Review: The Clues to Kushachuma by Adam B. Ford

     The Clues to Kushachuma is a, at times serious and even a little science fiction, scavenger hunt story. The story follows twins, Allan and Allison, on their larger than life scavenger hunt on their summer vacation at their uncle's fantastical ranch. Along their journey, the twins make new friends, enemies, face great perils, and find more than they ever imagined possible.
     TCTK was a fun read, at times unsure of its genre, shifting between quite serious undertones and fun, fantastical clues and adventures. The story had a very sweet conclusion, in ways, and the story was an interesting, larger than life adventure.
     While at times the story was poor with pacing and jolting with the shifts in genre, it is still an interesting and fun read for the fan of the scavanger hunt novel.

Review: This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

     This graphic novel perfectly encapsulates the idyllic feeling of summer. The book follows Rose, a young girl, and her family over one summer in their cottage near the beach. Throughout the story, Rose deals with family drama and its effects on her other emotions, depression, friendships, summer days, and local teenage crises. 
     This story captures the in between moments of summer-- the lazy days, the swimming, the deep thoughts, the casual friends, among other things. While there is not much of a plot, it reflects the slow, lethargic nature of summers as a school child. The nature of the content does lend better to a young adult audience, even though the story feels decidedly early teens/middle grade.
     Many reviews of this story express concern about the more adult content in this book. While I understand the concerns of fellow reviewers, the story appears to follow one early teen's process in learning and dealing with these concepts in the scope of her experiences. With that being said, Rose's thought processes and coping mechanisms are the main story line in the novel and were a little overpowering and off putting.
     The illustrations in this graphic novel are stunning, visceral, and evoke strong memories from one's owe childhood. I highly recommend this book, as a novice in graphic novels, to those just starting to explore the genre and those who may already enjoy it. While some of the content may be a little PG 13, it is nothing out of place in an early teens story. This novel highlights the strengths in the genre and reminds one of the early days in a way that would be difficult with only words.

Review: Unbelievably Boring Bart by James Patterson

Unbelievably Boring Bart is a middle grade story about Bartholomew Bean. Bart may seem like the world's most boring person, but he's actually the creator and only player of Hecklr, his own augmented reality app where he has to fight aliens to save the world. When his game catches on, how will he handle its newfound popularity and protect his secret identity?

UBB was very middle of the road as a middle grade novel. While it featured fun illustrations and the fun, wonderful absurdity revered in the MG genre, the story felt poorly organized. While it didn't diminish the fun of reading the novel, the story easily could have been 1/3 of the length and a little more action packed. With that being said, the layout of the book made each new chapter/section feel exciting and new.

The story is marketed as a transition from screen to page for young readers. While the story is not a realistic representation of game design and its extreme difficulties, it is a fun, imaginative idea that is sure to engage children who may have more experience with games than books. While it may not be the next Golden Compass or Secret Garden, UBB is a fun middle grade read that has the potential to resonate with young, tech-savy readers.

Review: My Father's Words by Patricia MacLachlan

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My Father's Words is a heartwarming and truly superb children's story. Based loosely on the author's real experiences, My Father's Words is a story chronicling the grief of a young girl after loosing her father. Fiona's journey leads her to Thomas, a ex-patient of her father, who was a therapist, and the local animal shelter/kennel, where she and her brother (and neighbor Luke) can care for and be a companion to the dogs. Through the story, Fiona and her brother, Finn, discover that dogs may help us just as much as we help them and that even a two minute phone call each week can make a big difference.

My Father's Words was an emotional story introducing a healthy approach to grief and loss. I was deeply moved, not only by the story, but also by the author's foreword and intent. The personal nature of the story is reflected in the emotion and quality of the writing. The book not only approaches the difficult topics of grief and the emotional importance of our animals, but introduces many more important topics without losing the readibility for younger readers. Anger, blame, selflessness, the power of kindness, and even the stigma around mental health feature in Fiona's experiences and memories of her father.

I highly recommend this story to anyone with a younger reader in their house or someone dealing with loss and needing a calm, comforting read. I, personally, fully intend on making this story a permanent addition to my collection and plan to make it available for my future children to read.

*Note: this book was provided from a Goodreads giveaway, with hope of a review, but all opinions are my own