Lunch Lady and the Picture Day Peril - Book Review

This post was written as a Master's course assignment for Texas Woman's University.

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Krosoczka, Jarrett J. 2012. LUNCH LADY AND THE PICTURE DAY PERIL. New York, NY: Random House, Inc. ISBN 9780375870354

2. PLOT SUMMARY

A seemingly normal school picture day goes awry as Lunch Lady, Betty, and the Breakfast Bunch catch wind of an impostor in the school. The Breakfast Bunch is on to Stefani's wiles, especially when a large chunk of school activity money goes missing.The whole gang works together, in the name of teenage acne, to sort out the mystery of the sneaky Stefani and to bring the thief to justice.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The superhero "Lunch Lady" represents a population of under served professionals, indeed (pun intended). This hilarious graphic novel uses excellent wordplay and humor to spice up the most unlikely of superheroes... the school lunch lady. 

Along with her sidekick, Betty, Lunch Lady sniffs out the suspicious Stefani, the photographer for school picture day who seems a little too nice. Her compliments seem contrived as she butters up all of the students for their portraits: "Geek is so chic right now" and "You bring such a sparkle to this project" (to the girl with braces). 

Krosoczka's language is masterful and clever, with Lunch Lady and Betty spouting phrases like Batman and Robin: "Soggy cereal, what is going on?" Lunch Lady's superhero special "serving tools" add another humorous layer to the tale, especially her "Fancy Ketchup-Packet Laser," "Mustard Grappling Hook," and "Chicken Nugget Bomb," all useful in getting her out of a tight spot. The reader experiences plenty of laugh-out-loud moments as Lunch Lady comes to the rescue. The theme of good triumphing over evil plays a large role in this story, as well as the tendency of the underdog to beat the odds and win.

The illustrations are mostly tri-tones, in yellow, black, and white, with some color variations (lighter/darker hues, pale vs. bright, etc.). The artistic style includes dazzling pen and ink drawings with digital coloring. The cartoon-like characters each have their own definitive style, especially in their hair-dos (spiky for some, wavy and triangular for others). With a technique reminiscent of Roy Lichtenstein, Krosoczka weaves the story together through excellent, expressive pictures and his own powerhouse styling.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

Review from KIRKUS: "A delightfully fun escapist read."

Review from BOOKLIST: "Krosoczka's inventive visual details, spot-on characterizations, and grade-school humor make this a standout graphic-novel series." 

5. CONNECTIONS

*See other books in the LUNCH LADY series, also by Jarrett Krosoczka.

*For other schoolhouse humor, see also SIDEWAYS STORIES FROM WAYSIDE SCHOOL by Louis Sachar and Julie Brinkloe, ISBN 9780380731480.

The Green Glass Sea - Book Review

This post was written as a Master's course assignment for Texas Woman's University.

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Klages, Ellen. 2006. THE GREEN GLASS SEA. New York, NY: Penguin Group. ISBN 0670061344

2. PLOT SUMMARY

Dewey Kerrigan is a little different from other eleven year old girls. She reads books like THE BOY MECHANIC because "they didn't make one for girls." Her father is a bigwig in with the government in 1944, which means Dewey has plenty of time for building her gadgets and gizmos out of little mechanical scraps. Her math skills are several grades ahead, which explains why she likes rules and things to proceed as expected. Except there are no good reasons to explain why bad things happen to good people, including young Dewey. 

Her mother left when she was a baby, she has a hard time making friends with girls, her relationship with her father is precious but limited, and there are secrets beyond her control, and even her imagining, that threaten Dewey's entire sense of well being. As Dewey becomes close with a classmate, Suze, and her family, the creativity flows and Dewey has a chance to create something unlike anything she's ever made before. But the war looms heavy overhead, and Dewey worries that she will be left, yet again, without a place that feels like home.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Ellen Klages gives the reader a clear picture of life on "The Hill" in Los Alamos, 1944. Her writing includes visceral sounds and smells, like the "chukka-chukka-chukka" sound of the train, and Suze's father's pipe smoke scent: "smelling like sweetish-sour burning leaves. The Daddy smell." The reader feels immersed in this strange, sparse, truly militaristic scene, with stopgap housing and "army-green everything." 

The language portrays the ultimate seclusion and secretiveness of everything occurring on The Hill. Even professions are disguised: physicists are "fizzlers," chemists are "stinkers," and "the computers are women who ran big adding machines." The women on the hill rarely wore makeup and the common tongue of the setting is math, science, and Greek, literally. Klages gives a great sense of atmosphere: the genius, academic minds wander around everywhere, working at all hours, speaking always in code, with excitement. 

