A Review of The Recruit by Robert Muchamore

I was perusing the new YA books in my local bookstore when I noticed a shiny new hardcover edition of Robert Muchamore's The Recruit and had to smile: I've read eight of the books in the Cherub series and ordered the last two books from England before they came out in paperback in the U.S. Why? Because this is the only kid spy/adventure series that can hold its own against the Alex Rider books. In fact, in some ways, I like this series better—and your son or daughter might, too.

As our series begins, James and his sister Lauren live in a rough neighborhood with their obese, alcoholic mother and her jerk of a sort of ex-husband Ron (who is Lauren's father). James is always getting in trouble in school, and this time it's a doozy: he shoves a girl who insults his mother and she ends up cutting her face on a nail protruding from the wall. When people start talking assault charges, James leaves campus.

He goes home thinking he'd better confess what happened to his mother, who, we learn, is the leader of a group of thieves. So James has every tech toy known to man and there's a lot of money in the safe. The brother of the girl he has hurt comes over and beats James up. A little later, James's mother has a heart attack and dies. He is put in a foster home, while his sister—who would rather stick with him—is picked up by her father, Ron. But James manages to get to the contents of the safe before Ron does.

In the foster home, James is befriended by his roommate, Kyle. James also falls in with some thuggish older boys at school and gets trapped in a liquor store robbery situation by one of the boys. He's about two inches away from jail when he wakes up in a new place and finds out he's being recruited for a secret organization of young spies called Cherub.

James has an incredible mental mathematical ability, but he's out of shape and doesn't know how to swim. He also has an anger management problem, along with poor impulse control. But the teachers and older students of Cherub push James to undertake the demanding task of transforming himself, culminating in a kind of basic training where he nearly blows the whole thing. (The final stage of that training is a three-day hike through snake-infested waters in Malaysia.)

James finally gets to go on his first mission, where he lives in a tent city, pretending to be the nephew of a member of a group of radical ex-hippies and environmentalists who are planning to bomb a big international conference. One of the key themes of this part of the book is that the bad guys aren't all bad and can seem sympathetic. James also has a heady brush with romance.

As an added bonus, later in The Recruit Ron gets himself thrown in jail and Lauren shows up at Cherub, to James's delight. Each book in the series is a new mission, and we watch James continue to grow and have setbacks along the way. We also follow some of Lauren's adventures.

One of my students, a 15-year-old video game-playing boy who's basically uninterested in reading, blazed through The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, after which I was wracking my brain trying to think of what books to give him that would have a similar adrenaline level. Cherub to the rescue! He is now thoroughly enjoying Robert Muchamore's series. He got through the first book so fast that he had to wait a few days for me to come back with the next one. When he saw that I had brought both books #2 and #3, he got a far bigger smile than boys his age generally permit themselves to display.

As for the advantages over Alex Rider, the ensemble cast is a lot of fun compared to lone wolf Alex (or lone wolf Young Bond, for that matter). The fact that the kids are less wealthy and more down-to-earth might make them more accessible to the average reader, as well.

In terms of the quality of the writing, the Cherub books are well paced, with timely adventures and villains who are more nuanced than you usually find in a spy series. James is a likably flawed hero, and his sister is cheerfully tough and a little conniving. As a group, the young spies of Cherub have their share of interpersonal dramas, friendships and romances, quarrels and pranks—all while saving civilization from terrorists as well as arms and drug dealers. There's some kid humor in the mix, too. Muchamore is the kind of author who makes his characters and their lives seem real and compelling, regardless of the fantastical nature of their organization and its missions. James and his fellow spies aren't at all cherubic, but your young reader might be in heaven reading these books.

Note for Worried Parents: The Cherub books are for teens and are on the gritty side. The heroes are the kind of kids who get in trouble in school and sometimes wind up in juvie. I think I recall the boys noticing the girls' breasts once or twice, and there's some kissing. Also plenty of violence of the spy-adventure and fistfight variety. Some of the places James and his friends infiltrate are pretty rough, speaking of juvie (for example). But overall, Muchamore's series is surprisingly wholesome, considering what I've just said. Meaning, they're not dark and edgy in the way some of the YA titles for older teens are these days. And the kids' friendships and loyalty give the series a sort of Hogwarts feel. I'd say these books are a good fit for most middle school as well as high school readers, especially boys and reluctant readers.

Update: I took a look at some of the later books in the series, and there is some talk about condoms and sex, though the girl Cherubs mock James for being "randy" and he gets into trouble on one of the missions over his willingness to follow any pretty girl who comes on to him. Now that he's 15 or 16 (I believe he was 12 in the first book), James is sexually active, which is clear in the books, though the author doesn't dwell on it. I'd better call this series a PG-13.

