It’s Cybils time around here at chez Book Nut, which means this is the Middle Grade edition of the Jacket Flap-a-thon. I haven’t forgotten about the drawing for the $25 gift card… you have until midnight (U. S. Central Standard Time) to enter. I’ll pick a winner tomorrow. Follow the link to enter.

And without further blathering, the best this month:

Born to Fly (Delacorte Press): “Ever since she can remember, Bird has loved dreamed of one thing: becoming a P-40 fighter pilot. The fact that she’s a girl has never seemed to matter. At least, not until the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor forces America into war and takes Bird’s dad, the one person who believes in her, far away. When a Japanese American boy named Kenji comes to school, everyone is sure he’s a spy or a traitor. But one night, after he saves her from drowning, Kenji and Bird accidentally discover a real spy in their town, one who’s plotting something deadly. No one believes their story, so Bird and her new friend are forced to try to stop the plot on their own. Their adventure will shake their town, test their friendship, and, if they fail, change the future o the war — and the world. This accomplished debut by Michael Ferrari, the winner of the Delacorte Yearling Price for a First Middle-Grade Novel, has everything: adventure, humor, a satisfying and nuanced portrayal of friendship, and a remarkable heroine who was born to fly.”

This one caught my eye because it makes the book sound adventurous and exciting. Good thing the book really is.

Anything But Typical (Simon and Schuster): “Jason Blake is an autistic 12 year old living in a neurotypical world. Most days it’s just a matter of time before something goes wrong. But Jason finds a glimmer of understanding when he comes across Phoenixbird, who posts stories to the same online site as he does. Jason can be himself when he writes, and he thinks that PhoenixBird — her name is Rebecca — could be his first real friend. But as desperate as Jason is to meet her, he’s terrified that if they do meet, Rebecca will only see his autism and not who Jason really is. By acclaimed writer Nora Raleigh Baskin, this is the breathtaking depiction of an autistic boy’s struggles — and a story anyone who has ever worried about fitting in.”

The best part about this jacket flap copy was that every sentence was written in a different font style and size. It’s disjointed and confusing, and I think works brilliantly, drawing the reader into this unique book.

The Brooklyn Nine (Dial Books): “1845: Felix Schneider, a 10-year-old immigrant from Germany, cheers the New York Knickerbockers as they play Three-Out, All-Out. 1864: Union soldier Louis Schneider plays baseball between battles in the Civil War. 1893: Arnold Schneider meets his hero King Kelly, one of professional baseball’s first big stars. 1908: Walter Snider, batboy for the Brooklyn Superbas, tries to sneak a black pitcher into the Majors by pretending he’s Native American. 1926: Numbers wiz Frankie Snider cons a con with the help of a fellow Brooklyn Robins fan. 1945: Kat Flint becomes a star for the Grand Rapids Chicks in the All-American Girls Baseball League. 1957: Ten-year-old Jimmy Flint thinks bullies and Sputnik are enough to worry about-until the Dodgers announce they’re leaving Brooklyn. 1981: Michael Flint finds himself pitching a perfect game during the Little League season at Prospect Park. 2002: Snider Flint tracks down the strange story of a bat that belonged to one of Brooklyn’s greatest baseball players. One family, nine generations. One city, nine innings of baseball.”

This one was difficult to write up, being a series of short stories. But I think the copy did an admirable job linking it all together. I especially like the two ending sentences.

Love, Aubrey (Wendy Lamb Books): “I had everything I needed to run a household: a house, food, and a new family. From now on it would just be me and Sammy–the two of us, and no one else. A tragic accident has turned eleven-year-old Aubrey’s world upside down. Starting a new life all alone, Aubrey has everything she thinks she needs: Spaghetti Os and Sammy, her new pet fish. She cannot talk about what happened to her. Writing letters is the only thing that feels right to Aubrey, even if no one ever reads them. With the aid of her loving grandmother and new friends, Aubrey learns that she is not alone, and gradually, she finds the words to express feelings that once seemed impossible to describe. The healing powers of friendship, love, and memory help Aubrey take her first steps toward the future. Readers will care for Aubrey from page one and will watch her grow until the very end, when she has to make one of the biggest decisions of her life. Love, Aubreyis devastating, brave, honest, funny, and hopeful, and it introduces a remarkable new writer, Suzanne LaFleur. No matter how old you are, this book is not to be missed.”

