This is the best youth fiction adventure book I’ve read since Half Blood Prince.

Really. I couldn’t put it down.

Basically, the book — by Rick Riordian, which on the back says he’s the author of the Tres Navarre series; I don’t read mysteries, but I guess they’re supposed to be good — is about Percy Jackson, who ends up being a demigod. Or, as they call it, Half-Blood. It’s an origin book: Percy goes from delinquent child to child of a Greek god, and then goes on a quest with two friends — another demigod and a saytr — to save the world. Honestly, though, I can’t do it justice here. It’s a great book. Fun, funny, exciting, and packed with references to Greek myths. (I LOVE the idea that Hades is under LA. Touche, but funny.) And I’m not even up on my Greek myths. I passed it along to M, who shares her father’s love of all things mythological. She’s excited to read it… and I’m betting she just loves it.

And it’s a series. Gotta find Book 2. (Though it’s not often that a series holds itself all the way through, but this one set it up quite nicely, so I’m hopeful.)

I found this book by Kimberly Heuston interesting, for many reasons. First, because I found it in Chinaberry, which isn’t unusual in itself. But this isn’t a typical Chinabery book. They’re ususally about fairies or princesses or Mother Earthy type stories. This isn’t any of those. To be sure, it’s got a strong female lead — Naomi — but it’s a lot more religious than I expected.

The basic plot — Naomi’s parents and youngest brother die in a fire and she and her remaining three siblings, after a stint with unwelcome relatives, end up in a Shaker community. After four years there, Naomi decides it’s time to leave, and heads to Vermont to start a medical “practice”. There she meets and falls in love with a nice young man (of course), but (and here’s what threw me), she decides in the end to be baptized a Mormon and head to Kirtland.

What? Where did that come from?

Yes, folks, the Mormon missionaries show up, and convert the family Naomi is living with. There’s even a passage quoted from Alma, as well as a lenghthy discussion of Joseph Smith and revelation in general. And I found it in Chinaberry, not Deseret Book.

All that said, I do have issues with the book — the missionaries are way too contemporary; they sound like the 19 year olds we send out now, not the missionaries of the 19th century. And the plot was uninvolving, though interesting at some points. And her whole conversion really came out of nowhere. And then the book just kind of ended. So, I guess it really wasn’t all that great.

But it was interesting to realize that Chinaberry was selling a Mormon book.

I am not a horse person.

There are some people in this world — my sister, for one; a couple of my daughters for another — who love horses. Adore horses. Me, I could care less.

As a result, I never read Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty as a kid. Never even considered it, a or remembered I hadn’t read it. Then my mom sent it for Christmas (go Mom!) and I finally got around to reading it (I was in between library books and looking for something to read).

In the end, I kind of liked it. It was interesting reading a book from a horse’s point of view, and Black Beauty was an interesting horse with an intersting life. It did get kind of slow in parts, but thankfully, the chapters were short, and there was usually something interesting in the next one.

Not bad, for a horse book.

some of us are Charlotte Bronte ones.

I found this quiz from the other Bookworm (I guess determining which Bookworm is the “other” depends on which one you read more) via turtlebella. I found it fascinating that I ended up as Jane Eyre (which I haven’t read since high school). Actually, it got me remembering which characters I most wanted to be growing up. I really wanted to be Jo from Little Women. Either her, or Anne Shirley. I loved Jo’s determination, and willingness to put her family first. And I loved Anne’s imagination.

Who did you end up as? Was there a character from literature you particularly relate/d with?

This will be short, because the baby’s a bit fussy. It’s been a long week; she hasn’t been sleeping well.

Anyway, When in Rome, by Robert J. Hutchinson (I guess the J’s important), is one of those travel/place books that I love reading every once in a while. Actually, this one’s subtitled: A Journal of Life in Rome, so I don’t know if it can actually be classified a travel book. What it is, is a wealth of knowledge about the Vatican, something I never thought I’d be interested in. But, aside from the pat little — and sometimes snide — remarks that ended each chapter, it was a fascinating book about the Vatican, and life there. Hutchinson visited the Vatican Bank, the museums, the Secret archives, found out how the money and stamps are made, delved into relics and the past popes’ sex lives. Ecclectic, but interesting.

And now, I need to do something about this bundle that’s sitting on my lap.