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?

Procrastinating: A Reading Meme

8 Comments

What I’m really supposed to be doing (besides laundry) is finishing up George Orwell’s 1984 for my in-person book group next week. But, it’s so depressing (more on that when I finish it), and I need a break. Thankfully, Becky tagged me for Eva’s Reading Meme and now I have an excuse to step away from the book for a while.

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews? Anything else by Khaled Hosseini. I read The Kite Runner, and I don’t care how good his other books are, or how much people rave about them. I . Will. Not. Read. Them.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be? I’ve thought about this and I’m not sure I can pick just three. I’ll try, though. I’d love to hang with Elizabeth Bennett (she’d be good and catty– but not really mean — and will make me laugh). Mrs. Baker from The Wednesday Wars. She just seems like an awesome, interesting person. And Eowyn from Lord of the Rings. She rocks.

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave? The Last of the Mohicans. It put me to sleep every time I cracked it open. The thought of cracking it open puts me to sleep.

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it? Probably anything by Dickens. I’ve only read Nicholas Nickleby, and I don’t even really remember that.

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book? Okay, I was a doofus, and answered this one wrong the first time around. I’ll try again. I swore I read Jane Eyre back in 8th grade. And, so, had no interest in re-reading it. Yet, last year, when everyone was raving about the miniseries, I finally picked it up, watched it, and realized that I had no idea what this story was. I read it and loved it. Go figure. (I think it was Ethan Frome that I read in 8th grade, but now I’m not even sure about that…)

You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP) Honestly, I don’t know. It really depends on the person. Lonesome Dove for those macho types. My Name is Asher Lev for those who lean artsy. The Killer Angels for history buffs. You get the picture.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with? Spanish. I know enough to frustrate me. And maybe then I would actually get magical realism. Though I have to admit, I’d love to read just about any book in its original language. I’m always very suspicious of translations; I feel like I’m missing out on something.

A mischievious fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick? Persuasion, by Jane Autsen. A beautiful romance, and a wonderful heroine to boot.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)? Good adult fiction. It’s not really a discovery, but more of a direction. I’d wander aimlessly around the library, being endlessly disappointed in my choices for reading material. Now, thanks to the book blogging community, I at last have a direction. (And a really long TBR list!)

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free. I don’t really have a dream library (though I can tell you what my husband’s looks like. But he’s not doing the meme). I’m not a book owner. I love my public library, and as long as I can get free holds (yay for a year membership), and can get practically any book I desire, I’m happy. I like having the books I like around me, but it really doesn’t matter what shape they’re in… I’m really not too picky. So, if the good fairy came, I’d direct her or him to my husband and let them have at it.

I’d tag people, but I’m not sure who’s left who hasn’t done this one. If you’re interested, go ahead. Just make sure to leave a link at Eva’s; she’s holding a drawing

A Cry for Help

14 Comments

On so many levels… but this isn’t about me. (I HATE January. But that’s beside the point.)

I need book help. C has discovered that she really likes graphic novels. Well, she likes other novels too (Moxy Maxwell — I was right! — and both Clementine books, specifically), but she really liked Ellie McDoodle: Have Pen Will Travel, which was kind of like Diary of a Wimpy Kid for younger kids. My question (help #1) for all you graphic novel fans out there: is there something else like this that is appropriate and interesting for an 8 year old second grader?

Book help #2 involves A and the preschool crowd. My turn to teach (we do a little co-op home school preschool with some friends) is coming up and I’ve decided to do (since it’s no longer January!) a unit on Carnival, Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day. I’m in need of pictures book ideas for any of these topics, but especially Valentine’s Day. They need to be short-ish, mostly because they are only 4, but also because we don’t have a lot of time. Any recommendations will be MOST helpful. (If you have any good craft ideas for those topics, too, I’d love to hear them!)

Thanks in advance…

Ptolemy’s Gate

7 Comments

Wow.

The drama. The heart-wrenching. The action. The moral compromises. The traitor-revealing. The sinister plots. The heroics. The ironic humor. (The footnotes?) This one’s got it all.

