A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears - Kid Book Review

Title: A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears
Author: Jules Feiffer
The Reviewer: Lucia, Age 9

If you liked The Phantom Tollbooth, you’ll love this book! Prince Roger is so happy that when he comes near even the saddest and angriest people, they burst out laughing! This care free prince is set on a quest by a wizard. Will he complete it, or is his quest to find a quest? But after three reports of “no progress” from the wizard, King Watchamacallit, Roger’s dad, loses faith in him. Does Roger have the skill to get through this, or is this a quest you don’t need skill for?

Read A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears to see if Roger is born a barrel of laughs, and then drowned in a vale of tears.

Read More kid reviews!

Silverwing - Kid Book Review

Title: Silverwing
Author: Kenneth Oppel
The Reviewer: Lucia, Age 9

Silverwing is an entrancing story you just can’t put down! Shade, a young Silverwing bat is separated from the rest of the Silverwings in a storm while the bats fly south. Shade has to get back to them! Along the way he tries to discover the meaning behind the silver bands on some bats’ wrists.

On this adventure he meets Marina, a Brightwing bat with one of the metal bands on her leg, Goth, a large, ferocious vampire bat, Zephyr, a mysterious albino bat, and many others.

But the journey doesn't end here – read Sunwing, a companions to Silverwing, and another wonderful fantasy. Will Shade get back to his family and stop the owls’ plans, or will he be the next victim?

Here's a quote from the Silverwing.

The Penderwicks Book Review

Book Review
Title: The Penderwicks
Author: Jeanne Birdsall
Awards: National Book Award Winner, 2005

When I first started reading The Penderwicks, I thought immediately of Estes' Pye and Moffat series, as well as Eagar's "Magic" books. I had to doublecheck the copyright date to ensure that the book was indeed just published in 2005. Birdsall was obviously influenced by those books and it shows (in a good way in The Penderwicks).

Similar to those classics, The Penderwicks chronicles the adventures of a family of kids and their friends. In this case it is the four Penderwick sisters: Rosalind, age twelve - the dependable one; Skye, 11 super smart and quick to temper, Jane, 10, the imaginative writer, and Batty, 4, shy but with her own strengths as well. There is also their dog Hound, the girls' father and a few friends they make on their three week summer vacation.

The Penderwick family's adventure starts when they have to make a last minute change in their vacation plans and end up rentig a cottage in the mountains sight unseen. The cottage turns out to be a guest home on the estate of the huge Arundel Mansion.

The girls become friends with Cagney the 18 year old gardner (who Rosalind quickly develops a crush on), Jefferey the son of the Mrs Tipton the estate owner, Churchie, Arundel's housekeeper, and Howard the tomato man.

The principle bad guys are Mrs. Tipton herself and her boyfriend Dexter Dupree, as well as an angry bull.

The characters are quirky and interesting; the kid's adventures are exciting but lighthearted enough, and all turns out well for everyone in the end. I truly enjoyed this book.

Magyk - Kid Review

Title: Magyk
Author: Angie Sage
The Reviewer: Lucia, Age 9

If you love magic and adventure you’ll love this book! Magyk is a wonderful book of suspense and fun. It is about a girl raised by some family that is not her own. She’s a Princess. And is her adopted family brother, Septimus Heap - the seventh son of seventh son, really dead? Can she stop the evil DomDaniel from taking over? Will she ever learn who she really is? It’s a wonderful book, please read it and you’ll find out the answers to those questions.

And if you do love this book you can read the other two books in the series – Flyte and Physik!

New Feature - Kid Reviews

The MadLuck Books Blog is proud to announce our newest feature - Book Reviews by kids for kids about the best books for kids around! Who better to learn about the best in children's literature than from the kids that are actually reading the books. It is also our goal to make the MadLuck Books Blog a great resource for parent's and their kids, and the more information we can get out there about great books the better. MadLuck Books also believes that Great Readers make Great Writers and in the future we are planning to add stories, poetry and essays of all kinds from the great young readers/writers out there.

Kids - Submit your reviews - Want to have a review published on the MadLuck Books Childrens Literature Blog? Just email us your review (500 words or less) to info@madluckbooks.com. Please include your name (or penname!) and age. We can't wait to see what the kids are reading out there. If you prefer you can also send us your reviews via snail mail at: Maduck Books, PO Box 359, Warrenton, VA 20188

Our first Kid Review is here.

All our Book Reviews
All our Kid Reviews

Escape to Witch Mountain Book Review

Book Review
Title: Escape to Witch Mountain
Author: Alexander Key

About three weeks ago I was in the library picking up a copy of The Forgotten Door for my fifth grade teacher wife, when I spotted Escape to Witch Mountain (both books were written by Alexander Key). Escape to Witch Mountain was one of my favorite books when I was in Elementary School, so I decided to check it out and see how the book has held up over time. Unfortunately, before I had a chance to read it my 8 year old daughter lay claim to it and I have just recently got it back and was able to finish it.

