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 Winston Breen Puzzle Party Tour (with Giveaways!)

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I don’t often go in for these — press release announcements, yes, but solving puzzles (I’m terrible at it) even more — but I thought it’d be fun to pass along the party invite for those of you who are better at puzzles than I am. 🙂

From the email:

The new Winston Breen book, “The Potato Chip Puzzles,” hits stands this week, and to celebrate, Winston and I are throwing a puzzle party. From April 16th to April 22nd, visit the following great kidlit blogs and you’ll find a puzzle waiting for you. Solve all the puzzles, submit your answers, and you might win a signed copy of the new book — or possibly even every single book in G.P. Putnam’s Spring 2009 children’s and YA catalog.

Here’s the lineup for the party:
April 16th: A Patchwork of Books
April 17th: Fuse #8
April 18th: Shelf Elf
April 19th: Books Together
April 20th: Bookshelves of Doom
April 21st: Chicken Spaghetti
April 22nd: Oz and Ends
I hope to see you there!
All the best,
Eric Berlin

Library Loot #14

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So, I only picked up the holds… but, man, it was a HUGE pile. 🙂 I apologized to the librarian, and she said, “Don’t worry. It’s my pleasure.” I wondered what she thought when she actually saw the pile.

For A/K:
Monkey and Me, Emily Gravett
Cinderella, Paul Galdone
Just in Case, Yuyi Morales
Dream Dancer, Jill Newsome/Claudio Munoz
Traction Man Meets TurboDog, Mini Grey**
Simms Taback’s Great Big Book of Spacey, Snakey, Buggy Riddles, Riddles by Katy Hall and Lisa Eisenberg
Hansel and Gretel, Cynthia Rylant/Illus. by Jen Corace
Blueberry Girl, Neil Gaiman/Illus. by Charles Vess**
The Snow Princess (obligatory Dora book)

For C:
Gregor and the Code of Claw, Suzanne Collins

For M:
Poison Study*
Fire Study*
Magic Study, all by Maria V. Snyder*

For me:
Aurelia, Anne Osterland*
Extras, Scott Westerfield
We are the Ship, Kadir Nelson

The roundup is either at Out of the Blue or A Striped Armchair.

*Ones that M eventually read.
**Picture books we really liked.

Fire and Hemlock

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by Diana Wynne Jones
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Polly sighed and laid her book face down on her bed.”

A while back, I asked for suggestions for fairy tale adaptations. Mostly because I wanted something new to read for the Once Upon a Time challenge, and (having read many of them), I was running out of ideas. I’d read most of the ones that were suggested, but Nymeth and Kailana both suggested this one. How could I refuse to read it?

Those two ladies do know what they’re talking about. It’s an amazing fairy tale retelling. It’s based on two British tales, Tam Lin (that’s actually Scottish) and Thomas the Rhymer, neither of which I’d heard of before (quick Googling got me up to speed, sort of…). But, I found that it didn’t matter that I didn’t know the source material. The novel took itself in interesting directions, not the least of which was the format (divided up into four movements, each with a music tempo assigned to it). I was hooked.

Polly, at age 19, is packing to go back to college when she stumbles across a book she’d never seen before. Except, upon reading it, she thinks she had. But, it was different before… and she can’t quite remember. Until, thinking back, she remembers a funeral she crashed at age 10, the place when she met Tom Lynn, a cellist. Tom and Polly took an immediate liking to one another, and they began to play a game of “pretend”, Tom was Tan Coul and Polly was Hero, and both were heroes-in-training. It all sounds innocent, except for Mr. Leroy and his son Seb who are constantly lurking about threatening Polly, warning her that any involvement with Tom will lead to disaster.

It’s a sweeping novel, not just in time — it covers, on and off, about nine years — but in scope. There’s intrigue, romance, life, danger, excitement, pain… you name it, it’s in there (except for, perhaps, the really really dark stuff…). I liked the use of magic in the book, too. It’s there, but it’s so understated, that it takes you quite a while to figure out what it is, and how it’s being used. I suppose, if I was being totally fair, that the dark figures didn’t do much besides lurk and smirk, and that the heroic figures were posturing more than doing, but I found I didn’t really mind. I liked Polly (especially the younger Polly) and her relationship with Tom; I’m not sure I totally bought that it evolved into romantic love, but I liked the way they played off each other.

