Fables Catch-up

I reviewed most of the Fables books already, and they're one of my favorite series I discovered in 2006, but I'm three books behind in the series!

First up is Fables: Arabian Nights (and Days) - Volume 7. In this tale, the Arabian Fairy Tale contingent (led by none other than Sinbad!) arrives in Fabletown, seeking asylum. Mowgli, as emissary, has laid a complex groundwork to minimize culture clashes between the Americanized European Fables and the Arabian Fables. But! Now that King Cole is no longer mayor and Charming is, a lot of things have fallen through the cracks-- including all of Mowgli's plans. And Mowgli's not there to pick up the pieces, because he's off searching for Bigby. What's to happen when the Fables find out that their new guests have brought a Djinn? Will Fabletown survive?

This collection also includes a one-off story called "The Ballad of Rodney and June" (which makes me sing "Ballad of Bobby and June" off the A Mighty Wind soundtrack) this is the ill-fated love affair between a member of the Adversary's army and his medic. I'm not a big fan of the one-off stories because I these collection are short enough as it is-- I want PLOT! But that's just me being whiny. They're well written, but it's frustrating because this whole series is so good, and just keeps getting better and you want to know what happens next and you still have a bunch of pages to go, but! ack! Side plot!

The next volume is the amazing and superb Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall. Framed in as Snow White going to the Arabian Lands to plea for help in the early days of Fabletown. Not used to negotiating with a mere woman, Snow ends up in the Scherazade-like position of telling a story every night to save her head.

What Snow ends up telling are the back stories of our favorite characters-- where Snow gets her strength, how Frau Totenkinder survived Hansel and Gretl, how the Frog Prince escaped without his family, and why Bigby is so cranky and how he first met Snow. These stories allow us a much deeper glimpse into these characters and why they act the way they do once in Fabletown. More exciting than the back story though, is the beautiful renderings of each story by a different artist. I really love the different spin Tara McPherson puts on Snow and Red, but the story of Flycatcher broke my heart. These are the classic fairy tales as only Willingham could tell them-- dark, violent, and rarely with a happy ending. Most excellent and my favorite of the series by far.

Most recently we've gotten Fables Vol. 8: Wolves. I don't want to give too much away, but Mowgli finds Bigby! And there are issues! And it's awesome! We also get a fun short story of Cinderella as Secret Agent. Yes, I know just a few paragraphs ago I was whiny about side plots, BUT! I like them better when they involve characters that are already part of the series.

AND! Coming at the end of the month is... Jack of Fables. I can't wait! (Can you?)

Contemporary Chinese Suprises

So... I will admit I was always a bit skeptical when Amazon recommended Peter Hessler's River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze. I'm not a big fan of "I went to China for a year and now I'm an expert!" books. Because I studied abroad in China and you know what I found out? That there is a loooooooooooooooooooooooong and complicated history at play that is really hard for lao wai to understand, or at least understand well enough to write a book I want to read.

So, imagine my surprise when I picked up (and fell in love with) his second book, Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present.

Hessler doesn't make sweeping generalizations about China, it's culture or it's people. He doesn't pretend to be an expert. He just tells his story as a freelance reporter based in Beijing and the stories of his Chinese friends as they grapple with a society that is changing faster that most people comprehend.

His observations are poignant and funny and spot on. His prose is engaging and entertaining. Issues are explained will enough to make this a great book for someone with a passing interest in contemporary China, but covered in-depth enough for those with a more scholarly pursuit of information. His explanations and stories of the Shenzhen boom town phenomenon really put something like Candy into context and perspective.

Most importantly, Hessler's up front about his limitations and what he can and cannot know or do, which makes this book one of the most enlightening, and trust worthy, of them all.

After reading Oracle Bones, I immediately bought a copy of River Town, which is waiting patiently for me to read it.

Rachel Cohn is my HERO

Ok, so this past year I discovered Rachel Cohn and I am in love. True love.

First off, she wrote Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist with David Levithan, and y'all know I'm also in love with him.

So... this is a fun book chronicling the madcap adventures of one night told in alternating points of view. Levithan wrote Nick's chapters and Cohn wrote Norah's. Nick is the only straight member of a queercore band, and sees his fairly recent ex-girlfriend come into a show he's playing with a different guy. In order to pretend it doesn't bother him, he asks Norah to be his girlfriend for 5 minutes.

Norah needs to get her drunk best friend back to New Jersey and figures Nick's good for a ride. She also sees an ex she wouldn't mind pissing off. So she kisses him. And so begins a night of falling in and out of love and running around New York City.

Unshelved also did a great book talk of this.

It's sweet and fun. Cohn and Levithan's writing styles work amazingly well together-- it's hard to tell that the author keeps changing. The characters are fun and although many of them aren't very fleshed out, instead of seeming flat, they appear to be like everyone else you randomly meet one night as you follow Nick and Norah on their non-date. I liked it a lot.

But, I liked Gingerbread even more (and it's one of my top picks for 2006).

I know she would probably hate me when she met me, but I really feel like Cyd Charisse and I could be best friends. I want to be her best friend. (No offense to my current friends-- you'd like her too! Promise! We could all hang out and drink coffee and eat cupcakes!)

So, Cyd just got kicked out of her posh east coast boarding school and sent back to San Fransisco to live with Nancy (her mother) and Sid-dad (her step-father). Storming around the house and generally causing trouble, it's a tense situation. The only things that liven it up are her surfer boyfriend Shrimp, her old lady pal Suger Pie, and Shrimp's brother's coffee house Java the Hut. But then she gets confined to her house for bad behavor and Shrimp thinks they need to go on a break.

Cyd finally goes to New York City to be with her biological father, Frank-dad, and to meet the half-siblings she's never known, Danny and lisBETH.

The beauty of this book is Cyd-- her outlook on life and how she views the people in it. She's cynical and hilariously funny and really, I think she would hate me, but I want to be her best friend. This is a book I couldn't put down and I had already picked up the sequel before I had even finished the first book-- I knew I would want to read it.

