What Lives In The Woods by Lindsay Currie

What Lives In The Woods by Lindsay Currie

Published September 2021 Source Books Young Readers

Blurb:

All Ginny Anderson wants from her summer is to sleep in, attend a mystery writing workshop, and spend time with her best friend. But when Ginny's father--a respected restoration expert in Chicago--surprises the family with a month-long trip to Michigan, everything changes. They aren't staying in a hotel like most families would. No, they're staying in a mansion. A twenty-six room, century-old building surrounded by dense forest. Woodmoor Manor.

But unfortunately, the mansion has more problems than a little peeling wallpaper. Locals claim the surrounding woods are inhabited by mutated creatures with glowing eyes. And some say campers routinely disappear in the woods, never to be seen again.

As terrifying as it sounds, Ginny can't shake the feeling that there's something darker . . . another story she hasn't been told. When the creaky floors and shadowy corners of the mansion seem to take on a life of their own, Ginny uncovers the wildest mystery of all: There's more than one legend roaming Saugatuck, Michigan, and they definitely aren't after campers.

It's after her.

The one genre I always find difficult to source, for primary aged readers is horror.  Something scary (but not too scary), and a proper ghost story, not the old Scooby Doo and Nancy Drew versions where it turns out the 'ghost' was the butler/groundskeeper/janitor pretending to be a ghost.

This is a ghost story, and it's creepy, but it's a real mystery too.  The way the characters work together to follow the clues and solve the mystery , makes it a double whammy, as mystery readers will like this one too.

Great writing really sets sets the scene for this book, and creates the ominous atmosphere that runs through the entire story.

Looking forward to getting this one out into schools and libraries.

Owen and the Soldier by Lisa Thompson

Owen and the Soldier by Lisa Thompson

Published August 2019 Barrington Stoke

Blurb:

Owen and his mum are struggling. It's just the two of them now and they're finding it difficult to ask for the help they need. 

When Owen discovers a battered old war memorial in the local park, he finds great comfort in confessing his worries to the war-weary stone soldier. 

No matter what Owen says, the soldier just sits and listens, and most days that's all Owen needs. So when the council make plans to modernise the park and get rid of the soldier, Owen is devastated and decides to put up a fight. 

If he can just show everyone how important the soldier is, maybe this time Owen won't be left to cope on his own.

A Barrington Stoke title by an amazing talent in the genre that I like to think of as ‘emotional fiction for boys’. Not the most eloquent way to put it, but what I mean is, Lisa Thompson writes emotion filled, real life stories, that appeal to boys.  I know there shouldn’t be a difference between books for girls and books for boys, but there seems to be. There are lots of books with a female main character that deal with feelings/emotion, family issues, friendship issues, but not so many with boys... this is where Lisa Thompson comes in.

Owen is a quiet kid, who is bright, but hates being the centre of attention, and speaking in front of groups, even a small class group.  He keeps to himself, his days split between school and looking after his Mum.  His Mum rarely gets out of bed, shops or cooks, so Owen is looking after her.  The one place he feels comfortable to speak, and talk about what’s going on in his life, is in the park, where he sits and talks to a statue of a soldier.

When Owen learns the park is going to be redeveloped and the statue will be removed, he knows it’s time he has to be brave and use his voice, and tell people how important the statue is to him, and why.  It’s the why that explains what’s going on with his Mum, and the poem he reads is guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye.

This book is not a difficult read, and it’s only 104 pages, small but perfect.   Being a Barrington Stoke title means it’s also a perfect choice for dyslexic and reluctant readers.

Cryptosight by Nean McKenzie

Cryptosight by Nean McKenzie
October 2019 Midnight Sun Publishing

Blurb:

What if you could see what is hidden?

Rafferty Kaminski is a 13-year-old who believes in facts. Not like his Cryptozoologist father, who searches for creatures not proven to exist.

When their father disappears in the Flinders Ranges, strange things start happening to Raff and his younger sister Zara. They learn that their father belongs to a secret organisation and they are suddenly being pursued by bunyip hunters.

Raff is drawn into the weird world of Cryptozoology as he and Zara follow 'sightings' of creatures around country Victoria. 

Will they find their father? And what is the ancient voice that only Raff can hear as they approach the Wombat State Forest?

