TURNING PAGES: JACOBS'S LANDING, by DAPHNE GREER

I love fish-out-of-water novels so much. Junior high seems to be the perfect age to experience new things and retain the adventure of the newness, while exploring the difficulties of adjusting and taking it all in stride. Daphne Greer has written a fish-out-of-water novel with a classy cover that reminds me of THE GREAT GILLY HOPKINS, by Katherine Paterson, with a quieter protagonist who deals with the hand he's been dealt in different ways. While the fish-out-of-water/ mi familia loca trope is nothing new, the requisite "new-things-per-page" that makes a novel interesting is all right there, includes new landscapes - this book is set in the tiny village of Newport Landing, Nova Scotia, and now I have nineteen other reasons to pop over to Nova Scotia one summer. It sounds amazing.

Summary: Jacob Mosher's life is like a cracked cup. All that was familiar and loved has seeped out -- way back when he was tiny, his mother, then a year ago his father, now, this summer his foster mother, Maggie, and the familiar cityscapes of Ottawa. There's very little left in Jacob's life that doesn't seem to be departing on an outgoing tide. His social worker, Bernice, has worked a miracle in finding his last two surviving relatives. He has grandparents! But they're a world away in Nova Scotia - a.k.a. nowhere - and they're as weird as heck. SUPER weird. His grandfather, Frank, is forever barking nautical orders, wears this bizarre naval getup, is blind, and can't seem to remember Jacob's not some junior sailor on his nonexistent ship. His grandmother, Pearl, is... evasive, doesn't ask any questions - or answer any questions, either - and doesn't always remember to put in her dentures. And why didn't Jacob's father ever say anything about having family? Why hasn't he ever been to see Frank and Pearl? There are secrets and things left unsaid haunting all corners of the great big house on the hill.

Jacob begins the summer completely uninvested, but his grandparents seem to expect vastly different things from him than he thought, and his own expectations of surviving the summer are worlds away from what he finds. Fortunately, there Ruby from up the lane, Kenny, his grandfather's home health aide, and a few other reliable folk to help him find his feet. An absolutely sweet tale of secrets revealed and hearts mended, this is a perfect middle grade summer read.

Peaks: Though this book leaves the reader heart-full, it is also funny. While many people believe there is nothing funny about aging, "Captain Crazy, and his sidekick, Pearl" - a.k.a. Jacob's grandparents - are full of their own little quirks and habits, and Jacob is completely unable to say no to either of them, with the expected (sometimes exasperating, sometimes hilarious) results. I like the gradual way Jacob begins to care about them, and take more and more of their worries, and the worries of his friend Ruby onto his shoulders.

While this isn't exactly a mystery -- it's merely a summer-in-a-new-place kind of book -- there's a couple of little plot quirks at the end that I didn't see coming, which were quite satisfying.

Valleys: None to report, though a perceived lack of diversity may have had more to do with me missing some cues than there being none to report. This is a quick read about a boy who was a little sad and displaced, which is something we've all felt, and that commonality will pull in even the most reluctant of readers.

Conclusion: Like a perfect summer day - warm, but with just a kiss of breeze - Daphne Greer's book celebrates the best things about foster care, family, friendships, and bridging the generations to make our own truths. This is a book you'll want to hug.

---

I received my copy of this book courtesy of Emily at Nimbus Publishing. You can find JACOB'S LANDING by Daphne Greer at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

Reading all weekend! Join the Book Challenge!

Get Ready...Get Set...

The (I can hardly believe it) SEVENTH Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge, hosted by MotherReader, starts tomorrow--are you ready to read for hours on end? I know I am. Twist my arm. Go ahead.

You see, normally it's Tanita who represents for Finding Wonderland during the 48HBC, but this year, I have somehow discovered that I have two days in a row WITHOUT MAJOR COMMITMENTS during the weekend of the challenge. And because I can and will find any excuse to sit on my butt and read for several hours, I am not going to miss this golden opportunity.