Which brings up to... Shrimp Cyd's back in San Fransisco and she and Shrimp have some... issues to work out-- like Cyd's crush on his older brother. But Nancy and Shrimp are starting to get along? Maybe? And Shrimp's parents are back in town, at least for a bit. The best part is that Cyd finally makes some female friends! Helen and Autumn (who Shrimp may or may not have had some fling with while Cyd was in New York) are welcome additions to the cast of characters and...

Lack of Helen was the main flaw in Cupcake which finds Cyd living in New York with her brother Danny. I also really missed her little brother and sister as well as Sid-Dad. The new characters of Mold and Max are great and this book will make you crave cupcakes like NO ONE'S business. I had to make a special batch just to meet my cravings. (FYI-- devils food cupcakes with mocha buttercream frosting? Both from How To Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food? Simply divine!)

Cohn's other YA novel is Pop Princess. This tells the story of the rise of a pop star one summer and how she deals with the fame and the death of her sister and the strain that caused on her family. This wasn't nearly as good as Gingerbread et al. but was fun. The ending was totally predictable but one I was rooting for anyway.

Cohn also has two books for slightly younger readers. In The Steps Annabel is off to Sydney, Australia. This was not her idea and doesn't sound like fun--she had a perfectly lovely winter break planned in New York, thank you very much. But Annabel's dad has remarried and lives in Australia now with his new wife, two kids from her first marriage, and their new baby. Annabel's mission? To bring her dad back to the US where he belongs. With her. Of course, it doesn't end that way and we have several heart-warming moments about the meaning of family. On the cover of the edition I read, there was a very helpful family tree because there are a lot of crazy relationships!

Two Steps Forward finds everyone in LA for the summer where it turns out that maybe we didn't learn all the necessary lessons last time around. This one's different because every chapter is told from a different point of view, instead of Annabel's not-always-reliable vantage point. I think I liked this one better than the first one.

The Right to Arm Bears

The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime Jasper Fforde

This is the second Nursery Crime book, the first being the hysterical The Big Over Easy. Jack Spratt and Mary Mary are back, this time investigating the suspicious death of Goldilocks on the grounds of SommeWorld, the new amusement park whose opening is beset with problems.

It looks like Goldilocks (an investigative journalist) was hot on a story of oatmeal quotas and bear rights. (And, of course, the debate over the right to arm bears.) The three bears were the last to see her alive-- which one did it? Or was there a fourth bear?

All the while, the psychotic Gingerbread Man has escaped from the hospital he was being held prisoner in, Punch and Judy have moved in next store, and cucumbers keep exploding...

Hilarious and filled with bad puns and nursery rhyme characters in adult situations. I love Fforde, and this is a shining example of why!

Award Season

My Kiki Strike t-shirt as arrived! I also won a Looking Glass Wars shirt at our Mock Caldecott a few weeks ago. Pictures will come soon.

So... if you didn't know, the ALA announced their Youth Media awards on Monday. That includes such things as the Caldecott, Newberry and Printz, among others! Check out the full list of winners here.

Anyway, some of ALA's favorites were my favorites, too!

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

A graphic novel won the Printz! This is a beautifully told (and drawn) story. It starts out with the tale of Monkey and his adventures (because who doesn't love Monkey?) We then see the story of the author, trying to fit in at a new school where he is the only Chinese kid. Eventually, another Chinese kid transfers to the school and, after a rough period, they become friends. Then we get the story of Danny, an althete and cool high schooler, who looks white until his cousin Chinkee (every awful Chinese stereotype you've ever seen) comes to visit and blows his facade away. The book flips between these tales until they come together at the end. Funny and moving, I highly recommend.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

This is one of my favorite books of last year and a Printz honor book. Death narrates this tale of a small girl in Munich in WWII. Death is serious, and funny, and really sick of war. He's not a big fan of humans, and usually doesn't notice them, but he notices Liesel.

Liesel is sent to Munich as a foster child. She knows her mother is giving her up for reasons that have something to do with Hitler and that her dad was a Communist. In Munich, she makes unlikely friends and learns to read from a stolen book. There is power in stealing books. There is power in reading.

This book is beautiful and deep and stirring. I will warn you that I cried so hard at the end that I woke up Dan who was sound asleep.

Best Of!

This is more of a housekeeping post.

First off, somehow I totally left A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage off of my tops favs for 2006 list. I've gone back and added it in.

Anyway, so, the following favorites of last year have already been talked about by me (link goes to review):

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller
Lamb: The Gospel According the Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan
Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa
Casson Family books by Hilary McKay
Fables series by Bill Willingham
Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow by Faiza Gruene
Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen
Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore

In Children's (excluding the ones mentioned above):

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Lady Grace Mysteries by Grace Cavendish
City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley
Chasing Vermeer and The Wright 3 by Blue Balliet
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster
Regarding the Sink: Where, Oh Where, Did the Waters Go? by Kate Klise
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord
Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan

In YA (excluding the ones mentioned above):

Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty (along with Second Helpings and Charmed Thirds)
Startled by His Furry Shorts by Louise Rennison
King Dork by Frank Portman
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

Which means I have 8 to review. Stay tuned!

Mates, Dates and other things...

Now Reading: Mao's Last Revolution Roderick Macfarquhar and Michael Schoenhals
So Far from the Bamboo Grove Yoko Kawashawa Watkins
The Girl Sleuth Bobbie Ann Mason

Ok, so, I didn't update the first week, so last week I was supposed to review 10 books. I did 4, so this week, I'm aiming for 11. Got your seatbelts on?

Right now, I'm going to talk about Cathy Hopkin's series Mates, Dates, and.... I've already discussed the first one, Mates, Dates, and Inflatable Bras.

Overall, the series isn't funny (it has its moments, but humour isn't the object), but is too light to actually carry a more serious tone. It can get really preachy, and in its preachyness, especially when talking about drugs, the information is just plain wrong. That said, I did find this series oddly compelling and have read all of them now and enjoyed them. I'm sad that Cathy Hopkins has stopped writing this series, but I didn't enjoy it enough to pick up her new series, Truth or Dare.

