Book Review: Olivetti

Publisher Summary

A heartfelt debut middle-grade novel told from the unique vantage points of a witty typewriter and an introverted boy—for fans of Wishtree and A Rover’s Story.

Being a typewriter is not as easy as it looks. Surrounded by books (notorious attention hogs) and recently replaced by a computer, Olivetti has been forgotten by the Brindle family—the humans he’s lived with for years. The Brindles are busy: Dad and Mom work constantly, three of their children put the extra in extra-curriculars, and Ernest, their shy twelve-year-old, goes off alone to read.

When Olivetti learns Mom has mysteriously gone missing, he believes he can help find her. He breaks the only rule of his ‘kind’ and types back to Ernest, who must face what he and his family have been running from, The Everything That Happened. Only by working together will they find the parts of themselves they’ve lost.

Bookseller Review

This bookseller devoured Olivetti in one sitting. I was in awe of the beautiful cover and whimsical summary, but this beautiful book was not at all what I have come to expect of Middle Grade Fiction; and it was magical. Millington writes the kind of hope and heartbreak and love that gets you in the corners of your heart and makes you want to laugh and cry and hug someone (or your book) all at once. Shy Ernest and opinionated Olivetti will capture your imagination and you will fall in love with the community that Millington has created. A truly enchanted tale of a boy, a typewriter, and becoming more than you thought you could be.

“A wonderful story that encourages the reader to use their imagination and solve a sweet mystery. Most importantly: the typewriter that witnesses it all; can it pull the family together?”

— Kristina Webb

Book Review: The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams

Publisher Summary

A new all-ages adventure tale from Printz Medal Winner, Daniel Nayeri!

This is the tale of an exciting journey along the Silk Road with a young Monk and his newfound guardian, Samir, a larger than life character and the so-called “Seller of Dreams.” The man is a scammer; his biggest skill being the ability to talk his way into getting what he wants. While that talking did save Monkey’s life, it has left a lot of people furious with Samir—furious enough to hire assassins. Monkey decides to try and save Samir from the attempts on his life—as a way to pay off his debt! If he can save Samir six times, he’ll be a free man...but will they all survive that long?

For fans of The Little Prince and Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

Bookseller Review

Nayeri, true to character, brings us storytelling gold in The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams.

Read it in physical copy and enjoy the fabulous illustrations.

Or, this bookseller’s personal favorite, listen to Nayeri read it and bring the tale alive with his personal storytelling flair.

Either option is a home run.

The wit and humor in The Many Assassinations of Samir, The Seller of Dreams is reminiscent of The Princess Bride. Together with delicious elements of mystery, intrigue, found family, and the wisdom of experience help make this book a winner for read-alouds or independent reading alike. All-in-all, it is one for any reader in need of a literary adventure.

Field Trips: Bring Your Class or Group to The Story Shop!

Need another way to work in some whimsy and magic into your day? Bring your class or group to experience a private story time in our magical Narnia Wardrobe!

Field Trips are offered for grades Pre-K to 6th, including a new addition for those diving into chapter books.

During a field trip, our amazing staff will read a few books, engage the students in theme-related activities, and assist in the exploration of the shop.

Need to eat your packed field trip lunches? Add on our Celebration Room for an on-site place to eat! (Maximum of 20 students.)

Simply pick a theme, choose a day, and book your trip!**

**Availability outside of our regularly scheduled Field Trip Days and accommodations for smaller or bigger groups may be worked out upon request.

We’re adding to our field trip themes to include upper elementary and early middle grades!

You can now schedule a Book Tasting Field Trip for your middle grade readers!

Geared toward 4th through 6th grades, students will have time to peruse some of the shop’s favorite chapter books.

Our Book Tasting Field Trip is a wonderful way to get students engaged in reading and familiarize them with a wide variety of genres. They will rotate through several books and fill out their book tasting “menus” in our “Story Shop Café” to take home. After “tasting” the books, students will also participate in a scavenger hunt throughout our magical store.

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Need to bring a bigger group or two classes at once? Book a Double Session! A Double Session Field Trip is double of everything that’s included in a Single Session Field Trip. While once class or group is in the Wardrobe with one Theme, the second class or group is in the Celebration Room with our Book Tasting Theme!* Since a Double Session is, in fact, two whole Field Trips, the cost is $10/child due to planning and staffing for larger group dynamics. Well worth it for the extra fun without having to leave the shop!

*The Book Tasting Theme will be adjusted based on the age of the students, of course.

Surprise Books in a Box

A Surprise Box of Books may be one of our favorite things to put together for you at The Story Shop. As booksellers, we love to recommend books; there is little like the joy of putting beloved titles into reader’s hands. A Surprise Box of Books is book recommendations par excellence.

