I regularly run across news stories about the decline of the newspaper industry, but I was shocked when I saw the newspaper stand at my local gas station.  The papers are so puny now, printed on shrunken, skinny paper, a telltale sign of the Internet takeover of media.

Sue Corbett’s The Last Newspaper Boy in America (Dutton, 2009)  explores a similar theme.  Protagonist Wil has been dying for his twelth birthday because he’ll finally be old enough to inherit the family paper route.  In the small town of Steele, Pennsylvania, Wil’s family has delivered the paper for four generations.  Grandpa, dad, and two older brothers all delivered the paper, and now it’s finally Wil’s turn.  Finally, a chance to beat dad’s speed record.  A chance to perfect a near-perfect aim.  A chance to save up for a laptop (no more having to go to the library to surf the Internet).

But the day before his birthday, Wil discovers that his route is about to be cancelled.  The town of Steele is just too small, especially since the hairpin factory closed, to justify a route.  Wil rides twelve miles on his bike to complain to the editor.  But it’s a corporate decision made by higher-ups in a far-off city.  Wil’s parents try to help him face the hard facts of business.

But “Wil of Steele,” as he is called, won’t take no for an answer, and soon he’s on a mission for change.  In the end, Wil’s determination (along with some help from family and friends), not only save his route but his town as well.

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?

Guaranteed, Malia and Sasha Obama are going to be famous first daughters.  But long before  Malia and Sasha made the White House their home, long before Jenna and Barbara, Chelsea or Amy, was Alice Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt’s oldest daughter and perhaps the most famous and celebrated first daughter ever.

What to Do About Alice?  How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy! by Barbara Kerley and illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham (Scholastic, 2008) tells the story of rambunctious Alice Roosevelt, who greeted White House guests with her pet snake, joined an all boys club, zoomed around Washington D.C. in her roadster, and danced all night at parties.  Her father Teddy “called it ‘running riot.’  Alice called it, ‘Eating up the world.’”

“I can be president of the United States, or I can control Alice.  I cannot possibly do BOTH!” said President Roosevelt.  Although her mother died when Alice was two and Alice wore leg braces for many years as a child, Alice possessed just as much “bully” as her bold and adventurous father.  Her “zest for fun” made her a 1900′s celebrity and irresistible material for gossip columns.  Nicknamed “Princess Alice,” Alice had babies named after her, songs written about her, and famous shenanigans that boosted her father’s popularity.   

Spunky kids everywhere (and kids who wish they were) will love reading What to Do About Alice?  The book offers an adventurous romp into the life of the spunky first daughter who was so famous she was called “the other Washington Monument.”

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.

Seems like everyone likes a treasure hunt.  Add to that a web of historical artifacts, ancient symbols, and mythic beliefs, and you’ve got such stuff as The DaVinci Code and National Treasure are made of (to paraphrase Shakespeare).  You’ve also got the stuff of the YA Novel Ring of Fire: Century Quartet #1by Pierdomenico Baccalario and translated by Leah D. Janeczko (Random House, 2006) has mystery, action, and seemingly endless clues that make you think everything is an ingeniously interconnected web of cosmic importance.  

The novel takes place on Rome on December 29 as four teenagers from across the globe–all born on February 29–meet by chance at the hotel Domus Quintilia.  A mysterious blackout leads them outside, a stranger fleeing for his life thrusts a briefcase into their hands, and they find themselves searching a trail of ancient clues and stalked by a deadly international assassin.  

That’s all I’m giving away.  But be prepared:  the book ends on a cliff-hanger.  You won’t be satisified at the end of this book because you’ll be wishing for the next one.

A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper (Alfred A. Knopf 2008), is a great young adult novel written as the diary of sixteen-year-old Sophie FitzOsborne.  Sophie and her cousins are the royal family of Montmaray (population approximately twelve), a tiny fictional island that lies between England and Spain.  All the parents are dead, except for one crazy uncle, so the FitzOsborne cousins pretty much fend for themselves as they care for a crumbling castle, a crazy relative, dwindling funds, and subjects who keep migrating to more prosperous locales.

Sophie is invited by her guardian, Aunt Charlotte, to come to London to be introduced at court and meet eligible aristocrats.  Sophie struggles between her desire for beautiful dresses and fancy parties and her love of the wild, untamed island that is her home.  Sophie is also afraid to venture out into the unknown without her trusted older cousin Veronica, an intellectual who insists on staying in Montmaray to chronicle its history and to stave off its inevitable decline.  But everyone’s plans are jeopardized when two German officers land on the island, and tiny Montmaray is suddenly thrown into the conflict of World War II.

Reminiscent of Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, A Brief History of Montmaray has romantic conflict akin to a Jane Austen novel and the brooding mystery of Charlotte Bronte.  Its “scribbling heroine,” will keep you turning pages and wishing you could live in a decrepit castle high on the wild cliffs of an Atlantic island.