new, different and profound.

I recently reviewed Book by Book: The Complete Guide to CreatingMother-DaughterBook Clubs by Cindy Hudson, in which Mother-Daughter Book Club receives several mentions. Heather Vogel Frederick appears on a list of authors who enjoy talking to book groups, especially mother-daughter groups. Frederick's website also includes a "Special Invitation from the Author" to book groups as well. In her book Hudson shares a story from a mom who read Mother-Daughter Book Club while her daughter was at swimming lessons one summer, decided to start her own group and had the good fortune to get in touch with Vogel while she was visiting this mom's hometown. For their first ever meeting, the group read The Mother-Daughter Book Club and got to discuss the book with the author! How cool is that??? Book two in the series is titled, Much Ado About Anne and the mother-daughter book group spends the year reading Lucy Maude Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. In book three, Dear Pen Pal, the group reads Jean Webster's classic, Daddy-Long-Legs. I have heard of Webster's book but never read it. I am definitely bumping it up to the top of my "To Be Read"pile. When she was 11 year old, Heather Vogel Frederick lived in England for a time. Her family's home was a 300 year old cottage with a pink kitchen (like the Hawthorne's!) As an enthusiast for all things British, I had to write to Heather when I learned of this and ask her if there was any chance that the book group would find their way to England? With news right from the author's keyboard, I am happy to report that book four in the series will be titled Pies and Prejudice in which the mother-daughter book group tackles Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

The Concord Public Library, where Phoebe Hawthorne works and Calliope Chadwick makes a fuss, on the right. One of my favorite chapters in the book is narrated by Emma and takes place on April 19th, Patriot's Day (and a school holiday) in Concord. The battle re-enactments and festivites take place at Minute Man National Historical Park, , where the Old North Bridge is located. Male townsfolk participate in the action and the parade that follows. As a fourteen year old, Darcy, Emma's older brother, gets to participate in the battle for the first time. As Mr Hawthorne says, after he and Darcy are fitted out in their minutemen costumes, this is the Patriot's Day is the father-son version of the mother-daughter book club.

Written in 1951, Eleanor Estes' Newbery winning Ginger Pye is a marvelous book that, for parents, serves as a reminder of how much children's literature and children's lives have changed in the last 60 years. Jerry and Rachel Pye live in Cranbury, CT where their father is a highly regarded, although not famous, ornithologist, who travels often and their mother, some 17 years his junior, is a homemaker. Living in the same town as their mother's family, Jerry and Rachel spend a lot of time with their mother's young brother, Uncle Bennie, who is famous and "a hero because here he was, only three years old, and yet he was an uncle." The plot of the book centers on how the children acquire their dog Ginger, how he incorporates himself into the family and, at the climax of the book, how the family copes when their beloved dog disappears. This is a simple, gentle story full of amusing and thoughtful digressions that make each chapter feel like a self-contained short story.

Home is the happy base for Jerry and Rachel, who have the freedom to travel almost anywhere they choose within the town of Cranbury. In spite of this, the book opens with a wonderful scene in which the two children are sitting on the little upstairs veranda of their house reading. Rachel is reading The Secret Garden and Jerry is reading "one of the Altsheler* books, and neither one of these was an 'I' book." The "I" book, or book with a first person narrative, does not pass the Pye taste test unless it is really good, like Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island or Swiss Family Robinson. As the light fades the children just sat "quietly, thinking, and watching the bats and bugs hurl themselves against the streetlamp which had suddenly come on and was casting a purple glow." A year apart in age, Jerry and Rachel are true friends. They often have discussions about what is the "most important of anything - the most important, or the prettiest, or the best or the funniest." At night when they went to bed they had one long, continuous story about "Martin Boombernickles, a character who could change himself into a horse, a boy, a man, a dog, anything, whenever he felt like it. They almost never went to sleep without adding an episode." Although the lives of the Pye children were probably typical of middle class children in the 1950s, this book has an almost exotic feel when I think about the lives my children lead today.

