Strange Happenings by Avi

Strange Happenings: Five Tales of Transformation by Avi, 2005.


I have read many of Avi’s books and really liked most of them. Reading Strange Happenings with the child audience in mind, I enjoyed it too. Avi gives us five short stories that feature transformation. Frequently, things don’t go well for the characters, even if they get what they want. Tom is twelve years old and bored with life. When he meets a friendly talking cat, his life turns upside down and is very exciting…for a while. Simon is a selfish guy who wants what he wants and doesn’t care who pays the price for him to get it. Soon, he is the one suffering. Jeff thinks that his town baseball mascot is great and becomes obsessed with finding out who’s behind the costume. This could be a mistake. A shoemaker strikes and breaks a bargain with a cat with lemon colored eyes, only to be confronted by the devil himself. And everyone agrees that Princess Babette is simply ravishingly beautiful, but have they ever really seen her? Avi’s collection is creepy fun and would make fine, mild Halloween reading.

Other outstanding books by Avi:

The Good, The Bad, and The Barbie

The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll's History and Her Impact on Us by Tanya Lee Stone.


Tanya Lee Stone is known for her Siebert Medal winner Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream. Here she treats Barbie’s fans and foes to a fun and interesting portrait of America’s Dream Doll. She outlines the doll’s history and gives a short biography of her creator, Ruth Handler. Ruth and her husband, Elliot Handler originated the company Mattel, which was a diverse workplace from its beginning. Although Barbie’s image drives some people crazy, Handler intended her to be a doll that girls could relate to, filling the gap between baby dolls that needed mothering and stylish fashion paper dolls. She wanted girls to be able to use Barbie to act out their dreams, and felt that the first Barbie dolls were intentionally not too pretty. Mattel introduced her as a real girl, a “Teen Age Fashion Model.”

As styles changed throughout the decades, Barbie’s looks altered too. Her makeup and hair was modified; her body moved in different, more lifelike ways, such as “Twist ‘N Turn Barbie” and “Living Barbie.” Her clothes varied from chic suits and pearls to go-go boots and miniskirts, to world costumes and designer wear. She changed careers just as frequently, from 1960s approved “female” jobs like stewardess and student teacher to a wider variety such as NASCAR driver, Boot Camp inductee and United States Presidential Candidate.

Stone explains that reactions to the Barbie doll are passionate, and lead to diehard fans and Barbie haters. She provides quotes and anecdotes from kids and adults with various opinions about the 50+ year old doll. Much of the book tackles topics about Barbie’s effect on and reflection of our culture. Barbie and body image is one such volatile subject. Apparently Barbie was the first American doll with a figure, and people have tons to say about that. Is Barbie pushing unattainable standards on our children, or is she just an innocent piece of plastic? Does she promote sexism, in spite of Ruth Handler’s original dreams for her?

Stone also devotes a chapter to Barbie and the different cultures and races that she has represented, both successfully and dismally, including Mattel’s creation of Barbie’s friends and cousins of color ( one given the cringe worthy name of “Colored Francie”) to making the first African American Barbie in 1980. That same year, Mattel began to release International Dolls of the World Barbies, with varying degrees of successful representation.

A particularly fascinating chapter is about Barbie and the way that she figures in kid’s play related to their curiosity about nudity and sex and how kids commonly torture and mistreat Barbie and her friends. The stories shared here are hilarious, from playing nudist colony, and getting a black eye from an enraged neighbor defending Barbie’s honor, to acting out Marie Antoinette’s tragic end with a Barbie, a scaffold made of encyclopedias and some ketchup.

Finally, Stone talks about Barbie as art and the talented people who are inspired by her. Whether it is to present her in all her glory, such as Andy Warhol did in a portrait, or turn the typical Barbie stereotype on its head as Deborah Colotti does in her series “The Barbs,” (where our doll meets the real world and gets fat, gets acne and gets old) plenty of people like to use Barbie as a creative jumping off place. Artists have written stories about her, painted and sculpted her, and even fashioned her body parts into jewelry.

Boldly moving into older adulthood, Barbie continues to attract the attention due any American icon.

Eight color plates are included.

Girl, Stolen by April Henry

Girl, Stolen (Christy Ottaviano Books) by April Henry.


Griffin just wanted the Escalade he’d stolen as a little present for himself, something to impress his criminal father, Roy. What he didn’t expect or choose was the 16 year old girl sleeping in the back seat. Ill with pneumonia, she was waiting for her stepmom outside a pharmacy when Griffin unwittingly kidnapped her. Cheyenne is smart and has lots of fire, so she may be a match for one teenage guy. But, she is also blind, the daughter of Nike’s president and on her way home with Griffin where Roy and his two unscrupulous employees await. The adults will be happy to exploit her for as much money as possible, with little thought to her wellbeing.

The story of Cheyenne’s captivity and Griffin’s guilty involvement unfolds in alternating chapters by both teens. Readers witness Cheyenne’s tricky and brave attempts at escape, Griffin’s fear of his father and his henchmen, and his growing empathy for Cheyenne. When likelihood that the criminals will never free her and may consider murder becomes clear, the teens reach an uneasy alliance. They will need all of Cheyenne’s resourcefulness and Griffin’s inside knowledge to save themselves.

Cheyenne is a super gutsy heroine, and Griffin is a young man in horrible circumstances who just may be able to redeem himself. Interesting details of Cheyenne’s relatively new blindness and the way that she copes enrich the story. Teens will love the book’s fast pace and will cheer Cheyenne’s quick thinking and daring plans.

They Called Themselves the KKK by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

They Called Themselves the KKK: the Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.