I think the main reason I liked this series is that Hopkins does do teenage girls well. The books alternate first person point of view and although sometimes her main characters read like she brainstormed five adjectives to describe them and then stopped, I do like them and did get attached. My favorite part was the fact that these girls are the worst friends you find in literature. These friendships are REAL. They fight over stupid stuff. They make up in silly ways. They accidentally piss each other off ALL THE TIME. It's so real! And the angst levels tend to be spot on.

So... here's a quick recap of the books:

Mates, Dates, and Cosmic Kisses This is Izzie's story about trying to find a boy. She meets Mark in the shops at Camden. He's lovely and she's smitten but he doesn't call when he says he will! (Oh my god! He's a real boy!) And Izzie's always trying randomly run into him and generally making a painful fool of herself in the way only a smitten 14-year-old can. All the while, ignoring the perfectly lovely Ben who is obviously a better match. Predictable and sweet.

Mates, Dates, and Designer Divas is Nesta's book. She falls in deep smit with Simon, who is definetely upper crust. Nesta's used to being the "rich" one amongst her set, but Simon's world is one of riding and designer duds. Mainly, his sister's friend is a straight up racist bee-otch and Nesta's having a major crisis of self-esteem. And Izzie's singing with Ben's band, which is pretty neat-o. Nesta also gets wasted, which is funny. But this is wear the first "translation" issues really become apparent. As you are probably aware, in England, a public school is what Americans would refer to as a private school. In dealing with Richie Rich and his gang, Nesta says she also goes to a public school because, as she later tells the girls, the public is allowed at their school. HA HA HA HA. At least, I think that's what she said, because they translated the public school to a private school to make sense to American audiences, making the next few lines of the book make absolutely NO sense.

Mates, Dates, and Sleepover Secrets This introduces the new character of TJ, whose best friend just moved away to South Africa. The girls decide to "adopt" her and she's makes the trio a quartet. TJ's big problem is that she's a bit of a tomboy and all her guy mates think of her as just that, a mate. She's crushing on the boy next store, all the while not realizing that Lucy's brother is crushing on her, big time. Lots of preachiness about being true to yourself.

Mates, Dates, and Sole Survivors Is back to Lucy's point of view. Lucy's bummed out, because she and Tony are back off-again and everyone else has a boyfriend. Lucy goes off on a self-discovery weekend with her dad and meets a lovely boy named Daniel. He's also into fashion and designs his own stuff. Then he turns really possesive and keeps trying to change Lucy. And I thought Mates, Dates, and Sleepover Secrets was heavy on the be-true-to-yourself theme. Also preachy on the don't-let-boys-rule-your-life theme.

Mates, Dates, and Mad Mistakes Izzie's sick of being treated like a little girl and takes on a whole new image, much to her mother's chagrin. She dumps Ben and starts dating this scally she thinks she can reform. She drinks. The boy smokes weed. This book irked me the most because it was the preachiest, and at the end, when Izzie has her little learning moment, she's talking about what she's learned about drugs and a lot of her information is just plain wrong.

Mates, Dates, and Sequin Smiles Nesta has to get braces! I liked this one, because not only is Nesta all freaked out about her braces (which are A LOT less common in England than in the US) but she meets this hotttt guy in her acting class, Luke. As soon as her dad sees Luke though, he forbids Nesta to ever see him again, and won't give her a reason. The books not nearly as preachy as Mates, Dates, and Mad Mistakes and the plot was less predictable than usual, and a little more oddball.

Mates, Dates, and Tempting Trouble Luke's a dawg! And cheating on Nesta! With TJ! And it's on! Lucy sides with Nesta (especially when TJ dumps Lucy's brother OVER EMAIL) and Izzie's on TJ's side. Friends before boys, girls, friends before boys. Obviously it gets worked out, because there are more books in the series, but OH! THE DRAMA!

Mates, Dates, and Great Escapes We're back to Lucy's POV and everyone's going on the school holiday to Italy except for her, because her family doesn't have a lot of extra money for such things. But then some extra money comes into the picture and she gets to go too! And just in the nick of time, because she and Tony are definetely OFF. And Lucy meets a hott American and maybe things will get better? This one's not preachy and fun, because it's the girls running around in Italy. Also, I really like how Lucy can finally afford to go on the trip.

Mates, Dates, and Chocolate Cheats We're back to Izzie and back to super-preachy. Izzie's got curves, and as all curvy girls know, there's a fine line between curvy and fat and we often think we're on the fat side of that line when we're not. It's the problem of being curvy. So, Izzie thinks she's fat and is trying to lose weight and doing all the stupid things girls do to lose weight short of developing an eating disorder. At the same time, the girls are trying to be on a pilot for a TV show called "Teen Talk" or somesuch. And Izzie falls in love with someone who is so obviously gay, it's hilarious. But in the end, we all learn the lesson that not only is Izzie NOT fat, but even if she were, it's what's on the inside that counts and you can't lose weight overnight (sadly). Oh, and you can't date a gay guy.

Mates, Dates, and Diamond Destiny Once again, the girls are ripping on Nesta for being shallow, but Nesta's PMSing and takes it really seriously. Plus, there's a guy collecting at the coffee shop who was one of Luke's friends. Nesta gets involved with charity work to prove she's not shallow but she keeps running into William. She DOES NOT like him, so why are the girls giving her such a hard time? And even if she did like him, how would she be able to trust a friend of Luke's? A bit preachy on the charity-work angle, especailly when cancer-girl makes an appearence, but fun. Especially when they smack down the smug girls.

Mates, Dates, and Sizzling Summers This is the last book in the series. For some reason, TJ is still totally in love with Luke, the asshat who cheated on her best friend. WTF? This whole angle is something I never understood and Hopkins couldn't make me. Actually, she didn't really try to explain why she still liked him. But TJ is dating the dreamy Ollie Axeford, who's a bit of a player, but, to his credit, is always straight up honest about it and doesn't lie to her. TJ's dad has a stroke and the family goes down to... Devon? Cornwall? I can't remember. Anyway, there she meets up with some of the Truth or Dare characters in a really obvious attempt to bring readers over to her new series. The ending really dissapointed me, because it seemed really out-of-character for TJ and it ended the series on an off note.

