Book Blog Tour for "Jimmy's Stars" - Day Two

Now that you have read my review of Jimmy's Stars I thought you might like to learn a little bit about the author.

MARY ANN RODMAN’s debut novel,Yankee Girl, was chosen as a VOYA Top Shelf Fiction for Middle School Readers and an NCSS-CBC Notable Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies. She lives with her family in Alpharetta, Georgia. To find out more about Mary Ann Rodman please visit her website.

Mary Ann Rodman has written several books in addition to Jimmy's Stars. These are:

Yankee Girl

My Best Friend

First Grade Stinks - Coming out next month

Surprise Soup - Coming out in the spring of 2009

The other blogs participating in this event are:

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com

http://achildhoodofdreams.blogspot.com

http://rebeccaluellamiller.wordpress.com

http://amomspeaks.com

http://paraklesis.com/childrens_publishing_news

http://blbooks.blogspot.com

http://bookreviewmaniac.blogspot.com

http://teenscenemag.com/bythebook

http://dolcebellezza.blogspot.com

http://www.firesidemusings.blogspot.com

http://homeschoolbuzz.com/reviewBlog.html

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com

http://blog.mawbooks.com

http://smallworldreads.blogspot.com

http://thefriendlybooknook.com

http://deweymonster.com

Please visit these blogs to read their reviews and to see what activities they have planned for the next two book blog days.

Blog Book Tour for "Jimmy's Stars" - Day One

I am delighted to offer you my first Blog Book Tour. The featured title is Jimmy's Stars by Mary Ann Rodman. The schedule for the Book Tour on this blog is as follows:

Day One: Review of Jimmy's Stars

Day Two: Information about the author

Day Three: Interview with the author

Here is my review of Jimmy's Stars. I hope you enjoy it.

Jimmy’s Stars
Mary Ann Rodman
Fiction
Ages 9 to 12
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008, 0-374-33703-9
When Ellie learns that her beloved brother Jimmy has been drafted and will be going off to war she is devastated. Fun loving Jimmy who calls her “Movie Star” and who tells Ellie that she is beautiful, is one of the best things in Ellie’s world and she cannot imagine what life will be like without him around. Ellie has already had to sacrifice so much for the war. Why does she have to give up her brother as well?
But she must, and on October 2nd, 1943 Jimmy gets on a train to go to boot camp. Before he leaves, Jimmy promises Ellie that he will come home for Christmas and she holds this promise close to her heart in the days following his departure. The situation is not helped at all when Aunt Toots comes to stay and when Ellie’s mother goes to work in a factory. Now Ellie has to do more chores than ever and her family members are rarely able to spend much time together.
When Jimmy does not come home for Christmas Ellie is hurt and furious. He’d promised her and she feels horribly let down. Christmas without Jimmy just doesn’t feel right and Ellie cannot understand how Jimmy could do such a thing. When the family of Victoria - Ellie’s mortal enemy who lives across the way - gets a telegram Ellie begins to realize how lucky she is. At least Jimmy isn’t in the line of fire on some island in the Pacific.
In this moving and powerful book readers will get a very real feel for what it was like to be a child on the home front in America during World War II. They will read about scrap drives, ration cards, and victory gardens, and they will discover what it meant to have to put up with things “for the duration.” Most of all of course they will see how painful and miserable it was for families who had sons, brothers, uncles, or cousins in the service. Sometimes one did not know where family members were for months on end, and always one lived with the fear that the Western Union telegram delivery boy would come to your door.
Packed with intimate details about life in America during World War II, this book will leave readers with a meaningful picture of what it was like to live through those very hard years.

The other blogs participating in this event are:

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/

http://achildhoodofdreams.blogspot.com/

http://rebeccaluellamiller.wordpress.com/

http://amomspeaks.com/

http://paraklesis.com/childrens_publishing_news

http://blbooks.blogspot.com

http://bookreviewmaniac.blogspot.com/

http://teenscenemag.com/bythebook

http://dolcebellezza.blogspot.com/

http://www.firesidemusings.blogspot.com/

http://homeschoolbuzz.com/reviewBlog.html

http://maggiereads.blogspot.com/

http://blog.mawbooks.com/

http://smallworldreads.blogspot.com/

http://thefriendlybooknook.com/

http://deweymonster.com/

Please visit these blogs to read their reviews and to see what activities they have planned for these three book blog days.

A sweepstake to enter and an opportunity to vote for an award

Chronicle Books is hosting its World Almanac for Kids Brainiac Sweepstakes. Anyone ages 13 and up can enter. The deadline for entries is September 30th 2008. The first prize is a top-of-the-line computer, books, A Cookie Magazine subscription, games, and more. Visit the Sweepstakes Page for more information and to download the entry form.

