Random Acts

Written by Valerie Sherrard

Puffin/Penguin Canada

978-0-14-319104-9

264 pp.

Ages 8-12

March, 2015

Doing random acts of kindness sounds like a noble endeavour, doesn't it? But, as we know, the best of intentions can often lead us astray, and for  Zoey, Jenna and Bean in Random Acts that’s just what happens, to hilarious results.

Of course, the reason things start to go awry is because popular Destiny Desotto decides to start a club called "Lend a Hand" but doesn’t invite Zoey and Jenna’s friend Bean because he “isn’t someone wh\e’d want in the group even if he did want in” (pg. 11) So they choose to start their own secret group called "The Random Acts".  But then hottie Dennis Fuller invites Zoey to join "Lend a Hand" and she’s convinced she can do it without the two clubs knowing about her involvement with the other.  Ultimately it’s all in aid of doing good deeds, so that’s OK, right? Not for Zoey, though.

She can’t help out her neighbours, the Kimuras, with their newspaper or their leaves without it escalating to a threat of charges being laid against her!  And Jenna’s good deed of donating old magazines to the student lounge has Zoey scrambling when a quiz she did as Destiny puts Destiny on the war path.  Even Jenna's cookies-for-the-teachers'-lounge good deed goes amok, resulting in detentions and the hospitalization of a teacher! And don’t even get me started on all the lying Zoey feels she has to do to cover her mistakes and to dampen the amorous intentions of Glenda, a client, to Zoey's dad, a psychologist.

In her efforts to contrive random acts of kindness—yes, that is an oxymoron—Zoey ends up being a liar, a stalker, a vandal, an eavesdropper, a gossip and a thief!  Some people just don’t know when you’re being kind. By making the kids’ random acts of kindness random, i.e., twisted, in both the funny sense and in the completely unpredictable way, Valerie Sherrard ensures hilarity without the malevolence that can come with manipulation.  Well played.  I always knew keeping secrets and misusing power—even if purportedly for good—were never good ideas. But they are funny ones, at least they are in Random Acts. 

The Haunting of Heck House: The Wiggins Weird, Book 2

Written by Lesley Livingston and Jonathan Llyr

Illustrations by Steven Burley

Puffin Canada

978-0143184263

280 pp.

Ages 8-12

For release October, 2014

It's less than a week before Halloween and authors Lesley Livingston and Jonathan Llyr launched The Haunting of Heck House (sequel to How to Curse in Hieroglyphics, 2013) yesterday, and I can't think of a better reason to finally post my review of this captivating middle-grade read that smacks of funny and scary in equal parts.

Unbeknownst to their grandfather and guardian, Pops Pendleton, twelve-year-old babysitting aficionados and cousins Tweed Pendleton and Cheryl Shumacher sneak out to compete in an overnight babysitting competition at the previously-unknown home of Sir Hector Hecklestone the Third on Eerie Lane.  Along with their varied babysitting tools of the trade, the two take along a malfunctioning drive-in speaker that holds the talkative essence of the Great Simon Omar, dead magician. (You'll need to read Book 1 in The Wiggins Weird, How to Curse in Hieroglyphics, to understand the means by which a portal into the Egyptian afterlife probably created Speakie i.e., a disembodied Omar with audio).  

While these plucky girls intend to go to the Hecklestone house and prove that they're the best babysitters/housesitters for the job, there seem to be super-natural forces working against them, not the least of which are a grand piano plummeting down the stairs, flying books assaulting them, dripping ectoplasm, doors that open and lock without explanation, and their competition, tech wizard Feedback, and 13-year-olds Hazel Polizzi and Cindy Tyson.  Luckily, the cousins get the help of their friends Pilot and Artie to help problem-solve their way out of a haunted house while playing their make-believe game ACTION! in the roles of the League of Awesome so they can get through some scary situations. 

The house with its "early-Munsters vibe" (pg. 104) seems to have its own agenda and all the kids must share their skills–including lock-picking, tech, gargoyle-translation, role-play and mechanics–to help escape its evil hold, and save the ghosts trapped within.  Never fear, though, because The Haunting of Heck House is more humour than horror, wordplay than wickedness, and fun than frightening.  Of course, an 800-lb. piano tumbling down the stairs at the girls is rather disconcerting but, still believing that their skills are being tested, they all take it with comic sensibility.

"What the heck kinda test was that anyway?" Cheryl glowered. "Agility? Musical appreciation?"
"I really didn't appreciate that," Tweed said grimly. (pg. 106)

Even Simon in his audio-speaker form pipes in that, "Guess there will be no encore tonight". (pg. 106)  And then there's an adorable little gargoyle whose "bat-like wings...red eyes, a sharp-hooked beak and talons"(pg. 130) might have been frightening except Ramshackle purrs and likes being stroked like a pussycat!

It's not surprising that, with Lesley Livingston and Jonathan Llyr both involved in acting, that The Haunting of Heck House is a story ripe with a quick-paced plot, highly-visual settings and characters, and priceless dialogue.  And, while Steven Burley's illustrations of the kids' ACTION! role-plays provide entertaining graphics, The Haunting of Heck House is so well written that it easily provides readers with a virtual visual that runs like a movie that could played at the twins' beloved Starlight Paradise Drive-In, with or without 3D-glasses.  Enjoy the movie!

Now and For Never

by Lesley Livingston

Razorbill

978-0143182108

280 pp.

Ages 12+

May, 2014

Lesley Livingston left off both Once Every Never (Puffin, 2011) and Every Never After (Razorbill, 2013) with someone left hundreds of years in the past and a pair of hearts tenuously separated.  Always a cliff-hanger but, rest assured, Lesley Livingston is charitable in her story-plotting.  Sweet endings, without the sugar, are her specialty.

