Judy Moody,by Megan McDonald, illustrated by Peter H Reynolds, 160 pp RL 3

I love Megan McDonald. I gushed about her in my reviews of the first two books in the Stink series and when I reviewed her great stand alone book, The Sister's Club. Peter H Reynolds is a brilliant artist and so perfectly suited to McDonald's writing style. Reynolds is so multi-talented that I feel compelled once again to list all of the creative endeavors that he is involved with. A fabulous children's book author and illustrator in his own right - don't miss The Dot, So Few of Me and the incomprable ish -Peter H Reynolds is also the co-owner of The Blue Bunny Bookstore in Dedham, MA. The Blue Bunny publishes the semi-annual Hutch: A Kids' Literary and Art Magazine which features stories, poems and art work by kids as well as contributions by Peter H Reynolds and other guest authors and illustrators who provide tips on writing and creating. And, as if this wasn't enough, Peter is the the president and creative director of FableVision Studios where he produces award-winning children’s broadcast programming, educational videos, and multimedia applications.

Megan McDonald has a remarkable way of capturing the emotions and vast imaginations that kid's possess. She also has a real knack for writing scenes set in school. She has created teachers who are understanding and empathetic without being smarmy or condescending. And, these teachers assign some pretty cool projects. In the first book in the series, Judy Moody Was in a Mood. Not a Good Mood. A Bad Mood, which is the full (and greatest ever) title of the book, Judy is in a bad mood because she did not go on vacation anywhere special and return home with a t-shirt reflecting this that she could then wear to school on the first day, thus eliciting the interest of her peers. And, while she does make herself a pretty cool shirt to compete with the crowd, she slumps again when she sees her best friend Rocket's shirt advertising the Loch Ness Monster Roller Coast at Busch Gardens. Judy starts third grade with Mr Todd and a seat next to paste eating Frank. She thinks it is hilarious to call her teacher "Mr Toad," and almost works herself out of a bad mood by doing so on, despite sitting next to Frank. Mr Todd ignores this and delights the class with his approach to spelling. Judy, still stuck in her funk, responds to Mr Todd's request to find five spelling words from the phrase, "GINO'S EXTRA-CHEESE PIZZA" with "no" written five times on her paper. When pressed for more words, Judy writes "gnat," "rat," "tiger," and "spit" then impresses the class when she makes a sentence using all five words. The class is rewarded with pizza for all and Judy's mood begins to brighten. As with the Stink Series and the Sister's Club, McDonald manages to incorporate factual, historical and literary information into the story. Judy's hero is Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman in the United States to graduate with a medical degree (1849) and practice as a doctor, and Judy like to practice her doctoring skills on Stink and her Hedda-Get-Betta doll. Judy also has an interest in the Rain Forest and, when the pet store cannot supply her with a two toed sloth, she happily settles for a Venus Fly Trap. Little details like these, which her books are cheerfully crammed full of, along with her humorous and endearing characters make Megan McDonald's books essential.

Judy goes on to struggle with a classmate's birthday she does not want to attend, the fact that her little brother and parents get to go on a class field trip to the president's house and the completion of her ME COLLAGE, another cool assignment from Mr Todd, and also one that you can print out on the Judy Moody website - along with tons of other great activities. When Judy is moody she sometimes responds to questions with a "ROAR." She can be secretive, silent and grumpy when she is in a mood. However, none of this is exaggerated and all her actions and motivations have a genuine feel to them. Judy thinks that her classmate Frank eats paste and she tries to ignore him and his birthday party invitation. When she ends up at his party despite her best efforts, she learns that Frank is a collector. Judy, who has collections of doll parts, band-aids and scabs, among other things, is impressed. This and the fact that they both have carnivorous plants as pets improves her mood. Judy's moods seem genuine as well. As the parent of a very moody son, I recognized the brooding, stewing and petulant interactions that Judy is prone to. And, when confronted with a situation that is sure to cause a meltdown, Judy surprises everyone when she recasts and calmly turns the purple patch of Jungle Juice Stink spilled on her ME COLLAGE into a her home state of Virginia. This alone would have been a great ending to a great book, but McDonald goes one further. When Mr and Mrs Moody take Judy, Stink, Frank and Rocket out for celebratory ice cream cones at Screaming Mimi's, the kids learn that Frank has to turn his collage in late because he can't fill out the corner for "clubs" since he does not belong to one. Judy and Rocket tackled this problem when they created the TP Club, so named because Stink's pet toad, Toady, peed in each of their hands when they held him (Toad Pee, get it?) Luckily, Stink has Toady with him and Judy promptly tells Frank, "If you pick up Toady right now, you can be in a club."

