Tag: Juvenile Fic

Aleca’s having her party at one of her favorite places- the roller-skating rink! (I was mildly annoyed that on the front cover they look like roller blades when those kids were definitely using quads in the story). She’s forced to invite all her classmates, even the kids she doesn’t like- and is particularly dreading the presence of Madison, who is mean and acting suspicious of Aleca’s secret lately. But Aleca is determined to ignore Madison and just have fun with her best friend. It’s also hard to ignore her great aunt though, who in spite of being old (by Aleca’s standards) dresses up to flaunt her skating skills. She’s actually quite impressive. Then (of course) Aleca has to freeze time to save Aunt Zephyr from a crash (and probable serious injury) on the rink, and is terrified someone might have found her out.

A new character gets introduced right near the end- a genius boy who is difficult to talk to and might have his own special ability, but it’s hard to tell if he’s even aware of it, when they can’t speak plainly. So now I have to read book three to find out more about him. I really liked the Aunt, all her zest for roller skating.  She talks about skating on the Embarcadero in San Francisco in her past, when it was closed to traffic after an earthquake, which made me grin. And when everyone cautions maybe she’s too old to risk skating anymore, she says “Instead of cowering from life, I choose to roll toward it on these small plastic wheels! And that you see, is what makes me spry!” Loved that.

Also loved how Aleca and her Aunt and later her mother, deftly thwarted Madison’s attempts to threaten and get Aleca into trouble. All by turning her words around back on herself- it was so well done.

Borrowed from the public library.

I liked this one, but it was just too short for my satisfaction (glad I had the sequel on hand already). It’s a middle-grade level book, with fairly large text and short chapters, which was great for my still-easily-taxed brain. Aleca is almost ten and feeling down because she’s not particularly skilled or talented in any one thing. Then one day at school something very strange happens- everyone around her freezes, as if time had stopped (it did). Aleca feels like she made this happen, but how? At first she uses her newfound ability to play pranks on people she doesn’t like, sleep in extra, finish homework last-minute, and (gasp) cheat on an exam. Soon regrets all (well, most) of that, especially when her eccentric great-aunt arrives for an unexpected visit. Aunt Zephyr explains what’s going on and warns her not to freeze time again, that it can have dangerous consequences. But of course Aleca is sorely tempted to do it again. Nothing bad can happen if she uses it for good, to save someone, right . . . ? Wrong!

Fun, but just when it got more interesting, the narrative stopped on kind of a cliffhanger- Aleca’s birthday party coming up, which I was particularly interested in, and she suddenly discovers maybe someone else knows about her ability (which is supposed to be kept strictly secret). So I started reading book two right away.

Borrowed from the public library.

When I was a kid I read some of the Littles books- at least the first three or four. Not far into the series though, because I don’t remember there being any other Little people families, and this mentions several. It was familiar enough to me that right away I recalled the names of the main characters- Tom and his sister Lucy, the ex-soldier Uncle Nick, the dashing pilot Cousin Dinky, etc. I have this book because when my kid was cleaning out their collection of things that they’d outgrown years ago, I kept some. A Littles book I hadn’t read.

It was plenty fun and a good read, even though I have a gap, not having read quite a few volumes that preceded this one, and having forgotten a lot of the earlier volumes too. The Littles are tiny people that live between the walls of people’s house, using things they find and collect- like a matchbox for the baby’s bed, a thimble for a bucket, etc. I always thought this was super clever and fascinating when I read the other books as a kid. This volume starts off immediately with an adventure- young Tom Little is on the roof with his Uncle Nick and Dinky. They’ve rigged up a discarded party balloon to be a hot-air balloon, but something goes wrong with their test flight- Tom and Uncle Nick end up flying away without Dinky, off-course. They go far beyond their normal range, but manage to crash land without getting injured- finding themselves on top of a hillside in a secluded area where to their surprise, there’s another family of “tinies”. These tinies wear old-fashioned clothes and speak oddly and have a different value system- men and women’s work strictly segregated, and girls in particular forbidden to do all sorts of things, expected to be demure and well-behaved. Tom befriends the daughter of the family, who is not at all demure- she’s smart and quite adventuresome (which gets her into trouble). Tom doesn’t want to upset the order of things, but also doesn’t like seeing her spirit squashed. Well, the other tiny family is welcoming and with some help they get their balloon repaired. The isolated tinies are surprised to hear news from the modern world, while they have a few things on their farm that astonish Tom and his uncle as well. When they get home, Tom and Lucy have their own little adventure exploring in the woods- there’s chipmunk encounters in dark tunnels! I loved the references to some children’s literature, and Lucy’s desire to make a secret garden and how she did that- but disappointed the story didn’t explore that any further, once she had planted some flowers it wasn’t mentioned again. Their family eventually connects with the isolated tiny farm family again, and there’s a happy ending for all.

It was sweet and fun. And of course now I’d like to read other Little books, plus The Borrowers too, which I never got into.