Wishing you and yours a very merry day
The holiday season is upon us and the blog will be going quiet for the next two weeks because of visiting family and assorted Christmas activities. I have posts scheduled but I will be much slower at responding to comments and visiting other blogs.
I hope everyone has a wonderful winter holiday.
Hallmark sells a variety of recordable storybooks in their stores. While these seem like corny gifts and Hallmark's selection is seriously sentimental, they're actually pretty great.
My sister sent one to my son two years ago - it was her and my nephew reading The Night Before Christmas. In the opening message my nephew talked about how much fun he had with us that past summer and how awesome his cousin was. My son was only a year old, so he didn't really care, but I teared up and told everybody about it. It was a wonderful way to have my family with us at Christmas when we're so far away. Last year she sent another Christmas book for The Kid as well as one from my mother reading Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney. My mom has been fighting cancer off and on for eight years and she was very sick that past two summers that we were home. I bawled. It was such a wonderful gift for my son and for me.
I would highly recommend these gifts for family that lives far away or for grandparents in general.
You can see Hallmark's list of Recordable Storybooks HERE, but at the time of this writing they didn't have their Christmas books listed yet. I also recommend watching the short See How They Work video at the bottom of the screen. (The recording is really that clear and loud.)
Author: Julie Bourbeau
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: August 14, 2012
Genre: Middle Grades, Adventure
How I Got It: from NetGalley for review
Goodreads Summary:
Max’s village is absolutely normal in every single way and on every single day—except Wednesday.
Most of the townsfolk shutter their windows and lock their doors to hide away from the many peculiar things that happen—things like cats getting stuck in the vacuum cleaner and birthday cakes meeting fiery and horrific ends. But Max is too curious for that, and so, breaking every rule in the village, he searches out the cause of all the Wednesday weirdness.
What he uncovers is a secret so devious—so dastardly and mischievous—that life as he knows it will never be the same. Max himself is not the same. Suddenly the mysterious little accidents so common on Wednesdays are happening to him on Thursdays, Fridays—even Saturdays!
What’s come over Max? And more importantly, is there any cure for a case of the Wednesdays?
Mystery, magic, mischief and monsters abound in this slightly fantastical story of a human kid who wants to stay that way.
Most of the townsfolk shutter their windows and lock their doors to hide away from the many peculiar things that happen—things like cats getting stuck in the vacuum cleaner and birthday cakes meeting fiery and horrific ends. But Max is too curious for that, and so, breaking every rule in the village, he searches out the cause of all the Wednesday weirdness.
What he uncovers is a secret so devious—so dastardly and mischievous—that life as he knows it will never be the same. Max himself is not the same. Suddenly the mysterious little accidents so common on Wednesdays are happening to him on Thursdays, Fridays—even Saturdays!
What’s come over Max? And more importantly, is there any cure for a case of the Wednesdays?
Mystery, magic, mischief and monsters abound in this slightly fantastical story of a human kid who wants to stay that way.
Poor Max, it was just a case of the wrong place at the wrong time, which often happens when kids are crushingly bored. Every Wednesday bizarrely "bad luck" plagues Max's small village. In fact, it's so bad they call it The Wednesdays and the entire place locks itself up tight for the entire 24 hours. Max was bored from being locked in all day with his exhausted parents and colicky baby brother. He was just watching a storm, he'd only cracked the window for some fresh air, surely The Wednesdays wouldn't notice...
And so begins Max's full blown and daily case of The Wednesdays. His bad luck become dangerous, he's banned from school, he's a danger to his family… the only good thing is that his little brother calms down around him. Max realizes that he's turning into a Wednesday, wether he wants to or not. In an attempt to save himself he enlists his best friend, a school newspaper reporter, a cowardly parapsychologist, and an all WWII vet suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Bourbeau's story is a great mix of mischief, mayhem, adventure. The Wednesdays are a nice balance of funny and bad but the older Wednesdays… they're dangerous and add a little bit of fear to the story. The story brings up quite a few side mysteries and questions that readers will want answered because they can't help but come up with their own theories. Besides that, Bourbeau's quirky characters were pretty endearing. At the time of this writing I have not been able to find out if The Wednesdays is part of a series or a standalone read. It it's a series, great, I know questions will be answered. In fact the ending makes you eager to pick up the sequel. If it's a standalone then The Wednesdays had a very frustrating ending that left too many questions unanswered.
There was nothing in particular about the boy standing in the open window to indicate that he was anything other than perfectly ordinary.
