Getting to the last of the old book log. From here on out, it’s new stuff…

The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963, Christopher Paul Curtis: This was a terrific book — a wonderful portrayal of a black family in early 1960s Flint, MI. It was hilarious (all the way through the end): the narrator called his family the “Wacky Watsons” and they were. And it was touching especially towards the end. As a bonus, Curtis included a nice endnote about the Civil Rights movement. I loved every minute I spent reading this book.

Holes, Louis Sachar: An interesting book, and a well-written one. I really liked Sachar’s use of myth and the main character’s family history to help the plot line along. Give it time – I didn’t like it at first, but it grew on me as the story progressed.

Skeleton Man, Joseph Bruchac
A great ghost/mystery story. Girl comes home from school to the news that her parents are dead and long lost “relatives” are taking over. She doesn’t believe the “relatives” or that her parents are dead…

The Wish List, Eoin Colfer
About a girl who dies and is given a second chance at redemption by being sent back to help a man she had wrong. A really good book; better than Artemis Fowl.

The Lion Tamer’s Daughter and Other Stories, Peter Dickenson
I remember that they were good ghost stories, but I don’t remember anything about them.

The Thief Lord, Cynthia Funke
An interesting tale – runaway children on the streets of Venice – with a very interesting ending. I think it might have lost something in translation (I think it was originally written in German); some parts felt awkward.

Hoot, Carl Hiaasen
A delightfully unusual, fun little book about Florida, burrowing owls and finding friends. Loved it.

The Islander, Cynthia Rylant
A very slight book, though not a memorable one – I think I liked it, but I’m not quite sure.

Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland
Interesting series of short stories, working backwards in time. All include reference to/or are about a Vermeer painting.

Books you’d most likely find in a traditional English Lit class…

Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
I remembered really liking this one the first time I read it. I didn’t like it so much the next time, but perhaps because I went through a phase and read them all back to back. This was near the end and I was probably Jane-Austened out.

Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
I didn’t particularly like this story. Perhaps I ought to re-read it sometime.

Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens
A good story (that falls apart at the end), but I, for one, need to remember that Dickens wrote for the serials and to make money by publishing his stories. This is not a novel that I could read chapter after chapter in one sitting. I needed to parse it out. Still, now I can say I’ve read something by Dickens. (I have a problem with the way he portrays women, but that’s another issue.)

Room with a View, E.M. Forester
It’s been years since I’ve read this, and I still think it’s an excellent little, silly portrait of English people in love with Italy. The movie’s just as good, too.

The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
I hated it in high school…but liked it much better as an adult. Though I still think it would have made a better short story.

Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
I read this one because it was referred to in another book I read (the title escapes me now) where the character praised it. I thought since I’d never read any Hemingway why not start with this one. I realized about half way through that Hemingway is one of those authors for whom the style of writing is more important than the story. I finished it, but I wasn’t thrilled by it.

Daisy Miller, Henry James
A short novella – and an intriguing story about a young American woman in Europe and her lack of “propriety” that eventually leads to her downfall, of sorts. An interesting commentary on propriety and its place or lack of place in society.

Washington Square, Henry James
Of the two James books I read, I liked this one better. The heroine, while not exactly likeable, was more sympathetic, and I was glad for the choices she made through the course of the novel. She showed strength of character and resolve.

Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
This has been sitting on our shelf for years, and I finally got around to reading it. An interesting book, though a bit pretentious. Vonnegut seems to be like Hemingway: more concerned with the way things are written rather than what it’s about.

I don’t really know what to say about The Moorchild, by Eloise McGraw. It was the 1997 Newbery honor book. It’s about a half-fairy child that grows up with the humans for a while before she realizes who she is. The dedication says “to all children who have ever felt different” and I guess that’s what the book is about: celebrating and learning to deal with being different from others. It’s an okay book. I enjoyed reading it; I just wasn’t super-thrilled excited about it.

Fish, by L.S. Matthews suffers from a case of non-identification. You have no idea if the author is male or female (the copy I had from the library didn’t have the usual dust jacket with information about the author), and you have no idea whether “Tiger”, the main character, is male or female. For some reason, this bothered me. The book’s simple enough: a family of aid workers in a war-torn country need to get out and into a country friendly to their country (the countries aren’t identified, either), the border’s closed at one entry and so they have to climb over a mountain to another entry. The fish of the title is one Tiger picked up and carries throughout the journey. Which actually doesn’t take too long. Or is too hard. It’s not a walk in the park, but it’s not really devastating either. I think the book was supposed to be written as a metaphor for hope and faith and resilience. But I just didn’t get it.

On Amira’s recommendation, I checked out a couple more of E. L. Konigsburg’s books from the library. Sometimes I wonder how I miss this stuff…

I really liked both books — A View from Saturday and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth. But I think I liked Saturday better. It’s a good little story about kindess and change and discovery. Worth the Newbery it won. Elizabeth is an interesting, if a bit unusual, story about friendship. I really liked the end.

Every once in a while, you read a book you can truly call absolutely fabulous. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel was one of those, at least for me. A simple story: 16-year-old Pi and his family, and some of their zoo animals, are on a cargo ship headed from Pondicherry, India to Canada, where they planned to immigrate. The ship sinks. Pi find himself in a lifeboat with an injured zebra, an orang-utan, a heyena and a Bengal tiger. The tiger finishes off the other animals, and Pi finds himself alone with the tiger. And survives. For 227 days. The introduction to the story has a character saying the story will “make you believe in God.” I’m not sure about that. It did engross me, thrill me, amaze me and fill me with wonder. I couldn’t put it down.