Author: Loree Burns

THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z.
By Kate Messner
Walker, 2009

Category: Middle Grade Fiction

When my kids are grown, I think one of the things they will remember most about childhood is curling up together on the couch to read. One of the things I will remember most is reading them books written by my friend Kate.

When we four finished reading Kate’s first novel, SPITFIRE, my kids asked, “A girl wrote this?”

Three years later, when we finished reading Kate’s third novel, THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z, they asked, “The same girl wrote this?

Yes, Kate Messner does it all: action-packed historical fiction, emotionally charged contemporary fiction, evocative picture books (trust me on this … they are coming soon!). THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z gave my kids a great sense of the breadth of ground a single writer can cover … and more proof that girl writers rock. All that, and a great read, too. Thank you, Kate, and happy book release day to you!

Here’s some flap copy enticement:

Gianna Zales is a star runner with one more hurdle to jump before she goes to cross-country sectionals – a monster leaf collection project. To get it done, she’ll have to survive a rival who desperately wants to take her place at sectionals, a grandmother who leaves her false teeth in the refrigerator, and a best friend whose feelings about her are changing like the leaves. Gianna Z needs a stroke of brilliance to make it work!

And here’s a link to a fantabulous review over at Kelly Fineman’s Writing and Ruminating blog.

Need more? Visit Kate’s website, or her recent blog post, for information on THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z and upcoming signing events. Oh, and don’t miss this book trailer; it is star-studded and super-fun:

 

 

SAVING THE GHOST OF THE MOUNTAIN
By Sy Montgomery
Photographs by Nic Bishop
Houghton Mifflin, 2009

Category: Middle-grade Nonfiction

My kids like to joke that I could never write the sorts of books Sy Montgomery writes … and they may be right. SNAKE SCIENTIST? Um, no thanks. TARANTULA SCIENTIST? I don’t exactly love hairy spiders. QUEST FOR THE TREE KANGAROO? I thought so for a moment or two, but then I noticed a blood-sucking cloud forest leech attached to a human arm, quite possibly the author’s human arm, in the first chapter. I’m out.

I’m a different sort of adventurer, I guess.

But, oh how I love to imagine Sy and her intrepid partner-in-images, Nic Bishop, as they trek around the planet having crazy exciting and somewhat dangerous adventures, bringing back stories of science and conservation. In SAVING THE GHOST OF THE MOUNTAIN, author and photographer traveled to Mongolia to help track the elusive snow leopard. They climbed up, hiked over, and slid down mountains, searching all the while for leopards and, failing that, leopard scat. The book is irresistible and satisfying, despite the unpredictable nature of those ghostlike cats.

I admire Sy’s moxie, but I also admire her sensibilities, as evidenced in these lines, my favorites in the entire book:

Protecting an animal is like loving someone. It’s not something you do and then finish. It’s a long-term promise, honored over and over, one step at a time.”

Amen to that.

For those who don’t know, Mondays are reserved for celebrating children’s nonfiction in the online kidlit world. You can read more about this celebration here on Anastasia Suen’s Picture Book of the Day blog, and you can find a roundup of today’s Nonfiction Monday posts here at the SimplyScience Blog.

 

A WALK IN THE WOODS
By Bill Bryson
Broadway Books, 1998

Category: Nonfiction for Grownups

I brought this book to Yellowstone and Grand Teton, thinking a travel book—especially a travel-by-foot book—would be perfect national park vacation reading. It was.

A WALK IN THE WOODS chronicles Bryson’s journey along the Appalachian Trail. The fact that he attempted the AT with little backcountry experience, little physical preparedness, and little help should be appalling. (Hikers die for less.) Somehow, though, the story is riveting, inspiring … and absofreakinlutely hysterical instead. Several times while reading I laughed out loud and once—while on a plane—I actually giggled myself to tears. (For those who have read the book, this fit was induced by the Little Debbie snack food scene.) My kids were mortified, of course, but I just couldn’t help it. Bryson is funny, and his AT partner, Katz, is even funnier.

Perhaps the highest praise I can give is this: when I finished A WALK IN THE WOODS, I closed my eyes and let a few more chuckles out, then flipped back to page one and hit the trail a second time. It’s that good.