Library Loot 2010-24

3 Comments

Oh, it’s SO nice to be back, and to have come home with a bag full of books. Now, to make the time to read them all!

Picture Books:
What’s Your Sound, Hound the Hound?, by Mo Willems
George and Martha, by James Marshall
Moving Day, by Ralph Fletcher/Illus. by Jennifer Emery
Five Little Monkeys Wash the Car, by Eileen Christelow
Thirteen, by Remy Charlip and Jerry Joyner
Is There Really a Human Race?, by Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell
Best Best Friends, by Margaret Chodos-Irvine

Easy Readers:
The Rainforest Race (Go, Diego, Go! Ready-to-Read)

Middle Grade Fiction:
The Witching Hour, by Stephen Krensky
Peter Pan in Scarlet, by Geraldine McCaughrean
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, by Tom Angleberger

YA Fiction:
Sisters Red, by Jackson Pearce
A Mango-Shaped Space, by Wendy Mass

Non-Fiction:
The Immortality of Influence: We Can Build the Best Minds of the Next Generation, by Salome Thomas-El and Cecil Murphy
Firstborn Advantage, The: Making Your Birth Order Work for You, by Dr. Kevin Leman
Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip–Confessions of a Cynical Waiter, by Steve Dublanica

The roundup is either at Adventures of an Intrepid Reader or A Striped Armchair. Obligatory FTC note: the links are provided through my Amazon Associates account. If you click through and actually purchase one of these books, I’ll get a teeny, tiny payment. But, since no one ever does, and it’s SO much easier using the associates account to put up these links, I’m going to keep doing it.

The Demon’s Lexicon

5 Comments

by Sarah Rees Brennan
ages: 14+
First sentence: “The pipe under the sink was leaking again.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Brothers Nick and Alan are on the run from magicians who are hunting them. Have been for most of their lives. That, and taking care of their mother (who was driven mad by magic) takes up most of their time. That is until Mae and her brother Jamie come into their lives. Jamie, it seems, has a third level demon mark, which essentially means he’s ripe for possession.

Perhaps we should take a break here and explain that in this world, demons are spirits who long to possess human bodies and experience human lives. In exchange for this, they grant magicians unlimited power. The magicians don’t really see anything wrong with this, but for Nick, Alan, and their “side”, it’s kind of evil to give away human bodies to demons in exchange for power. I can see their point.

As a result of Mae and Jamie (among other things), Alan gets a demon mark, and so the four of them (unfortunately, in Nick’s opinion) set about trying to remove the marks. This involves hunting down a Circle of magicians and killing a couple, since only a magician’s blood will remove the marks. Thus begins an interesting adventure, full of suspense and intrigue, a bit of romance (and Brennan knows how to write romance), and a spectacular twist at the end, one that, in retrospect I should have seen coming yet it completely blew me away.

The only really drawback is that one of the main characters, Nick, is so very unlikable. It’s a turn off at the beginning of the book; you just want to smack the kid upside the head. But, give it time: he will grow on you, he does have a few redeeming qualities. And then there’s Alan, who’s an enigma: he keeps secrets from Nick, he’s up to something, but you never quite know what. They’re an interesting and appealing pair, these brothers. Mae isn’t too bad herself, either: with her fiery temper and determination (not to mention pink hair).

All of which makes for a very compelling book.

10 Questions for Wendy Mass

8 Comments

This interview I have to credit C for. She adores Wendy Mass, you see: she picked up Every Soul a Star (after M literally pushed it into her hands) and adored it. She’s working her way through Mass’s other books, and when she finished Finally, she came to me and said, “Mom, you do interviews with authors, right? Do you think you could do one with Wendy Mass?”

There was only one way to find out, and the answer was: YES! Hooray for suggestions from daughters!

MF: My daughter and I are curious: how do you come up with the ideas for your stories? WM: Basically I keep my eyes open for a topic that interests me (synesthesia, astronomy, candy!), and then I figure if I find it fun to learn about, then others will, too. Then I build a story around the theme, with characters that wind up leading me through the book.

MF: Who or what inspires you to write?
WM: Writing was just a natural progression from reading for me. At some point as a kid I decided to try writing my own stories, and then just never stopped. Now I think it’s the readers who inspire me to keep writing.

MF: Your most recent book, Finally, is a sequel, of sorts, to 11 Birthdays. Is there any particular reason you put Rory and her story in the same world/place as Leo and Amanda? WM: Writing 11 Birthdays was so much fun that I didn’t want to let the world of Willow Falls end. But I also didn’t want to write a straight sequel, so FINALLY became a “companion” to 11 Birthdays, with some overlapping characters.

