Maw Books » Q-T Title

Scaredy-Cat, Splat! by Rob Scotton

Natasha Maw — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 04:41:58 +0000

Scaredy-Cat, Splat! by Rob Scotton is my first introduction to Splat and I found him so cute that I must go seek out Rob Scotton’s other books featuring the same character. It’s Halloween and Splat is in search of the scariest costume. But no matter what he does or wear, everybody else is scarier than him. Even his jack-o’-lantern is funny instead of scary.

But when his teacher, Mrs. Wimpydimple tells a ghost story in the dark, Splat gets so scared that he throws his jack-o’lantern up in the air and it lands straight on his head! Unable to see anything, he stumbles around and scares the entire class! Splat may be more scary than silly after all!

The illustrations in Scaredy-Cat, Splat! are adorable! I don’t even really like cats all that much but Splat looks so soft and cuddly that I’d love to take him home with me. I particularly loved Splat’s friend Spike dressed as a mummy. Too cute. I think a couple of the pages of text at the very beginning were a bit too long as I much preferred the more brief text in later pages. But a fun story to read out loud.

A great Halloween book that kids will love.

Links of interest: More book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, approx age 4-8.
Publisher: Harper Collins, August 24, 2010.
Hardcover, 40 pages. ISBN 0061177601
Source: Library copy. A 2010 Cybil’s nomination for which I am a 1st round panelist.
Scaredy-Cat, Splat is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Seeds of Change by Jen Cullerton Johnson, Illustrated by Sonia Lynn Sadler

Natasha Maw — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 04:58:59 +0000

Seeds of Change by Jen Cullerton Johnson and illustrated by Sonia Lynn Sadler is the biography of Wangari Maathai who won the Novel Peace Prize in 2004 for her environmental activism which included founding The Green Belt Movement which teaches people to take care of the environment by planting trees, recycling, and seeking alternative energy sources. She was the first African woman and environmentalist to receive the award.

Her mother had taught her to revere and love the trees of Kenya. When few girls went to school, Wangari’s parents managed to send her where she excelled in science. She won a scholarship to attend college in Kansas where she learned that a woman could do anything she wanted to. She found her strength as a woman scientist. America had changed her.

When returning to her homeland she accepted a teaching job at the University of Nairobi in a profession were there were very few woman teachers and even less female scientists. But she also witnessed a change happening in Kenya. Trees and the land were being destroyed and so much that the people depended on was lost. Wangari had an idea that started as small as a seedling but that would effect much change in the environment of her country and that was to plant trees. “We might not change the big world but we change the landscape of the forest,” she said.

Seeds of Change is Wangari Maathai’s inspirational story. It is a story of planting more than thirty million trees in Kenya. It is also a story of overcoming and persvering through those who work against you. It is a story of woman’s rights. It is a story of giving back to the Earth when we take too much from it.

To quote the book, “She understood that persistence, patience, and commitment – to an idea as small as a seed but as tall as a tree that reaches for the sky – must be planted in every child’s heart. ‘Young people you are our hope and our future,’ she said.”

An excellent portrayal of Wangari Maathai. And a great reminder that even as an adult, I learn so much from picture books.

Links of interest: Jen Cullerton Johnson website, Sonia Lynn Sadler website, The Green Belt Movement, Wangari Maathai biography on Nobel Prize site.
Genre: Non-fiction picture book. Approx ages 4-8.
Publisher: Lee and Low Books. June 30, 2010.
Hardcover, 40 pages. ISBN 160060367X
Copy source: Review copy sent from publisher.
Seeds of Change is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood, Illustrated by Reneta Liwska

Natasha Maw — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 03:20:37 +0000

The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood and illustrated by Reneta Liwska is a beautiful book. I had to stop myself from typing out instead – a beautiful, quiet book. But The Quiet Book is just that. Quiet. A book meant to be read in hushed whispers and soft voices. The perfect book to read to small ones in bed too, that’s right, quietly usher them to sleep.

There are many different kinds of quiet that one will experience throughout the day. A few of those are first awake quiet, others telling secrets quiet, color in the lines quiet, hide-and-seek quiet, sleeping sister quiet, car ride at night quiet, bedtime kiss quiet, and also sound asleep quiet.

The simple text is multi-layered. “Thinking of a good reason you were drawing on the wall quiet” will surely have children reflecting on their own experiences.

