Tag Archive | sisters

Happy Mother’s Day (reflective)

May13
photo of toddler boy and newborn baby sister napping

This small boy in his “I’m the big brother” shirt is a grown man now.
His tiny baby sister recently became a bride.

These days, their worklife involves communication, crafting word pictures, using pictures to tell stories.

I read aloud to them before they were born, on long car trips, before bedtime, and just because, the way that my mother the creative writer read to me and my siblings, the way that her mother the journalist read to her and her brothers.

A house full of books, a house full of stories, a home full of memories.
Happy Mother’s Day!

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Calli, by Jessica Lee Anderson (fiction) – foster sister or rotten apple?

May10
book cover of Calli by Jessica Lee Anderson published by Milkweed EditionsHer boyfriend Dub is sweet,
her moms are loving and supportive,
best friend Delia helps her keep away the blues,
so Calli thinks that having a foster little sister would just make things even better…
Until rebellious teenager Cherish comes to their Lake Charles home as an emergency foster placement,
kissing Dub in the school hall,
spreading lies about Calli,
alienating her friends and stealing Calli’s things.

Now Calli wants to undo her wish for a foster sister and would turn back time in a heartbeat – but everyone knows that time only runs forward.

Jessica Lee Anderson brings us another highly readable story about a teen facing unusual challenges (see my no-spoiler recommendation of her Border Crossing here) and surviving, in spite of it all. Look for this 2011 book at your local library or independent bookstore.
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Book info: Calli / Jessica Lee Anderson. Milkweed Editions, 2011. [author’s website]    [publisher site]  Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Recommendation: Trudging home in the coastal Louisiana heat, Calli wonders why she ever wished for a foster sister. Everyone in the high school knows that Calli saw her own boyfriend Dub liplocked with Cherish, guesses he decided that he wanted action instead of affection.

Mom and Liz weren’t sure that they’d be certified as a foster family, but they’re such good parents that Calli never had a doubt (much better parents than her father who returned to France when she was born and never looked back). They’d requested young children, but consented to an emergency placement for “a teenager at risk.”

Whatever weird thing happened with Cherish’s family to get her into foster care, the ninth grader isn’t letting it stop her from hanging around with upperclassmen, wearing tighter shirts than Calli, more makeup than Calli, trying to get Calli to do her homework. The girls bicker constantly at home (thank goodness they don’t share a bedroom), which makes Mom’s lupus flare up. Verbal spats get physical, and now the whole family is at risk.

Cherish steals from Calli, alienates her friends at school – is there anything that Cherish won’t try to take away from her?
Is Dub lost to Calli forever?
Will Cherish’s willful behavior keep Mom and Liz from ever having a young foster child to care for and love?
Is Calli going to stay “plain old Calli” with braces forever?

An insightful look at less-traditional family life from the author of Border Crossing, this novel takes readers into that humid South Louisiana spring semester when Calli’s life changes for the worse, for the better, maybe for always.

Girls Don’t Fly, by Kristen Chandler (book review) – dreams, family, blue-footed boobies

May8

book cover of Girls Don't Fly by Kristen Chandler published by VikingA chance to study far away instead of babysitting all summer…
Maybe go to the university instead of dental hygienist school….
Prove to ex-boyfriend Erik that she’s better off without him.

Myra imagines herself in the Galapagos Islands with its Darwin’s finches and blue-footed boobies, famous tortoises and amazingly blue sea waters, even as her little brothers break things and mud-wrestle, her big sister drops out of college and moves back home pregnant, both parents work long hours, the family’s carpool schedules look like battle plans – no wonder that Myra feels like she’s holding everything together, even when Erik breaks up with her.

Visit Myra’s study group site at Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake in the author’s slideshow, watch for the next little brother disaster, and cross your fingers that Myra wins that scholarship!

Find Girls Don’t Fly  at your local library or independent bookstore; if you order from the author’s favorite  local indie bookstore, be sure to request an autographed copy!
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Book info: Girls Don’t Fly / Kristen Chandler. Viking, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Book Talk: Oh, how Myra feels trapped! Her perfect big sister is suddenly pregnant, her three little brothers are a constant noisy mess, and now Erik wants “some space” – this isn’t how spring of senior year should go!

