Ellen PotterKirja-arvosteluja

For thoughts on this being "inspired by The Secret Garden" see my review of [b:The Secret Garden|2998|The Secret Garden|Frances Hodgson Burnett|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327873635s/2998.jpg|3186437].

Things I will remember about this book: the ship flying through the trees, violent waves crashing together to make a calm surface, putting your ear to ground to listen for life, the way Ellen Potter's narrator talks to the reader at the very beginning and end of the story.

It's clever, funny, dark, and touching. It's Lemony Snicket and Roald Dahl and dare I say a touch of the ol' J.K. And it's over too soon! The Kneebone Boy straight charmed the crap out of me. I wanted it to be longer, or at least be the start of a series, but I believe it's just an awesome little standalone gem I'll have to reread soon and often.

This is the story of the three Hardscrabble siblings: Otto, Lucia, and Max. These kids are outcasts in their hometown of Little Tunks because their mother disappeared and the whole town suspects Otto killed her and their father buried her in the backyard. But no one really knows what happened to the mother. She may be dead. She may have been kidnapped. It's been long years since anyone's seen her and the Hardscrabbles have precious few memories of her.

Then one day their father has to go on one of his portrait-painting trips and leaves the kids with their cousin in London. Only it turns out their cousin isn't in London and they are stranded. Unable to reach their father, they decide to seek out their mysterious Great-Aunt Haddie in a town called Snoring-by-the-Sea. I will not give away any more plot, which is quite twisty, but I will go on a little about why I loved this so much.

First and foremost, the narration is outstanding. We're told in the beginning that one of the Hardscrabble siblings is writing the story, but can't say who it is: "They said it's because the story belongs to all three of us, and I suppose they're right, but it seems unfair since I'm doing all the work. No one can stop you from guessing though." It's pretty easy to guess who the narrator is, but it's also really fun that the story is told in both third and first person. It has great flow, but can be broken up by asides about the writing of the story itself (very [b:Series of Unfortunate Events|78411|The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #1)|Lemony Snicket|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170942131s/78411.jpg|1069597]--if you didn't like those books, you probably won't like this). The asides are very funny and very meta. If I were more industrious I'd quote a long passage from page 87 that illustrates how great they are, but I'm not feeling industrious, so you're just going to have to read the book.

The relationship between the siblings is another of this book's strong suits. To me, it was so real. Each of the siblings' personalities seemed molded by their siblings. Otto doesn't speak, but communicates with a secret sign language he developed with Lucia. Max is just ten years old, but hyper-intelligent, so the very proud Lucia is often upstaged by him, which just makes her act even more haughty. They fight childishly. They bond touchingly. It's a dynamic that's familiar to most people, but not often captured so well in an adventure like this book.

One last compliment for Ms. Potter: I believe you are American, so bully for you for writing in so many cheeky Britishisms. I mean, I'm American too, so I can't truly say that you got them all right. But it sounded super awesomely British to me. The audio book could be great.

In the end, this book is about what all good adventure books are about: danger and discovery. And, as the narrator says, "Here is my most important message to you: All great adventures have moments that are really crap." Or, in a more philosophical vein: "You have to work really hard at being astonished by life."

One last thing: the cover art is perfect. Do you see how the cat has extra toes?

I didn't enjoy this very much because one of the main plot points was completely unbelievable, while the rest of it was realistic. Basically, it's about a 12-year-old overweight boy who has to deal with bullies every day at school. At the same time, he's working on an invention to deal with a separate sadness in his life.

The are several interesting plot twists in the story, but they all came fast in the end. Potter's style is to introduce intriguing details and then wait a few chapters to explain them. For example, I was interested in the main character's sister, named Jeremy. Potter later reveals that her real name is Caitlin, but she changed it when she joined a group at school called GWAB, which we learn later stands for Girls Who Are Boys.

So this book's main selling point is that nothing in the story is what it seems. Even the title, which seems to be about Owen's weight problem, is really about something completely different.