The illustrations by Reneta Liwska are soft. Gorgeous. The many different type of quiet are portrayed by different forest animals – bear, rabbit, moose, mouse, porcupine, owl to name a few. When one thinks of how many different ways an illustrator can take the text of a book and choose to interpret it, The Quiet Book feels as though the text and illustration were made for each other. It simply wouldn’t work any other way. It’s perfectly done.

The Quiet Book is one of those books that when you have it in your hands and even before opening that first page, you know it’s special. It feels special. I love books like that.

Links of interest: Deborah Underwood website, Reneta Liwska blog, more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction picture book. Approx ages 4-8.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. April 12, 2010.
Hardcover, 32 pages. ISBN 0547215673
Source: Review copy sent from the author.
The Quiet Book is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars

Natasha Maw — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:05:12 +0000

Winner of the 1971 Newbery Medal, The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars is the story of the longest day of 14-year-old Sara’s life. Her summer has already been awful and boring, she thinks that her feet are too big and she’s jealous of her beautiful older sister Wanda. Sara, her sister and their little brother Charlie, who is mentally handicapped (the book written in the ’70’s labels him as retarded – I would suspect some type of autism), live with their Aunt who has been taking care of them since their mother died six years ago. Their father, who only visits on weekends, has become a distant figure in Sara’s life.

Sara is fiercely devoted to Charlie but also feels as though she can never get a moment alone without him. One night, after having watched the swans at the nearby lake, Charlie goes missing. That next morning a desperate search takes place to find him, and Sara is certain that he’s gotten lost when trying to find the swans again. The story centers around Sara’s search for Charlie. The Summer of the Swans has a rather simple story line but around it revolves a story of family dynamics and coming-of age-angst.

As I’m attempting to read all of the Newbery books, I’m glad to have read The Summer of the Swans but I doubt I’ll be holding on to this one. I wanted to know what happened to Charlie and if they’d find him but otherwise, not much else stood out for me. If anything, I enjoyed the process of reading a children’s book written in the ’70s and getting a kick out of all the TV show’s that Sara watched. That, and taking notice of how an author treated a character with a disability at a time when not much was understood about them. Certainly, not a favorite Newbery but not particularly terrible either. Meh.

Links of interest: more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Middle Grade Fiction, approx ages 9-12.
Publisher: Puffin. 1981. Originally published 1970.
Paperback, 142 pages. ISBN B000OJ5ZLQ
Source copy: Own
The Summer of the Swans is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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Sea Escape by Lynne Griffin

Natasha Maw — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 06:44:47 +0000

Sea Escape by Lynne Griffin is the story of a mother and daughter set around a beautiful beach home, Sea Escape, on the New England coastline.

Laura, a devoted wife, mother and nurse has always been trying to get her mother’s attention. But Helen, her estranged mother, seems uninterested in anything to do with her daughter. Instead, she spends all day reminiscing and reading old love letters that her deceased husband wrote while serving in the Korean War and later as a war correspondent during the Vietnam War.

Helen seems only interested in the past and not what’s right in front of her nor the future. When Helen suffers a debilitating stroke, Laura believes that she can not only make her mother happy again but also close the gap that has grown between them through the years. Laura has never been privy to her father’s letters but with her mother unable to speak, Laura dives deep into the letters hoping that she’ll finally understand her mother. In doing so, she discovers buried family secrets and that her own buried secret is shocking similar to that of her own mother.

The story alternates between the present with Laura haggardly trying to maintain a sense of normalcy with her two young children while spending each day at the hospital taking care of with her ailing mother and in the past with Helen’s love story to Joseph, their marriage, and attempts at creating a family despite his constant overseas absences. I do enjoy books with alternate storytelling and time lines – giving us bits and pieces, slowly revealing key plot points and character insight.

Laura’s husband, Christian is a landscape designer and I loved the references to his beautiful gardens. Sea Escape, Helen’s home on the beach, felt very real to me. The book has a very strong sense of place and I appreciate that. Time as well. Helen’s role as a mother and housewife in the fifties is strikingly different from that of Laura’s. It’s easy to see why they so often misunderstood each other.

Ultimately, the novel didn’t live up to it’s potential. I was bogged down with my disbelief of Helen’s and Laura’s relationship. As this relationship is the entire basis of the book, everything else just fell for me.