When their AP Biology teacher announces a scholarship to study birds in the Galapagos Islands, Myra decides to go for it, even if it does require early morning Saturday excursions to Great Salt Lake Marina’s bird observation area and a “high level” scientific study proposal write-up and… $1,000 toward travel costs. Maybe she can scrape together that much money in just 3 months working part-time at the ice cream shop, right?

Saturday 6 a.m. really is early, but the University of Utah graduate assistant who’s leading the bird studies is enthusiastic enough to wake everyone up. Pete is excited that two high school kids from his hometown have a shot at this scholarship, so he helps them all with their project proposals as much as the rules allow.

Erik makes yet another mistake at the ice cream shop and expects Myra to cover for him like she did while they were dating. When she doesn’t and the manager insinuates that she’s irresponsible like her big sister, Myra just quits.

Now she’s got to find another job in this little town. Mom and Dad think she’s saving money to go to dental hygienist school; Myra hasn’t exactly told them that the scholarship requires that $1,000 travel fee, and they don’t seem too optimistic about her winning it anyway, especially when future-dentist Erik is also a competitor.

When the marina secretary quits, the Lake ranger offers Myra the job, part-time till school’s out, then full-time in the busy summer. Alright! A chance to earn the money she needs, do some extra bird-watching for the seminars, and Pete is at the marina whenever he’s not in class.

But can Myra really get away from this town where her family is judged because they don’t go to church like everyone else?
Can she come up with a scientific study idea that’s better than Erik’s so she can win the scholarship?
Can she keep thinking of Pete as only the group’s study leader instead of something more?

Everyone knows that Girls Don’t Fly, but Myra is determined to change all that in this story of family, dreams, life, and longing. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Dinosaurs & time travel! Chronal Engine, by Greg Leitich Smith (fiction)

May3
book cover of Chronal Engine by Greg Leitich Smith published by Clarion Books

Rare fossilized dinosaur footprints.

Heart attack, kidnapping, possible murder?

What a way to start a summer!

No one has seen the Loblolly dinosaur tracks on their grandpa’s ranch in years. Max can’t wait – he got the family “dinosaur-hunter” genes, Mom says. Kyle and Emma would rather stay home in Austin the summer before their sophomore year , but with Mom leaving to excavate feathered dinosaurs in Mongolia, they’ve all got to stay somewhere. At least Grandpa’s housekeeper has a daughter their age; Petra seems glad to have some other teenagers on the ranch for a while.

Grandpa’s security-locked basement looks like a 1920s library, if the library had a humming time-travel device in the center. Predicting his own heart attack to the minute, leaving messages in places no one can reach – has Grandpa really used the Chronal Engine to travel through time?

Greg Leitich Smith’s fascination with dinosaurs is firmly woven into this exciting action tale, as our adventurers meet teeny Tyrannosaurs (meat-eaters have horrible bad breath), massive Apatosaurus (even dinosaur expert Max still loves the old name of Brontosaurus), and some human villains back in the Cretaceous Era. You’ll enjoy Blake Henry’s manga-influenced black and white illustrations, too.

I didn’t see any boot prints in the fossilized dino tracks when I visited Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, but that’s well north of Chronal Engine‘s setting in the Texas Hill Country, so who knows? Grab this summer thrill-ride read at your local library or independent bookstore soon!

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Book info: Chronal Engine / Greg Leitich Smith; illustrations by Blake Henry. Clarion Books, 2012.  [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Recommendation: All summer out at their grandpa’s ranch? Max, Kyle, and Emma know that rare dinosaur tracks are located there, but they’ll miss their friends and Austin’s city comforts so much. His wild time-travel theories turn out to be truer than they could ever imagine!

Sure, Mom is headed for the most important dinosaur dig in Asia, but the teens have met her father just once; the only time in 15 years that he left the ranch was to attend their own dad’s funeral five years ago. For decades, Grandpa has refused to let researchers on his land to study the dinosaur tracks, even though that “hard science” might erase the taint of craziness left by great-great-grandfather Mad Jack Pierson’s insistence that he’d invented a time-traveling engine.

