Airman by Eoin Colfer

This is another one that appeared at the library, and I'm not sure what made me request it. It took me all week to get 100 pages into it, and now I'm giving up. I really don't care for the pseudo-biographical narrative. It feels so distant from the action and I had no emotional connection to anything going on. It did start to get more exciting around the 100-page mark, but by then, I really didn't care. I was hoping that this would be a good reluctant reader choice, but I think it would take a pretty dedicated reader to enjoy this one. For the record, I didn't have much patience for Artemis Fowl, either, but for other reasons.

Iron Thunder by Avi

I picked this one up because I have a whole slew of third grade boys who want to read about battles, including a few who are excellent readers. If we’re not careful, they’ll end up finding and reading accounts that they’re not emotionally ready for.

Considering how much of the book is spent watching the ship get built, it’s surprisingly exciting. I found myself really thinking about the extraordinary idea that we can get enormous amounts of iron to float. Avi does a great job of capturing the cultural moment of innovation and the response to an idea that will change everything. I also really liked the bits of historical information and diagrams throughout the book. They were good reminders that what I was reading had really happened without pulling me out of the story, and the afterward did a nice job of distilling the fiction from the fact.

This is the first in Hyperion’s “I Witness” series, which seems like it will be worth keeping an eye on.

How It Happened in Peach Hill by Marthe Jocelyn

I picked up this one after reading about it on a children's lit blog. Unfortunately, I don't remember which one.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable book. It reminds me of A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz, but in subject matter, not writing style. While I wasn't blown away by anything in particular, I found myself wanting to pick this one up even when I wasn't on the train- always a good sign. I wasn't exactly sure what was going to happen, and the ending was satisfying. I especially like that the romance was left so open-ended. The uncertainty of that saved the ending from being too tidy.

I was about to tag this "historical fiction" because, I suppose it is, being set in the 1920s, however, almost nothing about the book conveys a particular time or place (despite the explicit mention of rural upstate New York and flapper dresses). Really, it could be in any small town in any post-industrial, pre-war era when flim-flam artists and con men could stay just one town ahead of the law.

I remember going to a conference on historical fiction once, quite a few years ago. What I retained was the difference between historical fiction, which features actual historical people such as Johnny Tremain or Little House on the Prairie, and period fiction, which is set in the past, such as Mildred Taylor's books or Long Way From Chicago. It is an interesting distinction, especially since I more often find myself annoyed by the appearance of actual people in fiction. The Royal Diaries is a good example; I hate that they have taken real people and made up diaries for them, with little or no documentation or indication of what is real and what is not. If I were to encounter Johnny Tremain now, would I feel the same way about it? I don't think so, because the historical people are secondary characters, and while I haven't read it in some time, I think it is historically substantiated. But perhaps I only think that because it's a classic and I never questioned it.

And then what do we do with Little Women and Secret Garden? They sure seem like period fiction now, but when they were written, they were contemporary. Do we need a third term? And if so, what would it be?

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

I really enjoyed this one. What an interesting and different perspective on slavery. What Elijah's parents have told him about former slaves is insightful, sensitive, and seems very realistic. In the children's playing slavers and abolitionists (and Elijah's revelation about it), CPC even addresses the tendency to soften slavery in depictions for children. The last few chapters are truly haunting, and yet I wouldn't hesitate to have a 9 or 10 year old read this book. CPC has struck just the right balance of acknowledging and showing the horrors, but without making it too overwhelming for his audience.

One of my favorite narrative tricks is when an author uses a very limited first person viewpoint and is still able to let the reader know more than the narrator. It's one of the things I love about Walk Two Moons (among others), and CPC does it so very well here.

I will definitely be recommending this one to the sixth graders, who study both civil rights and sustainability. I will be very interested to hear their responses to it.

*publication date: October 2007