Finally! My New Year Post!

Another year has come and gone. Another year filled with reading and writing (and work and family).

2015 saw more freelance work, and a friend and I chose to concentrate on characterization. We read books about character and studied new and old characters to see if we could figure some things out that would help us in our own writing.

My not-so-little-anymore readers have continued to be great readers. Sprite has been devouring anything written by Stuart Gibbs. A-Read finished The Hunger Games trilogy and is now obsessed with Rick Yancey’s new series which started with The Fifth Wave (and he and RocketMan saw the movie last night).

I’m looking forward to some changes in 2016. More writing opportunities. Maybe a change at work (shh). And, of course, lots more reading.

What’s on your plate for this new year?

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday: Belly Up

Middle Grade Author Shannon Whitney Messenger began Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays a while back. If you love middle grade literature, check out her blog for a list of other sites featuring MG books.

Today I’ll talk about Belly Up by Stuart Gibbs.

From Goodreads: 12 year old Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt Fitzroy has got a murder on his hands and trouble on his tail. Henry, the hippopatamus at the brand-new nationally known FunJungle, has gone belly up. Even though it’s claimed he died of natural causes, Teddy smells something fishy and it sure ain’t the polar bear’s lunch. Dealing with the zoo’s top brass proves to be nothing but a waste of time. They want to see any trace of Henry’s death disappear like yesterday’s paper. So Teddy sets out to find the truth. With the help of Summer McCraken, a fiesty girl with secrets of her own, the two narrow down their prime suspects. Is it Martin Del Gato, FunJungle’s head of operations who hates kids and hates animals even more? Or J.J McCraken, the owner of FunJungle and Summer’s father, who has more concern for the dough he’s raking in than the animals in the zoo? As their investigation goes on, Teddy gets squeezed on all sides to quit asking questions or Henry won’t be the only animal in the zoo to turn up dead. The deeper Teddy and Summer get, they had better make sure they want to know what they want to know because when it comes to hippo homicide, the truth can’t be kept in a cage!

From Vicki: I really wanted to read this one because of the connection to Africa. Teddy grew up until now in the Congo. And I’ve loved mysteries since I was a kid. And I have a soft spot for wildlife conservation.

First off, I love this cover even though it’s a little teensy bit morbid for young readers. Then again, the book is a little teensy bit morbid, so the cover absolutely does its job. This is a mystery with twists and turns and interesting facts about animals. Teddy has had an unusal childhood, enough to make any young reader envious. There’s action and excitement and tension. An unusual element to this story is how many adults there are. This is a rather grown-up story, in fact, with two kids – who happen to be the only kids – in the main roles.

I made the mistake of letting A-Read read this before I did and he discovered three instances of inappropriate language that he marked with yellow sticky notes according to his teacher’s instructions. He marks anything that makes him think or that he thinks is funny or that makes him wonder. One word my 8-year-old thought was inappropriate was frigging, another was hell, the third was a**, all used by adults in the story.

My son enjoyed learning about animals and he liked the story. Luckily, he’s the kind of kid who doesn’t repeat the bad words he hears or sees. However, I wouldn’t recommend this for 8-year-olds. Maybe 10 and up.

What do you think about that sort of language in a MG book? How about a MG book full of adults? Are you willing to look past the negatives to read a great mystery?