Author: booknutgirls

booknutgirls http://thebooknutdotcom.wordpress.com I read. I blog. I sell books. I chauffeur my kids. What more do you need to know?

The Supernormal Sleuthing Service

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by Gwenda Bond and Christopher Rowe
First sentence: “Stephen stepped over the low iron fence and past a sign that said ‘DO NOT WALK ON THE GRASS.'”
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Content: There’s some mildly scary situations. It’s in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Stephen has grown up his whole life with his father believing that it was just the two of them, plus a grandmother who came to visit every once in a while. But after his grandma’s death, Stephen and his dad move to New York City, and Stephen is thrust into a whole new world. One with “supernormals” which is how the supernatural — faeries, ogres, dragons, vampires, gargoyles, etc — prefer to refer to themselves, and one where Stephen, who isn’t always the best with rules, quickly learns that he’s got a LOT to learn. Especially when a priceless heirloom, and his family’s “permission” to stay in this world, goes missing.

This was a lot of fun. I liked Stephen’s growth arc as he learned about the supernormal world, and the friends he made — there’s a team of three kids who solve the mystery about the missing book. I liked the other characters he met, especially the dragon (whose name escapes me right now). I thought the authors did really well with their worldbuilding, and it was an interesting take on the whole supernatural world. I also like that, though this looks like it’ll be a series, it didn’t feel like a “first-in-a”.

Definitely worth taking a look.

Danger Gang and the Pirates of Borneo

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by Stephen Bramucci
First sentence: ”
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Disclaimer: I spent a day taking Steve around to school visits. He’s definitely the coolest guy you’ve never heard of.
Content: There’s a bit of violence, and a couple of intense moments. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Ronald Zupan’s parents are these huge adventurers, traveling the world looking for ancient artifacts. But, they made one promise: they will always be home for Ronald’s birthday. So, when he woke up on his 11th birthday, and they weren’t there, he immediately knew something was wrong. He ropes his trusty butler, Jeeves (real name: Thomas) and his pet King Cobra, Carter,  and his fencing nemisis Julianne Sato into an adventure to find his missing parents. Who just happen to have been kidnapped by pirates. In Borneo.

Yes, this book is just as silly as it sounds. But that’s the point. Ronald is delightfully dense (Jeeves/Thomas has corrections at the end of every chapter), and Julianne ends up being the brains of the operation, while Jeeves is the, well, worry wart. And yet, they figure out how to work as a team by the end of the book, in spite of everything that’s against them. It’s a fun adventure story as well: Ronald and the gang goes all sorts of places, and there’s all sorts of little tidbits  throughout the book. (Plus the illustrations are perfect for the book!)

Definitely a lot of fun, and perfect for those reluctant readers looking for a good book to dive into!

Monthly Round-up: October 2017

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It’s been another crazy month, but I swear, every day, that I’m going to get more reading done than I actually do. That said, I read/listened to some really great books this month. My favorite was this:

All the Crooked Saints

And not just because Maggie came to Wichita (again)! She is seriously the best.

As for the rest…

Middle Grade:


The Empty Grave
Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power
Nevermoor

 

YA:

Daughter of the Pirate King
You Bring the Distant Near
Wonder Woman: Warbringer (audio book)

Adult Fiction:


William Shakespeare’s Star Wars (audio book)
Hag-Seed

Graphic Novel

Lighter Than My Shadow
Invisible Emmie
Pashima

What were your favorites this month?

Ghosts of Greenglass House

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by Kate Milford
First sentence: “Frost was pretty much the worst.”
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Others in the series: Greenglass House
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: It’s a bit slow moving and long, so while appropriate for the age, probably not good for the reluctant readers. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

It’s been a year since Milo has seen his ghost friend Meddy, and the adventures of the last Christmas. He’s mostly doing okay, except for a bit of a problem at school with a teacher who isn’t terribly sensitive (Milo is Chinese American, and adopted). But it’s Christmas break (again), and Milo is looking forward to a guest-free (mostly), teacher free break. That is, until his old friends Clem and Georgie show up (again), having robbed the legendary smuggler Violet Cross’s stash. Things kind of go downhill from there, with the arrival of the Waits, a group of traditional carolers, when they turn everything at Greenglass House upside down.

