The Hundred Dresses

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by Eleanor Estes
ages: 8-11
First sentence: “Today, Monday, Wanda Petronski was not in her seat.”
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I read this gook first when I was eight. I don’t remember what my exact thoughts were, but it made enough of an impression on me that I’ve read it again several times over the years (and this is from a person who doesn’t often reread). That is partially, I think, because it takes about a half hour to read from start to finish now. But it’s also because it’s a story that packs a punch, even in its simplicity. Make that because of its simplicity.

The story (if you don’t already know it) is this: Wanda Petronski is poor, Polish, and a bit of an outcast in a WASPish town. The girls, especially the popular ones like Peggy, don’t pay her much attention, until one day when they’re admiring a beautiful dress on another girl. Wanda, for whatever reason, speaks up and says she has 100 dresses hanging in her closet. This incites much astonishment and incredulity on the part of the other girls, and Peggy begins teasing her. Maddie, Peggy’s best friend, is a bit uncomfortable with this — she’s not exactly well off herself — but does nothing. Then two things happen: first, Wanda’s father moves the family to the big city to get away from the small-town racisim. And second, Wanda wins the drawing-contest. With her 100 dresses.

Yes, it’s a simple story. The language is simple. The girls are simple, caricatures really. Peggy is a bully, but a human, believable one. She doesn’t do anything that I couldn’t see myself as doing, if I were in the same situation; it’s human nature to pick apart people’s stories. That doesn’t mean it’s good. And Maddie is the poor girl who has managed to make it with the in-crowd, staying silent because she knows her popularity (which is more important than sticking up for some Polish girl) is on the line. There’s no delving into their psyches, no trying to understand the why behind the girls’ actions; there’s just the fact that they make fun of Wanda, who takes it.

The thing that has bothered me for years, and bothered me again on this rereading, is the end. (Sorry for the spoilers. You’ve all read it already, right?) When, after the contest, the girls in the class are allowed to take Wanda’s drawings home and Maddie and Peggy discover that theirs are pictures of them. Then this: “What did I say!” said Peggy. “She must have really liked us anyway.”  I’m not sure I understand what Estes was trying to get at. Why does Wanda do this? Did she think it would make the girls change their minds, help them act nicer to others? Does she actually really like them?

I don’t know if I’ll ever know. But I’ll still probably read this lovely, slim novel with the haunting watercolor illustrations over and over again.

Sunday Salon: State of the TBR Pile 10

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When we got back from vacation, my TBR pile was nonexistent. So, of course, the first time I went to the library I stocked up. Unfortunately, that pile has been hijacked a couple of times since then, and I’m either going to have to renew these soon or get a different pile. Or maybe I’ll be able to plow through these before they’re due?

Eon: Dragoneye Reborn, by Alison Miller (I’ve seen the sequel at the store, and it looks interesting. I figure I need to read the first one first. Plus, M liked it.)
Carter’s Unfocused, One-Track Mind, by Brent Crawford (Because I adore Carter.)
The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, by Christopher Healy (Charlotte and Mrs. Yingling liked it.)
Kiki Strike The Empress’s Tomb, by Kirsten Miller (Because I really SHOULD read Kiki Strike.)
Where Things Come Back, by John Corey Whaley (It’s about time I read this  year’s Printz winner.)
Curveball: The Year I got My Grip, by Jordan Sonnenblick
Steampunk!, by Kelly Link

You may have noticed that Black Cauldron isn’t on that pile. It’s because I pulled all of the Prydian books off the shelf and stuck them in their own pile, in the hopes that I will actually read them. It hasn’t worked yet, but maybe it will.

What’s on your TBR pile?

Dearie

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by Bob Spitz
ages: adult
First sentence: “‘Now, dearie, I will require a hot plate for my appearance on Professor Duhamel’s program.'”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I have to admit that I didn’t grow up as a Julia Child groupie. Oh, I knew who she was, but I wasn’t that into food (I was more into sports) or cooking, and what she did didn’t interest me. My parents may have watched her French Chef show — I don’t know — but it’s not like she was an influence in my upbringing.

