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Can they ESCAPE THE MASK? by David Ward (book review)

Jul10
Kidnapped children, with no common language…

Forced to scavenge sharp shards from the sand or go into their cages hungry at night…

Trapped in Grassland’s caves and tunnels by the tides, with no chance to escape from the armed men wearing helmets that cover everything but their eyes.

Perhaps there’s a way to escape? Six young friends hatch a plan that just might work…

Set in a time reminiscent of Europe’s Bronze Era, this fast-reading adventure is first in the Grassland trilogy by Canadian author David Ward. Followed by Beneath the Mask (#2) and Beyond the Mask (#3) – be sure to read Escape the Mask first!
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Book info: Escape the Mask / David Ward. Amulet, 2008 hardback, 2009 paperback. [author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site]

Recommendation: Stolen as children from their villages, young Diggers slave to find ‘shards’ in the sands for the Spears who guard them, men in metal helmet-masks who let the sea tides capture the weak or the slow. The Grassland is scoured nightly by the cold fury of the sea while the Diggers sleep uneasy above it, in the cave-prisons of the mountain cliffs that prevent their escape.

Coriko works and sleeps alongside Pippa, the only other Digger who knows his village language. Pippa can remember trees and her mother; Coriko has no memories beyond this endless drudgery of sift, dig, tote. They pledge to stay together, somehow, through the great Separation when the older Diggers are taken from Grassland…somehow.

New Diggers arrive frequently, since not many survive the First Cleansing of the highest tide. This time, two newcomers speak the language of Pippa and Coriko! Tia and Bran think only of escape… but who can escape the Spears or the prison of the Grassland?

When strange ships appear on the horizon, the Spears cut the Diggers’ food ration, demand more shards, and watch the sea anxiously. Could Tia and Bran be more than dreamers? Can the Diggers escape from Grassland?

This fast-moving, action-packed book is first in The Grassland Trilogy – be sure you can get your hands on Book Two: Beneath the Mask! You’ll be hungry to find out what happens next!! (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Deadly (fiction)

Jul7

Tracking down a killer is just not what “proper young ladies” do, even if the killer is a germ. Prudence would certainly rather unravel a medical mystery than please her instructors at the snooty School for Girls!

Diseases regularly have regularly swept through the poorer sections of cities from the time that humans began clustering together on a permanent basis. In the Middle Ages, people thought that evil humors caused these epidemics; by the early 1900s the theory that filth contained disease-transmitting germs was gaining ground.

How could healthy people in a well-kept household suddenly become deathly ill when they had no exposure to the city slums with their filth and diseases?

Part social commentary, part detective story, Deadly is enhanced by the sketches which Prudence includes as she journals her way through this perilous time, on the trail of Typhoid Mary.
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Book info: Deadly / by Julie Chibbaro; illustrations by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak. Simon & Schuster, 2011 [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation: In her 1906 journal, Prudence worries and dreams and sketches, wondering why doctors couldn’t save her brother’s life, why her father hasn’t returned from the Spanish-American War, how she can make a difference for those who suffer in her neighborhood.

The etiquette lessons and needlework at her school seem so trivial, compared to the life and death, joy and pain that Pru and her mother see during Marm’s midwife duties. When final-year students are encouraged to get part-time jobs using their skills on those newfangled typewriters, Pru leaps at the chance to do useful work.

She is hired by the new Department of Health and Sanitation as a research assistant and is soon swept into their investigation of a typhoid outbreak. Mr. Soper investigates every aspect of any household where the deadly disease has struck. They travel throughout New York City as typhoid sickens some people and kills others – is there a common cause?

When they discover that a healthy cook has been in the kitchen of every typhoid-stricken family, Mr. Soper and Prudence must find medical experts who can help them prove their unusual theory and stop the epidemic.

A compelling account of Typhoid Mary’s history, retold from a young woman’s point of view. When does the public good override individual freedom? Does science have more answers or more questions? Will Prudence take the next step and become a doctor herself? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher and author.

Cate of the Lost Colony, by Lisa Klein (book review) – favored by the Queen, banished to Roanoke Colony

Jul6
book cover of Cate of the Lost Colony by Lisa Klein published by Bloomsbury

This World Wednesday takes us from England to Roanoke colony, a voyage that ends in silence among whispering grasses on the sea dunes of the New World.

Orphaned young Lady Catherine was naturally enthralled by the dashing Sir Walter Raleigh and his tales about the bountiful new world, waiting across the sea for the rule and law of his gracious Queen Elizabeth I.

