Middle Grade Monday (a day late): The One and Only Family by Katherine Applegate

Image: HarperCollins Publishers

The One and Only Family by Katherine Applegate. 272 p. HarperCollins Publishers, May 7, 2024. 9780063221123. Review of finished purchased copy.

Happy Monday, a day late! I posted this to my school's learning platform yesterday and didn't get around to pasting and posting here. Happy July as well! It was a lovely day out there, so I hope you enjoyed the weather! Middle Grade Monday features The One and Only Family by Katherine Applegate. This is the final book in the quartet called One and Only Ivan Stories. 

Ivan is a silverback gorilla, who is now living in a zoo/ wildlife sanctuary. Life is good. He has his own troop and even has a mate, Kinyani. Ruby lives in the habitat next door and often visits Ivan, and Bob was adopted and visits often as well. Ivan wants to be a good silverback, but grapples with tragedies from his past and worries about the future. Can he be a good dad to his twins? What should he tell them about his past?

Ms. Applegate skillfully juxtaposes humor with intense philosophical questions about conservation and the natural world. The spot art is just lovely. It is best to read all four books to appreciate the growth of this found family. 

Happy reading!

Middle Grade Monday: Winter Blunderland by James Patterson and Brian Sites

Image: Hachette Book Group

Winter Blunderland by James Patterson and Brian Sitts. Middle School #15. Jimmy Patterson Books/ Little, Brown and Company,  November, 2022. 9780316500203. (Review of finished book borrowed from public library.)

Happy Monday! With possible snow in our forecast, today is a good time to feature Winter Blunderland by James Patterson and Brian Sitts as our Middle Grade Monday entry. I honestly lost track of the Middle Grade series. TMS library has up to book 13, From Zero to Hero. This is book 15.

Rafe has the opportunity to spend Christmas break in Alaska with Penelope and Dr. Deerwin researching polar bears. Getting to spend time with Penelope is a dream come true for Rafe, but he doesn't like sharing her with Panuk and his sister Uki. Panuk is confident and handsome and drives a cool snow-mobile. Can Rafe compete with that? And, oh yeah, there's the dark and the cold and polar bears and scary poachers to deal with. Fans won't be disappointed.

Middle Grade Monday: Rescue at Lake Wild by Terry Lynn Johnson

Image: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Rescue at Lake Wild by Terry Lynn Johnson. 208 p. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, April, 2021. 9780358334859. (Review of finished copy courtesy of Blue Slip Media.)

Happy July 4 Monday TMS Readers! What are you reading right now? I'm reading an arc of Kathi Appelt's next book, Once Upon a Camel. Fans of Ms. Appelt know they are in for a treat whenever a new book of hers releases. This one is gorgeously illustrated by Eric Rohmann. 

I am also reading the arc of a debut fantasy called Beasts of Prey by Ayana Grey. And finally, I'm reading a book with my ears called, The Way Back by Gavriel Savit. This was a National Book Award finalist last fall and I really enjoyed Mr. Savit's Anna and the Swallow Man. Both books were narrated by Allan Corduner, who also was totally entrancing as Death narrating The Book Thief. 

Middle Grade Monday features Rescue at Lake Wild by Terry Lynn Johnson. This animal adventure story features twelve-year-old Madi Lewis and her best friends, Aaron and Jack and Jack's dog, Lid. Madi is a citizen scientist and aspiring animal rehabilitator just like her recently deceased grandmother. Her parents issued a cease and desist order - no more animal rescue - or her planned trip to Vermont to meed her hero, Jane Goodall is off. Her plans to make good on that promise are jeopardized when the three friends discover the bodies of two adult beavers who had been killed near their lodge. It was breeding time and Madi believes there maybe kits needing rescue in the lodge! She and her friends have studied beavers and have a reasonable understanding about where to find the kits, only it involved swimming underwater to find the opening of the lodge! And there are leeches in the water! Yikes!

Then, once the kits are in hand, the question remains, what to do with them? More importantly, how to keep her parents from finding out about them. For Jack, he's intent on finding the poacher who shot the beavers. The three friends live on a lake with unfettered access to a clubhouse, canoes and an ATV. Readers will learn a lot about wildlife rehabilitation in general and beavers in particular in engaging story. There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, a terrific friendship triad that works well, and an intriguing mystery to solve. There's a wonderful author's note at the end that also includes tips about wild animal rescue.

Rescue at Lake Wild is available to borrow at our amazing public library, Closter Public Library. There is a wait list on eBCCLS for the e-book version. I've included a link below to the publisher's website for the book. There is a two minute video of the author talking about the book. Happy reading!

Web Link:
https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/rescue-at-lake-wild/9780358334859

Rescue at Wild Lake is just the book if you love animals, friendship stories and local adventure. It's a wonderful addition to any library.

