Book Talks

 

Bloody Jack

by L.A. Meyer.  

Publisher: Turtleback
Year: 2004
ISBN: 978-0613716406

Genre: Fiction/Adventure

Themes: Pirates

Rating: Ages 11 and up

Awards:  ALA Best Book for Young Adults, Booklist Editor's Choice
AR Points: 11.0

Fantastic Book for older readers.  Great for boys or girls interested in adventure, pirates and historical fiction.   

Text of Video: Welcome everyone.  Today’s video is all about the novel Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer.  The description on the cover says “being an account of the curious adventures of Mary Jacky Faber, Ship’s Boy.  Mary Faber is the daughter of a school teacher who has come to London to teach.  When his position falls through and the family takes ill, everyone dies except Mary.   Orphaned and alone, Mary is forced out on the streets and is taken in by a gang of street children.  Mary and the gang live on the streets.  They beg for pennies and food.  Sometimes Mary reads the news to the people in the streets and they make money that way.  When they have money, they buy a meat pie and share it between the gang.  When the leader of the gang, Charlie, is killed Mary discovers his body.  Heartbroken and crying, she steals his clothes and shiv.  She cuts her hair and dresses like a boy so she can join a ship’s crew and see the world.  Mary changes her name to Jacky and is accepted to the crew of the Dolphin because she can read.   She tells the crew she is a boy of 10 and bunks down with the 5 other ships boys near the cannons.  Jacky helps prepare the schoolroom for the midshipmen, and takes watch and does all the things the other ship’s boys do.  The British Naval ship the Dolphin travels to Palma and Jamaica in search of pirates, and treasure.  Jacky is growing up during this time and she has to hide the fact that she is becoming a woman.  She also has feelings for Jamie the young merchant’s boy who joined as a ship’s boy with her in London.  Jacky is worried about being thrown overboard when the crew finds out she is a girl, or worse being hanged.  How will Jacky ever share the truth and will she ever become a lady?

 If you love pirate tales, then you are going to love this book.  It has a sequel called Curse of the Blue tattoo.

Calvin and Hobbes  

by Bill Watterson

 

Title:   Calvin and Hobbes

Author:  Bill Watterson

Publisher: Andrews and McMeel

Year:  c 1987

ISBN:  0-8362-2088-9

Genre: Fiction/Comics

This book is for Ages:  8 and up

Subjects/Themes:  Humor, Imagination

This is my favorite comic strip.  It is funny and sure to make you smile.   

Text of the video:  Welcome everyone.  The book I am going to tell you about today is called Calvin and Hobbes.  It is written by Bill Watterson.  The book is a collection of the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip that was published in the late 1980s.  Calvin and Hobbes are best friends who get into all kinds of scrapes both at school and at home.  It doesn’t matter that Hobbes is a stuffed tiger and only Calvin sees him as real.  Together they explore the world and create more mischief than Calvin’s parents, and teacher can sometimes handle.    

Calvin caught Hobbes in a tiger trap rigged with a tuna fish sandwich.  Sometimes the pair are in school working on math problems like 7 +3, which is seventy-three according to Hobbes. Sometimes they are wondering what the mystery food is at the dinner table as it transforms into alien life forms.  Calvin even has an alter ego, the valiant Spaceman Spiff, who battles aliens with his neutralizer gun.  The imagination and creativity of these two characters is limitless.

Calvin has a frienemy at school named Susie.  Calvin is not on his best behavior with Susie and although he sends her a valentine, it is not very nice.  Susie gets Calvin back with a snowball.  

Calvin and Hobbes is a funny book you can read little bits at a time.   It is super imaginative and the best thing about it is that the fun continues in Bill Watterson’s 18 other books including Something Under the Bed is Drooling and Yukon Ho. 

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg

by Rodman Philbrick 

Publisher: Scholastic  

Year: 2011 c 2009

ISBN:  978-0-439-66821-7

Genre: Fiction/Adventure/Historic

This book is for Ages: 9-14

Awards: Newbery Honor Book, ALA Notable Book.