But Cate didn’t realize that showing even slight interest in the Queen’s favorite could be the end of her time at court. Being banished from such a hostile place – a death sentence or a blessing?

Enjoy this tale of the early English colony whose mysterious disappearance continues to intrigue us.
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Book info: Cate of the Lost Colony / Lisa Klein. Bloomsbury, 2010. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Book Talk (no spoilers): Seeing Indians in Queen Elizabeth’s court, young Lady Catherine Archer is enthralled by Sir Walter Raleigh’s reports of his New World colony and by Sir Walter himself. But when poems from Sir Walter are found in her room, the orphaned Cate is sent away from the court by the jealous Queen, who keeps Raleigh close by her, not allowing him to even visit the colony that he raised money to establish.

Locked in the Tower of London, Cate worries that she will die alone and forgotten. But after weeks in prison, her fate is announced – she has been banished to Roanoke Colony in Virginia, never to return to England! For a 14 year old girl, raised to be a gentle lady, the long sea voyage (where pirates or the enemy Spanish are sure to attack the English ship) and the primitive conditions of the Colony are more likely a death sentence than any mercy from the Queen.

Cate is determined to see for herself the wonders of the New World that Raleigh’s captains reported, as she completes the voyage which brings the first women colonists from England to Roanoke. But they find the fort’s walls destroyed, the planted crops withered away, and the Roanoke soldiers dead or missing…

Will the colonists be able to survive with only the supplies in their ship?
Did the friendly Indians kill the soldiers or are there other enemies beyond the trees?
Will the Queen let Sir Walter visit his colony at last?
And will city girl Cate let go of her dreams of Raleigh and find a happy ending in this wilderness?
(One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Disunited States of America, by Harry Turtledove (book review) – alternate history with no USA!

Jul5

book cover of Disunited States of America by Harry Turtledove published by Tor TeenYesterday was a day for fireworks, picnics, and patriotic celebrations. At least, it was in this timeline for the USA… but what if the Constitution were never ratified? What if the states never united?

Welcome to “alt hist” – the alternative histories produced by wondering “what if” some key event of history had happened differently, then writing in great and grand detail about the results of that new path through time.

Turtledove is an acknowledged master of alternative history (his Guns of the South and WorldWar series are epic), and this trip with Crosstime Traffic to an alternate timestream is as thought-provoking as it is dangerous for Beckie (native to that timestream) and Justin (visiting with his mom on a trading mission).

Biological terrorism launched before the antidote is ready? Rampant racism and unrest? Remember, this is an alternate history, right?

Among all the freedoms that we celebrate today, be sure to exercise your freedom to read!
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Book info: The Disunited States of America (Crosstime Traffic #4) / Harry Turtledove. Tor Teen, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: War between Ohio and Virginia? In Beckie’s world, it could happen any day. Justin’s seen enough alternate timelines to know that, as a Time Trader traveling through the many realities of how Earth’s history could have turned out.

Justin and his mom travel to Beckie’s alternate to make sure that researchers there hadn’t discovered Crosstime secrets and to help improve race relations. That North America is a crazy-quilt of big and little countries, and there are certainly no equal rights. If you weren’t white and male, you were powerless (except in Mississippi…strange, strange Mississippi).

This alternate never saw the states become united under the Constitution, so Beckie and her grandmother must have passports and visas and permission-to-travel letters for every border crossing between the civilized nation of California and Grandma’s hometown in rural Virginia. The “cousin” who gives them a ride across the bridge from Ohio gives her the creeps…the big guns hidden in his car give her the chills.

Beckie is glad to meet someone her own age when Justin visits the aunt and uncle she’s staying with. Justin is careful to speak like the locals, trying to blend in. Soon, they’re both glad that they met.

Suddenly, people in border towns start dying of a mysterious fever and Ohio is blamed for it. As Virginia soldiers roll in and bombing begins, Beckie and her ever-grumbling grandma search for a safe place, Justin is separated from his mom with communication lines cut, and the fever is confirmed as the plague. Plague! Who has a cure for the plague?

Will Beckie ever get home to California?
Will Justin and his mom find their way through time to their world?
Can Justin tell Beckie where he’s really from without poking holes in the fabric of time?

