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 Fourteenth Goldfish

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by Jennifer L. Holm
First sentence: “When I was in preschool, I had a teacher named Starlily.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy snagged from the ARC shelves at my place of employment
Release date: August 26, 2014
Content: I think it’s geared towards younger readers: larger font, lots of white space, and everything is pretty much spelled out. It’ll go in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but could go for strong younger readers.

Eleven-year-old Ellie has a pretty normal life. Her parents — both Theater People — are divorced, but get along. She is dreading middle school, especially since she and her best friend since Kindergarten seem to be drifting apart. But, mostly, it’s just your normal, every-day life. That is, until her mom gets call to go pick up “Melvin”. Who happens to be her father, Ellie’s grandpa. Except now he’s 13. Turns out, he discovered a new species of jellyfish, one when ingested, gives you back your youth.

But things aren’t all roses and unicorns for Melvin: being 13 is not the same as being in your 70s. There are some upsides: a good digestive system, and the lack of a need to pee in the middle of the night. But the downside is that Melvin has lost access to his lab, which means if he can’t get the jellyfish, he can’t prove his theory, and he won’t win the Nobel Prize.

While Ellie is our narrator, it’s Melvin who drives the action. He’s the one who introduces Ellie to Science; gets Ellie to talk to her new friend, Raj; the one who needs to break into the building. One of my problems with this (aside from being Too Old; I do think younger readers will love it) is that Ellie is not proactive, but rather reactive in her own life. She’s a sweet girl, and a nice person to read about. But the book just wasn’t exciting.

It was, however, charming and informative. Holm managed to put a ton of science in her science fiction book: everyone from Galileo and Newton to Oppenheimer and Einstein make an appearance. And she explains some basic scientific concepts in pretty general — and clever — ways. So, while it wasn’t exciting, it was interesting. It did take me a while to figure out the title, why it was called the 14th goldfish (since goldfish didn’t play much of a role), but I thought the ending was sweet and Holm did explain it.

Not my cup of tea, but I’m glad I read it.

July 2014 Wrap Up

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I don’t know about you, but the end of July pretty much marks the end of the summer here in Kansas. The girls go back to school on August 12th, and while I’ve got my John Green book club through the end of the month (the 3-5th grade one died, unfortunately), my responsibilities at work are kind of pulling back. Though I’ve got a project in the works that hopefully will be Fun and a lot of people will want to participate. More later.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time watching movies — both Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings with A; Say Anything with C; Howl’s Moving Castle with K; Godzilla with Hubby — and a lot of time at the pool, so I didn’t get much reading done. I am thinking, though, that I’m due for a good dose of non-fiction. Maybe as the weather starts cooling off..

I didn’t really have a strong favorite this month, but I did thoroughly enjoy this one:

The Glass Sentence

 it really was a wonderful world and a gripping story (once it got going; it really is slow to start).

As for the rest:

Middle Grade

A Horse Called Hero
Loot: How to Steal a Fortune
Randi Rhodes, Ninja Detective: The Case of the Time Capsule Bandit (audio)
The House of Pooh (audio)

Adult:

The Lost

YA:

The Bitter Kingdom
Keeping the Castle (audio)
The Summer Prince

I read two John Green books, but I didn’t feel a need to re-review them.

Graphic Novel:

Cleopatra in Space

Non-Fiction:

The End of Your Life Book Club

What were your favorites this month?

The End of Your Life Book Club

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by Will Schwalbe
First sentence: “WE were nuts about the mocha in the waiting room at Memorial Sloan-Kittering’s outpatient care center.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s really nothing. It’s a very adult book in its sensibilities, but there’s no reason a teenager — especially a bookish one — couldn’t read this.

This book has been on my radar for a little while; it made the rounds at the bookstore when it came out and many of the staff and regulars loved it. But I didn’t get around to reading it until a good friend of mine suggested it for our book group.

If you haven’t heard about this one, it’s basically the story of Will’s mother as she goes from diagnosis for pancreatic cancer through her final days. The two of them are both avid readers, and they formed their own small book group during her chemotherapy sessions. It’s one part book-lovers book, and one part death and dying story.

I liked the book-lover part better, mostly because it was something I could grasp. I hadn’t read (or even heard of) a good number of the books they talked about, but Schwalbe was enthusiastic and thoughtful about enough of them that I’m interested in checking several of the books and authors out. I highlighted quite a few quotes about books and reading, ones that resonated with me.

