I’m back with some more mini reviews, and this time the theme is bite-sized adventures. For those who want a sense of danger, but are still on the lower end of middle-grade reads.

Today’s reviews are a little different in that I picked these books up because I thought they might be good additions to the library, and perhaps that shows. Maybe it’s the wrong reason to pick books up, but hey, it’s part of my job, nonetheless, and I do enjoy being exposed to new things.

Rebel in the Library of Ever (The Library of Ever #2)

The follow-up to Zeno Alexander’s acclaimed middle-grade fantasy The Library of Ever features a dangerous takeover of the magical Library as our heroine fights to make knowledge free for everyone.

Lenora returns to the magical Library—which holds every book ever known on its shelves. But she discovers the Library is under new management, its incredible rooms and corridors turned dark and sinister.

She quickly connects with a secret resistance that’s trying to free knowledge from the shadows threatening it. Her new friends introduce her to an ancient lost city, hang-gliding, and mathematical beings larger than the universe itself. And they help her face the mysterious Board of new leaders—who are leading the Library into darkness.

Now it’s up to Lenora to prove that knowledge is always more powerful than ignorance and fear.

Rating:

Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for Young Readers for a review copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. Quotes are taken from an unfinished version and may differ from the final product.

I confess that when I read the first book, The Library of Ever, I didn’t love it. I was pretty likewarm on it, but still gave it three stars because the ending seemed to have promise for the series, and it did feature a lot of things I think it’s important for kids to see in books. This one, though? I felt like it took a wrong turn somewhere.

Rebel in the Library of Ever is a book about books, in which the main setting is a library, the heroes are pre-teen children, and there’s a focus on learning and STEM.

While I can definitely appreciate what this book is trying to do, I think it fell a bit short of its goal. There were so many subplots that it was hard to keep track of the actual plot, and the story felt very episodic, without anything really tying the mini episodes together.

I can’t completely tell who the target audience for this is.

The simplistic writing makes me think it’s younger MG, but at the same time, there are a lot of big words, and the writing is oddly formal, in a way that seems like it would turn off younger MG readers. I noticed this over and over again, where instead of taking the path of least resistance as far as simple wording, the sentences get a little convoluted. A few examples to illustrate my point:

• “She felt, rising within her, a scream” (vs. “she felt a scream rising within her”)
• “Down the length of her sharp nose she peered at Lenora …” (vs. “She peered at Lenora down the length of her sharp nose”)

Those are just a couple examples I happened to jot down, but it struck me as oddly formal. Combine that with clunky dialogue that sounds nothing like any 12-year-old (ish?) that I’ve met, and add to that the fact that, for some reason, the prose doesn’t use any contractions, and this contemporary (or maybe slightly futuristic) book sounds a bit stuffy.

There’s a new character introduced, Lucy, and she was quite a lot of fun.

Unlike Lenora, she isn’t the bookish sort. She doesn’t read very often (or at all, really), and she doesn’t see the merits of the library. I thought her addition was great! While it’s nice to see the library from Lenora’s perspective, it’s not quite the same as seeing someone discover the wonders of it for the first time, so it presented an interesting new dynamic, I thought.

Like the first book, this one felt extremely episodic, to the point where it was hard to find the plot between all the subplots.

The subplots are cute as far as teaching kids random facts … but it’s just that: random facts. The book opens with the entirely realistic situation of a boy and his mother asking the librarian what the largest number is, because the boy doesn’t think his mother’s answer of infinity is right. Which … there are soooo many debates that could be had around this, especially considering the answer that Lenora decides is “right” instead of infinity. My point is, given the contemporary nature of this book, it’d be nice to come up with an actual question a librarian might be asked that’s hard to be googled.

Unfortunately, since this specific question was the main focus Lenora had for quite a while, this meant suffering through several chapters of math concepts, and if you learn anything at all about me, it’s that I hate math.

This would be great for kids who like math, but again … who’s the target here? The writing sounds like it’s meant for younger MG readers, and I’m not sure they’re going to be able to wrap their minds around a googol (a one with a hundred zeroes) or TREE(3). Or I’m not sure they’re going to care. The first book, I felt, had some fun random facts, at least, but this one’s focus on math just completely lost me.

The Big Bad for this book is a combination of the new director of the library and the board of directors, and as someone who works in a library, that’s a bit disappointing.

I’ll tell you right now: my director is fabulous. The library probably wouldn’t exist without her continually fighting for it. Same for our board of directors, who are always in and out of the library and have fought hard for it. So to have a book set in a library, espousing the wonders and magic of libraries, but then to make the director and board of directors the Big Bad was really disappointing to me. That’s definitely not the message I want to send to kids.

My Video Game Ate My Homework

Meet Dewey Jenkins, a 13-year old school kid who's about to fail science class. Follow Dewey on an amazing adventure that leads him and his friends to a virtual world where they will have to overcome all sorts of digital creatures and solve a number of puzzles in order to get home.

MY VIDEO GAME ATE MY HOMEWORK is a funny, fast-paced adventure that shows the importance of cooperation and teamwork and the importance of using your own unique abilities to solve problems. It's illustrated in Hansen's light-hearted, cartoony style, and filled with lots of sight gags and nods to videogaming conventions.