A Review of Truckery Rhymes by John Scieska, David Shannon, Loren Long, and David Gordon

John Scieska's Trucktown series, created in cahoots with three talented artists, illustrates the perils of going commercial. The books work in some ways, but trip themselves up in others. I remember picking up the first one in a bookstore, thinking, Scieska and trucks! How cool is this going to be?!? And then feeling a tiny bit disappointed.

Here's the backstory: John Scieska linked the idea of boys not reading with the fact that there aren't a lot of what I call "rowdy boy books" out there. (See his collection for older kids, Guys Write for Guys Read.) He then got together with the aforementioned illustrators to craft a picture book series about trucks.

Great idea, good target audience, so why am I not completely on board this train? Only that after The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by A. Wolf, and The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, I expect to be dazzled by Scieska's imagination. I know I'm holding him to an unfair standard, yet it's one he has set himself. The Trucktown books are delightful, but they're just a little too commercial and even ordinary for me. They remind me of the Thomas the Tank Engine books, only with greater craftsmanship.

The trucks in Trucktown are recurring characters; not surprisingly, most of them resemble small boys (and a few girls). Other key ingredients are lots of action in the form of crashing and bashing, the closely related factor of crashing and bashing words that are fun to shout, and humor along the lines of the Three Stooges. Yep, the guy knows his audience! So, for example, in Truckery Rhymes we get things like this:

Three LOUD trucks.
Three LOUD trucks.
See how they ZOOM.
See how they ZOOM.
They all jumped over the muck and goo.
They skidded and screeched and their mufflers blew.
Did you ever see such a crazy crew?
As three LOUD trucks.
Three LOUD trucks.

As you can see, this particular entry in the series is a set of poems that parody well-known Mother Goose rhymes. One question I have is whether the kids listening to this know the original rhymes and get the connection, or whether that joke is mostly for parent readers. It might be fun to read the two side by side, letting children in on the joke.

As is often the case with a series, some of the rhymes are hampered by the inclusion of character names. If you don't know the characters from reading other books in the series, will you be able to relate to the Trucktown nursery rhymes? Another question Scieska seems to face is just how many things can trucks do, especially if your goal is almost always to have them crash?

Ultimately, in connecting the truck rhymes to the originals, I find myself wondering if they can function outside the book, without the pictures. Are they stand-alones, and should they be? I would say a few of them are, but most need the context of the book, the illustrations, and even knowledge of the series to function.

The best of the rhymes, in my opinion, are the ones with ironic twists thrown in, reminding me that what I like most about Scieska's writing is his off-the-wall humor (pun entirely coincidental!):

Wrecker Rosie sat on a wall.
Wrecker Rosie made it all fall.
All the town's tow trucks
And all the town's rigs...
Did whatever Rosie said after that.

The three illustrators involved in this project are highly gifted. Each truck has a face and a personality, which isn't that easy to render, when you think about it. The colorful, slightly cartoonish art suits the good cheer and high action in the Trucktown books.

Of course, I might be a little more thrilled about the series if I were a four-year-old boy. When I was fourteen and reading bedtime stories to my little brother, who is ten years younger, I knew that if a book had trucks in it, he would be deliriously happy. And that may be the simple secret of the success of the Trucktown books. Just like those small boys who adore Thomas the Tank Engine, kids who like trucks are going to fall in love with Scieska's series.

When they're a bit older, perhaps they can graduate to the more sophisticated humor of this genius author's classic titles.

Ten Books at a Time

I was at a friend's house the other day when she mentioned that her 8-year-old son, whom I'll call Mark, doesn't like to read very much. She has him on a summer reading schedule of 20 minutes a day, but he fights her constantly.

"What's he reading?" I asked. She brought out the latest book to show me. I also interrogated her son, who clearly suspected that if he admitted to liking any kind of book at all, he would be forced to read more. After further pestering, he begrudgingly acknowledged a fondness for action and sci-fi.

I took a closer look at the book. It was contemporary realism about a kid who tries to build a spaceship out of cardboard boxes. He then pretends to have adventures in it. There were also some family problems, but I got the picture. This was the wrong book for my friend's son.

After a little more conversation, I discovered that every week my friend took her two boys to the library and asked them to pick out one book each. As part of their vacation homework, they would have to write a book report at the end of the week. "Sometimes Mark likes to read, though," she explained. "He loved those Magic Tree House books. Maybe we could find another series."