As for the death and dying part, I was touched by Schwalbe and his mother’s story. She was a remarkable woman, who did remarkable things in her own small way. I had one of those “if I could only be as awesome as she was” moments. And you could tell the affection that Schwalbe had for his mother. I know that sometimes in these sorts of books the dead person gets “sainted”, but I never felt that his mother was. By framing the book around the books they read, Schwalbe gave this book a grounding — and a broader audience — that you don’t usually find in cancer books, something which I appreciated quite a bit.

I don’t think it was my favorite book ever, but I am glad I finally got to read it.

The Bitter Kingdom

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by Rae Carson
First sentence: “We run.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: The Girl of Fire and Thorns, The Crown of Embers
Content: It’s a pretty complex book, full of politics and machinations. But, even with all the fighting and killing and wars (and some brief sexytimes), it’s not a graphic book. It’s in the teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore, but I think a strong younger reader would enjoy it as well.

Queen Elisa is in a terrible predicament. Her country has been taken over by an ursuper, Conde Eduardo. The man she loves and the commander of her Royal Guard has been kidnapped by traitors. And she only has a few friends she can count on. The problem is that she needs to head into Invierne and convince them to stop invading her country. And figure out how to deal with her newfound power from her Godstone.

That doesn’t even begin to touch this complex and fascinating ending to a complex and fascinating trilogy. I’ve always loved the religious element to this story, how God plays a role in Elisa’s life. I really enjoyed the way Carson pitted the Joyans and the Inverinos against each other; both think they are right, and both think the other is wrong. It’s really a book about compromise and understanding, and I loved that.

Elisa has become, for me, one of my favorite heroines. She’s not kick-butt fighter, but rather a savvy, clever, and fascinating character; someone who uses her brain rather than her fighting skills. Carson also gave us Hector’s point of view a few times in this book, something which I appreciated. While I’ve loved seeing Hector from Elisa’s point of view, it was interesting to be inside his head and to know a little more how he works.

I do think that the only thing I would have done differently with this series is wait until they were all out so I could read them one after another. I think the experience of this story would be that much better if I had read it all in one gulp.

A Horse Called Hero

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by Sam Angus
First sentence: “Wolfie stopped, distracted by the stacks of sandbags and newly dug trenches.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s really nothing objectionable for the target audience, though there are letters written in cursive, and I know my 3-5 graders would have problems deciphering those. There’s also several intense situations, so if you have a sensitive child, you might want to shy away from that.

Dorothy and Wolfgang Revel — they go by Dodo and Wolfie, however — are children in London the winter of 1940 when the German bombs start dropping. Their father is called up to serve in the army — he was a celebrated commander during World War I — and they are sent off to Northern England to live with strangers. They’re doing okay, until word comes back that their father was arrested for desertion. Then, they are outcasts in this strange place. That is, until they’re taken in by the school teacher. Whereupon Wolfie chances across a horse being born and adopts it for his own.

If you can’t tell my my enthusiastic summary of the first 50 pages (which is really all that is; this book covers an enormous amount of time), I am not a horse person. And, alas, this book did nothing to help with that. I kind of had hopes that this would be Inspiring and Uplifting and help me see what people find in horse books, but… no. I was bored. The basic plot revolves around Wolfie’s love for Hero The Horse and the kids’ concern about their father. There was an incident when Hero saved them after they got trapped in the bog, and another when Hero helped Wolfie get out of a mine after an explosion, but by then, I was so Bored because of the lack of Real Plot (and the extended time; Wolfie was 5 or so when it started, and 14 by the end), I was just skimming.

I am sure that there are kids who would Love this one, but I am not one of them.

10 Great Audiobooks

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For quite a few years, I’ve gone to the library and picked out a few (sometimes upwards to a dozen) audiobooks to choose from as alternatives to music or movies in the car. This time, we got to talking about books we’ve listened to (and liked) over the years, and that prompted me to come up with a list of our favorite audiobooks. I’ve added a few of my personal favorites as well.

1. The True Meaning of Smekday, by Adam Rex; read by Bahni Turpin. This is one we still rave about; it’s absolutely captivating and Turpin is fantastic as a narrator. In fact, we love it so much, we’re kind of worried about the changes that they’re making with the movie. Though we agree that Jim Parsons is perfect at J. Lo.

