The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl by Stacy McAnulty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Empathy, charity, and math! I read this because it was on Nebraska's Golden Sower list for middle grades and my son selected it to read. This was a good book about a student with a very different perspective of the world making friends with other very unique characters. The kids are also trying to change the world for the better so there are a lot of positive things in the book. And I love books about a love for math though admittedly I have not read enough of these. I will rectify that soon.

James's Review (age 9): 

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

 I loved this book! I thought all the things that happened to lightning girl because of the strike were so cool and creative. I liked how each character had a completely different personality. I loved relationships and conflict to characters. Spoiler Alert! I thought it was a fun plot twist when she fell in love with a dog named "Pi" as the math term, while doing her cougars care project. 

View all my reviews

Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger by Louis Sachar

Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger (Wayside #3) by Louis Sachar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not as good as the first two but nice to see the adults’ lives progress.

View all my reviews

Wayside School Is Falling Down by Louis Sachar

Wayside School Is Falling Down (Wayside #2) by Louis Sachar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I didn’t expect the sequel to be as good as the original. I wish I’d read it as a kid.

View all my reviews

A to Z Mysteries #1-3 by Ron Roy

The Absent Author by Ron Roy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finally read this and it's pretty cute. Twists and turns! I'd recommend this for early readers, 1st-3rd grade depending on reading ability.

View all my reviews



The Bald Bandit by Ron Roy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s fine but not as interesting as the first one.

View all my reviews




The Canary Caper by Ron Roy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I decided this children's series is the kind that is only good for kids and not for adults, so this is my last one. My best to Ruth Rose, she was the only interesting one.

View all my reviews

Real Friends by Shannon Hale

Real Friends by Shannon Hale
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After my 8-year-old son read this I saw that it had good reviews from adults so I read it too. I could really relate to some of Shannon Hale's childhood experiences and I think this is a wonderful book about how difficult it is to be a kid and to form friendships as a kid. I think especially as adults, we romanticize elementary school as the simple time when making friends is easy before popularity because a roadblock but it's true that elementary school often means that children are completely indelicate about forming or breaking off friendships. It's also a reminder that these breaks can be extremely painful.

View all my reviews

In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord

In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My 3rd grader was assigned this book in school so I read it too. The author made some strange choices for a book for young children. I was surprised it was published in the 1980s, because it reads like it was published in the 1940s, the period of time it covers. This all somewhat complicated by the fact that the book is semi-autobiographical but for a children's book the out-of-date quality makes it seem like it should no longer be the go-to book for reading assignments.

1) The conversation regarding "negro" students was uncomfortable without providing enlightenment to young readers.

2) Shirley and her friend take a blood oath. While children have done that sort of thing forever- it's not great to have young readers pick up on this idea without adults explaining how dangerous this practice is.

3) Shirley and her friend look at a book of naked pictures and while Shirley's view is comical, I'm left wondering how my prepubescent 3rd grader will understand this scene.

There are many more examples of things that read poorly in 2019.

From the title you would assume this book would cover some important race or immigrant issues, but it sort of just drops in the issues without really resolving anything in a way that would be meaningful to children or even adults. A swing and a miss, to borrow the language of baseball.

View all my reviews

Pirates Past Noon by Mary Pope Osborne

Pirates Past Noon by Mary Pope Osborne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The true story of the Magic Tree House is revealed in this one. I think I'm good to go with the series now. I won't be reading or buying any more unless my daughter falls in love with the first 4 and demands them or something. My son isn't impressed either but he's already 8 and he's a pretty strong reader.

View all my reviews

Mummies in the Morning by Mary Pope Osborne

Mummies in the Morning by Mary Pope Osborne
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I am not feeling the ghosts. Time hopping to see real things is one thing. Time hopping to see fake things is another.

View all my reviews

The Losers Club by Andrew Clements

The Losers Club by Andrew Clements
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Great book for kids about having a love for reading and practicing your values even when it’s hard. There are many other great children’s books mentioned inside this book, and my third grader is already talking about reading them.

View all my reviews

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very cute book that encourages kids to think through problems, work as a team, and read lots of books. I highly approve this book for the kiddos.

View all my reviews

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this because my 8-year-old son read it and loved it. This strikes me as the kind of book you have to read when you’re a kid though.

First, aside from the charm of living in an abandoned boxcar, which I totally get, there wasn’t much I enjoyed.

