October Jacket Flap-a-Thon

Happy Halloween!! And, on top of that, it's the end of another month, and time for another wrap up... there wasn't much that jumped out and grabbed me, but here's a few that caught my attention.

Howl's Moving Castle (Greenwillow Books): "In the land of Ingary, such things as spells, invisible cloaks, and seven-league boots were everyday things. The Witch of the Waste was another matter. After fifty years of quiet, it was rumored that the Witch was about to terrorize the country again. So when a moving black castle, blowing dark smoke from its four thin turrets, appeared on the horizon, everyone thought it was the Witch. The castle, however, belonged to Wizard Howl, who, it was said, liked to suck the souls of young girls. The Hatter sisters--Sophie, Lettie, and Martha--and all the other girls were warned not to venture into the streets alone. But that was only the beginning. In this giant jigsaw puzzle of a fantasy, people and things are never quite what they seem. Destinies are intertwined, identities exchanged, lovers confused. The Witch has placed a spell on Howl. Does the clue to breaking it lie in a famous poem? And what will happen to Sophie Hatter when she enters Howl's castle? Diana Wynne Jones's entrancing fantasy is filled with surprises at every turn, but when the final stormy duel between the Witch and the Wizard is finished, all the pieces fall magically into place."

It gives away more than I would like, but it makes the story seem so... fun. Which it is.

Geektastic (Little, Brown Books): "Acclaimed authors Holly Black (Ironside)and Cecil Castellucci (Boy Proof) have united in geekdom to edit short stories from some of the best selling and most promising geeks in young adult literature: M.T. Anderson, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, John Green, Tracy Lynn, Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith, David Levithan, Kelly Link, Barry Lyga, Wendy Mass, Garth Nix, Scott Westerfield, Lisa Yee, and Sara Zarr. With illustrated interstitials from comic book artists Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O'Malley, Geektastic covers all things geeky, from Klingons and Jedi Knights to fan fiction, theater geeks, and cosplayers. Whether you're a former, current, or future geek, or if you just want to get in touch with your inner geek, Geektastic will help you get your geek on!"

No, I didn't really like the book overall, but this jacket flap copy did its job: it made me want to read the book.

Happyface (Little, Brown and Company): "Just put on a happy face! Enter Happyface's journal and get a peek into the life of a shy, artistic boy who decides to reinvent himself as a happy-go-lucky guy after he moves to a new town. See the world through his hilariously self-deprecating eyes as he learns to shed his comic-book-loving, computer-game playing ways. Join him as he makes new friends, tries to hide from his past, and ultimately learns to face the world with a genuine smile. With a fresh and funny combination of text and fully integrated art, Happyface is an original storytelling experience."

Ugh. Seriously. Ugh. It makes the book sound cloyingly sweet, but it's the furthest thing from it. It's a dark book, and it doesn't have a happily-ever-after ending. Someone didn't really read the book.

One Crazy Summer (Amistad): "Eleven-year-old Delphine has it together. Even though her mother, Cecile, abandoned her and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, seven years ago. Even though her father and Big Ma will send them from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to stay with Cecile for the summer. And even though Delphine will have to take care of her sisters, as usual, and learn the truth about the missing pieces of the past. When the girls arrive in Oakland in the summer of 1968, Cecile wants nothing to do with them. She makes them eat Chinese takeout dinners, forbids them to enter her kitchen, and never explains the strange visitors with Afros and black berets who knock on her door. Rather than spend time with them, Cecile sends Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern to a summer camp sponsored by a revolutionary group, the Black Panthers, where the girls get a radical new education. Set during one of the most tumultuous years in recent American history, one crazy summer is the heartbreaking, funny tale of three girls in search of the mother who abandoned them—an unforgettable story told by a distinguished author of books for children and teens, Rita Williams-Garcia."

It isn't the best copy ever, but it did make me curious about the book. That and the cover is *so* cute.

Other books read this month:
Girl in Translation
Dream factory
Bogbrush the Barbarian
The Graveyard Book (audio)
Extraordinary
Countdown
The Fool's Girl
Marcelo in the Real World
Crossed Wires
Touch Blue
The Red Umbrella
Rocky Road

Running total: 146 books
Adult fiction: 23
YA: 54
MG: 44
Non-fiction: 15
Graphic Novel: 10
Didn't Finish: 7

One Crazy Summer

by Rita Williams-Garcia
ages: 10+
First sentence: "Good thing the plane had seat belts and we'd been strapped in tight before takeoff."
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

This book is many things. It's a picture of Oakland in 1968, though it's not as turbulent as I expected it to be. It's a picture of an independent girl who looks after her younger sisters thrust into a new environment. It's a picture of a neglectful artist mom (why are all the neglectful moms artists? Are all artists naturally flaky?) learning to accept and love her children again? It's a picture of the clash between southern African-American mannerisms (pre-civil rights, of course) and more progressive, more earthy west coast sentiments.

It's all of these things, and which you would think would overwhelm a 215 page book. But, through Williams-Garcia's writing and plotting, she makes it all work. Delphine, our eleven-year-old main character, has it all together: she keeps an eye on her sisters, Vonetta and Fern; she's responsible, dependable, if a bit plain. And so when her Pa decides to send them clear across the country to Oakland to see their mother who left when Fern was a baby, she figures it's more of the same. And, for a while it is. Their mother isn't terribly happy to see them -- though she did pick them up at the airport, which must count for something -- and sends them off every morning to a summer camp run by the Black Panthers. It's there that Delphine -- and Vonetta and Fern, to a smaller extent -- learn about the horrid things that have been happening to their people, and about how the traditions that Big Ma (who's from Alabama) have been teaching them, are keeping them from reaching their full potential.

