Waiting on Wednesday: Dork Diaries 15: Tales from a Not-So-Posh Paris Adventure by Rachel Renée Russell

Image: Series Web Site

Happy Wednesday TMS Readers! Move over Greg Hefley. You're not the only disgruntled diary keeper lacking self-awareness in town. Waiting on Wednesday features Dork Diaries 15: Tales from a Not-So-Posh Paris Adventure by Rachel Renée Russell. Here's the publisher synopsis from the series' web site:

Will Nikki FINALLY make it to Paris?! Or will she and her BFFs plan a Paris-themed fundraiser to help her crush, Brandon, raise money for the Fuzzy Friends Animal Shelter?! The DRAMA continues in Dork Diaries Book 15: Tales From A Not-So-Posh Paris Adventure!!

Unfortunately, I cannot find a publication date! Hopefully, it's soon. There are a lot of fans of the series at my school. Happy reading!

Teen Tuesday: Everything I Thought I Knew by Shannon Takaoka

Image: Candlewick Press

Everything I Thought I Knew by Shannon Takaoka. 320 p. Candlewick Press, October, 2020. 9781536207767.

Happy Tuesday! It's the last Tuesday of summer break! What will you be reading today? Sometimes arcs get buried and it takes me a really long time to uncover them. I'm so sorry it took so long to find this. Argh!

Teen Tuesday features Everything I Thought I Knew by Shannon Takaoka. This first-person narrative features Chloe, a Bay area high school senior and over-achiever until she collapses during cross-country practice. She needs a new heart, so her life, senior year and college plans are put on hold when she is placed on the transplant list. She basically has to hope to stay alive until someone with a match to her dies.

Once she receives her heart, she finds herself plagued by bloody nightmares every night and "memories" of people and places. Her friends have graduated and are getting ready to move away to college while she's stuck in summer school catching up. She has been accepted to college, but needs to finish her senior year. She also begins to do un-Chloe-like things like driving too fast, lying to her parents to hang with a new friend and sneaking out to take surfing lessons with Kai, a half-Japanese surfer. She's definitely falling for him.

This angsty, realistic romance takes a bit of a sci-fi detour as Chloe researches parallel universes and cellular memory in an effort to understand her nightmares. Chloe also muses on the race to compete for the "best" colleges that high school readers will find relatable. Chloe's reliability as a narrator may be called into question and readers may need to stop to reread in their race to the climax in this satisfying read.

Middle Grade Monday: The Hope of Elephants by Amanda Rawson Hill

Image: Charlesbridge

The Hope of Elephants by Amanda Rawson Hill. 476 p. Charlesbridge, September 6. 2022. 9781623342597. (Review of finished copy courtesy of publisher.)

It's the penultimate Monday of my students' summer break! I'm back with my colleagues for two days of PD on Thursday. Tick tock, tick tock. Counting down to the end of summer. 

Middle Grade Monday features The Hope of Elephants by Amanda Rawson Hill. This first-person verse novel is narrated by Cass, whose father has been battling cancer all of her life. She was only one when he received his first cancer diagnosis. Then, each odd year of her life, he was diagnosed with a different kind of cancer and now, on the last day of her eleventh year, she finds out the cancer is back. But, Cass senses that her parents, who have been very open with her, are now keeping something from her.

They are. The reason why her dad has such bad luck with cancer is that he has a genetic mutation, Li-Fraumeni syndrome, where half the sufferers develop cancer before the age of forty. Cass has a 50/ 50 chance of having the mutation and of developing breast cancer before she's thirty. Now, not only is she dealing with her dad's recurrence, she has to decide whether to have her blood tested for the mutation. Does she want to know? What is the value in knowing? So she makes lists of pros and cons. While she deals with this, she's also dealing with wanting to continue playing baseball (doing so puts her dad at risk for infection), trying to find comfort in her faith, and her homeschooling assignments, which involves visiting an elephant at a nearby zoo, with whom Cass bonds.

My how I loved this book! Not only is the cover absolutely perfect and perfectly gorgeous, but I found the voice immediately compelling. Readers will get to know Cass through powerful free-verse poems that feature strong emotions and intense imagery. Don't miss reading the informative Author Note at the end. 

Tell your readers who love verse novels and sad novels to make sure to add The Hope of Elephants to their tbr (to be read) list. The book releases on September 6. Happy book birthday! Happy reading!

Fact Friday: Mushroom Rain by Laura K. Zimmerman

Image: Sleeping Bear Press

Mushroom Rain by Laura K. Zimmerman and illustrated by Jamie Green. Unpgd. Sleeping Bear Press, March, 2022. 9781534111509. (Review of finished copy borrowed from public library.)

Fact Friday features another #nevertoooldforpicturebooks entry. What are your thoughts on mushrooms? Mine? Never ate them as a kid, but was weirdly fascinated by them. As an adult, I adore the earthy goodness of lots of varieties. My own kids? Not so much. 