THIS is the book I thought I was getting when I picked up the other Olivia Kidney book. It's shorter and much better written. I was able to understand much more clearly what the author was trying to get at. I liked the illustrations. Character introductions and interactions were sufficiently well-done. The book's title content doesn't show up until the seventy percent mark in the ebook I read, and trreats its subject matter incredibly lightly and pure twee. It's sugar spun candy in terms of vocabulary, description and content. I expected that, though, as this is for children who are not yet in middle school. I mean, Olivia and her friends are in their tweens but the writing level is much younger than that. This book could have been far darker with totally different character motives and plot and setting, but with the same "kids learn to die in their dreams." The possibility of that is what got me interested in the first place. The book, though, never pretends to be anything than what it is. When I finished it, I felt content and okay, unlike when I finally finished the freaking other book I read in the series. The interesting book I was waiting for had still not come in. Sigh.

I did not realize this was the second book in the series. I had no idea this was even a series. The book certainly didn't let me know. I thought it was just really weird exposition. I was super bored during this, but read it while waiting for a more interesting book to come in. Over and over again, I was missing sorely needed context to understand the characters, plot and world-building. This book assumed -hardcore- that people had read, understood and liked the first one. I had no idea the first one even existed. I felt like I was missing several jokes in this, and many allegories. I was not the intended audience at all. The secret under the city doesn't come into play until halfway through the book or so, when she and her friends resolve to go looking for it. The pacing is terrible. The entire book reads like a fifth grader rushed through their book report homework half an hour before they needed to leave for the school day; the book report being "recapping the first book and folding that information neatly into the second book to bring readers up to speed." Lame. I finished this book, and the interesting one I waited on had not come in yet. Sigh.

I forgot until about halfway through this book that it was a retelling of The Secret Garden, which I adored, and re-read a million times as a kid. By the time I got to that halfway point, I was already really enjoying this book. The telling of it is quiet, spare, and beautiful, but the characters and the scenes don't feel sketched in at all - the story is living and breathing. I think the way Roo's story met up with this other, more familiar story was really well done. Maybe I was just disappointed that the story had to end at all, but the only negative thing I can say is that it did end a bit too abruptly. Once the secret garden story was fully realized, it seemed like a crutch for any resolution that needed to happen in Roo's story, and the characters got short-changed in a very hasty, feel-good conclusion.

This book was the greatest. It reminded me of lots of other books - it was a little Lemony Snicket-ish, a little Shirley Jackson-ish, and a little bit of other things, but it still stood on it's own two legs. The characters are clever and quirky, but the greatest thing about it is that it's not fantasy. As bizarre and unexpected as the story is, it's really perfectly realistic. You come to realize the bizarreness isn't just to be cute or entertaining, it's because... well, I can't say or I'd give it away, but all in all the ending is surprisingly moving and good. I'll have to remember to recommend it to fans of the Emily the Strange novels.

It took me a while to get into this book (probably my brain's fault) but once I did, I didn't want to put it down. I assume that this is the start of a series or duology based on how the story ended and I am very much looking forward to reading the next book. I would love to see more of River's story and what he has been doing, what he has been through. I also want to see how the club members progress with their skills. Does Tom come back? Can they get River back?
Highly recommend.

Piper Green is an adorably written, realistic, and relatable new character for early readers. Every reader will wish they had a fairy tree of their own.

Note: I received a digital galley of this book through NetGalley.

This second installment in the Piper Green series for early readers provides a good lesson on friendship, cooperation, and finding creative solutions to problems. Readers will wish they had a fairy tree of their own or a chance to take a lobster boat (with freshly baked pastries!) to school each morning.

Note: I received a digital galley of this book through NetGalley.

Not bad. Didn't grab me the way I usually like, but I'm definitely recommending it to my nieces and nephews--I especially like the theme of "letting go." Too many people lack that skill.