There was a toss up between this one, Wild Things and Also Known as Harper. This one won, I think, not only because it was short, but also because it caught just the right tone for the book.

Other books read this month:
Joey Fly, Private Eye in Creepy Crawly Crime
Al Capone Does My Shirts
Neil Armstrong is My Uncle
Strawberry Hill
Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies
A Season of Gifts
Oracle Bones
Also Known as Harper
Wild Things
Fifth Business
Black Angels
Cotillion
The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

October. That wonderful month of changes — at least here — when the world turns from Summer to Fall, when the mind turns to the holidays.

When life gets incredibly busy and there isn’t enough time to sit and read. Though I did get a fair amount read this month, surprisingly.

On to the best of the bunch:

The Summer I Turned Pretty (Simon&Schuster): “Some summers are just destined to be pretty. Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer — they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one wonderful and terrible summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along.”

The best of the YA romance books I read this year: short, sweet, and captures the book perfectly.

Sweetness in the Belly (Penguin Press): “An evocative and richly imagined story of a British-born Muslim woman’s search for love and belonging in two very different worlds. When Lilly is eight years old, her pot-smoking hippie British parents leave her at a Sufi shrine in Morocco and inform her they will be back to collect her in three days. Three weeks later, she learns they’ve been murdered. Lilly fills that haunted hollow in her life with the intense study of the Qur’an under the watchful eye of the saint’s disciple she was entrusted to. Years later, her journey from Morocco to Harar, Ethiopia, is half pilgrimage, half flight. In Harar, even her traditional Muslim head scarves cannot hid her white skin in her strange new surroundings; the world farenji — foreigner — is hissed at her at every turn. She eventually builds a life for herself teaching children the Qur’an, and she finds herself falling in love with an idealistic young doctor.

I often complain about adult blurbs, but I think this one is spot on in capturing the tone and plot without being overlong.

Liar (Bloomsbury): “Micah will freely admit she’s a compulsive liar, but that may be the one honest thing she’ll ever tell you. Over the years, she’s fooled everyone: her classmates, her teachers, her parents. And she’s always managed to stay one step ahead of her lies. That is, until her boyfriend dies under brutal circumstances and her dishonesty begins to catch up with her. But is it possible to tell the truth when lying comes as easily as breathing? Taking readers deep into the psyche of a young woman who will say just about anything to convince them — and herself — that she’s finally co me clean, Liar is a bone-chilling thriller that will have readers seesawing between truths and lies right up to the end.”

Great! Intriguing, without giving a single. detail. away. Perfect.

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Camping, Hiking and Other Natural Disasters (schwartz and wade books): “Alvin Ho does not think the great outdoors is great. It is super-duper scary. here are a few reasons why: 1. Flash floods. 2. Meteorites. 3. Lots of creepy trees. 4. Pit toilets! Luckily, when his dad suggests — gulp! — a camping trip, Alvin is prepared. He has: 1. A portable generator. 2. Night-vision goggles. 3. Toilet paper. 4. More toilet paper! So grab your mosquito netting and your heavy-duty flashlight and experience the great outdoors with the one and only Alvin Ho.”

How can you not love Alvin? Really. And I love that the blurb writer loves him, too.

Other books read this month:
The Key to the Golden Firebird
Mission Control, This Is Apollo
Nothing But Ghosts
Ice
A Civil Contract (DNF)
Trail of Crumbs (DNF)
The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z
The Stand
The Princetta
Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree
Something, Maybe
Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell in Love

Ninth Grade Slays
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society
Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano

Just a quick reminder before we get into this month’s jacket flap-a-thon: the nominations for this year’s Cybils awards open tomorrow. Go make a nomination: the more, the merrier, and you know you don’t want your favorite book to be left out!

On to this month’s reading:

Rules (Scholastic): “No toys in the fish tank. Twelve-year-old Catherine just wants a normal life. Which is near impossible when you have a brother with autism and a family that revolves around his disability. She’s spent years trying to teach David the rules from “a peach is not a funny-looking apple” to “keep your pants on in public” — in order to head off David’s embarrassing behaviors. But the summer Catherine meets Jason, a surprising, new sort-of friend, and Kristi, the potential next-door friend she’s always wished for, it’s her own shocking behavior that turns everything upside down and forces her to ask: What is normal? Filled with humor and warmth, Cynthia Lord’s debut novel takes a candid and sensitive look at feeling different and finding acceptance — beyond the rules.”