It's a good, solid book, for the most part. There are some interesting questions raised about place and race and belonging. But I didn't absolutely love the book. Perhaps it has something to do with my bias against crazy/neglectful mothers (though I didn't mind the mother in Rocky Road; perhaps that has something to do with her medical diagnosis?). Perhaps it was that I didn't think there was enough growth portrayed to justify the hopeful ending. That may just be me wanting more from a middle grade book. Or it may be the opposite: there wasn't enough of a happy ending to suit me; it almost felt like they were spinning in the same place all summer. The growth that does occur is very, very subtle. I sit and think about it, and the pieces fall together... and yet there seems something a bit off. Nothing earth-shattering: it's definitely a good book,and there's definitely lots to talk and think about.

It's just not as great as I was hoping it would be.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I've been asked to make sure y'all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

Crossed Wires

by Rosy Thornton
ages: adult
First sentence: "
I'll still tell you to support your local indie bookstore, but you can't buy it there. (Maybe you can order it? Or buy one of her other books?) Check it out on Amazon.
Review copy provided by the author.

It started off uneventfully. (Don't all good love stories begin that way?)

Single-mom Mina, who works the phones at a Sheffield call center for auto insurance, just happens to get the call where single-dad (and Cambridge professor) Peter reports that he's crashed his car into a stump. You wouldn't think anything would come of this one-time, chance encounter. Especially since Mina has her hands full with her 10-year-old daughter, Sal, and her younger sister, Jess, who's never around. And Peter, with his 9-year-old twins, is still kind of mourning the death of his wife several years back. But, when Peter (who tends to be incredibly accident-prone) crashes his car yet again, he calls and asks for Mina which begins a phone relationship that slowly develops into something more.

It's an understated little book; both Peter and Mina dance around their relationship. It's really only a friendship, but one of those friendships that mean something. Someone you come to rely on and find comfort in. It doesn't matter that they live miles apart, have completely separate lives. In fact, as a reader, you don't really care that you're reading a fluff romance book in which there is, in fact, no romance. It's more a life book: watching Mina deal with her ups and downs; watching Peter as he muddles through, and then how they reach out to each other to try and find something to hold on to. The writing is charming, the characters are ones you want to move in next door to. It's Britishness at its finest, where you want to grab a cup of tea and a comfy blanket and curl up with a good book.

And it's just the book to do that with.

Library Loot-38

More Cybils books... this will be a theme for the next couple of months. The non-fiction is for M's English class, and the one, lone non-Cybils book is next month's read for C's mother-daughter book club. M was SUPER excited about the Riordan (C's grumbling because she hasn't read it yet, but M got to it first), and I'm excited about the new Wendy Mass. And the rest of them look really good, too...

Picture Books:
Small Florence, Piggy Pop Star, by Claire Alexander
The Eensy Weensy Spider Freaks Out (Big Time), by Troy Cummings
Buy My Hats, by Dave Horowitz
Brownie & Pearl See the Sights, by Cynthia Ryland/Illus. by Brian Biggs

Middle Grade:
The Lost Hero, by Rick Riordan
Nobody Was Here: Seventh Grade in the Life of Me, Penelope, by Alison Pollet
The Candymakers, by Wendy Mass
My Life as a Book, by Janet Tashjian
The Dreamer, by Pam Munoz Ryan
The Kneebone Boy, by Ellen Potter
Blessing's Bead , by Debby Dahl Edwardson
Nuts, by Kacy Cook
The Wonder of Charlie Anne, by Kimberly Newton Fusco
Emily's Fortune, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
The Pickle King, by Rebecca Promitzer

Non-Fiction:
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, by Thomas C. Foster

The roundup is either at Adventures of an Intrepid Reader or The Captive Reader. Obligatory FTC note: the links are provided through my Amazon Associates account. If you click through and actually purchase one of these books, I'll get a teeny, tiny payment. But, since no one ever does, and it's SO much easier using the associates account to put up these links, I'm going to keep doing it.

Rocky Road

by Rose Kent
ages: 10+
First sentence: "'Pleeeez stop singing, Ma.'"
Support your local indie bookstore: buy it there!

Tess is not happy with her mother. Sure, life in San Antonio wasn't all that terrific: their Pa walked out on them years ago, Ma's grand ideas for making money kept flopping, and the rent was overdue. But was all that a reason to uproot the family -- Ma, Tess and her younger, deaf brother Jordan -- to Schenectady, New York? Especially in January, the dead of winter. And the grand plan this time? To open an ice cream shop. Tess is less than pleased, to say the least.

Adjusting to the snow, ice, and a whole new middle school isn't a piece of cake; it's cold and she doesn't quite feel like she fits in. Jordan keeps resisting his new school, he's not learning new signs, which worries Tess. Ma's spending all her time (and money) getting the new shop ready, which really worries Tess, since Ma's prone to high ups and crashing lows, and Tess knows they can't afford to have that happen.

It's only as the winter wears on, and Tess finds ways to reach out: in the Senior Center community that they live in, at school with peer mediation, and eventually at the ice cream shop, that Tess finds out what community, friendship and surviving the rocky road of life is really kind of sweet.

