Star-Studded Review-a-Rama

Currently Reading: The Brothers Grimm: Two Lives, One Legacy, Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Just Finished: Yang the Youngest and his Terrible Ear, From a Crooked Rib, Kitchen

Oh, I have a lot to talk about, I don't even know where to begin. It's like when you're writing a paper and you just become paralyzed with the enormity of the task before you and freeze up and never get started.

So... let's talk about some books, eh? I guess I'll focus on award winners and those with buzz. We'll see how far I get tonight!

First up on the block is the lovely A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama by Laura Amy Schlitz

All Maud wants is to be adopted and to have a real family again. When the elderly Hawthorne sisters take her home, Maud is overjoyed. She has nice clothes, good food, and indoor plumbing. What Maud doesn’t have is any friends—she’s not allowed to go to school or see visitors. Maud is a secret, and when she finds out why, she has some very tough decisions to make about what’s important.

This was a very moving story about the compelling need for love and a home, versus doing what is right. At the same time, we get a good dose of spirituality and mediums and ghosts. It was wonderfully spooky without being scary.

I loved the way Maud's friendship developed with Muffet, the Hawthorne's deaf servant. I also liked the way that Maud really struggled with her decisions about what to do-- she didn't always want to do the right thing, and how Schlitz handles this conflict makes Maud so much more real and likeable.

It was getting a lot of well-deserved Newberry buzz and even though it didn't win and wasn't honored, you should still check it out.

Rules by Cynthia Lord.

This was a Newberry Honor, as well as the winner of the Schneider Family Book Award (for books about disabilities.)

Catherine is a twelve year old girl whose little brother, David, has autism. On one hand she is fiercely protective of him but on the other, she is mortified when he does embarrassing things that could potentially mess up her relationships. She doesn't give her friends nearly enough credit in understanding about David, but she's been burned in the past. To help David be less embarassing, Catherine writes him rules about day-to-day life. No toys in the fish tank. It's ok to yell on the playground, but not during dinner. Over time, a lot of these rules are obviously more for Catherine than for David.

Catherine's best friend is away is away for the summer and there's a new family moving in next door. Catherine has high hopes for her friendship with Kristi, but, like real life, not everything goes as she wished it would--and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

When Catherine accompanies David to therapy, she meets Jason, who is in a wheel chair and can't talk. Jason has a book of cards with pictures and words that he points to in order to communicate. Catherine starts drawing him more cards, including nebulous concepts like "murky" and "unfair". Catherine again tries to balance fitting in with her "normal" friends and classmates, and her friendship with Jason. Jason was a really interesting character that continued to surprise me, and I wish we saw even more of him.

One of my favorite parts of this book were when Catherine was trying to figure out what to draw for abstract ideas. My other favorite part was the struggle Catherine had in trying to be understanding of David, but feeling overshadowed by him in the family dynamic and needing her parents to sometimes focus exclusively on her. I think it was a very real, if not pretty, look at what it means to be in a family with someone who requires so much attention and energy.

I also liked how, when David couldn't put his thoughts and feelings into words, would quote extensively from the Frog and Toad books by Lobel. It was heartbreaking and hilarious.

My main quibble is with the ending-- it was overly tidy and neat while at the same time not really solving anything. It tarnished the rest of the wonderful book for me.

Penny from Heavenby Jennifer Holm

This was another Newberry Honor and my favorite of this year's Newberry crop. Penny is growing up in 1950s northern New Jersey and is torn between her mother and grandparents (whom she lives with) and her nearby Italian family of her deceased father. The two sides of the family don't talk to each other and even though Penny's mother would never tell her not to see her Italian family, it's obvious she doesn't like all the time she spends with them.

Summer is hard, even without the family drama. Penny's mom won't let her go swimming in fear she might catch Polio and then she starts dating the milkman!

Eventually, the truth about Penny's father's death comes out, as well as the horror of what Italian-Americans went through during WWII, which is something that doesn't get discussed much. I had no idea most of this stuff had happened.

The book is a bit nostalgic, but wonderfully written (and from the same person who does Babymouse! Such versatility!) and while showing excellence in children's literature, has definite kid-appeal. The author's note at the end was excellent, as well as Holm's own family album. I highly recommend.


And that's all for tonight, but I have a lot more to come...

Love is in the Air!

My sister called me today. She's at our parents' house, but only until Monday. I'll be there on Friday. Ah well.

But she called to say she's getting hitched next summer. SO! For those keeping score! Last weekend= wedding, this weekend= engagement, next weekend= wedding!

Here's a poem, because it's Friday:

"The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter"

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small peoplle, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen, I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-ed, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterlfies are already yellow with August
OVer the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out of meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

--Li Bo, as translated and adapted by Ezra Pound

Big A little a has the roundup! Thanks Kelly!