Estes enhances the plot with frequent digressions. In the midst of an activity, Rachel or Jerry will recall a past event that is related to their whatever they are currently experiencing. One of my favorites is when Rachel, at Mrs. Speedy's barn with Jerry after they have earned the money to buy one of her puppies, remembers the last time she was at Speedy's farm. It had been "by accident, long ago, when she was about seven." All the children had gone to the Sunday school teacher, Miss Foote's house to sled down her "steep slippery hill" and have hot cocoa. Miss Foote had hung Japanese lanterns in the chestnut trees and they made "lovely colored reflections in the snow and ice." Towards the end of the party, Rachel got so much momentum on a slide that she went out of Miss Foote's yard and into the Speedy's field. In the dark, Rachel walked toward a red light and found Mrs Speedy in the barn with a red lantern, milking the cows. Stepping into the barn felt like "stepping into a painting that was dark, excepting where the red cows were, and Mrs. Speedy's ruddy face, the lantern, and the white milk that looked purple" to Rachel. She quickly realizes where she is and thinks it's "like waking from a dream to find herself this far from the party, like being in a surprising new world." Instead of making her way back to the party, Rachel runs all the way home, her sled trailing behind her. Jerry arrived home shortly after her, but she never told anyone about being in the Speedy's barn because "it was a hard thing to explain. But it was interesting to remember, as she was doing now." The validity that Estes gives to the thoughts and emotions of her child characters is so vividly real and straightforward. And, I think it is hugely important for readers to know that their memories matter, that they play a part in their present lives and that memories can be quiet, personal and wonderous even without sharing them. Rachel and Jerry are constantly making sense of their world and their lives with their memories, memories that reflect instances that shape them and affect their choices in the present. I don't want to keep using the word "simple" to describe Estes's writing or her story - the only thing simple in this book is the age in which it takes place. And that is simple mostly for the lack of gadgetry and distraction that we have in our lives today. Instead, her writing is best described as elegant, which for me is the embodiment beauty and simplicity in one.

The drama of the disappearance of Ginger, which takes up a little over half the book, is very low key. Mrs and Mr Pye, while concerned and wanting to help, are mostly on the sidelines for the whole story. The thoughts and actions that Jerry and Rachel pursue in their attempts to find Ginger are genuine and realistic within the setting of the story. Because the town is so small and everyone knows each other, they feel that Ginger must be somewhere nearby and if they can only visit every corner of town they will find her. Having seen a stranger with a yellow hat at many key moments, the children draw a comic strip every night trying to figure out who this villain is and what he has done with Ginger. They go house to house asking people if they have seen the dog. They get the police chief and the local newspaper editor involved. In the end, though, it isn't enough. The children keep their emotions in check very admirably, and they even refer to this in the book. When, and how, Ginger does return home, the children allow themselves to cry. I deeply admire then sense of propriety, independence and what is acceptable that Jerry and Rachel possess. I am sure that I am romanticizing these children who, after all, are just fictional characters, but I know that Estes used many biographical bits in her writing and, having been a children's librarian, I have no doubt that she had a good perspective on the characters of children during her writing lifetime.

This book is considered to be written at a sixth grade reading level. Despite the seeming simplicity of the story, Estes uses words like "unsavory," "mesmerize," "soliloquize" and "regicides." I have noticed, not scientifically by any means, that children's literature from 50+ years ago tends to have vocabulary words that are much higher than what is found in contemporary young adult novels. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe there are so many new words in our language and culture today that there just isn't enough room in our collective consciousness for words like "unsavory" and "regicide" to end up in print in children's books anymore.

Standing for Socks, the debut novel from Elissa Brent Weissman employs one of my favorite plot devices in adult literature, children's literature and even movies, namely, how one, seemingly miniscule, unconscious act can shape and change a person's life forever. In Standing for Socks, fifth grader Fara Ross unwittingly wears one white and one dark grey sock to school and starts a kid-sized revolution.

Fara, the only child of socially and environmentally conscious parents, shares their views and is an active supporter of these causes at school. She has a close-knit, comfortable relationship with her best friends, Jody, the budding journalist, and Phillip, artistic but clumsy. She is a good student who is looking forward to going to middle school and maybe even winning the Harvey Award for Outstanding Student at the end of the year assembly. Everything seems perfect - except for one or two seemingly small things. Fara's unintentional sock mix-up garners the attention of kids and teachers alike, all of whom like the message she seems to be sending, namely, this is a free country with freedom of expression and socks don't have to match! All except one, and that one, Melodee Simon, makes it her mission to step back into the spotlight that she (and her mother) thinks is her right. When Fara decides to campaign for sixth grade president, her sock popularity seems like the perfect launching pad to promote her school and earth friendly ideas, even though she finds she is growing tired of the responsibility she feels to keep up her statement on individuality.