It's a sweet little book; very distinctive in its voice: the clash of Texas and New York is just oozing out of it. The characters, though perhaps a bit stereotypical (deaf younger brother provides challenge, crazy mom, well-meaning neighbors who offer up home-made charm, strange Zen-vegan new friends, crusty ex-Navy man with a heart of gold), still are quite enjoyable and engaging to read about. The conflict is all with Tess and her mother; Tess feels so much older than her twelve years, mostly because her mother -- due to an eventual diagnosis of bipolar disorder -- is so unreliable. And the whole crazy mother thing is often so overdone. But in this case it worked to make it a true Middle Grade novel: Tess took the initiative, got help from friends, including adults, and worked to make things -- like this book -- a success.

The ice cream recipes in the back are just an added bonus.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I've been asked to make sure y'all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

KidlitCon: In Which I Wander around Minneapolis

Like last year, I had had marvelous, wonderful, amazing,
exhausting time at KidlitCon 2010. And like last year, the best part of it all was the times in which a group of us -- three, four, seven, a dozen -- sat around chatting and drinking (well, them, not me) and talking about everything from books to blogs to politics to TV. The reason I want to keep going to these is not so much because I learn at the conferences -- though I do; I came home with ideas and ruminations on publisher-blogger relationships, how to improve my blog, and the desire to actually read more of what I love and not worry so much about what is popular -- but because the people, the community, of kidlit bloggers and authors is so wonderful.

I got in Friday, which was an amazingly beautiful day, and did some wandering around. None of which was planned -- I was looking for the hotel, but forgot to get the address/directions, and so spent a good part of my morning wandering downtown looking for it, and then (once I found it), went looking for the Mississippi River... in the completely wrong direction. The upside? I found some lovely fall trees.

I met up with Pam (Mother Reader), Liz (A Chair, A Fireplace and A Teacozy), and Laura (Pinot and Prose) for lunch and drinks and stimulating conversation before heading over to the Loft for the first session: a very hilarious, very interesting (even for a non-writer) discussion with Maggie Stiefvater and her two critiquing partners Brenna Yovanoff, and Tessa Gratton. I'm sure there was some deep discussion and interesting nuggets, but I never got past how funny they all were. I also sat in the back, which was not conducive to getting pictures.

I didn't get any pictures from the Saturday sessions, either (ha, but other people did! Check out the photos on Flickr); I was too busy listening and talking and didn't remember that I should have taken pictures. But, I did snap one of Maggie this time.

She spoke about the 8 things she's learned about blogging. The best-remembered (re-tweeted) advice? Never blog tired, sick or drunk. You wouldn't think it needs to be said, but it does.

(That said, I'm breaking her rules right now, being both tired and sick. But I'm not drunk, so I figure that counts for something.)

I'm not going to sum up all the sessions I attended, but a few highlights:

• In the Blogging the Backlist, Charlotte (Charlotte's Library) mentioned that when she blogs about books she loves, she feels that it gives her readers as sense of her personality. I need to find a balance between blogging the "hot" books, as well as blogging books that I love.
• The publisher's panel after lunch was a great discussion about the relationship between publishers, authors and bloggers. Things publishers look for in a blog: a readily available (top right hand corner, please) statement of what you like to read. That you have a pet turtle (or in my case, that I stay home with my girls and like to read, period), is not helpful. Also have your email address available.
• That said, there was some discussion about when a review of a new book should go up. Publishers, for obvious reasons, want buzz right around the review date. And yet, they're also looking for blogs that go beyond the "me too" reviews. I think there's value in reviews 3 or 6 months, or even a year (or five), after a book is published, because I'm writing to spread the love of reading and books, and not to sell them. It's a conflict that I'm not sure will ever be resolved.
• The session in which a couple of the authors from From the Mixed-Up Files
  was interesting, even if it wasn't really applicable to me. I just think it's wonderful to see middle grade books and authors finding a (bigger) place in the kidlitosphere.
• I didn't go to the Book Tour session, but I followed it on Twitter. The one thing that I got out of it is that I need to be better with researching authors before asking questions. And not asking generic "did you always want to be a writer" questions. I do okay with some authors, but not so great with others. I'm curious: if you do author interviews, how do you come up with questions for them?

Dinner afterward was a blast. I managed to snag a picture of our table, which was hopping with lively discussion. Going clockwise from the lower left hand corner: Janet Fox, Jacqueline Houtman, Liz, Charlotte, me, Carol Rasco (who has the most wonderful Arkansas accent; I loved sitting next to her and listening to her talk), Jen Robinson, Maureen (Confessions of a Bibliovore), and Pam.


I did eventually find the river, in case you were wondering...


I'm sure as the week goes on, there will be more highlights put up. I'll try and link to them as I find them. At any rate, many, many thanks go out to our wonderful trio of organizers: Brian Farrey (Flux), Andrew Karre (Carolrhoda Books) and Ben Barnhart (Milkweed Editions), and held at The Loft, which was an amazing building in its own right. They did a fantastic job.

Here's looking forward to Seattle next year!

Marcelo in the Real World

by Francisco X. Stork
ages: 15+
First sentence: "'Marcelo, are you ready?'"
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

It took me too long to get to this book.

Seriously.

I don't know why it took me so long -- perhaps it was a bit of the "if it's that hyped, it can't be that good"phobia I have -- but honestly, you think after nearly six years of blogging, I'd have learned to trust you all. Because when you say a book is good, the book is good. (Which means, I suppose, I should cave and read Maze Runner soon.)

For the ten out there who haven't read the book, it's the summer before seventeen-year-old Marcelo Sandoval's senior year. He's on the autism spectrum; he likes to tell people his "condition" is closest to Asperger Syndrome, but even that doesn't describe it fully. It takes a while for him to process interactions with other people. He hears something akin to music in his head, something he can't quite describe to other people. His fixation is religion, though he loves working with the ponies at Paterson, a school for disabled children. Life is good, or at least as good as Marcelo wants it.

