Summer of the Monkeys By Wilson Rawls

Author: Wilson Rawls
http://www.shelfari.com/authors/a396654/Wilson-Rawls/
Softcover
Library Binding 290 pages
Non-Series
Young Adult 
Published February 1st 1992 by Turtleback Books (first published 1977)

A tree full of monkeys the last thing fourteen-year-old Jay Berry Lee thought he'd find on one of his treks through Oklahoma's Cherokee Ozarks. Jay learns from his grandfather that the monkeys have escaped from a circus and there is a big reward for anyone who finds them. He knows how much his family needs the money. Jay is determined to catch the monkeys. It's a summer of thrills and dangers no one will ever forget.  Description taken from www.goodreads.com

May Contain Spoilers!

Back in the fifth grade I had the most amazing teacher! Everyday after lunch recess, to help us wind down, she would have us sit at our desks and read us a chapter out of her favorite books.  One of these happened to be Summer of the Monkeys! I had forgotten all about it until I was at the library a few weeks ago and happened onto the book while looking around. When I saw it I could immediately hear my teacher's voice talking about monkeys, apples, and gunny sacks! It brought back great memories, so I decided to check it out and have a read! 

It has been a while since fifth grade, so most of the story was lost on me. When I picked it up to start reading, I could only think "How in the world are they going to make a WHOLE book about monkeys? There can only be so many ways to try to catch them!" Let me tell you now, this story is more than just about monkeys! In reading the book I was surprised how little interactions there actually are with them. To me the book was more about this Jay Berry and the interactions with his family and learning to appreciate the relationships he has with them. 

Jay Berry is 14  years old and living in the Ozarks with his family in the late 1800's. One summer, he runs into a bunch of monkeys while in the creek bottoms near his home. He runs off to tell his family, and he learns from his grandpa that they are most likely monkeys from a traveling circus that had gotten away from the train after it had wrecked. They start plotting ways to catch the monkeys in order for Jay Berry to collect the reward money to buy a horse and a .22. The reward is two dollars for each of the smaller monkeys and one hundred for the larger. They can't think of any reason that one monkey could be worth so much money, until they try to catch him! They soon find out that catching these monkeys is NOT going to be so easy! 

There were a lot of things that I loved about this book. For example, the relationship that Jay Berry has with his sister. She is very much the dreamer, and at times I feel that he really envy's that in her, even though a lot of the time he is giving her a hard time over it. Some of the most funny moments come from their interactions together as she is the typical care taking sister. Every time there is an illness, she dons her Red Cross 'nursing uniform' and gets to work doctoring everyone up. 

Jay Berry's ol' dog Rowdy is also a high light in this book! There were a lot of times I giggled right out loud at Jay Berry's reaction to some of this dogs reactions to the monkeys and the situations they put them in.  

There are a lot of great moments in this story-especially the one's where you can see the little boy in Jay Berry kind of at odds with the thoughtful young man that he is turning into. He really takes a journey in this book. He learns a lot about persistence and prioritizing what is important in life. Even if it means sacrificing and making hard decisions. 

I won't go into too much detail, I think you need to discover this gem for yourself! It is highly recommended for all ages! 

Artichoke's Heart By Suzanne Supplee

Author: Suzanne Supplee 
http://www.suzannesupplee.com/
Hardcover

276 pages

Non-Series

Young Adult

Published June 12th 2008 by Dutton Juvenile

Rosemary Goode is smart and funny and loyal and the best eyebrow waxer in Spring Hill, Tennessee. But only one thing seems to matter to anyone, including Rosemary: her weight. And when your mom runs the most successful (and gossipy) beauty shop in town, it can be hard to keep a low profile. Rosemary resolves to lose the weight, but her journey turns out to be about everything but the scale. Her life-changing, waist-shrinking year is captured with brutal honesty and humor, topped with an extralarge helping of Southern charm. A truly uncommon novel about an increasingly common problem.

Description taken from www.goodreads.com

May Contain Spoilers!!

