The Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand

A few months ago, my friends' son asked this question: "Dad, is a univerthity where you go to learn to be a ninja, a knight or....a librarian?" Oh, my heart grew like the Grinch's.  And I had just learned this book was coming out, so I could say "Yes...oh yes."

The Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand by Jen Swann Downey is a fun, middle-grade book.  When Dorrie and her brother Marcus chase a pet mongoose into their local library, they find something pretty amazing: Petrarch's Library, the headquarters of a secret society of ninja librarians.  

Their mission is to protect those whose words get them into trouble, anywhere in the world and at any time in history.  People like Socrates.

Petrarch's Library can stop anywhere there's trouble, like the Spanish Inquisition, or ancient Greece. Dorrie really wants to join the society, and learn to fight with a real sword! But when she and Marcus become suspected of being traitors, can they clear their names before the only passage back to the twenty-first century closes forever?

Oh, I loved this.  Amazing for word nerds :-D  a) I love a book with a strong, female character; b) I love books about libraries, because, well...obvi; c) it's also good for guys, what with all the sword fights, and history and stuff.

It's kind of like the manga Library Wars (which is a favorite of mine)- fighting censorship and all.  But, like Library Wars mixed with The Phantom Tollbooth.  Has anyone read that?  It's one of my all-time favorite books, and in the city of Dictionopolis the characters can give a "speech" before dinner...and then they eat their words.  In Ninja Librarians, characters can read passages out of books to create their meals.  No lie, I used to stay up dreaming of what my speech would be...

It also, with all its time-traveling goodness, introduces various historical characters: Socrates, Saul/Paul, Timotheus, the real Cyrano de Bergerac, and others!

Entertaining and educational historical(ish) fiction for middle-grades!

The Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand is published by Sourcebooks Jabberwocky.  Review copy graciously provided by the publisher.  

Released: 04.15.2014

Hidden: A Child's Story of the Holocaust

Some of my favorite stories growing up were the ones my grandfather told about when he was a boy.  He grew up in Milwaukee in the 20s and 30s, and we got to hear about getting ice from the ice truck- or the butcher for whom they delivered sausages, who offered two salami slices as payment (instead of the usual one).  He then took the one slice, and cut it in half.  Much can be said about what we learn listening to these stories.

A sad, beautiful look at the Holocaust from the perspective of young Dounia.  Hidden, by Loic Dauvillier, Marc Lizano & Greg Salsedo, starts with a young girl listening to her grandmother's story (a story the girl's father, Dounia's son, has never heard).

Dounia was a young Jewish girl in Paris.  As Nazis moved in, Dounia hid.  A series of neighbors and friends kept her alive, as her family was taken away to the concentration camps.

I think that's the shortest summary I've ever written, and while the story seems simple from what I just wrote (and it's a mere 88 pages)- it's so much more.  

The pictures give such an innocent, confused perspective.  It's almost as if you're peeking in on Dounia's life. The warm colors throughout, the glow of a candle or a fire in a dark room, also give the feel you're privy to something quiet and important.

The characters themselves are simply drawn- circles, lines, and dots.  Similar to those a child would draw, telling a story.  This adds to the childlike atmosphere of the book.

Dounia's family and friends are so scared, so brave.  It was heartbreaking from the beginning, when Dounia's father gives her her yellow star.  He tells her that they are playing; that they are a family of sheriffs.  It was reminiscent of Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful.

The escape to the farm was symbolic more than just being free- as farms are about growth and new life.  It is there that Dounia also gets a chance at a new life.

Speaking of Dounia's new life, the ending is happy.  I'll say that much.  But it is also sad.  When someone has been through something this terrible, this life-altering...it is so hard to keep it inside.  It is hard for the person who won't, or can't, share.  And it is hard for those around them, who know there is something more.  Who want to help ease that burden, or see where the person is coming from.

This graphic novel is so touching, so beautiful.  It shows the Holocaust in France (which, sadly, I tend to forget about France), and shows it in a way that's accessible to young readers.  It could open a lot of conversation about that whole period.  

I highly recommend this.  Read it by yourself, read it with your child...read it with tissues.  

*Hidden is being released in April as a tribute to Holocaust Remembrance Week.