This is a book about 13 year old Rafferty Kaminski and his younger sister Zara. It is a rollicking adventure, full of twists and turns…but it is also a story about something very old, something that has been hidden…something connected to Raff.

Let me start by saying, that I am a person who believes. 

I would like to believe that there may still be Tasmanian Tigers in existence.

I would like to believe that the gastric brooding frog is still living underground waiting for the right conditions to re- emerge.

Part of me would love to find out that yeti’s do exist, and that the loch ness monster is real…because I think there are plenty of things out there on the world that we don’t really see, and if we do get a glimpse, we can’t quite explain them.

So a book about a Cryptozoologist had immediate appeal to me.

Let’s start with Cryptozoology – a definition at the start of Chapter 1 says it’s the study of hidden things.

According to Wikipedia :

Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that aims to prove the existence of entities from the folklore record, such as Bigfoot, the

chup-a-cabra, or Mokele-m-bembe. Cryptozoologists refer to these entities as cryptids, a term coined by the subculture. Because it does not follow the scientific method, cryptozoology is considered a pseudoscience by the academic world:

And for those of us that need to know what pseudoscience is, according to Wikipedia again, it is, Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that are claimed to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method.

Now that we have that explained, let’s get onto the book.

Cryptosight, the title of the book, refers to the ability to see these hidden things.

At the start of the book we meet Raff 13, and his sister Zara 11.  They are camping with their Dad in the Flinders Ranges, their Dad, who just so happens to be a cryptozoologist.

Their Dad is not a normal Dad, and this is no normal camping trip.  Part of the reason for their trip was so that Raff and Zara could start some Cryptozoology training.  On day three of their training, their Dad takes them on a hike, to the middle of nowhere, and leaves them there. They have to find their way back to the campsite.

He leaves them with the five rules of survival, and its these rules that they fall back on more than once during the book.  

The five rules are:

Number 1: Always take a torch

Number 2: Always protect your family

Number 3: Wear clothes with lots of pockets

Number 4: Really looking for things is the only way to find them

Number 5: In case of emergency, leave back up in a safe place.

The siblings do make it safely back to their campsite, only to find that their Dad has gone, his bags are gone, all of his clothes,  everything.  Gone.

But...he did leave a note:

Dearest Raff and Zara,

I’m sorry to leave you so quickly, but time is of the essence.  A friend is coming very soon.  Please wait until he arrives.  I will be back before you know it.  Please keep going with your training.  This is very important.  I have to ask you not to ring your mother,  I can’t tell you why just now, you have to trust me.  I’ll see you in a couple of days.

Love always, Dad  (page 14-15)

This is where the adventure really starts for the siblings, where things start to get quite bizarre and at times, unbelievable, starting  when Zara realises she has left something behind on their hike, something that her Dad gave her, …he said it was very important, so now the pair have to go back and find it.  It’s here we start to learn a bit more about Raff and Zara, we learn that Raff is the more serious responsible one. He doesn’t believe in cryptology. Zara is forgetful, always losing things, but she believes everything her Dad believes in.

This important thing that Zara had to go back and find, is a rock, probably volcanic in origin, but seemingly ordinary.  What is very far from ordinary is that on this journey to find the left behind rock, a big black raven that stands in their way.   This, in itself, is not that weird or odd, the weird and odd part, is that Zara understands that the ravenn has a message for them, and that Zara can understand what the raven is saying

‘Beware of the three, beware.

One, face like the moon, looking for shine

Two, like a brolga, without the dance

Hands of three, the colour of setting sun.

Beware, beware, of the three.

Beware beware, Beware…’

Page 22

From here on it’s non stop action for the Raff and Zara.

They escape a ranger, that’s not really a ranger, but one of the Three.

Stowaway on a bus full of kids retuning home after a camp, get held in a police station and go home with virtual strangers who believe they have a river serpent on their property....could it be a real live cryptid?

But Raff and Zara do finally make it back home, only to be faced with one of the Three breaking into their house, so they make their escape, and stow away on a truck heading in the general direction of their grandfathers house,  a grandfather they haven’t seen for many many years.

All of the time getting more and more clues as to what has happened to their Dad…and also start to figure out that their Mum is not the laboratory scientist that she claims to be.

We do find out how important the 'ordinary' stone is, it’s a Sark, which helps cryptozooloigists keep track of each other, identifies someone who has seen a cryptid and when there is danger nearby.  The Sark, it the one thing that might save them, and answer some questions.

