FernFolio » girls

The Shepherd’s Granddaughter by Anne Laurel Carter

fernfolio — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:18:18 +0000

From the time she was a little child, Amani Raheem knew she wanted to accompany her grandfather, Seedo, each day as he herded his flock of sheep up into the mountain meadows to graze. When she reaches the age of six, Seedo starts to teach her how a good shepherd tends to his, or her, sheep, and, as head of the family, decides that, rather than attending school in the village with her cousins, she will spend her days on Seedo’s Mountain, and study in the evenings at home.
Amani rapidly shows her grandfather, and the rest of her extended family, that she is a skilled and dedicated shepherd, and, when Seedo grows to frail to manage the family’s flock his crook is passed to her. The young girl communicates online with veterinarians, and works to improve her breeding stock, eager to use modern science and technology in a job that her family has pursued on Seedo’s Mountain for a thousand years.
However, politics and religion, and the Israeli occupation, which has long created problems in nearby Palestinian towns and villages, begin to create hardship and growing frustration for Amani’s family. From her vantage point high up the mountain above her family’s village, Amani can see the encroaching roads and settlements of Israeli settlers approach ever nearer. Then one day, while she is tending her flock, she sees markers indicating that a new settlement will be built right next to her family’s olive orchards. As the settlers’ road is pushed through their grape vines, and fences are put up on what has traditionally been her family’s land, Amani finds it increasingly difficult to follow her late grandfather’s advice and pray without anger in her heart.
A chance meeting up on the mountain with Jonathan, an American Jew whose father is leading the building of the new settlement, shows Amani that not all Jews believe that God has given them the right to seize land from Palestinian inhabitants. With the support of volunteers from Israeli and international peace movements, Amani and her family make a desperate bid to save their farm and preserve a centuries-old way of life.
Author Anne Laurel Carter has written a wonderful story in The Shepherd’s Granddaughter, one of courage and love, that serves to underscore the importance of tradition and family, as well as of acceptance and understanding of others. Well worth the read!
FernFolio Editor

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

Marshmallow Magic and the Wild Rose Rouge by Karen McCombie

fernfolio — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:20:54 +0000

After a year in Balgownie, a small town in the highlands, soon-to-be thirteen-year old Laurel “Lemmie” Ferguson is still haunted by what happened in Edinburgh before she and her parents moved away. Ridiculed for her highly artistic approach to dressing, and her unusual, exuberant and sometimes clumsy behaviour, by the time Laurel left her private girls school in the Scottish capital, she had been turned on by her best friends, accused of lying and jealousy, sent to see a child psychologist, and tried to run away from home.
But life has definitely improved. With the help of her terrific older sister, Rose Rouge, an art student in Edinburgh, Lemmie has learned marshmallow magic, an elaborate series of sign readings and good-luck spells designed by Rose Rouge to help Lemmie stay calm and face each day with confidence. Though her sister isn’t able to visit often, Rose’s unexpected flying visits always seem to coincide with when Lemmie needs her most.
Lemmie has also made two wonderful friends since coming to Balgownie, Morven, a gangly and kind-hearted farm girl, and Jade Song, tiny, brilliant, knowing and wise. Though they are as different from each other as chalk and cheese, the two girls are loyal and supportive, and Lemmie has shared with them many of the secrets of Rose Rouge’s marshmallow magic. Though her other classmates at Balgownie Academy do occasionally comment on Lemmie’s clothes or joke about her clumsiness, she feels that they are laughing with and not at.
Then one afternoon, while she is standing on a sidewalk with Morven and Jade, Lemmie happens to catch a glimpse of a face in a passing car. Shaken almost to the point of physical illness, Lemmie brushes off the concern of her friends, and rushes home to work a little marshmallow magic. But another sighting confirms her worst fears, that the girl who made her life unbearable in Edinburgh has come to Balgownie. Lemmie starts sleepwalking again, sparking her parents’ worry, and soon there are messages from school indicating that her behaviour at school has changed. Will she once again find herself attacked and friendless, or, with Rose Rouge’s help, will Lemmie manage to confront her fears and safeguard the life she has build for herself in Balgownie?
Karen McCombie’s Marshmallow Magic and the Wild Rose Rouge introduces three very likeable and engaging characters in Lemmie and her friends, Morven and Jade, and perceptively examines the subjects of friendship, bullying, and individuality. Everyone needs friends like Morven and Jade. Everyone needs a teacher like Ms. McIver. And everyone sometimes needs an older sister like Rose Rouge.
FernFolio Editor