At the ranch house, it’s nice to meet Petra, who is their age and enjoys the outdoors as much as Max does. She knows the way to the dinosaur tracks and what perils to avoid in the Hill Country.

When Grandpa refuses pecan pie during their first dinner together because he knows an ambulance will arrive in 15 minutes because of his upcoming heart attack, they wonder about it. After he gets Max to promise that all four teens will go to the fossil tracks in the morning and gives him a heavy envelope to open later, Grandpa shows them the Chronal Engine and its last recall device to return to the present time – then has a heart attack, just as the medflight helicopter touches down! If he knew the timing of his own heart attack, does that mean Grandpa has used the Chronal Engine?

Visiting the dinosaur tracks the next morning, they find human bootprints in the fossilized mud! And Emma’s boot fits the print exactly… but how? A sudden flash of light and a man appears next to their sister, grabs her, and disappears into another flash of light. So Emma has been kidnapped…to the Cretaceous Era? Suddenly Max, Kyle, and Petra decide to travel back in time using the Chronal Engine to rescue her.

Will it work? Will their compass work? Can they survive among huge herbivorous dinosaurs and speedy meat-eaters? Can they outsmart other time-traveling humans who have guns and are ready to use them? Will any of them get back to the present – alive?

This mile-a-minute adventure story includes dromaeosaur babies and bow-hunting, toothed prehistoric birds and T. Rexes and 40-foot-long crocodilians among the adventures encountered by four young teens on a time-traveling mission. The author notes currently known facts and recent theories about prehistoric life at the end of the book, which includes funny/accurate illustrations by Blake Henry. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

All These Things I’ve Done, by Gabrielle Zevin = Z (fiction) – chocolate, crime, deadly

Apr30

Payoffs keep New York City running.
Chocolate and caffeine are illegal drugs.
Paper is scarce and clean water even scarcer.
Welcome to 2083.

Anya has inherited her crime boss father’s business sense, his stake in the mafiya chocolate empire, and responsibility for her mentally disabled older brother, precocious younger sister, and dying grandmother.

What a time to fall in love! And with Win, of all people. Her lab partner for anatomy and physiology class is cute, smart, and the son of NYC’s newest assistant district attorney who is determined to make it to the top by shutting down illegal chocolate operations.

In the face of the frightening choices that she must make to keep her immediate family safe, Anya asks God’s forgiveness for All These Things I’ve Done, first in the Birthright series.

So this is the last A-to-Z Blog Challenge post for this year, 26 new book recommendations in April! On to the 2012 WordCount Blogathon for May and BooksYALove’s first birthday tomorrow.
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Book info: All These Things I’ve Done (Birthright, book 1) / Gabrielle Zevin. Farrar Straus Giroux, 2011 (hardback); Square Fish, 2012 (paperback). [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation: Illegal or unwise – which choice is worse? Anya’s mafiya family makes chocolate, that forbidden drug, in crime-riddled New York City in 2083. The teen is trying to keep life normal for her grandmother, brother, and sister when someone is poisoned by tainted Balanchine chocolate. Now the police and the mafiya are trying to pin the blame on her.

The cute boy she’s falling for at school turns out to be son of the new DA who’s determined to prosecute chocolate and caffeine trafficking to the max, her older brother is incapable of caring for himself, and her grandmother’s health is failing. If Nana dies, the mafiya will gladly take over all the assets left to her by her dead crime boss father, and the city authorities will separate her from her brother and sister.

Surely Win knows who she is, knows what her extended family does – how can he start a relationship that’s guaranteed to anger his father? At least she’s finally broken up with that loser Gable, who was only after her chocolate connection.

When her brother Leo loses his cleaning job and starts hanging out with some of their more unsavory cousins, Anya warns him that they’re just trying to take advantage of him. No one could imagine that he’d get stuck in the middle of a big mafiya operation or that foreign racketeers might be trying to take over Balanchine’s territory.

Who’s really behind the chocolate poisonings? How can Anya keep juggling her siblings’ needs, her schoolwork, and her feelings for Win? How deep do family loyalties run and how far will their “protective” reach go? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

W for Widdershins and witches – Body of Water, by Sarah Dooley (book review)

Apr26

book cover of Body of Water by Sarah Dooley published by Fiewel and FriendsWednesday – her home is gone in minutes.
Wondering why her best friend has gone into hiding.
Widdershins, her wonderful dog – gone forever?

