Barbra Hesson

(Also see my Book Reviews in the Calgary Herald, the first Saturday of every month)

By Timothee de Fombelle

Book One

2009

384 pages

This unique story is about a small boy named Toby.  By small I mean he is only one and a half millimeters tall, and his whole family, and community lives in a tree.  His father who is a brilliant scientist believes that there is more to their world than just the great oak tree.

He is laughed at and shamed by others when he mentions his theories.  When he builds an amazing invention that the evil builders want he is sent to live among the lower branches and forbidden to return.

The builders proceed to control the tree people and slowly destroy the tree.  Toby is hunted, and his family is eventually taken captive.  It is up to him to save them and the tree people.

The story is told back and forth between the present and the past and at times seems a little complicated.  If you keep reading you will see how it all comes together.

Just when you think the story has come to an end a new secret is revealed.

Recommended for girls and boys grade 5 and up.

Out in June, Book Two, Toby and the Secrets of the Tree.

By Patrick Carmen

Do you want to be really scared?

Do you want to try something new, different, strange and creepy?

This is it.  Skeleton Creek is one story told in two parts.  The written part is what Ryan is thinking and feeling and remembering.

The video is what Sarah is seeing and experiencing.

When the two best friends decide to dig deeper into the meaning of the town name they uncover a murder, a secret organization, a haunting and extreme danger.

While snooping around the old town Dredger (a machine that tore up the woods looking for gold,) Ryan has a terrible accident and he and Sarah are told they cannot ever see each other again.

Ryan writes  clues and information in his journal, and he secretly communicates with Sarah via emails which contain her disturbing videos.

Throughout the story the reader gets to view these video’s by logging on to a website and putting in a password.

Page-turning, freaky, scary!  Part 2 comes out in October 09.

Seriously, do not read this if you do not want to feel goosebumps and a racing heart.

Recommended for daring readers Grade 5 to Adult.

By Linda Lowery Keep

117 pages

Set up in diary form with fun drawings, this is the first book in the series of Hannah and the Angels.

One day in her sixth-grade music class, Hannah begins to play her flute upside down and  finds herself magically transported to the Australian Outback. There she teams up with her new friends, Ian, and George, trackers who are searching for animal poachers.

Hannah is not sure why she’s there, but when she starts to receive messages in the sky from angels, she is drawn further into Ian’s and George’s quest to save some of the Outback’s endangered animals.

The angels leave clues, and Hannah tries to follow through–with mixed results.

The stories in this series takes the reader on a journey to countries where they can learn about the people, the language and the customs.  A glossary adds to an already fact-filled story.

In book 2, Searching for Lulu , Hannah is off to Kenya to find a special medicine for an African girl who is ill.

A fun easy read for grades 3 to 5

By Matthew Skelton

http://www.randomhouse.com/teens/endymion/

Who or what is Endymion Spring? A power for good, or for evil . . . A legendary book that holds the secret to a world of knowledge . . . A young boy without a voice – whose five-hundred-year-old story is about to explode into the twenty-first century.

Blake is visiting Oxford with his academic mother and his kid sister. While their mum immerses herself in old history volumes, Blake feels trapped in the dusty air of the college library. Until one day, Blake is running his finger along the shelf and feels something pierce his finger, drawing blood – like a bite. The book responsible is a battered old volume, with a strange clasp like a serpent’s head – with real fangs. Printed on its front are two words: Endymion Spring.

Its paper is almost see-through, and is blank, but with a surface that seems to shine with fine veins running through it. The paper quivers, as if it’s alive. And as Blake looks, words begin to appear on the page – words meant only for him; words no one else can see. The book has been waiting five-hundred years for the right boy; now it must fulfill its destiny.

The story skips back and forth from the time the book was magically created from the scales of a dragon. After the strange skin changed into a book it was found by an evil man named Fust who wants it’s power.  However it is Endymion Spring, an apprentice of printing press inventor Johann Guttenberg, who finds it and hides it, not to be found until Blake from our present world.

Everyone is after the book, which takes Blake on the most exciting adventure of his life.

A fun, quick adventure.  Very descriptive writing, which places you right in with each character of the past and the present.

At 446 pages, suitable for a good reader, Grade 5 or 6.

By Jerry Spinelli

Nine-year-old David  recently lost his mother to a freak accident, and his salesman father is constantly on the road.

David is left in the care of  his grandmother but he just cannot let her take the role of his mother, and treats her very mean.

Then he meets sarcastic and bossy 13-year-old Primrose who lives with her strange fortuneteller mother.  David and Primrose have a love/hate relationship. Eventually they help each other deal with what is missing in their lives.

This powerful, quirky novel about two very funny and hurting children has much to say about friendship, loss, and the reality of how our lives are always changing.

Although the cover is kind of bland this book should not be judged…

by its cover!  Good story for boys and girls grades 4 and up.  I just love Jerry Spinelli’s characters.  They seem to be normal kids, with some unique qualities just trying to figure out life.

I give this four stars! Try some of his other stories, books by Jerry Spinelli

Not the greatest reader in the world?  Not really interested in reading? The teacher has told you (and mom) to pick something and read!?  This may be the series for you.  With 36 (and counting) books to choose from, these brightly colored story pages combine pictures and words together in a comic book like fashion.  Great for the reluctant reader and just plain fun for the serious reader.

In the series, the title character is a talking mouse who lives in New Mouse City on Mouse Island. A best-selling author, Geronimo Stilton works as a journalist for the fictional newspaper The Rodent’s Gazette.