Laura keeps telling herself over and over how much she loves her mother and she desperately wants to make her happy, but nothing is given to show me why she should love her mother. While her father was alive, her mother only seemed to live for his infrequent coming homes and after he died, Helen pretty much ignores Laura for the rest of her childhood. Although Laura is the child that Helen took years to conceive, I needed at least one moment of a good solid connection between the two to understand why it was that Laura could continue to give so much when she received so little in return.

As Laura reads her father’s letters she comes to know that both her mother and her father have kept family secrets hidden away from her. We know that Laura has a secret of her own as well, that she wants to tell her mother before it’s too late. Because Laura didn’t feel an immediacy to uncover these secrets, reveal her own secrets, nor read all of her father’s letters, the book didn’t feel very tight.

Truths were revealed without the packing punch that I would expect to accompany them. Everything was set up really well, and I imagine a second reading would show how carefully crafted Griffin’s story really is, but it lacked the emotional aspect that I would think a book like this would give. I needed to be shown rather than told how characters felt. I didn’t believe in the mother-daughter reconciliation (nor that of her brother’s as well) nor the emotions that they were feeling.

For example, one line from Laura: “After years of longing for her presence full and whole, I’d found her laugh, her touch, and her love. They were hidden behind my lie.” What laugh, what touch, what love? I still felt as though this hadn’t quite happened yet. Plus, I don’t think they were hidden behind Laura’s lie. Helen emotionally abandoned Laura as a small child, years before Laura’s lie would present itself at age 17. It wasn’t Laura’s fault, it was Helen’s fault. Not believing how the characters felt, made it difficult to empathize with them.

I enjoyed the plot line, sense of time and place, the alternate storytelling, and the struggle to attend to an ailing family member but the characters fell flat for me. Not a perfect read. It was simply okay when I was hoping for fantastic. Readers who enjoy women’s fiction on the exploration of mothers and daughters may very well give this one a try. Perhaps you’ll feel differently than I.

Links of interest: Lynne Griffin website, Facebook and on Twitter. Visit TLC Book Tours for additional stops on the Sea Escape blog tour.
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Simon and Schuster. July 6, 2010
Hardcover, 304 pages. ISBN 1439180601
Sea Escape is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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Scaredy Squirrel at Night by Melanie Watt

Natasha Maw — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 06:08:08 +0000

Well, I think that it’s pretty safe to say that anything Melanie Watt writes is pretty much perfection and gold. Scaredy Squirrel at Night is no exception. I love this picture book! Melanie Watt is incredibly clever and her books are so much fun to read.

Scaredy Squirrel never sleeps, he’d much rather stay awake for days at a time rather than risk having a bad dream in the middle of the night. A few of the things that Scaredy Squirrel is afraid of? Ghosts, unicorns, dragons, fairies, vampire bats, and polka-dot monsters. I mean, come on, isn’t everybody?! But when Scaredy Squirrel can’t avoid the inevitable - pure exhaustion and sleep – he has a plan that should put all his fears to rest. But things may get a little messy.

So many little details in the illustrations that it’s a lot of fun to read this one withbo my kids. But what Melanie Watt book isn’t? If you haven’t discovered her picture books yet, you should!

Links of interest: Melanie Watt website, more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, approx age 4-8.
Publisher: Kids Can Press. February 10, 2009.
Source: Review copy for Cybil’s for which I was a panelist.
Hardcover, 32 pages. ISBN 1554532884
Scaredy Squirrel at Night is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

Natasha Maw — Tue, 25 May 2010 10:36:04 +0000

Some authors simply do not have the talent to read their own books aloud. This is not the case for Richard Russo. Having attended a reading and signing of The Kings English Bookshop in the fall, I could not get his voice out of my head while reading his latest novel, That Old Cape Magic. This was not a bad thing. Richard Russo is a storyteller at heart and he performed brilliantly. I would have liked to have sat and listen to him read his book all night long. I loved Empire Falls when I read it years ago and that story has always stuck with me. Could Richard Russo charm me twice? Yes. Yes, he can.