Life in the Fast Lane

Now Reading: Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Just Finished: You Know You Love Me: A Gossip Girl Novel, Book Crush: For Kids and Teens-Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Interest, Ten Green Bottles: The True Story of One Family's Journey from War-torn Austria to the Ghettos of Shanghai, Junie B., First Grader: Dumb Bunny, You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When It Monsoons - The World on One Cartoon a Day, Friendship For Today

Ok, first things first, you should all check out Good Reads, a website my writer-friend Sarah just told me about today. Basically, you have a bookshelf of all the books you've read and rate them and review them and then you read your friend's reviews, because we all trust recommendations from our friends more than some random dude on Amazon, right? It's pretty cool and I'm just getting used to it, but check it out and be my friend.

I like this in addition to Library Thing (which I love) because I'm using Good Reads for books I've read, and Library Thing for books I own. There's a world of difference there.

I went down to Savannah this weekend for a most beautiful wedding. It was lovely and I found out Abby reads this thing, so here's a little shout out to the beautiful and wonderful bride. And her husband, Jack. (Hey Abby-- did your 'rents tell you that were were on the same flight at stupid o'clock Monday morning?)

Also, a shout out to Ruth and Kristin and Tom and Mark, because it was really, really good to see you all and trade books! :)

And, I got a lot of reading done! Because reading is good and lovely and airports are boring.

Anyway... here's a book review, because that's what we're all about here on Biblio File, right? Here's one I just had to read after the great review that Fuse #8 gave it. Thanks for the head's up on that one-- it didn't disappoint.

Friendship For Today by Patricia C. McKissack

This book provides a wonderful child's-eye view of school integration in the St. Louis area.

Rosemary is not entirely sure why all the adults in her life are so excited about integration. All she knows is that she will be the only black kid in all of 6th grade at her new school. Plus, she has to sit by Grace the Tasteless, the white girl from the next street over that torments her all the time. At school, Rosemary finds out that Grace is also an outcast, because she's "poor white trash" and an uneasy friendship blooms.

McKissack is a wonderful (and prolific) writer and this book is an excellent example of her talent. Rosemary's voice rings true even today and I spent a lot of the novel rooting for Grace to stand up and do the right thing. And when she did, it was honest and true, which is hard to do and you don't see it done well all that often. The author's note at the end explains it's a highly autobiographical novel.

A nice story of friendship and change for readers 9-13.

Poetry Friday

I'm off to Savannah for a wedding, so here's a good wedding poem for your enjoyment.

Why Marry at All? by Marge Piercy

Why mar what has grown up between the cracks
and flourished like a weed
that discovers itself to bear rugged
spikes of magneta blossoms in August,
ironweed sturdy and bold,
a perennial that endures winters to persist?

Why register with the state?
Why enlist in the legions of the respectable?
Why risk the whole apparatus of roles
and rules, of laws and liabilities?
Why license our bed at the foot
like our Datsun truck: will the mileage improve?

Why encumber our love with patriarchal
word stones, with the old armor
of husband and the corset stays
and the chains of wife? Marriage
meant buying a breeding womb
and sole claim to enforced sexual service.

Marriage has built boxes in which women
have burst their hearts sooner
than those walls; boxes of private
slow murder and the fading of the bloom
in the blood; boxes in which secret
bruises appear like toadstools in the morning.

But we cannot invent a language
of new grunts. We start where we find
ourselves, at this time and place.

Which is always the crossing of roads
that began beyond the earth's curve
but whose destination we can now alter.

This is a public saying to all our friends
that we want to stay together. We want
to share our lives. We mean to pledge
ourselves through times of broken stone
and seasons of rose and ripe plum;
we have found out, we know, we want to continue.

Ms. Nikki Grimes

Now Reading: You Know You Love Me: A Gossip Girl Novel,
Just Finished: Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences, The Road to Paris

Let's start off with The Road to Paris by Nikki Grimes. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I mean, it was a Coretta Scott King honor book this year and Grimes is a powerful writer but...

I'm not entirely sure what she was trying to do with this book and part of me wonders if she won the Coretta Scott King honor because there just weren't that many books with African-American characters published this year.

There isn't much of a plot to this-- Paris runs away from her latest foster home, is separated from her brother and placed in a new home that's really good. Over time, she adjusts to her new life and tries to find a balance between this family and her birth mom.

Even though we start at the end, and then flash back to the beginning, I was a little surprised when the end came around again-- it was a bit of a huh? already? moment.

The story is quiet and gentle, and I liked that about it, but I also wasn't overly attached to the characters.

