STELLA: A Middle Grade Book Review by Guest Blogger, Josie Murdock + A Giveaway

REVIEW

Stella (Shadow Mountain, September 2022) is the story of a security service dog with trauma issues. Due to an error while sniffing out bombs at an airport, Stella’s handler was tragically killed in an explosion. Stella survived but is now afraid of everything. A kindly trainer takes her home and entrusts her to the care of her own daughter, Cloe. 

Cloe suffers from epilepsy, but she and Stella form a bond of love and trust. Stella gets a chance to help protect Cloe when some unscrupulous neighbor boys light firecrackers and start a forest fire. When Cloe has a seizure and is in severe danger, Stella comes to her rescue. She finds a new purpose in being Cloe’s medical service dog as well as her friend.  

I really enjoyed this book because the story was well paced and very exciting.  The characters were both believable and relatable. I loved how the story was told from a dog’s perspective, but it was still easy to read and never got confusing. The book deals with some very serious and intense topics without sugar-coating them. It speaks carefully and thoughtfully about these issues.    

The book was very sad. Although it does have a good and happy ending, the events described were quite serious, and might even be considered a little frightening for younger readers. It is important however  for kids to understand these grown-up topics like death, illness, bullies, forest fires, emotional pain, and loss.  I benefitted from discussing some of the issues the book brought up with my older siblings and my mom.  

I would absolutely recommend this book for anyone who wants an engaging, easy-to-read story.  Stella teaches many important lessons in words appropriately geared towards a younger audience.  This book would also make an excellent read-aloud for a group discussion or with a trusted adult. The author includes some excellent questions for further discussion.   

    

Josie Murdock is 10-years-old and lives with her family on a research farm in South Carolina.  She is homeschooled and loves reading, drawing, and foxes.  This is her first time writing a book review.   

 

 

GIVEAWAY 

I am giving away McCall Hoyle's debut lower middle grade through the July issue of Talking Story. To enter, please leave a comment with your name and email address or email me and I'll enter your name. The giveaway ends July 28. PLUS: If you leave a comment here AND through the newsletter, I'll enter your name twice! U.S. addresses only. 

Congratulations to Dannielle Hammelef who won Franz's Phantasmagorical Machine. 

PREORDER

As I mentioned before, authors really appreciate pre-orders! 

Here's the book trailer and a video of McCall speaking about empathy.

Make sure you check out other MG books on Greg Pattridge's blog.

 

 

  

Zane's Trace

When Allan Wolf was thirteen, he lost a penny behind the baseboard in his bedroom. He grabbed a pencil and wrote, "Penny lost down here on the night of April 12, 1976 at 2 til 9 PM and 5 seconds by Allan Dean Wolf."

In some ways, that was the genesis of Zane's Trace, a poetic coming of age novel that combines elements of historical fiction, free verse, and fantasy. 

Using a combination of powerful images, prose, real places, events and people, this book documents Zane Guesswind's journey as he wrestles with his painful past which includes his mother's suicide, an abusive grandfather, and his father's desertion. If that wasn't enough baggage for any teenager to carry around, Zane also has epilepsy. 

Up until the story's opening Zane has dealt with his pain by writing on any non-conventional surface imaginable including his bedroom walls and ceiling. Translating his thoughts and feelings this way sometimes has a therapeutic effect on Zane:

Whatever it was, the simple act of writing
on my wall had strengthened me somehow. (p.9)
.............
A red Sharpie made the men bleed. 
And I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.
The worse Mom got, the more I wrote.
The more the old man nagged her,
the more I wrote.
And the more empty spaces I filled,
the better I felt. (p. 12)

But, as a not untypical adolescent, it also gives him more power than he truly has. So, when his grandfather dies in his sleep, Zane thinks,

I did not kill him directly, yet I
was certainly the cause.
                       Last night--
the Zane-atopia scene on my ceiling,
the flash of light at the top of Mount Guesswind
the heaven holding Mom, Stanley, Zach, me
and Grandpa?
                     I smudged the old man out
with a fat, black marker--king size.
Last night I erased the old man from the light. (p. 30)


This book is a quick read, but not a simple one. It is full of powerful metaphors and layers of images--even as the writing on Zane's walls and his thoughts are layered with meaning. The line, "One straight shot" is repeated over and over again with various meanings and nuances. 

Zane's physical journey back to his mother's grave is also his emotional journey as he deals with his own deep grief. In the end, Wolff brings together the disparate elements of this poignant story as Zane reconciles the branches of his family tree. After his grandfather's funeral Zane says:

And all of us there--living or dead, crazy or sane, 
friend or foe, black or white, family or stranger--
we all crowd around and add our own names
to the twisted, crazy-beautiful family branches. (p.177)

******************

I would recommend this book for teens, particularly those who are wrestling with suicidal thoughts or have experienced mental illness and suicide in their families. Wolf includes a number of good resources at the end of the book, as well as information on what is historically and geographically accurate.