MF: How did you come up with the plot for the book? Did it evolve out of 11 Birthdays at all? WM: I knew each of the “Willow Falls” books would focus on a girl’s birthday, and 12 is such a special age. Right on the cusp of being a teen, but still feeling like a kid a lot of the time. I wanted to focus on not only the big “coming of age” events that most girls go through, but some of the smaller ones, too, like getting a key to the house, sitting in the front seat of the car, getting pierced ears. But then I thought it would be fun to have all the things Rory was looking forward to go differently than she’d expected.

MF: Reading about Rory was almost painful; it was one bad thing after another (my daughter said she’s scared to get her ears pierced now!). How did you come up with all the ideas? Was it as painful for you to write as it was for us to read? WM: To come up with the things on Rory’s list, I asked a few hundred 11-year-olds what they were looking forward to being able to do. Then I took the responses I got the most often, and those are the ones that made it into the book. I wanted it to feel real (and be funny), but I wasn’t aiming for painful! Tell your daughter that chances are she won’t wind up with an elephant ear like Rory! :o)

MF: Is there anything you hope your readers take away from Finally? (Or any of your books, for that matter.) WM: I think most kids are in a big hurry to grow up, and if there’s any message in Finally, it’s about taking your time and not rushing. To do things when you’re ready for them, not when a date on the calendar tells you to be.

MF: I know it’s like picking a favorite child, but which of your books is your favorite or means the most to you? WM: A Mango-Shaped Space was my first, so that one holds a special place in my heart. I learned the most while writing Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, and ate the most candy while writing the upcoming book The Candymakers.

MF: Do you have a specific time or place for writing? How do you fit it into your busy schedule
WM: Sometimes I have no idea how the books get written. Juggling family and writing and traveling for school visits is really hard. I recently started renting an office in town, and that has helped a lot. Just having someplace to go where I can focus (with no internet access or Dora the Explorer!), has made it easier to buckle down and focus. I also do a lot of “writing” in my head, so when I get to sit in front of the computer I’ve worked a lot of it out already.

MF: Are there five books you think everyone should read?
WM: Everyone’s taste is so different, and we all take different things away from each book. But I can tell you the five books that I read growing up that had the biggest impact on me. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was the first book that I sought out on my own in my elementary school library. The Time Garden by Edward Eager was the first one that I searched the country to find on every family trip for years (this was when finding a book actually required going to a bookstore and pulling books from the shelves!) I’ll never forget finding it in a Waldenbooks in the middle of nowhere, and clutching it to my chest with pure glee. Charlotte’s Web was the first to make me cry, and Harriet the Spy made me a very sneaky kid! Allegra Maud Goldman by Edith Konecky showed me how serious themes can be hidden in really funny books and made me want to be a writer.

MF: So, if you don’t mind telling us, what can we look forward to from you next?
WM: The Candymakers is coming up this fall. It’s about four kids competing to make the world’s best new candy, but things aren’t at all what they seem. After that is a companion book to 11 Birthdays and Finally which I don’t have a title for yet, but will be about a girl’s 13th birthday in Willow Falls. Then after that will be my first foray into science-fiction fantasy. Wacky sci-fi fantasy! Yikes! I better get back to my desk and write! :o)

MF: I can’t wait for all of those; something to look forward to, at least.Thanks for your time, Wendy!
You can find more about Wendy and her books at her website.

The Night Fairy

1 Comment

by Laura Amy Schlitz/Illustrated by Angela Barrett
ages: 8+ (or read aloud 5+)
First sentence: “Flory was a night fairy.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

There are some books that just beg to be read aloud. Ones where the narrative is just beautiful that you find yourself mouthing the words while you’re reading, or make you want to grab the nearest child and say “You have to listen to this!”

This book does both of those things.

It’s a simple story — Flory is a night fairy who has her wings accidentally cut off by a bat when she’s very young, and so has to learn to fend for herself, without the aid of her wings or other fairies. She decides to become a day fairy, making the adjustment, and then… learns to grow up. She makes a tentative friend with a squirrel, and learns to adjust and compromise and behave nicely toward others. Of course there’s a moral to the story, but Schlitz handles it so delicately that you really never notice it coming.

Because the book is all about the adventure. There’s tight squeezes, hair-raising rescues, amazing daredevil flights… and yet, it’s also a very girly book. Schlitz says in the afterward that she wanted to give the little girls that love fairies and nature and adventure something lively. And she did. It’s a page turner, one that will leave the girls breathless for more.

