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?

Year of the Horse

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by Justin Allen

ages: 13+

First sentence:”Tzu-Lu sat at his desk, in the farthest corner of his grandfather’s store, staring at an unmarked sheet of paper.”

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Review copy provided by a friend of the author.

Tzu-Lu is 15 years old when the most famous gunslinger, Jack Straw, comes into his family’s store looking for an explosions expert for a mission. Against all odds (or at least his expectations), Lu (as he comes to be called) is given that job, and sets off on an adventure that will change his life. He’s in an intriguing multi-cultural band: there’s Henry, a former slave; Chino, a Mexican outlaw; and the MacLemore’s, a father-and-daughter team whose gold the gang is out to grab from under the nose of a Yankee who stole it from Mr. MacLemore years before.

As they traverse across the country, they meet Native Americans, experience natural disasters, run into crazy polygamous Mormons, run from demon ghost riders, and hang on the brink of death. And Lu discovers a depth in himself and his companions a depth that he never imagined was there.

It’s an intriguing book: a multicultural Western with a touch of the supernatural. It is an unlikely combination, but Allen makes it work for most of the book. The characters are just people out doing a job; there are very few instances when race actually comes into play. However, Allen uses the mulitcultural aspect of the book to climb upon a tolerance pedestal at the end of the book. I don’t normally mind pedestals, or mulitculturalism, but it just all seemed out of place. The book comes to an interesting end, and then… it just keeps going. Sure, the story worked okay with an epilogue of sorts, but it would have been just fine without it as well. And the books was doing just fine without pounding into our heads that anyone can be American, not just white people.

Either way, the final chapters soured the rest of the book for me. Which is too bad, because I was enjoying it quite a bit.

August Jacket Flap-a-thon PLUS Call for CYBILs Judges!

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Since I don’t have anything else to say this month (summer’s not quite over, even if the girls are back in school, since we’re still hitting 100 degree temps. *sigh* On the upside: there’s a good chance we’ll break the all-time record for number of 100 degree days in a year. It’s currently at 50, set in 1936.), I want to spread the word about the call for CYBILs judges. They’re looking for bloggers interested in and passionate about kidlit, from picture books on up. People who are willing to read, talk and think about the books that are nominated, as well as work with a team to come up with short-lists that are both literary and kid-friendly (the kid-friendly being the important part.)

New this year, interestingly enough: all the YA Science Fiction/Fantasy nominations need to be available in electronic form, something which I find both intimidating and intriguing. (Maybe it’s time I get myself an e-reader?) Also, there’s a new category for apps, for all of you with iPods and iPads.

It’s a lot of work being on the panels (talking from experience here, since I’ve been on the Middle Grade Fiction panel for the past three years), but it’s also a TON of fun. I wouldn’t trade being part of the experience for anything. Everything you need to know about applying you can find here. The deadline is September 15th.

And now, for this months jacket flaps…

Unwind (Simon & Schuster): “In America after the Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement: The Bill of Life states that human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, a parent may choose to retroactively get rid of a child through a process called “unwinding.” Unwinding ensures that the child’s life doesn’t “technically” end by transplanting all the organs in the child’s body to various recipients. Now a common and accepted practice in society, troublesome or unwanted teens are able to easily be unwound. With breath-taking suspense, this book follows three teens who all become runaway Unwinds: Connor, a rebel whose parents have ordered his unwinding; Risa, a ward of the state who is to be unwound due to cost-cutting; and Lev, his parents’ tenth child whose unwinding has been planned since birth as a religious tithing. As their paths intersect and lives hang in the balance, Shusterman examines serious moral issues in a way that will keep readers turning the pages to see if Connor, Risa, and Lev avoid meeting their untimely ends.”

I like that this copy gives you enough background to get into the story, but actually doesn’t tell you anything about what happens to our characters. Nice balance.

Thomas the Rhymer (Spectra): “Award-winning author and radio personality Ellen Kushner’s inspired retelling of an ancient legend weaves myth and magic into a vivid contemporary novel about the mysteries of the human heart. Brimming with ballads, riddles, and magical transformations, here is the timeless tale of a charismatic bard whose talents earn him a two-edged otherworldly gift. A minstrel lives by his words, his tunes, and sometimes by his lies. But when the bold and gifted young Thomas the Rhymer awakens the desire of the powerful Queen of Elfland, he finds that words are not enough to keep him from his fate. As the Queen sweeps him far from the people he has known and loved into her realm of magic, opulence—and captivity—he learns at last what it is to be truly human. When he returns to his home with the Queen’s parting gift, his great task will be to seek out the girl he loved and wronged, and offer her at last the tongue that cannot lie.”

It gives a nod to the tale, and talks about the themes of the book. I do like a bit more plot hints in my copy, but honestly: this one is hard to sum up. The writer did an admirable job with what they had.