Elissa Brent Weissman has taken an innovative plot twist (socks) and given us a familiar setting in which it unravels. Fara and Jody, the two main characters, feel like real people - girls my daughter or I even might have gone to school with. The closeness and the hurt that the two experience over the course of the story also ring true. At first, I was surprised when Jody stopped speaking to Fara, but then I remembered back to the slights and oversights that I experienced as a child and how I felt and did the same thing. While the characters of Melodee and her mother are necessarily a bit larger than life to add to the tension and suspense in the plot, Weissman limits their page time. And, really, while Melodee and her mother may be sterotypes, these kind of girls and mothers do exist. Count yourself lucky if you have not run into them (yet.) While the stories of Fara, Jody and Melodee make for a great plot and a realistic and satisfying resolution (and some very funny sock jokes and plays on words), my favorite part of the story involved secondary characters, kids from other schools that Fara, Jody and Phillip befriend. Vickie, Caroline and Zoë, as well as few others, are part of an interesting plot development that dove tails wonderfully with the main plot in the final chapters of the book.

On one last note, I have to say that I think "Fara" is the perfect name for the main character of Standing for Socks. It is a unique and individual name, like Weissman's main character, and out of the ordinary. And, most of all, for me anyway, the name doesn't bring to mind one set visual. In this way, all girl readers can imagine themselves as the main character of this wonderful book and maybe Fara will give them the sense of self needed to make a statement, even a small one that starts with socks. As an aside, when I first began reading Standing for Socks I thought, "Really? Just wearing two different socks can draw this much attention, make such a statement?" It seemed like I might need a willing suspension of disbelief, then I remembered something that happened a few years back at the bookstore where I work when we sold socks. Non-book items have slowly been taking up more and more shelf space at the chain bookstore where I work for years now, much to my chagrin, and, for some reason, we got in a shipment of socks from the little miss matched company. For about $8.00 you can buy 3 socks, all different, but with similar color schemes and patterns. They didn't sell so well and, when the price was marked down, several of my co-workers, myself included, snapped them up. A few weeks later I was shocked to find that all of my co-workers bought 2 sets of socks so that they would have matching pairs instead of mixing them up as they were intended to be worn (and how I wear them...) Wearing mismatched socks (that did, in their own way match) seemed like no big deal to me, but, after asking my co-workers why they weren't mixing it up, I learned that they just couldn't bring themselves to wear two mismatched socks.

A native Floridian and journalist, Carl Hiaasen is known as a gifted satirist and his adult novels often classified as "environmental thrillers." In Hoot, his first novel for young adults, Hiaasen definitely delivers on the environmental themes and, appropriately, his satirical style is toned down a bit. Characters are caricatures, and potential thriller aspects are replaced with some slap-sticky type situations.

Roy Eberhardt is the only child of a stay at home mom and father who is a Federal Agent who moves his family often. Their last home in Montana was hard for Roy to leave and his adjustment to his new middle school is proving rough, mostly because an the over-sized thug named Dana Matherson who has decided to make Roy his target. Roy's first scrape with Dana, which results in near strangulation and a broken nose during the morning bus ride, coincides with his first glimpse of a mystery boy, tanned and agile, running barefoot through the houses and foliage on the side of the road. Intrigued, Roy seeks out the boy while avoiding Dana, both of which prove difficult. When Roy comes close to making a discovery, he is confronted by the school's soccer star, Beatrice Leep. Tall, powerful and with a head of curly blond hair, Beatrice cuts an imposing figure. She menaces Roy, but he doesn't back down. Eventually the two become friends, Beatrice rescuing Roy from Dana's grips more than once and recruiting him to help with the secret of the shoeless running boy.

This boy turns out to be Beatrice's younger stepbrother. An embarrassment and nuisance to his mother, she repeatedly ships him off to boarding school from which he promptly runs away. After the last school he returns to Coconut Cove, but not to his home, preferring to sleep in a rusted out ice cream truck in the local junkyard and the nearby everglades. Nicknamed Mullet Fingers because he can catch the silver, super fast fish with his bare fingers, Beatrice is keeping him secret and helping him out when she can. They entrust Roy with this secret but do not reveal the boy's real name to him, which proves to be a plus as the kids become embroiled in illegal activities - theirs and others. In an effort to protect burrowing owls living on a vacant lot about to be turned into a Mother Paula's Pancake house, Mullet Fingers has been committing acts of vandalism like placing baby alligators in the port-a-johns and letting deadly water moccasins loose on the property, albeit Mullet Fingers has taped their mouths shut before doing so. Mullet Fingers actions introduce the bumbling Officer Delinko and the brilliantly named corporate representative from Mother Paula's, Chuck Muckle, into the plot.

