Burns, Catherine Lloyd. The Half-True Lies of Cricket Cohen.

Burns, Catherine Lloyd.  The Half-True Lies of Cricket Cohen.  MacMillan/Farrar Strauss  2017  246p.  $16.99  elem/ms  ISBN 978-0-374-30041-8  Conflict  VG-BN

This is a realistic picaresque of sorts, the story of an 11-year-old girl who has a big imagination and lives in New York City with her parents and grandmother. Cricket is an individual, always imagining scenarios and making up adventures, avoiding doing her school work, and out-of-sync with her demanding mother. One weekend she stays with her grandmother while her parents are off on an errand, and through a series of misadventures, she helps her family to face a fact they have been denying, namely, her grandmother's developing dementia. The book is well written and will hold the interest of readers who really like realistic fiction, fiction about family relationships, and great characters. It does get a little bit long in places, especially toward the beginning, before Cricket's big adventure with her grandmother. It could probably use a little more editing in this early section of the story, but by the end it is quite a satisfying read.

It will particularly resonate with kids who are familiar with New York City! Recommended for ages 8-13 or so.

Summary: This is the story of a quirky, imaginative 11-year-old girl living in New York City with her family, whose expectations she has a very hard time living up to. The character is compelling and will win fans.

Families-Fiction                                                                   --Carol Kennedy

Strange, Lucy. Secret of Nightingale Wood.

Strange, Lucy. Secret of Nightingale Wood. Scholastic/Chicken House  2017  288p.  $16.99    ISBN 978-1-338-15747-5            ms/jr  Realistic Fiction      

E-BN           

After the death of her beloved brother, Henrietta is left to grieve alone when her mother becomes emotionally ill.  In desperation, her father goes abroad to work, leaving Hen to try to bring the family back together.             Sometimes the comments on a book jacket are spot on and sometimes they require a stretch of the imagination.  Readers recognize that critics come in many sizes and shapes, often offering generic, shining comments to entice readers to purchase a book.  In this case, Pam Muñoz Ryan said, “From the first page, I was entirely smitten and compelled to read on until I finished this mysterious and poignant story.”  Spot on.  The poetic style of Lucy Strange pervades this debut novel, embracing the beautiful, yet nearly tragic, story of young Henrietta, who is forced to become an adult at age 13.  Father leaves home, unable to face his wife’s deteriorating mental state.  The nanny, Jane, has her hands full, with an ill mother, a baby and 13-year-old Hen, especially when the mother becomes a bedridden patient of Dr. Hardy.  To Hen she seems to grow more distant by the minute.  Henrietta has taken to wandering the woods, especially after meeting a woman named Moth, a reclusive type who is witch-like in both actions and appearance.  Lucy Strange masterfully weaves a subplot into the main plot: apparently the previous owner of the house lost her son in the war and took her own life by disappearing at sea.  Could Moth be the woman who disappeared?  Meanwhile, Henrietta watches helplessly as Dr. Hardy takes her baby sister away and at the same time plots to put Mother in an insane asylum to receive experimental treatments that seem torturous to Hen.  Just as Henrietta is poised to watch her family fall apart, she becomes empowered, but not without help.  As if the drama were not enough for a reader, it is the way Strange tells the story that contributes equally to the novel's power.  There is sometimes a fine line between sanity and insanity, and Strange finds the words to convey this line exquisitely.

Summary: After the death of her beloved brother, Henrietta is left to grieve alone when her mother becomes emotionally ill.  In desperation, her father goes abroad to work, leaving Hen to try to bring the family back together.                             

Families-Fiction                                                       --Martha Squaresky           

Cooper, Constance. Guile.

Cooper, Constance.  Guile.  Houghton Mifflin/Clarion  2016  376p  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-544-45171-1  ms/hs     Fantasy  VG-BN     

This fast-paced fantasy tells the story of a young girl whose world is shattered her parents die when their house burns down and her relatives send her away. In order to survive, Yoni leaves the bayous and goes to town and makes a living doing “seeings,” in which folks ask her about the guiles attached to various historic relics.