Hidden is published by :01 First Second Books.  Review Copy graciously provided by the publisher.
Release Date: 04.01.2014

Dust of Eden

I like novels; I like poetry.  I'm not the biggest fan of novels in verse.  

"Well, then, Sarah- why would you REQUEST a novel in verse? Not even an e-galley, but went out of your way to contact the publisher to ask for a hard copy?"

Because...this one is about a part of US History that's interested me ever since I first learned about it.

Mariko Nagai's Dust of Eden is about thirteen-year-old Mina Masakao Tagawa.  In December of 1941 she and her Japanese-American family are forced to leave their home in Seattle to live in an internment camp in Idaho for the next three years.  Through this time, Mina writes to her best friend Jamie, connects with her grandfather, and watches a struggle with her brother.

I don't know if it's because I have to concentrate harder or what...I tend to only read them when it's required.  In this case, it was worth it to slow down.  It made the reading that much more powerful.  In slowing down, I was able to make connections where I may not have before. 

I'm sure the dust aspect had something to do with it, but I kept getting thrown back into The Grapes of Wrath- which of course meant I was looking for parallels and symbolism at every line.  I found it ;-)   For example, her grandfather trying so hard to grow his roses- searching for beauty in the dust.  There's also a moment for the brother, overseas in the military, that makes the reader pause and think.

As a historical fiction, Nagai brings in true events.  There's a significant moment where a man gets shot by guards at the camp for trying to escape- the first victim, Ichiro Shimoda.  I'm sure there are other things, but that one stood out most.

It was also interesting to note the situation the men in the internment camps were put in- a conflicting position on whether to join the military for their country, but their country that put them in these camps.  

A few months ago I read The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee.  One of the things I found most interesting was the evolution of the fortune cookie, especially since they had been invented by the Japanese.  What she found was that when the Japanese were moved to the camps, the Chinese "took over" and that is when the Chinese writing showed up on the slips of paper.  Little things like that make you want to learn more about this part of our history- uncomfortable as it may be.

A powerful book for middle-grades.  It's a great introduction to the subject, and could start a lot of good conversations.





Dust of Eden is published by Albert Whitman & Company.  Review copy graciously provided by the publisher.
Release Date: 03.01.2014

Boxers & Saints (Part I)

Confession- when I get excited, I do this with my hands:

And this is exactly what happened when I got my hands on the review copies of Gene Luen Yang's Boxers & Saints two-volume graphic novel.  

When I was getting my MLIS, Mr. Yang's American Born Chinese was required for my YA lit class.  I read it twice in as many days.  I still grab it when I see it on the shelf at the library, and flip through at my desk or on breaks.  I just love the way this man writes and illustrates.

Boxers is the first in a two-volume graphic novel series about the Boxer Rebellion.  It is the story of Little Bao, a young man in 1898 China, who has had enough of missionaries and foreign soldiers hurting those he cares about.  A major breaking point leads him to form a band of common villagers. He trains them in kung fu- they are called Boxers (or "The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists").  They make their way to Peking, fighting to free China from the "foreign devils."

Little Bao's journey is one side of this historical uprising.  Yang's narration and drawing is...magical.  I had actually never heard of the Boxer Rebellion.  Well, I may have heard of it, but hadn't looked into it at all.  I loved the way this graphic novel wove together history, folklore, religion, and traditional arts.  The overlying colors are incredibly neutral, and then Chinese Gods and Goddesses, opera characters, and puppets come out in shockingly bright, beautiful colors.  It's this awesome punch that really shows what Little Bao is feeling.  There is laughter and heartbreak, all told beautifully.  It makes a pretty rough topic accessible to young adults.

Plus, there's a climactic library scene.

The main character's name has a place in my heart as well.  My sister spent a few months in China, and every morning went to the same bakery and ordered the same thing: Gai Mei Bao.  To the point where the ladies started calling her Bao (it is also one of the few things I can actually order in Chinese [and the extent of my Chinese is absolutely just food]).

I can't speak enough praise about this graphic novel.  I enjoy anything that makes me want to learn more about...anything.  Like how Mirror, Mirror made me go on a Borgia stint.  I have a feeling I will be researching this for the next few weeks.

I'll be reviewing Boxers' parallel novel, Saints, next.




Boxers is published by :01 First Second.  Digital Copy provided by NetGalley.
Release Date:  09.10.13