In the final volume of the Olivia Kidney trilogy, Olivia tries to help her miniature friend Frannie find a secret plant that would allow her to finally grow; help Ansel Plover keep his job and his home (which is also Olivia's home); help a group of troublesome ghost children move on to the spirit world; and help herself learn that it's okay if she likes Reuben "like that," and that yes, it is time for her to start wearing a bra.
Olivia is always a likable character, and the Roald Dahl-like weirdness of the other inhabitants of her world are entertaining. This final book was better organized than the second, but not quite as good as the first.
(I can't imagine why the publisher changed artists for the third volume. The first two volumes had covers and a few illustrations inside by Peter H Reynolds, which were wonderful. This final volume ditches the illustrations within the book entirely, and has a pretty dreadful cover by a greatly inferior illustrator.)½

There are some truly delightful moments in this book, usually when Olivia has encounters with the highly eccentric adults she tends to meet, most of whom seem to have stepped out of Roald Dahl novels. The humor is Dahl-like. But the overall story isn't as successful as those moments. The parts are better than the whole.
Olivia can see and communicate with ghosts. In this volume, she gets lured into an "Exit Academy" which trains people who are about to die, how to die, while they are still alive and dreaming. It's confusing, and doesn't hold up well to theological or philosophical scrutiny, which I suppose the reader isn't really intended to give it anyway.

An adorable book about Sasquatches and humans interacting. Can teach some lessons about friendship and caring for others.

Olivia is a sad, lonely child. Once the youngest child in a family of four, her older brother died, her mother left, and now she lives with only her father. Her father is a building superintendent, but one who is not very good at the job, so they have to move frequently.
Olivia has to see the school counselor regularly because she behaves strangely and her father is worried about her. But in the new building where she is living, there is one boy who seems really nice, who might become a friend. However, everyone else in the building is absolutely nutty... they all seem like they could be characters from "A Series of Unfortunate Events." Same type of outlandish, not very nice people the children in that series were always encountering.
Accept the weird, and accept the supernatural, which is an element of the book, and you can enjoy an entertaining, though uneven, tale.½

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[b:The Secret Garden|2998|The Secret Garden|Frances Hodgson Burnett|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327873635s/2998.jpg|3186437] was one of my very favorite books growing up, so I had high hopes for this book. It's well written, and I can definitely see recommending it to kids/teens. But for me, the parts of The Secret Garden that I loved didn't quite translate here. Good book for book recs, just not my taste.

A cute early reader book about what happens at sasquatch school when a human boy comes to join the class. This is a delightful read for 1st & 2nd graders

Owen Birnbaum is a kid with a story, but all most of his classmates know about him is that he’s fat. His weight combined with his way-above-average intelligence makes him a target for bullies; in fact, even his P.E. coach looks for opportunities to humiliate him in front of his peers. Owen’s refuge is his home, where his mom and sister love him no matter what, where his neighbor Nima is a true friend, and where he can hole up in his room for hours at a time to work on his massive electronic project called Nemesis.

Owen is convinced that if he gets Nemesis to work, it will show him exactly what he needs to know to fix his life. But a small mystery (missing Oreos) blows up into a complicated and unexpected turn of events, leading Owen to consider ideas he hasn’t thought about before, both about himself and about the people close to him.

The reader has another question to solve as well – what in the world has happened to Owen in his past? Clues surface a little bit at a time so that the story reads like a good mystery.

Grown-up portion of review:

Didn't include this on the official library review, but one of the characters in the book can be interpreted in a couple different but important ways. Owen's sister Caitlin goes by Jeremy, dresses like a boy, and is a member of a club called GWAB - Girls Who Are Boys. In other reviews, this has been described as a group of "tomboys;" and certainly little girls who prefer clothes and activities traditionally associated with boys could stand to see themselves represented a little more often and more positively in books. But another interpretation, and I don't think I'm reaching here, is that the GWAB members are transgendered. The writing is ambiguous about the specifics, which I think is a positive thing. Girls of all stripes will see themselves in this story, accepted and courageous and expanding the definition of normal.

