top ten books for a gifted seven-year-old boy

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we all get to exercise our OCD tendencies and come up with bookish lists.  If you’d like to play along, check out this post.

My boss’ boss asked me to come into her office the other day.  My heart started beating fast.  I wondered if I was being fired, how I’d make rent, reviewing my week for anything that could have gone wrong… when she asked ‘Do you know of any books I could give Cole?’  Cole is her seven-year-old, a second grader, and he’s testing gifted in reading and math.  I’ve given her book ideas before, but now his reading volume is going beyond the usual bounds… and he’s already been through the Wimpy Kid books and started the Boxcar Children series in earnest.  So she asked me for recommendations (and scared me to death in the process). 

Top Ten Books for a Gifted Seven-Year-Old Boy

1. Big Red by Jim Kjelgaard – Jim Kjelgaard’s dog books were staples in my mother’s read-aloud repertoire.  Each morning we begged for just one more chapter of these stories.  As someone else said, Jack London-lite.

2. Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard & Florence Atwater – Hilarious, all-ages hijinks with penguins, ill-advised decisions, and many, many blocks of ice.

3. The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket  – Another funny, sarcastic book featuring three children with astonishingly bad luck.

4. Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones – The first in Jones’ Chrestomanci series, this book features a pair of siblings with power to throw worlds out of whack.

5. Redwall by Brian Jacques – I’ve never read this one, but judging by how quickly my brother Joey devoured the entire series, it was a complete hit.

6. Hatching Magic by Ann Downer-Hazell – I have a weakness for books about dragons. This one reads younger than most of my favorites, and features time travel, chocolate, and (of course) magic.

7. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin – Another I’ve never read, but my sister sings the praises of this for all readers, all ages.  And yes, I will read it soon.

8. Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo – The only book on the list that I’m a little hesitant about, because I haven’t read it and have only the internet (and the Newbery!) to tell me how awesome it is. Oh okay, I’ll stop.

9. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien – Talk about a film that scared the living daylights out of my siblings and me!  The book is not quite as terrifying, but just as gripping.

10. Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins – Did you know that the author of The Hunger Games wrote a middle grade series? I remember liking this book quite a lot and passing it along to my brother, who also gave it a vote of confidence.

Tell me: what books would you recommend for an avid boy reader, aged 7?

croak

Two things today.  First: When someone refers to a fantasy book’s heroine as grumpy and hilarious, I automatically put it on my ‘must buy’ list.  Second: When books are priced under three dollars in Kindle format, I can’t keep my grabby little hands off them.  This is the tale of how I ended up in possession of an ebook copy of Croak by Gina Damico.  It was listed for $1.99 in August, and leila of bookshelves of doom convinced me to read it.  I’m not sorry, because it was fun.

Fed up with her wild behavior, sixteen-year-old Lex's parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. 

But Uncle Mort's true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure. He's a Grim Reaper. And he's going to teach Lex the family business. 

She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next. But Lex can't stop her desire for justice – or is it vengeance? – whenever she encounters a murder victim, craving to stop the attackers before they can strike again. 

Will she ditch Croak and go rogue with her reaper skills?

Lex is a sarcastic girl with anger issues and a violent streak in her recent past.  She can’t seem to stop hurting people, even the people she loves – and she doesn’t know why.  Just when it seems like she might self-destruct, her parents make the decision to send her off to visit her Uncle Mort in a remote town upstate.  Little does Lex know that a summer in Croak will change her life…if she can get anyone to explain exactly what is going on (and not sound criminally insane as they do).  The story of her summer in Croak is one of hard work, fun, hilarious shenanigans, a little awkward romance, and MURDER.  Wait, what? Lex and her fellow Reapers are in danger, and it’s up to Lex to figure it out.  With help.  And zany friends.  And maybe Edgar Allen Poe.

As a character, Lex is intelligent, thoughtful, snarky and inexplicably angry and violent.  It’s the violence that starts getting to her and wearing her down – and makes her question her own sanity.  When she ends up in Croak, though, she starts questioning everyone else’s sanity, because this place is full of the crazy… and only sometimes in a good way.  Uncle Mort’s life mission seems to be to explain as little as possible to his niece, and at first it seems like the rest of the town is following suit. 

This was actually my biggest complaint about the book – the reveal is so slow and the main character is kept ignorant for so long that this reader was tempted to give up and/or throw the book across the room (which would have meant dead phone, so i refrained. barely.).  About midway through the story speeds up, things start getting interesting, and the snappy dialogue matches the pacing, and from there on it’s clear sailing.  In the end, it’s a funny, bizarre mystery (with a sweet/awkward romance) that is worth the read if you can deal with a sluggish start.