But what can I tell you about this novel besides the “Go read this book. I really liked it!” spill? Apparently not much because I’ve been sitting here for fifteen minutes just reminiscing over Russo’s characters and the introspective storyline only to discover that I’m not actually typing anything out. I don’t often resort to the publisher’s synopsis’s but in this case, it’s a fine one indeed:

Griffin has been tooling around for nearly a year with his father’s ashes in the trunk, but his mother is very much alive and not shy about calling on his cell phone. She does so as he drives down to Cape Cod, where he and his wife, Joy, will celebrate the marriage of their daughter Laura’s best friend. For Griffin this is akin to driving into the past, since he took his childhood summer vacations here, his parents’ respite from the hated Midwest. And the Cape is where he and Joy honeymooned, in the course of which they drafted the Great Truro Accord, a plan for their lives together that’s now thirty years old and has largely come true. He’d left screenwriting and Los Angeles behind for the sort of New England college his snobby academic parents had always aspired to in vain; they’d moved into an old house full of character; and they’d started a family. Check, check and check.

But be careful what you pray for, especially if you manage to achieve it. By the end of this perfectly lovely weekend, the past has so thoroughly swamped the present that the future suddenly hangs in the balance. And when, a year later, a far more important wedding takes place, their beloved Laura’s, on the coast of Maine, Griffin’s chauffeuring two urns of ashes as he contends once more with Joy and her large, unruly family, and both he and she have brought dates along. How in the world could this have happened?

Griffen is a character that I didn’t easily forget as Russo dived deep into his thoughts and character habits. What looks seemingly like a fantastic life, Griffen is very much discontented. As a child, the only time he saw his parents happy was when they vacationed on the Cape. But those moments weren’t often enough and the disintegration of his parents marriage has Griffen continually questioning his. Griffen is facing a classic mid-life crisis. And if that’s not enough, it’s a mid-life crisis where he can not keep his mother’s voice out of his head. It’s this moment in his life where the culmination of his past will intersect with his future which will take him on a journey far different than he had originally planned.

That Old Cape Magic is a beautiful story of family, marriage, self-discovery, reflection, and intimacy. The characters are extremely flawed and Russo portrays them with compassion. This is a character study novel that Russo has pulled off brilliantly. I loved it and Russo continues to be a favorite author. Must get a move on and read his entire backlist.

Links of interest: More book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Knopf. August 4, 2009.
Hardcover, 272 pages. ISBN 0375414967
Source copy: Review Copy
That Old Cape Magic is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.
Keep in mind that this book does have more language in it than I normally read for those who appreciate knowing this.

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The Heart is Not a Size by Beth Kephart

Natasha Maw — Sat, 22 May 2010 22:21:06 +0000

The Heart is Not a Size by Beth Kephart is a lovely book. Georgia has been best friends with Riley for forever. They had been the queens of finger paints and mud pancakes. Now teens and ten years into their friendship, at a time when they are both redefining themselves, both travel together from their suburban Pennsylvanian home to Juarez, Mexico, a border city with El Paso. There they hope to not only change their own lives but make a difference for the families there through community service.

Georgia has always been the reliable one. The one who will always do the right thing. The one who recognizes and appreciates just how much her parents love her. On the other hand, Riley just can’t seem to catch the attention of her distracted mother. A mother who laments that Riley is just “ordinary” or in other words, nobody special. Riley is brilliantly artistic but it’s not enough. A mother’s love. That’s what she so desperately seeks and in chasing it will almost lose herself.

Georgia hopes that the Juarez trip will make a difference. But how long can she ignore Riley’s secrets? How long can she not speak up? Instead of bringing the two of them closer together, their summer together may tear them apart instead.

I have to admit that the beauty of Beth Kephart’s writing was so beautiful and poignant that I found it almost distracting to the story. I kept stopping and reading paragraphs again or deconstructing sentences. I feel as though I could open any page and find a gorgeously written passage.

Later that night I woke up sweating from a dream, those black wings inside my rib cage beating, my mother’s words – Apply your intelligence to every living thing – snaking through my blood. Because again my heart knew what my mind had avoided: Juarez was probably a hare-brained scheme; what were the chances – really – that I’d fly all the way there and come home stronger? I fought with the dark to free myself from my bed, struggled to wrest the weight from my chest. It was after two, and the house was quiet, and I headed for the stairs, my right fist against my heart to quiet the fury, to survive it. I needed the night beyond, which finally I reached, stumbling out onto the porch and into the streets and heading for the fairgrounds, which were empty now, the horses long since talked back into their trailers and driving off, Riley’s stories floating somewhere in the caverns of their heads. I hadn’t had a panic attack in two months. Each one was bigger than the last.