Those Bad Chinese Girls

Now reading: Mao's Last Revolution by Roderick MacFarguhar and Michael Schoenhals
From Cover to Cover: Evaluating and Reviewing Children's Books Kathleen T. Horning

For those of you who don't know, I'm a bit of a Sinophile. I have a concentration in Chinese Studies and actually almost double majored in Chinese, except that... I studied abroad in China and therefore couldn't. (It had to do with how many credits were taken on campus vs. elsewhere.)

So, I was intrigued by this new generation of Chinese female writers and, overall, was disappointed. These new girls are no Ding Ling or Eileen Zhang, sadly. Most of their "critical acclaim" stems from the "China banned it! It must be good!" mindset. My main complaint with all four of these books is that their authors think they're the deepest, most insightful people on the planet when really, they're shallow and self-obsessed. (Not that I dislike shallow and self-obsessed, take my love of Bridget Jones.) Also, I tend to blame the author for things the protagonist narrator does. All these works are highly autobiographical, so forgive me.

So, first up was Chun Sue's Beijing Doll. I was excited about this because it was translated by Howard Goldblatt, who translates Mo Yan. I would go to Notre Dame in a heartbeat to study under Goldblatt.

Sadly, Chun Sue is no Mo Yan. She is a spoiled middle school student who'd rather drop out of school to screw random college guys than much else. She claims to be a great rock and roll expert but can't tell the difference between punk and grunge. (Seriously? You can't hear the difference between the Sex Pistols and Nirvana? Really?) Basically, this book was written when she was in her late teens, and it painfully shows. I think Chun Sue will look back on this book in five years and cringe. It also has this odd quality I can't define that really reminds me of Miss Sophie's Diary. That also really irked me about the author/protagonist's attitude-- she claims she's all rebellious and the only person to do these wild and crazy things but OH WAIT! Ding Ling was writing essentially this same story (but an oh so much better one) 80 years ago! She does however, have the most excellent line, "How can you get mad at an asshole for being an asshole?" (p93)

Next up is Mian Mian's Candy. Although Mian Mian and her narrator are older than Chun Sue, it maintains the same quality of "I'm so original and I'm so deep" when really being neither. Mian Mian's narrator, however, does have actual problems of poverty and drug use as she bounces between the southern boomtown of Shenzhen and Shanghai. Her descriptions of the characters she meets in Shenzhen are crazy. This character, unlike the others, is not a spoiled child thinking she lives some other life. The narrator is gritty, and her problems are gritty and harsh and there's prostitutes and drugs and gangs and robbery. My biggest complaint with Candy is the unevenness of the writing. Parts of it are really well done and when she wasn't pontificating on the deeper meaning of life, I really enjoyed it. And parts are poorly written and don't make sense. One of deeper thoughts that did make sense and didn't sound like stuff your average angst-ridden late-teen would write was "We'd grown up on movies from the Soviet Union and North Korea, but now we listened to music from England and sat in our kitchens eating instant noodles, wondering if we had AIDS." (p230)

And one of the more poignant sections, "If you knew my friend Apple, please listen to some Chopin. If you liked him, please don't use a candle to light a cigarette ever again. If you loved him, please leave the door open when you bathe, and let in some fresh air... Apple, we didn't wear black armbands, because wearing black armbands is too conventional and you're like us to look pretty." (pp255-258)

And now we're onto Wei Hui and her Shanghai Baby and Marrying Buddha. Wei Hui is Shanghai-ese spoiled spoiled spoiled who can think of nothing better to do, so she decides to become a writer, and because she's a writer, she must be tortured! Oh! It's so hard being her! It's so hard living the life of luxury and not having to care! Don't you feel sorry for her? Because she wants you to.

Also, Wei Hui is the most pretentious of the crop. And her writing, ugh. "A team of Japanese boys on roller skates looked like mounted butterflies as they showed off their techniques... their dyed hair like feather dusters." (p89). Tortured similes litter every page. Also, the translator did some weird things, such as " 'You're looking piaoliang [cute],' I said." (p90). I mean, piaoliang isn't some weird word that doesn't fully translate into English. She could have just said "You're looking cute". Also, from the context (more than I've provided here), we don't really need piaoliang defined--it was fairly obvious what it meant. So, why? She incessantly name drops to make herself sound smart and educated, but it doesn't work because she's really neither (at least, by Western standards, maybe by Chinese standards, I don't know.) Also! Check out the horribleness of this next paragraph, not only in style and but also sheer ignorance (which was not meant ironically!), "At the airport Flying Apple and I kissed a hasty goodbye that left my lips wet. Many gay or bisexual men have a special, fuzzy sort of tenderness that one finds in small animals, but I'm always aware of the AIDS risk. As Alanis Morissette put it, 'I'm sick but I'm pretty, baby'."

Marrying Buddha is better. I couldn't not read it, Shanghai Baby was so bad, it's like car crash reading-- I couldn't turn away. My main complaint with Marrying Buddha is the lack of copy editor. It's a sequel to the first, as Coco is on book tour for Shanghai Baby. It flips back and forth between her life in New York, and the story of her relationship with a new boyfriend and her life in China as she tries to put her life back together after they've broken up. Wei Hui still thinks she's deep-- "For I have seen almost everything there is to see of human illusion. I have glimpsed what lies beyond the lavender haze. I have witnessed the slow dissolution of life in all its guises and illusions and watched it fade." (p.17) but it's not as bad as her first book.

Really, my most serious complaint is lack of copy editor-- in addition to typos and misspellings, there are some fairly serious errors-- every chapter opens with some quotations. In one, she is quoting Sex and the City by Candace Bushnell, but it gets attributed to Candace Bergen instead. Also, her boyfriend, Muju, is referred to as Muji for about half a page. Then on p. 209 she says "That evening when I got home I turned on all the lights in the house, put on a CD by the Latin jazz great Gilberto Bebel called Tanto Teimpo..." now, I know the CD she's referring to, and it's great you should all get it, except it's by Bebel Gilberto and is called Tanto Tempo. Also, I'm not sure I'd call her a Latin jazz great, as she's Brazilian, and I kinda think of Latin music as being in Spanish, not Portuguese, and this is her debut CD and was released in 2000. But it IS a great CD, as is all of her other stuff, and there's a new album coming out this year and I can't wait!

