Shelf Awareness--Call Down the Hawk

YA Review: Call Down the Hawk

Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic Press, 480p., ages 12-up, 9781338188325)

Call Down the Hawk occupies the same fantasy-infused world as Maggie Stiefvater's stellar the Raven Cycle quartet. Fans of the previous series will enjoy delving deeper into the magical heritage of the Lynch brothers; new readers should enjoy this riveting follow-up trilogy opener.

Of his three brothers, Ronan Lynch has "the most dangerous of the secrets." He's a dreamer who can "fall asleep, dream of feathers, and wake with a raven in [his] hands." His father dreamt his mother into being, and Ronan, in turn, dreamt into being his "cherubic" younger brother, Matthew. Now that their parents are dead, Ronan's older brother, Declan, holds what's left of the family together.

Hennessy, too, is a dreamer. Each time she sleeps for more than 20 minutes, she brings back "a copy of herself." Hennessy and her art-forging clones sneak into the Fairy Market--a place to buy illicit magical items--desperate to find a painting that may allow Hennessy to change her dream before she is literally killed by her own nightmares. Carmen Farooq-Lane goes to the Fairy Market after it's described in a premonition. She is part of a group dedicated to killing all dreamers in order to stave off an apocalypse that one of them will cause "with starving, unquenchable fire. Dreamed fire." Ronan, too, attends the Fairy Market--a stranger is whispering to him in dreams, and he thinks the Market may offer answers.

Stiefvater's (All the Crooked Saints) melodious prose is as gorgeous as ever, but here the tone is grittier, as players both new and familiar operate in a dangerous, surreal underbelly in and around the nation's capital. Alliances form, victories are hard to gauge and reality seems less and less certain. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI.

Discover: In this first book in a YA companion trilogy to Stiefvater's the Raven Cycle, dreamers are pitted against a group of hunters determined to prevent a fiery apocalypse.

December Recommendations

Novels:

THE QUEEN OF NOTHING is the conclusion to the intensely satisfying Folk of the Air trilogy by Holly Black. Jude Duarte has been exiled from Faery to the mortal world, but she sneaks back in to impersonate her twin sister, Taryn—and, while she’s at it, reclaim her own rightful place as High Queen. She gets kidnapped by her stepfather who mistakes her for Taryn, as he plots to dethrone Cardan—and therefore Jude herself! Beginning with THE CRUEL PRINCE, followed by THE WICKED KING, finishing with THE QUEEN OF NOTHING, these novels masterfully combine court intrigue, romantic drama, and the magic of a most dangerous Faerieland. (YA)

THE DARKEST PART OF THE FOREST, also by Holly Black, and also set in the same Faerieland as the Folk of the Air series, is a standalone story about Hazel Evans and her brother Ben, and the Faerie prince who is encased in a glass coffin in the forest near their home. And it’s about how Hazel becomes a warrior, and how Ben tries to fight the magic of his music, and how they both try to save their hometown from an invasion of the Folk. And it’s about the monster that lives in the heart of the forest. It’s contemporary dark fantasy with plenty of traditional fairy tale elements and romance. Most excellent! (YA)

LOOK BOTH WAYS: A Tale Told in Ten Blocks, by Jason Reynolds, is a collection of ten stories, woven together to make up a larger story of community. Once the dismissal bell rings at Latimer Middle School, students burst forth into the rest of their lives, filled with boogers and divorce, stolen change and cancer and candy, skateboarding and bullies and plenty more that’s packed into these pages. The always-creative Reynolds has given us another winner. (MG)

Picture Books:

THE SHORTEST DAY, by Susan Cooper, began as a work for the theater--"a joyful celebration of the winter solstice, in music, dance, and words”—and now Carson Ellis’s gouache illustrations bring the poem new life as a book. When the old year dies, people gather "singing, dancing,/ to drive the dark away.” Heavily influenced by northern European beliefs, it’s a mythic, uplifting piece that shows how ancient winter solstice rituals are still alive in many modern holiday traditions.

JUST IN CASE YOU WANT TO FLY, by Julie Fogliano and Christian Robinson, is a delightfully imaginative collaboration. “…here’s some wind/and here’s the sky/here’s a feather/here’s up high…” It begs to be read aloud and savored. The book is well made, too—take the dust cover off for a complementary cover, and savor the whole of it as a piece of picture book art at its best.

POKKO AND THE DRUM, by Matthew Forsythe, is also beautifully made, with thick, creamy pages and gorgeously colored illustrations. The story, too, is a winner—when Poko’s parents give her a drum, they declare it was "a big mistake.” But Poko takes her drum into the forest, where she assembles a diverse crowd of animals who also play instruments. (She only has to threaten the wolf once not to eat the other band members.) It’s droll and fun and truly noteworthy.

--Lynn

Shelf Awareness--Not a Bean

PB Review: Not a Bean

Not a Bean by Claudia Guadalupe Martinez, illus. by Laura González (Charlesbridge, 32p., ages 3-7, 9781580898157)

On "the yerba de la flecha," a shrub found near the arroyos of northern Mexico, grows a seedpod. Within this seedpod are smaller pods, and each one of these smaller pods is "Not a Bean." In this playful-yet-informative bilingual counting book, Claudia Guadalupe Martínez and Laura González set the record straight about a perennial favorite, the Mexican jumping bean.

Early one morning, "una oruga" bores its way into one of the small pods. Inside, the caterpillar finds food and water. When the seedpod dries and hardens, it breaks open and falls to the desert sand. "Dos saguaros" decorate the warming landscape as the caterpillar maneuvers the Not a Bean into a shady spot among the rocks. Nearby, "tres cascabeles" rattle their tails; the Not a Bean jumps into a crevice, where it stays safe from "cuatro coyotes" and "cinco cuervos." Rain from "seis nubes" takes the Not a Bean downriver, where "siete amigos explore." The friends draw "ocho óvalos" in the dirt and play a game with the Not a Bean plus eight other jumpers, making "nueve saltarines” in all. That night, under "diez estrellas" that twinkle in the sky, the Not a Bean grows quiet. The caterpillar inside spins a cocoon and, many days later, "a majestic polilla" emerges, then "soars into the sky."

Martínez's fascinating story presents the life cycle of the jumping bean moth, while González's digital illustrations support and illuminate the text. Back matter describes the science in greater detail, and includes both environmental context and an explanation of the jumping bean's appeal to children. Additionally, Not a Bean's well-placed Spanish words and phrases serve as an introduction to readers who do not speak Spanish and a welcome invitation to those who do. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI.

Discover: The life cycle of the jumping bean moth is detailed in this picture book that also includes an introduction to Spanish numbers and vocabulary.

December's Book of the Month--The Hate U Give

THE HATE U GIVE, by Angie Thomas, is December's Book of the Month, and one that I’ve wanted to spotlight for a while. I talked about it in Recommendations shortly after it came out, but didn't get around to picking it for a Book of the Month. But, with the movie being released this year, and because Angie Thomas now has a follow-up book set in the same town of Garden Heights, it seems like a good time to revisit this terrific story.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter is torn between two worlds. She attends high school at the fancy, suburban, almost-all-white Williamson Prep, and, when school is over, she drives forty-five minutes home to the much rougher black neighborhood of Garden Heights, where “you rarely see white people.” Starr has learned that “Williamson is one world and Garden Heights is another and [she has] to keep them separate.” When Starr sneaks out with her brother’s sister Kenya to a party, there’s a shooting and the guests all flee. Starr, drives away with her longtime friend Khalil. But a police officer pulls them over, and “Khalil breaks a rule—he doesn’t do what the cop wants.” Choosing to question why they were pulled over at all, Khalil, unarmed, is shot and killed. Starr goes to the police station and speaks to the detectives, but it soon becomes clear that the authorities “see no reason to arrest the officer." Starr needs to decide if she’ll go public with her story, thereby giving her Williamson world a clear view of her Garden Heights roots. Will she face the media circus and make sure the world knows “what went down,” or is she “too afraid to speak?"

I think what sets this book above and beyond is the undeniably superior writing. Starr is a complete, complex character that drew me in from the very first page. Her struggles feel authentic and compelling. The narrative also has a superb supporting cast, and the plot is rich and satisfying. Far more rich and satisfying than the short blurb above makes it sound. It should become an enduring classic, and a chronicle of the highest order in regards to the serious issues it takes on.

I’m going to buy a copy of Thomas’s second book, ON THE COME UP, next chance I get.

--Lynn