AR Points: 7.0           

Subjects/Themes: Runaways, Orphans, Brother, Self Reliance, Family, Civil War

Text of the video: Welcome everyone.  This video is about the Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg,  written by Rodman Philbrick.  Homer and his older brother, Harold, are orphans under the care of their rotten Uncle Squinton Leach.  When Harold stops Uncle Squint from beating Homer, Uncle Squint sells Harold to the Union Army where he must serve three years or until he dies.  Homer knows that it was wrong to sell Harold because Harold is only seventeen, and not old enough to be sworn into the army. Homer is worried about Harold and wants to rescue Harold before he is killed in the war.  Homer leaves Uncle Squints farm and travels through Maine.  Where he meets slave catchers and scoundrels who steal his horse and make him stop at a house on the Underground Railroad.  Homer tricks the scoundrels and helps the slaves continue on their journey to freedom.    Mr. Brewster rewards Homer with a trip on a steamship to New York so he can find Harold.  While on the steamship Homer’s guardian is bamboozled and Homer is locked in the steerage with pigs.  Once in New York, Homer joins a traveling medicine show that follows the Union wagon trains.  Homer has one adventure after another and even ends up on a hot air balloon that takes him to a battle where he meets Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.   Will Homer ever find Harold?  Will they serve the union army well?  Find out by reading The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg

Goose Chase 
by  Patrice Kindl

Publisher: Scholastic Press     
Year: 2002 c2001

ISBN:  0-439-52039-8

Genre: Fiction/Fantasy/Adventure

This book is for Ages: 9-12

AR Points: 8.0          

Subjects/Themes: Orphans, Princesses, Geese,

Text of video:  Welcome everyone.  Today’s video is about Goose Chase by Patrice Kindl  Where “living in a fairy tale isn’t all it’s cracked up to be”.   14-year-old Alexandria Aurora Fortunata is an orphaned Goose Girl.  She is happily having a tea party with her 12 geese.  A hungry old hag comes along so Alexandria gives the old woman all her food, which is just a bit of bread, and a little water.  The hag is really a fairy in disguise who casts an enchantment on Alexandria.  Suddenly Alexandria is more beautiful than the dawn.  She has enchanted golden hair complete with gold dust dandruff,  Alexandria’s tears turn into diamonds.  Soon everyone knows of Alexandria’s enchantment.  The wicked king from the next kingdom, who has a heart like a lump of coal wants to marry her and so does the young, handsome and but boring Prince of her kingdom.  Together they lock her in a tower until she decides which one of them she will marry, but Alexandria just wants to be a goose girl.  With the help of her geese, she manages a high flying escape right into the clutches of an Ogress.  Alexandria embarks on a magical journey full of imagination with a spectacular ending. To find out what happens read goose chase by Patrice Kindl

Hatchet 
by Gary Paulsen 

Title: Hatchet

Author: Gary Paulsen

Pub.: Aladdin Paperbacks, New York; 1996 ISBN: 0027701301

Brian’s Saga Series also includes: The River, Brian’s Winter, Brian’s Return

Genre: Fiction/Adventure

Themes: Survival, Divorce

Rating: Ages 11 and up

Awards:  1988 Newbery Honor Book, ALA Best Book for Young Adults, ALA Notable Book, Booklist Editor's Choice, Publisher's Weekly Best Book.
AR Points: 7.0

Plot Summary:  13-year-old Brian parents have recently divorced.  He is having a hard time accepting and understanding the adult emotions in his new life. Brian is going to spend the summer with his father in the Canadian oil fields.  When the pilot of the two-man plane suffers a heart attack, Brian must try to land the plane in an area surrounded by trees and lakes.  After surviving the plane crash, Brian’s rescue and survival is still uncertain.  Brian must endure in the wilderness using only his wits and the hatchet his mom gave him as a going away present.  Finding shelter, food and creating a new home is difficult.  Brian must compete with wild animals when looking for food.  As Brian works for survival, he discovers his inner strength and becomes a tough and thoughtful young man able to survive the harsh Canadian wilderness and the divorce of his parents.  

Review:  This 1988 Newbery Honor novel is an excellent coming of age story.  Paulsen effectively reveals the struggles teens face as they swing on the pendulum of time between childhood and adulthood.  Brian is struggling to understand and accept adult emotional behavior because of his mother’s affair and parents’ divorce.  As he struggles to survive, he experiences periods competency and emotional control and as well as feelings of hopelessness and emotional breakdown.  Although the journey to adulthood is a difficult one, Brian survives his ordeal and even brings about his own rescue.   Paulsen develops a character that is thankful, thoughtful and strong at the novel’s completion providing hope to the young people that they too are strong enough to overcome their own challenges.

If you like this story you may also like:  Far North by Will Hobbs.