DUSTIN HANSEN spent years directing and creating video games before becoming a writer and illustrator. His published works include the MICROSAURS illustrated chapter book series and his fan-favorite GAME ON! VIDEO GAME HISTORY FROM PONG AND PAC-MAN TO MARIO, MINECRAFT, AND MORE.

Rating:

Many thanks to NetGalley and DC Comics for a review copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

As a gamer, I feel like it’s my duty to pick up and read all the delightfully geeky books I can find. You know, for research. For the kids. Obviously.

My Video Game Ate My Homework is a delightful graphic novel that captures both the adventure and spirit of a video game, but also the teamwork and camaraderie required.

Kids seem to love graphic novels these days, and who can blame them? Our patrons, especially, love any sort of game-based books, and I can see this one being a bit hit among middle-graders.

The artwork takes this video game adventure above and beyond.

There are such cute little gamer graphics that really brought the video game feel to life, and I such appreciated that. They’ve all got new “character names” when they load. Their abilities are cute, and they discover new items along the way. The artwork was simple, yet pretty, and captured gaming in a way that felt much more immersive. I bought that we were journeying through a video game with the characters and was delighted to see little references that gamers will appreciate if they look carefully at the pictures.

The humor in this makes it a really quick, fun, entertaining read.

I definitely laughed out loud a few times. The characters are … well, characters. It was sort of hard to take them some of them seriously, which could be a bad thing, but I felt like the book was serious when it had to be (especially when the twins have their heart-to-heart), but for the most part, it keeps a pretty light atmosphere that made it a joy to read.

While this book does tackle a few important concepts, like friendship and asking for help, don’t expect anything too deep going in.

The book does what it does quite effectively, which is gaming. There are some slightly heavier scenes that focus on teamwork and learning to ask for help, and I think those were done well, but the book is so short and focuses so much on the game that I don’t think they leave a lasting impression. This is another book meant for a younger MG audience, though, so I think it probably would have suffered from focusing too much on them, so this seemed like a nice balance of fun, while sneaking in some important life lessons while the kiddos weren’t looking.

Nazi Prison Camp Escape

In spring 1942, Royal Air Force pilot Bill Ash’s plane was shot down by Germans, who captured and eventually brought him to Stalag Luft III, a notorious camp for prisoners of war. The Germans boasted that the camp—which was isolated, heavily guarded, and surrounded by wire fences—was escape proof.
But Ash was ready to prove them wrong. He, along with other POWs, would dig tunnels, hide in shower drains, or jump on trucks—all in the name of freedom. Because resisting the Germans was their mission, and escaping was their duty.

Rating:

Many thanks to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for a review copy in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

This was comped to the I Survived series, which made it a must-read for me, because our patrons love that series.

Nazi Prison Camp Escape is a fictionalized account of something that really happened, and would be great for kids looking for nonfiction about World War II.

So was the comp apt? Ehhh … not completely. Unfortunately, this read more like nonfiction. I assume it had to be categorized as fiction, because it fictionalizes some events in instances where we can’t know what happened, but I think this was a poor choice of marketing. I wouldn’t recommend this to kids looking for a historical fiction read, but those who want something more akin to World War II nonfiction.

Everything about this screams MG nonfiction … except for the brief fictionalized encounters and dialogue.

Bill Ash was a real person. The story about him in the book is based on his life. Unfortunately, this book walks a real fine line, because obviously, the dialogue attributed to him was fictional, etc. However, most of it is very much in the flavor of nonfiction, complete with little blurb asides filled with facts about World War II and what Bill Ash is going through in that chapter. It would make an interesting enough nonfiction book for those interested in World War II, but as a fiction book? It makes for a disappointing story.

If a reader picked this up as historical fiction, I imagine they would be quite disappointed.

This doesn’t read like historical fiction. If you’re looking for a complete novel, with a beginning, middle, and end, rising action, and daring feats of adventure along the way, look elsewhere. The narrative in this is very dry and hits straight to the facts. There’s not much flavor or personality like one might expect in historical fiction.

This is where I think the comp to I Survived falls down, because where that series succeeds in taking a fictional character and throwing them into a historical event, this just didn’t have the same narrative power.

As I’ve said, it reads more like nonfiction, so this book has more of a niche audience. The great thing about I Survived is that anyone can pick them up, even if they have no interest in that particular event. Not the case here. Someone who wasn’t interested in World War II might really struggle to get through this. For someone who’s interested in World War II, though, this would be a fantastic read.

Where this book really shines is making nonfiction more accessible and fun to read.

I wish this had been more marketed as much, because it does that well. It’s not as dry as nonfiction, and there is a sort of plot in this. Not as adventurous or exciting as I’d anticipated, but Bill Ash’s life and struggle in the prison camp is important and a view of World War II that readers don’t often get. Concentration camps, sure, but I like how this peeled back the curtain on a completely different aspect of the war.

There weren’t any big or deep thoughts in this book. It was sort of a 10,000-foot view of it, which can be good or bad. For younger MG readers, I think this might be a challenging read, but it would spare them the real brutality of the war while still introducing them to some of it.