Protector of the Small Quartet: First Test by Tamora Pierce

fernfolio — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:15:54 +0000

Keladry of Mindelan has her heart set on becoming a knight. Though her parents worry that it might prove too difficult a challenge even for a girl with Kel’s courage, she is determined to join the pages being trained at the court of King Jonathan. Since a new proclamation has decreed that girls be permitted, even Lord Wyldon, the page training master, cannot refuse her admission, though he is adamant that girls do not belong. Instead, Lord Wyldon puts her on a year’s probation and makes it clear to Kel, and to everyone else, that he expects her gone long before the year is over.
But at ten years old, Keladry is tall, sturdy and strong. After six years with her diplomat parents at the court of the Yamani emperor, she has learned the value of patience and outward calm. With the ladies of the imperial family, she has also learned a lot about hand-to-hand combat from one of the famous Shang warriors.
Kel manages well enough during the early weeks of training, helped by her page sponsor, Nealan of Queenscove, and largely ignored by the other pages. She has been warned by her older brother that she must expect some hazing, and that, no matter what, she must never back down to a bully, or tattle on one either. She carries out the foolish tasks set for her by the older pages, and learns to avoid the spiteful little traps set by those who’d just as soon see her go, but discovers she’s not going to be able to ignore the nasty Joren of Stone Mountain.
Joren delights in tormenting the new pages, finding and exploiting their weaknesses, and humiliating them at every opportunity. With Neal’s protection, Kel avoids the worst of Joren’s tricks, but, when she sees him abusing a fellow first-year page, Kel realises her sense of honour demands that she take him on. Gradually, the young girl discovers that she possesses the courage and fortitude to do the right thing, even in the face of adversity and that, perhaps, she is not as friendless as she had believed.
First Test is written by Tamora Pierce, author of the Circle of Magic books and many other fantasy books. It is the first of four novels about the adventures of Keladry of Mindelan. A wonderful story of honour, courage and daring in a magical world.
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

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

Loch by Paul Zindal

fernfolio — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 13:21:44 +0000

Fifteen-year old Luke, and his younger sister Zaidee, have spent most of their lives moving around with their marine biologist father, Dr. Sam Perkins. Sam works for the wealthy and controversial Anthony Cavenger, who travels the world in pursuit of mythological creatures – yetis, dragons, sasquatches and sea monsters. This time, Cavenger’s hunt has brought the Perkins to the shores of Lake Alban, near New York’s famous Lake Champlain, where the multimillionaire plans to find irrefutable proof of the water monster whom locales have whispered about for decades.
For Luke and Zaidee, this latest adventure allows them to spend time aboard Cavenger’s search vessel, helping their father and trying to bridge the emotional gaps created by their mother’s recent death from cancer. Once an internationally renowned scientist, Dr. Sam’s job with Cavenger has jeopardised his professional reputation and eaten away at his spirit. Though worried about his father, Luke is happy to renew his friendship with Sarah, and to spend time out on the water with her and his sister Zaidee.
Luke and Zaidee and Sarah are all aboard Cavenger’s boats the day that the search team sweeps Lake Alban for signs of the water monster, and all of them are witness to the horrifying events that take place when Cavenger orders great nets to be lowered into the lake in hopes of cornering and capturing the creature. Once he sees what lurks in the depths of Lake Alban, even the death of one of his crew won’t stop Cavenger’s hunt.
Frightened by what has happened, Dr. Sam orders Luke and Zaidee off the lake but they rapidly get bored of the trailer and their computer games, and decide to sneak in a little fishing from the family bass boat. Then Luke notices some scrape marks near the shore at the far end of Lake Alban, and makes a discovery that will change his and Zaidee’s and, ultimately, Dr. Sam’s lives forever.
Written by famed author Paul Zindal, who also wrote such classics as The Pigman and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Loch is a terrific tale about two young people who discover that distance between fantasy and science, and fear and love, is not nearly as great as you might have imagined.
FernFolio Editor