We find out the heart only by dismantling what the heart knows.

The words are from a poem Jack Gilbert wrote and Mr. Buzzy read toward the end of my sophomore year, when I finally stopped minding the class so much and settles in to learn. I walked the streets that night with that line in my head – walked until I could breathe again and stand up straight without collapsing. I was going to Juarez because I needed some perspective, some place where I could let the big bird free. My head knew things that my heart didn’t yet. I was privileged. I was smart. I had a future. It was time to believe in myself.

I LOVED the creativity of the characters. Riley through her art endeavors, painting, jewelry making. Georgia through the lens of the camera. I was able to identify with the need for Georgia to take photographs. While I sometimes had a difficult time remembering the side characters, I felt that I got an immediate sense of both Riley and Georgia and through their parents, a solid background of how they were both approaching their upcoming Juarez trip. The sense of place was also very strong. And one can’t help but love the children of Juarez after Kephart’s lovely descriptions.

This is a book that I could tell the author poured her soul into. One that was crafted with love and care. And from the end result – a poetic, layered, and thoughtful story that doesn’t back off from issues affecting teens – it shows.

Links of interest: Beth Kephart blog, The Heart is Not a Size resource blog, more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Publisher: Harper Teen. March 30, 2010
Hardcover, 256 pages. ISBN 0061470481
Source copy: Review copy
The Heart is Not a Size is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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The Threadbare Heart by Jennie Nash

Natasha Maw — Sun, 02 May 2010 11:03:33 +0000

I was a HUGE fan of The Only True Genius in the Family and so had huge expectations for Jennie Nash’s new novel The Threadbare Heart. Oh my goodness. This woman has incredible talent. I LOVED this book. The Threadbare Heart is a story of family: of mothers, daughters, sons, wives, and husbands. It is a story of friends. It is a story of love, marriage, commitment, uncertainty, grief, sorrow and healing.

I must share with you the opening paragraphs* of the book which drew me in completely:

Love was the one thing Lily always thought she did better than her mother. She believed that she knew exactly what love took, what it cost, and what it meant, and she though of her long marriage to Tom as proof of it. But in the short period of time between Christmas and the start of fire season, everything she understood about love unraveled, the way jeans do at the hem, the way tweed does so that it reveals the intricate relationship of the warp and the weft, and she realized how very little she knew about the way love worked. People naturally assumed, after everything that happened, that it was a bitter revelation, but they were wrong.

“Would you do it all again, knowing what you know now?” her mother Eleanor, asked. Eleanor was, at that moment, seventy-five years old, about to be married again herself, and hoping that this time she might get it right.

“In a heartbeat,” Lily said – not only because she believed it, but because she knew it was what her mother needed to hear.

I’m not going to share too much of the plot with you today. Suffice to say that I think the back cover synopsis spoils the book completely. Thank goodness I NEVER read back cover synopsis until after the fact. Something happened in the book which I’m glad I didn’t know was going to happen because it made it just that much more powerful. So if you see this one in the store, don’t pick it up to read what it says on the back. Just go to the cash register and take it home with you.

Suffice it to say that this is a story of Lily and her longstanding marriage to Tom. It’s a story of Lily’s mother who is about to be married for the fourth time. It’s a story of Lily’s two sons, one who is wondering himself if he’d be one to take after his mother or his grandmother. I know that that description is about the most basic I could give but it’s a story with such incredible depth. Jennie Nash writes with such beauty. The emotions that she’s able to bring out in her characters is one that will have you crying right alongside them.

A gorgeous novel.

I am THRILLED to offer you an opportunity to win a signed copy of The Threadbare Heart and ten signed copies, a call-in from Jennie Nash, and a rum cake to one lucky grand prize winner (chosen from all participating blogs in this awesome promotion). There is a PDF document embedded here. If you can not view it, than click here.

It’s simple. Leave me a comment and in just 250 words explain your favorite fictional mother-daughter pair. I will post the entry I like best on my blog the day after Mother’s Day (other blogs will post theirs Mother’s Day but I will be offline and unable to do so). Then Jennie Nash will pick the grand prize entry from those.

Seriously folks, you NEED this book. I loved it so much.