• Choose the amount you wish to spend: $50, $75, $100, or $150

• In the notes section at the check out submission page: Tell us the age range of the child(ren) who are receiving the box

• Tell us what they like to read: themes, specific titles they’ve enjoyed, genres, etc.

• We will pull and send titles similar to those you’ve listed that we are sure the recipients will love

A Surprise Box of Books is:

• a one time purchase (though you can certainly set up a subscription if you would like)

• an easy gift, we do most of the work!

• a great surprise which equals tons of fun

Below are examples of a surprise box of books based around the theme of adventure! These examples are separated by age range: picture book, middle grade, and young adult. But you may mix and match if you want to send one box to friends, siblings, or cousins who are different ages!

Summer Reading Bundles

Summer is quickly approaching! Are you pumped for all the free time you’ll have with the kids while they’re out of school? Or are you overwhelmed by all of that unstructured time? If you are more of the latter disposition, reading is a great “time waster” with pleads for just one more chapter! Either way, reading is the perfect activity for keeping a child’s brain engaged and developing over the break. That’s great, you say, but what to read?? Our summer reading bundles are a wonderful solution!

Grab a summer reading bundle for the appropriate age or reading range for your child(ren) for hours of fun! Our carefully curated collections are available in four categories: beginning reader, early reader, middle grade, and young adult.

The Beginning Reader Bundle is for kids who are just starting to read on their own, around 4-6 years old.

The Early Reader Bundle is for kids who are reading on their own but aren’t quite ready for bigger chapter books, around 6-8 years old.

The Middle Grade Bundle is for kids who are hitting their stride in the reading game, can handle a longer narrative on their own, and are ready for more well-rounded characters, around 8-12 years old.

The Young Adult Bundle is for those who are ready for more complex stories and more nuanced themes, usually ages 12 and up.

Each Summer Reading Bundle comes with a post card for each book with fun questions that help the reader reflect on the book. Fill them out and send them in! Each post card sent in will be an entry to win ANOTHER curated reading bundle for the age range of your choice!

Order by May 15th for pick up or shipping in time for the start of summer break!

Books for Your Summer Shelf

Whether you’re looking for bookshelf beautification or a story to read while lying in the sun, these books are perfect for your summer shelf!

Beautiful Classics

This gorgeous Penguin edition of The Secret Garden. The sunny yellow and bright turquoise practically begs to be read on a float in your swimming pool or a bench in your garden.

….and their edition of The Adventures of Robin Hood. Just looking at this cover makes me feel like I’m building a fort in the woods! (Er, I mean, that my kids are? Yeah, that.)

…AND their edition of The Wind in the Willows. The cover itself will cool you off on a hot day. This whole series is full of bright, colorful classics, and we just can’t get over how beautiful they are!

One more Penguin edition for you, this time from their clothbound series: Alice in Wonderland. The crisp white and vibrant flamingos remind us of lemonade stands and lawn games!

Picture Books

(Hover over the covers for the summary!)

Run Wild by David Covell

"Hey, you! Sky's blue!" a girl shouts as she runs by the window of a boy bent over his digital device. Intrigued, the boy runs out after her, leaving his shoes (and phone) behind, and into a world of sunshine, dewey grass, and warm sand. Filled with the pleasures of being alive in the natural world, Run Wild is an exquisite and kid-friendly reminder of how wonderful life can be beyond doors and screens.

Carmela Full of Wishes by Matt de la Peña and Christian Robinson

When Carmela wakes up on her birthday, her wish has already come true–she’s finally old enough to join her big brother as he does the family errands. Together, they travel through their neighborhood, past the crowded bus stop, the fenced-off repair shop, and the panadería, until they arrive at the Laundromat, where Carmela finds a lone dandelion growing in the pavement. But before she can blow its white fluff away, her brother tells her she has to make a wish. If only she can think of just the right wish to make . . .

Ocean Meets Sky by the Fan Brothers

It’s a good day for sailing.

Finn lives by the sea and the sea lives by him. Every time he looks out his window it’s a constant reminder of the stories his grandfather told him about the place where the ocean meets the sky. Where whales and jellyfish soar and birds and castles float.

Finn’s grandfather is gone now but Finn knows the perfect way to honor him. He’ll build his own ship and sail out to find this magical place himself!

And when he arrives, maybe, just maybe, he’ll find something he didn’t know he was looking for.

Middle Readers

The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart

Five years.

That's how long Coyote and her dad, Rodeo, have lived on the road in an old school bus, criss-crossing the nation.

It's also how long ago Coyote lost her mom and two sisters in a car crash.

Coyote hasn’t been home in all that time, but when she learns that the park in her old neighborhood is being demolished—the very same park where she, her mom, and her sisters buried a treasured memory box—she devises an elaborate plan to get her dad to drive 3,600 miles back to Washington state in four days...without him realizing it.