Fly Trap (HarperCollins): “Having barely escaped the revolution they had a huge (if accidental) part in causing, sharp-eyed orphan Mosca Mye; her guard goose, Saracen; and their sometimes-loyal companion, the con man Eponymous Clent, must start anew. All too quickly, they find themselves embroiled in fresh schemes and twisting politics as they are trapped in Toll, an odd town that changes its entire personality as day turns to night. Mosca and her friends attempt to fend off devious new foes, subvert old enemies, prevent the kidnapping of the mayor’s daughter, steal the town’s Luck, and somehow manage to escape with their lives—and hopefully a little money in their pockets. In the eagerly awaited sequel to Fly by Night, acclaimed storyteller Frances Hardinge returns to a vivid world rich with humor, danger, and discovery.”

I love how this one not only makes a reference to the first book in the series, but also manages to make everything that goes on in the book sound exciting (well, it is). Excellent at drawing the reader in.

Other books read this month:

Inside Out and Back Again

One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street

Boys, Girls and Other Hazardous Materials

Fallen Grace

Knucklehead

The Cross Gardener

Beowulf

Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses

My Side of the Mountain

The Summer Before Boys

The Summer Before Boys

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by Nora Raleigh Baskin

ages: 10+

First sentence: “My Aunt Louisa, who is really my sister, snored like a machine with a broken part, a broken part that kept cycling around in a shuddering, sputtering rhythm.”

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Julia and Eliza are lots of things: the same age, aunt-niece (though it’s less complicated to say cousins), best friends. They’ve grown up together, spending summer weekends up at the mountain resort where Eliza’s father works. But this summer, the one before their seventh grade year, Julia is spending the entire summer living in the mountains with Eliza because Julia’s mother has been shipped to Iraq as part of the National Guard. It also happens to be the summer when Julia discovers boys; will she let them come between her and her best friend?

It’s a pretty simple premise for a book, but Raskin takes the premise, and exalts it to new levels, perfectly capturing the moment between girlhood and young womanhood, with all it’s anxieties and insecurities and hopes and tensions. She captures the first crush so heartbreakingly well; not to mention the balance a girl must find between the Boys and her own friends. Added to that is the worry and insecurities of Julia not only missing her mom, but concern that she might not make it back. In a very telling scene, Julia starts to freak out when seeing some dress military uniforms, wondering why the Army would come give her bad news at the resort at the same time fully expecting the worst, until she realizes that it’s all for a wedding. It’s heartbreaking, and oh, so real.

It’s a tender, sweet look at a wondrous time of change in a girl’s life.

Poser

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My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses

by Claire Dederer

ages: adult

First sentence: “Taking up yoga in the middle of your life is like having someone hand you a dossier about yourself.”

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Memoirs are an interesting breed of book. On the one hand, they are incredibly self-indulgent: anyone who thinks that their life is one that people are going to want to read about have to be at least a little bit arrogant. On the other hand, there are lives that are fascinating, and the writing is good enough to help even the most disconnected reader connect to the story the author is trying to tell.

In Poser, Dederer walks a fine line between those two memoir extremes. Sometimes, she is overly arrogant about her experiences and her plight; her insular liberal white enclave in North Seattle (and eventually Boulder, Colorado) has warped her perception of child raising (she feels guilted into attachment parenting; and feels guilty again when she doesn’t like everything that espouses), marriage (as a child of divorce, of a sort, she feels like everything needs to be perfect), and sacrifice (shopping at Trader Joe’s instead of Whole Foods) and makes the book unrelatable to anyone who doesn’t live or aspire to that life.

There was a moment, about halfway through, where I got fed up with Dederer’s self-pity and judgment of others and seriously considered abandoning the book. One can only handle so much whining from an author, after all.

On the other hand, when Dederer wrote about yoga, she was lyrical and often spot-on in her observations. She reminded me of things I need to remember in my own life and practice, simple things, like being present both physically and mentally. And that yoga is a process, not an end goal. In fact, some of the most interesting passages were her exploration of yoga’s place in western culture; whether or not yoga is, in fact, an exercise; and the connection between the movement and spirituality. One quote that I found to be particularly true:

I thought I would do yoga all my life, and I thought that I would continue to improve at it, that I would penetrate its deepest mysteries and finally be able to perform a transition from scorpion directly into chaturanga. But here’s the truth: The longer I do yoga, the worse I get at it. I can’t tell you what a relief it is.

So, for that reason alone, I found the book to be worth the time. Dederer’s life was fascinating, if a bit warped, and her writing excellent. But that wasn’t enough to carry the book. Thankfully, she had the yoga bits to pull the rest of it along.

(Oh, and can I mention that I adored the little yoga figures at the beginning of the chapters? So cute.)

