When I was in grade school, it was a lot easier to figure out if a girl like liked you. All you had to do was hit her. I don't mean slug her, but just sort of hit lightly and laugh lightheartedly while you were doing it. If the girl hit you back and smiles, she like liked you. But if she screamed and then slugged you really hard or worse, kicked you, it meant that only did she not like like you, she hated you, which automatically meant that all her friends did too. page 94
We all know how Millicent felt about tutoring Stanford over the summer, but here's Stanford's side of things.
All Stanford likes is to play ball. He's keenly aware that he's not a genius like his sister or father. He thinks his life is over when he fails English and can't go to basketball camp, even worse, if he doesn't pass it in summer school, he won't be able to play ball next school year. And he's just been named to the A-Team. 7th graders NEVER make the A-Team. All he has to do is keep his friends from finding out that he's a failure and pass English.
Of course, his friends keep fighting so even basketball isn't entirely fun at the moment, his parents keep fighting, they stuck his grandmother in a nursing home where she's miserable, and Stanford has to spend his summer with Millicent Min, who has set the bar for Chinese students way too high.
Even though this is a story I've read from Millicent's point of view before, this is still completely new. Yee's humor is in full force, and Stanford tries to juggle way too much for one summer. I also love how he's a secret knitter for stress relief. His relationship with his father was probably the most heart-breaking subplot. I also love his interactions with his friends. They're boys and gross (like the time they decided to see if farts smell better to the person who farted them than to other people) but there were also a lot of interpersonal dynamics under the surface. I also loved the truth about why Millicent changed schools and why she and Digger hate each other so much.
A great read on its own, but even better if you're already a fan of Millicent Min.
Book Provided by... my local library
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So, May is Asian-American Heritage Month. To celebrate, 10 children's and YA authors got together to spotlight "Ten new contemporary novels by Asian Americans aren’t traditional tales set in Asia nor stories about coming to America for the first time."
I thought this was an awesome idea, so to join the party, I'm reading all the fusion stories this month, substituting earlier works if the highlighted story isn't published yet.
But, first I'm going to ramble on about myself for a while, because it's my blog! I can do what I want!
Mainly, the wedding I went to this weekend was wonderfully fun AND I got to meet some other kidlit dorks, including someone who knows David Levithan. And Rachel Cohn! My geeky heart just about died! My response was "Can I touch you?!" Initially, he thought I was being a bitch, when really, I was in total AWE!
And now I'm off to North Carolina for my sister's wedding!
Also, I want to give a shout-out to Lauren. She's my new-ish coworker and she is awesome. I don't think I've mentioned that yet. But who else would randomly burst into song with you on the reference desk? Especially when said song is a medley of the Simpson's musical version of Street Car Named Desire?
You can always depend on the kindness of strangers! To buck up your spirits and shield you from dangers! Now here's a tip from Blanche you won't regret: A stranger's just a friend you haven't met. You haven't met! STREETCAR!
That's what too much story time can do to a person!
Also, here's a video I've been watching a lot of lately:
Because do you know what's better than a Kate Pierson muppet? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Also, how awesome is it when you look like a total moody rock star while rocking out on a banjo?!
I haven't read an American Girl book in years. Like, not since I was the targeted reading age and read all of the Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly books. Yes, only those three, because BACK IN MY DAY there only were three. Initially, there were only 3 books for 3 dolls! Yes, I was a recipient of the original Pleasant Company catalog.
Anyway, Yee's book took me right back there. And it was weird at the same time, because after reading Yee's other work (by which I mean the hysterical Millicent Min, Girl Genius) this has a very different voice. This... reads like an American Girl book, which it should. I think writing like that, in someone else's corporate voice must be very hard, but Yee's awesome at it. (Ok, I've drafted my share of press releases in hoity toity British English in the proper corporate voice. I know it's hard.)
Anyway, the book. Ivy Ling is not feeling lucky. Her best friend, Julie (who is actually the American Girl) has moved across town. Her parents are really busy and can't help Ivy with her Chinese school project. Plus, they've been eating take-away Chinese food from her grandparent's Chinese resteraunt. And Ivy's grandparents heard her complaining.
But that's not the worst of it. The big inter-city gymnastics tournament is coming up. Ivy needs to compete in the all events, but she fell off the balance beam last time and is having a hard time getting her routine right again. As if that weren't bad enough, the big Ling family reunion is coming up. On the same day as the gymnastics meet.
Ivy can't go to both, and her parents are making her decide, only they have different ideas about which one is more important.
Whatever will Ivy do?!
I loved the "American Girl" ness of it. Also, in the background material, there are some awesome pictures of Lisa Yee in the 70s.
I had forgotten how many appearance details American Girl books put in. As a kid I really liked that, but it's a little jarring to me as an adult.