I've seen a lot of reviews talking about how it's about a biracial girl trying to fit in an all-white town, and that's a part of it, but a smaller part than some of the other stuff and the main racism incident happens towards the end, and seemed forced and stilted and just didn't sit right with me. I really, really didn't like the way Paris held an 8-year-old girl accountable for her father's actions. I would say it seemed out of character, but I'm still not sure enough on Paris's character to know that. Also, I felt like the racial issues were almost an afterthought, and almost got in the way of the story I thought Grimes was trying to tell.

Like I said, it was well written with beautiful prose, but it still didn't grab me.

Earlier this year, I read Bronx Masquerade, also by Grimes.

This is a YA novel about an English class that has poetry slams on Friday and how the kids express themselves and get to know themselves through poetry.

Each chapter is a few pages of one of the kids talking and then the poem they read in class.

It was good, but I had two problems with this book.

1. The smart alec kid passes judgment at the end of every chapter, but it's always positive, which doesn't ring true.
2. This book proves that Nikki Grimes can't write a bad poem if she tried! And I really think she tried to make these poems have the voices of her characters and express their different styles, but she's just too good and these poems were just too good to be written by a group of high schoolers.

Fractured Fairy Tale Awesomeness

Now Reading: Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences
Just Finished: Pay the Piper: A Rock 'n' Roll Fairy Tale, This is Paradise!

So, today let's talk about two fairy tale series that so far only have two books a piece. Both of these series needs to step on it and write some more books! I crave more! I am a glutton and demand you indulge me!

So, first up we have the Rock 'n' Roll Fairy Tales by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple.

Both books are modern stories of our world and the world of fairy tales crash landing into each other. They are both exceedingly well written (I mean, they're Yolen, so that's a given, but I still wanted to point that out.) Both books feature original rock songs with lyrics used at appropriate times in the book, and then a chapter at the end of the book with all of the songs and their lyrics. I wish for only two things:

1. More books
2. Recordings of these songs! Adam Stemple is a rock musician, so I strongly suspect there are melodies behind these lyrics. I long to hear them.

So, first up we have Pay the Piper: A Rock 'n' Roll Fairy Tale. Gringras is the lead singer/lyricist/piper for a folk rock band (rock and reel) Brass Rat. He is also an exiled prince of Faerie and every year must pay a teind of silver, gold, or souls.

Callie is a junior high reporter who's covering the Brass Rat concert, but knows something is not quite right. After accidentally seeing Gringras charm rats with his pipe, she looks deeper into the problem, and ridiculous as it might sounds, thinks Gringras might be the Pied Piper of Hamlin...

Then, on Halloween night, all the children in town go missing. Callie knows Gringras does not have silver or gold, so must be paying in souls. Callie knows that if she ever wants to see her brother, or any of her friends again, it's up to her.

This story is well done. Alternating between Gringras's back story and the modern day narrative, we get a great adventure, and an amazing look into faerie lore-- parts of it reminded me a lot of the Faerie sections of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It's also just an awesome adventure, and it's not often we get high end adventure in a rather literary novel.

Troll Bridge: A Rock'n' Roll Fairy Tale is the follow up.

Every year, the Minnesota State Fair has twelve dairy princesses. Every year, they have their likeness carved in butter and displayed at the fair. Every year, the butter heads are then left on a bridge in a small town near Duluth. Every year, but not this year. This year, they left the butter heads at the fair. This year, all twelve dairy princesses have just disappeared off that very bridge. This year, the trolls didn’t get the butter maidens, so they claimed the real maidens.

They also took a rock and roll band made up of three brothers. Add in one mischievous fox that can talk to musicians, and you have yourself another great adventure.

This is a fun, rollicking tale of music and escape that draws on classic fairy tales and Norse mythology. I liked the explanation that the Norse mythological creatures came over in the nightmares of the long boat passengers and the hint of the battles between the Scandinavian creatures and those in Native American cosmology. I also liked how there was personality differences in the different trolls and they were complex creatures-- that's more consideration than they normally get!

I especially enjoyed the slice of Minnesota culture. I could hear the accent in the news reporters' dialogue, and I missed home. (Yeah, earlier today I said I missed Iowa. I just miss the Midwest. 3 more weeks and I'm there!)

Next up is the Twice Upon a Time series by Wendy Mass. These books take classic tales and retell the story, a chapter for the princess, and a chapter for the prince. The prince's stories are really my favorite, because we have no expectations of them before the rescue, and Mass does great work with their back story.

Twice Upon A Time #1: Rapunzel, the One With All The Hair, I originally picked this up because it was part of Wilsona's stupidly long banned book list. There is nothing wrong or bad in this book, it was just on the same page as something they objected to, so it got cut too. (These are the people that banned Clifford's Bathtime after all!)

Anyway, so Rapunzel is taken on her birthday to live in a tower. She's a little whiny and petulant-- understandable certainly, but still a bit annoying.