Then his father, who has never really accepted there is anything "wrong" with Marcelo, decides that Marcelo has been disadvantaged by living in a bubble world at Paterson, and that what he needs is a good dose of the real world. He arranges for Marcelo to work in the mail room at his law firm, something which Marcelo doesn't really want to do. And yet, because his father is insistent, it's what he ends up doing. And, for good or ill -- or maybe a little bit of both -- he ends up experiencing a little bit of the real world.

Written from Marcelo's point of view, and in Marcelo's voice, readers are invited into his world, a place I found amazing. Marcelo is comfortable with who he is, and he tries so hard to understand the world around him. His explorations of religion were fascinating, as is, as he gets deeper into the real world, his questions about beauty, about sex and about human interactions. (Yes, it's frank, and there is some language, but nothing ever felt gratuitous.) There's a bit of a legal mystery and romance to add to the inner dialogue that Marcleo has. It's a deep book, one full of difficult questions and tough answers. And yet, as I finished it, I was surprised at the love and the hope that radiated from it, which brought tears to my eyes.

In short: absolutely wonderful.

The Red Umbrella

by Christina Diaz Gonzalez
ages: 11+
First sentence: "I watched as a white heron circled the beach and then headed north toward the open waters of the tropics."
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Lucia's life isn't all that bad. Sure, her mother is a bit overprotective, not letting her wear makeup or cut her hair short like the fashionable girls. Ans sure, her little brother Frankie is annoying. But, she has her best friend to giggle over boys with, her father has a good job, and Castro's revolution hasn't reached her home town of Puerto Mejares, Cuba.

Then one day, it does, and Lucia's world turns upside down. Her father is resistant to participating in the revolution, and Lucia inadvertently sees things she shouldn't have. After a couple of show-downs with the soldiers, Lucia's parents do the unthinkable: they choose to send Lucia and Frankie to the U.S. for asylum, by themselves. They can only hope that their parents will be able to join them later.

The first half of the book deals with the situation in Cuba, and it's a dire one. It reminded me of the books I've read about the Iranian revolution: controlling, threatening, and very scary, especially for an American, because we've never experienced anything like it. There's a couple of instances, near brushes with rape and death, that made me wonder if this really is a middle grade book. But it's all very tasteful -- barely brushing the surface -- and it adds to the tension in the book.

The second half is about Lucia and Frankie in America -- specifically Grand Island, Nebraska. They struggle to fit in at first, but the couple they are placed with, Mr. and Mrs. Baxter, are kind and well-meaning, and eventually they find a place. The struggle then becomes with being in American and keeping themselves Cuba. And for Lucia, desperately missing home and her parents. It's tough, but they do find a way to balance everything.

It's an interesting novel, and addresses something I'd not heard of before in the exile of Cuban children during the revolution. Well-written and well-developed, it's an excellent book.

Touch Blue

by Cynthia Lord
ages: 9+
First sentence: "'The ferry's coming!'"
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

This is on my pile for Cybils reading, but Jen's recent review prompted me to pull it off the pile sooner rather than later. And I'm so glad I did.

Tess lives in Bethsaida, a small fishing island off the coast of Maine. It's so small, that they only have a one-room school, where her mother is the teacher. And because lobstering is no longer what it used to be, people keep moving off, and the state of Maine is threatening to close the school, which means Tess and her family would have to move.

That is, until Reverend Beal comes up with the idea to take on foster children. If they add as many children as those that have moved out, maybe they could save the school. Tess's family is one of those who take on a foster child, a 13-year-old boy named Aaron. She hopes, and wishes, that this will be exactly what her family and the island (and maybe even Aaron) needs. But then, sometimes, everything you wish for doesn't always turn out the way you've planned.

It's a quiet book, one where the characters and setting are forefront, and shine like they should. Lord's writing captured the quiet homeyness of island living -- both the positive and the negative; there were some wonderfully nosy characters. She also captured the idea of finding a place; Aaron is a wonderfully complex character, someone who wants and needs a home, but is reluctant, because of his past, to dive in headfirst and give everything over to Tess and her family. It's a slow process, one with bumps and hiccups, but because you care about the characters, you want it to succeed.

And with some luck, it will.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I've been asked to make sure y'all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

Library Loot 2010-37

Another big pile of Cybils books. I'm going to try and squeeze in all the other reading I'd love to do, too. Though if y'all would stop reading and blogging until I can, I'd really appreciate it. Then again, I could just make peace with the fact that I'll never catch up. There are just too many books and not enough time.

Picture Books:
Hip Hop Dog, by Chris Raschka/Illus. by Valdimir Radunsky
Mathilda and the Orange Balloon, by Randall de Seve/Illus. by Jen Corace
Otis & Sydney and the Best Birthday Ever, by Laura Numeroff/Illus. by Dan Andreasen
Dotty, by Erica S. Perl/Illus. by Julia Denos
Roawr!, by Barbara Joosee/Illus. by Jan Jutte
The Ride: The Legend of Betsy Dowdy, by Kitty Griffin/Illus. by Marjorie Priceman

Middle Grade:
One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia
Clementine, Friend of the Week, by Sarah Pennypacker
Boys without Names, by Kashmira Sheth
Seaglass Summer, by Snjali Banerjee
Shooting Kabul, by N. H. Senzai

Young Adult:
StarCrossed, by Elizabeth C. Bunce

The roundup is either at Adventures of an Intrepid Reader or The Captive Reader. Obligatory FTC note: the links are provided through my Amazon Associates account. If you click through and actually purchase one of these books, I'll get a teeny, tiny payment. But, since no one ever does, and it's SO much easier using the associates account to put up these links, I'm going to keep doing it.