This is the first book in a new series about Piper Green. She lives on a remote island (Peek-a-Boo Island) off the coast of Maine where there are no schools. Eight kids ride a lobster boat to Mink Island to attend school through eighth grade. After the eighth grade, you must board on the island for highschool. When her brother goes away to boarding school, she misses him terribly. In order to keep him close, she decides to wear his earmuffs, all day, all the time, no matter what. On the first day of school, she discovers that she will have a new teacher for grade 2/3 and she looks like a princess. Once Piper meets her, she decides she is anything but a princess, especially when she tells Piper that she can not wear her earmuffs in school. When Piper hides on Peek-a-Boo Island rather than go to school, she discovers a magic tree that requires gifts in order to give favours of its own, she has a choice to make.

This is a new series with a spunky main character. It is an easy to read chapter book for young readers or could be a read aloud for young students and children. The pictures are cute and provide a nice accompaniment for the text.

Thank you Netgalley for Random House Children's for this digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

In the second book in this series, we see more of Piper, that spunky second grade student, who jumps into everything feet first, without thinking about what might happen. Piper's second-grade year isn't off to a very good start, especially when a new girl joins their class. Not only does she not stop talking, but she's allergic to bunnies, which means their class pet has to be given away. Piper is determined to scare off this girl, but without thinking about the consequences. The grown-ups (Piper's parents and teacher) might sigh a lot when Piper gets into some of the situations she does, but they help guide her through them. I like that it has just enough adult support to guide her towards solving the problems, but she makes the decisions.

Great book that not only teaches basic life lessons/manners throughout the story but also has a "fairy" aspect that plays on the children's imaginations! Easy read that was very well written with cute illustrations. This book needs to be in every second grade classroom.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Children's for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Easy reader chapter book

This had very strong reviews and I've liked some of Ellen Potter's books, but I'll be honest; it just didn't click for me.

Hugo, a Sasquatch, lives in a vast cave system with his family and friends. He's a "squidge" or child, and still learning how his world works. In the Sasquatchs' world, humans are terrifying monsters, always to be avoided and feared. Hugo and the other squidges learn to sneak and hide, to identify forest foods to eat, and eventually they will perform the Acts of Bravery and become grown-up! Or, at least, slightly bigger squidges.

But Hugo is curious about the Big Wide World. When he messes up their sneaking practice and endangers the whole class, he retreats to his room and, on a whim, sends a message out via a toy boat and the stream that runs through his cave. And a human boy writes back. Through their letters, the two become friends. But can a human and a Sasquatch be friends? And what will happen when there's a misunderstanding and the human boy won't talk to Hugo anymore? Even more scary, what if his family finds out?

I saw the illustrations in a galley, so they were unfinished. They look like quirky, black and white sketches. Both Hugo and the human boy, Boone, have white skin. It's a gentle, sweet read, emphasizing the meeting between two cultures and how both Hugo and Boone are afraid of each other until they meet and discover that there are good and bad Humans and good and bad Sasquatches.

What bothers me about this though, is that it doesn't correspond to actual history. Whatever your feelings about the existence (or otherwise) or Sasquatch, Bigfoot, and other crypto-creatures, historically when "primitive" cultures have met "civilized" cultures it almost universally ended badly for the primitive culture. So the Sasquatch's fear of humans is, actually, really well-founded. Ultimately, I felt like this was one of those "if we just sit down and talk we'll all get along" fantasies that overlooks the very real and tragic experiences of many marginalized cultures over many years.

Verdict: I'm not opposed to books that engender tolerance of other cultures in children, and I've no problem with Sasquatch (although I personally think that if it existed they would have found poop). But this just left a bad taste in my mouth, especially since both characters were, rather blindingly, white (even if one is covered mostly in fur). For funny Bigfoot stories stick to the Yeti Files by Kevin Sherry and for books that introduce children to other cultures, try books that actually feature real people with real experiences.

ISBN: 9781419728594; Published 2018 by Amulet/Abrams; ARC provided by publisher for review

The three Hardscrabble children, Otto, Lucia, and Max, live in the town of Little Trunks. For most of their lives they've been the "weird" children that everyone whispers about and no one wants to be friends with. Otto, the eldest Hardscrabble kid, began wearing a scarf on a daily basis after their mother disappeared. He also hasn't spoken a word aloud since then - instead, he invented a personal sign language that only Lucia knows fluently, Max can puzzle out, and their father can't hardly understand.