Recommended for: fans of Geoff Herbach’s Stupid Fast, those who like their YA protagonists quirky, funny and endearing (bonus points if you find grumpy people hilarious), and anyone in the mood for an unusual paranormal fantasy featuring Grim Reapers and a bizarre town packed full with ‘character.’

cranberry duff

When I held a Canadian Thanksgiving party in October, I stocked up on all the fall food essentials at Costco, where you can’t help but buy in bulk.  That’s how I ended up with a five-pound bag of cranberries.   I made cranberry sauce and Cape Cod October Pie, but still had many cranberries left over.  I stuck them in the freezer, and now I have the impetus to try all those cranberry recipes I’ve stockpiled.  This Cranberry Duff seemed like a good place to start (and for your information, the dictionary defines duff as a ‘stiff pudding’ – but this is more like an upside down cake).

Cranberry Duff (modified from this Martha Stewart recipe)

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup unsalted butter, (1 stick), softened

1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries

1/3 cup walnuts, chopped

1/3 cup plus 1/2 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Butter bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking dish using 2 tablespoons butter (reserve rest for recipe). Spread cranberries evenly over bottom of dish, then sprinkle walnuts on top.  Cover with 1/3 cup sugar; set aside.

Melt remaining 6 tablespoons butter in a microwave-safe bowl or in saucepan over the stove; set aside. Place egg and the remaining 1/2 cup sugar in medium-size bowl. Beat with electric mixer on medium-high speed until pale and thick, about 1 minute. Reduce speed to medium-low and gradually beat in flour, then salt. Pour in melted butter in a steady stream, beating until smooth.

Pour (or in my case, ladle) batter into pan to cover cranberries. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, somewhere between 45 minutes and an hour. Let cool 10 minutes. Run a knife around edge to loosen, and invert to unmold onto a serving platter. Serve warm or at room temperature.  Yields 6 servings.

The first thing I should tell you is that this smells divine while baking, and you’ll be tempted to take it out of the oven and eat it early.  Resist!  Golden brown and thoroughly baked is the way to go. The second thing is that if the finished dessert is resisting your attempts to get it out of the baking dish, give up and serve like brownies.  Or, you know... end up with a mess (I may have learned this the hard way).  No matter what it will be delicious, though, so don't worry: happiness guaranteed.

Recommended for: when you’re inspired to bake on a fall day, an unusual take on the upside down cake, and a sweet and tart treat that goes beautifully with an afternoon cup of coffee or tea.

Interested in other food-related posts?  Check out Beth Fish Reads’ Weekend Cooking.

waiting on wednesday (40)

I’m participating today in "Waiting On" Wednesday. It is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, and its purpose is to spotlight eagerly anticipated upcoming releases.

There are many subgenres that I feel I need more grounding in – if I had limitless time I’d do a lot more adult sci-fi reading, find stellar urban fantasy, and really go back to the ‘classics’ of speculative fiction to see what I missed when I was busy working my way through the college-bound recommended reading list in my high school years.  One genre I feel some guilt about but might actually make some headway in?  YA sci-fi.  I’ve already read some of the foundation titles, and if I dive in, I could ‘keep up.’  The new releases in the genre are too tempting to pass by, in any case.  Cori McCarthy’s The Color of Rain sounds fascinating.  It will be released on May 14, 2013 by Running Press.

If there is one thing that seventeen-year-old Rain knows and knows well, it is survival. Caring for her little brother, Walker, who is "Touched," and losing the rest of her family to the same disease, Rain has long had to fend for herself on the bleak, dangerous streets of Earth City. When she looks to the stars, Rain sees escape and the only possible cure for Walker. And when a darkly handsome and mysterious captain named Johnny offers her passage to the Edge, Rain immediately boards his spaceship. Her only price: her "willingness." 

The Void cloaks many secrets, and Rain quickly discovers that Johnny's ship serves as host for an underground slave trade for the Touched...and a prostitution ring for Johnny's girls. With hair as red as the bracelet that indicates her status on the ship, the feeling of being a marked target is not helpful in Rain's quest to escape. Even worse, Rain is unsure if she will be able to pay the costs of love, family, hope, and self-preservation. 

With intergalactic twists and turns, Cori M. McCarthy's debut space thriller exists in an orbit of its own.

What books are you waiting on?