2. The House at Pooh Corner, by A. A. Milne; read by a whole cast. As I was going back through my records, it turns out we listened to this one before. Doesn’t matter; we were still captivated by the voices (particularly Geoffry Palmer as Eeyore) and you can’t go wrong with the Pooh bear stories.

3. The Black Cauldron, by Lloyd Alexander; read by James Langton. I think hubby and I enjoyed this one more than the girls did. They complained there were too many characters and it was confusing. Perhaps, they were just too young. Langton, however, was a perfect narrator.

4. Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man by Donald J. Sobol; read by Greg Steinbruner. Another one we rave about, still. The girls have asked, on multiple occasions, if we can get more of these, but I haven’t found any yet. We loved listening to the stories and trying to solve along. And Steinbruner was excellent.

5. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis; read by Michael York. If you haven’t noticed yet, we tend to pick classics to listen to while we road trip. Partially that’s because we want to expose our kids to them, but also because I think they’re more interesting when read by a good reader. This is certainly true for Lewis’s books. The ones we’ve listened to have been fantastic.

6. The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman; read by the author. The only thing I have to say is that if you’ve never heard Gaiman read one of his books, you’re missing out. I’d listen to him read a tech manual and be hanging on every word. It helps, of course, that he’s a great writer and storyteller as well.

7. Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor; read by Khristine Hvam. Taylor’s a beautiful writer, and Hvam captures her characters perfectly. Especially Brimstone. It was one that I just listened to on my own, but she had me hanging on every word.

8. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee; read by Sissy Spacek. It’s one of those that everyone should read, and Sissy Spacek’s perfect southern drawl compliments Lee’s words quite nicely.


9. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson; read by Peter Altschuler. Often, when listening to an audio book, the reader makes or breaks the experience. In this case, the reader made it. He captured everything perfectly, and I had a better experience than I think I would have if I had just read the book.

10. One Summer: America, 1927, by Bill Bryson; read by the author. Much like Neil Gaiman, Bryson’s books are better listened to. He’s got an incredibly dry sense of humor, and that suits his writing quite well. They’re chock full of information, though, so don’t be surprised if you end up checking out the print book as well.

What have been some of your favorite audio books?

Loot: How to Steal a Fortune

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by Jude Watson
First sentence: “No thief likes a full moon.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: The only think I can think of is that it’s a bit intense, action-wise. Probably on par with the Percy Jackson books. There’s no swearing, no romance. It’s happily in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

This book — combined with The Great Greene Heist (it’s a trend! Does two books make a trend?) — has gotten me thinking about the implausible versus the impossible. It is implausible that Jackson Green could have thrown together a crew to scam less-than-intelligent adults into exposing a blackmailing scheme. It is highly impossible, however, that 12-year-old March McQuin could have gotten together a crew in order to steal back 7 Moonstones that his illustrious thief father, Alfie, stole 12 years before. (Granted, the premise behind the Heist Society books by Ally Carter is also impossible.)

Impossible, however, doesn’t mean “bad”.

In fact, Watson has put together quite a ripping tale. After Alfie’s death during a heist in Amsterdam, March discovers he has a 12-year-old twin sister, Julia, that he didn’t know about. And then, at Alfie’s funeral, March and Julia are confronted by the woman from whom the moonstones were stolen. She’s offered them $7 million in order to steal them back. In a week. They’re up against incredible odds: Alfie’s old partner, who has just recently gotten out of jail, are after the stones as well.

Even though the premise is impossible, Watson does a fantastic job keeping up the pace. The chapters are short, the pacing quick, making it a perfect read for reluctant readers. Plus, it’s action-packed with chases (both in the car and on foot) and rooftop falls as well as planning and executing some pretty amazing heists.

No, it’s not a story that could actually “happen”. But it was still a lot of fun.

Cleopatra in Space

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Book One: Target Practice
by Mike Maihack
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s some violence, but nothing terribly graphic. What struck me is that there is a lot of exposition (with long words) in this one. I’m not sure if K understood everything that went on, but she got the gist of it. Which is what graphic novels are great at.