Then I read Julie and Julia and, later, My Life in France, and I became an unabashed Julia Child fan. So, of course, when the new biography came out (on August 15, her 100th birthday), I had to read it. (Granted, I wasn’t going to read it just yet, but a friend thrust it in my hands and said it was due back at the library in 2 weeks, so, really, what else was I going to do?)

Spitz admits, in the acknowledgements, that he is not really an unbiased reporter of Julia’s life. He met her in 1992 and developed a bit of a crush on her through their interaction. So, when the opportunity fell into his lap to write a biography of her, he, of course, jumped at the chance.

This really is a comprehensive (and by default, huge, coming in at 530 pages) biography: from her early upbringing in Pasadena, California, through her stint with the OSS (which really is much less glamorous than it seems), through her marriage to Paul Child and their years in France (which Spitz kind of glossed over, but I didn’t mind, since I’d read about that already), and through all her various incarnations in television, up through Paul’s, and her own, death.

But Spitz is an excellent writer, and his enthusiasm for Julia shows. He really delves into her life, drawing her both in broad strokes (she really WAS manic, full of energy; at one point, I pointed out to Hubby that she must have been exhausting to know), and small details (the amount of work this woman did, basically up until she died, was simply amazing; also she LOVED men. Not like affairs, or anything: she was devoted to Paul; she just loved having men around.), which gave a more thorough picture of the real person behind the persona. (By the way, she adored the Dan Ackroyd Saturday Night Live skit.) Additionally, there was enough foodiness, especially later on, to keep the foody side of me happy.

It was the combination of my admiration for Julia (I admire her more the older I get; she started a completely new career at age 50, and made it work) and Spitz’s writing that made this book such a delight to read.

A must for any Julia Child fan. 

The Last Dragonslayer

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by Jasper Fforde
ages: 12+
First sentence: “It looked set to become even hotter by the afternoon, just when the job was becoming more fiddly and needed extra concentration.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by my place of employment.

Jennifer Strange, 15, is just an indentured servant running the Kazam Mystical Arts Management in the wake of owner Mr. Zambini’s disappearance. No, it’s not easy managing a group of magicians whose magic is slowly fading, but she’s managing.

Then one of her magicians has a vision: Maltcassion, the last dragon, is going to be killed at noon on Sunday. By the last dragonslayer. Which happens to be Jennifer.

On the one hand, this little book is classic Fforde (granted, I’ve only read one other of his books): witty, slightly odd, with a tendency for clever names. The story is… intriguing… and interesting alternative history (The Ununited Kingdoms, for example, where Jennifer lives in the Kingdom of Hereford, under King Snood). But, while it’s whimsical, it’s also… odd. I’m not sure quite why I feel that way, just that while I thought the oddness worked in The Eyre Affair, I don’t think kids will get the oddness. Now, to be fair, I may be underestimating the 12-year-old British magic fans out there, but it just felt like a grown-up novel slightly whitewashed in order to make it suitable for kids books.

And while the story is passable and somewhat entertaining, I’m not sure that’s enough to offset the oddness of the book.

Liar & Spy

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by Rebecca Stead
ages: 10+
First sentence: “There’s this totally false map of the human tongue.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Seventh grade is a time of change, transition. For many, it no longer means elementary school and the predictability of one teacher. There’s adjusting to a more difficult schedule, different expectations, and, for many, different friends.

Georges (after Seurat, the painter) is in that position. Because his father has been laid off, they’ve had to move out of their Brooklyn home and into an apartment about a mile away. It doesn’t mean changing schools, but even so, leaving the familiar is always difficult. His mother — who works lots of double shifts at the hospital — bought him some America’s Funniest Home Movies in order to help him smile. It also doesn’t help that he’s being bullied at school: they make fun of his name, calling him Gorgeous, and his less-than-stellar performances. And that his former best friend, Jason, is gone over to the dark side.

Enter Safer, Georges’s new upstairs neighbor. He’s odd, with his stories of Mr. X and dead bodies, and his insistence that he’s a spy. But Georges rolls with it, and discovers something: he kind of likes being  a spy. And that Safer, and his sister Candy, are maybe even good friends, too.