The next time I came over, I brought an emergency bag of books designed to pique Mark's interests, along with some suggestions for his younger brother Adam, who's currently reading Frog and Toad. My bag contained the following: the four Horrid Henry books by Francesca Simon that I recently reviewed; all six On the Run books by Gordon Korman; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl; The Heroic Adventures of Hercules Amsterdam by Melissa Glenn Haber; Dial-a-Ghost by Eva Ibbotsen; and Mister Monday by Garth Nix. (I suggested that this last book and its sequels should come after the others, as they're much denser reading.)

I also strongly recommended The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, although I couldn't find my own copy. It was actually my top pick for Mark.

Further prescriptions from Dr. Coombs? I explained, first to my friend and then to her wide-eyed sons, that when they go to the library they should each check out ten books for the week. Mark winced, so I hastily reassured him that he didn't have to read all ten. "It's so if one of them turns out to be a dud, you have other books to choose from."

I had already told my friend that when a book is boring you to tears, you shouldn't finish it. Whereupon she said that even she had been bored by this week's book, which she was helping her son get through, taking turns.

"Guess how many books I checked out at the library yesterday?" I asked the kids.

"A hundred?" Mark asked.

"Nope. I couldn't carry a hundred. I got 20. At my house I have 2,000." Or is it more?

The two boys looked at each other, suitably impressed.

"We only have 50," Mark informed me.

One thing I hear a lot from well-to-do suburban parents is that they have plenty of books at home. I remember doing a school visit at a private school a few years back and getting a sense of what was going on. After I made a big pitch for going to the library, some of the students' comments made me realize that their wealthy parents didn't ever take them to the library. Instead, they were proud of their supposedly extensive home libraries.

Sorry, but those libraries are just not good enough. They're a wonderful foundation, but the vision I want to instill in parents is that a kid should walk into a public library and feel the incredible power of owning hundreds of books, of having hundreds of choices.

When I was a kid, my mom took us to the library every week. Every week we checked out the maximum number of books we were allowed to get, which I think was in fact ten, and every week we finished those books in the first three or four days. My sister grew up to be an attorney, while I grew up to be a teacher and a writer. Those books weren't the only reason, but they were definitely a factor.

I should mention that I recommend having reading sessions designated by pages or chapters, not by time. That way kids can stop watching the clock and pay more attention to the story. This approach requires a certain amount of supervision and involvement, though. What I like to do is assign my students to read at least five pages. Then the next time I see them, I ask, "What happened in the book?" This question is meant to be gossipy, not teacherish. It's like asking a kid about a movie—they'll often retell the plot in gory detail. A corollary I've noticed is that kids who recount events in a book blithely for three days straight and then get stuck the fourth day have loudly broadcasted that they didn't do the reading. (I've also found out whether they were reading or simply retelling a movie that way, How to Eat Fried Worms being a recent example.)

"When you give Mark a book, tell him you want him to read a chapter a day, but he can read more if he feels like it. Be very casual about this," I told my friend.

While you're getting a kid hooked, you can take turns reading pages, of course. Depending on the child, I may explain to them that I'll get them started, and then they can read on their own.

When I bring books to students, I first find out their interests. If they can't name any books they like, I ask them what movies and TV shows they like, which gives me a pretty good idea. In broad terms, I've found that most kids prefer either sci-fi/fantasy and adventure, contemporary realism (family, school, and sports stories), or nonfiction. Then there are those kids who will read just about anything, given half the chance.

Some parents seem obsessed with having their precocious 6-year-olds read books intended for high schoolers because "my Johnny is reading at a 10th grade level." To which I say, "So?" Because Johnny is not emotionally ready for The Great Gatsby, and oh yeah, he'll probably hate it. Why should Johnny miss out on the great literature written for 6- to 9-year-olds just because he's "gifted"?

Now, my friend who is working on the great summer reading project is highly educated and is very supportive of her sons' academic progress. But she was not herself an avid childhood reader, so she doesn't happen to have a wide knowledge of children's literature. This is where a good children's librarian or the staff at a well-stocked independent bookstore specializing in children's books can be invaluable.

It's early days yet, but I suspect that with the reading list I've given Mark, he may yet be hooked on books. At the very least, reading won't feel so much like torture anymore. In addition, I recommended the Geronimo Stilton books for his little brother. Not because they're the best books of all time, but because they'll launch him into better books and they're just a lot of fun. I also suggested James Marshall's Fox books, which are well written.

