Oops. I read both of these a while back, and as I was cleaning out my various folders, found a note reminding myself to write a post on them. Better late than never, right?

The Storyteller’s Daughter, Saira Shah
This was recommended to me by a friend who loved Saira’s CNN/BBC Behind the Veil special on the women in Afghanastan. I loved it; she didn’t finish it — she kept comparing it to the documentary and finding the book uninteresting in comparison. I thought it was a good portrayal of wartime in Afghanastan (though not so much about women in Afghanistan), and it raised some interesting issues regarding stability and democracy in and the US position toward Afghanistan. I’ve never seen the documentary, so I don’t know how it compares.

The Ear, The Eye and The Arm, Nancy Farmer
This was a Newbery Honor book, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad. It wasn’t. It was a bit of weird SciFi/Fantasy work. I usually like SciFi/Fantasy books, and I usually give them a huge margin for stupidity, so I was surprised that I didn’t like this one all that much. I think I just grew impatient with the way the story plodded along…