My policy is basically this: I review everything I read: the good, the bad, the didn’t finish. I do that because I, at least, want to know whether I liked a book or not, or whether I managed even to get through it, and, if so, why I abandoned it.

I consider accepting for review ARCs for Middle Grade (ages 7-13), Young Adult (12-18), including graphic novels, and select adult novels. I am also willing to do author interviews for my “10 Questions for” series, which runs once a month, but only after I’ve read a book by the author. I do not do guest posts. I will try to review as many ARCs as I can, but I only have so much time, and there are many books I like to get to. I do get to everything I am sent. Eventually.

Unless otherwise noted, I obtained all the books on my own terms — either by purchasing or borrowing from the library.

I link to IndieBound because I strongly believe in supporting small, independent bookstores. I do, however, have an affiliation and get a small fee for books bought through my links.

I know that when I don’t like a book, I may come off as mean. This is because I like to be honest. I also know I have offended authors in the past because I have said that I haven’t liked their books. Know that this is just my opinion. I know I am able to change them (or not) with enough discussion, because I have in the past. However, that doesn’t mean I’m going to go back and change what I wrote about the book, because I want to remember what I thought when I read it initially. If I choose to reread a book, and my opinion of it has changed, I’ll put up a new review.

I try not to accept ARCs that I have no interest in, or I don’t think I’ll even remotely like. However, generally I am only going off publicist blurbs and cover pictures when I make those decisions, and so I’m going to invariably get a few that initially I may think I’m going to like but end up disliking.

When I read a book, I am influenced by: the previous book I read, the mood I’m in, my stress level, whether or not my kids are climbing on me while I read (or write!), my religion, my age, my situation in life, my political beliefs, and a whole host of other factors. I don’t apologize for that. As I said before, I’m interested in my initial response to the book. I do try to say, in the review, if there are any circumstances that could have affected my reading of the book (like I read an excellent book previously, or I read the graphic novel version/saw the movie first, or I was having a bad day, or I was annoyed at the narrator/characters/copy-editing) so that my readers will know what my opinion is shaped by. I would like to think that makes my opinion still valuable to my readers, but I don’t want anyone to think that I am consciously trying to be especially “objective” or “professional” or “balanced” in my reviews; they are my opinion, first and foremost. As I said before, my attitudes may (or may not) change with time, and from time to time I do revisit books.

If you have any questions or wish to contact me, or to send me an ARC, feel free to email me at mmfbooks AT gmail.com.

M — who has taken to raiding my TBR pile when she’s looking for something new — after devouring this book (which led to interesting conversations at school, she said), slammed it down on the desk and announced: “There is NOTHING bad that I can say about this book. You gotta read it, Mom.”

So, I finally got around to it. And I have to agree: there’s nothing bad that I can say about this book by Robin Brande.

The basic plot is best summed up with the back-of-the-book blurb:

I knew today would be ugly. When you’re single-handedly responsible for getting your church, your pastor, and everyone of your former friends and their parents sued for millions of dollars, you expect to make some enemies. Fine. It’s just that I hoped my first day of school — of high school, thank you, which I’ve only been looking forward to my entire life — might turn out to be at least slightly better than eating live bugs. But I guess I was wrong.

Mena is a wonderful narrator. As an evangelical Christian, she just wants to do what’s best. Church has been her whole life up until this point, and she’s finding the adjustment — from being part of the in crowd to being on the outs — difficult, to say the least. Enter Ms. Shepherd, biology teacher extraordinaire, and Casey, lab partner extraordinaire. Without biology class, Mena’s year would have been horrible. She would have been miserable. But Casey, and Ms. Shepherd through the battle waged with the evangelicals over teaching Evolution (versus Intelligent Design), challenge and expand Mena’s world view. And her her case, that’s a very good thing.

I’ll leave the rest of the details for your to find out on your own.

I loved this book. I was worried at the beginning of the book that the end line would be Christians = bad and close minded, scientists and liberals = good and desirable. That formula, often found in books, and expressed across the Internet is part of what keeps me from mentioning my church all the time. I don’t want to be automatically lumped in the former category, as my church sometimes is, mostly because I don’t consider myself closed-minded… But I’m not going to go there; this is not a political or religious blog. These were just some of the thoughts I was having while reading this book. (As a friend commented when I was telling her about the book after church today: a book that makes you think is a sign of a really good book.) But, I was gratified that Brande treated religion with respect. I came away with the impression that she feels, or at least Mena feels, that it’s not religion that is bad and closed minded, per se, just some people’s interpretations of it. And I can agree with that. I think my favorite part is when Mena comes to a conclusion about evolution, one that she comes to with her own God-given brain:

My brain tells me there are facts out there to prove Darwin had it right. My brain also tells me there must be a way to keep believing in the Bible while also believing in science.

Not quite as easy to fit on a sign as Darwin = Devil, I admit. Maybe if I had to boil it down to one easy sentence, it would be this: I believe in evolution, and I believe in God.

I just haven’t worked out the details yet.

It’s this balance between science and God (another digression, but yet something I thought a lot about while reading) that’s subject to so much debate. Religion on one side, science on the other. And yet, this book explores the gray in between the two. And does it wonderfully.

There are also a lot of little things I loved — Kayla, Casey’s older sister; the puppies; the Lord of the Rings references (watched parts of Two Towers last night because of the book….); and that Brande captured a 14-year-old girl’s search to find herself while remaining true to the beliefs she was brought up in.

And she does it most excellently.

I read to find books like this one. Thats not exactly true of course, I read for other reasons. But the pure joy of finishing an absolutely perfect book is pretty high on the list.

And this book, by Christopher Paul Curtis, is absolutely perfect.

Don’t let the dust jacket fool you, though. It’s not an adventure story. The whole adventure part is only the last quarter of the book. It is a growing-up story, a portrait of a boy and a town and a time.

Elijah Freeman was the first child born in the settlement of Buxton, Canada, just over the river from Detroit. He’s lived a pretty uneventful life, save for the infamous interaction he had with Frederick Douglass when he was a baby. He lives with his Ma and Pa, who are escaped slaves, and the rest of the Settlement. Nothing much happens… he goes to school, catches fish, makes friends… yet everything happens. They welcome new runaway slaves, he has to read a letter bearing bad news to one of the members of the settlement, he has adventures, he learns and grows. It’s a marvelous story.

One of my most favorite things about this story is the captivating way in which Curtis tells it. Elijah is a funny, observant and completely likable narrator. And the book is written in dialect, and, while this usually is incredibly hard to read, it works like magic here.

Just an example:

I ain’t trying to be disrespectful of Ma’s cooking when I say that neither. Ma can fry some tolerable good fish and make vegetables that ain’t exactly horrible, but she caint bake for nothing. Pa would get pretty excited if I showed up with one of Mrs. Brown’s pies. He never let on to Ma how happy those pies made him, but if he thought she waren’t listening and couldn’t see him, he’d give me some big hugs and spin me ’round the room and kick up his heels!

Most of the book is all buildup, really — little snippets of Elijah’s life and interactions with members of the Settlement — so when the “adventure” part starts, and the book turns dark, you have all the relationships you’ve made to fall back on. If it had been more adventure and less story, the book would have possibly been too dark, too difficult to plod through. I was crying near the end; it’s horrible, but there’s no way to prettify slavery. I think the way Curtis handles the horrors is done with tact… and power and hope. It’s quite moving.

It’s one of those kind of books that win awards, that stay with you, that you want to shove into other people’s hands and say “Read this!”

If you’ve never read a Christopher Paul Curtis book before, or even if you have, read this one.