While it’s not as gripping as I remembered When You Reach Me being, it’s a solid, excellent story of friendship, change, and making the most of your situation. And a middle grade book that can deliver that is always worth my time.

August 2012 Roundup

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And school is upon us. The quiet in the house, the busyness of the evenings, the TIME TO READ.

You can tell we were on vacation by the number of books I got through this month!

(Oh, and don’t forget: today’s the last day to apply to be a Cybils judge. Nominations open up in one month!)

My favorite this month:

Froi of the Exiles

Much like Finnikin of the Rock, this one blew me away. I really ought to read more of Melina’s other stuff.

And the rest…

Middle grade:

Ghost Knight
Wonder
Tuck Everlasting

Audiobooks:

Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man
Prince Caspian

Adult:

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend
Second Thyme Around

YA:

Dust Girl
The Cry of the Icemark

The YAckers managed to take this one apart as well. 

What were your favorite reads this month? Anything I should stick on my new “I want to read” Pinterest board?

Froi of the Exiles

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by Melina Marchetta
ages: 15+
First sentence: “They call her Quintana the curse maker.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Finnikin of the Rock

For the past three years, Froi has made his home in Lumatere, as part of the Queen’s Guard. He lives with a family in the Flatlands, working the fields. He trains and has a bond with the captains of the guard. He struggles with his past — as a slave boy and thief — but for the most part he’s happy.

Then, a Charynite makes his way across the Lumatere border (you have to understand that the Charynites invaded Lumatere and that prompted the events of Finnikin — so, yes, you kind of need that one first — and to say that they don’t like each other is an understatement.) and offers a chance for the Lumaterians — specifically Froi — to assassinate the king.

See, over there in Charyn, things aren’t all rosy. Eighteen years ago, someone assassinated their top religious leader, the oracle, and razed a province to the ground. Since then, the Charynites haven’t been able to have babies. The only salvation is in the princess Quintana, who has been prophesied to bear the first child. Because of this, she is kept prisoner in the castle, and is half-insane.

Froi heads to the castle, with the intentions of killing the king, but discovers that his role in Charyn, and his life, is so much greater than he thought it would be.

That summary doesn’t do this enormous, involved, intricate, intense book justice. Let’s just say that my offhand comment in my Finnikin review –“Sure there are some missteps: I wasn’t quite sure what Marchetta meant to do with the slave boy, Froi; he just seemed to lurk around in the background, never fully part of the story.” — is brought to fruition. Froi is the star of this show. Even though Finnikin and Isaboe play roles (and are quite delightful), as do a myriad of other minor characters, the real story here is Froi’s. And he’s quite a character to get to know: tortured, conflicted, with definite anger management problems, full of longing and desire but without the emotional resources to handle it.

It makes for a different kind of read than Finnikin: it’s still dark (there’s rampant rape, and lots of corruption), but there is a hope in this one that I don’t quite remember from Finnikin. That somehow, maybe Froi will figure things out, and that Charyn, contemptible though it is, maybe is worth saving.

And now, to wait for the ending. I’m sure it will be just as excellent as the other two. 

Two Middle Grade Audiobooks

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As you will recall (or not), I was on vacation recently. One of the things I love to do (to stave off boredom and to curtail the number of DVDs watched) is take a pile of kid-friendly audiobooks to listen to. For some reason, this year we didn’t listen to nearly as many as I thought we would: we only got around to two books. But, both were excellent.

First up:

Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man
by Donald J. Sobol
ages: 7+
Read by : Greg Steinbruner

I hate to admit it, but I’ve never read an Encyclopedia Brown book. No idea why. Hubby, on the other hand, remembers loving them from his childhood. He even convinced M to read a few when she was 8(ish). I picked this one up on a whim, figured maybe we’d get to it. However, it was the first one we plucked out of the pile.

And, we loved it. Every single one of us, from 6-year-old K to Hubby. The basic idea is this: it’s a series of short cases that genius whiz kid, Encyclopedia Brown, solves. Except you get to try and solve it before the final answer is revealed. (And yes, we did pause the disc every time, and we all guessed just to see. Sometimes we were right, sometimes were were way off base.)

