-Jen, StorySnoop

-Eden, StorySnoop

Happy reading!

- Jen, Story Snoop

I have read a bunch of books for the StorySnoops site with the same kind of a premise – a refreshingly modern day take on a classic fairy tale.  Sounds girly and perhaps a little corny but no! These books feature a Cinderella who is more about empowering herself than she is about marrying her prince; or a brave outcast who faces the Snow Queen in order to save her best friend, Jack; or cousins Jack and Jill who, while on a quest, have many creepy and dangerous encounters in a book which is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying!

If your tween is interested in the new spin on an old classic, the “modern fairy tale”, here are some titles to try:

This list will get you started. We have a similar list for teens coming soon!

Happy Reading

Shannon, StorySnoop

]]> http://www.storysnoops.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=4910 2 http://www.storysnoops.com/blog/?p=4910 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StorySnoopsBlog/~3/0-KEs3LZ7BY/ http://www.storysnoops.com/blog/?p=4883#comments Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:10:27 +0000 blogadmin http://www.storysnoops.com/blog/?p=4883

There are a lot of great boy books out there for middle graders. However, a parent recently commented to me that she is having a hard time finding good matches for her fifth grader, as he prefers realistic or historical fiction. There is a lot of fantasy and dystopian fiction out there, and although it’s very popular, it’s true that it’s not for everyone.  She mentioned that her son enjoyed the book Hatchet, likes historical fiction, and that as a family they have read The Hunger Games. With these clues, my mind got to working…

What is a boy such as this to read?  Since he liked Hatchet, he should definitely check out the companion book to called Brian’s Winter. And here are some additional suggestions:

As with any of the books that we recommend, please be sure to click on the cover and read the Scoop to make sure it’s the right fit for your child.  Let us know if you have a book match challenge. We’d be happy to make some suggestions for your reader.

Happy Reading!

-Shannon, StorySnoop

Helping out in the school library during my son’s weekly visit is such an eye opener.  Not much as changed in the twelve years I have been volunteering in there. The boys load up on war plane textbooks, graphic novels, and spooky story books, and the girls still love that Warriors series. Some of the books have changed, of course. I love that Wonder and My Life in Pink and Green now have waiting lists!

There is a very (very!) reluctant girl reader in this class who just has it in her mind she will not (or cannot? ) read. For months I have scrambled around, pulling books off the shelf with a ridiculous cheerfulness: (How about this? Or this?).  She would bring the books back the following week, and I suspect she probably never even cracked them open.

Then one day I handed her Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by good ole’ Judy Blume. An oldie but goodie if there ever was one. But there was a BOY on the front cover and she gave me a doubtful looked. She may have even rolled her eyes. But she took it.

This girl was the first one into the library the following Tuesday and exclaiming (I think as much to her surprise as mine) how much she loved it. Victory! When I told her that it was actually the first in a series, she could not believe her luck. She grabbed the next two books in the series and looked seriously conflicted when she came to check her book out.  You see, you can only check one book out at a time, and here she was with a stack of Fudge books she did not want to part with. What if someone checked it out and lost it? What if we put it on hold for her but accidentally gave it away? This poor fretful girl was literally petting her Judy Blume books. A book match was made. A reader was born. And a rule was broken – we let her check out BOTH books

-Happy Reading!

Shannon, StorySnoop

33 Minutes (…Until Morgan Sturtz kicks my butt) is about two boys who used to be best buds in elementary school, Sam and Morgan. They were different even then, but those differences were fine and made things interesting. Sam has always been crazy smart (and now in seventh grade, he heads up the ArithmeTitans math team), and Morgan has always been athletic (he is now the star of the middle school football team). If asked, Sam might say that he and Morgan hadn’t been as close since middle school started, and since a new kid, who has more in common with Morgan than with Sam, moved in to their neighborhood. BUT, Sam knows they are still friends because it’s only been a couple of months since their TAMADE (The Absolutely Most Amazing Day Ever)—where they played their favorite old video game for nine hours straight, and worked together as a team like never before.  And this is why he is so confused about why Morgan so very clearly wants to kick his butt now.

The story flips back and forth between past and present, so the thirty-three minutes of same-day suspense are stretched out over snippets of what has led Sam and Morgan to this point. The reader can see Sam clinging to hope beyond unreasonable hope that there is some magical way that his friendship with Morgan can go back to what it used to be.