Then there was the bookishness of it all. Tom took to sending Polly books for a good portion of the book, and, wonderfully, they are all real. So, at the end when Polly figures everything out, and she uses the Oxford Book of Ballads to help her, I found myself intrigued, and checked at the library. Sure enough: it’s a book, and I’m looking forward to reading both Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer, if only to say that I have.

Teaser Tuesday, April 14

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Grab your current read

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that pageBE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! ;)

From Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones, p. 289:

Leslie stood forward on the platform, with the lighting glinting charmingly on his hair and his demurest look, and he played the flute. The music soared among the pretend Roman pillars, teasing, trilling, coaxing.

The roundup is as Should Be Reading.

Nim’s Island

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by Wendy Orr/Illustrated by Kerry Millard
ages: 8-10
First sentence: “In a palm tree, on an island, in the middle of the wide blue sea, was a girl.”

I should, in the interest of full disclosure, admit that I picked this book up (which C bought at a book fair a while ago) only because I had stuck the movie on our Netflix queue, and it came last Friday. I decided, though, to be totally and completely fair to the book, to read it before I watched the movie. (The movie end will make it into a book-to-movie Friday soon.)

The plot is really quite simple: Nim and her father live on an undiscovered tropical island. They moved there after the disappearance of Nim’s mother (she was investigating the insides of a live whale’s stomach and a huge Troppo Tours boat came by scaring the whale, which dove into the ocean, taking Nim’s mother with it). They are perfectly happy, until one day when Nim’s father takes off on a boat to research plankton. Nim’s left alone on the island, supposedly for three days and three nights. She reads an adventure book by Alex Rover, and through some weird coincidences, she begins an email correspondence with the author. One thing after another happens to Nim’s dad, who is left stranded on a boat in the ocean, and it’s up to Nim (and, eventually, Alex) to survive on her own, figure out a way to keep the Troppo Tours boat from discovering the island, and get her dad back.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t so simple.

The book, however, is a delightful little read. I loved Nim’s resourcefulness and her level-headedness as a character. She was all about figuring out how to get things done on her own. And Alex was a character in and of herself; she’s stuck in the apartment, writing adventure novels and yet afraid to go outside. It’s only her increasing concern for Nim that propels her out, and even then, she’s more of a comic side character than an adult who actually accomplishes anything. 🙂 But my favorite thigns about the book were the use of similies — “fast like Fred (he’s an iguana) going after a coconut” is one that comes to mind — and the animals. None of them talked, yet each of them had personalities. There was Fred, the iguana; Selkie, the sea lion with mothering instincts; and Chica the sea turtle who saves the day. It’s all very amusing and quite fun.

In the end, it was an enjoyable way to spend a couple hours on a gloomy afternoon.

Let the BoB begin

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Tomorrow, the Battle of the (Kids) books will begin. (YAY!) Abby (and others) helpfully alerted me to this (really cool) idea, and I’ve been following along on their blog. They’ve been introducing this week’s judges, and have put up a popular opinion poll so the rest of us can choose who should win (but not necessarily who will…) (As of right now, Hunger Games is out in the lead in the poll…)

The official battle begins tomorrow with Roger Sutton deciding between Octavian Nothing II and Ways to Live Forever… I would venture into the predictions game, but I learned (very early one while watching football) that if I voice my preferences, the ones I *really* want to win will most likely loose. (Though if you’re interested in predictions, check out Book Bracketology.) As for me, I’m just going to sit back, quietly root for my favorites, and enjoy the show.

Inkdeath

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by Cornelia Funke
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Moonlight fell on Elinor’s bathrobe, her nightdress, her bare feet, and the dog lying in front of them.”

I fell in love with Inkheart when I read it more than three years ago. I thought it was a brilliant concept, and I loved the story. I called it a “book lovers book”, and gushed about the characters, the plot, the little quirks. I read Inkspell soon after, and I didn’t care for it as much. So, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, three years later, that I was completely bored by the third in the trilogy.