It’s her 15th birthday, Cleopatra (yes, that Cleopatra) doesn’t want to go through with her party. The ceremony, the pomp, the everything. So, she sneaks away from her tutor, and discovers a portal to a future time and place that is being besieged by a tyrannical dictator. The prophecies declare that she will be the Savior of the world, but first: she has to go to academy to figure things out.

It’s essentially a fish-out-of-water story; BCE girl meets futuristic technology. I liked how she found everything boring, until she got to combat training. She took to that immediately. She’s a girl of action, and she’s smart and tough — when it comes to combat. She’s not a scholar and that’s okay. The only thing that was a bit disconcerting was the whole talking cats. Cats in this world have evolved to the point where they kind of run things. And it’s a bit weird. But that just may be me.

In the end, it reminded me a lot of Zita the Spacegirl — both in the content as well as the artistic style — which is a good thing. And I’m curious to see where Maihack goes next.

Audiobook: Keeping the Castle

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by Patricia Kindl
Read by Biana Amato
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s nothing objectionable, but my 8-year-old was quite confused while listening to it. So, it’s probably not for the younger set, just because of intricate plot lines and needing at least a working knowledge of Regency England. It’s in the YA section (grades 6-8) of the bookstore.

Althea Crawley has always known that she needed to marry well. Her father died shortly before her younger brother (and her father’s heir), Alexander, was born. The castle — in the north of England, on a cliff, and their home — her great-grandfather built is slowly falling apart (well, maybe not so slowly). And so when Lord Boring (yes, that really is his name) shows up in the neighborhood, Althea knows what she must do: get him to marry her. Unfortunately, his crass, merchant, cousin, Mr. Fredericks, keeps getting in the way.

The jacket compared this one to I Capture the Castle and Pride and Prejudice. The Capture the Castle part of it is silly: the only things those two books have in common is a young heroine and a castle. However, the book read like a spin on all of Austen’s books. There were elements of Emma and Sense and Sensibility as well as P&P. It’s a more practical Austen, however: Kindl gives us a more confident and curious and modern heroine than Austen ever did. And Kindl gives us more blatant class divisions than Austen did, as well. The love interest is a merchant, and falling in love with a merchant, even a  wealthy one, is something which a landed gentry in Austen’s world just wouldn’t do. In fact, there’s quite a few interesting elements that probably existed in Austen’s time but didn’t overtly make it into her books. As we were listening to it (Hubby quite liked it, too), it occurred to me that this is Jane Austen-lite: an Austenesque books for kids who are curious but can’t quite make it through Pride and Prejudice.

The back did have this right: it is frothy and light as a champagne cocktail. It’s not deep — we were discussing all the ways in which Kindl could have made it more complex and darker than it was — but it sure is fun.

The Summer Prince

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by Alaya Dawn Johnson
First sentence: “When I was eight, my papai took me to the park to watch a king die.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: I was initially thinking that this would be good for those who like Uglies; there’s about the same amount of swearing. But the reason it’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) is because there’s a lot of allusions to sex, including a couple (tasteful) sex scenes.

June Costa is the best artist in Palmeres Três. Or so she thinks; she just hasn’t had a chance to prove it yet. And in this, a moon year in which her futuristic, matriarchal society chooses a one-year Summer King to “rule”, she will have that chance. It starts innocently: her best friend, Gil, falls in love with the summer king, Enki. And she does, too, though she tells herself that it’s mostly about the art. And what art June and Enki create. Ever more elaborate, they end up sparking a revolution of sorts between the technophiles and the isolationists; the government, made up of women they call “Aunties”, has placed strict regulations on what kind of tech can be in the city.

It was this tech element that reminded me so much of Uglies. But, I think Johnson was pointing out the value of art and the power of love, even in a futuristic (and while not dystopian, certainly not perfect) society. It’s a very thought-provoking novel, one that winds and unfurls instead of proceeding in a linear fashion. And it was this winding that kept me most interested. Johnson chose to build her futuristic Brazilian society in bits and chunks throughout the entire book, dropping hints and clues about what happened to get the world to this point along the way. And the society she built was equally as fascinating, with all its machinations and political scheming.

But, ultimately, it was June and Enki and Gil (and June’s competition/friend, Bebel) that kept me reading in the end. I cared about what happened to them, how this year played out for the summer king and his newfound friends. I found myself moved by the ending, and thinking about the book long after I turned the last page.