Why can’t people just be nice when they don’t understand someone? As nature-centered Wiccans, Ember’s family stands out too much in this small Southern town, no matter how quiet they are. Her mom reads tarot cards for townspeople who call her a witch behind her back and won’t even say hello to her at the store. Ember uses her spells only for peace, for clarity, to ward off Ivy’s nightmares.

Her continuing search for loyal dog Widdershins – “who was a good dog and came when I called her – six times out of ten” – and for objects that the fire left behind brings her close enough to former best friend Anson’s place every week that he might speak to her, tell her why he set the fire… but his silence is very, very loud.

Float out on the lake with Ember, find balance and clarity on her favorite Body of Water, feel how being homeless doesn’t mean being hopeless.
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Book info: Body of Water / Sarah Dooley. Fiewel and Friends, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Three hours after the fire, Ember wonders if Anson did it, if her best friend torched her family’s trailer house everything they owned, if that would keep his father from doing worse things to them for their beliefs.

Just because folks in the little Southern town call them witches doesn’t make them bad people. Dad calls their beliefs Wicca, Mom says not-quite-Wicca and teaches young teen Ember spells for clarity and balance with nature and peace. She also says that revenge is a bad seed to plant in your mind as it just might take root in your heart.

So now they’re homeless, Mom and Dad and Ember and little sister Ivy. She can’t find her dog Widdershins, and big brother Isaac is away at college. No room in Grandma’s tiny apartment, as if that devout lady would welcome her pagan son and family anyway, so eventually they find themselves at Goose Landing Campground, beside the lake where Grandpa drowned, the event that stopped Mom and Dad’s wanderings.

Ember ventures back to her burned-out home every week, searching for things that the fire might have spared – half a pair of Mom’s sewing scissors, a soup ladle – and for Widdershins. She mourns the loss of her spell journal, of Ivy’s random collections, of her former best friend. The only place she finds peace is floating far out in the center of the lake, where the water and the sky hold her.

And now it’s time for school to start. How can Ember and Ivy attend when their address is a pup tent, when they have no notebooks or decent clothes? Can they ever find a place to live when Dad can’t find a job? Did Widdershins perish in the fire or run away to find a safe home? Will Ember even be able to speak to Anson when she sees him again?

A story that circles back again and again to home and family and hope, Body of Water brings readers along on Ember’s search for clarity and balance and peace. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

P for Prized, by Caragh O’Brien (fiction) – not enough daughters, not enough time

Apr18

In the desert-dry future,
when the oil is depleted and hope is imprisoned,
there are rumors of a safe place beyond the wastelands.

Gaia and her tiny infant sister actually make it to Sylum, to a lake with more water than the teen midwife has ever dreamed of, to morning mists instead of parching winds, to the Matrarch‘s iron-fisted rule over everyone – the women citizens and the second-class males who vastly outnumber them.

Her own grandmother fled here years ago, and Gaia had hoped against hope that she’d still be in Sylum. Alas, she died a decade before their arrival, but left coded messages addressed to Gaia’s parents. Perhaps they’re family history, perhaps they’re clues to why fewer and fewer daughters are born to Sylum each year.

To fully appreciate Gaia’s story, read Birthmarked first, but if you just can’t wait to jump into this dystopian world, the author subtly brings in enough snippets of information from the first book to let you read Prized by itself. If you have read Birthmarked (book 1) and want a “bridge” to Prized, or if you just want a bit more backstory on The Enclave, look for O’Brien’s short story “Tortured” (free eBook at this time).

A mystery, a love story, a cautionary ecological parable.
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Book info: Prized (The Birthmarked Trilogy, book 2) / Caragh O’Brien. Roaring Brook Press, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [video book review]

My Recommendation: Gaia is afraid that her infant sister might not survive their escape across the wasteland, but the rumors hadn’t prepared her for the women-ruled settlement that rescues them. Staying in the Enclave would have enslaved them both; living in Sylum will give Maya to someone else to raise as the Matarch rules everyone. And once Gaia stays in Sylum for two days, she can never cross its borders or she’ll die.

