Have you ever wished you were an only child?  No annoying brother or sister.  Parents all to yourself.  Your own room and fantastic presents and giant birthday parties and fancy vacations and maybe even a pony (ok, maybe not the pony) . . . 

Abigail Iris has four kids in her family, schoolteacher parents that are always on a budget, and the same spring break camping trip to the same campsite with the family crammed in the same tent–year after year.  If only Abigail Iris was an “Only”–like her three best friends.

When eight-year-old Abigail Iris gets invited to vacation with “Only” friend Genevieve and parents, she jumps at the chance.  A fancy hotel, expensive restaurants, room service, lots of shopping.  How exotic.

But is being an Only really as wonderful as Abigail Iris imagines? 

Abigail Iris: The One and Only, written by Lisa Glatt & Suzanne Greenberg and illustrated by Joy Allen (Walker & Co., 2009), is a happy, light-hearted look at friends and family life (the cover illustration captures Abigail Iris’ spirit).  If you enjoy the literary heroines Amber Brown and Clementine, you’re sure to like Abigail Iris.

What do you do if you’re the new girl at school and no one smiles at you or talks to you or sits by you at lunch?  Well, if you’re Lissy, you make a friend.  You make an origami crane to be your new friend at your new school.

Author/illustrator Grace Lin uses wonderfully vibrant patterns and colors to tell the story Lissy’s Friends (Viking 2007).  As the new girl, Lissy hasn’t made friends yet, so she makes a paper crane to be her friend. 

After school Lissy’s mother asks her, “Did you make any friends in school today?”  She answers, “Well . . . I did make one friend.” 

Lissy makes herself more and more origami animals.  Soon she has a whole flock of origami friends.  And these paper friends keep her company and help her . . . until she can make people friends of her own.

As a girl, I read every Nancy Drew mystery written.  A few years later, I graduated to Agatha Christie.  Recently I ran across the book Nancy Drew and Clue Crew #1:  Sleepover Sleuths (Simon and Schuster, 2006).  I was surprised to see the author as Carolyn Keene since the original Carolyn Keene (a pseudonym for Mildred Wert Benson) died in 2002.  

A google search led me to this Fantastic Fiction link by a UK bookstore that shows just how many Nancy Drew spin-offs there are.  I don’t know if their list is exhaustive, but it blew me away.  Graphic novels, early chapter books, teen romances, Nancy teaming up with the Hardy Boys–Nancy really gets around. 

According to the BBC, “When [the author] attended the first Nancy Drew convention in 1993, she was reported to have told a friend: ‘I’m so sick of Nancy Drew I could vomit.’”  After seeing all the Nancy books on the Fantastic Fiction website, I can see why.

Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew is a series for the same set that reads the A to Z Mystery or Magic Tree House series.  In Book #1, Sleepover Sleuths, eight-year old Nancy and her two chums solve the mystery of “Who took Deirdre’s City Girl doll at the sleepover?”  The story is a modern day setting with computers, blogs, and American Girl doll knockoffs.

Needless to say, these books are nothing like the original Nancy Drew.  Nevertheless, the story is one that elementary school girls can relate to and enjoy.  And who knows?  It just might lead them to snoop out the real Nancy Drew when they get a bit older. . .

I’ll be honest.  I got this book exclusively based on the teaser quotes on the back cover:  “The new C.S. Lewis” and “Hotter than Potter.”  Wow! I thought. 

The first book in The Doppleganger Chronicles, The First Escape (Tyndale Press, 2008) introduces us to the Dopple twins, Saskia and Sadie, who have been abandoned at Isambard Dunstan’s School for Wayward Children.  Although their mother said she would return, the twins are now fourteen and she hasn’t returned.  Still they have each other to rely on.  That is, until the wealthy writer Muzz Elliott adopts Saskia . . . but not Sadie.   As Sadie joins forces with Erik Morissey Ganger (janitor and former orphan himself) in a scheme to reunite with her sister, twin Saskie unwittingly becomes embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy plot.  Soon all three are running for their lives. 

The tone of this book has a retro-Victorian feel akin to Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.  However, this book is quite different in that it is illustrated like a graphic novel with Asian-inspired manga-style art.  Tyndale Press  calls these books “illustra-novellas–a new kind of book designed to enhance the reading experience for a visually oriented generation of kids, especially reluctant readers.”  Think half novel, half comic book and you’ll have an idea of what this book is like.

British author G.P. Taylor is a former punk roadie turned Anglican minister.  He’s also the New York Times best selling author of Shadowmancer.   This “illustra-novella” is a different style book than you might be used to, but well worth reading.

 I first heard about Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me (Random House 2009) from a  book editor who said, “There is so much buzz about this book, I think it might win the Newbery.” 

Set in the 70′s in New York City, the story centers on sixth grade Miranda and her best friend Sal.  Miranda (a girl) and Sal (a boy) live in the same apartment complex, both are from single-mom families, and they’ve been best friends forever.  Then one day Sal gets punched in the face by a random kid on the street, and suddenly Sal wants nothing to do with Miranda.  Miranda’s on her own and has to learn how to make new friends and fit in. 

