School Ship Tobermory by Alexander McCall Smith

A fun, high seas adventure for the land lubber or middle school reader.

Ben and Fee MacTavish have led an unusual life with their marine scientist parents.  Spending time with them means travelling around in their submarine for weeks at a time.  When it is decided that they will attend boarding school, they enrol at the Tobermory, a huge sailing ship school.  Once on board, they meet students from around the world.

Within days of the start of the term a number of the students are asked to work as extras for a movie being filmed on another ship.  After a few days of filming, Ben realizes that something is not right and he becomes suspicious about the film crew.  Soon the students are caught up in an investigation that takes them far beyond their regular lessons.

This is a well told story that kept me eagerly turning pages.  Not only did I get to know an interesting group of students, but I finally learned the difference between port and starboard.  I could totally imagine enrolling in a school such as this.  It would be a dream come true.  This would be the ultimate escape from the classroom, even if the classroom came with you.

I particularly like that the students come from a wide variety of backgrounds.  Not only do they have to get along in the classroom, but their co-operation is fundamental in the proper running of the ship.  This book should have wide appeal to middle school readers.

Readers of this book might also enjoy: Max Tilt: Fire the Depths by  Peter Lerangis

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The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini

Lindiwe's neighbour, 17 year old Ian, has confessed and is convicted of killing his step-mother. After a year and a half, the conviction is quashed and he is released. Lindiwe and Ian meet up again and establish a sort of relationship. It all seems very casual and innocent, except that this is the period of Zimbabwe independence and there are tensions everywhere. Between whites and blacks, between blacks and coloureds, between army and non army.

Lindiwe is coloured and Ian is white. She is still a school girl and Ian is an ex-con. Lindiwe continues with her education at University while Ian travels to South Africa and finds himself work as a photo journalist. Years later Ian returns to Zimbabwe and bumps into her and they resume their 'friendship'.

I loved reading how these two develop their relationship. It just sort of seems to happen. A meeting and a soda, a visit to a museum, another day, a drive home from school. Other seeming random meetings.
There didn't seem to be any one moment when it went from a casual friendship with a neighbour to a 'relationship'. That matched how there were no specific rules for how the whites and coloured citizens related to each other. Each character in the story seemed to follow their own set of guidelines of how they chose to interact with each other.

Lindiwe attended a mixed school and by the time she was a University she had a very mixed assortment of friends from a number of countries. She is very secure in her interactions with them regardless of their race or career. When it comes to Ian , she is wondering if he finds the white girls and their smooth hair more attractive than her black hair. I didn't view this as a racist issue, rather of one woman comparing herself to others woman and wondering how she ranks in her lover's eyes. I enjoyed their moments of tenderness and Ian's concern for Lindiwe that was always evident. I felt that together they made a terrific pair that was much stronger than the two of them separately.

While many secrets were revealed in this book, why Ian's mother left him, what both fathers did in the military, others we were only left with clues. Rather like the country itself, it was still in the building process at that time and it had secrets that would only be reviewed in time.

For a reading guide, visit Irene Sabatini's site and click on links.

Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith

It's been almost 2 weeks since I finished reading "Morality for Beautiful Girls" and the good feeling I got from it is sticking with me. Partly from the calming influence of frequently sitting and having tea with Mma Precious Ramotswe, the owner of the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency located in Botswana, and her assistant Mma Makutsi. Myself, I prefer Twinnings Earl Grey. Mma Ramotswe likes bush tea (Rooibos) and her assistant, a good, strong black brew.

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Both ladies employ a calm, intuitive approach to the challenges in their daily life and in the work for their clients. This novel is not only about Mma Ramotswe solving cases for clients, but also about her life and community. She is engaged to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni who owns Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. He is having some sort of troubles and the two ladies step up to the challenge of helping him and straightening out his business.

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The approaches that Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi employ are unique. No cloak and dagger stuff, rather a good cup of tea with a client and a heavy dose of comon sense investigation. Both ladies are acutely aware of the Botswana culture of tribal alliances and traditional roles of men and women, using these as tools to facilitate their sleuthing.

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I loved this book, specially that they referred to each other with formal titles. I found the attitudes of both ladies very refreshing and didn't want to start another book afterwards for fear of losing that good feeling.

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I recommend that you visit Alexander McCall Smith's website and learn more about Botswana and his other books in this series. This is the third book and I was able to follow along quite well without having read the previous two, which I plan to remedy as soon as time permits.