There are so many things to like about this extraordinary book that I had somehow missed previously. I'm actually not sure if I had read it completely through before, probably because it is another novel that I consider over-assigned in schools.'The Egypt Game' also carries the burden of being d...
1951 Rattler Springs, Nevada, 13 year old Dani hates living in the desert. All she wants to do is go back to Sea Grove where she used to live even if she has to run away to do it. Together with her friend Stormy, Dani plans how they'll manage their escape. Their plans change when new girl Pixi...
Continuing my quest to read, not only the Newbery award winning books, but also other works by these authors, I discovered The Trespassers on a sale table at my local library. For .10 I couldn't go wrong!Zilpha Keatley Snyder has the distinct achievement of three Newbery honor and ALA notable boo...
Even though a cell phone is used (once? occasionally?) in this story, I wonder if it will have appeal to today’s youngsters. The cell phone could have been a much bigger part of the story, making it more contemporary. I find that students have a sense of stories set back 10-40 years ago (books th...
Much of the power of Zilpha Keatley Snyder's A Fabulous Creature comes with the subtlety she weaves through the landscape of the Sierra Nevadas.James Fielding is less than thrilled his parents when his parents get the rare bout of “happy-boyhood theory”-itus and instigate a summer retreat in the ...
Dion James has been a fan of Alcott-Simpson's, the big department store in the city where he lives, since the time he first saw it, back when he was eight or nine and shining shoes on the sidewalks. The first time he went inside, it made an impression: After the ordinary winter world outside, dir...
Originally this was just one of those old books I had lying around that I wanted to check out before I gave it away. It's a companion book to Gib Rides Home (which I've never read) for young readers. This being said, it wasn't about love or politics or religion, but something much more child-conc...
DANCING WITH CONDORS GIVES HER A ZEST FOR LIFE! Set in California's agricultural Ventura Valley in 1910, this story is difficult to classify. The young heroine reveals a wacky imagination, spunky attitude and distinctly tomboyish taste. These characteristics provide amusing moments for the reade...
Big disappointment on this one. Zilpha Keatley Snyder is one of the greatest juvielit writers of all time, but she's phoning it in this time. The protagonist is a cipher of a character apart from her magic skill, and the few attempts at suspense hint at an eventual payoff that is never delivere...
I have never met anyone else who has heard of this book, but it has been one of my favorites since childhood. I first read the library copy, and when I determined to get my own, I had to special-order it from the bookstore because none of the Barnes and Nobles in the area carried it. (Gosh, remem...
Summer's mother and sister, Oriole and Sparrow, are flighty and birdbrained, just like their names suggest. Unfortunately, those qualities are much more endearing in a seven-year-old than the mother. Summer is definitely the adult in the family, and when it seems Oriole's latest boyfriend might b...
This is a book about confronting fears and the past, and possibly the importance of friendship but that's iffy. Jokester Rudy is worried when his friend Barney takes up with the new kid Tyler ("Styler", because he's stylish. yeesh) from L.A. Tyler has somehow gotten his hands on a map to one of t...
During my time at NIU, I used this book in a unit that I planned..... I never read it, I just pretended. With the guilt hanging over my head even now, I decided to tackle this bad boy.It was a pretty good book. My major complaint is that it was verrrrry slow-moving, especially for such a short bo...
This is my least favorite book in the Stanley series, and yet I'm giving it 3 stars anyway, which is saying a lot about Zilpha Keatley Snyder as an author. She really knows how to create fun and interesting characters. I just wish she'd created a plot I could get more into here.Basically, this is...
Anyt book by Zilpha Keatley Snyder is prefect to read on Halloween. I read this book with a sick dread of disappointment. So often the things one loved in childhood have a way of being somehow less than you remember. (Lemonheads, anyone?) I loved "The Egypt Game" when I was about 10 and I still v...
Gib Whittaker has been an orphan since he was small, living at an orphanage where the boys are given a minimal education and lots of hard work. No wonder Gib thinks being adopted would be better, even after he learns that many boys are taken to be farm hands, not really adopted. And all he reall...
I was a little disapointed with this book. It was obviously written long after the first book so some of the language had changed (the same language that had make the first one a little outdated) but there were also some subtle modernization. The first book was obviously set in time it was writte...
Twelve-year-old Robin is always getting in trouble for "wandering off," but can you blame her for trying to escape reality? A few years earlier, Robin's family lost nearly everything thanks to the Depression and, since, have become traveling workers, moving from seasonal job to seasonal job and n...