The great thing is, this year, participants are being encouraged to sponsor ourselves for every hour read and donate the total amount (the hourly rate being up to us) to Reading Is Fundamental and their wonderful Book People Unite initiative. I haven't donated to RIF in a little while (proceeds from Latte Rebellion swag have been a bit slower as of late) so I'm excited to do something like this. I therefore have decided that I will donate $1 for every hour that I successfully read during the 48-hour period from Friday to Sunday (exact morning start time TBD).

I've also decided that I'm going to blog the books as I read them over on my personal blog, aquafortis. I've been neglecting my personal blog quite horrendously and I thought this might be a fun way to rekindle our relationship. Also, I think I will be focusing mainly on adult books, since there are several I need to catch up on reading, so it seems better to write about them there. The reviews will likely be short, unless I decide to harp on something. But then, at the end, I'll post the summary here as well as on my personal blog.

Now, off to mentally prepare myself by--what else--reading! (Dude, totally not kidding about that.)

Also, P.S: Tune in Monday for links to the first day on the Summer Blog Blast Tour. We're posting interviews later in the week with the fabulous ROBIN LAFEVERS and ROSEMARY CLEMENT-MOORE. 

48 Hour Book Challenge : Mad Maude Rides Again

The first extraordinary Maude March adventure tells the story of how Maude and her sister-disguised-as-brother, Sallie, ended up on the run when their Aunt Ruthie was shot by a drunken cowboy. After a long journey to find their Uncle Arlen in lawless Independence, Missouri, the girls have taken on jobs and have put together a family, of sorts. But Maude is still at large and WANTED posters still feature a version of her face and description. When Uncle Arlen is called away to an emergency out in the Kansas territory, the girls know they'll miss him, but they're not too worried. Not, until, they receive a mysterious telegraph message that makes them believe he's driving into further danger than they expected. Maude determines it's time to ride to Uncle Arlen's rescue, but they aren't expecting a couple of slimy bounty hunters to turn Maude over to the Sheriff.

Resourceful dime novel reader Sallie's been prepared for something like this all along, (all the dime novels advise having a back-up plan even while laying low) and, together with her trusty sidekick, Marion -- and the unexpected help of Black Hankie's gang -- they bust Maude out of jail. Another zany and wild trip through the wide-open West ensues, because once again it's Maude March on the Run. Sallie learns about tonics, quacks, hair dyeing, tar-and-feathering, and the kindness of strangers. She also learns how the public loves to keep a story going, and not because they love the truth.

If you haven't read the first book in this series, begin there, and double your pleasure. Maude March is a heckuva lot of fun. (But she wouldn't take kindly to me swearing like that.)

48 Hour Book Challenge: The Darkness Below

It feels like Phoebe has been living in the dark a long time.
Ever since her Uncle Bradford died on a camping trip -- a heart attack due to pneumonia, her mother says -- she's been in a daze. He was her favorite relative, and he gave her the beginnings of her huge rock collection. She stores them in the cubbies of a roll-top desk, also given to her by her beloved uncle. Phoebe's mother says it's time to give that roll-top away, time for them all to "move on." Phoebe thinks her mother is crazy -- in more ways than one.

Enraged, grieving, and afraid for her mother's sanity, she accompanies her Aunt Erin on a caving trip, becoming hopelessly lost when she hears someone calling her name. Is it really Bradford who meets her there? Can she believe all of what she sees?
The Glow Stone is story of loss and remembering, of never letting go of the ones we love, but of forgiving them for leaving us all the same.

48 Hour Book Challenge: Dragonsbane

Wilde Island holds a secret.

Once upon a time, a Queen, determined to have a child of prophesy, made a deal with dark powers for a daughter. And that deal got her the daughter she craved, but at a cost which not even Merlin's prophesies seem to foretell. Now that the child has been born, and is come of age to be married, the Queen is going mad, trying to find out how to cure her daughter of the price -- for it did not come to the queen, but passed on to the Queen's daughter.

Rosalind, a princess, must be perfect, but she hides a dragon claw beneath her golden gloves. And that flaw will ever seal her fate, and the fate of everyone who finds out. People have died for Rosalind's secret.

When the bloodthirsty dragons which plague the Wilde Island swoop in and carry her away, Rosalind finally understands the enormity of what her mother has done. A kingdom is destroyed. To Briar, as she is renamed by the dragon, all prophesies are off. No one can save her and she makes a dangerous bargain with the dragons in order to save her people -- if for a little while.

