Cardboard, by Doug TenNapel

I was expecting to like Cardboard, by Doug TenNapel, a lot more than I actually did. I had one of his other graphic novels, Ghostopolis, in my classroom library, and it was such a crowd-pleaser that it actually went missing. 

Cardboard is about a boy named Cam who lives with his father; his mother is dead. Cam's father is struggling to find work, and the novel opens as he tries to find something to buy for Cam's birthday. He winds up getting him a cardboard box, being convinced by the toy-peddler that it is a gift that will inspire the imagination and lead to father-son bonding. It's pretty predictable when the toy seller gives the two rules of the cardboard (you can't have more and you have to return the scraps) that something is up with this particular box of cardboard. Sure enough, it turns out to be magic, and Cam and his father ultimately find themselves working against an evil neighborhood boy, Marcus, to keep their find from turning evil. 

I did really like the premise of the graphic novel, but I felt like there were too many facets to the story that were underdeveloped. For instance, Cam and his father both mourn the mother, but it's kind of brushed on and left. Also, Marcus - the evil neighbor - mentions that he has bipolar disorder, but then that's dropped. 

I do think that this book will be popular in my classroom, I guess I'm just not a huge graphic novel fan. 

Also Try: Ghostopolis and Bad Island, by Doug TenNapel; Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol

Rump: The True Story of Rumpelstiltskin, by Liesl Shurtliff

Rump is the "true" story of Rumpelstiltskin. Rump is a small boy - literally, he's 12 years old and has not grown in a few years - who lives with his grandmother. He knows that "Rump" is only part of his name, but his mother died in childbirth before she could get out the rest of his name. So, aside from being made fun of for his size, he's gone through life being picked on for his name, which means butt.

The people of Rump's town, The Mountain, put a lot of stock in names and spend lots of time dreaming up children's names. In fact, they spend so much time on baby names that they don't name anything else - not animals, locations, nothing. So you can see how this presents a huge problem for Rump.

Life in The Mountain is largely based on gold mining, and the harvest has been minimal, so families are left hungry. Rump finds an interesting way to combat this hunger when he learns that he can spin straw into gold. Of course, though, this revelation makes more trouble than it appears to be worth. Will Rump be able to sort out his new-found talent and better his life and the lives of the people around him?

I liked Rump, and felt drawn in from the beginning, but I didn't love it. I did like the opening pages in which Rump describes his unfortunate name. He says:

"Your name is full of meaning and power. Your name is your destiny." (2).

I just loved this idea, and found myself thinking a lot about the importance of names: how sometimes a person's name doesn't fit their personality, or their appearance, and about the amount of time that people even in this country, spend poring over baby name books. It's an interesting topic to ponder.

Also Try: The Grimm Legacy, by Polly Shulman; A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz

Beyonders: A World Without Heroes, by Brandon Mull

A World Without Heroes, the first installment of the "Beyonders" series, is not the type of book I usually read, but I'm trying to read more 'boy' books, and I really liked it.



A World Without Heroes is about Jason, an average kid from Colorado who strangely finds himself landing in a strange world called 'Lyrian' after being swallowed by a hippopotamus. Lyrian is nothing like Colorado, and almost seems like a transport back in time. It's not though, and the people of Lyrian (including wizards, 'displacers' - people who can separate parts of their body - and other magical types) are generally unhappy under the rule of their current emperor, Maldor. Maldor also happens to hate "Beyonders," or people from outside of Lyrian. It is said that there is a secret word that can kill Maldor and restore order to the kingdom, but finding this word is quite the undertaking. Jason begins the quest, thinking that eliminating Maldor is his only hope for returning home, to the Beyond. He meets up with another girl who was randomly transported to Lyrian along the way, and their quest is full of twists and turns.

I really liked the idea of the secret "Key Word" and the revelation of the word syllable-by-syllable throughout the quest. It kept me wondering and wanting to read more, even though at sometimes I thought the book got a little boring. The world of Lyrian was really well-imagined, though, and I'm curious to see what happens in the next book!

The Apothecary, by Maile Meloy

The Apothecary, Maile Meloy's first novel for middle grades, wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but it was a pretty good read.

The Apothecary is set in 1952, during the Cold War, when Americans were terrified of a Communist presence, and nations around the world began experimenting with new types of weaponry, namely the atomic bomb. Main character Janie Scott's parents are put on an FBI Communist Watch List, and they find that their only hope of living a semi-normal life is by moving out of the country. So, they relocate to London, leaving Janie feeling uprooted, out of sorts, and mildly depressed. All of that changes when Janie meets a mysterious classmate named Benjamin Burrows - he sets himself apart during a bomb drill when he refuses to "duck and cover," saying that in a real bomb drill, this tiny precaution would offer no salvation. She soon learns that Benjamin's father is an apothecary with some very important secrets. Actually, he's more than an apothecary; he's an alchemist, a magician. 

Janie's connection with the Burrows men leads her on some wild adventures, exposing her to dangerous villains, unthinkable magic spells, and a sea journey. 

To be totally honest, I got kind of bored towards the end of the novel, which is strange, because that's where the most action was - it just felt a little drawn out to me, I guess. Also, aside from Janie, I felt like the characters were pretty stock. There was the adventurous heroine (Janie), the headstrong, ill-fitted-to-the-family-business boy (Benjamin), the street-urchin sidekick with a Cockney accent (Pip), and the St. Beden's school Mean Girl (Sarah Pennington). Despite the predictability of the characters, I did like the waynarrator Janie described Sarah: 

"There are Sarah Penningtons in the United States - you probably know one, I'm sure they exist in France and Thailand and Venezuela. My Sarah Pennington, at St. Beden's, was a near-perfect specimen of her kind," (20). 

There is a sequel to The Apothecary - The Apprentices - which kind of surprised me, because I felt like the novel was wrapped up completely and could stand alone. It comes out at the beginning of June, so I'll have to check it out. 

The Madness Underneath, by Maureen Johnson

Well, I think I found a new favorite author!! I loved The Name of the Star (the first book in this series), and this one was amazing as well.

In the first book, Rory Devaux learns that she can see ghosts. This book picks up where the first left off, with the Jack the Ripper case closed up, and Rory is learning to deal with her new "ability". She's working with a psychiatrist, and they soon decide she's ready to go back to Wexford, the London boarding school where it all went down. She soon reunites with Boo, Callum, and Stephen, her friends with the same ability. Of course, Rory meets up with a crew that is bent on bringing her down - will Rory and her friends be able to overcome the evil?

There were a few lines from the book that I absolutely LOVED, such as this one, in which Rory is describing how her roommate, Jazza, feels about one of their fellow boarders:

"There was an old feud there, one that predated my arrival. Charlotte was the full moon that brought out the werejazza."

I loved this clever comparison and thought the play on words was too cute! Then, there was a quote about normalcy that just seemed so real to me:

"Let me say this...There is no normal. I've never met a normal person. The concept is flawed. It implies that there is only one way people are supposed to be, and that can't possibly be true. Human experience is far too varied."

And then finally, this quote, while Rory is talking about the annoyance of dealing with anticipation:

"...waiting for the punishment was much worse than the actual punishment. The tick tick tick is much worse than the boom."