One Dead Spy - by Nathan Hale

Nathan Hale is/was one cool dude.  The original Nathan Hale was awesome because he was a spy for General George Washington during the American Revolution, and risked (and lost) his life in the fight for liberty.  The author Nathan Hale is awesome because he wrote a book about a dead guy with the same name as his, and because his illustrations and sense of humor are just outstanding.

This graphic novel is a biography of the short-lived American spy Nathan Hale.  Told by the spy himself to his own executioner (hangman) through a series of flashbacks, this is also a great summary of the first part of the American Revolution and its causes.  It's really a wonderful book for anyone interested in this time period, and a good introduction to early American history and military history for reluctant, or any readers.

This series has two books (#2: Big Bad Ironclad), and I can't wait to see what else the author comes up with. Excellent book!

NERDS 2: M is for Mama's Boy - by Michael Buckley

What I love about this series is that while the main characters are total nerds in school, getting picked on mercilessly, they have secret identities with which they do things like... oh... save the world!  Imagine getting shoved in a locker one moment, and fighting evil villains with your super powers the next.  It's all very creative, with interesting characters, all sorts of cool spy tools and tricks, and nasty bad guys who use squirrels to do their dirty work.

If you enjoy spy series like Alex Rider or STORM (two excellent series!), the NERDS books are in the same genre, but more ideal for a 3rd-5th grade reader, with more humor but just as much fancy gadgetry.  This is a great series for underdogs, science and technology geeks, people with buck teeth or bad allergies, or anyone who enjoys solving puzzles or playing spy.

The author also wrote The Sisters Grimm series, and he really knows how to spin a nice tale with equal doses of serious and funny.  If you're not a NERD yet, it's time to sign up.

Nursery Rhyme Comics- Various Artists

No, this isn't my normal type of recommendation.  However, I picked this book up at Barnes and Noble last week, and neither my almost-3-year-old son nor I have been able to put it down.

In this beautiful hardcover book, fifty classic nursery rhymes have been totally modernized and reinterpreted by big-shot comics artists.  The words are the same Mother Goose we learned from our grandparents, but the illustrations breathe new life into the stories, so much that my son has nearly memorized all of the stories in one short week, and we spend hours singing them together, looking at the wide variety of captivating drawings.  Don't let the cover fool you - the woman who designed that didn't even write any of the sketches, and the quality in-book is better than that on the front. My personal favorites: Tweedledum and Tweedledee, The Owl and the Pussycat, and For Want of a Nail.  Flip through this book and you'll fall in love with some old nursery rhymes all over again, too.

No Passengers Beyond This Point - by Gennifer Choldenko

Well, this was an unexpected book!  I expected another ho-hum story like the author's popular Al Capone Does My Shirts, but NO!  This ended up being a sibling story that became a fantasy adventure that became a shocking mystery.  At the end of the story, I just kept shaking my head, wondering how the author pulled that off.  This is a book that will keep you thinking long after you finish the last page.

Each chapter is narrated by a different sibling: Teenage brat India, Serious worrywart Finn, or brilliant but odd six-year old Mouse.  One of the things this author does incredibly well is to describe the relationships between these siblings, and how it changes over the course of the story.  When their house in California is foreclosed on and their mother sends them to live with Uncle Red outside of Denver, the children's lives seem poised to change forever.  It's not until they are swept away in a strange taxi to an unusual city that things get weird.  And boy do they get weird!! The city of Falling Bird seems like a dream when they get there, but what if they're never allowed to leave?

This is a quick-paced, tightly-written realistic (with some fantasy) adventure that will keep you laughing and cheering throughout, but that will leave you stunned at the end.  This author has finally won me over for good.

The Name of this Book is Secret - by Pseudonymous Bosch

I didn't know what to expect from this book.  Was the author just a Lemony Snicket wannabe?  What's with this whole secret title thing?  Of course I had to read it and find out. Once I picked it up, I didn't really want to set it down, but my hungry toddler made sure I did, at least long enough to shovel some food into his mouth.

So what is this book all about?  These two kids who have nothing in common become friends, outsmart all the adults, and save the world from some really creepy villains.  I could tell you more, but why ruin the secret?  If you like odd characters, twisted plots, authors who like to slip their own comments in here and there (like Mr. Snicket), interesting smells, or really old ladies who look really young, you might want to check out this series.  Seriously.

Nightmare at the Book Fair - by Dan Gutman

Dan Gutman has been on fire lately, writing book after book (after book).  Unfortunately, that many books makes it likely that some will be better (or worse) than others.  This is not going to be the best book you've ever read.  In fact, it's kind of dumb.  However, the way it is told may hold your interest, and makes it worth reading. 