When Clare Reid, BFF Allie McAllister and Milo McAllister, Allie’s cousin and Clare’s crush, shimmered back to present day Glastonbury Tor, the site of the archaeological dig, Marcus Donatus a.k.a. Mark O’Donnell–who’d been left as a teen in Ancient Rome–remains behind because of the manipulative Stuart Morholt.  Morholt had told Roman Governor Paulinus that Marcus knew the whereabouts of the Druid gold stolen from Boudicca and hidden by now-dead Posthumus.  Allie refuses to leave Marcus/Mark in the past and she and Clare make plans to return to 500 A.D., leaving Milo and Piper behind to ground them when they shimmer.

But Allie and Clare shimmer onto a Roman ship lead by Paulinus, chasing a second Roman ship which the Scathians stole with Boudicca’s gold and taking Marcus and Morholt with it.  Both ships have something the other wants: the Romans want the stolen gold back, and Mallora–Boudicca’s sister–wants Llassar, the Druid blacksmith who knows the black magic.

The saving grace is a digital camera memory card upon which Clare had recorded images that would be useful to them in the future (actually their present).  Milo gets a hacker friend to help them recover the images and he and Piper pursue the clues to get themselves in position to help Clare, Allie and, hopefully, Marcus/Mark shimmer back.

Add some weird ocean vector spirals, an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the reappearance of Boudicca’s daughter Comorra and her prince Connal, a kidnapping by Skraelings (skin-walkers), a power-hungry Roman, and a big oops moment, and Now and For Never takes the reader from one cardio crash to another.  Just when it looks like it’s all going to work out, Lesley Livingston throws in another twist that will prevent the future from turning out as it should.

Though readers will have their favourite characters, whether the geeky but romantic Milo, or the girl-inexperieced Marcus Donatus/Mark O’Donnell or the unlucky Clare, all the characters add to the story, showing growth and change, learning from their mistakes (some sooner than others), and revealing that sometimes they are misunderstood, rarely in a positive way.  But, I defy anyone to read the series and not enjoy Lesley Livingston’s fantastical storylines of Celtic and Roman history that intertwine the past as present, the present as the future, history, treachery, boy-girl crushes, and supernatural elements into a story bigger than the sum of all its parts.

The Night Gardener

Written by Jonathan Auxier
Puffin
978-0-670-06772-5
384 pp.
Ages 10+
May, 2014

Something wicked this way comes, and it's Jonathan Auxier's second book, The Night Gardener. Not a story for the faint of heart, it's fortunate that our narrators are the bold Molly and her younger brother Kip who learn all about what goes Thump, Thump, Thump in the night.

At fourteen, Molly is taking care of her crippled, ten-year-old brother whilst their parents are travelling to the New World to make a new life for them after the Irish potato famine drove them from their homeland. A born storyteller, she uses stories to distract, console, explain and protect her brother as they make their way to a posting at the home of Master Bernard Windsor, his wife Mistress Constance, and their children Alistair and Penny. Forewarned by locals of the sour woods and a mysterious family history, the two are still surprised by two ominous circumstances. First, a giant tree adjacent to the manor has breached the house via its trunk, branches and roots. Secondly, based on a large family portrait of the Windsors, it seems all four members of the Windsor family have succumbed to an illness that has paled their skin, dulled their hair and generally weakened them.

While Molly is diligent about taking care of her brother and acting as both sister and parent, she is very observant of the secretive Windsors and their manor. She notices discreet visits by the Master and Mistress through a locked green door, listens to Penny's admissions of a night man who leaves muddy footprints, and deals with her own alarming nightmares. But once Kip witnesses the same night man, Molly investigates the noises, wind and leaves that appear, and the shadows that haunt the house, as terrifying as they are.

She wiped the perspiration from her palm and adjusted her grip on the candlestick. "Master Windsor, is that you?" she said as bravely as she could.
The footsteps stopped.
The wind stopped.
Her heart stopped. (pg. 74) 

The secret of that green-doored room, the night visitor, and the diminishing health of the Windsors and then Molly as well are woven with wishes and dreams and haunting supernatural elements. Jonathan Auxier blends the innocence of the poor and orphaned children (Molly and Kip) with the suspicious activities of the wealthy Windsors to tell a story based on the paradox of being careful what you wish. The Night Gardener is the grim reality of those wishes and Jonathan Auxier's darkly atmospheric writing will lead readers with trepidation into the sour woods and within grasp of the far-reaching tentacles of a frightening entity that exploits wishes. But I suspect that Jonathan Auxier's purpose is not to frighten (though he is very good at that) but to help, just as Molly admits in her differentiation between storytelling and telling lies:

"A story helps folks face the world, even when it frightens 'em. And a lie does the opposite. It helps you hide." (pg. 288) 

Like Jonathan Auxier, Molly is a bonafide storyteller, but she needs her encounters with the night gardener to recognize the need for honesty, even if it makes for an unnerving tale. But making a reader uncomfortable is a sure sign that the storyteller has made a connection and created an opportunity for learning, whether it be for Molly, Kip or the reader of The Night Gardener. Something to ponder as you wait for your heart to stop racing.

 

The Night Gardener   The Night Gardener   The Night Gardener

I'm sorry that, because of this tardy review, I missed the launch (on May 31, 2014) of The Night Gardener as announced on Jonathan Auxier's website at http://www.thescop.com/. But don't let that stop you from checking out his website that includes his bio, videos, and other scoops from this scop.