I loved this book — an excellent ending (I was worried after the last one, but I’m okay now)–I couldn’t put it down. And it had nothing to do with M pestering me: are you done yet?? (She went back and re-read the second one and finished it before I was done with this one….impatient girl, sometimes.) It was a gripping, engaging read. Suspenseful, funny, resourceful (go Kitty!) and redemptive.

Yet.

I’m trying to process the ending. I “get” it — the parallels between Bartimaeus and Nathaniel and Bartimaeus and Ptolemy, and the self-sacrificing… but I’m not satisfied by it. I wanted something more. Closure. A happier ending. Something less noble? That’s not to say I wish Stroud had written a different ending. I don’t. It’s just going to take some discussion and thinking and processing to figure it out.

Perhaps that’s a hallmark of a truly great book.

That’s the last one for the From the Stacks challenge. Go figure; I managed to read my entire list. (I was a bit concerned about it for a while there.) Now on to read more for my own challenge….

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

8 Comments

For me, this book falls into the “important but very painful to read” category. It was depressing, disheartening, and yet an important look at race relations in the south in the 1930s.

The basic story is a year in the life of the Logans, as told from 9-year-old Cassie Logan’s point of view. She and her family live in Mississippi, north of Vicksburg, on a former plantation. Her family is different than the other tenant farmers in their area: they own 400 acres of their own land. It was a fluke: a Yankee had bought some after the Civil War and ended up selling some to Cassie’s grandfather. Yet, it’s the land — and owning it — that allows Cassie’s family a measure of freedom that the other families don’t have.

The interesting thing (to me) is that the other black families don’t hold it against the Logans do what they can to help out their neighbors and work hard at making ends meet. It’s the white people that claim the Logan’s are putting on airs, getting uppity and the like. In the end, it’s the land that both dooms them and saves them. (Which sounds ominous, I know, but really that’s the way it happens.)

Mildred Taylor doesn’t spare any one or anything. When Cassie disobeys, she gets whipped. She gets humiliated for just being black, and manages to get her “revenge”. It’s very much a world of get and try and give back. The children get splattered every morning on their way to school by the white bus going by (on purpose), and they take their revenge. Which sets off a chain of events. I think more than race relations, this book is about consequences. The consequences of choices, of decisions, of being black (or white) in Mississippi. There’s a strong sense of family, too. The Logans deeply care for their children, wanting what’s best for them. They are also concerned for their safety, navigating the difficult path of what’s right versus what’s best.

It was a very powerful book, one that I’m sure will stay with me for quite a while.

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!

5 Comments

In a word: delightful.

Other words to describe this: gem, fascinating, funny, captivating, beautiful.

Amazing.

It’s amazing how much information Laura Amy Schlitz packed into 81 pages. There are 22 captivating characters, each one with their own story, separate, yet interconnected. It’s a well-researched (but never dull) peek back in to Medieval times, the harshness of it, as well as the simple little joys. I liked that Schlitz didn’t glamorize the lives of these children, but I liked that she kept it accessible to kids of today. I liked that much of it was poetry: beautiful, simple, powerful. (And this is from someone who isn’t necessarily a fan of poetry.)

I want to own this book. I have a feeling that M and C will enjoy it, too. I can even see them putting on one or two of the plays themselves. It’s a treasure, and well worth the Newbery it won this year.

The Princess and the Hound

12 Comments

This one, by Mette Ivie Harrison, is a perfect transition book. I needed something to go between Omnivore’s Dilemma and whatever I’m going to read next, a kind of cleanse-my-palate thing (you can tell I was just reading a food book). Thankfully, I had picked this up on a whim a few weeks ago at the library, in one of my hey-I-heard-this-was-good moments.

And I’m so very glad I did.