I thought this captured the spirit of the book — humor and tenderness and all — while making it intriguing enough that someone would want to pick it up.

Twilight of Avalon (Touchstone): “Ancient grudges, old wounds, and the quest for power rule in the newly widowed Queen Isolde’s court. Hardly a generation after the downfall of Camelot, Isolde grieves for her slain husband, King Constantine, a man she secretly knows to have been murdered by the scheming Lord Marche — the man who has just assumed his title as High King. Though her skills as a healer are renowned throughout the kingdom, in the wake of Con’s death, accusations of witch craft and sorcery threaten her freedom and her ability to bring Marche to justice. Burdened by their suspicion and her own grief, Isolde must conquer the court’s distrust and superstition to protect her throne and the future of Britain. One of her few allies is Trystan, a prisoner with a lonely and troubled past. Neither Saxon nor Briton, he is unmoved by the political scheming, rumors, and accusations swirling around the fair queen. Together they escape, and as their companionship turns from friendship to love, they must find a way to prove what they know to be true — that Marche’s deceptions threaten not only their lives but the sovereignty of the British kingdom. In Twilight of Avalon, Anna Elliott returns to the roots of the legend of Trystan and Isolde to shape a very different story — one based in the earliest written versions of the Arthurian tales — a captivating epic brimming with historic authenticity, sweeping romance, and the powerful magic of legend.”

It’s a little misleading — it made me think it was more of a romance than it was — but otherwise, a good picture of the plot without giving too much away.

Willow (Dial Books): “Seven months ago on a rainy March night, Willow’s parents drank too much wine at dinner and asked her to drive them home. But they never made it — Willow lost control of the car, and both of her parents were killed. Now seventeen, Willow is living with her older bother, who can barely speak to her. She has left behind her old home, friends and school. But Willow has found a new way to survive, to numb the new reality of her life: She is secretly cutting herself. And then she meets Guy, a boy as sensitive and complicated as she is. When Guy discovers Willow’s secret, he pulls her out of the solitary world she’s created for herself, and into a difficult, intense, and potentially life-changing relationship. Julia Hoban has created an unflinching story about cutting, grieving, and starting anew. But above all, she has written an unforgettable tale of first love.”

I thought this was nearly perfect: captured the intensity and desperation, and the whole bit about it being unforgettable is spot-on.

Catching Fire (Scholastic): “Sparks are igniting. Flames are spreading. And the Capitol wants revenge. Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol — a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create. Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she’s afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she’s not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol’s cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can’t prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying. In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before… and surprising readers at every turn.”

Had to include this one… how do you write a blurb about one of the most anticipated books of the year and not give anything away? This is how.

Other books I read this month:
Just Listen
Faith, Hope and Ivy June
Babymouse: Dragonslayer
The Beef Princess of Practical County
The Moonstone
Perfect Chemistry
From Cover to Cover
Dreaming Anastasia
The Great Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
A Finder’s Magic
The Princess and the Bear
My Life in Pink and Green
The Conch Bearer
The Purloined Boy (DNF)
Tess of the d’Urbervilles

It’s the end of August. It’s been hot, and the girls have been cranky this month, and I didn’t read all that I wanted to. Still, I managed to get a fair amount done. One must be grateful for the little things, right?

I had a list of books I wanted to get to this month, and I managed to get to almost all of them. Only four left sitting on my bookshelf. Hopefully, I get to them next month.

As for the ones I did read, there weren’t too many captivating jacket flaps. The two I did like (sort of):

Beastly (HarperTeen): “I am a beast. A beast. Not quite wolf or bear, gorilla or dog but a horrible new creature who walks upright—a creature with fangs and claws and hair springing from every pore. I am a monster. You think I’m talking fairy tales? No way. The place is New York City. The time is now. It’s no deformity, no disease. And I’ll stay this way forever—ruined—unless I can break the spell. Yes, the spell, the one the witch in my English class cast on me. Why did she turn me into a beast who hides by day and prowls by night? I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you how I used to be Kyle Kingsbury, the guy you wished you were, with money, perfect looks, and the perfect life. And then, I’ll tell you how I became perfectly . . . beastly.”

Clever; you don’t often see a jacket flap in the first person. It caught my attention, and made me want to read the book.