So few females have been born in Sylum during recent decades that Gaia, with the birthmark streaking down her face, is accepted at once, and Maya is doubly prized. Now men drastically outnumber women, and they are forbidden to touch women or to vote in assemblies – a kiss means time in prison for assault. Men who have been tested as fertile have a chance to marry, if they impress a woman during the thirty-two games and the Matrarch approves.

When Gaia uses her midwifery skills to help a young woman in distress and won’t tell who, the Matrarch puts her under house arrest. Eventually, Gaia relents, stepping into the sunlight and a wealth of confusion as two brothers very delicately express their interest in her as a wife – and an intruder turns out to be Vlatir, who helped her escape from the Enclave!

As time approaches for the thirty-two games, Gaia gets strong hints that she’ll be the winner’s choice for chaperoned time together. Even prisoners can be chosen to play, so seeing Vlatir on the field is only a slight surprise. But the winner’s choice of companion shocks the whole community, and Gaia finds herself in a whirlwind of old secrets, new information, and terrible danger.

Can Gaia discover why so few girls are born here? Will the Matrarch let her act on any knowledge that she gains? Can she or Maya or even Vlatir survive in this strange place of marshes and lakes and women-archers who guard the assembly hall?

Readers who begin the Birthmarked Trilogy with this second volume will easily follow Gaia’s story as the author skillfully weaves in characters and incidents from the first book throughout the tale. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

C is Cat Girl’s Day Off, by Kimberly Pauley (book review) – cat voices and kidnapping in Chicago

Apr3

book cover of Cat Girl's Day Off by Kimberly Pauley published by Tu BooksOne sister is a child genius, the other a human lie detector.
Her dad is a super-sniffer and mom can out-think anyone anywhere.
Why is Natalie’s Talent so… everyday?
No wonder “hearing cats talk” is graded as class D.

Nat is trying to keep her Talent quiet, but when she spots a pink cat on video and understands his pleas for help, she can’t just sit idly by. Rufus’s person has been kidnapped right here in Chicago, and it all has something to do with the movie being filmed at her high school.

Wrigley Field and other Windy City locales used in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” are the backdrop for the friends’ madcap chase after clues by train, car, and sneakers, discussing things with cats they encounter (through Nat, of course).

Rufus and my cat Max chat a bit in my next post as they introduce my first giveaway! For your chance to win an Advance Reader Copy of Cat Girl’s Day Off, go here.
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Book info: Cat Girl’s Day Off / Kimberly Pauley. Tu Books, 2012. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy (viewed through NetGalley) and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Recommendation: Better to be a regular high school kid than show off her low-level Talent, thinks Natalie – until her gift for understanding cats’ speech may solve a kidnapping!

Her mom, dad, and sisters are so Talented – supersniffing, X-ray vision, truth detection, chameleon camouflage – that Nat’s talent seems worse than worthless. If the students at Shermer High treated her like that one boy in grade school who could make frogs change color by kissing them… bad news.

Her best friends Melly and Oscar know that she can talk to cats, but it’s no big deal to them. The big deal to them is the movie that will be filming scenes at their school, just as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” did – and they could be extras in the movie! Oscar is swooning over the leading man, while Melly hopes that appearing in “Freddy’s Day Off” will boost her acting career.

In a video news clip of movie blogger Easton West – all in pink, of course – and her dyed-pink dog and cat arriving in Chicago, Nat realizes that the pink cat is yowling that this person is an imposter and that Easton West has been kidnapped! West’s next blog post includes info that convinces Oscar that the person in that video is a fraud and that the pink cat must be telling the truth.

The three friends decide to rescue the pink cat and find out what’s happened to the real Easton West – as fast as they can between sitting through take after take of movie scenes at the school and Wrigley Field.

How can Nat make the authorities take this seriously, when no other humans speak Cat? Easton West’s last blog post before coming to Chicago threatened to expose one of the actresses – is this part of a plot? Will the imposter make good on her threat to kill the real Easton West? Oh, what will Nat’s cute classmate Ian think if he discovers that she talks to cats and that they talk back??

Lots of twists and turns as the friends and the cats they meet along the way chase after clues all over the Windy City, racing against the clock. One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)