The best things about it, I thought, were the names (I can’t recall them off the top of my head, and I didn’t write them down. Curses.), the fact that it was so 1950s (it was quite charming in it’s retro-ness), and the humor. I did write one line down, that had us howling: “All the murderers these days use silencers.” Steinbruner was an excellent reader, as well, keeping us engaged in the stories. (I swear, if you tune out for a second you lose a lot of information!)

Highly recommended.

And the second:

Prince Caspian
by C. S. Lewis
ages: 7+
Read by: Lyn Redgrave
Others in the series: The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe

Last year, we tackled the first book in Narnia, so I figured why not do Prince Caspian? (I also got Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but as soon as we realized it was a “full cast production” we bailed. We don’t like those.)

Again, it was a great read; one of those where you don’t want to get out of the car because you have to figure out what’s going to happen next. 

The story, for those of you who don’t know it: Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy are dragged back into Narnia, only to find out that hundreds of years have passed in Narnia to their one year in England. Their castle is now in ruins, and Narnia is ruled by a wicked Telemain king. The rightful heir and prince is in exile, and forming an army against his uncle (the wicked king), and needs the help of High King Peter and the rest.

Just some brief thoughts: I enjoyed this one so much more than Lion, etc. While Lion is a good story, this one is a fun, engaging adventure without the didactic overtones that Lion has. I also liked Prince Caspian as a character better than the older Pevensie children (however, Edmund and Lucy are still delightful, as always), especially Susan in this one. More than once the girls would call out, “Susan is SUCH a wet blanket!” (or a variation on that…) And she was: she was the downer of the group, not really wanting to be there. No wonder she never came back for more adventures.

And Lyn Redgrave was a brilliant storyteller. She kept us all engaged (I think it helped that the story was a fun one, though it got bogged down in the history portion. K kept asking when they’d get back to the action.), and her voices for everyone were quite fun, and spot-on as well.

It’s been too long since I’ve visited Narnia, but I’m not sure I’m going to actually read them. I’m having way too much fun listening to the audiobooks.

Cybils Call for Judges

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I sent out a tweet about this when the call first came out, but I thought I’d put up a reminder before it all closes.

It’s time to apply to be a Cybils Judge!

And every year I sit on pins and needles, hoping my application will be accepted, because it really is the most fun you will ever have. (Well, maybe not THE most, but for kidlit bookish types, a close second.)

And don’t worry if you don’t get to be part of the judging…. Nominations for the award open up October 1, and anyone can nominate their favorite books.

Maybe that’s the best part.

Dust Girl

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by Sarah Zettel
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Once upon a time, I was a girl called Callie.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by my place of employment.

It’s the heart of the Great Depression, and in Slow Run, Kansas, Callie LeRoux and her mother are struggling to survive. She’s the daughter of a single mom, living in a run-down hotel, and to make things worse (considering the time period), she’s half African-American. Then, one day (Sunday, April 14, 1935, to be exact), she learns — quite by accident — that she’s not exactly who she thought she was.

She is the daughter of a human mother, yes. But her father is a faerie prince.

This knowledge doesn’t come all at once, and Callie doesn’t readily believe it. The things she does know is that the Seelie have taken her mother, and Callie wants — no, needs — to get her back. She sets off on an adventure with a hobo named Jack, determined to get her mother back.

I’ll say this up front: it’s the first in a series, and it reads like a first in a series. There’s a lot of exposition and getting things going, and the actual plot doesn’t really begin until the book is nearly done. That said, the whole world that Zettel built is excellent. It’s a unique choice to involve race in the whole faerie world: the Unseelie are black; the Seelie… well, not so much. Not only are there human vs. faerie elements, but race also comes into play. And this makes it unusual for a fantasy novel.

Callie and Jack are also, for the most part, interesting characters. I think Callie becomes more interesting as the book progresses, especially when she finally faces her father’s family. Which makes me intrigued with this story, and curious to know where Zettel plans for it to go.

It’s not brilliant, but it’s solid, and it’s definitely worth the time.