Hail whales: on stilts!

This guest post is written by Cornelia Dawkins, a world-renowned whale book reviewer


Dear Hail Whalers,
 
     Let me just say, it's an honor to be your guest poster of the week. I have been a huge fan of this site for quite sometime (I even adopted a whale a few weeks ago - something I greatly recommend to each and every one of you!), and, while my reviews have been published everywhere from Vogue to the New York Times, nothing was as prestigious as a site like this. I am truly grateful to be writing on the very blog that I read so religiously.
    The book that I would love to bring to your attention is called Whales on Stilts by M.T. Anderson, and has won numerous awards including the ALA Notable Children’s Book Award and Child Magazine's Best Children's Book of the Year Award. Amazing, right????? The book follows twelve-year-old Lily and her two best friends, Katie and Jasper, as they try and take down an evil, evil man who is raising an army of whales on stilts to take over the world. Plot twist: this man also happens to be Lily's father! (gasp!)

Look! It's a whale, on stilts!

    I have to admit, this book is by far one of the best I've ever read (before, my favorite book was Gone with the Wind, but as soon as I saw the cover, it was love at first sight). Even the discussion questions were deep! An example of my favorite? "Who picked out this book, and may I punch him/her in the stomach for it?". This was a close second, though: "If you could literally drive any whale at all, would it be a baleen whale or a toothed whale? (Please show your work." You will laugh, cry, and laugh again as you read through all of their shenanigans (Katie even has her own fanclub because she fights so many evil creatures, and Jasper has electrical pants!) and I highly recommend it. On a scale of 1 to whale, I give this book 10 whales because it's so whalerific!

Click here for a excerpt of this fabulous book!

Cornelia Dawkins