Yoni starts to find her mother’s family as she struggles to survive with the help of her cat, LaRue. It seems that LaRue has special abilities and can sense the guile. This ability might be a dangerous one for Yoni if it gets out. In addition, someone doesn’t like the idea of Yoni in Wicked Ford. Her life is threatened, so she and LaRue return to the bayous to hide.

Guile is a swift-moving story that provides readers with the mystique of the bayous and the suspense of unknown abilities.     

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Yoni Watereye and her cat try to trace her family tree and find her parents’ murderer. To survive she poses as a “pearlie” in the city.    

Families-Fiction, Mystery-Fiction                     --Linda McNeil

Downham, Jenny. Unbecoming.

Downham, Jenny.  Unbecoming.  Scholastic Press  2016  375p  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-545-90717-0  hs/adult  Conflict  VG-BN  

Unbecoming examines the lives and relationships of three generations of women in a family. The story begins when Mary, who is getting old and suffers from dementia, is brought to live temporarily with her daughter Caroline, who resents Mary a great deal. Caroline in turn has a teenage daughter named Katie, who has her own problems relating to her mother. The story of the missed communications and misunderstandings among these three generations unfolds gradually, with a great deal of detail and sensitivity. It is told from the points of view of all three characters, especially Mary and Katie.  It becomes clear to the reader that these women are all good people who were not able to truly bond with each other because of circumstances, social mores of the times in which they lived, and other people in their lives. The reader roots for all three at different points in the novel, although Caroline, the mother who is in the in-between generation, is the least sympathetic of the three.  As Mary faced societal scorn as a young girl in the 50s because of her unplanned pregnancy, Katie in the 2000s is struggling with her burgeoning knowledge that she is attracted to girls instead of boys, and the ensuing bullying of her peers.  The final denouement comes as a relief and catharsis to the reader. While the book may seem overly long to some, it will appeal to readers who really like getting into characters and seeing how they relate to one another.

Summary: Unbecoming examines the lives and relationships of three generations of women in a family, who suffer from a series of misunderstandings and missed communications that begin when a young girl becomes pregnant out of wedlock in the 1950s.

Out-of-wedlock pregnancy-Fiction, Families-Fiction    --Carol Kennedy

Hartnett, Sonya. Golden Boys.

Hartnett, Sonya.  Golden Boys.  Candlewick Press      2016  238p.  $17.99  ISBN 978-0-7636-7949-1  ms/hs  Realistic fiction  VG   

When the Jensons move to a new, middle-class suburb, the children, Colt and Bastian, are the envy of the other kids in the community. Their father, Rex, showers his children with elaborate gifts, and this entices the neighboring children to visit their home often. However, there is something strange about Rex that becomes apparent when he becomes extremely attentive and helpful to the Colt’s and Bastian’s new friends. Rex is a dentist, attractive and always willing to help. Colt does not like his father’s involvement with his new friends, and the friends do not understand his discomfort with his father’s involvement with them.

Written and published first in Australia in 2014, this novel’s language and dialect make it fun and entertaining to read. For example, “carpark” means “parking lot”. The story is engaging and keeps the reader wondering about the strangeness and possible secret that the Jensons are harboring. As conflicts arise, they seem to be easily resolved, although the reader feels that there is something lying just below the surface. The final conflict resolves itself in an unanticipated manner and leaves the reader wondering what happens next. This is surely a book that will inspire discussion.

Summary: The Jensons have moved to a new, middle-class suburb and are the envy of the other children in the community; however, there is something strange about them, especially in regard to the father, Rex, who showers his kids with elaborate gifts and is extremely attentive and helpful to Colt and Bastian Jenson’s new friends.
     

Friendship-Fiction, Families-Fiction            --Virginia McGarvey