The theme of growing up motherless weighs heavily on Dewey. Perhaps because of her father's frequent leaves of absence to go away and work, Dewey thrives on rules and certainty. Her analytical, organizational mind is countered perfectly by her friend Suze's risk-taking, artistically creative mind. 

Klages alludes to the relationship of math to music through the wisdom of Dewey's father: "music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting (Leibniz)." Klages also expresses the idea of math as its own language through Suze's father's eyes: "math is the language we use to describe patterns." Several scientists on the hill are fluent in Greek letters, prompting a curiosity in Suze to learn more about the mystical symbols and their ultimate power.

The author provides many heartwarming moments, frequently supplemented by warm, comforting beverages in thermoses: ovaltine, hot tea with milk and honey, cocoa. The palpable scent of cigarette smoke is ever-present, even in the children's bedrooms, increasing the authentic feel of the work. Klages adds depth to the sparse scenery by allowing the characters to engage in emotional exchanges, and raises the difficult question of what it would be like to be present during the creation of the mysterious "gadget," which we learn is the first atomic bomb.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
*SCOTT O'DELL AWARD FOR HISTORICAL FICTION

Review from SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: "Clear prose brings readers right into the unusual atmosphere of the secretive scientific community, seen through the eyes of the kids and their families."

5. CONNECTIONS

*Readers may enjoy other books written about this time period, such as HIROSHIMA, A NOVELLA, by Laurence Yep, ISBN 9780590208338.

*See also the Newbery Honor Book BOMB: THE RACE TO BUILD- AND STEAL -THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS WEAPON by Steve Sheinkin, ISBN 9781596434875.

Hattie Big Sky - Book Review

This post was written as a Master's course assignment for Texas Woman's University.

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Larson, Kirby. 2006. HATTIE BIG SKY. New York, NY: Random House. ISBN 9780385733137 

2. PLOT SUMMARY

Miss Hattie Inez Brooks may get more than she bargained for when she decides to become a homesteader on her late Uncle Chester's farm. An orphan living with a testy, distantly related "Aunt Ivy," Hattie can't wait to break out and make something of herself at the strapping age of 16 years. Uncle Holt is the one who Hattie will miss the most, and who offers her great advice from afar during her adventures as a homesteader. 

Among disaster, surprises, financial woes, illness, war rations, and loneliness, Hattie gives every effort to "prove up" on Chester's land and finally make it her own. "Hattie here-and-there" grows into the slightly braver "Hattie Homesteader" who steps off the train in Montana. She continues to grow in a myriad of ways during her tribulations, until she can claim her own self, and her new name, "Hattie Big Sky."

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The post script on the letter to Hattie from her Uncle Chester includes the instructions: "Bring warm clothes and a cat." Of course, neither is quite sufficient to handle the brutal challenges of a Montana winter. Hattie must fulfill an ambitious to-do list in order to keep the claim, with little more than her cat, Mr. Whiskers, as a companion and mouse hunter.

Kirby Larson's clear language gives an excellent taste of the local flavor in the Montana of 1918, from the "thin as a washboard" cowboy's drawl, to Leafie Purvis' outspoken observations: "that boy is one sandwich short of a picnic basket when it comes to common sense." A friendly neighbor, who prefers the moniker "Rooster Jim," excels at playing chess, and the Mueller family enjoys making strudel for its patriarch, Karl, even if they have to enjoy the treats behind closed doors as a result of war time ostracizing.

Larson describes the land as flat, a "quilt over an enormous bed," or at second thought, "a sheet cake." Her sensuous words give the reader a sense of the enormity of the space, the abundant fragrances on the prairie, the joys of domestic work in the privacy of a tiny claim shanty. Hattie must sing to keep warm in the daunting cold to change into her nightgown. She's able to laugh at herself and her naivete at all the knowledge involved in homesteading, and Larson allows the characters to supplement and subsidize Hattie in the gentlest of ways until she proves herself outright. Whether or not Hattie is interested in becoming sweethearts with Charlie, her pen pal and school friend who has gone off the the war, remains to be told. 

The writing is humble and sparse, but descriptive and emotional, allowing the reader to identify with Hattie. Larson allows for moments of great humor, especially when Traft Martin comes calling on laundry day and spies Hattie's underthings, and also when, out of sheer frustration, Hattie takes Rooster Jim's advice on using a firm hand with the chickens, by dunking the defiant one in the rain barrel: "splash, splash, splash- I baptized that bird but good."