Benjamin is a prince who is lonely at the top. I especially liked his friendship (and issues) with Andrew the page and the difficulties (and jealousies) with his cousin Elkin. I liked the ingenuity that the boys had to show to rescue Rapunzel.

I especially liked Stephen, the little green man who is also imprisoned by the witch and helps Rapunzel.

Twice Upon a Time, No. 2: Sleeping Beauty, the One Who Took the Really Long Nap:The One that took the really long nap was even better. Mainly, because Rose didn't annoy me! Anyway, I liked Rose's frustrations with being perfect, which were even more so than Rose in Princess School, and better done, I think, but mainly because they were more fleshed out here.

I really liked Prince (he doesn't have a name). His mother has some Ogre blood in her and hates beauty. She also needs to eat living things occasionally. She's not very tender. Because of this, Prince has a hard time making friends and servants don't stay for very long.

But then Prince discovers a castle in the woods that is a perfect match for his own, but it is covered with brambles and thorns...

I want more!

Belated Poetry Friday

So, yesterday I wasn't online at all in a mix of doctor's visits for the ear infection that will not die (seriously, it's like I'm 7 again), grocery shopping, reading, and generally sleeping a lot. So, I missed Poetry Friday, but here's my belated entry, and my all time favorite poem:

"Losing Track" by Denise Levertov

Long after you have swung back
away from me
I think you are still with me:

you come in close to the shore
on the tide
and nudge me awake the way

a boat adrift nudges the pier:
am I a pier
half-in half-out of the water?

and in the pleasure of that communion
I lose track,
the moon I watch goes down,

the tide swings you away before
I know I'm
alone again long since,

mud sucking at gray and black
timbers of me,
a light growth of green dreams drying.


Blue Rose Girls has an amazing roundup of everyone, too. So amazing, that I'm not copying it all down. Or, if you do a google blog search for Poetry Friday and limit to last 24 hours, you get an impressive list.

And, as bonus in this post (or a navel gazing distraction, take your pick) I'll tell you a little story about myself.

I went to a very small college in a very small town in the middle of a corn field. Lately, I discovered that Kelly knows exactly what I'm talking about. Anyway, second semester of my junior year, my friend John decided that the campus need some more poetry. He rounded up a group and we founded SITS (Shakespeare in the Sh**-er). The bathroom was the main communication forum, you see. That where the Student Health and Wellness Committee posted their newsletters (and their pleas for hand washing) and where the Student Government Association posted their joint board meeting minutes. We posted poetry. Every week for a semester, we rounded up oodles of poetry and plastered it in all the dorm room bathroom stalls on campus.

Then, senior year rolled around and Kate and John graduated, and I fell in love (and for some reason thought that my thesis, Classical Chinese, a history seminar, a Chinese calligraphy private lesson, a guided reading in Ancient Chinese Astronomy [under the guise of the physics department] and some other class, as well as working 20 hours a week sounded like a sane and rational plan)... anyway, SITS died, and I mourn it.

I miss Iowa.

Adventures in Book Land

Now Reading: This is Paradise!
Just Finished: An Abundance of Katherines

So... Dan came home after a freakishly long business trip. I could tell he had been away for quite some time, because he sent me a coupon for Borders. Obviously, he had forgotten how crazy the stacks of books in our house are and how they are threatening to EAT MY HOUSE.

Needless to say, I went and spent it. When it comes to books, you know I have no self control. My two purchases I'm most excited about are Sister Bernadette's Barking Dogand the The Norton Anthology of Children's Literature: The Traditions in English.

Anyway, let's talk about some books I've read, not ones I haven't yet (but I will say I started Sister Bernadette and it's awesome so far.)

Rosy Cole's Memoir Explosion: A Heartbreaking Story about Losing Friends, Annoying Family, and Ruining Romance by Sheila Greenwald came out around the time Oprah was pistol-whipping James Frey, which was timely.

Anyway, Rosy Cole (who has lots of books about her, but I haven't read the others) is writing a memoir for her writing assingment in school. She was supposed to write about the most interesting person in her family, so she chose herself! The problem is, her life is pretty boring, so she embellishes it a bit. She gets a lot of bad advice, especialy from her Uncle Ralph and when her friends see it, hoo boy, that's when things really hit the fan.

Rosy is a likeable herione. She is confident everyone will eat up her memoir and love it just as she does, and is genuienly shocked and suprised when everyone stops talking to her. Rosy's funny and incorrigible-- a cross between Eloise and Ramona Quimby.

The text is well-complemented by Greenwald's line drawings-- I especially likes how well she captures the facial expressions of her audience everytime Rosy reads her memoirs out loud.

I am looking forward to reading some of the other titles in this series.