As I said at the start, this is also a story about something very old, something hidden.

Throughout the story there are paragraphs, told from a different voice, the voice of this something, passages from the point of a view of a creature. A creature that has been living underground. It has been asleep for a long time, but it has woken…it’s something that should not even exist.

Obviously I am not going to tell you what this creature is, or what other cryptids the siblings might come across in this book, where’s the fun in that.  You have to read the book to find that out…read the book and see if you just might be a believer too?

Many Windows: Six Kids, Five Faiths, One Community by Rukhsana Khan, Uma Krishnaswami, Elisa Carbone

• Many Windows: Six Kids, Five Faiths, One Community by  Rukhsana Khan, Uma Krishnaswami, Elisa Carbone
• 
  
• Published December 30, 2013 Napoleon and Co 

Blurb:
In the midst of global turmoil, with people of various faiths in major conflict, three friends—a Muslim, a Christian and a Hindu—decided to write a book. Many Windows is a book about young people who are friends despite their religious differences. It’s a book about celebrations, that ultimately celebrates community. Many Windows is a collection of seven stories about six children who are in the same class at school, two white boys, a black girl, a Chinese girl, an Indian girl and a Pakistani boy. They are not necessarily friends, but they all come together in one commnunity at the end of the stories. Each story in the collection centres on a different celebration within the faith of that child. In the appendix, each of the celebrations is explained in more depth, as it is celebrated within that faith community: Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism. Each story represents a window into the life of the child, or, from a different point of view, the child’s window looking out to the world.

This is a collection of seven stories about six children who are in the same class at school, two white boys, a black girl, a Chinese girl, an Indian girl, and a Pakistani boy. They are not friends, but they all come together in one community at the end of the stories. Each story in the collection centres on a different celebration within the faith of that child, and in the appendix at the back of the book, each of the celebrations is explained in more depth, as it is celebrated within that faith community: Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism.

Each story represents a window into the life of the child, or, from a different point of view, the child's window -- looking out to the world.

I loved this book, and I think it’s so relevant to most children’s school experiences today.  So many children in the one class with different beliefs and cultural backgrounds, but not necessarily having much understanding of what those faiths are like…or even what other families are like.

Let me start by saying that this is a tiny book, the story part of it is only 65 pages long.   It is published by a small publisher in the US, so just a heads up, to get it in Australia it is quite pricey. If you are an Ebook reader, it is available on kindle and much cheaper.

There are 7 stories in total, each story told by a different character, with one character having 2 stories, at the start and at the end of the book, bringing everything together.

Each of the stories focuses on a different child, and the more stories you read, the more the stories become intertwined.  Rukhasana Khan did not write all of the stories in the book, she wrote 5 of the 7, but I will look at the book as a whole.

Because each story is short, I won't tell you too much about them, I will just give a brief teaser to each one.

The characters are:

Natalie a Buddhist, she works in her father’s jewellery store, an Important part of her story is a locket...that we see again somewhere else in the book.

Jameel a Muslim,  his family is having a visit from his uncle, from Pakistan.  There is some secret about his uncle...no one talks about it, but will Jameel find out the truth?

Deepa is Hindu and Diwali is her festival. Friendship is a strong theme in this story. The one person Deepa normally celebrates the day with is not with her this year.

Benjamin is Jewish - his grandmother is in a nursing home...she doesn't recognise Benjamin or his family any more.  But something about seeing Benjamin play with his dreidels, sparks a memory in her, a memory of a family member who is no longer with them.

Stephanie is a Christian and It's Christmas Day.  In Stephanie's story we see all of the other characters come together.

I like that the stories aren't 'about' religion or culture, they are just stories about people, they don't stop and explain anything within the story, it's just ‘there'

They mention Ramadan, but they don't go on to explain what that is, Similarly with other aspects, Like the food, the Luddos in Jameel's story or puris and jalebi in Deepa's. 

Other things like the dreidels in Benjamin's story. They're an important element to the stories, but it's never explained what they are... So it makes the reader want to find out more.  

As mentioned earlier, at the back of the book there is more detail on each of the faiths, as well as the specific celebrations mentioned in the stories, so you don't have to go far to get the extra information.

TJ is the other character and he has the first and last story in the book, and his, for me, are the most powerful stories.

