Skip to main content

The Nest


The Nest
by Kenneth Oppel
illustrated by Jon Klassen
Simon & Schuster, 2015. Fiction. 244 p
Steve is worried about his new baby brother.  He was born with congenital defects and is not doing well. Steve has other emotional challenges as well, and deals with a lot of anxiety.  One night he has a dream that some creatures--he thinks of them as angels--come to him and promise him that they can "fix" his baby brother. The dream recurs and after a while, Steve realizes that the creatures are actually the wasps who are building a large nest outside his home. The wasps promise just what Steve has been hoping for, but are they as friendly as they seem?

Oppel has created a chilling tale that poses complex moral and ethical questions. Would we, as a society, be willing to trade a potentially disabled children for the chance of having a physically perfect ones?  How eager would we be to correct our own physical imperfections, if given the chance, and how would that affect the people we are? By presenting these questions in a fantasy setting, Oppel makes them accessible to astute young readers.

This book has received a great deal of critical acclaim.  It is very different from anything else that came out this year and will be interesting to see if it receives any of the major children's literature awards. (244 p)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dragon Run

Dragon Run by Patrick Matthews Scholastic, 2013.  336 pgs.  Fantasy      Al Pilgrommor is excited for Testing Day, when he will receive his rank, a tattooed number on the back of his neck, and a path forward to his future occupation and life.  He feels confident because his parents were fours on a scale of seven, but he is worried for his friend Wisp who doesn't have much of a chance of scoring above a two at best. But when Al is scored a zero, he not only has no prospects, he may lose his life as the dreaded Cullers are unleashed to kill him and his family to purify the land's bloodlines.  Al's world is ruled by dragons--the lords and supposed creators of humankind--so he thinks that even if he survives, he will have to make his living as a beggar or thief. But when Al sticks up for his Earther friend in front of Magister Ludi, he is drawn into the struggle of a secret organization hoping to destroy the Cullers, and perhaps the dragons them...

Painting for Peace in Ferguson

Painting for Peace in Ferguson By Carol Swartout Klein Treehouse Publishing Group, 2015. Nonfiction. When the city of Ferguson was overrun with so much hate and despair that homes and businesses had to be boarded up to protect property, citizens of the community decided to bring a message of hope by painting the boarded windows. Klein’s rhyming text supports the photographs of the hundreds of artists and volunteers and their artwork as they bring the messages of peace, hope, love, and that by being united they can make a difference. A great book to show children how a community rallied to make a positive change and that even a small gesture can make a huge difference. A great discussion opener on how we should treat each other.

Review: The Bletchley Riddle

  The Bletchley Riddle By Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin New York: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2024. Fiction. 392 pages. It's spring of 1940, Hitler has swept through most of Europe, and people believe England will be next. Half Polish-Jewish, half American Jakob has been recruited from Cambridge to Bletchley Park where they are working on deciphering the enigma machine. Jakob's sister Lizzie, meanwhile, is being forced to move from London to Cleveland to live with her grandmother after her mother disappeared in a 1939 attack in Poland. Lizzie manages to escape the keeper her grandmother sent for her to bring her to America and makes her way to Bletchley, where she's eventually given the task of delivering messages between departments. When secret messages begin appearing with Lizzie's belongings, she must decipher them to find the truth about her mother's past and location, while keeping the secrets away from the MI5 agent that seems a little t...