Turtledove is the master of alternate history, and his “Time Traders” series takes readers to fascinating timelines that truly make you wonder… what if? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Luck of the Buttons, by Anne Ylvisaker (fiction) – small-town mystery, big excitement in 1920s

Jul3

Independence Day!
Pie-eating contests!
Patriotic essay competitions!
Three-legged races!

Is bad luck something you’re born with or something that you can rise above? Are bullies part of every school and neighborhood? Does the world look different when seen through your camera’s lens?

This is a great summer story as Tugs investigates a mystery that the grown-ups in town just can’t seem to see. Wishing you plenty of pie, family, and fireworks this holiday weekend!
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Book info: The Luck of the Buttons / Anne Ylvisaker. Candlewick, 2011 [author’s website] [publisher site]

Recommendation: Tugs is good at reading and good at running, which keeps her ahead of the Rowdies gang in their small Iowa town in 1929. Independence Day is next week, so she writes a patriotic essay, like every other 12 year old in town, and practices with Aggie for the 3-legged race. Thank goodness, she doesn’t have to run with her short, tubby cousin Ned this year. And she has some tickets for the raffle of a Brownie camera, too! Of course, no one in the Button family is lucky at all, so she’s not getting her hopes up about anything.

Uh-oh, it’s time to worry when Mama has a pie ready for lunch (Buttons always have pie when something bad happens). Granny is moving in, taking her bedroom! Well, at least Tugs can escape to the cool quiet of the library, browsing through the dictionary and reading old newspapers. This newcomer Harvey Moore is so busy collecting money to start a newspaper in Goodhue that he isn’t really starting it at all, so Tugs starts investigating.

On the fourth of July, it’s time for the 3-legged race, the raffle drawing, and the essay contest announcement. Will it be time for pie at the Button family table again? Can Tugs stay ahead of the Rowdies? Does the world look different through a camera lens? And how did Tugs get her first name anyway?

The summer of 1929, surrounded by cornfields and caring, is a great place to be with Tugs and her pie-baking family, as she wonders about luck and persistence in this easy-reading story. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Time Quake (Gideon Trilogy #3) (fiction)

Jun30

Time travel meets alternate history in the final volume of the Gideon Trilogy, and it’s a doozy!

So we have the fabric of time tearing apart while Lord Luxon (that rat!) tries to manipulate history in his own favor.

But what’s happening to Kate and Peter? Where’s Gideon now? And the Tar Man? If the time quakes don’t stop, the world that we know may shatter!

Be sure to read Time Travelers (#1 recommended here) and Time Thief (#2 recommended here) before you start this roller-coaster tale of time ripples so you can enjoy every bit of the wild ride!
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Book info: The Time Quake / Linda Buckley-Archer. Simon & Schuster, 2010.
[author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation:Returning to 18th century England on a duplicate time machine, Kate and Peter try to unravel the snarl of events that their unintended time travel has caused. Kate’s hold on the present (whatever year she’s in) grows more and more tenuous as the multiplicity of universes created by each time travel event start to collide. Their search for the Tar Man and Lord Luxon takes a dangerous turn and may separate the friends forever!

When the original time machine fell into Lord Luxon’s amoral hands, he all too quickly saw its potential for exploitation. Taking “undiscovered” 18th century masterpiece paintings into the 20th century brings wealth, but the Tar Man’s employer is looking for power so he travels to New York City to try his hand at changing history…

Could Lord Luxon’s purposeful damage to key events in the American Revolution truly change history? Can Peter and Gideon keep Kate from fading away entirely? Will anyone ever get back to their home time?

Time quakes muddle past and present, hurtling the friends toward the possible end of our universe as the trilogy races toward its heart-stopping conclusion (443 pages in paperback). (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Time Thief (Gideon Trilogy #2) (fiction)

Jun29

For world Wednesday, let’s travel to England and to two different centuries!
Traveling into the future might be quite fascinating – if one were prepared. As 21st century folks, we have some guesses about the technological marvels that future times may have. But what of a vicious rogue transported from the 1760s right into the heart of modern London? From public hangings to cellphones and police helicopters?

And where’s Peter? Kate moves heaven, earth, and stubborn grownups as she tries to rescue her friend. Gravitational time dilation, time warps…whatever you call the aftershocks of people transported out of their own time, things are getting really messy in our space-time continuum!