Scanning the shelves at the local library, I ran across this book and it jumped out at me for obvious reasons. It had candy all over the cover! :) It seemed like it would be an easy and light read.  Let's just say that the moment I began reading, I was hooked.  The style of writing was excellent. The first chapter opens with Rosemary Goode, describing her family's efforts to get her to lose weight. Right off the bat you get a sense of Rosemary's sarcastic sense of humor, which is both funny and smart. There were a few times I found myself chuckling right out loud at her witty comebacks.  Not to say though, that she didn't have self esteem issues. 

As the description says, Rosemary is a 15 (almost 16) year old who has become addicted to food and has used food as a way to comfort herself when she was stressed out. Her highest weight came to 200 pounds. The author's description of Rosemary's weight issues were SPOT ON! The anxiety that leads to the over eating and the inevitable guilt that follows a binge, hitting on the idea that food addiction is a real problem. On top of that, the local "mean girls," AKA The Bluebirds, make sure they make Rosemary's life miserable at every opportunity. Add to that her family's well intended but misguided ways of encouraging her to lose weight-and she's got some major issues. 

After a run in with a customer at her mom's beauty salon, Rosemary decides to lose the weight.   The book touches on what girls at that age think they have to do to get that "quick fix" for weight loss, and pretty much makes a big deal about why its a bad idea to put your body through crazy diets.  During this time she also begins forming new friendships at school, as well as begins sessions with a therapist her mother wrangled her into talking too.  Rosemary begins working on gaining new insight on her eating habits and starts making wiser food choices.  She also works on the relationships within her family, especially her mother, who suddenly finds herself in a hard place herself. 

One of the main things I liked about this book is that it wasn't a straight shoot into an after school special ending.  It doesn't leave you hanging wondering what happened, but at the same time not everyone's problems are magically fixed, which is  something a lot of authors tend to do. Sometimes there is just no happy ending or easily solved situations and I feel that this book really does a good job of expressing that.  All in all I think that Rosemary's character is one that a lot of young girls will identify with. 
I'm really glad I ran across this book and I definitely recommend it! 

The Graveminder

To be quite honest I am on the fence about this one. Melissa Marr came up with some really creative ideas. You've got a town, some undead, a graveminder, an underworld and a contract that involves the whole town. A good basis and possibilities galore....but the execution just wasn't there.

*possible spoilers*

I found that she took too long to get to the heart of the story. It really doesn't pick up until the last four or five chapters where you finally start getting some answers. And even then its like pulling teeth to get information out of the characters. And in the end felt like the answers were pretty vague and didn't hold up.
I also felt that it left a lot unanswered. Why did the dead wake after they died? Why did they need to be minded by the grave minder? How was the gate opened in the first place? All it mentioned was that it was opened and a deal was made. Though I still don't feel that the deal was fully explained either. I could just be missing it or just didn't pick up on it, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't fully explained. There was also something pretty specific towards the end of the book that I thought was thrown in just because she needed a quick device to further the story. Unfortunately this device only brought up more questions and really didn't make any sense at all.
The characters in my opinion were never really fleshed out. The only person in the book that I felt had some quality to her was Amity. So much more could have been done with her character. Rebekkah as the main character seemed kind of flat, and at times annoying when it came to her relationship with Byron, playing like some kind of martyr. Which, admittedly if you read the book you will see why she would be hesitant to the relation ship..but as you learn more, you get to feel more like saying, "Really? Still? Get over it." Rebekkah's aunt Cissy, who ends up a major part of the ending was even less than one dimensional. There was no fleshing out whatsoever. For someone who has such a major part in the story...she sure gets very little play at all in the book.
There were points in the book I seriously wondered if there were editors. It was full of grammatical errors in the first half of the book. Also at one point, there was a character name thrown in that hadn't been mentioned before and was never again mentioned in the rest of the book. The exact passage was "Daniel came over and took charge of keeping the bystanders out of the way." Who is Daniel? If you are going to need a character to take care of the bystanders but he's not really a part of the big picture, they don't really need a name. So continuity was a big issue.
The ending was on the iffy side. Again, good idea and reasonable plot point, but horrible execution.
All in all, it was ok. I know I hit a lot of bad spots and I sound rather miffed at having read the book. However, I know that she is human and it takes a big person to put their "baby" out there for thousands of people to read. So for that I gave it the two stars.