Second, none of the characters behave in a way explicable to adult readers. The children’s parents recently died but none of the children suffer ill-effects. None of the four are grief-stricken, shocked, regressing, or even irritable. None of the adults behave in explicable ways either. And [spoiler alert] the kids end up with a grandfather who is almost certainly an asshole as he has had no relationship with his four grandkids up until now.

View all my reviews

My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish by Mo O'Hara

My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish by Mo O'Hara
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this because James is reading it and likes it. It's cute I guess, but I'm not planning on reading the sequels. It has a little bit of an environmentalist element to it, but other than that, it's mostly silly.

View all my reviews

What Was the First Thanksgiving? by Joan Holub

What Was the First Thanksgiving? by Joan Holub
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm not an expert in the history of Thanksgiving so I don't know how precisely accurate this was, but it was a more balanced account of the event than I received when I was growing up. It definitely mentioned injustices to the Native Americans, though it wasn't fully focused on that. I read this to both of my kids and we all learned some new things, and we discussed further what it said about Native Americans.

View all my reviews

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

5 stars for the stories that actually involve Mowgli and his friends and animal family, 4 stars for the story of the Jesus seal, 5 stars for Rikki Tiki Tavi, but 3 stars for the elephant story, and 3 stars for the mule, baggage camel, and troop horse story. I almost didn’t finish the book.

View all my reviews

Junie B., First Grader: Dumb Bunny by Barbara Park

Junie B., First Grader: Dumb Bunny by Barbara Park
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My son James, who just started second grade, just finished reading this and said he liked it so I checked it out. The cover is adorable and I was kind of psyched. But all the characters are a bunch of mean conniving first-grade children. They make all the New York children I knew look like little angels.

There's also quite a bit of class warfare in the book, not that I actually object to that, but if you do, you might want to know.

And did they change the egg hunt prize that all the kids had been plotting for- a swimming playdate- at the last minute to flowers for their mother, and none of the kids cared? I was so confused.

View all my reviews

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I borrowed Nimona for Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge, "4- A comic written and drawn by the same person." My son James saw it and said it looks like a “kids book” so James has now joined the reading challenge. We were passing the book back and forth and trying to stay in about the same place but I got impatient and finished it before him because I just needed to know what happened next. Nimona was awesome and adorable! I need a sequel. Need.

James is still reading it, and I'm a little worried because it gets kind of scary at the end. He's almost 7 years old but he's an advanced reader and he really needs challenging material to even be interested in the book at all. The vocabulary is a little tough for him in some places but he really loves the complexity of the story. I think it might be more appropriate for a kid who is at least 9 - though obviously great for adults too.

View all my reviews

The BFG by Roald Dahl

The BFG by Roald Dahl
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Read with my kids over a series of days. Kind of slow, with little action. That would be okay except the extended discussion with the giant were also mostly racist. I know it was silly stuff mostly, what different nationalities taste like and whatnot, but not great and can be confusing to kids.

View all my reviews

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Maybe more like 3.5 stars. I couldn't remember the ending from when I read it as a child though I did remember the beginning pretty well. Maybe I only read half it when I was little? The beginning is fun in a dark way but then it sort of just meanders. The poems/ songs aren't really a strong point for Dahl either. But James says he likes it- though I'm shocked because he'd only let me read a few pages at a time. Maybe he just enjoyed having a long-term reading project with me.

View all my reviews

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Siblings Claudia and Jamie run away from home with a plan to stay in overnight in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a kid growing up in New Jersey, one of the joys of reading the book was that we had a few field trips to The Met, so it was fun reading a book that took place in a setting that was both known and extraordinary.

As an adult, I appreciate the kids' financial plan for staying several days in New York City. Here's a fun computation. The kids leave with $28.61 and assuming it takes place the year of publication, 1968, adjusted for inflation, they have today's equivalent of almost $200.* So for example, pie in New York City is 25 cents, today's almost $1.75.

*https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=28.61&year1=1968&year2=2016

Also, check this out!:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/11/michelangelo-met-museum-young-archer.html

For kids (when I first read the book, the internet wasn't even a thing yet):
Museum Kids- From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

View all my reviews

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (#4) by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the one with both the Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Tournament. Mad-Eye Moody might be my favorite Hogwarts professor ever even if I also feel like I don't actually know him.

The second challenge in the Triwizard Tournament makes me cry. I'm a total sap!

Goblet of Fire is like 2016. It's when things get dark. When all the (anti-muggle and mudblood) racism comes back out of the shadows, and innocent people pay the price. I'm glad that Rowling has prepared a generation for this.

View all my reviews