There are currently eight Judy Moody books on the shelf, one Judy Moody Journal and one Judy Moody Double-Rare-Way-Not-Boring-Book of Fun Stuff To Do. There is also a Judy Moody and Stink book titled, The Holly Joliday and soon to be published Mad, Mad, Mad Treasure Hunt.

Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson, illustrated by Kevin Hawkes, 298 pp, RL 4

Although I count her among my most favorite authors, I have put off reviewing any of Eva Ibbotson's books for almost a year after starting this blog because I knew I'd need to set aside a large chunk of time to do justice to her works.  I also  knew that I couldn't just review one of her books - I would have to review as many as I could. I thought that I would be able to skim the books, all of which I have already read, then review them. What I didn't realize was that I would get sucked into each and every one and end up re-reading all the books from cover to cover! 

Eva Ibbotson is such magnificent writer capable of creating characters that you love and wish were your best friends as well as characters who are devious, self-centered, snobbish and downright mean. While her writing is highly descriptive and visual, it is also plain spoken and straightforward.  Whether she is telling a story set in unique geographical location and time period or in a magical world, she always manages to bring together a diverse group of characters with actions and intentions that ring true no matter what their circumstances.  In Journey to the River Sea, Ibbotson describes a character who has just received the best news possible as  seeming to be made of "something quite different.  Not muscle and bone - feathers and air . . . and lightness. He did not actually intend to fly, because that would have been showing off, but he could have done so if he wanted to."  On top of this, Ibbotson has a way with writing about magical people and creatures that is deliciously imaginative, touchingly human and frequently funny, especially in her book Island of the Aunts.  At times, Ibboston's writing is evocative of classic children's writers such as Frances Hodgson Burnett, Louisa May Alcott and the imcomprable E Nesbit.

Journey to the River Sea begins in 1910 in London, England.  Maia, a student at the Mayfair Academy For Young Ladies has been an orphan since her parents, archaeologists who often took her on their travels, were killed in a train crash in Egypt two years previously. During these two years, Maia's guardian and family lawyer, Mr Murray has been searching for a relative who can care for Maia when he discovers the Carters.  Mr Carter is a second cousin of Maia's father who has moved his family not far from the city of Manaus in Brazil with the hopes of making a fortune as a rubber planter.  When Maia learns of this she begins to study all she can about the Amazon and Brazil, her imagination ignited by descriptions of the jungles and flora and fauna that inhabit it. She also lends her excited imagination to envisioning the Mr and Mrs Carter's twin daughters, Beatrice and Gwendolyn and the fine times they will have exploring together. Miss Minton is hired as a governess for Maia and the twins, who are the same age as she is, and chaperones her on her journey from England to Brazil.  On board the Cardinal, Maia and Miss Minton meet a troupe of traveling actors, one of whom is the young Jimmy Bates who goes by the stage name Clovis King.  The troupe is preparing their version of Little Lord Fauntleroy for performances in Manaus and will then move on to other venues. Clovis, an orphan who left his foster mother to join the actors, constantly pines for the cold weather of England as well as the fine (that's his opinion, anyway) English cooking done by his foster mother that he has left behind as well as constantly worries that the onset of puberty and the imminent change in his voice will cause him to be expelled from the troupe for no longer being able to play the part of young children in their performances.  When this happens during the dramatic climax of the performance in Manaus, Clovis is laughed off the stage and kicked out of the troupe and his story begins.

Maia and Miss Minton, who has a bittersweet story of her own that precedes her journey to the Amazon, arrive at Taphernini, or the House of Rest, as Mrs Carter has named her home, they find things are not at all what they had imagined.  The house, reeks of Lysol and the windows are never opened.  The twins are spoiled and unwelcoming and jealous of all that Maia is capable of.  Miss Minton notices this immediately and, for Maia's protection,  separates her from the twins during lessons on the utterly false premise that she is lagging so far behind them in her studies she will only slow them down.  The twins and Mrs Carter are so vain that they do not even question this.  What's worse for Maia is Mrs Carter's insistence that they replicate their lives in England in the heart of the Amazon.  They eat (dreadful) imported British food, treat the native servants with disdain and, worst of all, never leave the house for fear of encountering the nature all around them.  Mrs Carter spends her days wandering the house with a flit gun, spraying chemicals into every crack in an effort to keep the bugs out of the house.  However, through their innate curiosity and wonder at their situations, both Maia and Miss Minton manage to connect with the world outside of the stifling walls of Taphernini.

