"The Vanderbeekers Ever After" by Karina Yan Glaser

Well, I can now officially say I wholeheartedly love this entire series.  I'm sad that it has come to an end, but I'm happy it went out on such a beautiful, love-filled note.

This book is more serious than the previous books in the series, though some of them got plenty serious in places.  But this one is heavy in lots of different parts, and the whole story has a more serious flavor.

Not sure if this is a spoiler or not, but treat it like it is if you haven't already heard about what happens in this book.  Laney Vanderbeeker is diagnosed with leukemia early in the book, and the bulk of the story centers on her stays in a children's hospital getting treated for cancer.  As a result, Aunt Penny and Mr. B keep wanting to postpone their Christmas wedding, but Laney holds onto the promise of their wedding as something to look forward to throughout her treatments.  

While there are plenty of fun and cute and even funny moments in the book, Karina Yan Glaser never treats Laney's illness lightly.  She explores how scary a life-threatening illness is not only for the person who has it, but for every family member.  Much kindness and love is shown to Laney, but not every child at the hospital has a family like the Vanderbeekers.  And not every child at the hospital has cancer that has a high survival rate like leukemia.  Glaser never lets the book get too grim, but she keeps it realistic too.  Any reader who has watched a loved one suffer with cancer is going to feel seen here, and find understanding.

The book does end on an upbeat and hopeful note.  But I wouldn't hand this one to kids under 10 who are very sensitive or easily upset.  

Particularly Good Bits:

Laney tucked that memory into her heart, another reminder that the kindness of strangers could brighten any day (p. 60).

Love came in all forms, whether it be from hugs or words or gifts or food (p. 148).

Everyone had their own story filled with joys and hardships -- no one was spared from pain (p. 360).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for some heavy topics and the off-page death of a side character.  Parents should consider whether or not their kids can handle all that before letting them read it.

This has been my 9th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"The Black Stallion" by Walter Farley

For several decades, this was my favorite novel.  Although I have now admitted that there are a few other books I now love more than it, this remains in my top ten of absolute favorite books.  I read it aloud to my kids this winter and, although none of them loved it, they did enjoy it.

Alec Ramsay is on his way home to the USA from spending the summer with his uncle overseas when a storm strikes the ship he's on.  Only he and an untamed black Arabian stallion survive the shipwreck.  They both wash up on a deserted island, where they survive on seaweed and fish and form an unbreakable bond.  Eventually, they get rescued, and Alec takes The Black back home to the NYC suburbs.  He boards The Black at a stable near his house.  The stable is owned by a former jockey who recognizes The Black's racing potential.  He trains both Alec and the stallion, and they enter a race against the two fastest horses in the country.

As an adult, I can see a few flaws in this book.  Alec happens to have learned about edible seaweed the year before in school, so he knows he and The Black can eat what he finds.  Their neighbor happens to be a former jockey.  Alec's mom happens to take a trip to Chicago around the same time as the race, and happens to get tickets and be in the stands.  

You know what, though?  None of that ruins the book for me.  It's still a rousingly good yarn of overcoming steep odds, trusting your friends, and using your skills and talents to the utmost.  I still love it.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for a few scary parts when the ship sinks and when there's a big fire.

This is my second book read for #MiddleGradeMarch in 2023.

"Coraline" by Neil Gaiman

I do really enjoy Neil Gaiman's imagination.  So quirky.  Dark and murky here and there, but with hope and light filtering through always.  At least in the five books of his I've read so far.  I haven't tried his adult fiction yet.

Coraline absolutely enchanted me.  The epic quest its heroine goes on is just right for its audience, creepy without being nightmarish, desperate without being depressing, and so short you can get to the happy ending pretty quickly.  

Coraline steps through a magical door in her family's new apartment that leads to a mirror world where adults have black buttons instead of eyes, cats and dogs can talk, and little girls can save the day -- and their parents!  I'm so glad I picked it up off the shelf at an airport bookstore last week.  

Particularly Good Bits:

"There's nothing like hot chocolate and a hug for making the nightmares go away" (p. 53).

"When you're scared, but you still do it anyway, that's brave" (p. 57).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 because it would probably be too scary for younger kids.  Maybe not.  But I don't think my kids (or I, when I was a kid) would have been able to handle it younger than that.  There's quite a bit of creepy and evil and gross stuff going on.

