REVIEW: UP IN THE AIR by Ann Marie Meyers

A new novel by Anne Marie Meyers

 

I enjoyed reading this wonderful book by a fellow author and am pleased to add my voice to the many also excited about UP IN THE AIR.   This book has all the earmarks of a classic. 

 

REVIEW:



                Melody’s “Zombie Look” works every time.  She goes cross-eyed, scrunches up her lips, sucks in her cheeks and sticks out her tongue.  Bullies and anyone getting too friendly at school instantly back away.  That is important to ten-year-old Melody because she has things to hide.  She knows she is responsible for the car accident that paralyzed her Dad.  That memory is just one of many that she stuffs into the black hole of forgetting whenever they surface.

                Melody does have a cherished dream.  Even before the accident, she has always wanted to fly.  She feels the wind swelling around her as she rides on swings or teeters on fences and knows if she can only let go, she will fly, she will be free.

                One day as she launches from the highest loop she has ever gotten on a swing, a white fog envelopes her.  Where is she?  Did she crash and land in a coma?

                Melody has entered the fantasy world of Chimeroan, a place where cherished wishes come true.  With her Guide, Sara, a teenage girl with wings, Melody explores the fantastical world full of witches, dragons, leprechauns and every other imaginable person or creature.  Melody loves her new wings, but must earn them by fulfilling tasks.  Melody has choices to make, fears to conquer, and trust to learn.   

                Writing in a beautiful voice, simple but profound, Ann Marie Meyers speaks to the heart and mind.  Middle grade readers (and adults) will recognize their own concerns and find hope and optimism that life can be beautiful in spite of troubles, choices are just choices, and forgiveness and trust are possible.

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Ann Marie Meyer

I grew up in Trinidad and Tobago and graduated from Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia with a Joint Honors Degree in French and Spanish. After leaving university, I got a job at the Trinidad and Tobago Tourist Board and later at the United Nations, New York. While at the UN I took a translation certificate course at New York University, School of Continuing Education, and went on to become a freelance translator. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I started writing and never stopped.

Though adults were my initial target audience, this changed soon after my daughter was born and ideas for children’s stories kept pouring in. Up In The Air, is my first children’s book.

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To find out more about Ann Marie check out these links: 

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AnnMarieMeyersauthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnnMarie_Meyers

Website: http://www.annmarie-meyers.com/

 

We advise all to check back on our blog this Saturday, July 6, 2013.  We get to host Ann Marie as part of her Book Blog Tour.  There will be lots of fun stuff, and you'll get to know this fine author better.  

This Saturday is also the release date for UP IN THE AIR.  Visit and wish her HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY.

 

LEHUA PARKER: ONE BOY, NO WATER

         Lehua Parker's new book, "One Boy, No Water" was released September 29, 2012.  She'll be visiting our blog next week, and you'll be able to meet this fun lady, otherwise known as "Aunty Lehua."

Review: One Boy, No Water by Lehua Parker

            Alexander Kanoakai Westin, “Zader” for short, is not your typical 11 year old boy, though his concerns are fairly ordinary.  He has a bully out to get him, an allergy that marks and isolates him from his peers, a mother whose protectiveness makes him appear ridiculous and real worries that his grades will keep him from going to an elite prep school with his adoptive “twin” brother.

            But Zader, growing up on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, is anything but ordinary.  Abandoned newly born, he was found by Kahana and his dog, ‘Ilima, lying on a hard spur of lava jutting out into the water where a huge Niuhi shark circled.  When Kahana realizes the child was born already armed with a tooth and carrying a strange birthmark on his back, he takes him to his niece, Liz.  Not only has Liz just had her own son, Jay, but Kahana is sure this newborn is ‘ohana—family—and therefore now his responsibility.

            Welcoming Zader into their hearts and home, his adoptive family soon discovers Zader’s strange allergy.  Even a drop of water causes him excruciating pain as his skin blisters into weeping sores, and then eerily heals into ashy flakes.  This is Hawaii, where it rains almost every day and life revolves around the beach.  His mom makes Zader carry an umbrella with him everywhere, which only makes him even more the butt of jokes.  Other mothers worry Zader isn’t safe for their children to be around.

            Hidden secrets also plague Zader.  He suspects Uncle Kahana knows some of them, but his uncle isn’t telling.  Every year on his birthday, someone sends Zader an expensive present.  A Dream Girl haunts his nightmares along with the mysterious man that the Dream Girl calls Kalei—a scary man with too many teeth.

            As Zader tries to help his surf crazy brother with a sudden fear of sharks, Zader works out ways to deal with his own challenges.  This first book in the Niuhi Shark Saga hints that those challenges are only beginning.

            This summary cannot hope to convey the magic of One Boy, No Water.  Like sunlight glinting off the top of an incoming wave, ready to crest, Lehua Parker’s writing shouts this is THE wave to catch, the one to ride all the way in.  With the first page, Ms. Parker plunges the reader into Zader’s world with wit, warmth, and Hawaiian Pidgin English.  Her expert unfolding of Zader and the people in his life as well as the worries and mysteries he faces, all become a lure that eventually sets the hook.

            Where can you find this wonderful book?  Released just in time for the holidays, Lehua Parker’s One Boy, No Water is available online from Barnes & Noble and Amazon, in hardback, trade paperback, or ebook, as well as anywhere books are sold.

I’m still trying to figure out how to get a signed copy for my grandkids (and me).  Ms. Parker has a book signing next week in Layton, Utah.   My sister-in-law lives nearby.  Hmm...

Catch the wave!