But is she a princess of her people, or a dragon-born maiden? And how long can she live in the Dragon's Keep?

48 Hour Book Challenge: Tapestry

Chosen as an ALA Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults 2007 by The Young Adult Library Services of America as well as a Winter 2006-2007 Children's Picks List by Book Sense, Anahita's Woven Riddle is a fabulous 19th century Persian romance.

Wanting to do a thousand other things other than marry the village khan -- including apprenticing herself to her granduncle to be a dyer, witty, unique weaver Anahita hits on the idea of posing a riddle contest to find herself a mate. She wants to do what's right for her father, the village kadkhuda or leader, and to keep the family name unsullied, but she also wants a voice of her own. Though the lives of her mother and grandmother were merry, Anahita is uneasy at the idea of marriage. There are so many choices, and so many other things to do!

Coming up with the riddle contest buys her time, but buys her more attention that she expected. There are Russian soldiers nibbling at the borders of their land, and the shah seems ineffective and disinterested in the traditional lives of the nomads. Each of Anahita's suitors come from several different walks of life, and their stories allow readers to see different parts of historical Iran, weaving a historical tale out of many varied strands. The beautiful poetry of Rumi and other Sufi poets is sprinkled throughout, giving the novel an otherworldly beauty, and allowing readers to see the beauty in the history of the lands of the Near East.

Which of Anahita's suitors can best help her be a part of Iran's changing times? And whose name will she finally embroider next to hers in her marriage qali? An unusual historical novel in which for once a girl has her own say about a marriage! Very enjoyable!

48 Hour Book Challenge: Another Evolution

Although this novel has a young adult as the main character, this book may not catch the interest of most YA's, unless they are very mature readers.

14-year-old Melanie (whom her brother Jared fondly calls Monchichi, because she was such a hairy monkey baby) is her father's "Born Again Child," and her mother's burden. She is, in many ways, bright, being a Bible Quiz Champion two years in a row, and in other ways, she is socially backwards, longing for the easy comfort of high school friends, yet leaving flyers in everyone's lockers at school to warn her schoolmates of the consequences of their sexual behavior. Melanie adores her father and tolerates her demon-sighting mother, somehow understanding without words that some of God's people are a little less ...balanced than others. Her sister, Kyle, is living in sin with a man who beats her and has fathered her baby, while her brother, Jared, lives in the basement, works nights, and frequently disappears trailing cigarette fumes.

Melanie loves her dysfunctional family as much as she loves God, but badly wants to be on the side of the righteous. She knows it would be so easy to make her parents proud, if she can only hold up her end of the bargain to stay her father's special girl, and to be perfect, so her mother will be able to love her. But Mel also wants to be like other girls - she cuts up her underwear into thongs to resemble the ones in her friend Beth's Frederick's catalog, and sometimes looks at the pastor and gets that 'can't-really-breathe' feeling, he's so cute. She's constantly praying for God to forgive her, even as she realizes that she can't control how she feels.

Lately, Mel's behavior has gotten a lot harder to defend. Dying to go to college someday, she's forged her parents signatures for Academic Camp, when she discovers that the paperwork shows The Origin of the Species as part of the camp's reading list. Darwin is #1 on the banned books list her youth group has given her, and Mel just knows that if her parent's see that, she's not going anywhere. But Mel's smart. She can just read Darwin and figure out where he's wrong, with her Bible at her side, strapped to her ankle like a dangerous weapon.

She's the Bible Quiz Champion. It should be pretty cut-and-dried. Right?

But facts are facts. Pretty soon, the facts show Melanie that her church isn't all she thought it was, and nobody -- her parents, her pastor, her friends -- no one is who she believed them to be.

This is a funny, sad, complicated novel about the passages a person can take from blind faith to blinded doubt. The end of the novel has no clear 'happily ever after,' but readers come away thoughtful about the nature of truth and whether or not it truly has meaning.

