How to Curse in Hieroglyphics

by Lesley Livingston and Jonathan Llyr

Illustrations by Stephen Burley

Puffin Canada

978-0143184249

248 pp.

Ages 8-12 

October, 2013

Reviewed from galley copy

The title is fun, the fluorescent cover is dazzling and How to Curse in Hieroglyphics is entertaining as a rollicking adventure teeming with mystery, B-movies, graphics, humour and action!

Twelve-year-old cousins and B-movie fans Tweed Pendleton and Cheryl Shumacher live with their grandfather, Jefferson "Popcorn" Pendleton a.k.a. Pops, in Wiggins where he owns and runs the Starlight Paradise Drive-In.  Though the girls are responsible and diligent, they may have a reputation for too much imagination because of their regular game of "Action!" that has them playing movie scenes and chasing monsters.  That and the story they told about "The Incident" that left them as five-years-old sitting on a rock, the survivors and only evidence of a family plane trip in which their parents and siblings, and pilot and plane, all disappeared.  Luckily, even though the babysitting jobs seem to be infrequent, Pops has asked them to try their hand at programming for the drive-in, while he works at reopening the adjacent mini-golf course.

But the girls recognize the competition they'll have when Dudley's Traveling Curiosity Show comes to town and sets up across the road, especially with its posters claiming to have the sarcophagus of an Egyptian princess, Zahara-Safiya.  With the help of their 14-year-old friend, Pilot Armbruster (whose father had piloted the awol plane seven years earlier), the girls undertake a mission to scope out the carnival, along with their eleven-year-old annoyance, Artie Bartleby. 

Everything goes awry when Artie tosses "B. Ruth's ball" (Bob Ruth, not Babe Ruth) and cracks the green stone in a decorative scarab beetle embedded in the sarcophagus.  Some purple smoke and a whirlwind later, Artie is missing, the girls are babysitting 15 cats for the school librarian and Colonel Dudley, the proprietor of the carnival, is freaking out because the sarcophagus is empty.  Tweed and Cheryl's game of Action! becomes a real scenario in which they must herd four toddlers turned minions, deal with a transformed, lisping, scaly and tailed Artie, and thwart a curse to bring about a satisfying "The End" for all.

Readers in the middle-grades (Grades 4 to 6) will chuckle with the sparring dialogue between the kids and their verbose claims when trying to impress adults.  They call Arnie "Shrimpcake" and describe him "as annoying as a mosquito in a dark room" (pg. 122) while reassuring Miss Parks that she could "leave the precious shnookumses" in their capable hands (pg. 62).  Their commando gear consists of  

"two sets of hockey shoulder-pads rescued from outside Wiggins' only skating rink, a welding mask (Cheryl), a pair of cardboard 3D glasses with one blue lens and one red lens (Tweed), and a gear bag full of 6 cans of Day-Glo Silly String, a homemade crossbow and quiver stocked with two dozen spongy suction-cup Nerf arrows, a couple of coiled lengths of bubblegum-pink skipping rope, a dodge ball, a whiffle bat, collapsible poles with green nylon fishing nets attached to the ends, and a bag of Double Stuf Oreos with the word "BRIBES" written on it in black magic marker." (pg. 132)

It's so nice to meet pre-teens who still seem like kids.  Tweed and Cheryl are what all tweenies should be: creative, friendly, and fun-loving.  They're not concerned with looking older than their years or being the most popular or attracting boyfriends.  Even Pilot at 14 isn't playing at impressing anyone.  Maybe that will happen at 15 or maybe never.  In the meantime, all readers will enjoy the kids' exploits as literary entertainment, with some graphic storyboarding and scripting worthy of a favourite family movie.

Actor and author Lesley Livingston has always created books that are well-seasoned with wit and clever repartée (see these reviews of her Wondrous Strange series, Starling, Descendant, Once Every Never, and Every Never After) and it would seem that she has found a writing partner in actor and space geek Jonathan Llyr, who apparently wore a rubber turtle shell on his head on SPACE (Kevin A. Boyd, 2010).  How could middle-grade readers with a taste for geek, history, paranormal or adventure all rolled up in laughs not love this story?  I suspect they'll all be waiting (as we all do with Lesley Livingston's books) for the sequel to How to Curse in Hieroglyphics, hoping to learn the details about "The Incident".  Fortunately, How to Curse in Hieroglyphics has been identified as The Wiggins Weird, Book 1 so we know there's more to come.  Yeah!