The climax is an exciting one and the emerging sense of environmental, community and social awareness that the characters - young and old - experience feels genuine. Hiaasen tells his story in a straightforward, reporter-like way that makes Hoot a great book for younger readers ready to bite into something a little longer than usual. As a girl, the bullying and violence from Dana Matherson were a little off putting. Fighting, even boys fighting, was not part of my childhood and is always a bit alien to me when I encounter it in books. However, I know it exists and Hiaasen does a good job of evening the odds between the bulky Matherson and the smaller Roy with the character of Beatrice. And, while Matherson helps to bring Roy and Beatrice, and ultimately Mullet Fingers, who's real name is Napoleon Bridgerm together, I'm not entirely sure that it is necessary to the plot. Even so, I think that Carl Hiaasen has opened up a new genre of young adult literature - subtle environmental themes within a real life/school setting and fascinating, realistic young characters. The movie Hoot came out in 2006 and, since the novel is so straightforward, I am sure that the adaptation was a good one. Though I have not seen it, I do plan to add it to my queue after enjoying the book.

With Saffy's Angel, Hilary McKay introduces us to the very creative, very eccentric, Casson family who live outside of London. Bill and Eve Casson are both painters. Bill has a studio in London where he lives and paints during the week and Eve has a shed out behind the house where she paints. The Casson children have all been given names from the color chart that hangs prominently in the kitchen of their home. The eldest is Cadmium Gold, or Caddy, then Saffron, Ingido and Permanent Rose. When the story begins, Saffron is eight years old, just becoming a skilled reader, and perusing the color chart. At the same time, Caddy is sitting at the dinner table painting the feet of one of her many hamsters, Indigo is sorting through the coal bin for pieces flecked with gold and Rose, less than a year old, is being inspected by the health worker since her health has been shaky since her birth. As the health worker pries a tube of ochre paint from Rose's little fist, paint she has been sucking on which accounts for her yellowish tinge and necessitates a trip to the emergency room, Saffron notices that her name is not on the chart. She becomes very upset, loudly asking why she isn't on the chart when the worker asks, "Doesn't she know?" as Caddy's hamster makes colorful, delicate footprints all over her paperwork and Indigo stirs up a cloud of coal dust on the hearth.

The opening scene of Saffy's Angel is representative of the level of low-grade chaos, domesticity and creativity that courses throughout the novel. There are so many charming, unique, loving details in this relatively short book that I could go on for pages writing about them. There is the way Indigo considers his sisters his "pack," and places his concern for them above all else. There is the scene in which Caddy encounters Rose, now five or six years old and quickly becoming a skilled artist, painting a picture using only foods as paint. Caddy helpfully suggests the gel toothpaste as a good source of blue. There is the scene in which Saffy, the only one in the family who seems to resent Bill's life in London, is screaming and throwing tomato sandwiches at his taxi as he drives away to the train station, back to his quiet, tidy life, away from the routineless, jumbled existence that is life in the Banana House (so named because of a plaque over the door when they moved in.) There is Eve making her "brain juice," which consists of instant coffee and cola stirred up together, invented when she had to spend all day mothering her children and all night tending to a fretful baby Rose. But, what you come away with at the end of the book is that, no matter what the level of messy existence in the home, the Casson children have a deep and protective love for each other that allows them to overcome their fears and feel at home in the world.