It’s a solid book. taking place over just a couple of days, with a strong mystery. It was fun to revisit the characters again (I don’t even remember the first book all that well, so it’s really not necessary to read it before reading this one), and I loved how Midwinter it was. There’s a whole subplot with the running of the deer, and the hobby horse, and the holly and the ivy that I thoroughly enjoyed.

It was just a delightful story to read.

Daughter of the Pirate King

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by Tricia Levenseller
First sentence: “I hate having to dress like a man.”
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Content: There’s some violence, some mild swearing, and references to torture. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Pirate captain, and daughter of the pirate king, Alosa is on a secret mission to retrieve a part of a map from one of her father’s enemies. Which means, she is deliberately captured in order to search the ship. This is not a pleasant experience for her; Alosa is used to 1) commanding her own ship and 2) besting everyone around her. She knows her father is placing his trust in her, though, and she’s determined to succeed. At whatever cost.

Oh heavens, this was fun. Maybe I was just in the mood for a good pirate book (and this IS a good pirate book) where the girl gets to be awesome (and gets to do it mostly on her own terms; the ship Alosa captains is made up mostly of women, and it’s just amazing. She’s just amazing!) AND gets to have the guy (oh the banter was delightful). It was well-written, well-paced, and just OH so much fun.

And the bonus? The sequel’s coming out soon. (In fact, that’s entirely why I picked this one up: I got an ARC of the sequel at work.)  I can’t wait to dive into that!

The Empty Grave

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by Jonathan Stroud
First sentence: “Want to hear a ghost story?”
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Others in the Series: The Screaming Staircase, The Whispering Skull, The Hollow Boy, The Creeping Shadow
Content: Scary stuff and violence, of course. They’re in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but I always make sure the kids can handle scary stuff before selling these.

There’s not much new to say about this series that I haven’t already said before. I adore Lockwood, Lucy, George (and now Holly and Kipps, too!). I love that Stroud knows how to pace a story, giving us smaller ghosts and mysteries that all link together in a big huge climax. I love that while this one feels like a good ending, it’s also a good story in its own right. I will definitely miss this world and this series and I’m SO glad I started it all those years ago. If you’ve been waiting until all the books were out to start this series, now’s the time. Go do it. You won’t be sorry.

 

Nevermoor

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by Jessica Townsend
First sentence: “The journalists arrived before the coffin did.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 31, 2017
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There are some scary moments, and it’s a bit long (almost 450 pages). It will be in the Middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Morrigan has grown up thinking she was cursed. Everyone — from the townspeople to her own father — blames her for everything that goes wrong. No one speaks to her, and worst of all, she is slated to die on Eventide. It’s a miserable existence.

So when, on Eventide, a mysterious man named Jupiter North swoops in and takes her away (with permission; but that’s a long story), Morrigan doesn’t know how to react.  She’s swept away to a city called Nevermoor to not only live with Jupiter in a magical hotel, but to compete in the trials to become part of the Wundrous Society, an exclusive magical society/school. There are conflicts and challenges, and Morrigan makes friends as she goes along.

So, I know what you’re thinking: it sounds an awful lot like Harry Potter. And you’re right: it is. But, it’s also its own thing. It’s not just that it’s a different sort of magic, it’s also lighter. More like Sorcerer’s Stone, even though that’s darker than this one is. Nevermoor is a delightful sort of fantasy, with a wonderful world kids can fall into. Yes, this is a beginning of a series (argh!), but it’s also a complete story on its own. There are delightful characters to meet and get to know, and the trials themselves are interesting and fun.

In short: it’s a fun read. Definitely hand this to those Harry Potter fans.

Audiobook: William Shakespeare’s Star Wars Collection

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Verily a New Hope, The Empire Striketh Back, The Jedi Doth Return
by Ian Doescher
Read by: Full cast
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Content: It’s Shakespearean English, but it’s also basically the movies. It’s in the humor section of the bookstore.

So, when I talked to my dad on his birthday, he gushed about these, especially on audio. And you know: he was right. They’re a LOT of fun, especially on audio.