Now, perhaps this is because I waited so long in between reading the second and the third, and I didn’t bother re-reading the second again. But, I found myself unwilling to remember who all the characters were, and what their roles were, and how they fit into this very intricate world Funke has created. I also found that I’ve lost my original enthusiasm for the plot — which now seems very convoluted and hackneyed, not to mention more adult than is warranted in an upper-middle-grade book (even though my library has classified this one as teen). I didn’t care about Mo’s struggles with being a Robin-Hood-like outlaw. I didn’t care that Fenglio didn’t care, or that Elinor’s wallowing in depression because everyone’s gone to Inkworld without her. And so Meggie’s pining after Farid: what of it? She didn’t do much else (that I read). In addition, it’s a very slow — check that: excruciatingly slow — start; 150 pages in, I was thoroughly bored with the book. And so I did something I rarely do: I skipped around, looking for something more interesting to happen (spoiler: Dustfinger comes back. Woo-hoo! Except, he’s not nearly as intersting or complex), and when it didn’t — not really — I read the last 150 pages.

Because, even though the book was overlong and painfully slow, I still wanted to know how their story ended.

I guess I still care, if only a little tiny bit.

The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry

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Love, Laughter and Tears at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School
by Kathleen Flinn
age: adult
First sentence: “As a little girl, while other children played house, I played restaurant.”

When, at age 36, Kathleen Flinn’s mid-level corporate job was eliminated, she was faced with a choice: get another mid-level corporate job somewhere, or… pursue a life-long dream of going to school at the cooking school Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Encouraged by her boyfriend — who puts his life on hold to move to Paris to be with her — she chooses the latter. This is her story.

Equal parts food book, travel book and memoir, this book totally and completely engrossed me.

I think I liked the food parts best, though. Not only is the book littered with recipes (delicious, gourmet recipes that I will probably never make, but I can dream about), but Kathleen is meticulous with detail about her time in the cooking school. She doesn’t hesitate to tell about her failures (like the time the “Grey Chef” shouted at her, or the time she dropped the roast duck on the floor) but she doesn’t gloat over her successes (like when the head chef of Le Doyen singles her out over her classmates to chat with for 20 minutes). It’s all matter of fact: this happened, she had this amazing experience, she lived this dream, wouldn’t you like to read about it?

But more than the recipes, or even her cooking experiences (I’ve been inundated with French food in books lately; at least here she explains what it all means!), I enjoyed her trips into the Paris markets. The sights, smells, sounds, connections of European markets; it was sensory heaven. And it made me realize (not for the first time) that we’re really missing out with grocery stores here in the States…

I did enjoy the other aspects of the book, too: I liked her tales of the many house guests (even the horrible ones; they were good for a cringe and a laugh) they had while living in Paris; I liked the love story between her and Mike (whom she met and fell into a relationship before Paris), and their whirlwind marriage. I liked her relationships with her classmates, the different personalities and expectations and goals of each person.

It did get a bit too life-preachy for me, especially near the end, where Flinn was trying to make some Big Moral out of her experience, when I would have been happier with her experience as is, without the life morals. But, that said, there’s always something inspiring about people who leave the corporate track and do Something Different with their lives, pursuing a dream and, ultimately, succeeding. And that Flinn spins a good tale about her experience is just a happy bonus.

Geeky Haiku Review

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I was going to do Option A: Be a kid!, for this week’s geek, but then I got this book in the mail, and it just screamed for a haiku review, so I’m doing:

Option B: Be a poet!

Review a book you’ve read recently in haiku. (It doesn’t need to be a poetry book you’re reviewing, any book will do.) See Emilyreads for an idea of what I mean.

The book:

Legs Talk
by D.E. Boone
ages: adult, probably.
First sentence: “Some people call it shopping.”

The haiku:
Captioned leg photos
Tell of a relationship.
It goes nowhere fast.

That’s harder than it looks.

Library Loot #13

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I found my self control this week! YAY! (That means there’s really nothing interesting here, unless you like picture books…) I should be back to “normal” next week…

For A/K:
Bats at the Library, Brian Lies**
Cat and Mouse, Ian Schoenherr
Who Made This Cake?, Chihiro Nakagawa/Illus. Junji Koysoe
Everybody Bonjours!, Leslie Kimmelman/Illus. Sarah McMenemy**
Kipper’s Toybox, Mick Inkpen
Angelina at the Palace, Katharine Holabird/Illus. Helen Craig**
All in a Day, Cynthia Rylant/Illus. Nikki McClure
Little Mouse’s Birthday Cake, Thacker Hurd

The roundup is either at Out of the Blue or A Striped Armchair.

**Picture books we really liked.