My Life in France (Knopf): “In her own words, here is the captivating story of Julia Child’s years in France, where she fell in love with French food and found her true calling. From the moment the ship docked in Le Havre in the fall of 1948 and Julia watched the well-muscled stevedores unloading the cargo to the first perfectly soigné meal that she and her husband, Paul, savored in Rouen en route to Paris, where he was to work for the USIS, Julia had an awakening that changed her life. Soon this tall, outspoken gal from Pasadena, California, who didn’t speak a word of French and knew nothing about the country, was steeped in the language, chatting with purveyors in the local markets, and enrolled in the Cordon Bleu. After managing to get her degree despite the machinations of the disagreeable directrice of the school, Julia started teaching cooking classes herself, then teamed up with two fellow gourmettes, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, to help them with a book they were trying to write on French cooking for Americans. Throwing herself heart and soul into making it a unique and thorough teaching book, only to suffer several rounds of painful rejection, is part of the behind-the-scenes drama that Julia reveals with her inimitable gusto and disarming honesty. Filled with the beautiful black-and-white photographs that Paul loved to take when he was not battling bureaucrats, as well as family snapshots, this memoir is laced with wonderful stories about the French character, particularly in the world of food, and the way of life that Julia embraced so wholeheartedly. Above all, she reveals the kind of spirit and determination, the sheer love of cooking, and the drive to share that with her fellow Americans that made her the extraordinary success she became. “
Long, long, long. But it gives you a good overview of the book. I just wish they’d tried harder to capture the spirit of Julia Child.

Other Books Read:
Need
Echoes From the Dead
Fire
20 Boy Summer
Story of a Girl
Oh. My. Gods.
Previously Engaged
Why Darwin Matters
Sprout
The Sisters Grimm
Goddess Boot Camp
Fragile Eternity (DNF)
Fiction
Coffeehouse Angel

I read 27 books this month (the 48 Hour Challenge helped…), which is nearly double my “usual” monthly total. Sometimes, I feel like I’m insane for reading SO much (not as many as some… I know that…). Other times — like this past weekend, when I was talking to the wife of one of Hubby’s friends (she’s an aspiring YA writer) — I realize how much I don’t know, how many books I haven’t read, and I wonder if there will ever be time enough to read them all.

Am I the only one who feels this way? (Probably not.)

Starting with the one worst:
Wintersmith (HarperTempest): “At 9, Tiffany Aching defeated the cruel Queen of Fairyland. At 11, she battled an ancient body-stealing evil. At 13, Tiffany faces a new challenge: a boy. And boys can be a bit of a problem when you’re thirteen. . . . But the Wintersmith isn’t exactly a boy. He is Winter itself—snow, gales, icicles—all of it. When he has a crush on Tiffany, he may make her roses out of ice, but his nature is blizzards and avalanches. And he wants Tiffany to stay in his gleaming, frozen world. Forever. Tiffany will need all her cunning to make it to Spring. She’ll also need her friends, from junior witches to the legendary Granny Weatherwax. They—Crivens! Tiffany will need the Wee Free Men too! She’ll have the help of the bravest, toughest, smelliest pictsies ever to be banished from Fairyland—whether she wants it or not. It’s going to be a cold, cold season, because if Tiffany doesn’t survive until Spring— —Spring won’t come.”
It’s not so bad, but it doesn’t really draw the reader in. It’s more dorky than anything, and this book is anything but dorky.

And on to the better stuff:

Whales on Stilts! (Harcourt, Inc.): “Monstrous Thrills! (Startling teeth! Cellos in fast cars! Photocopy repair!) Gruesome Chills! (Okay, maybe not that gruesome, but we’re trying to sell a book here.) Sidesplitting laughs! (Ouch. This is why my friend Bill wears a girdle). Swaying above them, outlined against the fresh morning sky, were the ominous shapes of the whales. They towered thirty feet high, their eyes glowing. They had spread their flukes. They drooled from their wet baleen. Lily stopped on her bike and stood for a second at the crest of a hill. She stared with horror at the scene of destruction down in the valley before her. The whales stepped on used car dealerships and a putt-putt golf course. They burned down trees in a trice with their laser-beam eyes. They stalked on rows through the countryside. They had to be stopped.”
I didn’t do this justice: the jacket flap cracked me up. Like the book.