Happyface

by Stephen Edmond
ages: 14+
First sentence: "Write what you see and draw what you feel."
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Meet Happyface. He's attempting to reinvent himself in the wake of some pretty traumatic events. His family used to be "typical": mom, dad, two sons, but events, and bad choices caused that to fall apart. Will that stop Happyface? No! Formerly a shy, artistic, computer-game and comic geek, he's using the move to a new town (into an apartment with his mother) as a chance to start over.

First off: get new friends.

Happyface is the nickname that the object of his idolization, Gretchen, gave him. He's trying so hard to be happy, to be friendly, to be likable, that she dubs him "happyface", and it sticks. In fact, as the book unfolds, we learn a lot about Gretchen, her friends Karma and Misty Moon, her ex-boyfriend Trevor, and even about Happyface's ex-BFF, Chloe, but not much about Happyface himself (including his name). He's a mystery, keeping everything close to his chest and away from both the other characters as well as the reader. The conflict comes from this reluctance to reveal anything: because he's not willing to talk about what happened in his family or his past, it ends up sabotaging his friendships. Captivating in its style -- journal entries that include both prose and art -- your heart aches for this boy, muddling through trying to make it all work, even as you can see it falling apart around him.

(Is it wrong that I just wanted to send them all to therapy?)

Countdown

by Deborah Wiles
ages: 10+
First sentence: "I am eleven years old and I am invisible."
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

It's the fall of 1962, and there's tension in the air. Fifth-grader Franny Chapman is not quite sure what's going on with her best friend; her Uncle Otts seems to be not quite there anymore, instead spending more and more time fighting an old war in his head. Her mother is distracted, her father is gone, her older sister is choosing to spend time with her college friends and leaving Franny behind. Even her teacher has skipped her every single time when it's her turn to read aloud in school.

On top of all that, the president -- John F. Kennedy, for those of us who didn't do well in history -- has just informed the country that the Soviet Union is sending missiles to Cuba that have the potential to blow the entire country up. Franny only wants to be worried about going to her first boy-girl party, not whether or not she's going to live to see tomorrow.

This book is billed as a "documentary novel"; the narrative is interspersed with pictures and quotes and clippings (there's a Fallout Shelter Instruction Manual!), presumably to give the reader (who, we assume, didn't do well in history either) some frame of reference. And taken separately, both the non-fiction parts and the fiction parts were interesting. I kind of liked Franny, and her struggles. I wanted to smack her mom, and I kind of felt that Wiles was playing up an early-60s mom stereotype: the bridge-playing, cigarette-smoking, mostly absent mom who was a very strict disciplinarian when she was around, and yet somehow had a soft heart for her children, though her son saw it more. (We've come a long way, baby.) And I liked the non-fiction parts as well. The quotes, the bios of notable people, the pictures were all fascinating to look at.

I just think this book tried to do too much in combining both. The narrative felt interrupted to me, and I didn't get the sense of foreboding about the Cuban Missile Crisis that I think the author wanted us to get. In some ways, I think this would have worked better as a straight-up non-fiction book, like Marching for Freedom or Claudette Colvin. Combined with quotes and interviews, this could have been a compelling book. (I'd love to see one done from a Cuban perspective, personally.) But as it is, the book fell short in many ways for me. It tried to do too much (there's even a faint subplot about the race issues in the country at the time, but it was never developed enough to do much with), and because of that, it didn't do enough.

Which is just too bad.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I've been asked to make sure y'all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

The Fool's Girl

by Celia Rees
ages: 14+
First sentence: "Have you seen a city under sack?"
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy sent to me by the publisher.

Ever wonder what happens after the end of Twelfth Night? You know, how everyone is happily married, how the "bad" guy conveniently disappears? What happens next? Is it really happily ever after?

Well, not exactly. Celia Rees takes the ending of Twelfth Night -- the play conveniently summed up for those of us who are unfamiliar with it -- and spins it out. It's no longer a comedy; even though Feste is still around, he's not the comic relief. In fact, there isn't any comic relief. Violetta, Viola's daughter, is in exile from Ilyria after her mother's disappearance and the country is overrun, and her father killed, because of the coup her uncle Sebastian and Malvolio directed. She makes her way to London, where she runs into
a certain playwright, Will Shakespeare, and enlists his help in finding Malvolio and restoring her to her country.

It's an interesting idea; I've wondered about Shakespeare's comedies in the past, especially since so many of them are only comedies by the slimmest margin. A turn of the hand, and everything falls into tragedy. And yet, this book didn't grab me. I picked it up and put it down a few times, trying to get into the story. Once I pushed past chapter three, the story picked up a bit. Shakespeare came into play -- Rees's take on Shakespeare was intriguing; he was a gentleman and a hard-working genius, not a scoundrel or a fraud as I have seen him portrayed elsewhere -- and the pace picked up a bit.

Except that scoundrels and frauds are more interesting. That's the biggest problem with this book: everyone's bland. Shakespeare's only mildly interesting, Feste's annoying. Violetta's bland, there's no chemistry between her and the love of her life, Stephano. In fact, with about 70 pages to go, I decided I Just. Didn't. Care. and abandoned it. (Yeah, I read the ending first, so I'm counting it as a finish.) I like what-ifs, and I like adventure, and I like mystery. But it all has to be pretty spectacular in order to get me past characters who don't grab my attention.