Along the way, they'll pick up a strange crew of misfit travelers. Lester has a lady love to meet. Salvador and his mom are looking to start over. Val needs a safe place to be herself. And then there's Gladys...

Over the course of thousands of miles, Coyote will learn that going home can sometimes be the hardest journey of all...but that with friends by her side, she just might be able to turn her “once upon a time” into a “happily ever after.”

Summer of a Thousand Pies by Margaret Dilloway

When Cady Bennett is sent to live with the aunt she didn’t even know she had in the quaint mountain town of Julian, she isn’t sure what to expect. Cady isn’t used to stability, after growing up homeless in San Diego with her dad.

Now she’s staying in her mother’s old room, exploring the countryside filled with apple orchards and pie shops, making friends, and working in Aunt Shell’s own pie shop—and soon, Cady starts to feel like she belongs.

Then she finds out that Aunt Shell’s shop is failing. Saving the business and protecting the first place she’s ever really felt safe will take everything she's learned and the help of all her new friends. But are there some things even the perfect pie just can’t fix?

The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair by Amy Makechnie

Guinevere St. Clair is going to be a lawyer. She was the fastest girl in New York City. She knows everything there is to know about the brain. And now that she’s living in Crow, Iowa, she wants to ride into her first day of school on a cow named Willowdale Princess Deon Dawn.

But Gwyn isn’t in Crow, Iowa, just for royal cows. Her family has moved there, where her parents grew up, in the hopes of jogging her mother Vienna’s memory. Vienna has been suffering from memory loss since Gwyn was four. She can no longer remember anything past the age of thirteen, not even that she has two young daughters. Gwyn’s father is obsessed with finding out everything he can to help his wife, but Gwyn’s focused on problems that seem a little more within her reach. Like proving that the very strange Gaysie Cutter who lives next door is behind the disappearance of her only friend, Wilbur Truesdale.

Gwyn is sure she can crack the case, but when she does she finds that not all of her investigations lead her to the places she would have expected. In fact they might just lead her to learn about the mother she’s been doing her best to forget.

Young Adult

Seafire by Natalie C. Parker

After her family is killed by corrupt warlord Aric Athair and his bloodthirsty army of Bullets, Caledonia Styx is left to chart her own course on the dangerous and deadly seas. She captains her ship, the Mors Navis, with a crew of girls and women just like her, who have lost their families and homes because of Aric and his men. The crew has one mission: stay alive, and take down Aric’s armed and armored fleet.

But when Caledonia’s best friend and second-in-command barely survives an attack thanks to help from a Bullet looking to defect, Caledonia finds herself questioning whether to let him join their crew. Is this boy the key to taking down Aric Athair once and for all…or will he threaten everything the women of the Mors Navis have worked for?

Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older

Sierra Santiago planned an easy summer of making art and hanging out with her friends. But then a corpse crashes the first party of the season. Her stroke-ridden grandfather starts apologizing over and over. And when the murals in her neighborhood begin to weep real tears... Well, something more sinister than the usual Brooklyn ruckus is going on.

With the help of a fellow artist named Robbie, Sierra discovers shadowshaping, a thrilling magic that infuses ancestral spirits into paintings, music, and stories. But someone is killing the shadowshapers one by one — and the killer believes Sierra is hiding their greatest secret. Now she must unravel her family's past, take down the killer in the present, and save the future of shadowshaping for generations to come.

The Queen’s Rising by Rebecca Ross

Brienna desires only two things: to master her passion and to be chosen by a patron. Growing up in Valenia at the renowned Magnalia House should have prepared her. While some are born with a talent for one of the five passions—art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge—Brienna struggled to find hers until she chose knowledge. However, Brienna’s greatest fear comes true: she is left without a patron.

Months later, her life takes an unexpected turn when a disgraced lord offers her patronage. Suspicious of his intent, she reluctantly accepts. But there is much more to his story, for there is a dangerous plot to overthrow the king of Maevana—the rival kingdom of Valenia—and restore the rightful queen, and her magic, to the throne.

Chalice by Robin McKinley

As the newly appointed Chalice, Mirasol is the most important member of the Master’s Circle. It is her duty to bind the Circle, the land and its people together with their new Master. But the new Master of Willowlands is a Priest of Fire, only drawn back into the human world by the sudden death of his brother. No one knows if it is even possible for him to live amongst his people. Mirasol wants the Master to have his chance, but her only training is as a beekeeper. How can she help settle their demesne during these troubled times and bind it to a Priest of Fire, the touch of whose hand can burn human flesh to the bone?

We hope you find something new to love in our summer recommendations. And as always, happy reading!