Poison Study (Luna): “Choose: A quick death and hell or slow poison and hell. About to be executed for murder, Yelena is offered an extraordinary reprieve. She’ll eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia. And so Yelena chooses to become a food taster. But the chief of security, leaving nothing to chance, deliberately feeds her Butterfly’s Dust and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison. As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can’t control. Her life is threatened again and choices must be made. But this time the outcomes aren’t so clear.”
This is one of those books that, had I been browsing, I would have picked up because the jacket-flap copy is really intriguing. A good balance between being enticing and not revealing too much.

Wicked Lovely (HarperTeen): “Rule #3: Don’t stare at invisible faeries. Aislinn has always seen faeries. Powerful and dangerous, they walk hidden in the mortal world. Aislinn fears their cruelty-especially if they learn of her Sight-and wishes she were as blind to their presence as other teens. Rule #2: Don’t speak to invisible faeries. Now faeries are stalking her. One of them, Keenan, who is equal parts terrifying and alluring, is trying to talk to her, asking questions Aislinn is afraid to answer. Rule #1: Don’t ever attract their attention. But it’s too late. Keenan is the Summer King, who has sought his queen for nine centuries. Without her, summer itself will perish. His is determined that Aislinn will become the Summer Queen at any cost-regardless of her plans or desires. Suddenly none of the rules that have kept Aislinn safe are working anymore, and everything is on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; everything. Faery intrigue, mortal love, and the clash of ancient rules and modern expectations swirl together in Melissa Marr’s stunning twenty-first-century faery tale.”
Again, a good balance of intriguing and not giving too much away.

Other books read this month:
Magickeepers: The Eternal Hourglass
Don’t Call Me a Crook!
How Not to be Popular
The Painter from Shangahi
Clementine
The Chosen One
Here Lies Arthur
Magic Study
Fire Study
Hat Full of Sky
Manga Shakespeare: The Tempest
Forever Rose
The Talented Clementine
Keturah and Lord Death
Tales from Outer Suburbia
Girl Force
Atonement
Girl at Sea
Garden Spells
The Talisman Ring
That Summer
Ink Exchange
Alcatraz versus the Scrivener’s Bones
Nation

Summer.

Our air conditioning is on the fritz, and while it’s okay in the house in the morning through mid-afternoon, by evening, we’re dying and retreat to the basement. We must get this fixed… because if it’s this hot at the end of May, who knows how hot it will be in a month!

Hope you’re staying (relatively) cool… On to this month’s books:

The Wee Free Men (HarperTempest): “There’s trouble on the Aching farm: monsters in the river, headless horsemen in the lane — and Tiffany Aching’s little brother has been stolen by the Queen of Fairies. Getting him back will require all of Tiffany’s strenght and determination (as well as a sturdy skillet) and the help of the rowdy clan of fightin’, stealin’, tiny blue-skinned pictisies known as the Wee Free Men!”

I’m sorry. I know this book is hard to describe and write a blurb about, but they didn’t even really try. It’s part of the reason why I took so long to actually read the book.

Doc Wilde and The Frogs of Doom (G.P. Putnam Sons): “To the world at large, the Wilde family is an amazing team of golden skinned adventurers, born to daring escapades and globetrotting excitement! Doctor Spartacus Wilde, world class scientist and inventor, physical exemplar, ultimate warrior, and loving dad! Brian and Wren Wilde, the worlds most swashbuckling kids, able to survive the most perilous situations through quick wits and the intensive training and astonishing gadgets that are their birthright! Aided by their dashing majordomo Phineas Bartlett and their loyal driver and pilot Declan mac Coul, the Wildes crisscross the Earth on a constant quest for new knowledge, incredible thrills, and good old fashioned adventure! The Frogs of Doom… “

Campy and fun and over the top. Just like the book.

The Year the Swallows Came Early (The Bowen Press): “Eleanor “Groovy” Robinson loves cooking and plans to go to culinary school just as soon as she’s old enough. But even Groovy’s thoughtfully—planned menus won’t fix the things that start to go wrong the year she turns eleven—suddenly, her father is in jail, her best friend’s long-absent mother reappears, and the swallows that make their annual migration to her hometown arrive surprisingly early. As Groovy begins to expect the unexpected, she learns about the importance of forgiveness, understands the complex stories of the people around her, and realizes that even an earthquake can’t get in the way of a family that needs to come together. Kathryn Fitzmaurice’s lovely debut novel is distinctively Californian in its flavor. Her rich characters and strong sense of place feel both familiar and fresh at first meeting—and worth revisiting, again and again.”