The angel of the title refers to a statue that stood in the garden of the home Saffy shared with her mother, Eve's twin sister, until she was three years old. That was when, during a visit from her grandfather, her mother died in a car crash. He returned to England with a crying three year old and a car full of toys, however, he could not bring the statue, upon which he had written the words, "Saffy's Angel" in blue pencil, with them. After settling Saffy in with the Cassons, he returns to Italy for the statue and, on the way home suffers a stroke that causes him to crash his Bentley and lose his capacity for speech for the rest of his life. When Saffy is thirteen her grandfather dies. In his will he leaves his crumbling house in Wales to Caddy, his wrecked Bentley to Indigo and $300 to Rose, which Caddy gets all in one pound coins that Rose then super glues together, paints gold and turns into a work of art. To Saffy, he leaves her angel. Knowing nothing about the angel, Bill and Eve at first think this is a figurative term. However, Saffy, who is haunted by dreams of a white, stone walled garden, comes to believe that her angel must be a statue from her life in Siena.

With her new found friend, the wheelchair bound Sarah Warbeck, she pursues her angel. And, when she cannot find it on her own, Indigo, Caddy and Rose get in on the game. How they do it is amusing and touching. There are several other plot threads woven into this colorful book that leave you wanting more of the Cassons, which is a good thing since there are four more books about them.

In Indigo's Star, Indigo misses a semester of school when he comes down with glandular fever (mononucleousis.) This isn't too troubling for him since he also gets to miss the school bullies flushing his head down the toilet. When he does return to school, Saffy and Sarah are there to offer protection, but it is his friendship with the American, Tom, that helps him get through the rest of the year. Caddy is off at University in London, Rose is dreading the news that she must wear glasses and Bill and Eve are still both working away in their separate studios miles and miles apart.

In Permanent Rose Caddy is engaged, and not always happily so. Indigo is cautiously beginning a friendship with the reformed bully, David, who yearns to be part of the Casson family. Saffy and Sarah are on a mission to find Saffy's biological father. And Rose has taken up a life of crime while trying to find where her American friend Tom has gone off to.

In Caddy Ever After, rather than the third person narrator Hilary McKay usually employs, alternating chapters are narrated by Caddy, Saffy, Indigo and Rose and all stories revolve around Valentine's Day in one way or another...

The fifth and final Casson, Forever Rose, finds an eleven-year old Rose who is missing her family. Caddy is now twenty-three and nowhere to be found, Saffy is eighteen, Indigo sixteen and Bill and Eve are separated. Rose finds herself mixed up in her best friend's plan to spend the night in the zoo in the arctic foxes' enclosure. As Marie Orlando says in her review for the Suffolk Cooperative Libary System, "What results from a mischeivous, if dangerous escapde are some surprising resolutions to Rose's disenchantment with school and home, and even a new configuration of the family. McKay is at the top of he game with this poignant, hilarious account, narrated in diary form by the irrepressible, artistic, Rose. Readers will empathize with her frustrations, secretly admire her and Kiran's sassiness, and cheer as everything falls nicely, and unexpectedly, into place."

Although I count her among my most favorite authors, I have put off reviewing any of Eva Ibbotson's books for almost a year after starting this blog because I knew I'd need to set aside a large chunk of time to do justice to her works. I also knew that I couldn't just review one of her books - I would have to review as many as I could. I thought that I would be able to skim the books, all of which I have already read, then review them. What I didn't realize was that I would get sucked into each and every one and end up re-reading all the books from cover to cover!

Eva Ibbotson is such magnificent writer capable of creating characters that you love and wish were your best friends as well as characters who are devious, self-centered, snobbish and downright mean. While her writing is highly descriptive and visual, it is also plain spoken and straightforward. Whether she is telling a story set in unique geographical location and time period or in a magical world, she always manages to bring together a diverse group of characters with actions and intentions that ring true no matter what their circumstances. In Journey to the River Sea, Ibbotson describes a character who has just received the best news possible as seeming to be made of "something quite different. Not muscle and bone - feathers and air . . . and lightness. He did not actually intend to fly, because that would have been showing off, but he could have done so if he wanted to." On top of this, Ibbotson has a way with writing about magical people and creatures that is deliciously imaginative, touchingly human and frequently funny, especially in her book Island of the Aunts. At times, Ibboston's writing is evocative of classic children's writers such as Frances Hodgson Burnett, Louisa May Alcott and the imcomprable E Nesbit.