And this one just didn't.

Library Loot 2010-36

Two reasons why this is so long this week. One: it's Cybils season (only a couple more days to put in your nominations...), so the middle grade section is a list of books I need to read sooner rather than later. And secondly, I started volunteering at the public library (finally, yay!). I thoroughly enjoy this, but... I see a book, I WANT the book, and because it's the library, I take home the book. The question is: when am I going to find time to READ the book???

Picture Books:
Elsie's Bird, by Jane Yolen/Illus. by David Small
Creak! Said the Bed, by Phyllis Root/Illus. by Regan Dunnick
The Little Green Goose, by Adele Sansone/Illus. by Anke Faust
Muddy As a Duck Puddle and Other American Similes, by Laurie Lawlor/Illus. by Ethan Long
Hey, Rabbit!, by Sergio Ruzzier
Alfie Runs Away, by Kenneth M. Cadow/Illus. by Lauren Castillo

Middle Grade:
Year of the Tiger, by Alison Lloyd
The Red Umbrella, by Christinaq Diaz Gonzalez
Touch Blue, by Cynthia Lord

Young Adult:
The Princess and the Snowbird, by Mette Ivie Harrision
Castle in the Air, by Diana Wynne Jones
Evermore: The Immortals, by Alyson Noel
Behemoth, by Scott Westerfeld

The roundup is either at Adventures of an Intrepid Reader or The Captive Reader. Obligatory FTC note: the links are provided through my Amazon Associates account. If you click through and actually purchase one of these books, I'll get a teeny, tiny payment. But, since no one ever does, and it's SO much easier using the associates account to put up these links, I'm going to keep doing it.

Extraordinary

by Nancy Werlin
ages: 13+
First sentence: "You are ready for your mission, then, little one?"
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy sent to me by the publisher.

At first glance, this book has a fascinating premise. What if the faeries made a bargain with a human, one that they felt sure they would be able to cash in on. And yet, because of the confidence of his descendants, the faeries have found that the bargain wasn't as easy to fill as they thought it would be. They're slowly dying, and they need to find an ordinary girl. And if they can't find her, they need to make her ordinary, as soon as possible.

Enter Phoebe Rothschild.

She's the daughter of the powerful Catherine Rothschild, and feels like she's just average. Especially next to her beautiful friend, Mallory. Sure, when Phoebe first met Mallory, she was an awkward 7th grader. But she has blossomed into a beautiful, confident young woman, and Phoebe feels... ordinary next to her. Enter Mallory's older brother Ryland, suave, sophisticated, and interested in Phoebe. How can he be since she's so ordinary? Little does she know that it's all a trap, and that it will take all of her ordinariness to get her out of it, and save those who truly love her.

It's an interesting premise, sure. And it would even could have worked: you find out about the faerie's plan and what led them to such desperate measures slowly, over the course of the book. And because you know more than Phoebe, there's a certain fascination as you watch it all play out. The problem lies not in the idea, or even in the plotting, but in the writing. It's clunky. The dialogue is clunky. The narrative is clunky. It's so much more tell than show. Phoebe felt this way, and yet there was nothing to back it up. Phoebe was angry, and so ranted for several paragraphs, using periods the whole way. ("I am so mad.") Phoebe couldn't wrap her brain around that; and perhaps because I knew it was faerie glamor, I felt like smacking her. In short: I lost interest. By the time of the ultimate climax, one that was supposed to be Moving and Touching, I found I just didn't care.

It sure is an interesting premise, though.

Audio Book: The Graveyard Book

by Neil Gaiman/read by Neil Gaiman
ages: 10+
First sentence: "There was a hand in the darkness and it held a knife."
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

This is a reread for me -- my face-to-face book group is reading it this month, and I needed a brush up -- but this time, I decided that I really wanted to hear Gaiman read it. I'd heard that he was a fabulous narrator, and that it's a singular experience.

I was pretty wishy-washy about the book the first time around; I thought the illustrations didn't add much, and that it wasn't always as gripping as I'd have liked.

But listening to it? I kept the CDs in the car, to listen to while I drove around, and I kept finding excuses to go places. Gaiman's a captivating storyteller. Absolutely, completely captivating. There's something about his voice, and because he's the author, he adds subtle nuances here and there that just make the story come alive. It was funnier that I remembered it being. The beginning and ending were still intense, but there was a different sort of intensity to it. And it all -- from the Sleer to the Goul chapters -- seemed to make more sense as Gaiman was reading it. I loved it so much more this time around.

A very highly recommended way to experience this book.

Geektastic

Stories from the Nerd Herd
edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci
ages: 14+
First sentence: "I awake tangled up in scratchy sheets with my head pounding and the taste of cheap alcohol and Tabasco still in my mouth."
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I was looking forward to this. I mean, it's got stories from Scott Westerfeld, John Green, David Leviathan, Wendy Mass, Sarah Zarr and Lisa Yee. It has to be good right? I had heard rumors that it's not all it's cracked up to be, and yet I still held out hope.

But you know what? It's not as good as it should have been.

It starts out with a bang: Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci combine for a wonderfully geeky story using cons and dressing up and the animosity (of sorts) between Star Trek and Star Wars. It's a brilliantly fun story: engaging, entertaining, often hilarious. Perhaps they, as editors, should not have started off with that one, because it all went downhill from there.