One of the better examples of a blurb that gives you the basic arc of the story without giving anything away. Perfect.

The Actor and the Housewife (Bloomsbury): “A very different kind of fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Shannon Hale. What if you were to meet the number-one person on your laminated list–you know, that list you joke about with your significant other about which five celebrities you’d be allowed to run off with if ever given the chance? And of course since it’ll never happen it doesn’t matter… Mormon housewife Becky Jack is seven months pregnant with her fourth child when she meets celebrity hearththrob Felix Callahan. Twelve hours, one elevator ride, and one alcohol-free dinner later, something has happened…though nothing has happened. It isn’t sexual. It isn’t even quite love. But a month later Felix shows up in Salt Lake City to visit and before they know what’s hit them, Felix and Becky are best friends. Really. Becky’s husband is pretty cool about it. Her children roll their eyes. Her neighbors gossip endlessly. But Felix and Becky have something special…something unusual, something completely impossible to sustain. Or is it? A magical story, The Actor and the Housewife explores what could happen when your not-so-secret celebrity crush walks right into real life and changes everything.”

And this one is just here because I really like the book. 🙂

Other books read this month:
Extras
The Screwtape Letters
The Amaranth Enchantment
The Lucky Ones
The Woman in White
Babymouse: The Musical
Life Sucks
The Good Neighbors
The Ordinary Princess
Ranger’s Apprentice: The Burning Bridge
The Last Olympian
The 19th Wife: A Novel
Devilish

The end of another month already? Would someone please tell me where this year is going? I can’t believe it’s May tomorrow…

At any rate, on with the flap-a-thon:

Caddy Ever After (Margaret K. McElderry Books): “Love is in the air for the Casson family! Four hilarious, endearing tales unfold as Rose, Indigo, Saffy, and Caddy each tell their intertwining stories. Rose begins by showing how she does special with her Valentine’s card for Tom in New York. Not to be outdone, Indigo has his own surprise in store for the Valentine’s Day disco at school. For her part, Saffy has an unusual date in a very, very dark graveyard, and is haunted by a balloon that almost costs her her best friend. But it is Caddy who dares everything — as she tells all about love at first sight when you have found the Real Thing. Unfortunately the Real Thing is not darling Michael. What is Rose going to do?”

I’ve never really liked the jacket-flaps for the Casson family books; they try to get the tone right, and end up sounding gratingly annoying. This one, however, is not too bad. Not great, but not too bad, either.

Nim’s Island (Scholastic): “A girl. An iguana. An island. And e-mail. Meet Nim–a modern-day Robinson Crusoe! She can chop down bananas with a machete, climb tall palm trees, and start a fire with a piece of glass. So she’s not afraid when her scientist dad sails off to study plankton for three days, leaving her alone on their island. Besides, it’s not as if no one’s looking after her–she’s got a sea lion to mother her and an iguana for comic relief. She also has an interesting new e-mail pal. But when her father’s cell-phone calls stop coming and disaster seems near, Nim has to be stronger and braver than she’s ever been before. And she’ll need all her friends to help her. “

This one, however, is adorable. Or at least very cute.

Fire and Hemlock (Greenwillow Books): “A photograph called “Fire and Hemlock” that has been on the wall since her childhood. A story in a book of supernatural stories — had Polly read it before under a different title? Polly, packing to return to college, is distracted by picture and story, clues from the past stirring memories. But why should she suddenly have memories that do not seem to correspond to the facts? Fire and Hemlock is an intricate, romantic fantasy filled with sorcery and intrigue, magic and mystery, all background to a most unusual and thoroughly satisfying love story.”

This is a hard book to write a blurb for, and I think the folks at Greenwillow did a good job. Intriguing, without giving anything away.

People of the Book (Penguin Books): “In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding–an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair–she begins to unlock the book’s mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book’s journey from its salvation back to its creation. In Bosnia during World War II, a Muslim risks his life to protect it from the Nazis. In the hedonistic salons of fin-de-siècle Vienna, the book becomes a pawn in the struggle against the city’s rising antisemitism. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves it from burning. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah’s extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed. Hanna’s investigation unexpectedly plunges her into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics. Her experiences will test her belief in herself and the man she has come to love. Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is at once a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity, an ambitious, electrifying work by an acclaimed and beloved author.”