48 Hour Book Challenge: Mary, Mirror of Justice

Can you imagine being told that you were safe from someone evil for nine years, safe long enough to grow into adulthood, to get some defenses, to heal and to hide somewhere new?
Can you imagine all of that, and then finding out after only three years that you aren't old enough and far away enough to be safe at all?

Meredith's mother is ecstatic that her father has an early release from prison. She's disappointed that he can't live with them yet, that would violate his parole, of course, but she challenged the condo association bylaws with her lawyers, and made sure to rent him a condominium identical to theirs, right down the street. Meredith's mother has put on a perfect Size 2 red dress to welcome him home. Meredith's mother is trying to her best to not see what's right in front of her.

But Meredith sees. And Meredith's busy mayor grandmother sees. And everyone in the condo association sees. And Andy, Meredith's boyfriend, sees. All of these people are victims of Meredith's father. And she desperately wants to run away like Andy, and not to be the sacrifice tethered to the stake, but if she lets her mother welcome her father home, and lets everyone forget what he's done, it may not be just her and Andy next time. It will be somebody else's kid, and somebody else's childhood violated in blood and pain. It's only a matter of time before it will happen again, since her father's told her he's always going to love her. After all, she's Such A Pretty Girl.

But this pretty girl has a knife, and her own personal Queen of Heaven on her side.
How can she lose?

Simon & Schuster's MTV Books brings us another gutsy, brutally honest, gut-churning older-teen novel that rings painfully true, and brings readers face to face with the power of courage.

48 Hour Book Challenge: Time - Not On Her Side

Time is blurring, fragmenting, and coming unraveled, and people are being whirled through the universe, out of their proper time into another far into the past, far into space, or far into the future. The government calls these incidents "Time Tornadoes," and periodic sightings of woolly mammoths on the Thames coupled with disappearing school buses and sightings of ancient Egyptians have everyone in a panic. A Time Incident robs Silver of her whole family, and she is taken from being a daughter of the house to being the servant of her nasty aunt, Mrs. Rokabye, and her aunt's sinister black rabbit, Bigamist.

A strange round man named Abel Darkwater comes to the house where the two of them live, and insists that at Tanglewreck, the house where they live, the cure to the time distortions exists. After all, nothing has happened there. He needs only to ask Silver the location of the Timekeeper, a very special clock, and with it, he can make everything will go back to normal. As much as Silver may want to help him, or feel compelled to tell him everything on her mind, the truth is, she doesn't know where the Timekeeper might be.

Somebody else is seeking the Timekeeper, and she is beautiful and kind -- and far more treacherous than Mr. Darkwater could ever dream to be. Is there no one Silver can trust? And what is this Timekeeper thing?

All Silver knows is the House has told her this one thing: she needs to find the Timekeeper, and fast.

Fans of Garth Nix's Mister Monday series may enjoy this novel, which is written in short, action-packed chapters that take the character from Earth to Space and all throughout time. Though some of the hard science and time-talk might be confusing to a middle-grade reader, the characters are enough fun to keep most involved.

48 Hour Book Challenge: Scouting for Scout

I remember reading To Kill A Mockingbird and thinking that it was the #1 best work of Southern fiction that I had ever read. Then I saw the movie, and wanted to go back to the book, to live in Scout's world, except a better one, one from which Atticus had managed to excise the ugliness and racism. It was a good thought, but it was impossible.

Erin reads her mother's copy of To Kill A Mockingbird obsessively. It is a book full of layers, full of complex ideas and thoughtful comments scrawled in the margins. These words are priceless because Erin never knew her mother, and has missed her it seems forever.

On the night before her 16th birthday, Erin's father gives Erin the diary her mother kept as a teen. Finding out that her mother wrote Harper Lee a letter in 1963 makes Erin believe that she has to leave her home in Minnesota find Harper Lee in Alabama, for she's almost sure that somehow Harper Lee is a connection with her mother.

It was a good thought, but...

In Search of Mockingbird is an optimistic novel that celebrates the power of love and connection even in the face of death.