Journey to the River Sea begins in 1910 in London, England. Maia, a student at the Mayfair Academy For Young Ladies has been an orphan since her parents, archaeologists who often took her on their travels, were killed in a train crash in Egypt two years previously. During these two years, Maia's guardian and family lawyer, Mr Murray has been searching for a relative who can care for Maia when he discovers the Carters. Mr Carter is a second cousin of Maia's father who has moved his family not far from the city of Manaus in Brazil with the hopes of making a fortune as a rubber planter. When Maia learns of this she begins to study all she can about the Amazon and Brazil, her imagination ignited by descriptions of the jungles and flora and fauna that inhabit it. She also lends her excited imagination to envisioning the Mr and Mrs Carter's twin daughters, Beatrice and Gwendolyn and the fine times they will have exploring together. Miss Minton is hired as a governess for Maia and the twins, who are the same age as she is, and chaperones her on her journey from England to Brazil. On board the Cardinal, Maia and Miss Minton meet a troupe of traveling actors, one of whom is the young Jimmy Bates who goes by the stage name Clovis King. The troupe is preparing their version of Little Lord Fauntleroy for performances in Manaus and will then move on to other venues. Clovis, an orphan who left his foster mother to join the actors, constantly pines for the cold weather of England as well as the fine (that's his opinion, anyway) English cooking done by his foster mother that he has left behind as well as constantly worries that the onset of puberty and the imminent change in his voice will cause him to be expelled from the troupe for no longer being able to play the part of young children in their performances. When this happens during the dramatic climax of the performance in Manaus, Clovis is laughed off the stage and kicked out of the troupe and his story begins.

Maia and Miss Minton, who has a bittersweet story of her own that precedes her journey to the Amazon, arrive at Taphernini, or the House of Rest, as Mrs Carter has named her home, they find things are not at all what they had imagined. The house, reeks of Lysol and the windows are never opened. The twins are spoiled and unwelcoming and jealous of all that Maia is capable of. Miss Minton notices this immediately and, for Maia's protection, separates her from the twins during lessons on the utterly false premise that she is lagging so far behind them in her studies she will only slow them down. The twins and Mrs Carter are so vain that they do not even question this. What's worse for Maia is Mrs Carter's insistence that they replicate their lives in England in the heart of the Amazon. They eat (dreadful) imported British food, treat the native servants with disdain and, worst of all, never leave the house for fear of encountering the nature all around them. Mrs Carter spends her days wandering the house with a flit gun, spraying chemicals into every crack in an effort to keep the bugs out of the house. However, through their innate curiosity and wonder at their situations, both Maia and Miss Minton manage to connect with the world outside of the stifling walls of Taphernini.

When British detectives come to Manaus in search of Finn Taverner, son of the noted British naturalist and explorer, Bernard Taverner, recently deceased, mystery and intrigue are introduced into the plot. With the locals on his side, Finn, who is half Xanti Indian, manages to evade the detectives, sent to return him to his ancestral estate that he is now the sole heir to. Finn has been raised by his father to be wary of the British. It was a British doctor who refused to tend to his native mother in the middle of the night when she went into labor and eventually died. He has also been raised to avoid a return to Westwood at all costs. It seems his father's childhood there was both miserable and brutal as he did not fit the Taverner mold. However, a friendship between the two children blossoms when Finn rescues a hopelessly lost Maia The friendship deepens when Finn introduces Maia, who is now allowed to leave the house after Miss Minton invents "pulmonary spasms," a condition which requires fresh air, to the people and ways of the jungle that she has been longing to experience. Maia, a gifted pianist and promising singer, realizes that, in Brazil, music is always around her. She begins to take an interest in the music of the various tribes and attempts to learn their songs in an effort to learn their folk songs. The lives of Finn, Clovis and Maia become intertwined, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. And, in the end, after a few false starts, the adults meant to guide and protect them come through

There is so much more wonder and joy at the beauty of nature and the discoveries it holds in this book, as well as more misguided, bigoted, spiteful behavior. But, the good outweighs the bad and in the end the Carters all get their just desserts - desserts that are equal to the reconstituted, rubbery puddings Mrs Carter insisted on serving at Taphnernini.

If you do not read any other book by Eva Ibbotson, I highly suggest you read this one. While I am a huge fan of fantasy and adore her books of this genre, there is something so timeless and hopeful about Journey to the River Sea that I think every child - and adult - should experience it. And, while Maia and Miss Minton dominate the story, Finn and Clovis are strong characters who should appeal to boy readers as well.