The other weird thing about Marrying Buddha (to get back on track) is that no where in the book is a translator credited. When I read this, I thought that it might have been written in English, at which case Wei Hui gets a lot of credit for writing a better book, but in a brand new language. However, when I googled it, I did find this site, which states that Larissa Heinrich, of the University of New South Wales, translated it into English. This is the only mention I've been able to find of a translator. I am horrified that Heinrich could go through all that work and not recieve any credit whatsoever.

Hmmmm... Flickr and Blogger aren't playing nice rightnow... stay tuned for book covers!

Best of 2006

Well, here are the tallies and the results of last year! Please not that my "Best of 2006" is of books I read last year, not just books that came out last year.

In 2006, I read 221 books (this only counts books that were at least 100 pages unless it was just shy of 100, but was thick content).

84 were Juvenile, 87 were Young Adult, 50 were Adult.
I owned 19.
17 were banned.
17 were nonfiction.
61 were required reading for work. 44 were also read for work, but I didn't have to read them.
6 were books I was rereading.
12 were off of Anita Silvey's list of 100 best children's books. 3 were classics.

Books that I wanted to shout off rooftops about when done reading (aka, my top picks for 2006):

Suite Française by Irene Nemirovsky
As Simple as Snow by Gregory Galloway
Kiki Strike Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime by Jasper Fforde
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christoper Moore
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage

Honorable mentions: Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan, Cracking India: A Novel by Bapsi Sidhwa, Casson Family Books by Hilary McKay(Saffy's Angel, Indigo's Star, Permanent Rose, Caddy Ever After), Fables by Bill Willingham (Book 1 is Legends in Exile) American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow by Faiza Gruene, Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present by Peter Hessler, Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen, Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn, The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale, A Dirty Job: A Novel by Christopher Moore

Best Children's Books:

Obviously, Kiki Strike and the Casson Family as they made best overall.

Top Picks:
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Lady Grace Mysteries Grace Cavendish (actually Patricia Finney, Jan Burchett and Sara Vogler)
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley
Chasing Vermeer / The Wright 3 by Blue Balliet

Honorable Mentions: Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, Regarding the Sink: Where, Oh Where, Did Waters Go? by Kate Klise, In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord, Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan , The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

Best YA: Obviously, Boy Meets Boy, American Born Chinese, Kipling's Choice, Gingerbread, As Simple as Snow, Book Thief

Other Picks:
Sloppy Firsts: A Novel by Megan McCafferty (and sequels)
Startled by His Furry Shorts by Louise Rennison
King Dork by Frank Portman
13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier

Favorite Discoveries:
David Levithan
Shannon Hale
Christopher Moore

Already it's January 5th, and I haven't blogged about 5 books yet this week. Does the review I have in draft count? No? Ah well, I guess I'll aim for 10 next week. We'll see if that actually happens, but I do need to talk about those books I put on my best list that I haven't talked about yet!

Eep! and Ghetto-Living

Kirsten Miller (aka the author of the most awesome Kiki Strike commented yesterday, but left no way to get in touch... so Kirsten, if you're reading this, I'm an adult medium. I'm also going to see if I can email you via Bloomsbury.

I'm trying to catch up on reviews. I'm seriously about 85 books behind. One of my new year's resolutions last year was "Be a Better Blogger". I think I was but this next year, it's going to be "Review at least 5 books a week or stay current with reading". So y'all have that to look forward to. Marie's been complaining about my lack of reviews and therefore her lack of new books to look for.

So... here are two tales of ghetto life, one of which is awesome, and one of which is not so much.

I read Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrowby Faiza Guene based on this post at Lotus Reads. In this deceptively easy read, Doria is a French teenager of Moroccan descent living in Paradise Gardens-- a Parisian suburban ghetto. Sick of school, sick of the stream of social workers coming to the house, sick of her gossip-y neighbors, Doria's main outlook on life is "kif kif tomorrow" which she translates as "same old shit tomorrow". The chapters are short, the style is as if a 15-year-old girl were just talking at you and it works really well. If you don't want to , you won't notice the stark and dismal portrait of life for Arab immigrants to France. But this is still a great book, not only for the protrayal of Parisian ghetto life, but also because it's a remarkable story of Doria's coming-of-age and can be enjoyed on many levels. I highly recommend.

Tyrell, by Coe Booth, doesn't work nearly as well. This is also written in the voice of a teenager living in the projects of the Bronx. Except that his mom gets evicted and they (along with his younger brother) need to navigate the city's homeless system. Tyrell's dream is to get back into the projects. Booth grew up and lives in the Bronx and was a social worker there for a long time. I don't doubt the book's voice, or the authenticity of the story. What rankles me is the over reliance on stereotypes, the flatness of many of the characters, and a distrubingly misogynistic tone. There was not 1 decent woman in the whole book. Not 1!

Tomorrow, I leave for Christmas down Texas way. I'm already thinking about what books to bring. I plan on catching up on lots of reading. Lots of books!

Books I Missed the First Time Around

Man, am I ever behind in my blogging duties. I was going to put together my Best of 2006 list, but I haven't talked about half the books on the list yet. Ah well.

None of these will be on the list, but it's what I feel like talking about right now.

Anyway... so this summer I finally read Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry and The Agony of Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. Both are the first books in extremely popular series that I never read when I was the target audience, but wish I had. Interestingly enough, I liked Alice a lot more than Anastasia, but when I was a kid, it would have been the other way around.

Quick summaries:

Anastasia hates her name, her fourth grade teacher, liver, and pumpkin pie. She loves making lists, writing poetry, her wart, and her goldfish. When her parents announce she's going to have a little brother, she adds her parents and babies to the list of things she hates. Over the school year, both lists change as items are added and deleted in this funny and moving book.