When British detectives come to Manaus in search of Finn Taverner, son of the noted British naturalist and explorer, Bernard Taverner, recently deceased, mystery and intrigue are introduced into the plot.  With the locals on his side, Finn, who is half Xanti Indian, manages to evade the detectives, sent to return him to his ancestral estate that he is now the sole heir to. Finn has been raised by his father to be wary of the British.  It was a British doctor who refused to tend to his native mother in the middle of the night when she went into labor and eventually died.  He has also been raised to avoid a return to Westwood at all costs.  It seems his father's childhood there was both miserable and brutal as he did not fit the Taverner mold.  However, a friendship between the two children blossoms when Finn rescues a hopelessly lost Maia The friendship deepens when Finn introduces Maia, who is now allowed to leave the house after Miss Minton invents "pulmonary spasms," a condition which requires fresh air, to the people and ways of the jungle that she has been longing to experience.  Maia, a gifted pianist and promising singer, realizes that, in Brazil, music is always around her.  She begins to take an interest in the music of the various tribes and attempts to learn their songs in an effort to learn their folk songs.  The lives of Finn, Clovis and Maia become intertwined, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.  And, in the end, after a few false starts, the adults meant to guide and protect them come through 

There is so much more wonder and joy at the beauty of nature and the discoveries it holds in this book, as well as more misguided, bigoted, spiteful behavior.  But, the good outweighs the bad and in the end the Carters all get their just desserts - desserts that are equal to the reconstituted, rubbery puddings Mrs Carter insisted on serving at Taphnernini.

If you do not read any other book by Eva Ibbotson, I highly suggest you read this one.  While I am a huge fan of fantasy and adore her books of this genre, there is something so timeless and hopeful about Journey to the River Sea that I think every child - and adult - should experience it.  And, while Maia and Miss Minton dominate the story, Finn and Clovis are strong characters who should appeal to boy readers as well.

If you enjoyed this book, I suggest The Star of Kazan and The Dragonfly Pool, Eva Ibbotson's other non-magical stories.  I also recommend anything by Gloria Whenlan but especially Listening for Lions another one of my all-time favorites.  And, of course, A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy, both by Frances Hodgson Burnett and both thematically influential in Journey to the River Sea, which, by the way, is what some travelers call the Amazon.

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life by Wendy Mass, 289 pp RL 5

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life is the first Wendy Mass novel I've read, but it definitely won't be the last.  Where to begin? This book has so much going on in it, from the philosophical to the theosophical, from mutant candy and found playing card collections to peanut butter sweat and the H.O.J., I know I will leave out one of the many, many enthralling, unique, creative, unparalleled details packed into this young adult book that reads like an adult novel.  I don't know the last time I read this kind of soul searching, not in a solopsistic navel gazing sort of way, but in an actively searching and enquiring way, in a kid's book!

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life begins almost exactly where it ends - on July 22nd, the day of Jeremy's thirteenth birthday.  What happens over the course of the 278 pages in between is an epic search throughout New York City for four missing keys that will open the box that contains the meaning of life.  No, this isn't a fantasy.  A box, bought by Jeremy's father who died in a car accident five years earlier, and inscribed with the words, "THE MEANING OF LIFE: FOR JEREMY FINK TO OPEN ON HIS 13th BIRTHDAY," arrives a month before Jeremy's birthday.  The box also comes with a letter from Mr Fink's lawyer explaining that he is in the process of moving his offices and has lost the keys to the four different locks on the box.  From the moment he opens the package containing the box, Jeremy and his lifelong, polar opposite best friend Lizzy are up against a closet full of secrets, their own as well as those of others, and a suitcase full of keys with only 30 days to find the right ones.