There is so much going on in this novel I hardly know where to start.  It’s a coming of age story, it’s a story about mother/daughter relationships, it’s a story about friendship.  But it’s also a mystery with unexplainable, unsigned letters, a missing apartment key, and a crazy homeless guy on the corner, all wrapped up with a sci-fi twist a la Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

When You Reach Me has a bit of a retro feel, kind of like the 70′s style t-shirts I see popping up in stores right now (although it may feel this way to me since I’m a child of the 70′s myself).  The novel is also proof that you don’t need international killers, vampires, or evil plots by fiendish ne’er do-wells to create a sense of suspense and mystery.  

The novel quotes Albert Einstein who said, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.”  For children, life is full of mystery.  Author Rebecca Stead beautifully captures the biggest mystery of childhood, the mystery that is known as growing up.

When you’re a sister sandwiched between two sets of twins, you pretty much get ignored.  It’s the twins everyone finds interesting, they’re the novelty–you’re just an extra.  At least that’s how Miri feels in The Magic Half (Bloomsbury, 2008).  This middle grade novel by Annie Barrows weaves a story of family and friendship with a unique time travel twist (and a surprise ending to boot).  

When Miri’s family moves to a new house, Miri has no one to hang out with.  Older brothers Ray and Robbie, and younger sisters Nell and Nora, all have built-in friends, their twin.  Mom and dad are swamped with work and unpacking.  So Miri, a girl with ”a dazzling imaginative capacity”  is on her own.   

Soon Miri finds herself in trouble.  She hits her brother with a shovel and gets sent to her room.  Miri’s old, quirky bedroom with its ugly orange and purple wallpaper was once part of the attic.  Miri explores the room and discovers a small piece of pinkish glass.

As Miri looks through the glass, the room seems “to bend and collapse in the middle, as though the center of the house were being sucked into a whirlpool.”  Miri has been transported to 1935.  She’s in the same bedroom, but it looks completely different.  The bedroom also belongs to Molly, a girl who is in grave danger from a vicious cousin and a jealous aunt. 

Soon Miri finds herself travelling back and forth through time trying to save Molly.  Molly begs Miri to take her away, back to future.  What should Miri do?  Will she get trapped in 1935?  Can she get Molly to the future? And what will she tell her parents when brings home a complete stranger, a girl with no family, no money, and nowhere to go?  Read The Magic Half and find out!

I’m a big fan of Sharon Creech and have read almost everything she’s ever written.  I love her lyrical, creative use of language and her endearing characters.  Her new book The Unfinished Angel  (HarperCollins, 2009) is a short masterpiece with characters that you can’t help but love.

There is an angel that lives in the tower of the Casa Rosa in a tiny village in the Swiss Alps.  She flishes, and flooshes, beaming warm thoughts on “peoples.”  But she’s uncertain what her mission is.  Is she an unfinished angel?

In moves Zola Pomodoro.  Zola is “skinny like a twig-tree, with hair chip-chopped in a startling way” and her eyes are “gray with large black poppils in the middle.”  And as you can see from this quote, one of the charms of this book is its delightful coined words, words like “attractiful,”  ”impressifies,” and “explaterate.”

Zola is a happy gypsy of a girl with a spirit as bright as the peacock-colored skirts she wears.  Zola is one of the few people that can actually see the angel, and, chippy-choppy quick, Zola gets that angel hopping to help solve some of the town’s problems. 

The angel doesn’t much like being bossed around: “I do not like it when peoples tell me I have to do something.  It makes me want to not do the something.”  The angel worries when Zola tells her that the angel is supposed to know everything:  “I am?  This is a little shock to me.  No, it is a big shock.  Because I am not knowing many, many things.”

But in the end the angel says, “Zola, she is intrigueful to me.  In her many-layered clothings, with her chippy-choppy hair and the eyes with the big black poppils, in her sometimes bossy way, she has also the soft heart of a bunny.  The soft heart is also a smart heart because it is not soft for every puny silly thing, but over the things that are matterful.” 

Zola is an unfinished angel.  Aren’t we all?

Over the years we’ve read just about every Junie B. Jones book there is.  Another fun series is Ivy + Bean.  We just finished Doomed to Dance where Ivy and Bean decide they want to take ballet lessons.  They have seen a video of a gorgeous ballet with a thrilling fight scene.  Ivy and Bean are dying to take ballet lessons.  Ballet lessons would absolutely be the perfect thing. 

Both of their mothers remind the girls of all the activities they have started and then quit.  If they decide to do ballet they will have to STICK WITH IT–all the way through to the recital.

Ivy and Bean go to their first ballet practice and discover–shock!–ballet lessons are REALLY boring.  Mostly standing around pointing toes and an occasional hop.  Worst of all, Ivy and Bean are chosen to be squids for the ballet recital.  How horrible!  Can they solve this disaster?