Alice is about to start sixth grade at a new school in Silver Spring. ALl she really wants is to be on safety patrol, but they were all chosen the year before. Instead of being placed in Miss Cole's class (who will sometimes drive you home in her sports car) or Mr. Weber's class (who takes everyone on a camping trip in the spring), she has Mrs. Plotkin, who is boring and old. If she only had a mother, Alice would have help navigating her transition into being a teenager, but, left on her own, is she really just going backwards and not growing up at all?

I also read Starting with Alice, which is the first of 3 prequels to the Alice series.

Both Alice and Anastasia are accurate and touching portrayals of the 10-13 years, which are not fun. I think I liked Alice better now because Naylor picks up on a lot of the mishaps that I can now look back on and laugh about. Lowry picks up on those feelings that still hurt.

Also, remember that show on PBS that you got to watch in reading class where this woman would read a story or a chapter while the guy drew illustrations? Once, she read this story about a girl whose brother takes her jeans shopping and she walks in on a guy in blue underwear in the dressing rooms. I always wanted to know what the story is and wanted to read it. I remembered it the first time I ever fell into the Gap. I was very excited when I was reading The Agony of Alice and THERE IT WAS! And then I was very annoyed because she was buying Levis. At the Gap. The Gap only sells Gap brand!

I'm Back!

Didja miss me? I'm jetlagged and have a ton of stuff to do for school in the next few weeks, so I might be hit or miss... but here's some book related vacay pics.

The Book Bazaar in Istanbul (located by the Grand Bazaar). Lots of art, lots of books. Cooler if you read Turkish.

The Austrian National Library in part of the expansive Hofburg Palace. (Talk about Shock and Awe!)

Vacay!

Pooh. After Alyson Noel commented here, on my own little blog, the day after I reviewed her Art Geeks and Prom Queens, I've had a slightly over infated sense of self. And as such, I was really hoping that Bloomsbury read my plea for an "I am Kiki Strike" T-Shirt and they would have contacted me by now. *sigh*

In other, better news, tomorrow night I am leaving and am spending the next week in fantabulous (at least, I hope it will be) Istanbul (not Constantinople). (Yes, we are spending Turkey day IN TURKEY. HA!) I have been saving all 1024 pages of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell for this trip, but I'm starting to think that will all that airplane time, it will not be enough. So... what else to take? Do I take the reading I have to do, knowing I will burn through it? Or take some of the big, thick inviting tomes that have been waiting patiently for me, such as Big Breasts & Wide Hips? How much suitcase room can I devote to books anyway? Who needs underwear? I'm well read.

Last night I finishedThe Truth about Forever and it was perfectly fine. To put it in Macy's words, it was fine. Just fine.

And becaue of that, it was so dissapointing because the whole time it was perched on the edge of earth-shattering greatness... and it just never got there.

Macy's dad died a year and a half ago and she and her mother have never fully grieved. Her perfect boyfriend is spending the summer at Brain Camp and dumps her over email. (Wait, they're on a break.) Her co-workers at the library and bitchy and hate her. Then she starts hanging out with the Wish Catering crew and working for them after work and everything starts to change...

Well written, it stayed safe and predictable and it was really good, but so close to being so much better and just lacking that je ne said quoi that in the end, I can muster now more than a "meh".

Girl Superspy

Kiki Strike Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller

It's a little difficult to fully explain this book, but basically...

Take a group of renegade girlscouts dressed as ninjas, an exiled Eastern European princess, some opium dens and theives liars, a horde of old, an entire city located underneath New York City's subways, and millions of murderous rats. Holding it all together is the very mysterious, and possibly dangerous, Kiki Strike. But who is this Kiki Strike? Is she a Defender of the Innocent? Or an International Assassin? Or possibly a Kung-Fu movie star?

This is an exciting and, well, just plain awesome adventure that features a group of girls kicking ass and taking names. Most wonderful. My favorite is the end of each chapter, which offers helpful hints on such things as how to best follow someone, how to lie, how to spot a fake diamond, how to disguise yourself and how to escape from kidnappers. I can't tell if this is going to be a series or not, but I certainly hope so.

Also, I need an "I am Kiki Strike" t-shirt. I know that Bloomsbury gave a few out, and if anyone's reading this, I WANT ONE!

Be sure to check out the website as well! There's a quiz to decide which irregular you are AND you can download a buddy icon. (Even though I'm a Ananka, Oona was my favorite and she just replaced Colin Firth as my buddy icon. If you don't know me, replacing Colin Firth is REALLY BIG DEAL.) Also, Ananka's blog with her continuing adventures is great. I want to go to Paris now!

War is Hell

FYI, Flickr and Blogger aren't playing nice at the moment, so book covers should come later...

Before I get to the reviews, FYI, the new Georgia Nicholson book, Love Is a Many Trousered Thing, is slated to come out in May and available for pre-order now on Amazon. Woot!

Also, dear, dear Amazon. I have told you how much I am in lurve with Jasper Fforde , why then, did you fail to tell me back in August that he had a NEW Nursery Crime book out, The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime. I depend on you for such details!!!! And I didn't know! And I feel sad. Well, I was sad that you had betrayed my heart in such a way, but then I got a copy at the library (which was easy to do, given that, you know, I work there.)

Anyway, y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.

First off, this August, my plan was to read Barbara Tuchmann's Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Guns of August, about the first month of WWI. Well, I started it in August but with all the other reading I've had to do for work and school, I didn't get to actually finish it until Saturday. Given that Saturday was Armistice Day, I find it appropriate. This book has been critically acclaimed a million times and I don't have much to add. It was well worth the read and an immensely fascinating look at how paranoid the Kaiser seemed and how steadfastly those in charge committed to a plan and refused to be swayed, despite the consequences.

Interestingly enough, when outlining the causes of war, the assasination of Archduke Ferdinand barely garned a sentence. To be fair, when outlining the scope of the book, Tuchmann states that she wasn't going to touch the Balkan question, as to address it fairly would be a whole book in and of itself.