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Remember: the book launch for How to Curse in Hieroglyphics is on October 19, 2013.

Annual Fall Author/Illustrator Breakfast (Vancouver)

The Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable

 presents 

its annual fall

Author/Illustrator Breakfast

on

Saturday, October 19, 2013

8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

at the University Golf Club

5185 University Boulevard, Vancouver, BC

with special guests

author and illustrator  

Julie Morstad

nominated for a 2013 Governor General's Literature Award for Illustration

for her book How To (from Simply Read Books)

author and illustrator  

Julie Flett

and

storyteller and author  

Richard Van Camp

Ticket sales end October 15

Get details and register online at

www.vclr.ca

The Best Gifts

Written by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Illustrated by Elly MacKay

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

981-1-55455-283-2

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

May, 2013

Throughout Sara's life, she is wrapped in love and celebrated with joy and gifts.  From birthdays, to graduation, to marriage, Sara is showered with adoration.  But the very best gift is the one that she receives at her mother's breast with her father beside them, and the one that she gives her own child, Sam, at the conclusion of the book.

This new edition of Marsha Skrypuch's The Best Gifts (originally illustrated by Halina Below; Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1998) is the story of a new life that is nurtured and treasured, and allowed to grow and flourish so that she may share the same gifts with her newborn son.  And the final message,

"...the best gifts can never be bought"

is warmly extended through the unique paper art of Elly MacKay.

Award-winning author of children's fiction and non-fiction Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch has always been able to touch readers' hearts with her poignant takes on historical circumstances of the Ukrainian Holodomyr, the Armenian genocide, airlifts from Vietnam and immigration. But this story comes from the past, the present and the future, for every child born and yet to be born, in love and care, and blessed with a mother's milk, sharing the most natural of first gifts.  Complemented with Elly MacKay's soft, ethereal paper artwork, Marsha Skrypuch's text gently shares the importance of breastfeeding without insisting that readers get up close and personal with it.  While resources and links to organizations and research into the valuable nature of breastfeeding are provided, Marsha Skrypuch and Elly MacKay have taken a step back from lauding breastfeeding directly and allowed The Best Gifts to be introduced to a younger readership with the aim of appreciating the nature of all gifts (though The Best Gifts is still a great gift for new parents!)

Recent Awards for youngCanLit

Silly me to take the time to run a book fair at school (and teach amidst the cases of books) and expect that I could keep up my reviews and updates of book award news.  So, check out the CanLit for LittleCanadians: Awards site and take note of the following announcements of finalists or winners of youngCanLit for new additions to your MUST READ lists.

The Governor General's Literary Awards: 2013 Nominees

 

 

Moonbeam Children's Book Awards: 2013 Winners announced

 

 

Burt Award for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Literature: 2013 Winners announced

Aurora Awards (Prix Aurora) for Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2013 YA winner

And heartiest congratulations to all winners and nominees!

Descendant: A Starling Novel

by Lesley Livingston

HarperCollins Canada

978-0062063106

320 pp.

Ages 12+

August, 2013

A year ago, fantasy YA author Lesley Livingston introduced her readers to the first of her new series, Starling, which focuses on the Fennrys Wolf (who first appeared in her award-winning Wondrous Strange series) and Mason Starling, a teen whose family is dedicated to the service of the Norse gods. When Book 1 in the series, Starling, ended, Fenn was attempting to keep Mason from crossing the Hell Gate Bridge (which is Bifrost, the link between the mortal world and Asgard, the realm of the Norse gods).  But through the machinations of her nasty brother, Rory, Mason cannot get off the train crossing the bridge and Fenn is shot by Rory before the bridge explodes.

Entering a barren wasteland, Mason is met by her mother, the hooded figure of Hel, who presides over those who died disgracefully.  Though cautioned by Loki, a trickster god, about Hel's claims, Mason follows her mother's directions to get the Sword of Odin in order to escape from Asgard. Meanwhile, Fenn enlists the help of an Egyptian god, Rafe, and a former Janus Guard colleague, Maddox, to reach Mason before she unwittingly becomes a Valkyrie and sets off Ragnarok.