I won’t reveal any more about the plot except to say that this book does not have a neat and tidy, “wrapped up with a bow” kind of ending. It has a very real and poignant ending, which will be appreciated by anyone who is old enough to have grown apart from a former special friend. As adults we intellectually know that these transitions are a part of life, but as a kid, sometimes there is nothing more painful than losing a friend you weren’t ready to move on from.

This story is smart and funny and sad and hopeful all at the same time. It will work for upper elementary or middle school boys who are mature enough to understand Sam’s somewhat complicated emotions around his friendship with Morgan, as well as the bit of complexity added by the plot flipping back and forth, and the author’s sly sense of humor.  All told? Two thumbs up from this StorySnoop

Happy Reading!

-Eden, StorySnoop

Happy reading!

- Jen, StorySnoop

Okay, so I’m happily reading along in a nice little tween book, and I’ve read quite a few of these now, so the general direction of the plot is usually not a surprise.  But before long, when the cute little troubled girl protagonist finally gets adopted by her former step dad, who, as it has been made abundantly clear, can offer her a better life than her unstable mother, I find myself sitting in my car with the book in my lap, sobbing—complete monster tears dripping down the face, nose running…sobbing!  At this point, I am really, really hoping that I don’t see anyone else I know in the school parking lot who might notice that I look like a puffy-eyed crazy woman!  And do I carry Kleenex in my car for just this sort of occasion?  Of course not.

Anyway, once I was able to collect myself, it occurred to me that I was completely losing myself over a book for a ten year old.  Yikes!  I am a forty-something gal, to whom these plot twists are rather predictable.  Books in the 9-12 year old category rarely have a truly sad ending (consider the audience—plenty of time for those books later), and yet, here I am crying my eyes out (and it’s really not the first time, actually).  Why???  In the interest of full disclosure, I do have a tendency to get a bit weepy sometimes in a nice coffee commercial, and I do love a good, trashy teen movie now and again, but I digress.

Maybe, to make myself feel better, I think that I’m crying because with my older, wiser view of the world, I can cry for the happy life that little girl will get a chance to have.  I can cry for the beauty of the step-parent who went above and beyond for a child who was no longer his.  I can cry for that poor mother, who even though she made a lot of mistakes, was still going to lose her daughter to another family.  None of these are thoughts the intended audience of ten year olds is likely to have, so maybe I have some adult insight that makes me cry.  Or maybe I’m just a sap.

-Eden, StorySnoop

Is it just me, or would you cry too? Waiting for Normal

]]> http://www.storysnoops.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=4835 4 http://www.storysnoops.com/blog/?p=4835 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/StorySnoopsBlog/~3/dgrk2l7c0K0/ http://www.storysnoops.com/blog/?p=4816#comments Wed, 20 Feb 2013 08:03:17 +0000 blogadmin http://www.storysnoops.com/blog/?p=4816 The Legend trilogy, by Marie Lu, is my latest dystopian obsession. I recently finished the second installment, Prodigy, which may be even slightly better than the first.

In Legend, two very different fifteen-year-olds have grown up in the Republic, a plague-ridden nation that is unceasingly at war with the Colonies and led by the Elector Primo, who is in his eleventh four-year term as president. At the age of ten, each citizen must take the Trial, a test that determines the path of the rest of their life. June is the only person who has ever received a perfect Trial score and has spent the past five years being trained as an elite military leader. Day failed the test and, rather than face the labor camps, has spent the past five years living on the streets, waging his own private rebellion against the Republic. During a desperate attempt to protect his family from the plague, Day breaks into a hospital lab and June’s older brother Metias is murdered. Now June will stop at nothing to track down the infamous Day and avenge her brother’s death. But when their paths finally cross, the two begin to realize that they are not as different as they once believed. In fact, they may even share a common enemy.

In Prodigy, June and Day, the Republic’s two most wanted fugitives arrive in Vegas in search of the Patriots. This group of rebels is more than happy to repair Day’s injured leg and rescue his brother. But in return, Day and June must help assassinate the new Elector Primo, Anden, who just came into power after the unexpected death of his father. The plan is a good one but lots could go wrong, especially for June, who has to turn herself in and get close to Anden. When she does, she realizes that this new Elector wants to make changes that will actually help the Republic. Now June must decide where her loyalties lie and, ultimately, what is best for her country.