Children who are prekindergarten to 12th grade can now participate in the Abunga.com Kids' Choice Awards. Abunga.com, the family-friendly online bookstore, is hosting their first Abunga.com Kids’ Choice Book Awards. Now through Sept. 1, children pre-kindergarten through 12th grade can log onto Abunga.com/kidschoice and nominate their favorite summer reading book.
“Abunga.com wants to encourage children of all ages to dive into a few good books this summer,” said Abunga.com Chairman Lee Martin. “With families cutting down on summer travel due to the rising cost of gas and food, reading offers children the opportunity to journey to another time and place and experience the many adventures of a book.”
Nominations for the 2008 Abunga.com Kids’ Choice Book Awards will be accepted in the categories of grades pre-kindergarten through first, second through third, fourth through fifth, sixth through eighth and ninth through 12th. All children who log onto Abunga.com with their parent’s permission and provide a nomination and parent’s contact e-mail address will be eligible for a $20 Abunga.com gift card. One gift card will be awarded in each category. Printable summer reading bookmarks that include a place for children to write down their favorite books will also be available at the site.
The winning books and authors will be announced Sept. 15. Winning authors will receive a feature spot on the Abunga.com home page from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 and will be listed on the Abunga.com Kids’ Choice Awards Web page for one full year until the 2009 awards. Children awarded Abunga.com gift cards will also be recognized by first name on the Abunga.com Kids’ Choice Awards Web page.
“We are eager to see the variety of books that so many young readers will take the initiative to nominate,” Martin said. “Summer reading helps kids stay at the top of their academic game when school is out, and we hope this award adds a little extra incentive to discover a good book.”
Abunga.com is an online bookstore founded to provide families a protected shopping environment. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn., Abunga.com offers more than 1.6 million family-friendly books, savings through distributor-direct prices and support to nonprofit organizations by donating 5 percent of each transaction to a customer-selected charity. For more information, visit www.Abunga.com.

Back-to-school event for adults

For those of you who will soon be getting back into the swing of sending a children or children to school, here is an event that you might like to participate in. On August 16th MommyTalk.com will be hosting a Back-To-School Bash for grownups. As MommyTalk says "Getting ready for back to school isn't easy. We deserve a bash, don't we?" Up until August 15th you can enter a back-to-school contest and on the 16th you can join other grownups online for a celebration. For more information take a look at the event page.

The New Issue of Through the Looking Glass Book Review

This month on the Through the Looking Glass Book Review visitors will find reviews for a wide variety of books, along with some interesting features, profiles, and spotlights.

• We are celebrating the last real month of summer. You will find reviews of general summer books and reviews of beach related books.
• The special feature is about circuses. If you love the big top and would like to find books about circuses, circus people, and circus animals then this is the feature for you.
• In the Bookish Calendar you will find links to a number of interesting feature pages that explore books about, among other things: The dropping of the first atomic bomb, the erupting of Mt. Vesuvius in A.D 79, the discovery of gold in the Klondike, and the birthday of musician Louis Armstrong.
• The award winning book for this month is The Adventures of Marco Polo by Russell Freedman
• The series spotlight for August is The Rats of Nimh Trilogy
• Jeanne DuPrau is the author who is spotlighted in this issue. Her book The Prophet of Yonwood is reviewed in this issue as well.
• The Editor's Choice title for this month is The day the World Exploded:The Earthshaking Catastrophe at Krakatoa by Simon Winchester. This book is beautifully written and presented, and in it Simon Winchester not only describes what happened to the island of Krakatoa in the late 1800's, but he also shows his readers that the event had a truly worldwide impact on the environment and on people.

I hope you enjoy this new issue and that you are having a wonderful summer.

The Anniversary of the beginning of World War I

On July 28th, 1914 the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife were assassinated. Because of this event Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and World War I began. To some of us World I War seems so distant and remote. Very few veterans from that conflict are still alive and the story of the war is not one that most people are familiar with. The war did have a huge impact on the world however. Not only was it the first of the 'modern' wars but it also was the reason why World War II began.

Through the Looking Glass has a collection of reviews about WWI books that you might like a to take a look at on the World War I feature page. The books reviewed suit a number of age ranges - from picture books to novels. One in particular, Hattie Big Sky, stands out. This Newbery Honor award winning title explores the ways in which one young woman is touched by the clouds of war. Though she lives in Montana in distant America, far from the battle grounds in France and Belgium, Hattie still learns how terrible war is and how conflict can, at times, bring out the worst, and the best, in people.

In Where Poppies Grow: A World War I Companion, by Linda Granfield, the author tells the story of World War I with great skill, capturing the initial innocence of the soldiers and the rude awakening that they got when they finally found themselves in battle.

Do take a look at this feature, and if you know of more World War I books for children that you have read and liked, tell me about them.

