FernFolio » boys

Zoobreak by Gordon Korman

fernfolio — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:40:07 +0000

After she helped them successfully retrieve a priceless baseball card from the guy who swindled it from them, best friends Griffin Bing and Ben Slovak feel they have to help Savannah Drysdale track down her missing pet capuchin monkey. However a class trip to a floating zoo docked at a nearby nature preserve solves one mystery and poses another. Cleo, the missing monkey, is locked into a cage in the zoo and the zoo’s owner adamantly refuses to admit that the little creature might belong to Savannah, so that problem becomes how Griffith and his friends can rescue her before the floating zoo sails away.
Known as the Man With the Plan for his elaborate schemes, Griffin calls in all of the kids who worked on the baseball card heist, and begins work on operation Zoobreak. Along with Pitch Benson, who can climb any tree or fence, Melissa Dukakis, an electronic genius, and Logan Kellerman, aspiring actor, Griffin, Ben and Savannah reconnoitre the old boat that houses the zoo, check out the walls and fences surrounding the nature preserve, post miniature surveillance cameras, and chat up Klaus, the beefy security guard who lives on board. Armed with a plan that, he is certain, covers every possible contingency, Griffin and his team sneak in the zoo in the middle of the night, and then watch as everything goes hilariously wrong.
Savannah, who is Cedarville’s acknowledged authority on animals, becomes incensed when she realises just how bad the living conditions of the zoo’s exhibits really are, and insists that Griffin and his team remove not only Cleo, her monkey, but all of the other animals on display. The six kids have to find places to stash the forty rescued animals, and keep them safe, and hidden, until Savannah’s friend, Dr. Kathleen Alford, curator of the Long Island Zoo, returns from a trip to equatorial Africa. Unfortunately, their animal liberation project has made the news, and the police open an investigation. But, worse still, Mr. “Nasty” Nastase, the zoo’s owner, seems to be on their tail!
Written by Gordon Korman, Zoobreak is an clever, funny, and action-packed adventure about a group of grade-six misfits who know the importance of friendship. Sequel to Swindle, let’s hope there are more stories about Griffin and Bing, and their friends, ahead!
FernFolio Editor

The Odds Get Even by Natale Ghent

fernfolio — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:35:25 +0000

Boney, Itchy and Squeak are neighbours and best friends. All three boys are odd; Boney, whose parents disappeared when he was a baby, lives with his neurotic aunt and her long-suffering husband, Squeak, whose mother ran off to work in a travelling cabaret, views the world from behind World War I goggles fitted with lens made to someone else’s prescription, and Itchy contends with a father who’s an Elvis impersonator and a mother intent upon redecorating their house. Together, they built the club house in the tree behind their houses, have entered the yearly Invention Convention at their school, and weathered the attentions of the class bully, Larry Harry, and his henchmen, Jones and Jones.
Larry, aka the Fart King and Prisoner 95, seems determined to make the Odds’ lives unbearable. He and the Jones twins regularly throw eggs at the boys’ clubhouse, and ambush them on the street. Boney, Itchy and Squeaky are regularly assaulted by the bullies, especially during phys. ed. classes, which frequently end in one or other of the boys making a visit to the school nurse.
Since Larry has sabotaged their entries into the Invention Convention, the Odds have never won, even though Squeak is a scientific and engineering genius, but this year the friends are determined to win the grand prize of $500, and solve the bullying problem once and for all. Squeak thinks he’s figured out how to build an Apparator, a device that can detect the presence of ghosts, and, since the ruins of the Old Mill are rumoured to be haunted, the Odds decide that it would be the perfect place to test Squeak’s invention, and plan Larry Harry’s comeuppance.
Little to the friends know that their plans will put them afoul of the Old Mill’s current occupant, or that a chance encounter with a dog will land them in hot water and about four thousand sequins!
Written by Natale Ghent, author of No Small Thing, The Odds Get Even is an action-packed adventure about three boys, their bullies and….. a ghost?
FernFolio Editor

Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

fernfolio — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:13:12 +0000

With his father gone, it falls to eleven-year old Gregor to look after his two-year old sister, Boots, and keep an eye on their senile grandmother, since his mother works long hours to support the family. On a hot July afternoon Gregor grabs the laundry, and Boots, and heads for the laundry room to get a couple of loads started before his mother gets home but, while he’s busy filling the washing machine, Boots toddles after her ball and gets sucked into the heating vent in the wall. Horrified, Gregor jumps after her, and finds himself falling, falling into the Underland, a dangerous and exciting world hidden far below the earth’s surface.
Found by giant meter-high talking cockroaches, Gregor fears that he and Boots will be killed, but the little girl is thrilled with the “beeg bugs,” and soon appears to have them captivated. The roaches take the two children to Regalia, a beautiful underground city which is home to a group of humans whose ancestors followed their leader, Bartholomew of Sandwich, underground some four hundred years previously.
Though the Underlanders and their young Queen, Luxa, treat Gregor and Boots like important guests, and give them rooms in the castle, they make it clear that they expect the two to remain in the Underland. However Gregor is determined to get himself and Boots home, eager to leave the darkness behind and worried about their mother who has already weathered the disappearance of her husband. With Boots secure in a pack on his back, Gregor sneaks out of the castle through its water supply, but is caught and almost eaten by giant rats. They are rescued by the Queen’s guard, and taken back to city, where Gregor learns that the Queen’s advisors believe he is the warrior from the Overland whose actions may save the citizens of Regalia from the armies of the Rat King. Gregor tries to explain that he is no warrior, and that he lacks the skills and experience they need, but the Underlanders are determined that he will lead the quest that will determine the fate of every creature in the Underland.
Giant talking animals, rats, roaches, spiders and bats, humans grown accustomed to life in a world without sun, cryptic prophecies, a proud and difficult young queen, a sly traitor who plots to overthrow a throne, a fearless and loving two-year old, and an ordinary boy desperate to get his sister safely home; all of these help to make Suzanne Collins’ story a thrilling adventure. Gregor the Overlander is the first book of the Underland Chronicles.
FernFolio Editor

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

fernfolio — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 18:02:50 +0000

Roy Eberhardt has recently moved to Coconut Grove, Florida, from Montana with his parents, and is putting up with the usual nonsense that adolescent kids inflict on newcomers. He eats lunch alone in the cafeteria, except for the occasional presence of Garrett, a skateboarding air head, and is trying to navigate his way past the attentions of Dana Mathison, the school bully.
One morning, Roy looks out the school bus window (his face is being mashed up against it by Dana), and sees a boy streak by on foot. What catches Roy’s attention about the kid is that he’s fast, and he’s running barefoot. When he doesn’t see him in the halls of Coconut Grove’s only middle school, Roy begins to wonder who the runner might be. He starts to watch for him from the school bus, and, when Roy finally spots the runner again, he frees himself from Dana’s strangle hold, darts off the bus and runs after him. After a chase that cuts through neighbourhoods and across a golf course, Roy is knocked unconscious by a flying golf ball.
Back at school, Roy is cross examined by the Vice Principal, who claims he’s broken Dana’s nose, threatened by Dana, and warned off taking any further interest in the mysterious barefooted runner by a rather physically intimidating girl named Beatrice Leep. But Roy refuses to give up on tracking down the kid, further intrigued by Beatrice’s behaviour.
Roy is also following with interest the developments on a building site at the corner of East Oriole and Woodbury. Future home of another Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House, the site’s being plagued by problems. First, the survey stakes keep getting pulled up. Then alligators turn up in the portable toilets placed on the lot for the construction team.
Roy begins to wonder whether there might be a connection between the barefooted runner and the trouble at the building lot. Soon Roy finds himself making the acquaintance of Mullet Fingers, a fugitive from Juvie Hall, and an overeager new police recruit named Office Delinko. Though these two appear at first to be on opposite sides of the law, both are linked by the nests of three mated pairs of burrowing owls on the Mother Paula’s Pancake House building site.
Carl Hiaasen’s Hoot is a fast-paced adventure with an environmental twist that combines humour with an edgy realism. Though there are no fairy tale endings, there is a satisfying victory over big business and corrupt government. Hiaasen is also the author of Flush and Scat.
FernFolio Editor