48 Hour Book Challenge: Twisting in the Wind

Tyler made the mistake of believing that he needed to 'leave his mark' on his high school, but his summer of paying for that mistake, doing community service with the janitors and digging holes for a landscaping company has done him some good. For one thing, Tyler's senior year finds him stronger, which helps him avoid Chip, who's always trying to push him around. For another thing, after a summer of manual labor and not thinking about anything much, Tyler is way tanned and buffed and dangerous looking -- and more interesting to girls. One girl in particular is very interested, maybe... Bethany, the most popular girl in school.

The only problem with Bethany? Her Dad is Tyler's Dad's boss. Her brother... is Chip.
Dad would go ballistic if Tyler ever went after Bethany, or beat Chip at anything -- Dad's favorite game is to blaming Tyler for all of his troubles, for his mother's migraines and probably for global warming and the national debt, too. There's no way this love affair thing with Bethany and Tyler is ever going to fly.

But there's no telling Tyler's anything, especially after Bethany flirts with him, kisses him in public, and invites him to a party that changes everything. It makes a Twisted kind of sense to Tyler what happens next. Once a person has been blamed for everything, haunted, hunted and humiliated both at home and at school, he begins to expect this kind of thing. Of course everybody is looking at him for what is burned into the front lawn of the school. Of course, once those pictures from the party start circulating, everyone starts to talk about Tyler. Escape, by any means necessary, is the only way to go...

Once again, Laurie Halse Anderson lets young adults in difficult situations know that there is a way to survive... which means choosing not to let someone else kill you, one word at a time. Difficult, painful and realistic, this is definitely a book for older YA's.

48 Hour Book Challenge: Kind of a Thelma & Louise Thing

Fifteen-year-old Tamara has been around the block a couple of time -- a couple of times too many. She just wants out -- out of the foster care system, out of the nonsense of school, where too many people with no clue about what she wants out of life try to fill her head with stuff that doesn't matter. She's not stupid -- she knows she needs a plan -- but she wants to be a model, more than anything else on earth.

Her new foster parents, Shirley and Herb aren't that bad, and at her new high school, she gets a chance for community service - whoppee! - that pairs her up with one of the richest, meanest old woman ever. What's worse, is the crazy old lady smokes like a chimney, and she likes - opera.

Jean Barclay hates her retirement home, and when a skinny teen comes by to bring her a gift (lavender slippers? What did she ever do to deserve those!?) she's pretty sure this is going to be the worst "program" the Center has come up with yet. This vulgar girl with all of her jewelry, make-up, and crazy clothes! You can see she's got flint and she's got courage like one of the Valkyries from the Ring Cycle, but it's not like they have anything in common!
Yet Skinnybones & the Wrinkle Queen come up with a madcap tradeoff that takes them away from the small Canadian town in which they live, all the way into the U.S., to Seattle, and onward. Suddenly, Tamara's dream seems possible, within reach, and so does Jean's. How can they not take the chance to pull one last bit of magic out of their empty lives?

But how much will that trip cost them in the end?

48 Hour Book Challenge: No Paradise

It is 1542. Marguerite de la Roquefort's mother has died, and nothing is left for her at home anymore. Nothing, that is, but her young sister, Isabeau, who she leaves behind when she is chosen by her uncle, the Sieur de Roberval, to be the first Frenchwoman to land on Canadian soil. It is not because she is particularly special, but because her father no longer has any use for her, and her uncle is paying his brother for the gift of his daughter as French breeding stock.

Poor Marguerite doesn't go alone -- her faithful friend and chaperon is with her, and through some conniving on her part, her beloved Pierre. Pierre is a secret -- a Catholic, and the love of Marguerite's Protestant heart. Catholics and Protestants aren't meant to be friends, not to mention amorous, and French Huguenots are meant to be chaste and pure.
On board ship, Marguerite and Pierre are less than discreet. In punishment for her behavior, Monsieur de la Roquefort maroons his niece,and her maid, on an island off the eastern shore of Canada. Pierre jumps ship to join them.

At first all is an idyll, as they spend the summer in their 'eden' Paradise. Through trial and error they find a way to survive. But this is summer. What will winter bring?

This novel is based on the true-to-life story of Marguerite de la Roquefort, and is a riveting story of faith and hardship and survival.