Re-reads of Childhood Favorites

Now Reading: An Abundance of Katherines

This summer, I reread some of the books I remember most fondly from my elementary school days. Luckily, most of them lived up to memories of their greatness.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle The classic adventure of what happens when three witches appear and tell Meg that they can help her find her missing father. Her younger brother Charles Wallace, and new friend Calvin come along as they travel through time on wrinkles in the space-time continuum. Still weird. Still brilliant. And still giving me hope that even unpopular, dorky girls like Meg can end up with someone like Calvin. When a literary crush lasts this long, you know it's forever.

Half Magic by Edward Eager In which we have four children during a boring summer who discover a magic coin that grants them wishes. Kinda. The coin's a little faulty, so it only grants half of your wish. The siblings each get to make a wish a day and go off on many adventures. It's a little dated in a way I didn't notice when I was young-- it seems very quaint. I now also know that it's heavily based on E. Nesbit's Five Children and It (to be fair, Eager gives Nesbit full credit and even makes her the favorite author of the children). That ruined it for me a little, but I still highly recommend to anyone who hasn't read it, especially if they're under 12.

The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen I have yet to see the Kirsten Dunst film version of this because I love this book so much that I would hate to see it differently than it is in my mind's eye. Hannah can't understand why her older relatives are so upset about a war that happened long ago. She's not keen on spending Passover with them. But, when she opens to the door to look for Elijah during Seder, she's transported back in time to a Polish shetl that's about to be deported to Hitler's death camps. Even though she knows what's coming, she can't make it stop and she can't make anyone listen to her. Even when I knew the ending and the surprise twist, even when I have since read and learned a lot more about the Holocaust, I found this book to be just as gripping and heart-breaking as it was in seventh grade.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweilerby E. L. Konigsburg I love art-based mystery thriller novels such as The Da Vinci Code The Girl With Boticelli Eyes. (Seriously-- this is a bit of a super-niched genre, but if you have any other titles, let me know.) I fully blame this book for starting it in me. Anyway, in this lovely little book, Claudia decides that she's not really loved and her family would not miss her if she ran away. She takes her little brother with her (because he's good at saving his allowance, and she needs someone to bankroll this operation) and they head off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (because Claudia wants to live somewhere nice. While at the Met, they get caught up in a mystery taking the art world by storm when the Met acquires a new statue that may or may not have been a Michelangelo.

My only complaints are that the story no longer seems plausible (shut up-- when I was in 5th grade, I totally believed this could happen). But in such an age of high tech security, can one really spend the night in an antique bed without setting off some laser alarm? *sigh* I wish. Also, Chasing Vermeer, which owes A LOT to Mrs. Basil, is more gripping and a smarter read all around for today. Still, a classic, but one I probably will not pick up again until I can read it to my own children (who, at this point, are totally hypothetical-- don't get your hopes up Mom).

New Books!

Now Reading: An Abundance of Katherines
Just Finished: Jack of Fables: The (Nearly) Great Escape, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady, Gossip Girl, Communism: A History, Troll Bridge: A Rock'n' Roll Fairy Tale, Socialism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Instead of dealing with my backlog, here's a post about a book I just now-this-minute read.

Please Write in This Book by Mary Amato is a fun, lighthearted book about a class journal gone wrong.

Mrs. Wurtz leaves a blank notebook in the Writer's Corner for her students to find, with the rules to have fun and to sign your name to what you write. Feelings get hurt and rumors spread (but this is a kid's book, so it's mainly about how bad various people's feet stink) and the book almost gets taken away.

The entire story is just what has been written in the book, so various prospectives are told on class events and some are just alluded to. I think there may have been a lot more tears than just the ones mentioned.

We learn some lessons about teamwork and how not to solve problems and how easy it is to accidentally hurt feelings. Mainly though, it's fun to read the different fonts and see the different pictures the kids have drawn to compliment their writing, and even if Lizzy thinks he's mean, Luke (rhymes with puke) is pretty funny.

Fans of Regarding the Fountain and the others in that series will like this.

Poetry Friday

I'm going to pretend I'm one of the cool kids and participate in Poetry Friday. (Speaking of being a Cool Kid, check out Educating Alice's post about blog cliques and also the discussion over at Fuse #8.)

I'll admit it. I want to be a cool kid. I want to be a lit blogger star. I also want to be rich and thin. There are steps I can take to be all of these things. But I'll continue to watch TV while eating stupidly expensive cheese instead of blogging. I'll admit it.

Jennie, you say, shut up. We just want the poem.

Here's a poem I wrote freshman year of college. The irony, of course, being, that I let my alarm clock do the same thing.

Ode To My Roommate: Monday Morning, 7am (a haiku)

Your damn alarm clock!
Like a pink bunny, it just keeps
Going and going.

New Things

I'd fallen so behind on updating recently banned and challenged books that I changed the way I do that.

