Jennifer Bruer Kitchel

Miles Murphy is not happy about starting at a new school in the snoringly boring town of Yawnee Valley. The only thing that might make this OK is becoming the greatest prankster the school has ever seen. Miles was proud of his reputation as “King Prankster” at his old school, even if it meant that some of his friends didn’t like hanging out with him anymore.

On the first day of school, however, Miles discovers that there is already a pretty awesome prankster among the students: Niles Sparks, apparent goody two-shoes. Niles would like to team up with Miles, but Miles isn’t having it. It takes some pranks gone wrong to convince Miles that together—as the Terrible Two—he and Niles could be legendary.

This story by veteran children’s author Mac Barnett and his longtime friend Jory John is absolutely hilarious. The illustrations by Kevin Cornell add just the right flavor to the comic writing. With genius pranks, a purple-faced principal and lots of cows, there’s something here for everyone.

This article was originally published in the January 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Everyone has thought about what three wishes they would make if they ever found a genie in a bottle. But what if you couldn’t think of three? Or, worse, what if the genie had lost his powers and couldn’t grant them anyway? This is what happens to young Emma in Cornelia Funke’s new book for young people, Emma and the Blue Genie.

Being the only girl with four younger brothers, Emma likes to escape the noise by sitting on the beach near her home and listening to the waves. One night she finds a stoppered bottle and releases a sad, blue genie named Karim who needs her help more than she needs his. Karim promises to grant her wishes after he has taken back his stolen magic nose ring from an evil yellow genie. Emma decides that going with him on this adventure, along with her dog Tristan, sounds better than waiting at home.

Flying away on a magic carpet, Karim and Emma (and Tristan) go to a strange, distant land where they must use all their bravery and cleverness to best the yellow genie. Written in prose that is easily accessible to elementary students, this tale will delight boys and girls alike. Beautiful color illustrations by Kerstin Meyer make a wonderful accompaniment. This book was tested on a second-grade boy and given two thumbs up!

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a Pre-K through eighth level Catholic school.

Kimberley Griffiths Little’s new book brings all the eeriness of the Louisiana bayou into an engaging story about a girl, her family and the secrets of the past.

Preteen Larissa Renaud didn’t exactly want to travel through time, but she does want to find out who the strange caller is on the disconnected phone in her family’s antique store. The caller can’t tell Larissa more than that she needs to “follow the fireflies.” When Larissa does, she finds herself observing a scene from the 1800s and learning more about her family history than her mother ever told her. As she starts to put all the pieces of the past together, the pieces of the present start to fall apart.

Full of adventure, The Time of the Fireflies takes Larissa on a wild ride with just enough—but not too much—scariness for a younger reader. Little’s prose is accessible and lyrical, making her new book an enjoyable read.

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a Pre-K through eighth level Catholic school.

This article was originally published in the August 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It is true that Lisa Graff’s latest book, Absolutely Almost, brings to mind someone else’s work, but not because Graff is in any way imitative—she’s far too brilliant to sound like someone else. Lately the patrons of my school library have been asking, “Do you have any books like Wonder by R.J. Palacio?” and now I have the perfect offering. Like Wonder, Absolutely Almost is the story of a boy struggling to fit in. Unlike Auggie, however, Graff’s protagonist Albie doesn’t have any noticeable problems; he just cannot succeed at school. Reading is hard. Math is impossible. So much so, in fact, that he can no longer attend private school. His busy parents are not happy. Albie, who now has to adjust to fifth grade in public school, is definitely not happy. A reader might hope for a magic answer: Does Albie have a learning disorder? Will the new nanny fix everything? Something will make it all better, right? Maybe. At the end of Wonder, Auggie was still Auggie—a kid with problems, both ordinary and extraordinary. Albie is also just a kid trying to find his way.

Graff has an uncanny ability to sound exactly like a 10-year-old boy, which allows the reader to feel the “almost” that Albie confronts every day. Graff almost won the National Book Award for A Tangle of Knots; here’s hoping she gets a big award soon. Like Albie, she deserves it.

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a Pre-K through eighth level Catholic school.