*quoted from an uncorrected proof
Links of interest: Jennie Nash website, blog, and follow on Twitter. Maw Books reviews of The Only True Genius in the Family, The Last Beach Bungalow book review, Jennie Nash guest post and my interview with Jennie talking about The Last True Genius in the Family. More book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Berkley Trade. May 4, 2010
Paperback, 336 pages. ISBN 042523410X
Source: Review copy
The Threadbare Heart by Jennie Nash is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon

Natasha Maw — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:15:10 +0000

In The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon, thirteen-year-old Sam is the son of civil rights activist Roland Childs (who is a fictional character just to be clear), who is close to Martin Luther King Jr. Sam has grown up his whole life participating in demonstrations and stuffing more envelopes than he cares to count. He has learned that he will always be seen as his father’s son and as such must uphold a certain kind of reputation and represent his family well.

Racism is alive and strong in the south. While Sam is confronted with this on a daily basis, it is this following event where somebody was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time that stirs his anger even more and serves as the underlying motivation in the story:

Bucky straightened up and shook his head slightly. The officer slammed the baton into Buckey’s stomach again. Bucky doubled over from the force of the blow, pressing his arms against his stomach. The hit echoed in my gut – along with the horrible knowledge that everything was about to get worse.
The second cop’s baton caught Bucky on the chin and jerked him back up. Everyone on the street turned to look. The cops took turns striking Bucky with their nightsticks, fists and feet. The radio in the background seemed to sing louder, the cheerful pop tune warring with the sick thwack of baton blows against skin. The tall cop bent close to Bucky, his square nose practically touching Bucky’s cheek, and said something. Bucky reacted sharply, jerking backward, his fists stretched out in front of him. The cop laughed and hammered Bucky’s arms with his baton.

The music cut suddenly and the silence suffocated the street. The air grew thick, hard to breathe without choking. Only the hum of cars on nearby streets disturbed the still air. The stocky cop lifted the radio from his belt and spoke into it.

Maxie moved closer to me. This couldn’t be happening right in front of us, especially not to Bucky. It went on forever. Finally the tall cop brought his nightstick down hard against Bucky’s temple. The blow connected, making a loud crack. Maxie turned her face into my shoulder. I slid my arm over Maxie’s back, hugging her closer.

Bucky fell to the ground. His face pointed toward us, bruised cheeks and split lip. The side of his head was bleeding. His eyes were open, searching. His gaze landed on me, pleading for it to stop. I longed for Stick or even Father. They could do something, anything to make it stop. Stick might run over, lending his fists to Bucky’s defense. Father would know the right words, what to say that would help.

But not me.

The longer that he watches his friends and family suffer with racism the more he feels hopelessness and powerlessness. He begins to think that his father’s philosophy of activism without using violence isn’t making a difference. Or at least a difference that he can visibly see.

Sam’s older brother Stick has joined the Panthers, a new organization based out of California much to the disapproval of their parents. Was the panthers way of intimidation and the bearing of weapons better? Sam could see immediate results from the Panther’s actions. And besides, they were running free breakfast programs, medical care and other social programs. Sam loved Stick but was Stick going somewhere where he couldn’t follow?

The Rock and the River explored how Sam was stuck between two worlds. Two choices. Two different ways of acting. Between his parents and his brother. And whichever one he chose would ultimately bring disappointment to the other. And which one was right anyways?

I loved his sweet relationship with his friend Maxie at a time when kids are just barely learning about attraction and love. I also appreciated the discussion of class set and how although one’s skin color was the same, simply living in two different neighborhoods could be as though living worlds apart.

One loose end in the story that really surprised me as it was not addressed was that Sam’s parents did not ask him where he got the gun that played a rather pivotal role in the story. This really bothered me. His father tells him that guns have no place in their movement. In their family. So why did his parents not even wonder where he got the gun? No questions were asked about this and this bothered me. As a parent, I would be wondering how my child got the gun in the first place. A plot hole that I wish had been explored.

A brilliant book. One that deserves to be read by both children and adults. And widely at that. Excellent.

The Rock and the River is part of my themed reading for the month of February which celebrates Black History Month. Join me this month as I explore books that celebrate the history of African-Americans.
Links of interest: Kekla Magoon website and blog, more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Historical Middle Grade Fiction, approx ages 9-12.
Publisher: Aladdin. January 6, 2009.
Hardcover, 304 pages. ISBN 1416975829
Source copy: Library
The Rock and the River is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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