It’s March. There’s 70 reviews over at the Expanding Horizons Challenge review page. I know at least one person has finished. Since visiting other people’s reviews and commenting elicited such a piddly response (People, you really ought to read each other’s reviews. There’s some interesting books being read out there.), I’ve decided to do something at little less strenuous.
For the prize package — which includes an ARC of A Bottle in the Gaza Sea and chocolate from here (c’mon… who wouldn’t want this stuff?!) — all you have to do is leave a comment in this post with the name of the book you’ve liked best so far (for the challenge, of course), and why.
First, the blurb about Gaza Sea:
A seventeen-year-old from Jerusalem, Tal Levine comes from a family that always believed peace would come to the Middle East. She cried tears of joy when President Clinton and Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Yasser Arafat in 1993—a moment of hope that would stay with her forever. But when a terrorist explosion kills a young woman at a café in Jerusalem, something changes for Tal. One day she writes a letter, puts it in a bottle, and sends it to Gaza—to the other side—beginning a correspondence with a young Palestinian man that will ultimately open their eyes to each other’s lives and hearts.
Just to show you how easy it is:
I liked Hummingbird’s Daughter best. While it wasn’t a perfect novel, I enjoyed the elements of faith and of magical realism, and I loved Tomas’s journey from a superstitious jerk, to a loving, caring father.
See? Easy peasy. I’ll leave this post up until the 15th, then A gets to do a drawing. She’s very excited.
The Book Nut 
I think I’d choose <>A Dream in Polar Fog<> as my favorite. Not necessarily because it was the best of the bunch, but because it was different in its own way. I also really liked <>A Thousand Splendid Suns<> and <>Climbing the Mango Trees.<>(And for the record, I’ve very much enjoyed reading the reviews. I just don’t leave many comments. But now I have even more good books to read, so that’s been the best part of the challenge, I think.)
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It’s hard to pick a favorite. I’ve narrowed it down to two though. Yellow Umbrella is a wordless picture book with a music cd. It had me enchanted from the very beginning. The illustrations. The music. The singing of small children in Korean. It is just fabulous. Year of the Rat by Grace Lin is equally fabulous. A book perfect for those middle elementary years. I would have loved loved loved it in second or third grade. I love that book, love that series. So it would be one or the other of those. If I had to had to choose. I would choose Yellow Umbrella simply because it was a surprise. I didn’t know what to expect, didn’t expect to be so charmed or enchanted. And Grace Lin I always expect to be fabulous. 🙂
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I think my favorite was <>Half of a Yellow Sun<>. I had some difficulty with the book’s structure, but I was fascinated with the history and the culture, and the characters were all so diverse and genuine.This has actually been my favorite book I’ve read this year, challenge or not.
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My hands down favorite is Things Fall Apart, because I like its style. It was intersting, and easy to read. And the other books haven’t been all that great. In fact, I’ve stalled after giving up on my last book.
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Oh don’t give up, softdrink! Re-think your list, find new books, whatever it takes…
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Hmm. For me, it’s a toss up between Hummingbird’s Daughter and Sister of My Heart. H.D. was so beautifully written, so Mexican in scope and I felt like I really got a taste of the culture. I’m also a sucker for magical realism 🙂 SOMH was a good story – and a great slice of modernish Indian experience. I guess in the end, Hummingbird’s Daughter takes the cake.
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My favorite so far has been Persepolis. I’m still pretty new to the whole graphic novel thing, and I found it amazing that such a profound and informative story could be told in that kind of format. As a side note, I was really excited to see the film, and it actually came here (which rarely happens with the foreign/arty films that I want to see!) I had plans to go see it within the week, only to find that it had left already. What’s up with that?
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I have read two so far. And I do like both. However I liked Half of a Yellow Sun very much. It speaks of Nigeria in 1960s whn Biafra wanted to be an Independent state.The story is very well developed and touching.
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Man, I’m really behind on this challenge. I’m suddenly reading a lot of non-fiction, none of which I put on my challenge list. Go figure.So far I’ve only read Links, and enjoyed it…so that’s my favorite one. 🙂 However, I do have The Gate of the Sun (Mid-East category) on my list for March. I just got it for my birthday.
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I’m not part of the challenge, but I wanted to comment. I’m glad to hear that you liked Hummingbird’s Daughter so well. I have it on the bedside table so I see it often. You have nudged me to ‘get to it.’
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So far ‘Once Were Warriors’ has been my favorite book that I’ve read for the challenge. It is powerful.
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I would choose Cuba 15. Partially because it took me completely by surprise (it wasn’t in fact the book I had initially chosen for the challenge). It’s the voice, the sense of humour, and the warmth of the family in the story. It also introduces readers to Cuban culture in a subtle way that makes you want to head out there and learn more about it, which I see as one of the primary goals of the challenge.I know I’m probably too late for the draw, but I wanted to comment anyway, so that you know how much I am enjoying participating in this challenge. I have so many more books on my TBR list now. Yum!
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