The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron

fernfolio — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 14:43:38 +0000

Ten year-old Lucky Trimble lives with her guardian Brigitte in a cobbled-together trailer home on the edge of Hard Pan, California, population 43. Perched in the Mojave Desert, on the site of an old gold mining town, Hard Pan is home to an odd collection of individuals who have known hard times. The Captain, a former airline pilot, has lost his family and his career. Short Sammy, who lives in an old water tank, only gave up drinking when his wife left him, and took his dog with her. Mrs. Prender is grandmother to five-year old Miles, who wanders around Hard Pan asking for cookies, but really looking for affection. Ten-year old Lincoln, who is fascinated by knots, but who parents want him to grow up to be president of the United States. Since there are no businesses in Hard Pan, there are no jobs; everyone who lives in the town relies on government assistance and receives monthly food allocations.
Life for Lucky is both wonderful and terrible. She loves Hard Pan, the only home she has ever known, her friends, Lincoln, and Short Sammy, and her dog, HMS Beagle. She loves Brigitte, the French woman who came to look after her following her mother’s death. But she is afraid that Brigitte wants to go home to Paris and her mother and sisters, and hates the feelings of sadness, uncertainty and powerlessness that this fear has created in her. So Lucky is trying her best to prepare for any eventuality, by always carrying her survival kit and by attempting to find her higher power.
Lucky has learned a lot about the importance of her higher power by eavesdropping on the meetings held at the Found Object Wind Chime Museum and Visitor Centre, meetings held by Alcoholics’ Anonymous, Smokers’ Anonymous, Gamblers’ Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous. After she has finished her regular job of cleaning up the museum patio of beer cans, cigarette butts and candy wrappers, Lucky puts her ear to a hole in the wall and listens to stories about how people found their higher power, that power that allowed them to take back control of their lives. Lucky figures that, if she can just find higher power, she will be able to find herself a real family, either by convincing Brigitte to stay in Hard Pan, or by locating a proper mother.
The Higher Power of Lucky is a the story of a girl who delights in the small joys and friendships and beauty of her broken-down town at the end of the road, yet fears that she will lose everything she loves. So she sets out to secure her world, as best she can, and discovers that home and family are sometimes closer than you realize. Author Susan Patron’s writing is simple, evocative and poetic. Her weaving of Charles Darwin’s voyages and discoveries, of Twelve-Step Programs, and of Brigitte’s French endearments and syntax, of Tarantula Hawk Wasps, and of the history and traditions of knots into Lucky’s story combine to create a tale that will stay with the reader long after the last page has been read.
The Higher Power of Lucky won the 2007 Newbury Medal.
FernFolio Editor