This article was originally published in the June 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Lantern Sam is a rare male calico cat who lives aboard a train called the Lake Erie Shoreliner (New York to Chicago in under 20 hours!) in the 1940s. Ostensibly in the care of conductor Clarence Nockwood, Sam is an intelligent and independent cat who has the ability to share his thoughts with some humans. Clarence is one of them, but when 10-year-old Henry Shipley comes aboard, Sam finds he can “talk” to him, too.

It’s just as well, because when Henry’s new friend Ellis Strasbourg is kidnapped on the train, he’s going to need Sam’s help to rescue her. Together, Sam and Henry will have to figure out many clues and outwit the kidnappers before it’s too late.

As author of the Red Blazer Girls series, Michael D. Beil is no stranger to middle grade mysteries. His prose is readily accessible, and the danger is mild but bound to be exciting to most third- and fourth-grade students. The story unfolds in alternating chapters between the first-person voices of Henry and Sam. This format is initially confusing, but Beil does a wonderful job of establishing their separate personalities, and the swap soon becomes fluid and easy. Plus, Sam’s chapters are a countdown of his nine lives, which makes the reader wonder: What happens when he gets to his last one? That and many other mysterious questions will keep kids reading to the very end.

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a Pre-K through eighth level Catholic school.

Anyone who has read Catherynne M. Valente’s first book for young readers, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, and marveled at the author’s fantastic prose and vivid imagination, was pleased to find that Valente had not lost her touch in the second book, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There. But her characters are so fantastical, her descriptions so alluring and her philosophies so poignant that surely Valente couldn’t do it again, could she? She has. The third book in the series, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, is as brilliantly written as the first two and an absolute thrill to read.

The protagonist, a girl named September who lives in Nebraska, first went to Fairyland when she was 12 years old—still a child, still easily borne into an alternate world. But now she is 14 and practically grown and not sure that she isn’t too old to get back in, even though it is her only heart’s desire. She needn’t have worried, for Fairyland needs her as much as she needs it. September rescued Fairyland from an evil Marquess in the first book, set things in order in Fairyland-Below in the second, and now she must travel to the Moon in Fairyland and save it as well. Luckily for her, her best friends Saturday (a boy born from the sea) and A-Through-L the Wyverary (part wyvern, part library) are waiting for her and ready to go adventuring.

As with any book, we could sketch out the plot, relay a few details and tell you of the self-discoveries that September makes, but it almost doesn’t matter with Valente’s books. It’s in the telling of the story itself that the magic happens. Reading this author transports you—her prose is magnificent, her narrative voice more than compelling. I cannot stop dog-earing pages for passages I want to remember and share. Like Oz and Wonderland, Valente’s Fairyland will draw you in, but unlike Dorothy and Alice (but much like September), you will not want to leave. The only thing I missed this time around are Ana Juan’s fantastic illustrations, but only because they weren’t included in my review copy.

Considering the continuing popularity of the Star Wars franchise among young people today, it’s a wonder that science fiction as a literary genre isn’t in much demand at school libraries. It should be, and as a fan of all forms of sci-fi, I have a few choice selections to encourage the children at my school to try. Starbounders just got added to my list.

Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson, the award-winning authors of the fantasy series The Familiars, have created a story in which Earth is pretty much the same as it is now, it’s just that there is a secret galactic force that protects us from alien invasion and works with other alien races to keep the peace. How do people end up serving on that force? Well, first they have to go to a special, secret school, of course.

Zachary Night gets to go because his father and mother went, and his grandfather and his great-grandfather. . . . The pressure to succeed weighs on Zachary and he’s not sure he can be as great as his forebears. He’s pretty sure he has messed up badly when he gets sent on a space freighter to do clean-up duty as punishment for breaking the rules. Zachary’s two friends, Kaylee and the alien Ryic, are also being punished, and together the three of them find that cleaning the deck of a freighter that’s been sabotaged is more excitement than they bargained for.

This very fast-paced book is full of everything a sci-fi adventure should have: a wide variety of strange aliens, space ships, cool equipment and a great story that transcends its genre. The science can get a bit iffy in places, but not in a way that a young reader would notice.  Readers of all ages will love Zach and his ability to think fast on his feet.

Readers who don’t think they like science fiction should try Starbounders. Trust me, this is the book you’re looking for.

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a pre-K through 8th grade Catholic school in Nashville.