Calling all beatrix Potter fans

I am reading a wonderful book at the moment called "The Tale of Hawthorn House" written by Susan Albert. This is the fourth book in the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter series, and I must confess that I had a hard time putting the book down last night. My review for this book will be online in the August issue of Through the Looking Glass Book Review but I will give you a teaser just to capture your interest:

Beatrix Potter is loving the days that she is spending on her farm, and all is relatively quiet in her little English village. Then she finds a basket on her doorstep containing a baby. No one knows where the baby came from, though many of the villagers believe that the infant either belongs to, or was stolen by, the gypsies. The animals in the district know more about the provenance of Baby Flora but alas no one bothers to ask them their opinion.

Meanwhile Jemima Puddleduck, the white duck who barely escaped with her life when a fox set a trap for her, is sitting on a hidden clutch of eggs. For some reason the eggs are refusing to hatch and poor Jemima does not know what to do.

With great skill Susan Albert combines fact, fiction, and fantasy in this novel to create a story that is thought-povoking, entertaining, and which also gives readers a picture of what Beatrix Potter's life was like. Being a huge admirer of Beatrix Potter and her work, I am always delighted to discover that Susan Albert has added another book to this unique series. Do take a look at the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter website. Here you will find further information about the series, a newsletter for fans of the books, and much more.

Through the Looking Glass has reviewed other books by, and about, Beatrix Potter. You can find these reviews on the Beatrix Potter page.

Some interesting contests that you might like to investigate

Because of my reviewing work I recieve a lot of email newsletters and in some of these I have found information about some interesting contests and events that I think you might like to know about.

• For the Storytubes contest children have to read a book and then review it in a creative way, on video. Contact a library or your local school to find out if they are participating in the program and if they are not ask them to join up so that they can sponsor your child for the contest. For more information take a look at the Storytubes website
• If you have a teen in the house you might like to tell them about Teen Read Week which this year is from October 12th though October 18th. This years topic is Books with Bite. Talk to your local or school librarian to find out if they are participating. You can get more information about the event on the Teen Read Week website.

Do let me know if have heard about contests or events that might be of interest to my readers.

Summer vacations

Summer is, for most of us, a time of year when life slows down a little. Children are out of school and parents don't spend quite so much time going to and from after-school activities and events. Summer is also a time when many families go on vacation. Some people are lucky enough to go abroad while others take a break by going to the beach, hiking in the mountains, or visiting places of interest in their own country.

To celebrate summer and summer activities Through the Looking Glass Book Review has a number of features that might interest you. There is the Summer Days feature. Here there are reviews of summer related books of all kinds. Then there is the Days at the Beach feature where readers will find reviews of beachy books. There are picture books, board books, and more. If you are off to the beach this summer you might like to heighten the experience by reading a few of these titles.

In addition, for the July issue of Through the Looking Glass Book Review, I have reviewed some wonderful vacation books. Are we there yet: A journey around Australia is beautifully illustrated and it takes readers on a fabulous trip around Australia in the company of a family who are not afraid of adventures. In the Bush: Our holiday at Wombat Flat is also from Australia and it will delight readers who enjoy books that are full of detailed illustrations. The text is minimal and there are many amusing things to find in the artwork.

For older readers Travels with my family will leave you in stitches. In this title two little boys are taken on a variety of very unconventional vacations and they have some very unusual adventures and misadventures. The book is written in such a way that older readers will also enjoy it. It is therefore a perfect title to read out loud. One could read the book during a long car ride or while sitting around a campfire.

For children who are going to camp this summer A couple of boys have the best week ever is a must. This book will certainly bring a smile to the face of any reader. Children will want to read it again and again.

Happy Summer!

What's New on Through the Looking Glass Book Review

These days the skies above my town are full of smoke from the Northern California fires which are still burning to the south of us. The fires remind me that we are truly at the mercy of the weather when it chooses to turn nasty. In this case lightening strikes caused numerous fires to begin and now, many days after the storm, we still have not been able to put the fires out.


In the new issue of Though the Looking Glass Book Review we look at books that explore the world's weather and the effect that the weather has on our lives. There are books about tornadoes, hurricanes, storms, wind, rain and snow. The titles that have been reviewed are suitable for children of all ages, from children who are very young to those who are in their teenage years. You can find the weather feature on this page on the Through the Looking Glass Book Review website.


Also take a look out the Editor's Choice title for this month. Sand Dollar Summer by Kimberly K. Jones is a marvelous book that explores how a young girl, Lise, adjusts to huge changes in her life. She wants everything to stay just as it is but when her mother gets injured in a car crash Lise's life is turned upside down. She and her family go to spend the summer in a ramshackle house on the Maine coast and Lise hates everything about the place. She dislikes the cold water, the sand drives her crazy, and worst of all her mother is not herself at all. Lise feels very lonely and angry and she wants everything to be the way it was before her mother was injured.

This is a very moving and thought provoking book, and I cannot recommend it highy enough for readers who are twelve and up.