Andrew Clements is known as the master of the school story and rightly so. His first and most popular novel, Frindle was published in 1996. Since then he has written fifteen young adult novels, many of which are illustrated by Brian Selznick the Caldecott Award winning illustrator and author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Clements has written even more chapter books, beginning reader titles and an handful of picture books and has definintely staked out a place on the bookshelf right after Beverly Cleary and her Ramona books and just before Eoin Colfer and his Artemis Fowl series.

The covers of Clement's books, when illustrated by Brian Selznick, always have the main character holding something representative of the story. The cover of School Story reflects back upon itself, like standing between two mirrors, and the story inside proves to be a bit like that as well. Sixth grader Natalie, is the daughter of Hannah Nelson, editor at Shipley Junior Books in New York City. The two have been on their own since Natalie's father died in a car accident four years earlier. One day while riding the bus home from the city to New Jersey, Natalie asks her mom about her day at work because, "when her dad died, Natalie had decided she needed to talk to her mom more. Sometimes she pretended to be interested in her mom's work at the publishing company even when she wasn't." Natalie's mom tells her about a six hour that could have been summed up in three sentences: "People, we need to publish more adventure books, more series books and more school stories." This gets Natalie thinking, "who knows more about school than someone who's right there, five days a week, nine months a year?" When Natalie shares a few chapters of her book with Zoe, her best friend since kindergarten, the story takes off.

One of the reasons I love School Story is that it is actually a book about books, authors and publishing more than it is about kids in school. My favorite kind of book is one that mentions other authors and other books because I love being exposed to new things. Like Jeanne Birdsall's wonderful instant classic (which also includes a young author and excerpts from her writing,) The Penderwicks, School Story mentions other authors and other books and the best part is that these are likely to be familiar to most young readers who will experience a sense of recognition when reading School Story, especially chapter two titled, "A Portrait of the Author as a Young Girl." They may not catch the James Joyce reference, but readers will appreciate the chapter in which Natalie's love of reading, passed on to her by her mother and father, and her gradual growth into a writer is detailed, having as much to with the books that surround her as the absence of her father. Chapter eight, "Portrait of the Bulldog as a Young Girl" sheds some light on the character of Zoe Reisman and her motivation for convincing Natalie to take part in her scheme to get her book, The Cheater, published. Natalie is the daughter of an entertainment lawyer and a talker and arguer who never loses. Zoe is also a thoughtful and observant child. After reading a book she wants to talk to the author ask tactical questions like, "Why a peach and not a pickle?" after reading James and the Giant Peach. Shortly after Natalie's father dies, Zoe notices the look on her face when, during a sleep over Mr Reisman comes in to kiss his daughter good night. When Zoe reads Natalie's book she realizes that, while it is a school story, it is also a story about a father and a daughter and this, more than anything, makes her want to bring something good into Natalie's life like having her book published.

Although it seems like the easiest thing would be to give the manuscript directly to Natalie's mom for consideration, Natalie doesn't want their relationship to influence the success of her book one way or another. While Zoe does quite a bit of research in her efforts to help Natalie get her book published, there is only so much two kids can do on their own. Thus, they recruit (well, really bully on Zoe's part) their writing teacher Ms Clayton into helping them set up a phony office for the literary agency that supposedly represents Cassandra Day, Natalie's pen name. Ms Clayton is wary at first. She has sees the value in Natalie's manuscript from the start and she eventually comes to see the potential in Zoe's scheme as well. Natalie, who spends the afternoon at her mom's office every day after school, gets an insider's view of the publishing world as she watches her manuscript make the rounds. One of my favorite aspects of the book is the sense of impossibility that she experiences when she sees the piles and piles of manuscripts sitting on her mother's and the desks of the other editors at Shipley Junior Books. Clements also subtly exposes readers to the process of publishing a book, even describing the ways a book is publicized (ARCs or advance reader copies that are sent out to librarians and booksellers) as industry magazines like Publisher's Weekly that review books and the New York Times Bestsellers list that tracks sales.

The relationships and interior lives of the characters are well developed. Even Ms Clayton has some background story that makes it into the text, and makes you root for her as well as the girls and Mrs Nelson, who has an egotistical, attention grabbing boss who repeatedly threatens the path of Natalie's book. Brian Selznick's warm pencil illustrations are spot on, making the characters seem even more real. Of course this is going to be a book that I love, but I genuinely feel that any girl who loves to read will enjoy this book and any girl who loves to write will come away from it with a sense of inspiration and purpose.