Kirby Larson gives a realistic and picturesque view of pioneering in 1918, providing multiple sources at the end of the book and enlightening the reader that her great-grandmother, Hattie Inez Brooks Wright, was indeed a homesteader on her own. Years of research and traveling allowed Larson to piece together the story of Hattie, based on some real events, adding authentic touches to a fascinating story.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
*Newbery Honor Book

Starred Review from SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: "Larson creates a masterful picture of the homesteading experience and the people who persevered."

Starred Review from BOOKLIST: "The authentic first-person narrative, full of hope and anxiety, effectively portrays Hattie's struggle as a young woman with limited options, a homesteader facing terrible odds, and a loyal citizen confused about the war and the local anti-German bias that endangers her new friends."

5. CONNECTIONS

*Readers may also enjoy other stories featuring strong-willed young women orphans, such as the ANNE OF GREEN GABLES series by L.M. Montgomery, boxed set ISBN 9780553609417.

*See other books featuring young women in pioneer days, such as the Laura Ingalls Wilder  LITTLE HOUSE series, set of the first five in the series, ISBN  9780060754280.

Catherine, Called Birdy - Book Review

This post was written as a Master's course assignment for Texas Woman's University.

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cushman, Karen. 1994. CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0395681863

2. PLOT SUMMARY

Catherine, better known as "Little Bird" or "Birdy," is a mischievous, fiery-tempered girl of 14 years, living in Lincolnshire, in the English countryside, during the year 1290. Among her spats with her father, brothers, and occasionally her mother, Birdy is commanded by her favorite brother Edward to write, and this diary-style novel is her fabulous tale, complete with her anti-domestic tendencies, practical jokes, and avoiding-marriage-at-all-costs antics. 

Spending time with the goat boy, "the cleverest boy I know" Perkin, is not the most acceptable behavior for a lady-in-training, and Birdy's father makes several attempts to marry her off to the greatest bidder. Birdy's greatest fear is becoming "Lady Shaggy Beard," wife to the despicable "pig" man who moves within her father's sights. Will Birdy be caged forever, or can her strong willed character allow her a chance at a better, freer life?

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS

From the excellent opening line, the reader is amused, curious, and hooked: "I am commanded to write an account of my days. I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say." This hilarious female protagonist speaks with humor and wit, ruthlessly attacking her "disgusting" father and avoiding her household duties wherever possible. 

Birdy is highly approachable and far from being a prude; her diary allows us to see her eloquent, yet honest opinions. For example: "I think love is like mildew, growing gray and musty on things, spoiling them, and smelling bad." Her voice reflects the flora and fauna, creatures, scents and odors, feasts and drinks of the day. Her life in a well-to-do home seems comfortable, even if sometimes crowded with guests sleeping everywhere.

Forced to spend a great deal of time locked in her room for bad behavior, Birdy does not always mind, since she has 19 caged birds to keep her company. With her mother as teacher, she learns medicinal cures from the era that include some questionable solutions: "mustard seed and boiled snake," as one example.

This novel reads like a modern day, rollicking diary, a period-piece teenage girl's account of how bad everything stinks and how she detests being sold off into marriage. The language includes Birdy's own slang, terms like "Corpus Bones" and "Deus!" and "God's thumbs," all contenders in the "quest for perfect profanity."  The book is divided into chapters (by month), and days, with a good majority of the days including the Saints and Martyrs that are celebrated on that particular day. The extensive celebrations come alive through Birdy's eyes- the Twelve Days of Christmas seem to go on for much longer.

Cushman is excellent at portraying the authentic, daily ins-and-outs of Medieval England. At the end of the novel, she provides many resources for further reading, for children and adults. As noted by the author, Birdy is a little out of character for the day, with her deviant behavior and desire to run free and wild. But her joie de vivre carries the reader on a hilarious ride and leaves us on her side, hoping for the best possible outcome for Little Bird.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

*Newbery Honor Winner

Starred review from SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: "This unusual book provides an insider's look at the life of Birdy, 14, the daughter of a minor English nobleman. The year is 1290 and the vehicle for storytelling is the girl's witty, irreverent diary... Superb historical fiction."

Review from KIRKUS: "[Birdy's] tenacity and ebullient naiveté are extraordinary; at once comic and thought-provoking, this first novel is a delight."

5. CONNECTIONS

*Readers may also enjoy other historical fiction novels by Karen Cushman, such as THE MIDWIFE'S APPRENTICE, ISBN 9780547722177. 

*For a modern day similar novel, readers may enjoy the diary-style series by Louise Rennison, beginning with ANGUS, THONGS, AND FULL-FRONTAL SNOGGING: CONFESSIONS OF GEORGIA NICHOLSON, ISBN 9780064472272.