In the first story, and you get the feeling that TJ has a bit of attitude…it’s his first day in a new school, and he does not seem happy to be there.  When he gets pulled up by the teacher, she asks him questions about his behaviour like he has a choice…this isn’t something TJ is used to, and it throws him a bit. 

His new classroom is a No Put Down Zone, and this rule applies to the yard as well, so when some kids tease TJ at lunch time, he shoves one of them, gives them a bloody nose and ends up on the principal’s office.  When he explains that the kids were teasing him first, Mrs Williams says that’s unacceptable and they must apologise to TJ…

TJ is shocked that he was listened to, and that the other kids were made to apologise. TJ doesn’t get off lightly though, and he still gets detention…that’s OK by him though, it’s fair.

The book ends with TJ. We start where we began.  What I get the most from this book is that TJ is the character I want to know more about. As a reader we get a glimpse into his life, and it’s pretty bleak, I just want to know that he will be ok. All of the other stories are about family and faith, but not TJ’s. The contrast between his life and those of the other characters is stark. That's why his stories work so well starting and ending the book, it puts all of the other stories into perspective.

The strongest theme that I get from all of the other stories would be family.  Each character has a strong connection to family, and within that family they also have their faith, but for me family is the key.  It’s obvious from what we read about TJ that this is what he is missing, and there is hope that maybe the new friends he has, have gone some way to fill the emotional void in his life.

This book is exactly what the title suggests, a window into the lives of these children.  Yes, it is a book about culture and faith, but it's also about family, family histories, friendship and community...oh and basketball... basketball is another thing that joins these kids together...but you can read the book to find out more about that.

Rosa and the Daring Dog by Megan Rix

Rosa and the Daring Dog by Megan Rix

Published November 2019 Penguin UK

Blurb;

HOWLY is a tiny puppy, left abandoned in a trash can next to a school.

EDDIE is the young girl who finds him . . .

Eddie is immediately drawn to the puppy, whose bravery and determination remind her of a very famous person indeed.

Eddie's class are learning about Mrs Rosa Parks, whose act of courage on a bus in 1955 started a whole movement against racism in America. Mrs Parks herself soon visits Eddie's school, and when the great lady points out a stark reminder of racism in the school's own playground it's up to Eddie, her friends, and their new school dog Howly to remind everyone how to stay hopeful and stand up for what is right.

I had heard of Rosa Parks, and I kind of knew who she was and what she did, but this is the thing about children;s books, it has the ability to expand my universe.  Reading this 250 page children's novel gave me more insight into Rosa Parks, more context into which her story fits, and a new desire to find out more.  This is my first Megan Rix novel, but I am keen to read more, as she has a great way of incorporating historical facts into a story.

The story is set in 1990, in Detroit.  There is an authors note at the back of the book , where she explains why she set the book in this time period.  Rosa Parks is 77 years old, and she has lived through all kinds of segregation, because she is black...she also made a stand for what she believed in and has become known as the mother of the civil rights movement in the USA.  Through Rosa Parks and other characters in this book, we learn more about her story as well as the stories of Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jnr.   We learn about the Walk to Freedom March and the Children's March in Birmingham Alabama, where more than 600 children were arrested!

So, you may think, that's all good and well, but that's American history.  This is true...but America is still part of the world that we live in, and that's like saying we don't need to read about the Holocaust, because it's not Australian history.  Racism is a global issue, and as Australians we have our own history and current problems with racism.  I think a book like this is a great way to open discussions, and look at out own history with the segregation of Aboriginal Australians, the stolen Generation,  the White Australia Policy, and even our treatment of refugees. The importance of knowing and facing up to the not so pleasant parts of our history is surely the first step into it never happening again.

The other idea that this book brings up is the power of out voice, and how if enough people are willing to stand up and do the right thing, then change might actually happen.  So again it leads into contemporary issues like climate change, and Greta Thunberg, or the rights of girls and Malala.

On a completely different note...there's Howly, the puppy.  He represents a different change, a change in how we can support children in schools.  In 1990, the Reading Education Assistance Dog program was being trialed, and now it is now a successful way that schools are boosting literacy and reading levels with their students.  In Australia we have the Story Dogs organisation, where reading dogs are playing such an important role, in not only improving reading, but in many cases changing children's lives.  

If you're keen to look a bot further here's a few places to start:

 ISBN 9780241372791

ISBN 9781786030177

ISBN 9781445164038