Teen Tuesday and Audio Review: Angel Thieves by Kathi Appelt

Angel Thieves by Kathi Appelt. Unabridged audiobook on 5 compact discs. 5 hours and 2 minutes. Read by Laurel Kathleen. Simon & Schuster Audio, March, 2019. 9781508276975. (Review of purchased finished copy.)

A new book by Kathi Appelt is basically an automatic purchase for me. Her books are always lyrical, complex and atmospheric. I also assumed she was solidly middle grade but learned my lesson here - make no assumptions. Read the reviews even if you love the author or read the book before cataloging. And, thank goodness I did that here. 

Angel Thieves is decidedly YA. The F-bomb is dropped (quite appropriately) in the first minutes of the story. Sixteen-year-old Cade Curtis and his dad are robbing a cemetery in the early hours of the morning. The angel is unwieldy and he receives a slash near his eye by a pricker bush. I'd say the same, but not at school and I try to keep books with mature themes and profanity in the YA section. 

Cade is the same age his father was when he was born. He was rejected by his mother who instructed his father to place the baby in a church or fire department. The boy did neither, choosing instead to raise the baby he named Cade, by himself. The two lucked into a job with an elderly woman who ran an antiques business and happened to have a garage apartment for them. She just had a few items they needed to procure from time to time to keep the business running - angels.

Though set in modern day Houston, it is not an Appelt story without shifts in time and non-human narrators. In Angel Thieves, the story travels back to the time when Texas was a republic and tells of Achsah, a slave who was to be freed upon her master's death, but whose daughters were bequeathed to another slaveowner. She refuses to leave without her daughters. She needs to find an angel in the dark before the hounds track her.

The Bayou is also a narrator. She has observed changes over the millennia dispassionately. She has a long memory. Especially of times when animals such as ocelots were plentiful. Now they are rare and Zorra, one of the last was recently poached and caged. She's dying though because her poacher has disappeared. Then there's Soliel Broussard, sixteen-year-old preacher's kid and classmate of Cade's. She sports a tattoo of a honey bear on her wrist and is intrigued by Cade.  

Any one of the threads that bind this story were compelling on their own. Surprisingly, they don't come together quite satisfactorily. The shifts in POV were frequent, sometimes jarring and often left unfinished business, such as Cade's mother's sudden appearance in his life at age six. Or, why Soliel so intensely bonded with the Bird family. I wanted to like the book more. 

The narration was competent. Perhaps the production might have been better served with multiple narrators. Laurel Kathleen's narration rarely changed accents or inflection, making the already difficult job of keeping events and characters in place, more so. Were I reading with my eyes, I could at least back up a few pages when I lost my strand. 

Hand Angel Thieves to patient teens who enjoy multiple POV stories or who were fans of the author's middle grade fiction when they were in middle school. 

Fact Friday: The Great Rhino Rescue: Saving the Southern White Rhinos by Sandra Markle

The Great Rhino Rescue: Saving the Southern White Rhinos by Sandra Markle. Sandra Markle's Science Discovery Series. 48 p. Millbrook Press/ Lerner Publishing Group, August, 2018. 9781541524729. (Review of finished purchased copy.)

Markle delivers another informative and outstanding entry in her "Discovery" series. She does have a flair for dramatic storytelling and getting readers invested immediately. As in The Great Penguin Rescue, the author tugs at the reader's heartstrings. In this case, we are introduced to a mama and baby white rhino calmly foraging until mama is darted by poachers seeking her horn. Her calf cries as mama collapses. The reader is left hanging as the next chapter talks about the species near extinction in the 1800s. She fluidly explains their loss of habitat to European settlers hunting them for sport and farming great expanses of the savanna. 

In case readers do not know what a savanna is, a blue text box explains. Readers also learn about rhino growth and development as well as the differences between white rhinos and black rhinos. Photos, charts and maps adorn every page.  They are crisp, clear and full-color depicting single rhinos, mothers and babies, males fighting, rhinos wallowing and groups of rhinos. All are well-captioned. A couple are quite disturbing though.

One that was particularly upsetting to me depicts a chain saw wielding man and a horn-less rhino starting bleakly and helplessly at him. Granted, this amputation was being done safely and proactively to make the rhino worthless to poachers but personally, I could've done without the image. And, readers learn later, that this "solution" was not a great one. Sobering and effective, to be sure.

The other was of a rhino suspended upside down from a helicopter. Yikes! The reason for this was the rescue was from a remote area inaccessible by truck. The photos of rhinos recovering from poacher attacks are not easy to see either. Not easy, but necessary. We must be educated about our wildlife and the importance of every animal to the ecosystems they inhabit. I particularly admire the dedication of anti-poacher workers and their canine companions. 

Young researchers will find the backmatter quite useful. It includes an author's note, timeline, source notes, a glossary and books and websites to learn more. High quality books about animal conservation are needed now more than ever. As protective laws are being relaxed, we need to instill a love and respect for the environment in our youth. The Great Rhino Rescue is a first-purchase.