Noted scientist Stephen Hawking thinks that time travel to the future is indeed possible, so “never say never!” This is the 2nd volume of The Gideon Trilogy, which began with The Time Travelers (yesterday’s feature book) and ends with The Time Quake (tomorrow’s feature).
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Book info: The Time Thief / Linda Buckley-Archer. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
[author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation:Two people cling to the time machine, roaring into the 20th century. But one is a notorious 18th century villain who pushed Peter away from his chance to return home! Kate is furious and refuses to let her friend be left in 1763, despite their families’ efforts to keep her safe.

Now the Tar Man is loose in modern London, trying to wrap his horse-and-buggy experience around the concepts of automobiles and traffic lights. Of course, policemen are always the same in any century, despite changes in uniform and chase techniques (flying machines? how can that be possible?), and the Tar Man finds ways to elude them as he worms his way into the criminal underworld.

The time machine inventors are trying to create another one while other authorities hunt for the original to destroy it. Kate and her scientist father rush to rescue Peter before it’s too late, but the wrong setting sends them to the wrong year!

Can Kate find Peter in 1792? Will their 18th century friend Gideon be able to help? Is there any way to get the Tar Man out of their time and Peter back into it?

Second volume of the brilliant trilogy, The Time Thief races down the interconnected paths of an 18th century villain and 2 teens from modern England. If the snarl of time loops is cut, what will happen to them all? Stay tuned for volume 3, The Time Quake! (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Time Travelers, by Linda Buckley- Archer (book review) – zapped into 1763, but home is today!

Jun28

Time travel…what if it were possible? Of course, there are rules which every time travel tale must follow, or the world as we know it would go poof!

This is the first book in a trilogy known in the UK as Gideon the Cutpurse (as you’ll see in the UK booktrailer), so named for the friendly, ahem, liberator of excess worldly possessions who helps out Kate and Peter when they are whisked into the 1700s by a rogue antigravity machine.

Quite the adventure for our two present-day teens, thrown back into a world where electricity is an experimental novelty, and death by disease, misadventure, or sheer bad luck is just an everyday occurrence.

Will they get back to our time? Let’s check on The Time Thief (Gideon Trilogy #2) tomorrow, shall we?
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Book info: The Time Travelers / Linda Buckley-Archer. Simon & Schuster, 2007. [author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site] [UK book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: Peter would not have been transported back in time if his father hadn’t chosen business over their trip together — again! Who knew that his visit to the English countryside in the 21st century would wind up in the 18th century?

Kate and her family are nice, their farm with the sheep and horses is very country, but it’s not the same as a day spent with his dad as Peter’s mom continues her work far away in the U.S.A. Even the research lab where Kate’s dad works is a bit interesting, like the antigravity machine they use to search for “dark matter”.

When Kate’s dog gets spooked, Peter and Kate chase her through the lab…and into nothingness! They awake in 1763 to see a ferocious man trying to carry off their machine on his cart — then he comes after them! They escape from the Tar Man through the woods and meet Gideon Seymour, who may be able to help them retrieve the machine and make their way through 18th century England without letting anyone else know that they came from the future.

In the meantime, the police and their parents are searching for the pair in 20th centure Derbyshire, with few clues and dwindling hope. A phantom image of Kate in old-fashioned clothes appears at her school — she has partially returned as she slept! Now the race is on to recreate the antigravity machine’s effects in the 20th century.

Bandits and horses, corsets and three-cornered hats, hanging and royalty — Peter and Kate must cope with everyday life in the 18th century as they try to get the Tar Man to give back their only way home while keeping thir friend Gideon out of his evil clutches.

First in a brilliant trilogy, The Time Travelers takes you with them into 18th century England — can everyone get home again? Followed by Time Thief and Time Quake. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Atomic Weight of Secrets, by Eden Unger Bowditch (book review) – inventions, intrigue, adventure

Jun21

book cover of Atomic Weight of Secrets by Eden Unger Bowditch published by Bancroft Press | recommended on BooksYALove.com“Strange round bird with three flat wings, Never ever stops when it shivers and sings” – what an odd song to learn as a child! And not to know any other nursery rhymes or children’s stories…

Welcome to the slightly steampunk world of The Young Inventors’ Guild in 1903! Meet five brilliant children with incredibly talented, intelligent parents – parents who are swept away from them as the children are brought from around the world to a small farm outside Dayton, Ohio, USA.

And those mysterious men in black who take them to and fro in black carriages and other conveyances – every time the children see them, they’re wearing different all-black outfits, including tam o’shanters and top hats, Zouave pants and riding breeches, fur coats and inflatable vests.