When I first read the book I loved and related to the main characters Tony and Tia. These brother and sister protagonists are orphans that feel "different" and as "outsiders" and have amazing, almost magical abilities. They keep hoping to somehow stumble across the world they had come from, a place where they would be accepted for who they were. Of course as a child, I often waited to discover my own "true" magical or other-worldly home as well, but that is another story...

These characters are just as appealing today, as are the other main actors in the story: Father O'day, the helpful Vietnam Veteran Priest, and the sinister Mr. Deranian, the antagonist of the book. Escape to Witch Mountain is an adventure story, with the kids Tony and Tia running from the evil Deranian and trying to find their true home and family. Alexander Key does a wonderful job building the suspence of the story at the same time he slowly unveils the truth behind Tony and Tia's abilities and origins.

There is also some social commentary here - about how we, the people of Earth, treat our planet, the animals we share it with, and anyone who is percieved as "different". This is nicely done as part of the story and not in preachy asides.

Overall a good exciting, suspenceful read, with interesting, believable (even if they are alians with special "abilities") characters. Recommended. And my eight year old daughter seconds the recommendation!

Note: if you have seen the Disney movie based on the book, be forwarned that the book is quite different. Of course the book is much better...

2007 Newberry Honor Books

I stumbled across this article on the three 2007 Newberry Honor Books: "Penny From Heaven," "Rules" and "Hattie Big Sky". This is what first caught my eye:

Like the 2007 Newbery Medal-winning book, "The Higher Power of Lucky," all three of the Newbery Honor books also feature narratives by strong-willed, interesting female protagonists.

And therein lies a potential problem for readers.

There's a saying in the children's-literature world that girls will read books with a boy protagonist, but boys won't read a book with a girl protagonist.


My two daughters have no problem reading books with boy protagonists, but I must admit that when I was a wee lad, I was generally uninterested in books with a girl as the main character. My wife, a fifth grade teacher, has also seen this in action: given a choice between two books, one with a girl protagonist, and one with a boy, the fifth grade boys will inevitably choose the one with the boy, while the girls will not necessarily choose the book with the girl character. Why is this? Don't ask me, I am sure there is a sociologist out there somewhere who has studied the phenomenon...

Anyway the rest of the article gives a good review of the three honor award winners.

Books for Valentine's Day

Bob Walch in the Monterey Count Herald has an article on some good children's books for Valentine's Day.

Here are a few of the titles he mentions:

Where Is Baby's Valentine? by Karen Katz.

A Mama Bug's Love by Janet Lawler

Kiss Kiss! by Margaret Wild

Dooby Dooby Moo by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin


And personalized books also make great Valentine's Day gifts!

Lawn and Road Wienies Book Reviews

Title: In the Land of the Lawn Weenies
Invasion of the Road Weenies
Author: David Lubar

These two collections of short stories were surprise hits in our household. Surprise because both the titles and cover illustrations are not very appealing. But you "can't judge a book by its cover" of course and so we dove in to the books to see what we would find. And what we found were fun collections of (and I'm struggling here for the correct adjective) odd, strange, creepy (from my eight year old) stories (the subtitle to both books is "And Other Warped and Creepy Tales". The stories in these two books are very reminiscent of old twilight zone episodes in that they portray a reality that is more or less twisted in some fantastic way. Twisted in a fantastic and deadly manner - in most of the stories the main characters do not survive the end of the story (though their ending is not described- just assumed.) The kids who meet these fates, tend to be the most unlikeable examples of middle school age boys and girls - bullies and disagreeable brats all around.

Probably because of the age of the main characters and their tendency to die at the end of the stories, these books were in the young adult section of our local library, though the reading level is probably around the fourth or fifth grade level. Because of this and because the stories are fairly short and easy to dig into, I could see these books being a good choice for the reluctant middle school reader. They were a Little too "creepy" for my eight year old.

Martin Luther King Jr. Picture book biographies

Went to the Library yesterday to research some picture book biographies of Martin Luther King Jr. Here are the best one's I found:

I've Seen the Promised Land The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Walter Dean Myers, illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. Walter Dean Myers (recipient of the Margearet A Edwards Award and five Coretta Scott King Awards) provides the powerful simple text for this biography. Leonard Jenkins expressive, colorful illustrations are very dramatic.



Martin Luther King by Rosemary L. Bray, illustrated by Malcah Zeldis. The text of this biography is suited for the older reader, and deals with King's life in more detail than the other books listed here. Zeldis's paintings complement nicely.



Happy Birthday Martin Luther King by Jean Marzollo, Illustrated by J Brian Pinkney. This gentle book is geared to the preschool/kindergarten audience.