Oh sure, there were some highlights in the mix: I particularly liked David Levithan's quiz bowl geek story, Garth Nix's live action role playing one, and Wendy Mass's astronomy one. But, for the most part, they all seemed repetitive: take a geek (music, film, theater, dinosaurs, band) and let them fall in love. They all seemed, one way or another (notable exception being John Green's and Sarah Zarr's stories), to be about geeks falling in love. Which isn't bad in itself: geeks fall in love as well as non-geeks, but it just seemed tiresome in story after story. I wanted something different after a while. Some other aspect of geekery. Something uniquely geeky, instead of just feeling like it was a normal story set in a geeky setting.

Not that I could have written one.

That said, I did like that they covered all aspects of geekery: there's a story here for everyone. Multiplayer Online Games? Check. Majorettes in the marching band? Check. Theater geeks? Check. Rocky Horror Picture Show? Check. Buffy? Check. My favorite comic -- the stories are interspersed with one-page comics -- was "What Kind of Geek Are You?". There are so many ways to be geeky, and it's nice that the editors found a way to embrace them all.

And for that, Geektastic is truly fantastic. Perhaps it really is too much to expect it be fantastic in other ways, too.

Howl's Moving Castle

by Diana Wynne Jones
ages: 12+
First sentence: "In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three."
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there.

My third outing with Diana Wynne Jones, and I have to say that I understand why she's beloved by many. The book was wonderful. Not in a gripping, suspenseful, exciting sort of way. But in a quiet, sweet, kind, yet somehow completely and totally amazing sort of way.

For those who have neither read the book or seen the movie, our main character, Sophie, is the eldest of three daughters. Which pretty much means she's bound to fail. (As the stories go.) A daughter of a women's hat shop owner, she's pretty much resigned to staying there forever. Her sisters manage to get away in apprenticeships -- one to a bakery, the other to a witch -- but she believes that she's forever stuck. That is until the Witch of the Waste comes in, has a conitpitoin fit and turns Sophie into an old woman. Sophie figures it's not going to get much worse, and sets off to seek her fortune, in the form of making a bargain with the Wicked Wizard Howl. Only, she discovers, once inside his moving castle, that things aren't quite what they seem, and she's going to get a whole lot more than she bargained for.

I liked it because it was quiet. Everything unfolded properly in its due time, and while the foundation was there, it wasn't necessarily obvious: I didn't see the ending coming from a mile away, and yet it didn't feel like a surprise either. Everything was as it should be. Sophie's a fabulous main character: determined, if a bit stubborn. Fearless, if a bit pushy. Altogether winning and immanently likable.

The minor characters were thoroughly likable, too. From Sophie's sisters, Martha and Lettie, to Michael, How'ls apprentice, to Calcifer, the fire demon who's helping manage Howl's castle: they were all developed in their own separate ways, adding depth and dimension to the story.

And, then there's Howl. I have got to stop falling for fictional men, but seriously: I adored him. Sure, he's a fop and a dandy, and he tries (so hard) to undervalue himself, and yet he's so wonderfully awesome, in his own way. It all comes on so slowly, and the use of magic is relatively underrated (there's one battle, near the end, but for the most part it's just little things), that you don't quite realize that you're adoring Howl until it's too late. Which is, I suppose, how it should be.

My only problem is that I'm a bit wary about watching the Miyazki movie. Should I be?

Library Loot 2010-35

Ta da! The holds came in. And now I have an excuse to pick up a TON of middle grade books, though I only picked up two. Now to find the time to read them all...

Picture Books:
Chalk, by Bill Thomson
Angelina's Birthday , by Katharine Holabird/Illus. by Helen Craig
Flat Stanley, by Jeff Brown/Illus. by Scott Nash
Gumption!, by Elise Broach and Richard Egielski

Middle Grade:
Countdown, by Deborah Wiles
My Life with the Lincolns, by Gail Brandeis
Celtic Myths, by Sam McBratney/Illus. By Stephen Player

Young Adult:
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci
Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork
Bamboo People, by Mitali Perkins
Chosen: A House of Night Novel, by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
Marked: A House of Night Novel, by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
Untamed (House of Night Novels), by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
Hunted (A House of Night Novel), by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast
I Shall Wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett

Audio Books:
The Graveyard Book CD, by Neil Gaiman

Adult Fiction:
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zola Neale Hurston

The roundup is either at Adventures of an Intrepid Reader or The Captive Reader. Obligatory FTC note: the links are provided through my Amazon Associates account. If you click through and actually purchase one of these books, I'll get a teeny, tiny payment. But, since no one ever does, and it's SO much easier using the associates account to put up these links, I'm going to keep doing it.

Bogbrush the Barbarian

by Howard Whitehouse (Illus. by Bill Slavin)
ages: 9+
First sentence: "The July snow was blowing sideways across the frozen plain toward the village."
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy sent to me by the author

Because I am not a 10-year-old boy, nor have I ever had a 10-year-old boy (or am likely to), I have completely missed out on the whole sub-genre of 10-year-old-boy books. You know them: Captain Underpants and the like. As a result, I'm not that versed in the world of fart and poop jokes. (Probably a good thing...) This book falls into that category (though it's pretty light on the fart and poop jokes), and much to my surprise (or not, since I've loved other books by Howard Whitehouse) I thoroughly enjoyed it.