Concurrently, Mason's Gosforth Academy classmates, whose families are all intricately involved in the service of the gods of Greek, Roman, Norse and Egyptian mythology, find themselves embroiled in power struggles that might result in the end of the world.  Cal Aristarchos, who has always been in love with Mason, is rescued after falling from the Hell Gate Bridge, though his mother believes he has died.  Reunited with his father and learning of his own demi-god status, Cal rushes to help Mason prevent his mother, Daria Aristarchos, from lashing out against the Starlings and performing a blood ritual on Mason's older brother Rothgar.  But, with different factions working against each other and without full knowledge of the nature of their heritage, Mason and others lack the clarity to battle evil forces effectively.  After all, who are the bad guys?

Except for the honest love between Fennrys and Mason, everything and everyone are not as they always appear.  Friends, brothers, love interests, fathers, mothers, even swords–they may harbour secrets, fears, magic, and illusions.  Even the dead may appear to have life.  And with the intertwining of ancient mythologies and deities, anything can and does happen.

The nature of Mason's heritage, as well as that of Cal and Fennrys, drives Descendant, with prophecies waiting to be fulfilled or compelled to pass.  Keeping in mind that the ancient mythologies were the basis for religious beliefs, with little opportunity for acceptance of other belief systems, the hierarchy of deities and duties may show few commonalities.  Without common ground, there must be the battles for one to usurp the others.  Be prepared to endure the manipulation of the young students of Gosforth Academy by their elders all in the cause of service to their gods.  Sadly, the young teens, such as Mason, have no understanding of the extent to which they will be controlled.

Descendant is an intense conflict between multiple forces of good and evil, played out on different stages, among the living and the dead, with players who might know the script or who can only improvise.  With Descendant (and in fact with all of Lesley Livingston's books to date), the reader will never, never anticipate the climax or the ending.  As with Lesley Livingston's other books, I finished Descendant muttering to myself, "Are you kidding me?"  That translates into "Never saw that coming" and "Oh. My. Gosh." and "No!!! How am I going to wait until Starling Book 3 comes out?"  Lesley Livingston snagged me again in her literary web of exceptional plotting, characters and atmosphere, and even left me appreciating the captivity.

10 Ways to Improve Your Body Image from Cheryl Rainfield, author of "Stained"

Stained

by Cheryl Rainfield

Harcourt Children's Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

978-0-547-94208-7

304 pp.

Ages 14+

Release date October 1, 2013

Tomorrow is the release date for Cheryl Rainfield's Stained, reviewed by CanLit for LittleCanadians here.  Body image is a key factor in plot development in Stained, with multiple characters focusing on their perceived imperfections or those of others to an unhealthy degree.  Knowing the damage that a poor body image can have, Cheryl Rainfield has shared her thoughts, as well as links to relevant resources, in this downloadable article:   

10 Ways to Improve Your Body Image and Feel Better About Your Body

This is an important read for all of us, even younger than the mature readership needed for Stained, as teachers of media literacy will recognize. Help your students and your children understand the issues of body image to ensure good health, mental and physical.

Stained: Book Launch (Toronto)

Cheryl Rainfield 

author of

Scars

 Westside Books

248 pp.

Ages 14+

2010 

Hunted

Fitzhenry & Whiteside

316 pp.

Ages 13+

2012 

 

Parallel Visions: A Teen Psychic Novel Book 1

Rain and Sun Press

146 pp.

Ages 13+

2012

  

will launch her newest book 

Stained

HMH Books for Young Readers
978-0-547942087
304 pp.
Ages 14+

This is the story of Sarah Meadows who is abducted on the very day she had hoped to start treatment to remove the port-wine stain on her face, and who is kept in captivity and abused by her captor for months. Fortunately, Sarah recognizes that,
"Sometimes you have to be your own hero."

on

 Sunday, October 27, 2013

12 noon

at

Indigo Books
Yorkdale Mall
Toronto

There will be:

• a live self-defense demonstration
• an author reading
• cake
• a contest to win coffee with the author
• a 4-class self-defense prize pack for one teen who attends the book launch
• book signings by Cheryl Rainfield, and
•  fun!