bookpagedev

At first glance life appears idyllic for Carter Johnson. It’s 1953 and he lives on a stretch of Virginia beach named Willoughby Spit, swimming and dreaming of superheroes. He pretends to be Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, who can breathe both water and air. He’s still a kid, but is starting to steal sly looks at his older sister’s friend.

The tension builds as author Jonathan Scott Fuqua gently lays out Carter’s ocean of worries. The Johnsons live in the shadow of the Hampton Roads naval base, and Carter worries about Communist invasions and nuclear bombs. What’s more, his father is dying of an unspecified ailment caused by his military service.

At first Carter doesn’t believe his father is dying, but slowly, this realization sinks in. As Carter teeters on the edge of childlike dreaming and more grown-up understanding, he comes up with a plan. He mistakenly believes his father has given up on living, so he decides to show him a miracle. He convinces himself that his mother’s family actually comes from the sea, from Atlantis, and that he can swim across the Chesapeake Bay to the distant shore. Once his father hears of this heroic feat, Carter reasons, his father will know that anything is possible, even conquering his own illness. In truth, Carter’s father has not given up on life at all. Instead, he desperately wants to leave Carter and his sister, Minnie, with happy memories, instead of images of a sick, dying man.

Fuqua brings the turmoil to a dramatic, yet believable conclusion that resolves the fears and conflicting visions of Carter and his father.

Fuqua, a military brat who spent his teenage years in Norfolk, Virginia, obviously writes from his heart. With its beach scenes, amusement park rides and glimpses of life in Cold War America, The Willoughby Spit Wonder is a great summer read for middle schoolers. In the end, with the help of his father, Carter learns to accept reality while still holding onto his dreams. As he advises his sister, “Minnie, if you don’t wish big, you shouldn’t wish at all.”

Children are born scientists: put them outside and with little or no prompting they’ll be exploring their environment climbing trees, digging in the ground, wading into creeks, peeking under rocks. Kids should be encouraged to explore, and that’s why Jim Arnosky’s new book Field Trips is such a treasure. A fun instruction manual for kids who are curious about nature, Arnosky’s book uses easily understood sketches and simple direction to guide readers through simple nature activities, beginning with the creepy-crawly part of the outdoors that youngsters become aware of before they can talk: bugs. With info on how to identify and hunt them, as well as tips on insects to avoid, the book will help get the budding scientist off to a great start. Next on Arnosky’s list is tracking animals, a great way to explore the outdoors. There’s plenty of advice on how to distinguish footprints from deer to fox to grouse and how to follow sets of tracks. Arnosky also provides tips on how to record findings in a field-trip notebook. Arnosky’s observations get a little more sophisticated as the book progresses. His next activity is bird-watching, and his delightful drawings should have kids looking to the sky. His artwork reminds me a lot of Robert McCloskey (Make Way for Ducklings); while not as whimsical, his drawings are detailed and thus very accessible to his intended audience. Finally, the author guides young explorers along the shoreline rivers, lakes and oceans. From the vantage point of the water’s edge, he identifies aquatic plants, fish, shells and fossils. A wealth of opportunities for observation and collecting await young explorers along the shore.

Summer is almost here, and this book should be in the library of every home with a budding Jane Goodall or Robert Ballard. If your kids are whining “there’s nothing to do,” give them Field Trips and a sketchbook and turn them loose in the backyard, the vacant lot or the park down the street. You might even want to go with them who knows, you could all learn something! James Neal Webb likes to walk the shoreline of Radnor Lake in Nashville.

Acclaimed illustrator and author Anita Lobel first published Potatoes, Potatoes in 1967. Now illustrated in full color, Potatoes, Potatoes is being reissued at a time when the book’s themes are perhaps more poignant and meaningful than ever.

The story begins with two countries, “one in the east, the other in the west. One day they started a war with each other. No one had time to take care of the fields or the cows or the chickens.” But one woman who lived between the two countries didn’t bother with the war. Building a wall around her home, she protects her two sons and raises potatoes in a large field.

When the two sons are grown, they join the ranks of the marching soldiers. One son becomes a general in the army of the east, with its bright red uniforms, while the other is drawn to the army of the west, with its blue uniforms and shiny medals.