Mushroom Rain by Laura K. Zimmerman and illustrated by Jamie Green is a terrific introduction to these fascinating fungi. I love a good impressionistic lesson. One that piques curiosity and avoids info-dumps. Ms. Zimmerman's simple yet lyrical text conveys the variety, diversity and hardiness of mushrooms and Ms. Green's earth-toned illustrations just dazzle with their depth and detail. Backmatter is designed to look like a scrapbook or scientific notebook and contains more information about mushrooms as well as instructions for making mushroom art and suggestions for further reading.

Recommended for all libraries. Happy reading!

#tbt: The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Image: HarperCollins

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. Illustrated by Patricia Castelao. 320 p. HarperCollins Publishers, January, 2012. 9780061992259. (Own.)

Today is the penultimate Thursday of summer break for my students, but the final Thursday for me and the rest of my colleagues. We return next Thursday! 

#tbt features The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. Ivan, a Silverback Gorilla, has lived at the Big Top Mall for 9855 days, by his counting. He is a content gorilla. He spends his days watching television, eating bananas and painting. His friend, Stella, a former circus elephant lives in the next enclosure. And then there's Mack, the stray dog who is content being a stray. Ivan doesn't remember his life before poachers captured him and killed his mother. Stella has a long memory and longs to live in a zoo. When a baby elephant, named Ruby comes to live at the mall, Stella is determined to get them out.

The One and Only Ivan is a work of fiction based on a true story. There really was an Ivan who lived in a mall and painted. It was published in January of 2012 and won the 2013 Newbery Medal. In 2014, the book was optioned for film and the live-action adaptation released to Disney + in 2020 instead of to theaters due to the pandemic. Also in 2020, Ms. Applegate published a companion/ sequel called The One and Only Bob. On August 21, Ms. Applegate posted a photo of Ivan on her Twitter page to mark the tenth anniversary of his death.

I've read the book both with my ears and with my eyes several times and cried each time. Happy reading!

Tardy Teen Tuesday and Audiobook Review: Flip the Script by Lyla Lee

  

Image: HarperCollins 

Flip the Script by Lyla Lee. Unabridged audiobook, ~8 hours. Read by Greta Jung. Katherine Tegen Books/ HarperCollins, May, 2022. 9780063250260. (Review of e-audio borrowed from public library.)

Sorry about this late posting. I sat down to write this post so many times yesterday and got sidetracked by anxiety and other responsibilities. 

Teen Tuesday features Flip the Script by Lyla Lee. Sixteen-year-old Hana moved from the U.S. to Seoul so that she could pursue a career in acting, specifically K-drama. She landed a starring role opposite a swoony K-pop star turned actor, Bryan Yoon. Though the two have a lot of on-screen chemistry, the ratings weren't sufficiently high enough for the producers, who concoct a fake-dating scenario to boost them. Oh, and they also re-wrote the script to introduce a love triangle and hired a frenemy of Hana's to play the role.

This was mindless fun. I learned a fair amount about K-drama. I think I would've enjoyed it more had I read with my eyes. I found the narration stilted, particularly the male voices. There were these weird pauses before each male spoke, almost as if the narrator were trying to call the voice up. This is strange to me because the same narrator did the author's debut, I'll Be the One, and I enjoyed her performance then.

Waiting on Wednesday: The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander

Image: Hachette Book Group

The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander. 432 p. Little Brown Young Readers, September 27, 2022. 9780316441865.

Happy penultimate Wednesday of summer break! Waiting on Wednesday features The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander. Mr. Alexander's verse novels are popular at my school. His debut MG, The Crossover won the Newbery Award and is basically checked out all school year. Here's the publisher synopsis for The Door of No Return, which is due out on September 27.

Publisher synopsis: Dreams are today’s answers for tomorrow’s questions.

11-year-old Kofi Offin dreams of water. Its mysterious, immersive quality. The rich, earthy scent of the current. The clearness, its urgent whisper that beckons with promises and secrets…

Kofi has heard the call on the banks of Upper Kwanta, in the village where he lives. He loves these things above all else: his family, the fireside tales of his father’s father, a girl named Ama, and, of course, swimming. Some say he moves like a minnow, not just an ordinary boy so he’s hoping to finally prove himself in front of Ama and his friends in a swimming contest against his older, stronger cousin.

But before this can take place, a festival comes to the villages of Upper and Lower Kwanta and Kofi’s brother is chosen to represent Upper Kwanta in the wrestling contest. Encircled by cheering spectators and sounding drums, the two wrestlers from different villages kneel, ready to fight.

You are only fine, until you are not.

The match is over before it has barely begun, when the unthinkable–a sudden death–occurs…

The river does not care how grown you are.

As his world turns upside down, Kofi soon ends up in a fight for his life. What happens next will send him on a harrowing journey across land and sea, and away from everything he loves.