The Cross Gardener

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by Jason F. Wright
ages: adult
First sentence: “I was born on the side of a two-lane Virginia highway at 1:21 a.m. on February 1, 1983.”
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Perhaps it’s best if I’m up front with this one: I didn’t like it. I thought it was sappy, manipulative, blatant and poorly written. I felt like a rat being run through the maze, being prodded which way to turn. And the ending? Unpredictable and kind of, well, lame.

Basic plot: John Bevan, who has suffered lots of loss in his life (first his mom died in a car accident which resulted in his birth; then his grandfather, whom he never met; then his father), loses (why is it always loss and loses for death? We don’t misplace anyone when they die, do we?) his True Love (ugh) and unborn child in a freak car accident. He suffers grief and pain and basically ceases to function until he meets The Cross Gardener, who helps him find The Way Back.

Before I get too snarky, I should admit something: aside from a couple of early-term miscarriages (I didn’t even make it to a D and C) and the deaths of my grandparents at generally advanced ages (my grandmother died when she was 64, but I was only 9, so it didn’t really impact me), I have not had much experience with death. No infant deaths, no spouse deaths, no parent deaths, no sibling deaths. So, I admit, readily, that I had no frame of reference in which to connect with this book. Perhaps if I had experienced some sort of tragic event, some grand loss in my life, I would be better equipped to actually connect with this book.

That said, if it were a better written book, I wouldn’t have had to have shared experience in order to connect with the characters and their experience with grief.

Knucklehead

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Tall Tales and Mostly True Stores About Growing Up Scieszka

by Jon Scieska

ages: 9+

First sentence: “I grew up in Flint, Michigan, with my five brothers — Jim, Tom, Gregg, Brian, and What’s-His-Name.”

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Although I have stories from when I was growing up, some which are quite funny, I have long since envied my husband’s stories. They’re so much more entertaining, rambunctious, and plain laugh-out-loud funny.

The reason? There were seven boys. I am convinced that while I adore my daughters, they will just never have the stories to tell that their father did. There is just something hilarious (in the long run; I’ve always felt sorry for my mother-in-law and what she had to deal with) about a heavily-male family.

Which means that this book is flat-out hilarious. With all the love he can muster, Jon Scieszka spins tales about his childhood. They’re short and sweet: no psychological analysis here, which makes them all the more funny. He covers everything from chores to peeing to school and road trips. He talks about his relationship with his older brother, Jim, and his parents. He touches on the differences found in big families, how the older set of siblings get treated differently than the younger set. It’s a sweet book, full of humor and affection.

I’m not sure what kids would be drawn to it; M only picked it up after she heard me laughing (and snorting) over it. And the fact that I made her read a couple of the stories because they were just too funny. But I’m not sure that C would ever read it. I do think boys would like it; it’s very much a boy story. The people who would appreciate it most, however, I think would be parents of boys. Shaking their heads at all the knuckleheaded things their sons do and have done, they can smile with love at their idiocy.

Hey, something good has to come out of raising boys. Right?

Fallen Grace

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by Mary Hooper

ages: 14+

First sentence: “Grace, holding on tightly to her precious burden, found the station entrance without much difficulty.”

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15-year-old Grace is in dire straights. She and her 16-year-old mentally disabled sister, Lily, have been struggling to get by since their mother died several years ago. First they lived in an orphanage, which was fine; but a year before, they were transferred to an “instruction” house, in which they were going to be trained as ladies maids and teachers. Except they were both raped in the night, and Grace became pregnant as a result.

That’s where the book begins. From there, we get evil undertakers, horrible working conditions, poverty, schemes, and heiresses, not to mention a cameo from Charles Dickens. Which is appropriate, considering how Dickensian this book is.

That last statement will get many people’s hearts a-fluttering, but for me, I just found this to be a bit flat. And a bit much. As far as suspense and mystery goes, I called the ending about halfway through the book. (I don’t like doing that, actually. It makes me annoyed when I can see the ending coming.) I wondered if the book didn’t try to bite off more than it could chew: if there were actually less going on in the plot, maybe it would have been a tighter book. As it was, it seemed disjointed and messy, even if everything did come together in the end. And while I liked Grace, I never really connected with her, or felt like she had much of a chance to grow, develop, or do much of anything. She was mostly a pawn in the larger plot; the only action she took was to defend and take care of her sister. Which is admirable, but simplistic considering everything else that was going on.

That said, Hooper did do her research: as far as history goes, this one feels spot-on.

My Side of the Mountain

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by Jean Craighead George

ages: 10+

First sentence: “I am on my mountain in a tree home that people have passed without ever knowing I am here.”

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I’ve seen this book around for years, and known that I should read it. I didn’t really know what it was about, just that it was on lists of books by people I respect. That, and I’ve enjoyed George’s other stuff.

I’m quite glad I read it, though.

