A Long Road on a Short Day, by Gary D. Schmidt

When Mama says that she would love to have a brown-eyed cow to give milk for the baby, Samuel’s father takes his best knife off the mantle and sets out with Samuel to make a trade. A snowstorm is brewing, so Papa says to Samuel, “Keep up. It’s a long road on a short day.”

Samuel and Papa walk from their farm to a neighbor’s barn, meet travelers on the road, and visit houses and businesses in town. Each time, they trade for another item in this cumulative tale set in an earlier time. Samuel is often wistful when they have to leave dogs, kittens, and ponies behind, but he is always polite and helpful, and his positive spirit is rewarded in the end with an extra gift just for him.

Gary Schmidt is a Newbery Medal-winning author (also reviewed here), and Long Road is based on a manuscript by his late wife, who wrote as Elizabeth Stickney. The nostalgic story is reminiscent of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Farmer Boy, and it is refreshing to read about a young boy learning how to be a man of admirable character by observing the older men around him. This early chapter book is punctuated by Americana-style illustrations by Eugene Yelchin.

A perfect winter read for loving families.

Disclaimer: I read a library copy of this book. Opinions expressed are solely my own and may not reflect those of my employer or anyone else.

Pay Attention, Carter Jones, by Gary Schmidt

It was pouring outside and screaming inside the day the butler showed up on the Jones’s doorstep. Well, not a butler per se, but a gentleman’s gentleman. Not that there were any gentlemen for Mr. Bowles-Fitzpatrick to serve in Carter’s house—not yet, anyway—but only Carter, his mom, and a bunch of younger sisters. And the reason why Carter is the only male in his house is the unfolding and sorrowful mystery of his story.

Like Jeeves stepping into Wooster’s dissolute life, Mr. Bowles-Fitzpatrick stepped into the Jones household and imposed calm and order. He made everyone tea and forced them to like it. He knew how to fix little girls’ hair, and, since Mom’s Jeep had broken down, he drove them all to school in a huge purple car that Carter called The Eggplant. As each child left the car, he brought his vast umbrella around, leaned down, and said, “Make good decisions and remember who you are.”

Carter is having a hard time remembering who he is since his dad has not come home from his military deployment for some time, and he seems to have stopped answering Carter’s emails. The sense of dread the reader feels as this situation develops creeps higher as the pages turn. Someone else is also missing from Carter’s life, but he works hard to avoid thinking about that.

Mr. Bowles-Fitzpatrick seems to know far more than is possible, but he plans to cure all of life’s ills with cricket. The game. He takes over Carter’s school’s front lawn, and somehow the coach is swept along with the butler’s unstoppable will. He plans practices on Saturdays, even though they take place at the same time as Ace Robotroid and the Robotroid Rangers. Soon the diverse student body seems to reside in the English countryside.

Gary Schmidt is a professor at Calvin College and one of the finest children’s authors around, and he always writes with a light and humorous hand that only highlights the heartbreak beneath. Children’s lives are filled with challenges every day: schoolwork, making friends, pleasing teachers and parents, and trying to figure out life as they go. When tragedies occur or the adults in their lives have major problems, the children carry these burdens inside themselves, too, even when they are expected to continue with their regular routine. Everyone needs a Jeeves to step in and straighten it all out.

Pay Attention, Carter Jones is fun, sweet, and deeply moving. It’s perfect for readers ten and up and anyone who wants to learn the intricacies of that marker of all that is good and noble in society: cricket.

Disclaimer: I read a library copy of this book. Opinions expressed are solely my own and may not reflect those of my employer or anyone else.

Books for All

While I was unable to type comfortably, books piled up on my desk for review. Not too many books, since I was also unable to look down to read for as long as I wished, but here are three that I still want to share.

Uprooted, by Naomi Novik. Every ten years, the Dragon comes to Agnieszka’s village to choose a young woman to come to his tower to serve him for the next ten years. Agnieszka and her best friend, Kasia, are born in the year from which a girl will be chosen, and all of their lives, they and everyone they know has believed that Kasia will be chosen. She is the most beautiful and has been raised to have all of the skills a maidservant would need. Agnieszka dreads letting go of her dearest friend, and she knows she will never be close to her again, because once the Dragon— who is a powerful wizard—is finished with a girl, she is changed and usually goes to live far away from her family.

No one is more surprised than Agnieszka when she is chosen instead of Kasia. She is not ready! She has never been prepared for a life of service! But the service the Dragon requires is nothing that anyone in the village has ever imagined, and Agnieszka is more than ready.

This adult fantasy novel is filled with magic, terrifying danger, and a bit of romance. A fast-paced read, it is the beginning of a series that will have tremendous appeal to teens, as well. There is occult content and a sex scene, so use your best judgment.

Orbiting Jupiter, by Gary Schmidt. Jack’s family took in a foster child, Joseph, even though all of the authorities warned them that he was trouble. He had almost killed someone, he had been in jail, and, at the age of fourteen, he had become the father of a daughter named Jupiter—a daughter he was never allowed to see. Jack was around Joseph more than anyone else, however, and although he could see the pain and anger that was constantly seething within him, Jack watched him stare up at the night sky through their bedroom window every night, searching for Jupiter, and he knew that there was love and anguish inside Joseph, as well. Besides, Rosie the cow loved him, as she showed each morning and evening when Joseph milked her, and “you can tell a whole lot about someone from the way cows are around him.” (p. 32) A boy with Joseph’s past, though, often has too many things already stacked against him to ever be able to live a normal life.

Gary Schmidt is one of the best children’s writers around. His sweet, often humorous prose pulls hard on the heartstrings as he tells a story that could have been too coarse in lesser hands. He sympathetically yet realistically portrays the struggles of a young boy whose actions would be seen as honorable and responsible in an adult man, but at his age could only bring grief and punishment. A Calvin College professor, Schmidt writes stories that show ordinary, church-going families giving sacrificial love so quietly that it either goes unnoticed or is misunderstood by those around them. My favorite books by Schmidt are the Newbery-Honor winning The Wednesday Wars and its companion novel, Okay for Now. Orbiting Jupiter, although it is quite brief, is intended for a somewhat older audience.

The Screaming Staircase, by Jonathan Stroud. Since The Problem started decades ago, ghosts and hauntings have been on the rise everywhere, and because children are much more sensitive to otherworldly phenomena than adults are, the most talented children have been trained to capture and exterminate Visitors, working through the night and often losing their lives in the fight. Lucy Carlyle is able to see apparitions a bit, but her real talent is in hearing them, as she does when she hears the last words of a famous celebrity, reopening a cold murder case and throwing her employer, Anthony Lockwood, into the public eye.

This first volume of the “Lockwood & Co.” series is flat-out scary. Do not expect a Scooby-Doo ending that shows that all of the frightening elements were no more than smoke and mirrors. Stroud dishes up hair-raising scenes involving both ethereal and human adversaries, with lots of bravery and bravado on the part of the heroes. The tone is thoroughly British and quite charming, as when Lucy and Lockwood settle down to a cup of tea before going upstairs for a ghostly battle during which they burn down the house. The characters are engaging, the action is nonstop, and the dialogue is as sharp as their rapiers. For tweens and young teens who don’t mind sleeping with the lights on.

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Disclaimer: I read advance reader copies of Uprooted and Orbiting Jupiter, and I read a library copy of The Screaming Staircase. Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not reflect those of my employers or anyone else.