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 kid hasn’t taken a pile of junk (aka treasures), combined it with a heavy dose of imagination, and then spent untold hours making something wondrous?  Violet Van Winkle does just that in Violet the Pilot.  Written and illustrated by Steve Breen (Dial 2008), this picture book captures the imaginative spirit that all kids seem to possess.

 While other girls her age play with dolls and tea sets, Violet plays “with monkey wrenches and needle-nose pliers.”  Violet also has the amazing good fortune of living next to a junkyard (how cool is that?), and thus has access to all kinds of amazing stuff (can you believe someone threw this away?)

 By the time she’s eight, Violet is creating “elaborate” flying machines.  Machines like the Bicycopter (think bicycle-powered helicopter), the Pogo Plane, and the Wing-a-ma-jig. 

Naturally, kids at school don’t understand Violet, and they tease her.  Perhaps if Violet wins the airshow, she can win some friends too . . .  But what if Violet can’t make it to the airshow at all?

This cliffhanger and others such as “What exactly is a Tub-bubbler?” are explored in Violet the Pilot.  Let your imagination soar with this fun picture book that encourages kids to dream big.

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. . .

Mama’s Window by Lynn Rubright (Lee and Low, 2005) tells the story of “Sugar” Martin, a young black boy who lives with his uncle in a Mississippi Delta swamp.  For as long as Sugar can remember, his mother has worked to raise funds for a stained glass window for the Sweet Kingdom Church.  Some think her idea is foolish, but she insists that the window is important, that beauty is important. 

After his mother’s illness and death, Sugar clings to his mama’s dream.  When he discovers that the church has used the money to pay for bricks instead of a stained-glass window, he is broken-hearted.  Will mama’s dream ever be realized? 

St. Louis storyteller Lynn Rubright does a wonderful job recreating early 20th century life on the swamps of the Mississippi Delta.  Loosely based on the childhood of minister and civil rights activist Owen Whitfield, Rubright’s story was inspired by her research for a documentary on the Missouri sharecropper protest of 1939 (which was organized by Whitfield).  I met Lynn Rubright at a recent Missouri SCBWI conference, and found her warm, funny, and utterly charming.  Her novel also charms with a sweet tale of family, hope, courage, and generosity.

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.

Special thanks to my son, co-writer of this blog entry.

Steampunk fiction is a sub-genre of sci-fi “set in an era or world where steam power is widely used” (wikipedia).  Think 19th century Victorian England with a fantasy/sci-fi twist.  Scott Westerfeld’s steampunk novel Leviathan  (Simon & Schuster, 2009) is set during the beginning of World War I, and follows many of the historical events of World War I.  A big part of what makes this novel so interesting is that it mirrors familiar events yet turns them on their head with imaginative techno-creativity. 

Young Prince Aleks, son of Archduke Ferdinand, must flee for his life after his parents are assassinated.   He makes his escape to Switzerland in a steam-powered “Stormwalker,” a vehicle similar to a Star War’s AT-ST:                   

Deryn, the female protagonist, lives in England, a “Darwinist Power” which uses genetically altered animals to double as weapons.  For example, they have genetically altered whales so they can be used as giant airships–hence the name Leviathan.  Deryn wants to join the Air Corps which is barred to females so he disguises herself as a boy, gets accepted, and proves to be a top notch flyer.  Deryn is soon entrusted with a secret mission, which grinds to a halt when the Leviathan is shot down in Switzerland.  Suddenly Deryn and Aleks’ fate rests on each others’ shoulders. Leviathan is a great book about trust and friendship in unlikely circumstances.

In March I attended the Missouri SCBWI Agents Day.  One of the agents praised Dan Yaccarino’s The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau (Knopf, 2009) and sure enough, this is a fantastic picture book–biography, science, and nature all rolled up with wonderful text and artwork.  Check out this trailer.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”  A fire fighter, an Olympic speed skater, a veterinarian, maybe president of the United  States?   So You Want to be President? written by Judith St. George and illustrated by David Small (Penguin) gives the real scoop about being president. 

There are good things about being president:  a big white mansion, a swimming pool, a bowling alley, and a movie theatre in your house.  There are bad things about being president too: dressing up all the time, having people throw cabbages at you (ask William Howard Taft about that one), and nonstop homework.  

“Lots of people want to be President.  If you want to be President, it might help if your name is James.  Six presidents were named James.”  It also might help if you live in a log cabin.  “People are crazy about log-cabin Presidents” (there have been eight).

This fun, non-fiction picture book shares quirky, interesting facts and quotes from past presidents.  For instance, did you know that a female reporter once caught John Quincy Adams skinny-dipping in the Potomac and she “snatched his clothes and sat on them until he gave her an interview?”  John Quincy Adams also said being president was “the four most miserable years of my life” (perhaps because he couldn’t skinny-dip without paparrazi on his tail). 

So You Want to be President? is the perfect book for that kid who loves trivia and random facts.  You know, the kid who remembers obscure details about Albus Dumbledore’s family tree and would be a natural on the TV game show Jeopardy.

David Small’s Caldecott-winning caricatures of the presidents add an extra layer of humor.  Richard Nixon scowls as Warren Harding wins a presidential beauty contest and George H.W. Bush sits backstage green with envy (literally) as Ronald Reagan gets wild applause. 

Originally published in 2000, So You Want to be President?  was updated in 2004:  three presidents were now named George instead of just two and there was another father/son presidential duo.  With Barak Obama’s election, author Judith St. George will need to update the book again.  This time she’ll need to make an even bigger change:  deleting the words “No person of color has been President.” 

So You Want to be President? gives you plenty of inside presidential buzz.  Because, after all, if you want to be president when you grow up, it’s never too early to start preparing.

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s the dead & the gone (Harcourt 2008) is a companion story to her previous YA novel Life as We Knew (Harcourt 2006).  The novel takes the same cataclysmic disaster, but this time tells the story from the perspective of Alex Morales, a seventeen-year-old boy living in New York City.

When a meteor hits the moon and pushes it closer to the Earth, the change in gravitational pull causes massive worldwide destruction.  Tides rise, magma surfaces, tectonic plates shift, and soon the earth is enveloped by natural is –tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes.  Volcanic ash darkens the sky, temperatures plummet, crops fail.  There are evacuations, power outages, food and fuel shortages, deadly epidemics.  Lines of communication shut down–no radio, internet, cell phones, tv. 

 Thousands of people are dead, and most of Alex’s family are among “the gone,” as Alex refers to them.  These include Alex’s older brother Carlos who is deployed with the Marines, Alex’s aunt and uncle who evacuate soon after the disaster, Alex’s mother who has never returned home from her shift at the hospital, and Alex’s dad who has never returned from a family funeral in Puerto Rico.  They are “the gone”–never confirmed dead but nonetheless absent.  Just like Alex’s aunt and uncle who evacuate NYC soon after the disaster. 

Thrust into the role of protector and provider for his two younger sisters, Alex second-guesses his decisions and struggles to come to terms with overwhelming responsibilities  (including a nightmarish visit to Yankee Stadium–now morgue–to look for the body of his mother).  Dreams of being elected senior class president and getting accepted to a good college are totally irrelevant   in a world where survival is the only goal.

 What is essential?  What is important?  If life all changed tomorrow,  what would really matter?  Author Susan Beth Pfeffer offers another great novel that makes you question your needs, your wants, and your priorities.