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

fernfolio — Sun, 24 May 2009 01:11:28 +0000

In the spring of 1939, a nine-year old girl named Liesel Meminger comes to live with Rosa and Hans Hubermann in their tiny house in Himmel Street, in Molching, a small town near Munich. Having recently survived the death of her younger brother, and separation from her sickly mother, Liesel is angry, defensive, and driven by nightmares. But she recognizes a certain caring and acceptance in her combative and foul-mouthed foster mother, and falls in love with the gentle Hans, who sits up with her every night when the dreams of her brother’s death visit her.
With Hans, Liesel learns to read, starting with her first book, The Gravedigger’s Handbook, which she has taken from the gravedigger’s apprentice who dug her brother’s grave. Though Hans, a housepainter by trade, is not a very good reader himself, he recognizes Liesel’s determination to learn, and agrees to help. Together, they read each night, after Liesel awakens from the nightmares, slowly memorizing the letters of the alphabet, then making their stumbling way through the first chapters of the handbook.
At school, Liesel finds herself in the infant class, ridiculed by the other students for her apparent stupidity, since she has never attended school before. But she makes friends with Rudy Steiner, who also lives in Himmel Street, and they are soon inseparable, playing soccer in the road with the other children, delivering laundry to Rosa’s wealthy customers, stealing fruit and vegetables from outlying farms, avoiding the nasty Frau Diller, owner of the corner store, who idolizes the Fûhrer, and commiserating with each other about their experiences in Hitler’s youth movements.
At first, the war does not encroach too far into Molching and Himmel Street, but then the Hubermann’s son is set to the Russian Front, Rosa begins to lose her customers, and rationing becomes restrictive. Then one day a stranger approaches Hans, and reminds him of an old and dear friend, a Jewish friend, one who taught him how to play the accordion and saved his life during World War I. This old friend’s son, Max Vandenburg, twenty-two, needs a place to hide, and Hans agrees to have the young man come to them in Himmel Street.
So it is that Max moves into the cellar, where he lives in a small space under the stairs during the day, only creeping upstairs to sit by the fire after dark, when the curtains can be closed against curious eyes. Sworn by her papa, Hans, to secrecy, Liesel learns to live two lives, one in the street with Rudy and the other children of Himmel Street, and a second with Max, in the cellar and front room of the Hubermann house. The young girl grows to love Max, a slightly-built young man with a surprisingly pugnacious past, who participates in fist fights each night with the Fûhrer, and cuts out the pages of a copy of Mein Kampf, then paints them white so that he can use the pages to tell his own story, in a book he entitles The Word Shaker.
Narrated by Death, who provides a perspective on the Nazi years that is both poignant and searing, The Book Thief is the story of a handful of ordinary people caught up in madness who manage, despite the odds, to remains true to what is important. Written for young adults, it is a novel that will appeal to students and adults alike.
FernFolio Editor

