Mostly Monty: First Grader Review

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(More customer reviews)My five-year-old has moved onto to chapter books and really loves the Monty series. The stories deal with all of the things a regular 5 or 6-yr-old lives with every day---making friends, going to school, self-esteem, dealing with new situations, adventure, being different, fitting in, etc.---all through the eyes of a completely adorable character named Monty. I hope we see many many more installments of the Monty series!

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A shy boy with asthma starts first grade -- and comes into his own -- in this appealing story for early chapter book readers.Six-year-old Monty doesn't have a brother, a sister, or a pet. What he does have is asthma, which sometimes makes it hard to breathe and often makes him feel like he'd rather be somebody else. And now that he's starting first grade, he's very nervous about being with all those kids he won't know. Luckily, he loves to read -- even really hard books -- and has a talent for finding things, from a cocooning caterpillar to classmates who want to be in his very own club. With familiar situations and gentle humor, Johanna Hurwitz follows an endearing character as he discovers that being himself can be pretty great after all.

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Small Persons With Wings Review

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(More customer reviews)When a lawyer calls to tell Mr. Turpin that his father is dead, thirteen-year-old Mellie is only too happy to move away from her a school where she is teased and bullied to live in her Grand-Pere's inn. But when the Turpin family begins cleaning up the inn, Mellie discovers the family secret of an obligation to take care of the small persons with wings in exchange for a moonstone that has been in the family for hundreds of years. She is caught up (along with her parents and the boy next door) in a struggle by the small persons to regain their original magic at the cost of the Magica Artificia that has given them the illusion of beauty and comfort for the years since they gave up the moonstone. In the process Mellie allows herself to be friends with her neighbor and to cope with the bullying she has endured.
I love the opening chapters in this book that flash back to Mellie's childhood. As young Mellie, the unpredictable narrator, questions her reality, the reader is also unsure of what is real. Once the Mellie's motivation are in place the plot moves quickly with well-drawn characters, particularly Mellie as she convincingly navigates the ups and mostly downs of tweenage years. Descriptions of the fairies are vivid and delightful.
Caution: Mild language or inference of profanity and an ongoing reference to a "tampon incident".


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Frankie Pickle and the Pine Run 3000 Review

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(More customer reviews)This past Sunday found my children waiting patiently at the Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, PA. They were there to get their hands on one of the world's first purchased copies of "Frankie Pickle and the Pine Run 3000." Well...they waited as patiently as a five and a three year old are able. "Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom" had dug its fantastic claws into my children's brains, and they needed more. And their father...me...was just as anxious to see what Frankie would be up to next.
Eric Wight has managed to pull off an almost impossible feat with this series of books. He has combined the chapter book and graphic novel formats to create stories that pull the reader (whether they be 31 or 3) along on an adventure that defies easy catagorization or description. One thing I can say as a parent is that I am rarely as interested in storytime as I am when Frankie Pickle is next on the pile.
Wight's language does not insult the intelligence of the young. Kids understand more than we think they do, and Wight knows it. His word choice often results in tongue twisting combinations of sounds and syllables that are every bit as much fun to read aloud as they are to see on the page. And just when you get comfortable with the story, Frankie's imagination takes control and we are treated to comic-style panels with outlandish depictions of the world as seen by the young protagonist.
I realize that I haven't said very much, specifically, about "Frankie Pickle and the Pine Run 3000" in this review, and I promise that this is intentional. I don't want to ruin anything for you. Trust me.

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Frankie Pickle returns for another imaginative adventure and this time it all comes down to race cars. Well, not quite race cars, but the Pine Run Derby for scouts. Frankie is in danger of not advancing to the next ranking with the rest of his troop unless he can win the Pine Run 3000. But Frankie wants to do everything on his own so he imagines himself as a world-class sculptor, a mad scientist, and of course, a pro-racecar driver. In the end, Frankie learns that team work is the only way he won't get left in the dust.

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