Children's book reviews, all age comic books, Kidlit, mglit, movies, entertainment and parenting
This is quite the adventure, I thought to myself as I was one chapter into reading Socks & Secret Quests: The Wandering Shop. That further got me thinking of how few books I read that can truly be called “an adventure”. There are a majority of books that are entertaining, and some that are great, but “an adventure”, that all-but reads itself is quite rare. Socks & Secret Quests: The Wandering Shop so perfectly nails the it factor that some books lack.
The Traitors: The Official Search & Find is quite the ironic book. We misplaced it in our office, and couldn’t find it for weeks. I finally dedicated time to locate it and viola, the book decided to make it known. This is important for the context of the review because we stopped watching reality television a while ago, and it’s a testament to the fact that I need to straighten up the office.
The Battle of Attu. As I started The Forgotten War: A World War II Battle on American Soil, it was a battle that sounded familiar, but I could’ve easily been confusing it with something else. Attu does sound very Star Wars. The Forgotten War introduces Attu in the first chapter as American and Japanese troops are engaged in combat in WWII. An omnipresent narrator starts the book with our main character Charlie, in the midst of a battle on the island of Attu. Attu is part of the Aleutian Islands. This chain of islands is the spiraling strand of land that spews off of Alaska. It’s a remote location that teeters into the North Pacific Ocean like a kid scared to jump from the high dive at the swimming pool.
World Without Birds is not what you’re probably thinking it is. Its title, World Without Birds: How to Save Our Planet One Bird at a Time could infer to some people that the book is impossibly pessimistic. The illustration on the cover expands that hypothesis by showing a factory in the bottom sixth that’s belching green pollution. There’s a lonely, white bird flying to the right as if they’re trying to escape the gunk that’s ruining their home, leading to a world without birds. It looks like that. Adults and older readers need to read the introduction first. I know, you never read the introduction, but the one in World Without Birds sets up the book as a series of measured short stories.
Last year I was teaching ELA in high school. One of my writing prompts was to write a short story from the perspective of an inanimate object. I had a photograph of a streetcar, an automobile, advertising sign and more. All of the photos, plus our detailed speech about the essay, had enough details to inspire those high school kids to write something with a modicum of meaning, creativity or heart. Olivetti was an mglit book that we really enjoyed. Author Allie Millington’s book, Trunk No. 3 follows a similar set up. Does it payoff as efficiently as a story from the perspective of a typewriter?
It’s tough to introduce worlds to audiences. What makes a young reader want to explore a new book with unknown characters? In my over simplified mind I view the world of authors as being similar to cartoonists. Assuming that all of the work is done under the same name, the content needs to have enough of the footprint that brought the audience, without being repetitive. I know, there are many adult authors who defy that mantra and flaunt the sheer volume of published or co-authored books. The Intergalactics is the first book in a series by Erik Jon Slangerup. It’s mglit that introduces young readers to aliens, who are surprisingly like us, despite being unique and in fantastical situations.
Children’s books are not automatically guaranteed a sequel. Granted, many, if not all of them, aspire to have a lengthy run, but there are some stories and books that just peter out on the literary vine. This is not something that Game of Pets: The Boy Who Knew Too Much, by Aaron Blabey, has to worry about. Elementary school-age children know Blabey from his work on The Bad Guys. That book series was one of the few that our youngest child would pick up, and has since been made into movies that probably do the same thing to kids in that demographic. Game of Pets is effortless to read. It’s a world-building start to a funny, science-fiction world that ages eight and up will want to explore.
We haven’t seen Gordon. Have You Seen Axel? is the sequel to Have You Seen Gordon?. Coincidentally, you can see Axel in the mirrored sunglasses that Gordon is wearing on Have You Seen Axel?. Gordon is a panda. He looks quite dapper and cool on the book’s cover. Have You Seen Axel? is a seek-and-find book. These types of books by their very nature are intended for elementary school-aged students and this one is no exception.
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