It also helps that Barrett’s illustrations are so lush, so beautiful. Is it wrong to want a copy of this book to desecrate it and frame the illustrations? They are that pretty, full of vivid little details that will make you (or your little girl) want to pour over them for hours.

And that, my friends, is priceless.

Wishing for Tomorrow

3 Comments

The Sequel to A Little Princess
by Hilary McKay
ages: 9+
First sentence: “Once upon a time, there was a city.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

There are very few people who could get away with a sequel to a classic like Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess. Thankfully, Hilary McKay is one of those people.

Charming, quaint, and oh-so-Hilary McKay, this book follows the story of everyone else at Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for Young Ladies after Sara Crewe leaves them. Ermengarde is mourning the loss of her best friend, resentful that Sara has escaped into a new life. She’s not the only one trying to adjust to the change: Lavinia has met the new boy next door, Tristram, and is suddenly more interested in learning than she is in gossip, which puts her best friend, Jessie, into a snit. Miss Minchin is becoming increasingly suspicious: she believes she sees Sara everywhere, and that means Sara is out to get her. The girls have to adjust to the new maid, Alice (since Sara took Becky with her), who just does everything wrong. And Lottie, the littlest, has become increasingly wild since Sara left.

The question is: will they find a way to survive?

I haven’t read the Burnett original recently, so I’m not really being overly picky here, but this book charmed me to pieces. Everything — from Ermengard’s earnestness and longing for her friend to Lottie’s impish behavior — was just right. McKay even managed to squeeze in a bit of A Little Princess for those of us who haven’t read it in a while (or haven’t at all), but did so in a way that felt natural. There were fun little letters back and forth from Ermengarde to Sara, as well as delightful little snippets of late 19th-century life. Not much happens over the course of the book, but it really didn’t matter; McKay’s writing is so captivating, and the characters so likable, that it doesn’t matter that the plot is pretty thin.

Now I suppose I should go reread the original.

Incarceron

3 Comments

by Catherine Fisher
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Finn had been flung on his face and chained to the stone slabs of the transitway.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

For some books, the plot summary comes easy. But as I was reading this book this past weekend, when people asked me what it was about, I was really at a loss. Mostly, I just said, “It’s complicated.”

It’s one part dystopian novel: Incarceron is a prison that the “Outside” designed for the refuse of society as an experiment. They meant it to be a Paradise, but over the years, it has degenerated into the worst of Hells. Finn has recently appeared; he was “cell born” — he has no memory of a childhood: he just appeared in Incarceron’s cells one day. He struggled to survive, and joined a group of thieves, becoming oathbrothers with a man named Keiro. Circumstances happen to push Finn, Keiro and a couple of others to attempt to escape, and the book is mostly their attempt to get out of Incarceron.

But, it’s also one part political intrigue: Claudia is on the Outside, the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron. She’s been playing her father’s game of power her whole life, matching him move for move in his quest to make her Queen. She’s not exactly happy about this; the current Queen is ruthless, and her son is a complete idiot; Claudia would have rather married the original heir, who died in an accident. The only person she can truly trust is her mentor and tutor, Jared. In her end of the game, she desires to know what her father actually does, and in the process finds a crystal Key and ends up communicating with Finn in Incarceron.

Complicated.

And yet, Fisher pulls it off beautifully. It’s difficult to explain, but while reading it, the plot makes complete sense. It’s a page-turner of a book; you have to see what happens next. The characters range from the sympathetic to the mistrustful, and yet you find yourself interested in their fates, invested in the outcome. Fisher has a talent for writing action; from the opening scene in the book, she has you completely invested in the book. In addition, the world she’s created is a fascinating one, something that is the product of a very creative imagination. And yet, there’s a balance between the world and the rest, so that neither dominates the book.

And all this means the only thing wrong with the book is that it’s the first in a series, and we have to wait for the rest.

Jane Eyre: The Graphic Novel

4 Comments

by Charlotte Bronte/Adapted by Amy Corzine
ages: 12+
First sentence: “Now that typhus has felled both my sister and her husband, we must look after their child.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I read Jane Eyre a couple of years ago, and found that I really enjoyed it. So, when my in person book group decided to read it for this month’s book, I figured I’d give the graphic novel a try, just to see how it held up.

And while I found that the pictures were a poor substitute for the narration, I really quite enjoyed it.

The drawings were easy enough to follow, and the book was stripped down to it’s basic elements: Jane’s perseverance and the love story with Mr. Rochester. It’s not a bad thing to have the book taken down to those bare elements; in fact it makes them shine by putting them in center stage. The ending, after she finds Mr. Rochester again, was quite poignant.