It was a compelling fantasy, an intriguing fairy tale. I love the world that Harrison created, where there’s “animal magic”: the ability to talk to animals in their own language. Unfortunately, that ability is regarded as evil, and so the people who have it are persecuted. Which is a bit of a problem for our hero, Prince George. (Hey! A hero named George! Hubby would be happy; he wanted to name our son George. But we never had a son…) He has the animal magic, as did his mother (who died because of it). He’s grown up hiding it and suppressing it. He eventually becomes engaged to Princess Beatrice, the only (mostly unwanted) child of a rival kingdom, whose sole companion is a wild hound.

To do much more summing up would give away plot points that are much better left as surprises. And this book is full of them; just when I figured it was getting predictable, and I knew what was going to happen next, Harrison threw me for a loop. There were twists in the plot, growth in all the characters (even the bad guys!), happy (mostly) endings for all. It’s also interesting because it’s from George’s point of view. It’s not very often you get a straight up romance from the male point of view. But perhaps that’s partly the the reason I have a quibble is with the love story. It’s good — I like that they weren’t swooning over each other or pining away (I hate that) and that they had some mutual respect. But, I felt like they were missing something elemental, some sort of chemistry that wasn’t there. But, as I said, that’s quibbling.

It’s a very good book. And I’m glad I transitioned with it.

Better than the Golden Globes…

4 Comments

Via Abby…

Newbery Winner: “Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village,” written by Laura Amy Schlitz
I only have to say that Fuse must be so jazzed. I’ve got it on hold at the library so when it comes in, I’ll weigh in on it then.

Honors: Elijah of Buxton, by Christopher Paul Curtis, The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt, and Feathers, by Jacqueline Woodson
I haven’t read Feathers, but I’m really excited the other two got nods. They were my picks out of all the books I’d read this year.

Caldecott: The Invention of Hugo Cabret, illustrated by Brian Selznick
How awesome. I sure hope my mother-in-law gets it for us (she’s purchased the Caldecott winners for us for the last several years), I would LOVE to own a copy.

Caldecott Honors: Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Ellen Levine; First the Egg, illustrated and written by Laura Vaccaro Seeger; The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, illustrated and written by Peter Sís; and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity, illustrated and written by Mo Willems.
Mo Willems is becoming a perpetual bridesmaid: always the Honor, never the medal itself. Ah well. I haven’t read any of the others, though I’ve heard great things about The Wall, so I’ll probably be picking that up sometime soon.

You can find the list here.

Omnivore’s Dilemma

9 Comments

First, some history. Back in 2001 Hubby brought home a New York Times Magazine article by Michael Pollan had written about corn and the effect it is havingAmerican diets. I read it, was sufficiently shocked, and started reading ingredient labels. A anti-corn syrup activist was born. I have changed my diet (and my family’s) significantly in the past 7 1/2 years: I make my own bread, we limit the cereal and snack intake, we only have soda rarely. Aside from that article, the other motivators for food change over the years have been Fast Food Nation (which Hubby read; he said I probably couldn’t stomach the slaughtering chapters) and Crunchy Cons. We rarely eat at fast food (not never, though I do loathe McDonalds these days), and we try our best to buy local, especially when it comes to food. (Warning: this is one LONG review. Sorry.)

So this book, for me, was not so much a revelation as a confirmation. I can — and should — take the next step, take our food awareness to a slightly higher level (even if that means, much to C’s distress, getting rid of chicken nuggets and hot dogs and mac-and-cheese in a box).

The book is divided up in to three parts: Industrial, Organic, and Foraging, where he follows four meals from the beginning through to eating them. In industrial, he follows corn through corn-fed steers being “processed” to eating at McDonalds. If you read nothing else out of this book, read this section. Please. The only way we’ll even remotely begin to change the hold of industrial agribusiness has on this country is if more people know. (At one point, Pollan writes that the best way to change things would be to require glass walls on all slaughterhouses. Then, the public would be forced to acknowledge what goes on in those places in the name of cheap beef.)