Their parents hardly even write letters to them (this is 1903, after all), yet dear Miss Brett (their teacher in the farmhouse) assures the children that they are quite alright. The children’s various discoveries lead them to decide that they must invent something to ensure their safety and escape from the men in black.
Perhaps there are some grown-ups they can trust to provide some necessary assistance in this covert operation?

Feel free to share this adventure with younger readers as we wait for the next volume of The Young Inventors’ Guild Trilogy to be published.
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Book info: The Atomic Weight of Secrets, or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black / Eden Unger Bowditch. Bancroft Press, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My book talk: Five brilliant children whose parents are talented scientists – why have they been brought to a farm in Ohio in 1903 from their homes all over the world by mysterious men in black costumes of all sorts? And what about their new weekend homes in the city nearby, with wonderful nannies and bedrooms for their parents who never arrive?

Having school with Miss Brett at the farm is much nicer than being bullied at their school in London, think Jasper and Lucy, but where are their parents? Faye misses working in her parents’ laboratory in India, where she was treated like a princess. Noah can’t play his violin right now, worrying that his mother doesn’t know where he is (she left to star in another opera just before…). And Wallace, well, his late mother said he’d make a discovery before his 10th birthday that would save the world – and he has just a few days to finish the project.

The youngsters teach Miss Brett about their advanced experiments, and she introduces them to the wonderful world of stories and rhymes and children’s games that their tutors and scientific encyclopedias never covered. During the week, they discover farm animals’ habits and hopscotch and how to bake biscuits, then are taken “home” to their nannies by roundabout routes in black carriages or autocars by men in odd black outfits every weekend. Whether at the farm or in town, patrols of men in black circle around their residences like clockwork, week after week.

The children investigate a pageless journal Lucy found in her mother’s room and discover that it once contained pages written by the Young Inventors’ Guild. They decide to use it to chronicle their experiments as they pool their knowledge of scientific principles so they can escape the mysterious men in black and rescue their parents!

Are their parents safe? Why don’t they write or even use that newfangled telephone device in the farmhouse closet?
Can the birdwatcher seen near the farm help them?
What about Faye’s cousin or those clever brothers they met in town?

Mystery, science, and the song of The Strange Round Bird (which they all learned as tiny children) meld in this exciting first volume of The Young Inventors’ Guild series. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Fish (fiction)

Jun17

Ahoy, and welcome aboard on Fun Friday! But ’twere no fun for Maurice Reidy to give up country life and become an errand boy for his uncle in Dublin. The only swimmer in his large and impoverished family, he’s known as “Fish” and would certainly rather swim than fight.

How was Fish to know that he’d be kidnapped by pirates during his very first errand? And what a crew of pirates! A captain who’d rather search for treasure than capture other ships, a gunner who’s expert in cannons and cheese, and a girl cook!

Life on board a pirate ship challenges both Fish’s swimming skills and his conciliatory abilities, as he tries to stave off mutiny while the captain solves an intricate puzzle, then “The Scurvy Mistress” must outrace other would-be pirates to the treasure.

A rollicking read on the high seas, and a great addition to any pirate’s library of fantastic fiction – with nary an Arrrggh in sight!
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Book info: Fish / by Gregory Mone. Scholastic, 2010. [author’s website] [author’s blog] [publisher site] [book trailers one and two]

Recommendation: Living in bustling Dublin or a poor country farm? At age 11, Fish (nicknamed for his swimming skills) will soon find out which he prefers as he leaves his large family’s small farm to work for his uncle as a courier. But his first parcel is snatched just as he is delivering it to Mr. Swift on the city dock! Chasing the thieves, Fish watches them row toward a menacing ship across the harbour and decides to swim after them to recover the bag of coins.

The sailors aren’t going to give up their prize easily, and Fish finds himself kidnapped – aboard a pirate ship! A good captain (and his wife!), a skilled ship’s cook (a girl!), a silent giant, a first mate plotting mutiny, and Fish’s own determination to survive without fighting make life aboard ship complicated. The coins are part of a treasure map that must be unpuzzled…

Ahoy! “The Scurvy Mistress” is being pursued by Mr. Swift and his ship full of treasure hunters who shoot first and talk later! And they want those coins so they can complete the treasure map!

As they race to find the treasure predicted by the mysterious coins, Fish and crew must overcome treacherous waters, nefarious plots, and terrible smells. Who will discover it first – the honest pirates or the dishonest treasure hunters?

Travel the high seas with a young man who’s true to himself in this tale of adventure and danger (and really funny characters!). (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)