elemntary fiction – Peaceful Reader

One day at work our lovely library volunteer was reading behind the desk. If I didn’t have to teach classes I’d be doing the same thing. She had a book checked out from the public library from their “Just Arrived” shelf and she was fascinated. It was elementary fiction and one that I hadn’t heard of at that time. It was The Shadows, the first book in West’s new series.

Synopsis:

Olive and her parents move into a creepy old house on Linden Street. The house has some history as the previous elderly owner died while living there and all the household stuff stayed right there. Olive, a curiuos girl, finds a pair of old fashioned glasses that help her enter the oil paintings stuck to the wall all around the house. She meets the people in the paintings, she meets three cats who belonged to the previous owners and life gets downright creepy as she tries to solve one little boy’s mysterious existence inside a painting of Linden Street. As per adventure stories her parents are busy with their own lives, leaving Olive plenty of free time to explore.

It begins like this:

Mrs. McMartin was definitely dead. It had taken some time for the neighbors to grow suspicious, since no one ever went in or came out of the old stone house on Linden Street anyway. However, there were several notable clues that things in the McMartin house were not as they should have been. (1)

Great first sentence. Perfect hook for young readers.

The second book in the series, Spellbound, has Olive drifting around the house aimlessly, trying to think of ways to rescue Morton, the trapped young boy. She meets another young boy, Rutherford, who is visiting his grandmother right down the street. He gets her thinking about a spellbook-a grimoire-as he puts it. Olive now has a purpose as she tries to find a way to release Morton and she thinks the spellbook might be the answer.

A little further on:

There was another reason Olive didn’t tell anybody about the cats or the paintings or the McMartins. She always put this reason second, even in her own head, but the truth was that her secrets would be a lot less fun if she shared them with anyone. Sure, a candy bar tasted good if you ate one half and let your dad have the other, but it was much, much nicer to eat the whole candy bar by yourself. (5)

Perfect thoughts for an eleven-year-old girl to have. There is so much mystery and excitement in both these books. I hope West is hard at work on the third-I think we’ve only touched the surface of this new amazing Elsewhere!

Wonderully illustrated by Poly Bernatene. I’ve easily been able to read these and book talk them as we have them in our library collection now. It’s wonderful to have someone here helping me everyday who likes to read and shares that with me and students.

Find Jacqueline West at her great website.

Other reviews:
Kimberly at Cool Kids Read
Jennifer at Jean Little Library

*Not to be read late at night or by yourself*

by Annie Barrows + Sophie Blackwell
(2010)

From the book:

“It’s Science Fair time at Emerson School and the kids in Ms. Aruba-Tate’s class are supposed to find a way to cool down the earth. Some kids are making litterbug-eating robots. Some kids are holding their breath for a very, very long time. But what should Ivy and Bean do? Somehing with explosions? Something with ropes? Or maybe something…different.” (inside front cover blurb)

Ohhh, we positively glowed and giggled while we read this book! I won this special copy from a giveaway a few months back (a signed copy!) and Groovy Girl and I read it together. We’ve loved the six other Ivy + Bean books and this was no exception-and in fact this may have been our favorite. We liked that best friends, Ivy and Bean, focused their attention on the science fair project and ways to help the earth. This book is a fantastic introduction to global warming and how solutions are hard to find. It will take more than just one or two ideas from one or two people. It will take many of us, working together, using multiple solutions but certainly alerting future generations to the concept is a great start.

After a dull presentation by several fourth graders, the students in Ms. Aruba-Tate’s classroom are curious about polar bears and their habitat loss. Taking advantage of a teachable moment, Aruba-Tate turns the upcoming science fair into a global warming fair. Every other student team easily decides on a project while Ivy and Bean are long on ideas but none that work. We enjoyed how they kept problem-solving, brainstorming and generally thinking outside the box until they finally come up with the coolest idea ever! I hope Barrows and Blackwell have other books cooking as this one is a hit. Any age person will love reading this newest addition of second graders, Ivy and Bean.

We can all help…Do what you can, one step at a time. Buy some reusable sacks and leave them in your car for grocery shopping. Even better find some second-hand canvas bags and reuse those as grocery bags. Do your laundry at night when usage is low or dry your clothes outside now that the weather is just beginning to warm up. Barrows includes a list of Save-the-earth ideas at the back of the book. Highly Recommended.

Quick Quote:

“Think-how do you cool down a hot thing?” asked Ivy, “Ice cubes! If we could put ice cubes up in the sky, the air would get colder, right?” “Right,” said Bean. “But how are we going to put ice cubes in the sky?” asked Ivy. “Well, in real life, they’d probably have to drop them out of airplanes, but for the science fair, we could just throw them up in the air to show what we mean.” Bean slapped her hand on the table. “Great idea! And easy, too!” (47)

Other excellent reviews:

Kathy @ Bermudaonion
first daughter @ There’s A Book

Tag: elemntary fiction

Sufficiently Creepy; The Books of Elsewhere by Jacqueline West

Ivy + Bean; What's the Big Idea?