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

fernfolio — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:59:13 +0000

Twelve-year old Percy Jackson seems to be plagued by bad luck. Constantly in trouble at his upper New York state boarding school, hounded by a nasty classmate named Nancy Bobofit, and struggling with both dyslexia and ADHD, it’s like he’s an accident waiting for a place to happen. And it happens inside one of the galleries at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, which Percy and his classmates are visiting on a field trip. Attacked by Mrs. Dodds, his math teacher, he finds himself killing her with a sword tossed to him by Mr. Brunner, his wheelchair-bound latin teacher. Mrs. Dodds’ body turns into dust before Percy’s stunned eyes and, stranger still, no one, including Mr. Brunner, remembers anything about the incident or the math teacher.
In the weeks following the trip to Metropolitan Museum of Art, Percy’s marks plummet from C- to F, as he relives Mrs. Dodds’ death, and wonders if he’s lost his mind. Even his friend Grover, an awkward, rather hesitant kid made lame by muscular disease, can’t cheer him up or help him to put the nightmares behind him. Then, just as the school year is winding up, Percy decides to pay a visit to Mr. Brunner’s office, and overhears the latin teacher in conversation with Grover. They are talking about him, about the summer solstice, about protecting him, and about keeping him in the dark just a little longer.
When Grover turns up on the same Greyhound bus bound for New York City, after the school year ends, and makes it clear that he wants to escort his friend safely home, Percy gets mad and ditches him as soon as they reach the bus station. He heads home to the apartment shared by his loving mother, Sally, who works in a candy store but dreams of becoming a writer, and his loutish stepfather, Gabe, who lives to play poker, verbally abuse his wife, and make Percy’s life unbearable.
Fortunately, Sally has organized a weekend away for just her and Percy to a cottage at the end of Long Island Sound. There they spend an idyllic day at the beach, a place both of them love because it is where Sally met and fell in love with Percy’s father, who was lost at sea when the boy was only a baby. But nightfall brings a bad storm and an anxious Grover, who demands to know if Percy has told his mother about the incident with Mrs. Dodd. When she learns of it, a very alarmed Sally packs things up and the three of them head off into the storm to get Percy to safety at a nearby summer camp.
Just as they reach the camp, Sally’s car swerves off the road, and Percy and Grover are injured. Sally orders Percy to get to the camp, and takes off through the storm to intercept the creature that has been sent to stop him. But Percy cannot leave Grover behind, and manages to drag him from the car. Together, they reach the camp’s boundaries, where Percy collapses. When he awakens, two days later, Percy discovers that he has lost all that he has ever loved, and that most everything his mother told him about his father was a lie.
Camp Half-Blood, where he now finds himself, is a safe place, and a training facility, for the children of Greek gods. These gods are fond of entering into relationships with humans and the half-blood children that result from these unions are both blessed by special abilities and cursed by the dangers that their unusual parentage attracts. Percy is at first sceptical about this revelation, certain that his father was human, but Grover and Mr. Brunner, who are both far more than Percy could ever have imagined, assure him that his very ability to enter the camp grounds is proof of his parentage. What no one knows, however, is exactly which of the Greek gods fathered Percy, so he is placed in the cabin of the Hermes, the god of travellers, until his parentage can be determined. The boy settles into camp life, and rapidly finds himself involved in a variety of camp activities, such as metalwork, where you can forge your own sword, arts and crafts, where you can sandblast a Grecian statue, ancient Greek lessons, archery, foot racing, wrestling, and capture the flag. But just as he begins to enjoy his new life, Percy is attacked and the camp directors realize that the boy has an enemy inside the camp.
Concerned that he is no longer safe at Camp Half-Blood, the directors send Percy to the Oracle of Delphi, who prophecies that the boy will find what was stolen and see it safely returned. It is then that Percy learns that Zeus’ thunderbolt, the symbol of his power, has been stolen and that he, Percy Jackson, is the prime suspect in the crime. If a terrible war between the gods is to be averted, and Percy is to clear his name, the thunderbolt must be found and returned to Zeus, and by the summer solstice, now only days away. Accompanied by his friend Grover, and Annabeth, a fellow camper who eyes the boy with considerable suspicion, Percy sets off on a quest that will test his mettle and pit him and his companions against greatest and most terrible monsters of Greek mythology.
Written by Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief is the first of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books, which currently number five. Steeped in mythology, yet action-packed and full of tense moments interspersed with humour, this novel is sure to appeal to boys and girls, and eager and reluctant readers, alike!
FernFolio Editor