This is my 13th book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2023 -- well, sorta.  I bought it at an airport and read it before I got home, so it never had a chance to sit on my TBR shelves, but it still counts.  And I'm trying to read books soon after I buy them this year, but they still count.

This is also my first book read for #MiddleGradeMarch in 2023.

"Bed-Knob and Broomstick" by Mary Norton

I've never been a big fan of the Disney movie Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), though I do like the part at the end when they animate all the suits of armor and send them into battle.  I've always wondered if that inspired J. K. Rowling when she was writing the Battle for Hogwarts.  Anyway, I was kind of planning to skip reading this for the Disney Origins Bookclub, since I don't care much for the movie.  But then I saw it was written by Mary Norton, who also wrote The Borrowers, and I love those books, so I decided to give it a try.

I liked this book SO much better than the movie!  It's whimsical and sweet and fun.  It's actually two novellas combined, "The Magic Bed-Knob" and "Bonfires and Broomsticks."  I liked the latter much better than the former, mostly due to the presence of a wannabe wizard from the Middle Ages who was sweet and hapless.  

In "The Magic Bed-Knob," three children discover that a woman who lives near the aunt they're staying with for the summer... is actually a witch in training.  Sort of.  She doesn't do much magic, though she does have a really cool stuffed alligator.  But she can do some, and she enchants a knob from the end of one of their beds so that it will take them wherever and whenever they want.  The children promptly go gallivanting off on small adventures that tend to turn out rather badly... but not TOO badly.  Then they have to go home again to London after the summer is over.

"Bonfires and Broomsticks" concerns a later summer when the children actually go stay with their witchy friend for the summer, expecting more adventures, only to find she's given up trying to be a witch!  She even got rid of her stuffed alligator!  Buuuuuuuuuuuuut she didn't get rid of the bed or the bed-knob, and the children convince her more adventures would totally turn out fine.  Except, of course, they don't.  They bring a wannabe wizard back from the past, who falls in love with their witch friend, and then some rather dire things almost happen back in the middle ages, but don't.  And it all turns out reasonably well.

I really liked that the kids got into trouble when they disobeyed authority figures, but they were also clever and brave and resourceful enough to get through some pretty tense moments on their own.  The magic here is all of the obviously pretend variety, like Harry Potter or the fairy godmother in Cinderella, not teaching young readers how to do magic or anything like that.  It also is shown to be pretty dangerous stuff that really shouldn't be messed around with.

Overall, this gave me quite a few chuckles, and I wouldn't mind rereading it one day.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some dangerous situations and tense moments, including an incident where people almost get eaten by cannibals!

This has been my 37th book read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list.

"The Adventurer's Guide to Successful Escapes" by Wade Albert White

One of the joys of raising kids who read is that, eventually, they'll start recommending books to you!  Which is what happened with this book.  My kids read it, and the two sequels, and laughed sooooo hard over them.  They began to quote them constantly.  A couple of weeks ago, my son said to me, "Maybe you should just read the first book, Mom.  Then you'd know what we're talking about."  I think he was surprised when I said, "Okay!"  You should have seen how ridiculously pleased all three of them were whenever they'd see me reading this book.  They'd ask me what part I was at, and if I'd met such-and-such a character yet, and so on.  It was pretty adorable.

This book is really funny.  It has unexpected, quirky humor, which is my favorite kind.  Too many books for kids this age rely on potty humor or rudeness to be funny, but this has genuine, clever humor to it.  It made me laugh aloud too!

It's all about a couple of orphan girls who go on a Quest thanks to a magic gauntlet one of them gets stuck on their hand.  With the aid of a somewhat inept young wizard and an unpredictable instructor, they set off to find out where they belong and fulfill their Quest before time runs out.  They encounter everything from a giant robot to wolves made of sand on the way, and have a series of more or less successful escapes, thanks in part to a magical book that sometimes tells them what they need to know.

Particularly Good Bits:

The man smiled the smile of someone who didn't much care for smiling, felt smiling generally to be a nuisance, and whose facial muscles were so out of practice they seemed to have forgotten most of the required movements (p. 84).

"An archaeologist tried to kill us," said Hiro.
Jocelyn nodded.  "They can get like that sometimes" (p. 229).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for adventurous peril and lots of dangerous situations, including fending off zombie sharks.  No bad language.