The basic plot for those of you (like me) hiding under a rock: teenage Sam Gribly is incredibly happy living in New York City. And so one day he decides to up and run away to the Catskills mountains to live on a piece of land that has been in the family (but unused) for decades. No one believes he can do it, and yet he not only does, he flourishes. He makes a house out of a tree, learns to trap animals and hunt and skin deer (using every bit of the animal). He raises and trains a falcon. He learns to live with silence and learn the language of the forest.

It’s a simple book, in so many ways. There’s not much going on plot-wise; it’s essentially a wildlife handbook of how Sam managed to make it work in the wilderness. And it’s a simple life he leads: he gets up, he forages for food, he stores for the winter, he swims and fishes, he walks and explores. There’s no rush, there’s no stress, there’s no rat-race. It’s a wonderfully idyllic life.

The thing that I found most interesting, however, was how much Sam learned from books. He kept saying things like, “I read in a book somewhere that” and “the book I read said that”. They really are useful things, books. It also made me quite sad that no one could up and do what Sam did today. It’s not just that there are no places to run to (or that anyone would actually let a teenage boy run away to the wild without calling the authorities), but that a lot of the knowledge in the book is lost. For some reason — and I find this strange, considering that I’m basically a city girl — I find this sad.

Thankfully we have books like these to remind us of simpler times and places.

Fly Trap

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by Frances Hardinge

ages: 10+

First sentence: “‘Read the paper for you, sir?'”

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Ah where to begin with the loveliness that is Frances Hardinge’s writing? I’ve compared it to a boulder. I’ve waxed eloquent on the way she handles words. And all of that is still true. This book, a sequel of sorts to her first book, Fly By Night, is huge (592 pages), slow to start and get into, but an absolute delight to read.

We meet up with our plucky heroine, Mosca Mye; her homicidal goose, Saracen; and her con man friend, Eponymous Clent a few months after they caused a revolution in the town of Medalion. They’re basically on the run, and due to some interesting and somewhat unforeseen circumstances, they end up in the unique (to say the least) town of Toll.

One of the most interesting things about Hardinge’s books are the way she invents and plays with religion. In this one, it’s the Beloved: icons, gods and goddesses that govern every hour of the day, every day of the year. Our dear Mosca was born under Palpatittle, the lord of the flies, and her name reflects that. An interesting side note: in this world where Mosca lives, you are not allowed to lie about your name, because that would offend the Beloved. She had found that while she sometimes comes under suspicion because of her name it usually doesn’t hamper her in any way. Not so in Toll.

Toll, for many reasons, has been divided into two towns: Toll-by-Day, in which the “respectable” people born under “respectable” Beloved; and Toll-by-Night, for everyone else. And, to add additional suspense, Toll-by-Night is run by the Locksmiths, an organization that operates on fear and isolation: when a town gets taken over by the Locksmiths, no one hears from them again. Sounds ominous, doesn’t it?

It’s a complex story, one in which you don’t necessarily need to read the first book (though why wouldn’t you?) to enjoy. You would think that, being so large, there would be wasted plot points. Not so: everything in the book is there for a reason, all of which will be shown by the end. It’s like a big jigsaw puzzle: you may not know how all the pieces fit together, but when they do, the big picture is amazing.

It’s not a book for reluctant readers, though. Or even one for those who are kind of half-hearted about their reading. It’s for those who want a challenge, who don’t mind wading through the words, putting together the pieces (I’m mixing my metaphors, aren’t I), and who want to work for the end result, which, like all things you work for, is very much worth it.

Sunday Salon: Texas Book Festivals and Reading Slumps

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I don’t know if y’all have noticed (why is it that I still say y’all even though I haven’t lived in the south for 6 years? Some habits are hard to break, I guess) but I’ve been in a bit of a slump this summer. Sure, I’m still reading and writing reviews, but my heart just isn’t into it. I haven’t had anything wow me. Even if it was wow-able, I’m not sure I could be wowed right now. I just feel… ugh.

I figure a lot of that is due to the heat here this summer, but I’ve been wondering: how do you get through reading slumps? I usually keep plowing through, hoping that something will click, but I’m wondering if that’s not the wrong way to go about things. Any suggestions?

On a completely unrelated note: I’ve wanted to go to a book festival for a long time now. And, considering that I only get one flying trip a year, and that I choose KidLitCon for that (last day for reduced registration! Have you registered??), it means I need to find a book festival that I can drive to. Enter the great state of Texas.

There are two choices this year: The Austin Teen Book Festival on October 1; and the Texas Book Festival on October 22. Right now I’m leaning toward attending the former (they have a published list of attendees, including many YA authors that I love; it’s inside), but a lot of that depends on you. I was talking to Amanda on FB the other night, and she threw out the idea that any festival would be a LOT more fun if we could get other bloggers together. So, what say you? Anyone out there willing to come to Austin sometime in October and hang at a book fest?