Long, but informative without spoiling the plot. And actually very interesting.

Other books read this month:
The Darcys and the Bingleys
Pemberley by the Sea
Jane Austen Ruined My Life
The Order of the Odd-Fish
Lock and Key
The Diary of a Young Girl
The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry
Inkdeath
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
We Are the Ship
Ancedotes of Destiny and Ehrengard
The Farwalker’s Quest
Aurelia
Artichoke’s Heart

I am not coming up with anything witty to say as an introduction: I thought I’d read less because the weather was getting nicer, but I didn’t. I did, however, have the single highest number of posts in a month. (This one will be 48, Teaser Tuesday, which will go up soon will be 49. I should do one more to make it an even 50.) I suppose that should be an accomplishment. Either that, or it means I should be spending more time with my kids…

Graceling (Harcourt, Inc.): “In a world where people born with an extreme skill — called a Grace — are feared and exploited, Katsa carries the burden of a skill even she despises: the Grace of killing. She lives under the command of her uncle Randa, King of the Middluns, and is expected to execute his dirty work, punishing and torturing anyone who displeases him. When she first meets Prince Po, who is Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change. She never expects to become Po’s friend. She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace — or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away… a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.”

One of the most difficult things to do when writing jacket flaps is to conceal a twist or a big revelation and yet not give a false sense of the book. This one does both admirably.

Bee Season (Doubleday): “Eliza Naumann has no reason to believe she is anything but ordinary, especially after her teachers place her in the class for slow learners. Her father, Saul, dotes on her older brother Aaron’s rabbinical ambitions. Her mother, Miriam, seems fully absorbed by her law career. When a spelling bee threatens to reaffirm her mediocrity, Eliza amazes everyone: she wins. Her new found gift garners an invitation not only to the national competition, but to her father’s sacred study where a new dictionary beckons, Jewish mysticism lurks in leather tomes, and language offers a spiritual awakening. Eliza’s unexpected success sends her off-kilter family into a tailspin, and Eliza comes to depend upon her own divination to hold the family together. With intense imagination and great emotional acuity, Bee Season evokes a child’s desperate longing for praise and acceptances and is a masterful portrayal of modern family life.”

This one did its purpose: it made me want to read the book. Too bad I liked the summary better than the book itself…

Speak (Farrar Straus Giroux): “From her first moment at Merryweather High, Melinda Sordino knows she’s an outcast. She busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops — a major infraction of high-school society — so her old friends won’t talk to her, and people she doesn’t know glare at her. She retreats into her head, where the lies and hypocrisies of high school stand in stark relief to her own silence, making her all the more mute. But it’s not so comfortable in her head, either– there’s something banging around in there that she doesn’t want to think about. Try as she might to avoid it, it won’t go away, until there is a painful confrontation. Once that happens, she can’t be silent — she must speak the truth. In this powerful novel, an utterly believable, bitterly ironic heroine speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while learning that, although it’s hard to speak up for yourself, keeping your mouth shut is worse.”

I liked the straightforwardness of this: it basically tells you what to expect, but there’s still a little sense of mystery that makes you want to find out what happens to Melinda.

Other books read this month:
Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One Before (Hyperion)
The Parliament of Blood (Bloomsbury)
Somewhere in Heaven (Hyperion)
To Catch a Mermaid (Little, Brown)
Permanent Rose (Margaret K. McElderry Books)
Life As We Knew It (Harcourt)
Just One Wish (G.P. Putnam Sons)
So Many Books, So Little Time (Berkley Trade)
Banker to the Poor (PublicAffairs)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Rosewater and Soda Bread (Random House)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Evernight (HarperTeen)
Flygirl (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Stealing Heaven (Harper Teen)
Ranger’s Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan (Puffin)

I have nothing witty to stay to begin. Generally, February is better than January in my book, but for some reason, I never really got a grasp on the month. Nothing drastic or dramatic, just couldn’t shake a general funk. Thank heavens for books….

