Month: October 2010

October Jacket Flap-a-Thon

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.