All recently banned and challenged books are in my Listmania Lists at Amazon, and I've now provided handy-dandy links over to the left, so go check out what they're telling you not to read now!

Grace Cavendish

When oh when is Gold going to published here in the US? I lust! I want! I can order it and wait 4-5 weeks (eep!) but I'd rather it come out in the nice US edition and then my library will buy it and I can read it there. BUT! WHEN?! Especially because Amazon is now taunting me also with Haunted! We need to get through the alphabet sooner people!

Y'all know I love this series. If you've forgotten or are new, Lady Grace is maid-of-honor to her majesty Queen Elizabeth (the first) and also her personal detective. The books are in diary form and chock-full of historical details and interesting facts, but without this information getting in way of the story. Not only that, but they are fun, rollicking adventures of Grace acting quite improperly and loving it. The Queen (not always the most proper woman) turns a blind eye as long as she saves the day and not many people find out.

One of my favorite parts of the series is the characterization of Queen Elizabeth. She is every bit regal, but also possesses a fantastic and wicked sense of humour.

I read Exile this summer on a dark and stormy night. Banoo Yasmine of Sharakand is an exiled Princess. There are several rumours floating around the court about why she and her retinue are in London, but the Queen as told Grace the truth-- her family was the victim of a bloody coup in Sharakand. The giant Heart of Kings ruby that she wears around her neck is rumoured to have magical powers, but Grace knows it's really a gift to the Queen to guarantee that the Banoo and her people can stay and be safe in England.

Of course, the ruby gets stolen and Grace is afraid the Queen won't continue to give the Banoo sanctuary without the ruby as security. The ruby is found, but it's discovered in Ellie's laundry basket. Grace knows her friend didn't steal the ruby, but Ellie's about to be in serious trouble if Grace can't find out who did steal it!

This book focuses a lot on the different customs of the people from Sharakand and how the English court reacts to these strangers. Unfortunately, Grace doesn't get to know any of these people really well-- there are language difficulties and she's trying to clear her best friend after all-- so they aren't very fleshed out and we don't get to know them very well. We just see Grace's perceptions as she observes them at dinner or passes them in the corridors. This isn't the strongest book in the series, but fans of Grace will not be disappointed.

I did a little happy dance when Feud came in. The Queen is having her portrait painted, but the Queen has more important things to do than stand around all day while people paint her picture. Lady Sarah, who looks somewhat like the Queen, is standing for most of the portrait, and Grace has to sit and read to her. Grace would much rather watch the painters and learn their craft. While watching the artists, Grace learns quite a few things-- especially that certain paints are poisonous.

At the same time, an acting troupe has shown up and Lady Carmina is falling mysteriously ill. Grace suspects, but can't prove, she's being poisoned. Paints are being stolen from the work room-- if Grace can find the thief, will she find the poisoner? Who would want to harm Carmina?

The problem with this book is that a feud Carmina's family is involved in is the turning point of the plot, but it's hidden in the background. The pointers leading the the feud would have been very subtle foreshadowing and would make an almost-twist (and exciting) ending. But, alas, the book is named feud, so we know it's going to be important. The most interesting thing about this book is not the feud or the information presented about feuds. The most interesting thing is the information about the painting and artistic techniques of the Elizabethan age. This story contains more false leads than the previous mysteries and is one of the best.

Now, we just have to wait patently (ha! when I have I ever been patient?!) for Gold, and then Haunted. HURRY UP!

Also, Assassin will be out in paperback in August!

Classics I Should have Read at the Time

Now Reading: Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady
Just Finished: George Washington, Spymaster: How the Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War, Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, Shug

I was really looking forward to finishing up Madame Chiang Kai-Shek this weekend, but I left it at work, because I'm smooth like that. Ah well. Here are some great, classic works of children's literature that I really should have read when I was 12.

The Boggart by Susan Cooper

The Volnik family has inherited an old, Scottish castle. They can't keep it, but they go off to Scotland to see it and get it ready for sale. They decide to have some of the furniture shipped back to Canada, but that's not all that comes--the castle's Boggart, a practical joke playing spirit, has gotten trapped in one of the boxes and has landed in a modern, large city.

The Boggart is full of good-natured mischief and he does like some things about modern living--pizza for one, and electricity. Where the youngest Volnik, Jessup, enjoys this behavior, the older one, Emily, gets blamed for it-- the Boggart's well meaning actions often land her in trouble. Eventually, she is accused of causing psychic disturbances and it looks like she will have to be hospitalized. The Boggart feels terrible, but everything he tries to help just makes things worse. All he really wants it to go home, but how?

I would have loved this book when I was 12. I liked the portrayals of small village life in Scotland and how the Boggart tried to fit into his new surroundings. I liked the kids, too. Part of the problem is that it's a high-tech solution, but, given that this book came out in the early 90s, the technology is so horribly out of date that it seems a bit laughable now. The Boggart's mischief also would have been a lot more humorous at the age of 12 then I found it at the age of 26.

Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce

Tom is shipped off to spend the summer at his aunt and uncle's flat when his brother comes down with measles. Not only does he have to live there, but, he's confined to the flat because he's been exposed to the disease. One night Tom hears the clock downstairs strike 13 and finds a garden that only exists in this lost hour. During his time in the garden, Tom befriends a small girl, Hatty, who is often ignored by her older (male) cousins. Tom knows that Hatty doesn't exist in his time plane and has to find a way to stay with his aunt and uncle.

I think the thing that got me the most was the timing in this book. There are a a few scenes of Tom and Hatty meeting and then you see Tom no longer missing his brother and being distraught at the thought of leaving his aunt and uncle's (and therefore the garden). I thought that these scenes were just representative of a long and building friendship, but then you find out that Tom's only been there for a little over a week (and he didn't get to the garden the first few nights). It just didn't make sense. I also found the ending twist painfully obvious, but I think that Pearce was a pioneer in this respect. This is, however, one of Silvey's 100 best books for children. When I was 12, the wonder and magic of the garden would have captivated me a lot more and I would not have noticed the weird timing and I don't think I would have figured out the ending so soon.

Five Children and It by E. Nesbit

Five children are staying at a country house and are enthralled by all the freedom it has to offer. While playing in a nearby gravel pit, they find a Psammead (a sand fairy) who will grant them their wishes, but everything they wish for goes horribly wrong.

This was disappointing, because it became painfully obvious that my childhood favorite, Half Magic, completely ripped off the plot from this book (but totally did it better). Edgar gives full credit and props to Ms. Nesbit, but still, completely heartbreaking.

Oh, were I a kid again...

Now Reading: Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady

These are all books that my reaction to was "meh" BUT that I know I would have looooooooooved back when I was a member of the intended age range for the book...

We all know I enjoy books that aren't great literature-- I'm not the most discriminating reader, but there is something about these books that just didn't grab me. Many are books in series and where I didn't flat-out dislike these books, they also didn't compel me to read the books that follow...

Dragon Slayers' Academy: The New Kid at School #1 by Kate McMullen and Bill Basso

So.... Wiglaf is the youngest brother in a large, brutish family. In Cinderella-like fashion, he has to do all the work and is constantly picked on. He decides to go to the Dragon Slayer Academy so he can kill dragons and get the loot to help out his family. But the Academy is run down and out of cash, and leads to madcap adventures and friends...

Although this book didn't grab me, it would have when I was in third grade. As an adult, the plot was predictable and the characters flat. And, despite what Mary Pope Osburne says on the back cover, Wiglaf could not be Harry Potter's little brother-- the series (of now 19 titles) isn't serious enough, it's just slapstick. I did really enjoy the yearbook at the end of the book with information Wiglaf has learned, as well as ads and things for the school.

Camp Princess 1: Born to Rule by Kathryn Lasky suffered many of the same problems-- the plot was horribly predictable but mainly it didn't work-- it's about princess at summer camp. A lot of the things that were supposed to make summer camp special--such as the weather that can go from summer to winter in five minutes-- just don't work. Lasky has written such great work and won so many awards, that the mediocrity disappointed me.

Meet Calliope Day by Steve Haddard is about Calliope who thinks the old lady next door is a witch but has the delightful twist that she thinks this is kinda cool. If she can make friends with the witch, maybe the witch will cast some spells on Calliope's behalf. Of course, the lady next store does not want to be friends with a small girl who runs wild around the neighborhood. Not as good as Ramona, Junie B. , Clementine, or a host of others.

Which Witch? by Eva Ibbotson I enjoyed-- it was cute and fun-- but I would have really loved this back in the day. Arriman the Awful needs an heir, so he has to marry. There's a competition and the local witches are all worked up on what evil spell to perform to win his heart. The witches are more hilarious as they trip all each other to prove they're the most evil. Of course, there's the one who really is evil and the one that's actually good, but is trying very, very hard to be a bad witch. Funny and heartwarming, but better when you're 12.

Ok, and here's one I don't think I would have liked even when I was a kid-- I finally broke down and read a Goosebumps book (hey-- it was banned books week). So, I read The Blob That Ate Everyone which was not scary and predictable with an amazingly weak ending. And wow, it really is bad writing.

In Case My Recommendations Aren't Enough

Now Reading: Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady
Just Finished: Clay, Thumb on a Diamond

Well, in case you need some good recommendations on what to read, may I suggest two most excellent books by Nancy Pearl (aka the Librarian Action Figure )?
Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason and More Book Lust are filled with annotated book lists of books to read and enjoy. Most of my favorites were there and some were missing, but the Ms. Pearl, the rockstar librarian, encourages the rest of us write in with our additions. (Also, check out her book wiki.)