Indigo’s Star (Margaret K. McElderry Books): “IT’S BACK TO SCHOOL FOR THE START OF A NEW TERM, AND THE ECCENTRIC CASSONS ARE UP TO THEIR OLD TRICKS! Indigo, having just recovered from a bout of mononucleosis, must return to school after missing an entire semester. Only his younger sister and loyal sidekick, Rose, knows why he’s dreading it so much. As it turns out, the school bullies are eagerly awaiting Indigo’s return so that they can pick up where they left off — flushing his head in the toilet. But Indigo hasn’t counted on meeting Tom, an American student who is staying with his grandmother in England for the year. With his couldn’t-care-less attitude and rock-and-roll lifestyle, Tom becomes Indigo’s ally, and together they work to take back the school. Meanwhile, eight-year-old Rose is desperately trying to avoid wearing horrible glasses, nineteen-year-old Caddy is agonizing over her many suitors, Saffy is working overtime with her best friend, Sarah, to protect Indigo from the gang, and with their father, Bill, in London at his art studio, their mother, Eve, is just trying to stay on top of it all!”

Actually, this is a good bad one. M read the blurb and had no interest in reading the book. (Her exact words: “I have no desire to read about heads being flushed in toilets.”) It was only after I read it, gushed, cajoled and reminded that she actually read the book. And loved it.

Princess of the Midnight Ball (Bloomsbury): “A tale of twelve princesses doomed to dance until dawn… Galen is a young soldier returning from war; Rose is one of twelve princesses condemned to dance each night for the King Under Stone. Together Galen and Rose will search for a way to break the curse that forces the princesses to dance at the midnight balls. All they need is one invisibility cloak, a black wool chain knit with enchanted silver needles, and that most critical ingredient of all—true love—to conquer their foes in the dark halls below. But malevolent forces are working against them above ground as well, and as cruel as the King Under Stone has seemed, his wrath is mere irritation compared to the evil that awaits Galen and Rose in the brighter world above. Captivating from start to finish, Jessica Day George’s take on the Grimms’ tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses demonstrates yet again her mastery at spinning something entirely fresh out of a story you thought you knew.”

Perhaps I notice this because I read a lot of Bloomsbury books, but the folks there really know how to pique a reader’s interest without giving too much away.

Matrimony (Vintage Contemporaries): “It’s the fall of 1986, and Julian Wainwright, an aspiring writer, arrives at Graymont College in New England. Here he meets Carter Heinz, with whom he develops a strong but ambivalent friendship, and beautiful Mia Mendelsohn, with whom he falls in love. Spurred on by a family tragedy, Julian and Mia’s love affair will carry them to graduation and beyond, taking them through several college towns, over the next fifteen years. Starting at the height of the Reagan era and ending in the new millennium, Matrimony is a stunning novel of love and friendship, money and ambition, desire and tensions of faith. It is a richly detailed portrait of what it means to share a life with someone — to do it when you’re young, and to try to do it afresh on the brink of middle age.”

I like this because the book is about such normal, everyday things which are hard to summarize. But, the copy does a good job with this.

The Trouble Begins at 8 (Greenwillow Books): “Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cheap cigar clamped between his teeth.” So begins Sid Fleischman’s ramble-scramble biography of the great American author and wit, who started life in a Missouri village as a barefoot boy named Samuel Clemens. Abandoning a career as a young steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River, Sam took a bumpy stagecoach to the Far West. In the gold and silver fields, he expected to get rich quick. Instead, he got poor fast, digging in the wrong places. His stint as a sagebrush newspaperman led to a duel with pistols. Had he not survived, the world would never have heard of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn—or red-headed Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens adopted his pen name in a hotel room in San Francisco and promptly made a jumping frog (and himself) famous. His celebrated novels followed at a leisurely pace; his quips at jet speed. “Don’t let schooling interfere with your education,” he wrote. Here, in high style, is the story of a wisecracking adventurer who came of age in the untamed West; an ink-stained rebel who surprised himself by becoming the most famous American of his time. Bountifully illustrated.”

My only quibble is the “Bountifully illustrated.” Huh? (They weren’t even really illustrations, more a combination of photographs and reprinted cartoons.) But the rest is a good teaser inviting readers to learn more about Mark Twain.

Other books read this month:
Everything Beautiful
Beside a Burning Sea
Maus I and Maus II
Skeleton Creek
The Dragonfly Pool
Madame Pamplemousse and Her Incredible Edibles
Becoming Jane Austen
The Adventures of Boone Barnaby
The Four Agreements
The Graveyard Book
The Bermudez Triangle
A View from Jerusalem
Dear Julia
Chocolat