Ingo by Helen Dunmore

fernfolio — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:57:19 +0000

Sapphire and her older brother, Conor, live with their parents in a small cottage at the edge of the sea. Together, Sapph and Conor spend their summers climbing down the cliffs to the small sandy cove near their home, where they explore the narrow caves, study the tidal pools, swim in the ocean, and eat picnics on the beach. Though they must watch for the changing tide, so they won’t be caught by the its rip and swept out to sea, the two stick close together, looking out for each other, as they have promised their parents.
Their father, Mathew Trewhella, a fisherman and photographer, shares their love of the sea, but cautions them to respect it; their mother, Jennie, is terrified of it, having been told long ago by a fortune-teller that she would die by drowning. Though her parents occasionally fight about Mathew’s fascination with the sea, and her mother’s fears, the family seems happy enough until one summer, when Sapphire is ten, Mathew go out in his boat, the Peggy Gordon, and never returns. After the Coast Guard’s search ends, and the Peggy Gordon is found wrecked upon the rocks, the family is forced to accept that Mathew Trewhella is dead.
Their father has been gone just over a year, and Sapph is still struggling to adjust to the changes his absence have brought to the family. Her mother, who used to be at home full time, is struggling to pay the bills by working long hours as a waitress. Her mother’s growing friendship with Roger, a diver, has Sapph feeling resentful and uncertain. When Conor starts avoiding her to spend long hours on his own down in the cove, Sapph follows him and discovers that him talking with a dark-haired girl out on the rocks. Confronted by his sister’s assertion that he’s been gone for hours, Conor seems bewildered.
When her brother takes off on his own again, Sapph returns to the cove and find a boy Conor’s age sitting on the rocks. The boy beckons and she joins him, only to discover that he isn’t a boy at all, but one of the Mer folk, half boy and half seal. Faro tells Sapph that Conor is away in Ingo with his sister, Elvira, and invites her to go there with him. With her hand on his wrist, the two dive into the sea and swim into an alien world of breathtaking beauty that enchants Sapph. With Faro’s careful coaching, she discovers that she can survive in Ingo without air, and that she seems to understand what the Mer folk are saying. Indeed, at times she feels that she can even comprehend the fish and the dolphins.
But the more time she spends in Ingo, the more Sapph struggles to remember her life up in Air, her mother, her brother, Conor, and the cottage. When she returns home, the hours and days seem out of balance; at times, long hours passed in Ingo are minutes on land, at others, short visits with Faro have her brother frantic with worry, trying to explain away her absence of more than twenty-four hours to their mother. Though Conor has enjoyed his visits away in Ingo, the underwater world exercises a pull on Sapph that she finds increasingly hard to resist. When he brother insists that she stop her visits to Ingo, Sapph is torn between her love for Conor, and her need to escape the sadness and confusion of her father’s disappearance in the oblivion of the sea. Then danger threatens the family’s fragile stability, and Sapph must make a final, desperate journey away to Ingo.
Written by Helen Dunsmore, Ingo is a beautiful and moody story about grief and loss, and a girl’s journey in search of understanding and acceptance. Sapphire, her brother, Conor, and their Mer friends, Faro and Elvira, are nuanced characters whose strengths and weaknesses are entirely credible and compelling. Ingo is magic!
FernFolio Editor

Mattland by Hazel Hutchins, Gail Herbert and Dusan Petricic

fernfolio — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:32:05 +0000

When Matt’s parent move again, this time to a new house in a new subdivision, Matt finds himself with no one – and nothing – to play with. Standing on bare ground littered with scraps of construction materials, Matt sees a stick and feels like breaking it, or hitting something with it, but when he picks it up it feels comfortable in his hand. So Matt draws a line with the stick, one that quickly fills with water, and so is born Snake River, the first feature of a young boy’s imaginary world.
Using rocks and puddles and mounds of earth, as well as the building scraps, Matt creates rivers and lakes, mountains and hills, farms and cities, roads and railway lines. He does it all with the help of the outsider, a girl who appears and offers him first a popsicle stick, and then all of the small treasures that she can find, berry containers, pine cones, metal keys, and broken bits of tile.
Then the rain begins and threatens Mattland until help comes unexpectedly, saving the children’s creation and forming the basis on new friendships.
Mattland is written by Hazel Hutchins and Gail Herbert in words and phrases that slip comfortably from the tongue to create images that evoke the best of childhood. The illustrations, by Dusan Petricic, are wonderful; his use of perspective and colour underscore the central messages of friend making and the imagination.
FernFolio Editor

Eliot Jones Midnight Superhero by Anne Cottringer and Alex Smith

fernfolio — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:53:00 +0000

By day, Eliot is a quiet boy who plays in his room, feeds cupcakes to his goldfish, and watches Mr. Smith wash his car. But, when the clock strikes midnight, he becomes Eliot Jones, Midnight Superhero! Armed with his amazing hypno-vision, his super strength and his super detecting skills, Eliot tackles the lions rampaging through the city, rescues a ship about to crack onto the rocks in a storm, and finds the evil villain who has stolen the Queen’s jewels, but his greatest challenge comes when the worlds Most Important Scientists turn to him for help. A gigantic meteor is headed for Earth, threatening the safety of the entire planet. As the scientists put it, Meteor + Earth = Ahhhh! Run for your life! Fortunately, Eliot is on the case, racing against the clock to save the Earth from destruction!
Eliot Jones Midnight Superhero is a fun book written by Anne Cottringer, and humorously illustrated by Alex Smith, that celebrates the imagination in all of us while taking a gentle poke at those superheroes comic books we love to read!
Fernfolio Editor