So, these books offer lists with such topics as "Africa: Yesterday and Today" and "Quirky Science" she introduces the topic and writes a sentence or two about the books she lists, giving just enough to make you want to read them.

Read these books with paper and pencil, because your "To Read" list will expand exponentially-- I think I added 9 pages to mine with these books! Despite my innate fear of writing in books, I'm taking a pencil to mine, putting little check marks by the books I've read.

I can't wait for the April release of Book Crush: For Kids and Teens-Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Interest.

PS- Can you believe that no one has yet given me a librarian action figure with automatic shushing action?

Princess School

Now Reading: Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady

Sorry I've been slacking lately. It's been a time and lately, my days have been devoted to a male body part on a dog that gets bitten by a rattlesnake...

Higher Power of Lucky is a good book people. I'll talk more about it later. I'm in a princessy mood today...

So, (Cinder) Ella, Snow (White), (Briar) Rose, and Rapunzel are all in school for good princesses-in-training. Their classmates include such characters as Gretl and Red Riding Hood. It's a sweet, fun series that won't win any prizes for being quality literature, but I thoroughly enjoy it!

I like the characterization of the princesses-- they're still the classic characters we know and love, but they're very likable and real at the same time. They also each have their own personality.

Interestingly enough, consistently throughout this entire series, the subplots are much more interesting and engaging than the main plots-- the main plots have a lot more to do with the classic-twisted-fairy tale aspect, but the subplots are where the girls shine as themselves and relate to each other as real people.

In the first book, If the Shoe Fits,Ella is devastated that her fairy godmother isn't around to work her magic and help her fit in to her new school. She has to walk in the mud and doesn't have a lot of time for homework because she has to do all the work at home... but she quickly makes friends to help her out. And, at school, mean tricks are being played on all the first year students. Could the evil steps be behind them? And who will be crowned at the ball?

Next up is Who's the Fairest?. It's sports day! Princess Style! (They're called the Maiden Games.) And they're competing against the Grimm school, where Snow's evil stepmother is the headmistress. Will Snow be able to compete under Maldora's evil glare? Will she let down all her classmates? The best part of this is the subplot-- Rapunzel is team captain and running those girls ragged and Rose is jealous (gasp!) of Ella's new found popularity.

In Let Down Your Hair, Madame Gothel has found out that Rapunzel's been sneaking out of her tower to go to class. That witch is going through great lengths to keep Rapunzel locked up where she belongs, but her friends are here to help. If only Prince Valiant would be there for Rapunzel and stop fawning over Rose!

Beauty Is A Beast finds Rose sick of being over-protected, sick of everyone fawning over her, and just wanting to rebel or at the least be normal! So, she does just that-- rebel. But is finals week really the time to stop doing your homework? Once again, subplots rule the day with Ella's stepmother holding her responsible for the evil stepsisters exam grades. If Ella's always helping them study, when will she study?

In Princess Charming Rapunzel has taught Val everything he knows about jousting in order to do well in the upcoming Charm School (for Princes-in-training) tournament. But when Val starts running his mouth about how girls can't joust, Rapunzel's off to prove him wrong. But how can she skip so much school without getting caught? How will she find a helmet for all that hair? And what if she wins? Will the Princes be OK with losing to a Princess?

Apple-y Ever After is probably the darkest and most action-packed of the series. Snow's father has come back from being lost at sea, but has no idea who Snow is. In this book, I really enjoyed the main plot. Snow and her friends are trying everything to make him remember, and Maldora (her evil step-mother)is doing everything possible to make sure he doesn't. Snow also is very conflicted-- she loves her father and wants to live with him back in their castle, but can she really leave the dwarfs behind? A bitter-sweet, yet perfect ending.

Thorn In Her Side is the most recent book to come out. The school is doing a play with a touring theatre group! Rose wants to be the bad guy, but ends up playing the perfect Princess (surprise, surprise). She's really intrigued by the fairy that is playing the bad guy and wants to know him better and learn acting skills from him, but he won't talk to her. Rose's past is coming to haunt her and she's going to have to pay for the mistakes made by her parents. This book is actually pretty funny with all of the usual school-play hijinks. Also, Ella's stepsisters make themselves really obnoxious and awful, much to the amusement of all.

So, you don't have to read this series in order, but previous events (and how they ended) are mentioned in the later books.

Also, my favorite plot twist is when Ella's dad reveals the truth about her step-mother, but I can't remember which book that is...

My one question is that there's a teaser ad for a book called Slippery Steps in the back of Thorn in her Side that was supposed to come out in December and Amazon was advertising it for awhile, and now the book seems to have disappeared. What happened?

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.