Loser’s Guide to Life and Love by A.E. Cannon, 2008
Rating : Loved
Character Development & Growth (identity)
Friendship & Best Friends
Romance & Relationships
LA Hook (based on Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Utah Connection (set in SLC)
Over the summer, Salt Lake City high school student Ed McIff works at a video story wearing a name tag that reads Sergio. When a beautiful girl comes into the story, he decides to take on a new, more suave identity to match his name tag, resulting in a series of misunderstandings and star-crossed encounters. The story is told in alternating chapters in the voices of Ed, his good friend Quentin, his female co-worker and friend Scout, and the new girl Ellie. This is a funny story that is loosely based on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The local setting makes it even more accessible and enjoyable.

Magyk (Septimus Heap, bk 1) by Angie Sage, 2005Fantasy : Epic & Good vs. Evil
Family Relationships
Politics & Rulers
Rating : Loved
When Jenna learns she is the princess and whisked from her home by the Extraordinary Wizard Marcia, she and her adopted family are pursued by the evil forces that killed her Queen mother ten years earlier. The Heaps are “magykal” and have been well respected, even related to a White Witch Zelda, but the custodians of the castle have a new leader - dark magyk DonDaniel, who is determined to destroy any magyk not subjected to his own. The world is richly imaged with characters and magical items, such as Assassins, Hunters, Confidential Rats, Boggarts, Brownies, White Witches, Ordinary Wizards, Custodians, Shield Bugs, Magogs, Dragon Boat, scrying duck ponds, and so.

Our good friends, the Fletchers, recommended this series, and I found it very entertaining. When newborn Septimus Heap dies in the first chapter, I knew something was up. The seventh son of a seventh son, and the namesake of the series, my suspicions hardly required extraordinary insight, but I was more than happy to keep reading to discover how it was going to all work out. I will be reading the next book soon.



Maddigan’s Fantasia by Margaret Mahy, 2007Fantasy : Space & Time Travel
Family Relationships
Rating : OK
In a world where a great ancient catastrophe has created shifting and dissolving roads, traveling around as a member of a circus family is always precarious. When Garland’s Fantasia allows two brothers to start traveling with them, their lives just got much more complicated and dangerous. The two brothers Timon and Eden can perform real magic and contribute to the circus’s livelihood, but are pursued by enemies from the future who will stop at nothing to steal their magic talisman.

I think at another time I might enjoyed this story. It promises to be quite good, but after 230 pages (not quite halfway), I cannot keep my mind on the story, and so I will not finish it at this time. The plot is interesting, the world they live in is creative and original, the dangers and scraps are entertaining. Perhaps the voice of the New Zealand author is just enough unfamiliar to throw me, or perhaps there are too many characters to keep straight in the time I’m giving it.



Tangerine by Edward Bloor, 1997Family Relationships
Sports (soccer, football)
School Story
Diversity: Hispanic Am
Nature & Environment
Rating : Loved
Paul Fisher’s older brother is a high school football star, and his parents and everyone else who enters Erik’s orbit become part of the Erik Fisher Football Dream. Paul’s own sport, soccer, and his success at it are ignored. When the family moves to Florida, the golden sunshine obscures some very serious problems. For instance, their new large-home neighborhood, build over old orchards, is infested with termites, has a standing water and mosquito problem, and constantly smells of a muck fire that cannot be put out. When Paul’s neighborhood school sinks into a mud hole, he is given an option to enroll in the town’s school, which he does so he can play soccer. His one friend from the neighborhood school follows him, but does not know how to survive in the minority-strong environment and shortly returns home. While Paul is playing soccer, writing science reports, and helping save young fruit trees from a freeze with his new friends, he slowly remembers some experiences relating to a serious eye injury he had as a child, and confronting his fear of his brother.

I saw this book on the shelf at King’s English, and didn’t realize it was older until I saw it again in my library. I figured it must be good if it’s still on the bookstore’s shelves, and I was not disappointed. This story has many layers written in a compelling way. The soccer scenes are as exciting as any quiddich scene from Harry Potter, and the interactions between Paul and his new classmates are awkward, intimidating, enlightening, and hopeful all at once. (This new cover image is awful. The kid is too young, and most middle schoolers wouldn't pick it up. The original is much better.)

Gone Fishing; Mortal Engines

Gone Fishing : Ocean Life by the Numbers (591.77) by David McLimans, 2008
Nature & Environment (Ocean life)
Picture book
Rating : Loved
Told in black, white, and blue, this book is about ocean life that is endangered or in danger of becoming endangered. On each page, the author illustrates a member of the featured species in a fanciful interpretive style to represent the numerals 1-10, and then includes a realistic sketching and some basic facts about the species’ class, habitat, aquatic regions, treats, and status. The front half is black and white on a blue background and counts from 1 to 10, while the second half is blue and white on a black background and counts from 10 to 1. The middle spread includes ocean facts by the numbers – exponents of 10 from 100 to 109. At the end, the author includes more information about each featured species and more stats about our oceans.

I’ve looked at a lot of number books this year, and this one is as good as any I’ve seen. It is a great introduction to ocean life, habitat threats, digits, powers of 10, and statistical information.



Mortal Engines (Hungry City Chronicles, book 1) by Philip Reeve, 2001
Science Fiction
Adventure & Espionage
Rating : Liked / Loved
Set in a post-apocryphal world where America is a waste land and most technologies are lost, cities travel about on giant tank tracks and practice Municipal Darwinism where larger cities consume smaller ones, stripping them of their resources and using their inhabitants as slaves. London, one of the great traction cities, has left its self-imposed exile and returned to the hunting grounds. Organized by guilds – Engineers, Historians, Navigators, Merchants – Tom Natsworthy, a Third Class Apprentice in the Historian guild, saves his hero, Thaddeus Valentine (archeologist and head of the Historian guild), from a murder attempt by a mysterious and severely disfigured girl, Hester Shaw, only to find himself thrown from the city and stranded with Hester in the Out Country. As they struggle to follow the city, they encounter slave dealers, an aviatrix and anti-tractionist Anna Fang, a floating city AirHaven, a Resurrected man or stalker, a pirate city called Tunbridge Wheels led by Peavey who wants Tom’s help to become a gentleman, an island city that defeats Tunbridge Wheels, and the Shield Wall that protects anti-traction cities from the hunting grounds and rivals the beauty of London – experiences that make Tom question his ideas about Municipal Darwinism and form a strong connection with Hester. Told in alternating chapters is the story of Katherine, Valentine’s daughter, who slowly learns the truth about her father and the Lord Mayor’s plans to destroy the wall and open up new hunting grounds. Tom and Hester working from without and Katherine and her Apprentice Engineer ally Bevis Pod working from within, the two stories come together at the end when the evil designs of London’s rulers blow up in their faces.

I like science fiction, and this one is no exception. The universe of the story is well crafted, and the characters are engaging. I liked it enough to pick up the sequel, something I don’t always do, but my rating hovers between Liked and Loved because it didn’t completely absorb me.