He has a younger sister named Thea Stilton, a cousin named Trap Stilton, and a favorite nephew, nine-year-old Benjamin Stilton. Geronimo is a nervous, mild-mannered mouse who would like nothing better than to live a quiet life, but he keeps getting involved in far-away adventures with Thea, Trap, and Benjamin. The books are written as though they are autobiographical adventure stories.

The series originated in Italy and has become the most popular children’s book series in that country. The books have been translated into 35 languages.

http://www.geronimostilton.com/

http://www.scholastic.com/titles/geronimostilton/index.htm

To view Geronimo’s site click on the first link, to visit the Rodents Gazzette click on the second.

By Mike Wilks

Mike Wilks is an award-winning artist.  His paintings are extremely detailed and mind-bending.

Life in Nem is not easy for Mel and his family.  They are simple weavers who only have enough money for basic survival.   When Mel, who is a good artist, gets a chance to work as an apprentice for master painter Ambrosius Blenk, he is very excited.

Mel is amazed at the master’s richly colored and vividly detailed paintings. He is particularly entrnced by the colors, because there are no colors back home. To have color in your life, you have to buy the Pleasure, owned by a group called the Fifth Mystery.

Soon, Mel and his new friends Ludo and Wren find themselves caught in a struggle with the Mystery. One that involves stepping through paintings into a world where the bizarre is commonplace and all logic is gone. A world where angels, pyramid mazes, imaginary monsters, talking houses and – most importantly – the simple paintbrush all combine to form a hugely original and deeply compelling fantasy.

This is a thrilling adventure filled with fantastical creatures in an incredibly visual secret world.

Good readers be prepared for a story of 549 pages. It is a little complicated at times but well worth the journey.  The end of the book has a glossary of terms used in the Seven Kingdoms and Artist terms used in the story.

The next book is Mirrorstorm, then Mirrorshade.

by N.D. Wilson

When twelve-year-old Henry York’s parents get mysteriously kidnapped he is sent to stay with his aunt and uncle and cousins Henrietta and Penelope on a farm in a town called Henry, Kansas.

Henry can’t understand why he has to sleep in the attic when Grandpa’s old room is empty.  He soon finds out that Uncle Frank has been trying to open the door to that room for 2 years.  Nothing works, not even a chainsaw.

Lying in bed at night Henry hears scratching and thumping behind the wall beside his bed.  When a piece of plaster falls on his head, Henry can’t help picking away at a hole in the wall until the whole wall is revealed.

Underneath he discovers 99 cupboards of all shapes and sizes and when he manages to open some he sees, a glowing room with a man who deposits mail into a slot from the other side, he hears rain and wind through one, and feels an impending sense of doom through another.

Henry soon realizes these are portals to another world and that Grandpa’s room has a connection to them.

In this first book, some of the wonder and wickedness of those other worlds are revealed, and we find out about Henry’s true family background.

With a lot of stories out there about time travel and other worlds, I found this novel to be unique and fun with a twist of terror.

The second in the series is called, “Dandelion Fire.”  The title alone intrigues me.

Good for grade 4 to 8, boys or girls.

by Paul Stewart; illustrations Chris Riddell

Twig, is a young boy brought up by woodtrolls.  He is constantly teased and doesn’t fit in with any of the creatures of the Deepwoods. When his family realizes that the Sky Pirates are after him for some reason, he is sent away to distant cousins on the far side of the woods.

When he rescues a young Slaughterer from exploding he is welcomed into their tribe of strange red-headed creatures that sleep at night.

On his journey he also encounters a people-eating tree, a hovering snake and many strange dangerous things.

He falls into a Gyle-Goblin colony that lives underground very much like ants and gets in trouble when he falls into the sweet honey liquid they eat.

He removes a rotten tooth from a Banderbear and they become good friends. But trouble soon begins when he is picked up by a nasty bird-like creature called a Rotsucker.

A young termagant trog girl takes him on as a pet but wants to kill him after she transforms into a huge bloated beast.  He has more mishaps and close calls by the time he meets the Sky Pirates and finds out that where he really belongs.

Crazy, fun and different creatures, provide lots of page turning action.  With wonderful illustrations of the creatures and lands of this fantasy drawn in great detail  by Chris Riddell, the story comes alive.

For good readers in Grade 4, and should appeal to boys and girls in grades 5, 6, 7.

Anxious to read more in the series. Check out two awesome websites with  information on the other books, a look at the creatures, maps of the fantasy world, trivia and games

http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/edgechronicles/index.php

http://www.stewartandriddell.co.uk/edge/index.php

Gregor the Overlander

By Suzanne Collins

Book one in the Underland Chronicles

When eleven year old Gregor follows his little sister through a grate in the laundry room of his New York apartment they hurtle into the dark Underland beneath the city where humans live beside giant spiders, cockroaches, bats and rats.

When Gregor tries to find a way home he is trapped by the evil rats, but rescued by the humans who fly on their bats.

Gregor finds out that there is a growing conflict between the creatures, especially the rats and humans. He is shown a prophecy, which foretells a role for him in saving the Underworld.

He also learns that his father who disappeared two years ago is in the Underland and also part of the prophecy.  To save his father, he must fulfill a quest with his two year-old-sister, two Underland humans, two bats, two roaches, two spiders and one rat.

The story is face paced, and the dialogue is interesting.  The Underlanders speak a kind of broken English.

At 308 pages it’s a little intimidating, however it is an easy read with lots of action and strange creatures on every page.

Would be good for Grade 4 to Grade 6.  A good Grade three reader may enjoy it as well.  Good for both boys and girls as there are two central characters.

Teaches many lessons about acceptance in life, equality, hope and doing the right thing.

I really enjoyed this!