The organic section was the one that I found most interesting. Pollan’s ultimate conclusion is that big organic (Whole Foods, Trader Joes, what you get at the supermarket) isn’t a whole lot better than industrial agriculture. I found this somewhat surprising. But, he visited farms and feedlots, and was unimpressed with the organicness of it all. Sure, they didn’t use pesticides or antibiotics, but the vegetables were still being picked by immigrant workers and the animals were still living in overcrowded conditions. Not exactly environmentally healthy, even if there is an “organic” stamp on it. (He also spends a lot of time talking about USDA regulations. If you can read this book and not end up angry at the USDA, I’ll be impressed.)

The second part of the organic section is Pollan’s ultimate ideal. He spent a week at Polyface farm, run by Joel Salatin. This man is an impressive farmer. He considers himself a”grass farmer“, rethinking how he raises cows, chickens, pigs, and rabbits. Everything is eco-friendly, local and interconnected. It’s an amazing place (it almost sounds too good to be true), and it made me wish for such a place closer to me (either that, or that I still lived in the DC area so I could pop down for a visit). It also made me realize that even though I buy local, I haven’t visited the farms where I get my meat. How are the animals living? How are they slaughtered and processed? I should be more proactive.

The final section is his attempt to recreate the hunter-gatherer. He hunts for wild boar. He forages for mushrooms, and serves a meal, in the end, that cost him practically nothing (except for time). He also visits vegetarianism, and the implications that has for modern eating. It’s all very fascinating (and well-written).

But, in the end, it leaves me slightly depressed. How many people are going to pick up this book? How many people can it change? Sure, organics and farmers markets are growing, but (as we’ve found out), it’s expensive. We spend a good chunk of our monthly paycheck on food, and it’s not because we’re buying more. I liked this quote (from Joel Salatin):

“Whenever I hear people say clean food is expensive, I tell them it’s actually the cheapest food you can buy… [W]ith our food all of the cost are figured into the price. Society is not bearing the cost of water pollution, of antibiotic resistance, of food-borne illnesses, of crop subsidies, of subsidized oil and water — of all the hidden costs to the environment and the taxpayer that make cheap food seem cheap. No thinking person will tell you they don’t care about all that. I tell them the choice is simple: You can buy honestly priced food or you can buy irresponsibly priced food.”

It just seems like a huge, uphill battle. But one in which I’m more than willing to do my part.

The Best of the Best-ofs

2 Comments

The January Bookworm Carnival is up over at Reading with Becky. She’s got a very impressive list of people’s varied 2007 Best-of lists. It takes some time, but it’s worth your while to go through (at least some of) them.

The 8th Edition of the Bookworms Carnival will be hosted at The Book Ninja. The theme is “The Geography of Make-Believe.” Full details are available at her site. You’ll need to read them. Really. Send an e-mail to thebookninja at gmail dot com with an appropriate subject line like “Bookworms Carnival” or “CARNIVAL OF AWESOMENESS!!!!” or “CARNIVAL EIGHT FOR THE WIN!” (Be creative, but use the words “bookworms” or “carnival” somewhere). The deadline for submission is February 8th.

I’ll have to go through my lists and posts and see what I can send Renay for next month’s carnival. This will take some thought.

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little

3 Comments

I’m really reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma (and enjoying it), but last night after all the girls were in bed, it really wasn’t what I wanted to curl up with.

So, it’s a good thing — on a recommendation from Becky — that I picked up this book, the first by Peggy Gifford, at the library the other day. It hit the spot: short, cute, and very funny. Just right for the evening of a stressful day. In fact, I think you could safely call this book adorable. (Though I’m not sure Moxy would like being called that all that much.)

Moxy Maxwell, 9-year-old, almost-fourth grader has had all summer to read Stuart Little. But there never seemed to be enough time. Until it’s come down to this: the last day before school starts, the day of the “Goodbye to Summer Splash” show where she’s 1/8th of a swimming daisy, and an ultimatum: read the book or don’t go.

Simple. And it works. Moxy is an amusing main character, coming up with all sorts of ways to get out of reading the book. But when she finally does, it’s — like many things we are “forced to do” — love. But that’s another story. This story is her adventures in getting out of reading the book. And it’s a winner. (I’m passing it on to C, who I’m sure, will just love it as much as I did.)