Later, after many battles at the head of their armies, the two brothers realize there is nothing left to eat in the east or in the west. Nothing, that is, except their mother’s potatoes. When the two armies crash through the wall, a furious battle for the potatoes begins. The battle destroys the family’s home, and the boys’ mother lies on the ground.

The battle stops. As it turns out, the mother is not dead, but before she agrees to feed anyone, she gives all the soldiers an order dear to any mother’s heart: “you must promise to stop all the fighting and clean up this mess and go home to your mothers.” The book closes with the soldiers returning home and singing the songs their mothers taught them. The brothers help their mother fix everything that was broken and rebuild their home. But they do not rebuild the wall.

This beautifully illustrated book is sure to find a place in the hearts of a new generation. Potatoes, Potatoes has special significance because of Anita Lobel’s own experiences as a World War II survivor, described in her award-winning autobiography, No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War. Deborah Hopkinson’s latest picture book for children is entitled A Packet of Seeds.

Shadows walk the coast of 18th-century Yorkshire, England, in first-time novelist G.P. Taylor’s macabre tale of good versus evil. Obadiah Demurral, the vicar of Thorpe, has long since ceased to worship God. Instead he worships power, and as absolute power corrupts absolutely, Demurral becomes absolutely corrupt. Driven by his thirst for more power, he immerses himself in the black arts and soon discovers a source of power beyond his wildest dreams the Keruvim. The Keruvim are twin icons of an ancient religion, one a small carved replica of an angelic being, the other flesh and blood. Individually they are powerful, but when used in tandem they are virtually invincible. Demurral already has one.

“When I have it in my grasp then the power of God will be mine,” Demurral declares. “When I have the Keruvim then He will have to listen to me.” With the village under his thrall, Demurral comes dangerously close to acquiring this awesome power source. But three young people stand in his way. Thirteen-year-old orphan Thomas Barrick has no love for the vicar or his appropriately named henchman, Beadle, but lacks the power to oppose them. Thomas’ best friend, Kate Coglan, is an unwilling ally in the fight against evil. It is when these two meet Raphah, a young African from the ancient land of Cush who has been sent to retrieve the stolen Keruvim, that the real battle begins. Dark forbidding forests, dank secret passages, demonic rites and fallen angels battle to overthrow the king of heaven, while the fate of mankind rests with these three unlikely heroes.

In stark contrast to the benign witchery of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Shadowmancer splits no hairs about its subject, declaring that witchcraft is evil, and those who practice it are deceived. The novel has created a major stir in Great Britain, where it has already achieved bestseller status, and the book’s U.S. publisher is hoping for similar results in America. Mike Parker writes from his home near Nashville.

When a writer hits his stride, he can be like the rabbit in that well-known battery commercial: he keeps going and going, and getting better and better. Eoin Colfer won’t need to change his batteries anytime soon. He has discovered his genre let’s call it the children’s techno-thriller and his books have more snap and polish with each outing. He’s been wildly successful with his Artemis Fowl series and has demonstrated that he is more than a one-series author with the entertaining teen novel The Wish List. So what does this kid’s Tom Clancy do for an encore? How about the futuristic adventures of a crack team of teenage ghostbusters? The Supernaturalist is set at the dawn of the third millennium, and every possible worst-case scenario has come to pass. The world is overpopulated, the ozone layer has been depleted, pollution covers the planet and corporations run the world. Cosmo Hill is an orphan in this dismal environment, and an “unsponsored one” at that, so he’s sent off to the Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys freight class, of course. Clarissa Frayne isn’t just an orphanage though: it’s also a product-testing facility, and the orphans are the guinea pigs, testing everything from a toxic deodorant to packaged meals that might prove fatal. The average life expectancy is 15, and 13-year-old Cosmo knows that he had better find a way to get out soon if he wants to live to see 16. His chance comes when he is rescued by a group of kids calling themselves “Supernaturalists” and dedicated to ridding the world of life-sucking ghostlike figures only they can see. When Cosmo discovers to his shock that he can see these scary blue bubble creatures as well, he struggles to be accepted into the small band of heroes.

Colfer has created a world that will resonate with techno-savvy teen (and pre-teen) readers. His book has the feel of a Dickens novel set in a Blade Runner world. This dark excursion into a possible future is fast-paced, exciting and funny a delight for Colfer’s fans and a sure-fire hit for summer reading. James Neal Webb has a supernatural ability to read several books simultaneously.