The story really takes off when, caught trespassing in the empty offices of the  lawyer, Jeremy and Lizzy are assigned community service the requires them to work for the pawn broker, Mr Oswald.  However, this job turns out not to be as bad as the two expected.  They are picked up in a limousine and driven to work - at Mr Oswald's house - by James, the tight-lipped but friendly chauffeur.  Mr Oswald is in the process of moving and needs the children to deliver a few things for him.  These turn out to be items that were pawned  decades ago, when Mr Oswald's grandfather, Ozzy Oswald, ran the shop, and make up my favorite part of the book.  When Ozzy ran the shop he had his underaged customers fill out a form explaining why they were pawning the particular item and what they intended to use the money for.  Then he would take a picture of them with the item.  They return a sixty year old autographed copy of Winnie-the-Pooh, a Tiffany lamp and an old brass telescope, along with the original letters they wrote for Ozzy.  These make up some of the most poignant, probing, profound conversations of the book as the two talk with the people, now well into old age.  They learn about the value of friendship, the freedom that comes with intentional simplicity - as a student of it, I appreciated the subtle, unnamed aspects of Buddhism that Mass weaves into her story, and the cosmic implications of time travel.  Jeremy is constantly reading books about time travel, hoping to go back in time and prevent his father's accident.  Dr Amos Grady, owner of the telescope and now a prominent astronomer working at the  Museum of Natural History, helps Jeremy to understand that all the known laws of physics make time travel to the future an impossibility.  And, while time travel to the past might be possible, with no way to get back to the future, "there would be two of you in the past an none of you here in the present.  Theoretically, of course.  Very Messy.  Quite impractical."

Jeremy and Lizzy also make a detour to Atlantic City where, more than thrity-seven years ago, Jeremy's father had his fortune told by an old Russian woman who predicted he would die at the age of forty.  Jeremy thinks that his father believed the prediction and that this was a governing factor in his life and thus the reason he arranged for the box to be sent to him on his thirteenth birthday.  After a visit to a church and another answer to the question, "What is the meaning of life?" the two manage to track down a fortune teller with a Russian accent. Although the accent is an act, the woman really is the granddaughter of the fortune teller who predicted Mr Fink's premature death.  It turns out that she was run off the boardwalk for making this prediction repeatedly to her male customers because she got bored making the usual pronouncements.  Hoping for a bit of good luck, the two ask Madame Zaleski, the younger, where the keys to the box his father left him are.  Madame seems to go into a trance and responds, "You have already been very near to zhe keys vich you seek,  You vil find zhem, but it vil take much vork."

The community service tasks and the impossibility of ever finding the keys cause Jeremy to begin to question everyone he meets on there definition of the meaning of life, in case he can't get his box open to find his father's answer.  He keeps track of his thoughts and observations in a notebook given to him by Mr Oswald as a means of recording his hours of community service. When there work for him is over, Mr Oswald allows Lizzy and Jeremy to each pick an item from his home to keep.  Jeremy picks a suitcase full of the "flotsam and jetsam" that Mr Oswald removed from the drawers and pockets of items people brought to him, half of which are keys.  Jeremy and Lizzy find all but one of the keys before embarking on their summer visit to Jeremy's grandmother's bed and breakfast in New Jersey where he will visit the state fair and celebrate his birthday.  Lizzy surprises Jeremy with the fourth key, which she found in the suitcase but kept secret from him, as a birthday present.  Sitting in a boat the middle of a lake where he used to fish with his dad, Jeremy and Lizzy open the box.

What is inside the box is fitting and serves as a moving conclusion to the journey Jeremy and Lizzy have taken over the course of the book.  However, this is not the end.  There is a twist that I will not reveal here...

Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life is an amazing book, to say the least.  And, like I said at the beginning of the review, there are so many details that I have not included here and wish I could.  Because Jeremy is twelve going on thirteen in this book it is often categorized as a young adult book.  However, I think that this is a great book for teens, who might be able to better grasp the gravity of the different meanings of life discussed in the book, younger readers will enjoy the hunt for the keys and the many, crazy places it takes Jeremy and Lizzy.

Readers who enjoyed this book might like:

Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass
Secret Letters from 0 to 10 by Susie Morgenstern
My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath
Savvy by Ingrid Law
The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place by EL Konigsburg

With discretion, I highly recommend, for older readers, I am The Messenger by Markus Zusak.  This book will keep rolling around in your head for months after you finish it.  The main character in the story is eighteen when he inadvertenly thwarts a bank robbery.  That's when the first Ace arrives with instructions for him to follow.  An unseen mentor sends him on a journey, guided by messages on playing cards, that leads him to a new perspective on life. There is adult language and a scene involving off-the-page sexual violence.