Bartoletti has created an extremely well written book about a terrible subject. She is the author of many excellent nonfiction titles for young adults such as Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow and Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850 . Most of the information presented here about the KKK is historical, from its creation by six confederate officers in Tennessee in 1866 to the Ku Klux Klan trials in 1871 and up to Rutherford B. Hayes’ election and the Reconstruction’s end in 1877. The final chapter discusses more recent KKK activity and gives the terrifying statistic that in 2008 the Southern Poverty Law center counted 926 active hate groups in the U.S.

This is a difficult and infuriating book to read, but Bartoletti professionally addresses the Klan’s violence toward and abuse and murder of African American freed people after the Civil War. She begins by explaining the environment and attitudes in the South at the time and talks about the struggle that ensued after Lincoln was killed. Southerner Andrew Johnson became president and began Reconstruction when Congress was not in session, which caused hard feelings and further stress in the wounded country. The Klan began as an alleged social club for one group of men, and it developed into an organization with estimated tens of thousands of men who used any means to prevent freed people from voting, receiving schooling, worshipping in their own churches, farming or just living peacefully. The Klan also threatened, punished and murdered any white person who stood against the KKK or even aided freed people in any way.

Bartoletti’s text is accompanied by documents, photographs and archival drawings, such as photos of four of the KKK's creators, political cartoons by Thomas Nast and a ticket to Andrew Johnson’s impeachment trial. Chapters frequently conclude with quotes and photos from the Slave Narratives of men and women recalling the terror of the Klan. Readers can reflect on 99 year old Gabe Hines’ first impression of the Klansmen in their costumes, 87 year old Susan Merritt’s memories of praying in secret so white people didn’t know, and more. A timeline from 1863 to Obama’s election in 2008 is included.

Zombies vs. Unicorns

Zombies vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier.

This title is on the 10th-12th grade list for Camp Read-A-Lot, but I couldn't resist it.

Black and Larbalestier have put together a young adult collection with outstanding authors such as Garth Nix, Libba Bray and Scott Westerfield, contributing short stories about either, you guessed it, zombies or unicorns. But don’t be fooled into believing that the unicorn tales are all sparkle and innocence and that these zombies are nothing but shuffle, drool and teeth. Many of the stories are unsettling in various ways, some will make you laugh and there is occasionally unexpected romance.

Although I’ve been a solid unicorn fan since my teen years and was traumatized by a college viewing of George A. Romero’s film Dawn of the Dead, I have to admire several of the zombie stories here. Maureen Johnson’s “Children of the Revolution” combines college freshmen working on an organic berry farm in England for a summer and a famous actress with an unusual religion and even odder children. These ingredients cook up a tale that is both funny and creepy. In “Bougainvillea,” Carrie Ryan gives us a new heroine who is gutsier and even more interesting than her protagonist in The Forest of Hands and Teeth. My favorite of the collection, Libba Bray’s “Prom Night” takes us to the eve of that most important teen event but the photo snapping parents are gone and teens from the high school’s student government police against the walking dead.

After the zombie flirtation, I return to my fascination with unicorns. I prefer my unicorns wild and mysterious, like any magical creature. Margo Lanagan delivers this in spades in “A Thousand Flowers,” a story regarding the complete (ahem) union of a maiden princess and a unicorn, and the consequences that follow. Garth Nix, while including a zombie queen in the plot of “The Highest Justice”, provides a solemn, unflinching Unicorn that meets out just rewards to a king and his witchy mistress. And because everyone likes to think that they can tame the unmanageable, readers can live vicariously through Diana Peterfreund’s “The Care and Feeding of Your Killer Baby Unicorn.”

All together, this is a pretty cool collection.

First Camp Read-A-Lot book: Trickster, Native American Tales a Graphic Collection

As I have for the past two summers, I will be serving as a “counselor” at Camp-Read-a-Lot, a summer reading program for teachers and media specialists. It is sponsored in the Twin Cities by MELSA and Metronet. I will be working with folks interested in materials for 6th-8th graders. We will meet to discuss our books on Wednesday, August 10 at Como Lakeside Pavilion in St. Paul. The special guest this year is Avi! Find out more Here.

I am excited to begin my Camp RAL reading with a book of folktales:

Trickster: Native American Tales a Graphic Collection. Compiled by Matt Dembicki, 2010.

Matt Dembicki was inspired to put together a collection of Native American trickster tales in comic form after delighting in trickster stories in a library book and realizing that he didn’t know much about Native American culture. Therefore, he started the project that became Trickster: twenty one tales each written by Native American storytellers and illustrated by artists of their choosing. Readers will be rewarded by a wide spectrum of stories with different graphic styles from wacky to realistic to otherworldly. They will meet the Trickster character in many forms: Coyote, Rabbit, Raven and even human (shaped!). These tricky ones fool and get the better of others and are tricked themselves. Their stories are contributed by storytellers from Choctaw, Pueblo, Cherokee and many more Native American Nations and are in diverse settings from Alaska to Hawaii. Some of the tales have a mysterious and dreamlike feel, some are creepy and others are funny and earthy. The Pourquoi stories tell us how the stars got in the sky, why the buzzards head is bald, why Rabbit has a little fluffy tail, and more. Dembicki states that he hopes that Trickster will help readers to learn about North America’s original inhabitants. That door has certainly been opened, and Trickster is getting critical attention as well. It is now on the short list for the 2011 Eisner award Comic-Con 2011  and was a nominee for Children’s Book Council’s 2011 Teen Choice Book of the Year. Teen Reads

Matt Dembicki's Blog