But he was a boy, no denying that. And the creature staring up at him was cold and wet and unbearably grumpy, and if not this boy, then he'd have to keep trudging about in this blasted storm…
The boy would do just fine, he decided.
And so begins Max's full blown and daily case of The Wednesdays. His bad luck become dangerous, he's banned from school, he's a danger to his family… the only good thing is that his little brother calms down around him. Max realizes that he's turning into a Wednesday, wether he wants to or not. In an attempt to save himself he enlists his best friend, a school newspaper reporter, a cowardly parapsychologist, and an all WWII vet suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
 |
| Max finally meets The Wednesdays Courtesy of Jason Beene |
 |
| The older Wednesdays are not to be messed with Courtesy of Jason Beene |
Verdict:
I think this story would be a great fit with second and third graders. The Wednesdays' mischief will make kids gasp and laugh, but it's the type of story where readers start thinking ahead. They'll want to pick up a sequel to see if their assumptions were correct. However, if these questions are never answered, I think kids would be pretty disappointed and let down. I'm giving it a tentative 3 stars.
Related Links & Reviews:
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: August 14, 2012 (currently available in the UK)
Genre: YA, Middle Grades, Humor, Horror, Illustrated Novel
How I Got It: from NetGalley for review
Goodreads Summary:
You're dead Scarlett...Previously a poor taste jibe from school frenemies, now a statement of fact. Scarlett is absolutely mortified (in more ways than one) to discover that she's accidentally killed herself while trying to get out of a school trip. Even worse, she's taken her entire family with her. Life as a ghost is pretty dull - if only some of her friends were dead too...
When I started this book I knew right away it wasn't for me, but I could also think of several students who would like it. So I started the book over and read it as a librarian: did it have a good story, was it well written, was there an audience for it, etc. And I have to say, while it might not appeal to me, Scarlett Dedd is a cool book.
Scarlett is shy but has a group of friends that she really values. They make horror movies on the weekends and she's becoming their star (her super pale complexion easily lends itself to zombie roles). Despite the place she's found with them, Scarlett isn't as comfortable with other kids her age. Her father is a struggling writer and her mother and equally struggling artist, so the family doesn't have a lot of money. There's an overnight class trip coming up and Scarlett is so afraid of the other girls seeing her in her third hand underwear. Her parents want her to go so Scarlett decides that the only way to get out of the trip is to get sick. She finds some toadstools in the park that she mistakenly identifies as ones that will cause vomiting. (If only she had read the other page and noticed an exact match for her toadstools causes death.) She whips up some mushroom risotto and ends up poisoning her whole family. Scarlett tries to adapt to her afterlife, but she's not doing as good a job as her parents and brother. Sure, she can do cool things now like walk through walls, and she can type and text ( She's also met some other ghosts online in an chat room), but it's not the same as before. She's so lonely and she's a bit jealous of her still living friends. Scarlett gets it into her head, with a bit of help from a bad influence, that things would be so much better if her friends were dead too!
 |
| Scarlett and her family (before they were ghosts) |
Scarlett Dedd was a mix of gross-out humor, some slap stick, a very clever premise, and a variety characters - one of the most interesting horror books I've read. You feel a bit sorry for her, not only was she going through the awkward teen years, but now she's stuck in them as a lonely ghost. Readers will realize some things that should seem obvious to Scarlett, but that is part of Brett's story. Scarlett is so caught up in her death, loneliness, and subsequent plans to knock off her friends that she's not paying attention to her new world. We see what she cannot, but that doesn't make the story predictable, it's simply another way the reader interacts with the story. Brett's illustrations add some very cool elements to the story and give readers a lot to look at. It might seem a bit much that a scrapbook style page pops up in the middle of the narrative, pictures scatter or warp the text, and the book at times has to be rotated to be read. But all of these things actually work very well with the part of the story they pop up in. Reading Scarlett Dedd was a fun visual experience.
The story is very British, not that it's a bad thing, but might take a bit of time for other readers to get the hang of the slang and insults. There is nothing that hinders understanding, it just takes some time to get used to. The kids' insults are very creative and long and seemed a bit harsh to me but I know that a lot of my older students would find them very funny.
Verdict:
Visually Scarlett Dedd was a fantastic book. The mix of gross-out humor and horror will definitely appeal to readers who enjoy the style. Scarlett Dedd was a neat story of teenage angst, loneliness, and finding acceptance within yourself. It never got too mopey, there was always some action or humor tossed in to lighten the mood. This is a fun one to pick up from the library.
Posts