We follow the (mis)adventures of one Bogbrush (the Barbarian), who's off to become a Hero. After a quick stop at the Temple of the Great Belch in order to become a Certified Barbarian, he sets off in search of a Quest. He bumps into Diphtheria and Sneaky, who are off to see if they can remove the Great Axe from the Stone and become the true king of Scrofula. Sounds like an adventure Bogbrush -- who's not too bright -- can handle. Of course, they will run into a few other obstacles before they get to the Big City, and while things don't really turn out happily-ever-after, they don't turn out too badly either.

But, obviously, this book isn't about the plot. It's about the gags, the gimmicks, and Whitehouse (with able -- and ample -- assistance from Slavin's illustrations) gives us that in abundance. My personal favorite was the parenthetical comments under the chapter headings; the author uses hands and toes to count up from one to twenty (well, chapter 9 reads, "This would be both hands raised if I had lost a finger like Uncle Bob who had that unfortunate accident with the bacon slicer."); after twenty they become insanely hilarious, counting all over the map (21 gets used a few times, an Chapter 9 makes a reappearance). I found myself looking forward to a new chapter, just so I could see what was going to happen next in the parenthetical comments.

Additionally, the author gives us an "education", with sidebars in every chapter explaining definitions of words and customs, as well as general "things to know". And, since this is a humor book, they are (of course) only mostly serious.

Word of the Day: invoke -- to call upon a god, as in "O great God of Homework, make that which I did on the bus this morning suffice for a passing grade."

or

Vocabulary to Learn: Brigands, outlaws, footpads, and bandits are the same thing -- groups of unpleasant criminals who hide in the wilds and jump out on honest passersby. And not just to say "Boo!" either.

It's not deep, it's not even a particularly compelling story, and it kind of just runs out of steam at the end. But it's 10-year-old boy funny, and that's really all that matters.

Dream Factory

by Brad Barkley and Heather Helper
ages: 13+
First sentence: "I wasn't at all surprised when Cinderella gave me the finger."
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

There are expectations for any fluff book, especially one with a pink cover and a glass slipper on it. The measure of the book, in the end, is how well it lived up to those expectations.

The character actors at Walt Disney World -- you know: the people who walk around shaking hands and posing for pictures -- are on strike. Since Disney is Disney and cannot be shut down, they resort to hiring older teens, those just graduated from high school, or are in their early years of college, to fill those slots. No auditioning necessary: you get to be whichever costume fits you best.

Which is why, her name notwithstanding, Ella ends up as Cinderella. She spends her days in a ball gown, getting married like clockwork at 3, having her Prince Charming -- who's really not a bad guy, and a halfway decent kisser, even if there aren't any sparks -- chase her down. She has friends, but the one person she feels like she really connects with is Luke.

Luke has ended up being the less cool half (if there is such a thing) of Cphip and Dale. He spends his days sweating in a fur animal costume, hiding from the life that waits for him back home. His girlfriend, Cassie, is everything he should want in a girl: smart, beautiful, fun. But, he finds Ella fascinating, and interesting, and not a little captivating.

So, since the question really isn't will these two get together -- because obviously, the nature of the book demands that they do -- the whole point of the book is to enjoy how these two get together. And, while the alternating narrative chapters was fun, the rest of the story kind of fell flat. It almost seemed like the authors were trying to channel Maureen Johnson crossed with Sarah Dessen, but both of them do it much much better. The book lacks the swoonworthiness (yes, I just made up that word) and frivolity of MJ's books; there just isn't a whole lot of chemistry between Ella and Luke. There wasn't any tension, there wasn't any playfulness, and I swear if a character cut their eyes at another character one more time, I was going to scream.) Perhaps it was because, playing with issues of identity and reality, the authors were trying for the issue-heavy romances like Dessen. Except she expertly balances the issues and the romance, never letting one outweigh the other, and creating something that is quite satisfying in the end.

It's fluff and it was fun. It just wasn't all that I had hoped it would be.

Girl in Translation

by Jean Kwok
ages: adult
First sentence: "A sheet of melting ice lay over the concrete."
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Nice.

I'm not sure I'm supposed to sum up an immigrant girl's horrific-and-yet transcendent American experience in one word, especially nice, but there it is.

I found this book to be... nice.

It's beautifully written, true. And it tells an untold story: of what can happen to immigrants (legal in this case) when they come to America. It's the story of the American dream: how a girl's ambition, and how one thing -- in her case, being smart and having a "talent" for school -- can change the fortunes of just about anyone, especially with hard work and a few lucky breaks. There's also a love story, tragic and bittersweet.

We follow Kimberly Chang as she and her mother arrive in New York, fresh from Hong Kong, hoping for a better life. They're under the patronage (thumb?) of the mother's older sister, Patricia, who sets them up with a job -- being finishers at a clothing factory, being paid by the skirt -- and an apartment -- in an abandoned building with roaches, no heating, and half the windows gone. It's a rough adjustment for Kim, although she has some grasp of English, she is not prepared for school in Brooklyn. Her grade fall, she skips school, and it's really only through the chance grace of a friendly gesture that gets her to go and stay. Which, in the end, is what saves her.

There's some lovely writing in the book, and small touches here and there -- like they way Kwok wrote what Kim heard as opposed to what the real word was, when she was just learning ("Where's your accent note?") -- that I found to be charming. It covers a lot of time, eight years, as Kimberly goes through middle school and high school. There are lots of downs, understandably, but there are ups as well.

But, in the end, I felt that it was going for depth, for heartache, for the chance to move the reader and all I felt was that it was tragic, and yet how nice that she was able to overcome it all. How nice that it all mostly worked out. How nice that she was brilliant and had opportunities. How... nice.

There are worse things, though. At least it was nice.