Happily, potential readers are all around us. A few years ago, I worked with a tenth grade student who was very bright and articulate. He told me he read articles on the Internet, but he really didn't read books. I explained, "You were meant to be a reader. You're missing out." I brought him some books that didn't completely take, but he started catching on to the possibilities. His next teacher called to tell me that this boy had gone through a couple of assigned books and was now reading Machiavelli's The Prince on his own because he was interested in political theory.

Another time I was teaching a 12-year-old non-reader who informed me that there was no reason to read Harry Potter because he'd already seen the movie. I dialed it down to A Series of Unfortunate Events on the grounds that they were shorter. Pretty soon he'd read all ten of the Lemony Snicketts (then available) and was happily launching into Harry Potter. I remember his mom saying to me one day, mystified, "I don't understand it. I come into the living room, and he's sitting on the couch, reading a book. We go to the doctor's office, and he wants to bring his book."

"That's great!" I said. I waited till I got home to do a victory dance in my own living room.

It seems we are complacent in believing that the many college-educated parents in our society are successfully raising a generation of readers. It certainly isn't for lack of trying. But getting the right book into the hands of the right kid is not as easy as it looks. Of course, when it does happen, the results can be deep and rich and mind-altering.

Because there is simply nothing like a good book.


P.S. Thanks very much to Jen Robinson for mentioning this post on Booklights. More to the point, I recommend you visit Booklights, a site sponsored by PBS for parents, to get more insights into how to raise a reader. The current post is about summer reading, especially letting kids read for pleasure during the summer (as opposed to reading assigned books).

A Review of Scat by Carl Hiaasen

After I read Hoot and Flush, I tried reading one of Carl Hiaasen’s books for adults and ended up reading all of them. Then a few days ago I read Scat, Hiaasen’s third book for children. The phrase that comes to mind for describing Hiaasen's South Florida world with its colorful characters out to destroy--or rescue--endangered species is “gleeful anarchy.”

When we first meet Mrs. Starch, “the most feared teacher at the Truman School,” she is terrorizing students, as seen mostly through the eyes of Nick and his friend Marta. But when Mrs. Starch focuses her attention on Duane Scrod (AKA Smoke), he’s not quite as intimidated as he’s supposed to be. Duane, who seems like a delinquent, turns out to have a hidden side—and so does Mrs. Starch. Smoke picks a zit instead of answering the teacher’s question in Biology, whereupon she ruthlessly assigns him to write an essay on pimples. A few days later, when she disappears in the Black Vine Swamp during a field trip and a forest fire, suspicion falls on Smoke, whose name does refer to certain arsonist tendencies.

Of course, nothing is quite that straightforward in one of Hiaasen’s books, and thank heavens for that! When the ironically named Bunny Starch fails to reappear, Nick and Marta start trying to find out what has happened to her. They meet a strange man named Twilly who claims to be their teacher’s nephew. They wonder why Smoke has started acting like a human being. And they eventually stumble across a scam involving an oil company and an endangered puma.

While he’s at it, Carl Hiaasen casts a satirical eye on schools with his portrayal of headmaster Dr. Dressler and educational politics, not to mention the worst substitute teacher in the world; no, make that the universe. Wendell Waxmo punishes students by making them sing, but that’s nothing compared to his teaching techniques: “[O]n Mondays I always teach page 117—and only page 117—regardless of the subject matter.”

A subplot involving Nick’s father being injured while serving in Iraq is handled matter-of-factly, yet with quiet, wrenching tenderness as the boy tries to show his dad his support. Many writers would have trouble making this subplot work while keeping everything else going, but Hiaasen pulls it off.

One thing I noticed is that Scat, like Hoot and Flush, is billed as being for 9- to 12-year-olds, but I thought it was a little tougher than the other two, and not just because of the use of a few words like “dumbass.” Hiaasen is a subversive kind of guy, and it shows more here than in previous outings. Then again, Where the Wild Things Are is pretty subversive, as is just about anything Roald Dahl ever wrote. Even so, I would say Scat skews a bit older. The target audience for Hoot and Flush feels like about 10, while the target audience here seems more like 12 or 13.

Despite his famed environmental agenda, I only get the sense the author is editorializing in one spot, and at least it's when the teacher is talking, so a lecture kind of makes sense. Mostly, however, Hiassen does right by readers with "show, don't tell." Scat is a refreshingly nutty adventure that doesn’t have to resort to car crashes to achieve suspense, although there are helicopters involved, also bubble wrap, orange paint and puma poop. Just as long as you're on the side of the pumas, you're safe to enter the wild world of Carl Hiaasen!