My Dream of Martin Luther King by Faith Ringgold. Told in the form of a dream had by the narrator, this simple picture book makes for interesting reading. The illustrations add to the dream like qualities of the text.



Personalized Children's Books

The Tiger Rising Book Review

Title: The Tiger Rising
Author: Kate DiCamillo
Awards: National Book Award Finalist, Book Sense 76 Selection, Junior Library Guild Selection

I have read a couple of Kate DiCamillo's books and two things always strike me about them - the wonderful writing and the interesting characters who tend to be either outsiders or in some way refuse to conform to the norm. The Tiger Rising is no exception here.

The main character is Rob Horton, who bottles up all his feelings- his sadness and anger he feels at the recent death of his mother, the bullying he has to go through on the bus and in school. He bottles them up and stuffs them inside the over full suitcase he imagines himself to be, and locks the suitcase shut. When he finds a tiger in a cage in the woods behind the Florida motel where he and his father live (his father works at the motel, The Kentucky Star), he imagines the tiger sitting on the suitcase keeping it locked. He can think about the tiger instead of his mother or the bullying he must endure.

Sistine Bailey, who Rob meets on the same day that he finds the tiger in the woods handles her problems in the exact opposite way - with fists flying and feelings out there for everyone to see. Then there's Willie May, the hotel maid, who plays the role of wise woman in the story. And there's Mr. Beauchamp the hotel owner, and owner of the tiger in the woods which he hopes to profit from some how.

All of these characters come together in this wonderful tale of learning to accept and move on past sorrow and loss. And there is another element here common to Kate DiCamillo's books - the element of magic in the ordinary.

My only complaint about the book was that it ended too soon, and I felt there could have been a little more development in some of the supporting characters and scenes.

Highly recommended.

Old Turtle Book Review

Book Review

Title: Old Turtle
Author: Douglas Wood
Illustrator: Cheng-Khee Chee

Old Turtle won the ABBY Book of the Year Children's Book Award in 1993. This beautiful picture book is written in the style of an American Indian Creation Myth. The story begins in the long ago when all the animals, rocks, wind, stars, rivers, oceans, mountains, etc. in the world could speak and understand one another. The beings of the world begin to argue about God, each describing God as a reflection of themselves. When the argument has gone on for a long time, and grown louder and louder and louder, Old Turtle finally speaks. Old Turtle, tells the beings that they are all correct, because God is all these things they describe - God is deep, she tells the fishes in the sea, and much higher than high she tells the mountain, swift and free as the wind, in a word, God Is.

Then people come to the world; people, who in turtle's words are a "message of love from God to the earth." But when people forget this and begin to fight and kill each other and do things to that hurt the earth, it becomes up to the all the beings of the earth to remind people of the lesson that they had learned long ago from Old Turtle. The book ends on a note of hope with the people listening to the Earth, and beginning to "see God in one another and in the beauty of all the Earth."

Cheng-Khee Chee's beautiful watercolors perfectly complement the text. Highly Recommended.

Clockwork or All Wound Up Book Review

Book Review

Title: Clockwork -or All Wound Up
Author: Phillip Pullman

I just recently discovered Phillip Pullman while doing research on the Whitbread Children's Book Awards. His fantasy novel (for children? young adults? adults?) The Amber Spyglass won the award for both Best Children's Literature and the over all Book of the Year Award in 2001. That novel is the third in the His Dark Materials trilogy.

Clockwork is a much shorter, perhaps less ambitious work, but in many ways just as complex. The story takes place in a German town, "in the old days..." when "...time used to run by clockwork." It is the evening before the unveiling of the next great mechanical figure for the town's famous clock. Everyone in town gathers at the local inn, including the Clock Maker's apprentice, whose clockwork figure will be his "graduation" present to the town, and the local story teller.

Karl, the apprentice clockmaker confesses to Fritz the story teller, that he has failed to complete his clockwork figure, that he indeed has nothing at all to offer for the unveiling the following day. He is despondent and speaks of killing himself before the sun comes up.

So the book begins, or one part of the book, as there are layers here: stories within stories, like the complex workings of a mechanical clock. Fritz the story teller is a the inn that night to read his next great novel aloud, a story which we learn he has not finished but hopes be able to come up with an ending as he goes along.

Fritz is known for his horror tales, and the already scary story he begins takes a particularly chilling turn when a sinister character from his tale shows up at at the Inn. And so the book ticks along - there is a Faustian offer to Karl, and acceptance that leads to the inevitable doom of the apprentice clockmaker. And of course there is hope and redemption for the town through the good hearts of the children in the book.

Along with a somewhat fairytale quality to it, Clockwork has elements of suspense and horror. This was the most "creaped out" I have been with a children's book since first reading Coraline by Neil Gaimon.

Highly recommend this book for children ages 11 to adult (if they are not too easily scared...)