This book was obviously written in a time when the average reader had a more extensive knowledge of European History. Now, I'm fairly well trained in history, but I've only had two college classes in European history (one was focused soley on England and the other was just general Europe) and I was constantly looking things up. (For instance, there were all these references to animousity between France and Germany in 1870, but never gave it a name, which made it hard to look up. It was the Franco-Prussian war. Luckily, I live with a British History scholar, and he knows a lot more about general European stuff than I do.) Also, the maps are very focused and it can be hard to see where the area of detail was in the greater European context. (At point I was looking at a map of airport routes in my inflight magazine trying to figure out what bit of German coast I was looking at.)

That said, this book is the perfect reason to buy yourself an Historical World Atlas.

Also, Tuchmann is very funny. She often slips in dry little comments, such as this one from p. 267

German soldiers, posted as informers, were found dressed as peasants, even peasant women. The latter were discovered, presumably in the course of non-military action, by their government-issued underwear.

But for now, let's talk about some YA war books, shall we?

By far, the hands-down best YA war book I've read recently is Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen. A fiction account of John Kipling's (Rudyard Kipling's son) last moments, it tells the story of a young man desperate for the glory and honor of war.

Rudyard had always wanted to serve in his Majesty's service and was denied entry due to his poor eyesight. His hopes and dreams trasnfered to his only son, John. His grades weren't good enough to go to the best naval academies, but his gets into an acceptable army school. But John has his father's eyes and the lifestyle befitting the priviledged sons of Britian's elite...

When war breaks out in Europe in 1914, Rudyard Kiplin is one of the loudest voices calling for British involvement. WHen England joins, he leads the recruitment calls. It breaks his and his son's hearts that John cannot be in the first wave, especially as his friends keep going over. He still feels this way even as his friends start dying. Rudyard pulls every string he can to get his son a commission.

John's first battle is also his last. This heart-breaking tale is framed as his life flashes before him somewhere in Belgium.

Spillebeen grew up near Flanders and has written several YA novels about the oft-neglected WWI, but as far as I can tell, this is his first to appear in English. There are several aspects that set this book apart from the rest of the genre. The bulk of the story takes place before the war and before John deploys, but because of how the story is framed, it transports you to the battlefield horror on a regular basis. Because Kipling is killed so early in his army career he never loses that pre-war optimisim--life never gives him the chance to turn battle hardened and cynical--which is rare in war books.

Another difference between Kipling's Choice and most others lies in John's societal status. He is not a grunt. He's not escaping an impoverished background--even in boot camp he takes his friends partying in London's most exclusive clubs. His father's wealth and status and fame means John starts as an officer. He is not an everyman, but he'll still die like one. The book also follows the reaction of John's parents in greater detail than the standard epilogue. I highly recommend this book and hope that we'll see more translations of Spillebeen's work.

Another WWI book--also with interesting framing--is Michael Murpago's Private Peaceful. Thomas (Tommo) Peaceful grew up living on an estate (but the son of a worker, not fortune like Kipling) in England. His older brother Charlie has always looked out for him. The first half of the book deals with the day to day struggles of being poor and the estate owner is mean and Charlie and Tommo fall in love with the same girl... WWI breaks out and the brothers join up, Tommo lying about his age to be eligible.

The story then shifts to the general horros for war and the specific horros of trench warfare. The story is told as Tommo stays up all night (for a reason we find out at the end--he's not on watch, despite wahat the book jacket says!) The chapters are labeled with the time of night as he stays up and remembers.

Unlike Kipling's Choice, Private Peaceful follows the more common form of "bright-eyed poor boy becomes a hardened man by witnessing the horrors of war" but Peaceful is much better than most. My main complaint is the relationship between Charlie and Tommo. At it's worst, Tommo gets pissed off when he realizes that Charlie has one Molly's heart. But these emotions are fully explored and seem to quickly fade away. Generally, Tommo idolizes Charlie and Charlie can never ever ever ever do wrong. It just doesn't make sense, nor does it ring true and sours the rest of the story.

The other complaint, which is not my own by I'll pass it on anyway, comes from a fellow librarian, and that is that most of the pre-war plot is supposedly lifted directly from some classic mini-series. Now I haven't seen it and can't even remember the name, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Final verdict? Good, but no Kipling's Choice.

Skipping ahead a generation, we land in WWII with B for Buster by Iain Lawrence.

The Kakabera Kid lies his way out of his small Canadian town and into the British Airforce. Instead of being the 16 year old son of an abusive drunk, he is now an 18 year old orphan. He loves to fly and one day dreams of being a pilot, not just the wireless operator. He also sees his adventure as parallels to his comic book character heroes.

He's desperately afraid of being found out as being too young and avoids hanging out with his crew, lest his actions give himself away. (Of course, his flight crew just thinks he doesn't like them.) Once they start flying missions, he befriends the pigeoner as the only person he can talk to about his extreme fear of being shot down and dying.

This book is meant to illuminate a long forgotten aspect of the warr--the role of pigeons in the BAF. Flights carried homing pigeons so if they got short down (and survived) or had to bail out, they could write a message about where they were and get rescued. The problem is that this is where Lawrence take sthe most historical liberaties. These are all countered in his ending historical note, but hte fact that he's writing this book to tell this story but messes with the story? It completely detracts from the story and a better story could have been told without these changes.

However, the best part was the descriptions of burning German cities. Just the sense of fire and destruction and the questions of how anyone could survive such a horror (and they didn't even go to Dresden) are questions that are treated very subtley and well. It really comes to a head when the flight crew goes down to London and gets caught in the Blitz... what makes this show well done (I think) is that it's not overly-dwelled upon.

Another book about a little known episode of WWII, and one that is done much better is Graham Salisbury's Eyes of the Emperor. Hawaii resident Eddy Okubo is sick of hearing about "The Japanese Problem"--if it comes to war, will those of Japanese descent be loyal to the US? Or to Japan? After his family is targeted, Eddy lies his was into the army to prove where his loyalties are-- the US.