The premise is thus: Doescher got approval from Lucasfilm to take the scripts (alas, they were the updated scripts so Jabba shows up in the first one) and then he worked them into a Shakespearean format: language, play structure (each book is 5 acts, which is a very Shakespearean thing), etc. It was actually kind of impressive! There were subtle differences: R2D2 didn’t just beep and whistle; he had asides where he commented on the action around him (Doescher said in the afterward to Jedi that R2D2 was the fool of the play, and I could see where he was going with that, though R2 had more lines in the first movie), and we got asides from pretty much all the characters. It felt a bit jarring at first with some of the characters (like, Han, for instance), but eventually, I became used to it and enjoyed it.

And it really was like listening to the movies. Doescher got rights to the music (yay!) and there were sound effects. And I know the movies well enough (I think it’s for those people who do know and love the movies) that I could picture what was going on while the play was going. (Though, I missed the “I love you!” “I know.” in Empire, but that’s because it wasn’t scripted.)

Oh: and stick around for the Afterwards. Doescher talks a bit about his methods and how he decided on different types of forms for each character (Yoda’s in haiku!), and a bit about the process working with Lucasfilms. It was an absolutely delightful book to listen to.

 

You Bring the Distant Near

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by Mitali Perkins
First sentence: “The swimmers have finished their races and are basking in the sun.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There is some mild swearing. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

This one is a difficult one to describe plot-wise. It’s a slice of life, looking at three generations of women in an Indian family as they move to America and make a life here. It starts with the mother, Ranee, and her two daughters, Sonia and Tara, as they move from London to New York in the early 1970s. Each of the daughters reacts differently to coming to America, each looking for their own way to cope. Ranee isn’t as adaptable: she complains about their apartment in Flushing, she complains about her husband sending money home. Then he passes on, and Ranee is forced to adapt to this country as her daughters grow up and get married, one to an Indian, the other to a black American man.

The book then picks up when Ranee’s granddaughters, Anna and Chantal, are in high school. They are dealing with their own issues: Chantal is bi-racial and is trying to figure out her own identity. And Anna, though American, was raised in Mumbai where her mother is a Bollywood star, but has recently moved back so she could go to high school and college in America.

Perkins handles all this admirably; giving us a taste of Bengali culture, as well as the things immigrants do in order to fit in. One of the more interesting parts of the novel, for me, was set after 9/11, when Ranee goes through her own transformation as a reaction to the terrorist attacks. She figures out what “American” means to her. And that sentence may be what’s at the heart of this delightful novel: what does “American” mean? Perhaps it has become an individual expression for everyone, and there isn’t a “norm” anymore. (That was probably always the way it was, but we pretended otherwise.) Which is, as posited by this book, a very good thing.

An excellent read.

Hag-Seed

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by Margaret Atwood
First sentence: “The house lights dim.”
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Content: There’s some swearing, including multiple f-bombs. It’s in the adult fiction section, but it has crossover appeal for those who are theater/Shakespeare fans.

Felix is the best, most innovative, most desired director around, and he’s on the cusp of Something Great with his interpretation of The Tempest. But, just as he was getting started with that, an unforseen bit of treachery outs Felix from his role. He’s sent off to the wilderness, where he finds, eventually, a job as a theater teacher in a correctional facility. He finds enjoyment teaching the felons (it’s a minimum security prison) the ins and outs of Shakespeare. And then, he learns that those who betrayed him are coming to visit, and he realizes that his Time Has Come; revenge is nigh.

Yes, if this sounds like the plot of The Tempest, you are correct. Very much so. And, I think, the better you know the play, the better this book is. As one who has seen it (once), and knows the general plot, but not all the intricacies of the play, I… enjoyed it. I liked the Fletcher Correctional Players best; I liked how they interpreted Shakespeare, rewriting the play to fit them. My favorite part of the book, perhaps, is the end, when the players come up with plausible futures for their characters. So, it was accessible and enjoyable to someone with a passing knowledge of the play. I do wonder, though, if you’ve never been exposed to The Tempest at all, if you’d be able to get into and enjoy this. (Just wondering…)

Thoroughly enjoyable, especially if you’re interested in a different approach to Shakespeare.