Restart

Restart by Gordon Korman, 243 pages

When Chase falls off the roof, he loses his memory.  He doesn’t remember what he, or any of his family members look like.  He doesn’t remember anything from his old life.    But when school starts and he meets his old friends again, and gets to know his classmates, he starts to realize that he may have been a pretty awful person before his fall.  Chase gets to know some of the kids that he used to bully and finds that he really likes them.  He doesn’t like his two former best friends nearly as well.  Can Chase find a way to reconcile who he used to be with the person he wants to be now?  This book, which is told from the point of view of Chase and, in alternating chapters, a few of the kids in his class, is an excellent story.  I would give this to older elementary kids who like realistic fiction.

Sled Dog School

Sled Dog School by Terry Lynn Johnson    208 pages

Aimed at kids in middle school, I think young readers will enjoy the problems eleven-year-old Matt is having in math. I know I can relate; I struggled with math from word problems in the third grade all the way through college algebra.

Matt has a chance to redeem his failing grade. He can start a business and keep the books. At first he wasn’t sure what to do. He hated his life: parents who had gone off the grid (really off as in no electricity) on a dead-end road and facing bullies at school was just the beginning.  But one thing he loved to was drive his dog sled.  Suddenly, that’s what he knew he could do, and Matt’s Dog Sled School was born.

Matt puts up posters at school and soon he has his first client. The only problem is, he needs three. But Tubbs will do although he is less than enthused about learning how to run a dog team.

Things go awry in a number of ways, but Matt stays the course.

A quick and easy read, the story flowed smoothly. The descriptions were vivid and the tension ran high. Johnson does a good job in creating lessons for the young ones to learn without being preachy.

Sled Dog School gets 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

    

A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman         Audio Book:  6 hours    Hardback Book: 208 pages

I have heard that stand-up comedians bring their pain to the stage and the audience laughs at it because while they can relate to what is being said, it is funny because it isn’t them experiencing it and the comic presents the pain in a comedic story telling fashion as if he or she is viewing the situation from above and relating it even though it is themselves they are speaking of.    David Grossman has certainly captured the feel and delivers the scene for the reader of actually being in a comedy club.    From beginning to end you have such an indelible sense of the horror that was Dovelah Greenstein’s  life, yet, he breaks up the haunting visuals he creates in your head with a zinger joke or critical observation of someone in the audience just to bring up the deep downturn he has taken the reader on.     This is not a happy book but more of a purging of one’s demons.    Well done, well thought out but it will take the reader on a spiraling trip through Dovelah Greenstein’s past almost like watching someone self-destruct before your eyes.   My first thought was ‘he is having a nervous breakdown on stage’ but dear reader it is far more than that.   I won’t divulge what is really happening here but though the book is fiction, the character is fiction and the plot is fiction, David Grossman captures the pain experienced so realistically it is tangible.    A haunting book.    Both an intellectual and emotional ride that I would liken to (Franz) Kafka.  

Where I Belong

Where I Belong by Mary Downing Hahn, 226 pages

Brendan hates school and doesn’t do well, except in art.  He loves to draw.  He’s actually smart, but when he doesn’t understand, his teachers and classmates tease him.  He lives with a foster mother, who criticizes him.  Although he’s been told not to go in the woods, Brendan does anyway, and builds a tree house that becomes his special place.  He also meets the Green Man and Brendan finally feels like he has a place where he belongs.  However, because he failed sixth grade, he has to go to summer school.  While there, he meets a new girl, Shea, who might actually be a friend.  His teacher is much better also, and Brendan starts to feel like he could learn something.  But everything could fall apart when Brendan is attacked by three local boys.  Afraid of possible retaliation, Brendan won’t tell anyone who hurt him, which could have devastating consequences.  This is a really good story for kids about friendship.