Lucia, the middle child, acts confident but is actually very lonely. Otto is her best and closest friend. Max, the youngest, is the most outgoing of the Hardscrabble children, but even his best efforts aren't enough to overcome the family's reputation and earn him a non-Hardscrabble friend. He's the most observant of the children, always carefully noting everything going on around him and thinking through what it all means.

The kids' father, Casper, paints deposed royalty. When he's suddenly called out to paint another portrait, he sends the children to stay with his cousin Angela in London. Unfortunately, Angela turns out to actually be on vacation elsewhere. The children really don't want to go back to Little Trunks, so they decide to go visit their Great-Aunt Haddie, who they've never met before. And so begins their adventure.

I had been wanting to read this for ages, almost entirely because I loved the cover artwork. I'm easily drawn in by illustrated covers. I knew very little about the story but assumed that it would have at least a few fantasy elements. This assumption was supported by the Goodreads users who tagged it as "Fantasy" and Potter's own writing, which kept hinting that fantastical things would happen. At the very least, there was supposed to be a ghost.

I'll just get this out of the way right now: I don't consider this to be a fantasy novel, and my expectation that it was probably hurt my opinion of the overall story. It's really more of a mixture of mystery and adventure.

The kids' desire to avoid going back to Little Trunks resulted in them accidentally investigating the mystery of their mother's disappearance. The way Potter wrote about Otto's quirks as being defense mechanisms was very intriguing and part of what kept me reading, even though the book's pacing and efforts at foreshadowing annoyed me. I also felt for Lucia, who both protected and depended upon Otto, and was grateful for Max, whose observations and deductions kept the story from lurching to a standstill.

The pacing, as I said, really didn't work for me. I was also a bit impatient with Potter's choice of narrator. The book was written as though it was a story being told by one of the Hardscrabble kids. The narrator never revealed their name, but various clues made it clear who it was. It was never clear to me why the author did things this way, and there were a few moments when I was distracted by thoughts of how surprisingly good this child seemed to be at guessing adults' ages. I don't know about you, but when I was as young as the Hardscrabble kids, my knowledge of adult ages was limited to "as old as my parents," "probably younger than my parents," and various levels of "pretty old."

It didn't take me too long to decide that I wasn't going to love this book, but, as the pieces of the Hardscrabble children's past started to come together, I did at least want to know how things would turn out. My first impression of the ending was that it was okay, but a bit dissatisfying. As I thought about it some more, however, I began to get angry.

First, what is up with stories in which parents lie to and essentially betray their children for years and who are then forgiven by their children after a few minutes of explanations and apologies? Casper let his kids think that their mother had abandoned them, or had maybe even been killed. Heck, what about the rumors that Otto had killed his own mother? By not telling the truth, Casper let those flourish. I wouldn't have blamed a single one of the Hardscrabble kids for crying and screaming at him, or refusing to talk to him ever again.

Second, the way Potter wrote about mental illness was crap. Casper told his children that he'd taken their mother to multiple places to try to get her some help "but she was miserable at all of them. They pumped her body full of medication." (272) So she was miserable at all these places, but supposedly not miserable while held captive in a castle-turned-mental-hospital, kept from her children, who even Casper admitted she probably still loved even if she didn't know who they were? And then there was Potter's way of writing about medication. There was no mention of side-effects or issues with finding the correct dosage. Instead, Potter made it seem like it was the very act of trying to medicate Tessa that was bad. So what did Casper do instead? He took her to a place where no apparent effort was made to treat Tessa at all.

The Kneebone Boy had some good points. I liked the Hardscrabble children, and I thought the castle Haddie was staying at was pretty cool, even though the people who built it were awful. However, it took way too long for the book's focus to become apparent, and the more I think about the ending the more awful it feels.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)