With two fun characters that kids can relate to, Ivy and Bean books are great for kids who have moved onto chapter books and love to follow their favorite characters through book after book of a series.  I got my daughter three more Ivy and Bean books from the library just last night, and she’s already devoured one.  Ivy and Bean books are great for kiddos who are beyond beginning readers but still struggle with some of the unfamiliar terms in other series like The Magic Tree House or A to Z Mysteries.

What if your family had no soap, milk, sugar or shoes?  Such is the case for Katje and her family in Boxes for Katje by Candace Fleming and illustrated by Stacey Dressen-McQueen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003).  Set in Holland just after World War II, Katje and her little town of Olst are struggling to get by.  Katje is thrilled when one spring morning she gets a surprise package from America, “the land of plenty.”  The box contains a cake of soap, a pair of wool socks, a chocolate bar, and a letter:  “Dear Dutch Friend, I hope these gifts brighten your day.  Your American Friend, Rosie Johnson.” 

Katje is so excited to have these three treasures.  How long it has been since she’s had nice soap, warm feet, and any chocolate or sweets (that will make kids think).  Although Katje is tempted to keep the bounty for herself, she quickly decided to share.  Katje writes a thank you note to Rosie and soon they are pen pals.  Each note of Katje’s leads to another precious package from Rosie. 

When winter comes, it is “snow-deep and bitter cold, the worst winter anyone could remember.  The townspeople of Olst layered whatever clothing they had.  They huddled close to their small fires, ate sparingly from their almost empty cupboards, shivered, and prayed.”  How would they survive?

With the help of boxes for Katje.  Rosie and the townpeople of Mayfield, Indiana send boxes and boxes of supplies that help not just Katje and her family, but the entire town of Olst.   As thanks, the people of Olst, Holland send tulips bulbs to plant throughout Mayfield.

Boxes for Katje gives children a slice of history along with a beautiful story of friendship and sharing.  Rosie shares with Katje and Katje in turn shares with her family and friends.  The tulips that Olst sends as thanks give and give as they bloom each year. 

Boxes for Katje is also based on the true experiences of the author’s mother.  The afterword to the story explains that the winter of 1945 was “the worst winter of the century–plunging temperatures below zero, and in some places, piling up thirty feet of snow.”  Katje’s family and their plight tugged at the heartstrings of the people of Mayfield, Indiana and “grew into a churchwide effort to support Katje’s family through the hard winter.”

Author E.L. Konigsburg made Newbery history in 1968 when her book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler won the Newbery, and her first book Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth was runner up.  In 1996 she won the Newbery again, this time for The View from Saturday.

The View from Saturday tells the story of five unlikely friends–four sixth graders and their teacher Mrs. Olinski.  The structure of the book is different from many children’s books because it weaves five separate stories into one larger story about friendship.  The stories seems a bit disconnected at first, but characters appear and reappear and the stories become intertwined.

Noah tells the story of when he was best man for a couple of grandparents at a retirement community in Florida.  Nadia tell the story of the summer she saved baby sea turtles.  Julian tells about Nadia’s dog Ginger starring in Annie.  Ethan tells how they all became friends in the first place.   Their teacher Mrs. Olinski tells how four students won the state academic bowl.

Ethan’s story is my favorite.  Every day, Ethan makes a point of sitting in the back of the school bus and draping all his stuff across it so he doesn’t have to share his seat.  He’s been doing it forever (the one privilege to being the first on the bus every day), so he’s not happy when a new student, Julian, disregards this unwritten code and sits next to him.  Even worse, Julian is an oddball.  An East Indian boy fresh from an English boarding school, Julian wears shorts and knee socks and carries a leather satchel to school.  He is unfailingly polite, and no surprise,  he’s also an immediate target of ridicule.  Ethan doesn’t like all this disruption to his peaceful routine and tries to simply ignore Julian.

Ethan receives a mysterious invitation to tea at Sillington House, a local bed and breakfast inn.  The invitation comes in bits and pieces, hidden in books and written on scraps of paper.  Ethan knows the invitation is from Julian because Julian’s father is the proprietor of Sillington House, but Ethan has no idea who else is invited which adds to the mystery and excitement.  

Soon Noah, Nadia, Ethan and Julian have formed a secret club called “The Souls” that meets every Saturday for tea.  They barely acknowledge each other at school and no one knows of their friendship including Mrs. Olinski their teacher.  Mrs. Olinski feels drawn to choosing the four to compete on her academic bowl team but she doesn’t know why.  Julian in particular seems like such an outsider.

In the end, the four win competition after competition taking them all the way to the state championship at Albany and victory over an eighth grade team.  But sweetest of all is the friendship that blossoms between them.  In the midst of a sometimes hostile world, four kids and their teacher find a safe place at Sillington House, a place to be themselves and nurture each other–with kindness, empathy, and a generosity of spirit rarely seen in the halls of middle school.