The Moon Children by Beverley Brenna

fernfolio — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:09:27 +0000

Conditioned by his experiences, both at school and at home, eleven-year old Billy Ray has learned not to expect much from life. His inability to read more than a handful of simple words or to recall numbers, and his hyperactivity in class have made him the butt of his classmates’ taunts and putdowns. At home, his parents’ hard drinking has caused a roller coaster of good moments and bad.
When his mother’s pregnancy results in her seeking help for her alcoholism and then issuing an ultimatum to Billy’s father to either stop drinking or move out, Billy watches as his dad packs up his things and goes. His assurances to Billy that he’ll be in touch are empty promises. So, with his mother off working long days cleaning rooms at a local motel, Billy finds himself practising tricks with his yo-yo, the birthday present he received when he wanted a water pistol and a skateboard. When he learns that a nearby public park is going to hold a talent contest, to raise money for a local kids’ charity, and that the prize will be twenty-five dollars, Billy decides to enter. Mastering the twenty-one tricks shown in the book he got with the yo-yo prove easy for Billy, but finding someone to sponsor him by donating money to the children’s charity proves more difficult.
Across the street from Billy’s rundown apartment stands a big, well-kept house, and often, in those hot July days leading up to the talent contests, a girl sits on the front steps of that house drawing and writing in a yellow notebook she has on her lap. Curious about the girl and what she is doing, Billy approaches her and discovers that, though Natasha Arnold is friendly and welcoming to him, she does not speak. Through her drawings and gestures, as well as what he overhears from neighbours, Billy learns that Natasha has been adopted from a Romanian orphanage by Mr. and Mrs. Arnold, a wealthy couple who want desperately to help Natasha to overcome the traumas of her early childhood. But she has a secret that is weighing her down, one that she is going to need Billy’s help to confront. In reaching out to support Natasha, Billy will also find the courage to face his own sense of helplessness and inadequacy.
The Moon Children is a story about a young boy’s struggle to live with dignity while coping with the lifelong effects of foetal alcohol syndrome, about a young girl’s attempts to reconcile her past with her present and future, and about how, together, they are able to see and understand what is truly important. Well worth a read!
FernFolio Editor

Chocolate River Rescue by Jennifer McGrath Kent

fernfolio — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:33:15 +0000

Sent outside to enjoy the wintery weather, Shawn Mahoney and his younger brother, Craig, along with Shawn’s best friend, Tony, wander over to the new bridge built near their homes in Riverview. The bridge, which spans the Petitcoudiac river, links their town with the city of Moncton, New Brunswick.
Standing on the bridge watching the river below, which looks like a lumpy chocolate milkshake, with its brown water and chunks of ice and slush, Tony spies a Manga Warriors card lying on the ice under the bridge and soon the three boys slip and slide their way down to claim it. Wrestling playfully, they look up to see a police officer running toward them pointing and yelling, but cannot imagine what he might be trying to tell them until they hear a crack. It is then that they realize that the ice they are standing on it about to break away from the bank. Before they can make it to safety, a second crack sends the ice and the boys onto the river. Though the police officer tries to rescue them further down river, the boys spin rapidly beyond his reach, and the ice they are perched on heads toward the Bay of Fundy.
Nearby, Petra prepares to spend her birthday skiing with her uncle Daryl, a fire-fighter. When they pick up the emergency message on the police scanner in Daryl’s truck, the two join the rescue efforts, hoping to be able to put to use the zodiac inflatable boat that Daryl happens to have on a trailer on the back of his truck. But, when they reach an access point where they can launch the inflatable, Daryl is badly injured when the boat falls on his arm. With her uncle being cared for by a passing motorist, Petra decides that she must carry out the rescue attempt on her own. She gets the boat into the icy waters and heads out into the river in search of the missing boys.
As darkness falls and the temperature begins to dip, the four kids must draw upon all of their strength and ingenuity to survive until Search and Rescue can find them.
Based on a true story, Chocolate River Rescue is a fast-paced adventure that will have you cheering for its young heroes!
FernFolio Editor