It’s a good introduction to the classic, however I wonder if by doing it this way, too many people will read the graphic novel and think that they don’t need to go read the book now. And that would be a shame.

Nerds Heart YA: In Mike We Trust versus Donut Days

5 Comments

In Mike We Trust
by P.E. Ryan
ages: 13+
First sentence: “They were just finishing dinner when they heard a screech of tires, followed by several taps of a car horn.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Donut Days
by Lara Zielin
ages: 13+
First sentence: “I’m no biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure Adam — as in the guy who named all the animals in the Garden of Eden — wasn’t a hermaphrodite.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

When I found out what two books I’d be looking at for this round in Nerds Heart YA, I realized that I’ve got a terribly difficult task: I’m choosing between a book about a gay guy figuring out how to get his family to accept him for who he is and a book about an evangelical Christian girl dealing with problems in her church and her family as the church tries to oust her mother as a pastor. Apples and oranges, right?

In many ways, yes: these two books are polar opposites. I have no idea what Emma and Garth would think of each other, but the fundamental feeling and sensibilities of these books are polar opposites. How was I supposed to choose which one?

So, I went back to what appeals to me: plot, characters, and whether or not I found the book interesting. (Totally subjective, I know.)

I thought In Mike We Trust was a good book. There was much to like about the underlying issues of honesty throughout the book — not just with the con game, but also with who Garth was. I did think that the plot was a bit of a stretch — con games, in Richmond, really? It occurred to me to wonder if this was set in the south because the author thought Southerners were more gullible. That said, the characters in the book seemed a bit stereotypical to me: the struggling single mom, the understanding best friend, the open-minded guy, the lovable best friend.

I didn’t have a much different reaction to Donut Days, though. It was a good book as well, dealing with honesty issues; in this case, being more open about issues and problems within a family. Emma’s dealing with some pretty stressful problems in her world, and while there were times when I didn’t particularly care for Emma, overall I thought she was a likable character. I related to her struggles with her faith and her determination to make her own way.

The difference between the books — and eventually, for me the deciding factor — was the endings. In Mike, the ending felt organic, something that I could see happening, something that made sense and yet wasn’t too pat. In Donut Days, though the ending felt a bit melodramatic and forced, swelling to a crescendo that was out of place with the rest of the book. And then the denouement was just too saccharine for my tastes.

So, I’m going to send In Mike We Trust on to the next round.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

6 Comments

by Aimee Bender
ages: adult
First sentence: “It happened for the first time on a Tuesday afternoon, a warm spring door in the flatlands near Hollywood, a light breeze moving east from the ocean and stirring the black-eyed pansy petals newly planted in our flower boxes.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy sent to me by the publisher.

I was sitting on the computer, idly watching my Twitter feed when I noticed that Heather at Capricious Reader mentioned that she picked up this book. A prime opportunity for a buddy read… and so I proposed it. Thankfully, she was game to go along!

The basic story is about Rose who, at nine years old, discovers that she can “read” people’s feelings through the food she eats. It’s only the feelings of the people who pick or prepare the food, but it’s an incredibly unsettling experience. The book follows her journey as she figures out what the feelings mean, how to understand them, and how to deal with the fall out from what she knows. In addition, the book explores the dynamics within Rose’s family, with her hovering, yet disconnected mother; her distant father; and her very odd older brother.

Melissa: I wanted to read this book for two reasons: the cover looks sooo yummy, and I was looking for something similar to Sarah Addison Allen’s books, and readers on Twitter — don’t remember who — suggested Aimee Bender. How about you?

Heather: Pretty much the same reason. That cover is hard to resist! I also thought the premise sounded interesting. What did you think of Rose and her special ability?

Melissa: I thought it was an interesting idea, to be able to sense the places ingredients are from, to be able to sense the feelings of the cook. But nine seemed a little… young to handle it. I guess that was part of the story, though: Rose’s inability to handle her skill. There were moments in the book when I thought Bender captured the essence of Rose’s gift perfectly… the angst, the discovery, the learning. But, there were times when I wanted to smack the characters upside the head? What did you think?

Heather: About the same! I thought it was a very interesting idea. Nine did seem young, especially having to face such adult feelings coming from her mother, but like you said, I think that was part of the story. I also wondered what I would do, or anyone really, could do that and how they would react to it. I thought the fact that Rose, for the most part, kept it a secret was spot on. I don’t think I would want anyone to know that! