Book Review: Falling Star (with a cameo by a dog)

Falling Star by Michelle Kwasniewski (Rand-Smith Books, 2023, 306pp, Young Adult, $20PB), Book three in The Rise and Fall of Dani Truhart series. Review by Skye Anderson.

Most series of books can be read in any order but it helps to read the first one first: Falling Star is no exception. I read the third one and it only excited me to read the others - but, nevertheless, I did understand the whole story. I have so much to tell you about Dani Truhart (where on earth did that name come from?)!

To Set The Stage

With a mesmerizing cover, author Michelle Kwasniewski enthralled me with the first paragraph! An exciting believable (or not) inebriated underage accident cover-up! 

Our young heroine, Dani Truhart, the number one pop singer in the world at age 16 whose mother blackmailed her in a previous book (or so it seems) and whose father appears only sporadically, has a legal guardian. Our Dani is more or less mature for her age and vacillates between being wise beyond her years and "just a teenager." With plenty of dialogue (perhaps too much?), the book reads quickly albeit slow in the beginning and bogging down in places.

Dichotomy?

The first half speeds to a crescendo and then drops off a bit to pursue another (but related) plot before merging the two in the final pages, perhaps too abruptly. The author also ends most chapters with a blog by the same person each time who finally plays a larger role in the story, plus there are Facebook posts from members of the Truhart Nation, Dani's fan club, loyal no matter what.

We have the usual crush on an older boy who ignores Dani plus a growing chasm between Dani and her famous best friends and another brush-off from a former high-school boyfriend. And drinking and driving. . . . 

Can people really change? Can Dani really grow up? Can she really trust her mother? 

I am so pumped to read Rising Star now!

Book Two

Book Review, Diary of a Wimpy Kid - The Ugly Truth (#5)(middle school boys)(OT)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Ugly Truth, by Jeff Kinney (Amulet Books, 224 pp, 2010, $13.95HB, ages 8-11, grades 3-7) 5th in a series of 31. Review by Skye Anderson.

Local Author Hits Big!

Jeff Kinney was born and raised in Maryland and graduated from the University of Maryland so we can all claim this prolific author (31 Wimpy Kid books) and bask in his spotlight even if he now lives in New England. Not only does he write books but he also illustrates them, too!

Our middle school hero Gregory is looking for another best friend as school starts up again in September. We laugh our way through his shenanigans with older brother Rodrick and younger brother Manny as we remember what our siblings were like at that age. 

Friday Night Lock-In

Kids and adults (even teachers and principals) try to understand and get along with each other but just keep missing as they pass in the night. For example, during the Friday night sleep-in at school to raise money for the music department, each activity had a price-tag along with it but  the activities just bombed for the almost-grown-up kids, having been planned by adults for kids, not by kids for kids. 

When Mom Goes Back To School

Mom goes back to school, resulting in chaos in the household and the necessity to hire a maid who thinks she is being paid to watch TV. She has nothing to do since Mom, like many of us, cleans the house the night before she comes! And the family has to cook, learning the hard way to remember next time to remove the saran wrap before microwaving the burgers.

Families! Extended Families!

And then we have an uncle's third wedding (or is it the fourth?) bringing all the extended family together for another weekend of chaos.

The Ugly Truth

Just what the ugly truth is, the reader will have to find out for himself (or herself since the Wimpy Kid books appeal to middle school girls just as much, if even only to give them more ammunition to compare themselves to the boys who are always getting in trouble).

Author Kinney has an uncanny talent for remembering just what kids are like. Even adults will love this book!

An Unlikely Story

Our author owns a bookstore called An Unlikely Story and I bet he stocks all the Wimpy Kid books including The Third Wheel. 

For more Wimpy Kid books, start with reading this review.

Book Review: Tails: A Backyard Story (a backyard tale told in English by the animals themselves)

Tails, A Backyard Story by Michael Curran (Independently published, $15, 2023, 202pp, first in a trilogy) Review by Skye Anderson

What comes first, tails or fences? Or Tails or Fences? In this case, we read the second book in the trilogy first (Fences) followed by Tails, and though one can easily follow events by reading the books out of order, we would advise reading the first book first and the second book second. The third book in the trilogy is not yet  finished.

Like Fences, Tails begins with several chapters starring one major character each and featured on the cover (but there are more characters in Fences**). We meet Dutch the dog and Chase the dog, Buddy the cat and chief of Indoor Security, Ricky the Mockingbird (who plays a much larger role in the second book), Skip the squirrel, Robin the robin, Miss Lou Lou the field mouse (or, more accurately, the vole) and some bunnies. And the humans* of course - Wendy and Scott and their 9-year-old Cole, who reside at 207 Spruce Street. Our friends the animals also live at 207 Spruce Street but in the backyard, primarily.

Shades of To Kill a Mockingbird

Partially written in the voice of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird, Tails and Fences are a delight to peruse - quick to read because we  simply love each character, want to learn more about them, laugh a little and follow the plot: in this case, a Little League baseball game final.

*humans are called humies by Michael Curran

**

Book Review: Fences: A Backyard Story (backyard animals)

Fences: A Backyard Story, by Michael Curran (Independently published, $15, 2023, 297pp) Review by Skye Anderson

A sequel to Tails: A Backyard Story, Fences  is a lovely book for young adults - with hidden education to boot. Though fairly long and slow in the beginning in order to carefully and fully introduce the myriad of animal characters, the tale gradually moves quickly and eventually ties all the loose ends together in the end. 

Love the Names

Munk is a chipmunk; Chaser, a dog. Of course!

Other animals have not-so-obvious names like Ricky the Mockingbird, head of Outdoor Security, Madame Monet the skunk (huh?), Buddy the cat who is head of Indoor Security, and Skip the squirrel. 

The scenes take place largely in the backyard of the Brennan house at 207 Spruce Street, home to parents Wendy and Scott, and their boy Cole who is attacked by a murder of crows, thus alarming the backyard animals and resulting in a committee to find the murderer. It is amazing how the various species can communicate with each other - in English.

The Story

Fences starts off with a big bang - a murder of a crow (and later we read about another 'murder' of crows). We learn where crows spend their nights sleeping and how aunt and uncle crows stick around the nuclear family to help raise the next younger generation. And, perhaps as a play on words, we meet a crow named Usher Poe (the author is from Pennsylvania, near Baltimore, home of Edgar Allen Poe, who wrote about ravens, however).

The Gang on Spruce Street

With a lovely lyrical writing style, author Michael Curran makes learning about animal husbandry fun - but that is not the main goal of Fences. Or perhaps that goal shares the spotlight with suspense and also with lessons of cooperation. Several of the first chapters might be read in a different order because each chapter highlights one named animal, as if only one of a species lived in a particular backyard, with the exception of crows and a pair of squirrels.

You can easily picture not only the various characters but also the action. With humor taking us back to our childhood, Curran writes about childhood as only an observant father can (the boy speeding down the stairs skipped the last four steps - who doesn't remember doing that?).

There is a definite demarkation between day animals and night ones: it is dangerous for day animals to be caught away from home when the sun sets (when our murder takes place).

With only a few punctuation errors, Fences is a book to entice the reader to learn more about crows and other highlighted animals. Unfortunately, a great horned owl is the antagonist, much to the dismay of this reviewer who studied owls in graduate school.

Fences will also entice you to read the first book in the series, Tails, whose review follows this one.

Book Review: Schoolhouse Dogs Face Life (young adult fiction)

Schoolhouse Dogs Face Life, by Dawn and Jim Darnell (Independently Published, 2023, 178pp, $14.95PB, $223.95HC, Young Adult)

Adorable Cover!

Authors Dawn and Jim Darnell take lessons about life that kids learn in school and transform those dry lessons into school chapters involving dogs, but not just any dogs - a bevy of breeds and mixes who attend an unusual school. Irish Setter, Mastiff, Husky, and more.

Considerable research has gone into writing Schoolhouse Dogs Face Life including breed characteristics. For example, a Shar Pei has difficulty smelling a trail because his face wrinkles hang down covering his nose and prevent the odors from reaching it, something that I had never thought about! Wrinkles also interfere with his sight. And his name is so descriptive - Crinkle Bear! He is a major character as he tries to win the heart of Lollie Pop, another Shar Pei.

The end of every chapter slides into a lesson for life. Though it may be hard to discern who exactly is speaking, even that mirrors real life when dogs all bark at once. Most chapters include lots of teasing, bullying and misunderstanding which, when cleared up, lead to the lessons learned.

The dogs interact in the schoolyard as they wait for the bell to ring and each day has a different lesson such as jumping, potty training (for the excitable Lab), and smelling.

But the most important lesson is not competing but acceptance of ourselves as the bullying turns into acceptance of others. The authors even give us an acronym: FACE for Forgiveness, Acceptance, Commitment and Encouragement.

Movie Review: K-9 (dog-cop flick with a little bit of K-9 romance thrown in)

 K-9, starring Jim Belushi and Mel Harris (1989, 102 minutes, Netflix) Review by Skye Anderson

Turner and Hooch it isn't!

We came across K-9 recently on Netflix and love love loved it! Not your usual cop-and-dog flick and much of it was highly unbelievable (not to real life) but that somehow did not subtract from our enjoyment one iota!

The human is a renegade cop in trouble with his boss so he is assigned a police dog who is one tough cookie, as evidenced by the frequency of his growls. Of course in real life, cop-and-dog teams train together for quite some time before going out onto the streets to work the bad guys. 

Our canine hero, Jerry Lee, is a grouchy drug-sniffing German Shepherd Dog (GSD) who, in one scene, when he stinks (for some reason), is relegated alone to the car which happens to be a Mustang convertible and the car is sent through the car wash! This wet dog is so cute! But we wondered how the driver's seat dried so quickly that the cop didn't even get his suit wet when he drove away.

Even if you GSDs are not your breed, you will fall in love with Jerry Lee who refuses to sit in the back seat of the convertible - he prefers the front passenger seat.

There are holes in the plot which was too convoluted for me but I was watching as a dog person after all. K-9 is a very enjoyable movie to watch in several sittings, a few scenes at a time - for the dog, after all (plus, girl friend Mel Harris is easy on the eyes and the house they live in must be a city block long!)

Now we are off to find K-911 and K-9:PI and K9000!

Book Review: Gizelle's Silly, Soggy Day (OT)(children's, sheep)

Gizelle's Silly, Soggy Day, by Joy VanDertuin and Michelle Hill (Winning Champion Press, 2021, 53 pp, 3-8 years or ages 3-5, $9.99) Reviewed by Skye Anderson.

Gizelle, an adorable black-face lamb, lives on a farm with other sheep, other animals, and border collie Gracie. But Gizelle, rather than sticking together with the other sheep often goes off on her own to find sweet grass to eat, so Gracie must keep a close eye on her. 

One day Gizelle wanders too far and gets into trouble during bad weather. Will the other animals who are usually enemies (and either prey or predators) come to her aid? How does Gracie do a 'call to arms'? And what can Gizelle do to thank them all in return?

Fun illustrations make friends of all the animals for the young reader: the tale is full of suspense with a lovely ending.

Most pages have a little circled illustration that can also be found as part of the larger illustration on the facing page, creating a contest to teach little readers to look closely.

We love Gizelle and can't wait to read Gizelle's Whimsical, Wintery Day.