48 Hour Book Challenge: C'mon, Get Happy...

Grrr!
There's no way Annabel is going to have a good Christmas break. First off, her so-call best friend, with whom she was meant to spend this whole break has a sudden case of oops-family-trip, and totally leaves her. Bubbe goes to Florida, and Angelina, Annabel's mother, goes off with her new boyfriend, Harvey, and his nerdy son, Wheaties (whose real name is Alan, but what twelve-year-old wants to be called that?). Annabel is stuck going all the way to Melbourne where everybody talks funny, lazily adds 'ie' to any shortened word ending and thinks it's cool, says everything is "graaayate" like it's the Australian national word, and are total... Dad-stealers, to visit with her dad, Jack, and meet his new family... The Steps.

Rachel Cohn has a way of capturing the quickly shifting landscape of feelings anyone has to go through the first worst time of meeting a parent's new spouse and the stepsiblings. The first time you hear someone calls the man you love "Dad" can bring up the most sickening rage. I actually got pissed off reading this book, and my parents are still married! There wasn't a big "Yay!" all the time, but this book ends up realistically-ever-after, even though by the end more "steps" are on the way. A supportive book for anyone whose family tree looks more like a diagram than a plant with roots and branches.

48 Hour Book Challenge - Warning: Side Effects

It was just an ordinary morning in an ordinary teen's life -- that is, ordinary in a my-mom-annoys-me, snarky, Bic-pen artist kind of life. Suddenly, swollen glands aren't mono or any other social disease her mother suspects. Izzy has cancer, and from that moment on, life is a fast-forward needle-and-puke fest. And after a point, it's not just the cancer that's bumming her. There are the other Side Effects that Izzy hadn't counted on.


What does it take to survive?

I'd put off reading this novel because I have a work-in-progress of my own on the topic, but one of the truths about cancer - and survival - is that every story is different. This is the book for every kid who looked for a kind of funny 'coping' book about cancer, and this is one for the side of the heroes who survive.

48 Hour Book Challenge: Secret Hideaway

Both smothered and protected by the rooftop world of women in her small Arabian village, Malika feels restless. She's growing up and growing older and is realizing that unlike her brother, Jasmim, she will never see faraway horizons or travel the world like he will. Instead, she will take her veil and take her place among the women -- forever. But for tonight, there's a secret in The Shadows of Ghadames. While her father is away on a trip, his second wife rescues a man -- a man and brings him inside their cloistered world. What will happen to him? And will his being there change -- everything?

An excellent piece of historical fiction that explores the role of women in the 19th century in a real city; though the novel is fictional, the southern Libyan city near the borders of Algeria and Tunisia is not! Do check it out!

48 Hour Book Challenge: Kiki & the Irregulars Strike Again

Because this copy of Kiki Strike's latest is an Advanced Review Copy (ARC), I won't be publishing a full review until October 2 when it is released. It will have to suffice for me to say (and to fully whet your appetite!!) that this episode of Kiki's adventures is just as fabulous as the first. Kiki Strike: The Empress's Tomb ends with a startling announcement that means that everything changes! I very much hope that Kirsten Miller is writing as fast as she can, because I'm already chomping at the bit for the next one!!

In the meantime, if you miss her as much as I do, hang out awhile in Kiki's underground world.

Tick....Tick...Tick...TIME!

Open your eyes!

Turn off the alarm clock!

Fling back the covers!

Start the party!

Beginning TOMORROW at 7 a.m. we celebrate the awesomeness that is MotherReader and her fabulouso 48 Hour Book Challenge!

The rules are simple, so simple there's really only one rule:
Read and blog books 5th grade level and higher within any 48-hour period within the Friday-to-Monday-morning window of June 8–10. Start no sooner than 7:00 a.m. on Friday and end no later than 7:00 a.m. Monday. So, go from 4:00 p.m. Friday to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday... or maybe 6:00 a.m. Saturday to 6:00 a.m. Monday works better for you. But the 48 hours do need to be in a row.

After my 48 hours are done, I'll write up a final summary with the number of books read, total page count, the approximate hours I challenged myself to read/review this year. This will be posted before noon on Monday, June 11.

I don't expect to win any prizes, but let me tell ya -- I expect to have fun.
Check back for all the reviews and book suggestions.

Let the reading begin!