This is not really a fusion story. Minn and Jake's Almost Terrible Summer is a Fusion Story, but it doesn't come out until August, so I have to wait for it. So, I read the one that came before it instead. But, as far as the reader knows, this one doesn't have any Asian-Americans in it, because the fact that Jake is 1/4 Korean comes out in the next book and causes some tension when Minn wonders why Jake didn't tell her. At least, that's what the various blurbs I've read tell me.
Anyway, in this book (a prose novel)
Minn is feeling very empty, and very tall, and very odd, and very pigtailed, and very lizardy, and very much alone.
Because her best friend laughed at her with another girl. She ends up being paired with the new kid,Jake, who's afraid of lizards. Catching lizards is the only thing kids do in Santa Brunella. So, Minn is going to teach Jake how to catch lizards. But there are accidents and mean kids and other grade-school stuff to endure.
Very well told. Minn and Jake, as well as the rest of the kids, are authentic, and their trials and tribulations are small, as they are for most kids, but aren't trivialized, which is refreshing.
And now for some non-Fusion Stories, because who knows when I'll get to blog again?
This is a retelling of Thumbelina, in the sense of straight-up retelling it with a few variations, not recasting it, a la Shannon Hale or Gail Carson Levine.
Except the ending is different. But the narrator warns us. I'm quoting from an ARC here, so it might not be 100% accurate (but I hope it is, because it's the very matter-of-fact voice that the narrator and Thumbelina use throughout)
Now you know exactly what happened and can write a book report, if you need to do that, or count this as part of your summer reading list. Nobody will mind or think any less of you if you just close the book and DO NOT READ ANOTHER WORD.
But, to tell you the truth, there is something more. If you felt there was something forced about that ending, you were right."
And that's why I loved the book. That, and the wonderful illustrations that were made by cutting out black construction paper. A nice retelling of a fairy tale that gives Thumbelina back her spunk without detracting from Anderson's original.
Just when Clementine and her 3rd grade teacher have figured each other out, Mr. D'Matz is going to go off and go to Egypt IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCHOOL YEAR! And the new teacher has new rules that Clementine can't guess.
If you liked the others, you'll like this. I'm seriously starting to worry about Margaret though. That girl's going to need therapy sooner rather than later. I do like how well Clementine handles her, though.
In the paint section, hundreds of little paint tubes, all neat and new, sat on the shelf. Margaret threw her hands up and backed away, as if the tubes of paint were just waiting to burst all over her clean clothes. Margaret doesn't even liket o look at things that might get her dirty.
"Quick, run over to the paper aisle!" I told her. "Just keep staring at all those nice clean stacks of paper!"
I also like how the trip to the Chinese grocery store yields a whole new host of vegetable names for her brother. Bamboo shoot, scallion, daikon radish...
I have been accused of being anal retentive, an over-achiever, and a compulsive perfectionist, like those are bad things. Millicent Min is a genius. It's not that she's just really smart, but certifiably a genius--she's going to be a senior in high school and has started taking classes at the local college. She's 11. She's also lonely--she's in a lot of extra-curriculars at school, but she doesn't have friends. Even in her college class, the other students don't see her as an equal and resent her presence. Other kids her age don't know how to relate to her.
Millicent's mother signed her up for volleyball this summer to try and give her daughter a "normal" childhood. At volleyball, she meets Emily. Emily seems to like her, so Millicent doesn't tell her how smart she is. She wants Emily to see her as a normal kid. As long as she can keep they lies straight, she'll be OK, right?
Lisa Yee has a great character in Millie, who, socially, is a little behind her peers even she's light years ahead of them academically. She's hilarious as she tried to navigate her new friendship with Emily, and friendships are complicated, no matter how smart you are. Yee has written several very believable characters and Millicent is extremely likable. I'm looking forward to reading Stanford Wong Flunks Big-time and So Totally Emily Ebers.
So, usually for a book to "count" as part of my have-read list, it has to be at least 100 pages OR have a quality I can't define but call "deep impact". The Big Wave is one such book.
Everyone's already reviewed this one and you other kidlit bloggers are probably familiar with Mitali as she's a frequent commentor and fellow blogger. (How did I NOT know she wrote Monsoon Summer? That's been on my to-read list forever!)
Anyway, I was really excited when this came into the library, because I'm a big fan of Mitali's blog-comments. But then I got really paranoid, because what if I didn't like it? I've told myself I'm going to review every book that I read here, and so I would but I really like Mitali and OH! THE AGONY!
But all the worry was for naught, because I did like it. And it has that elusive "deep impact" even though it's under 100 pages.
So, this is set in modern-day Bangladesh. Naima's father is a rickshaw driver that never gets a rest. She wishes she was a boy, so she would be allowed to help out. She comes up with several grand plans and schemes to possibly help and complications ensue.
I was really intrigued by the turn this book took in the end, because who would've thunk that you could so effectively introduce the concept of micro-finance to the middle-reader set?
Also, the pictures not only perfectly compliment, but really add to the story.
Stanford Wong Flunks Big-time Lisa Yee