After Pearl Harbor, when it does come to war, Eddy and the other Japanese-American soldiers aren't allowed to fight. At first, they're even held prisoner! Eventually Eddy and some of the other Japanese-American soldiers are taken to Mississippi (on the journey, they're not allowed to open the shades because people would freak out at seeing a "car full of Japs".) In Mississippi they're stuck on a desolate island as part of a dog training program. Japanese people, supposedly, smell differently than other people. Eddy and his friends are being used as bait--their service to their country was to be hunted down and attacked by dogs.

Strikingly told in Eddy's voice this is a well-done account of a true episode in American history. My one complaint is that Eddy's speaking voice/grammar/sentence construction doesn't match his inner, narrative voice at all, which can be a bit jarring, but he doesn't talk a lot, so it's a minor complaint.

Jumping back a few more wars, I recently read The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane for the first time.

Um... the coolest part about this book is that I read it through DailyLit, which is awesome. (Currently, I'm slogging through War and Peace.)

Crane paints well the bravado and fear of war as a young boy marchs off to war. It's not as introspective as the other ones I've discusses, and really, what can I say that generations of high school students haven't said already? I have nothing really to add nor profound to say.

Overall these books are all pretty good and I do recommend all of them. Kipling's Choice is by far and away the best, but these are all exemplary titles. ATTENTION TRANSLATORS! I WANT MORE GEERT SPILLEBEEN!

Musings

Ok, I have some book reviews all written up but they're on hold for now because I want to talk about the YREAD conference I went to at Carroll County Community College on Saturday.

Basically, a YA lit conference featuring none other than the very wonderful Jacqueline Woodson.

So, first off was her talk where she talked about her books and the writing process and her life and now I need to read everything she's ever written. The best part was when she was talking about censorship of From The Notebooks Of Melanin Sun. She said she would get class sets of letters where everyone in a 6th grade class had been assinged to write a complaint... full of typos! The first set or two she corrected the spelling and grammar and mailed them back. As Ms. Woodson says "At least teach them to spell before you teach them to censor."

Then came the book discussion bit. I had signed up to discuss historical fiction and needed to read the following:

Day of Tears by Julius Lester
Copper Sun by Sharon M. Draper
Eyes of the Emperor Graham Salisbury
The Book Thief Markus Zusak

So, I have to say, initially I was a little irked that apparently historical fiction can only be about slavery or WWII, but all the books were good (well, I didn't get to Copper Sun but everyone else liked it). I just need to say that The Book Thief was astounding. WONDERFUL.

Discussion was good. It was especially nice because it wasn't just librarians and teachers there were real, live teenages there! (GASP! I KNOW!) But... when it comes to literature about icky parts of history, there is something that bugs me. So many people can't get beyond "slavery was so horrible!" to get to the actual book. Yes. Slavery was horrible, but can we please discuss how the author gets that point across? Or how he makes his story memorable in a dearth of books on the topic? For instance, Lester doesn't get into the physical violence of slavery in Day of Tears and focuses solely on the emotional torture. Brilliant. Physical violence would have made the book over the top and made the reader disengage in order to tolerate reading... but he twists the knife just enough that you can't help but feel deeply for these characters. But yes, slavery was horrible and let's just harp on that.

Not that everyone in the discussion did that. I just needed to vent about personal pet peeves.

I picked up a copy of If You Come Softly and Show Way.

I also got the free give-aways of What Happened to Cass McBride? and Haters. And y'all know how I loves me some free books.

All in all, very very good. It was fun time and I did learn a lot. Plus, the sandwiches were tasty at lunch.

Mean Girls

Remember back when Lindsey Lohan was hott and didn't look like she was completely cracked out? Yeah. Me too. These books remind me of Mean Girls.

Rhymes with Witches Lauren Myracle

The Bitches are the coolest girls in school--you have to like them. There are 3--one from each year. There will be 4 once they pick a freshman. Jane wants to be a Bitch. She can't help it--everyone does. She is shocked when they actually pick her though! Jane is the new freshman Bitch and everyone wants to be her frient--everyone except Alicia who was her only girl friend before Jane was chosen. They can't help it though--everyone likes the Bitches.

But, as it turns out, everyone else really can't help it. The Bitches are popular because they've cast a spell on the student body. Every week, the Bitches have to steal something from another girl and sacrifice it. Just something small, like a barrette or some lip gloss, but the sacrifice will suck out the victims popularity and give it to the Bitch who stole from her. Can Jane really go that far? And why is their school infested with feral cats?

I could not put this book down, which is weird, because I hated it. Really really thought it sucked. But I had to finish it anyway. I didn't care about Jane. You're supposed to feel bad for Alicia, the ditched former best friend, but she was annoying and clingy and an attention whoore. It was obvious Jane didn't like her even before the Bitches picked her up.

The ending wasn't happy and yet it was still contrived and forced and it happier than it should have been. The characters are annoying and flat and it's just not well written. The plot, however, is oddball enough that you'll want to see what happens. Just try not and poke your eyes out on the way.

In a similiar Mean Girls-type vein, but done much better, is Alyson Noel's Art Geeks and Prom Queens.

Rio is kinda a loser who moves from New York to Orange County. Her mom is a former almost-famous super-model and pressures Rio to wear the in and trendy clothes...

Rio finally gives in, starts dressing hott and makes friends with the popular girls, leaving behind the first few friends she made in art class. Rio eventually usurps Kristen's position as most popular girl in school and Kristin will do anything to get that power back...

I liked this one better because for one, the quality of writing is just superior. Also, I like the fact that it's realistic and doesn't include odd rituals-- these girls "earn" their popularity in the same bizarre way that everyone else does. (Have any of us figured out what that way is, exactly?). Also, even though Art Geeks and Prom Queens has a totally happy ending, it's the one we were rooting for and it works...


Afternote: So, I had hand written out this update and then typed it up later, but I took a break between the 2 books. I know I had more to say about Art Geeks and Prom Queens but I'll be darned if I can remember... or find the piece of paper I wrote it all down on... ah well.