The main character is a kid who accidentally hits his head while helping set up for a school book fair.  He has some wild dreams in which he is transported to a number of different stories, each one representing a type of book genre.  He'll spend one chapter in an animal story, one in a mystery, one in a Western, another in a girl's friendship story, and of course he'll visit a science fiction story too.  It was amazing how many different types of stories the author came up with to include in this book.

Read this if you're curious about different genres, and want to see what the different types of books are like.  Choose the style in this book that you like best, then go find more books like that (written by different authors), and read happily.

Naked Bunyip Dancing - by Steven Herrick

This book has nothing to do with bunyips, naked or otherwise.  What's a bunyip?  No clue. What I do know is that this book tells the story of one sixth grade class in Australia with their wild new peace-loving vegetarian hippie teacher.  What makes the book really cool is that the entire thing is written in poems!  Each page has a poem from a different character's point of view, and as you read through the book, you begin to really recognize each character's voice and style, in a way you wouldn't in a regular novel.  Don't be scared by the poetry - it is super-easy to read, and actually makes the book very enjoyable.  What you will love about this book is how the author shows the kids in the class intertacting with each other and the teacher.  There's a lot of funny stuff going on at this school!

The author is Australian, and the story is set there.  American students may not know what some of the words mean at first, but they'll figure it out pretty quickly.  Read this book if you enjoy funny school stories, poetry, creative ways of writing a novel, naked bunyips, punks, rap, or peace-loving vegetarian hippie teachers who make school very interesting for their students.

No Talking - by Andrew Clements

Anyone who's spent any time on this site will know that I'm a HUGE Andrew Clements fan. It should really be saying something, then, when I say that this is my favorite of his books so far. Sure, I loved Landry News and School Story, and The Report Card, and I have a soft spot for Room One, but this book may top them all.

Can not talking for two days make you a better person? Or will it just make you better than the other gender? These are some pretty odd questions, but they're important to this story. Imagine an entire fifth-grade group of students who just love to talk, and nobody can get them to be quiet. They're so bad that the principal has to stand in the cafeteria every day and shout into her megaphone just to be heard. Got it? Now imagine that they were all suddenly silent, and you could hear a pin drop in that same cafeteria. A little weird, right? Absolutely, and that's the beauty of this story. Not only is it an amazing book about two kids who decide to have a little contest and learn a lot about what it really means to be leaders, but the concept of the story has my teacher brain spinning. For two full days, fifth-graders Dave and Lynsey lead the boys and girls in a no-talking contest, and the result amazes everyone, especially their grumpy principal.

Read this book if you love school stories, if you have ever wondered whether boys or girls talk more, or if you are one of those folks who has always known that kids are really smarter than their teachers.

Nancy Drew: The Clue in the Jewel Box - by Carolyn Keene

So, what's up with Nancy Drew? That's what all of my readers wanted to know (didn't you?), so I set off to find out. I chose the 20th book in Carolyn Keene's Nancy Drew Mystery Series, which was written over 70 years ago. It tells the tale of Nancy, a wealthy city socialite (popular girl in town), who stumbled across a series of odd coincidences, and used them to take her shot at solving several mysteries. Along the way, Nancy made several new friends, including a rich old woman who gives her very expensive gifts, and a nasty man who turns out not to be who he claimed he was. Of course, like any good detective, Nancy solves the puzzles in the end, and the bad guys get their due.

I wonder how well my students could relate to a story like this. The characters are complex, the plot has some good twists and turns, and the setting is very unlike most children's books I've read. Nancy is an older girl, with her own expensive car, boyfriends, and rich father who doesn't seem to deny her anything. She is used to high society, and goes to all sorts of fancy parties. The time period is interesting, but the writing seems best for slightly older readers, though I'm curious as to how much interest they'd have in books from this era. I'm curious to know what you, the readers, think of Nancy Drew.

Nicholas - by Rene Goscinny

Nicholas was written in the 1970's by Frenchman René Goscinny, and illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempé, a famous cartoonist. This hilarious collection of stories tell of a French schoolboy named Nicholas and his all-male classmates. I think that if Louis Sachar would try writing like Roald Dahl, and incorporate bits of the Madeline books (can you imagine?), Nicholas is what you'd expect as a result. Given the original audience, the book's vocabulary will be a bit strange and challenging for lower readers, but I think high 4th grade readers and above will love this book, especially anyone who would like a bit smarter version of the Wayside School books.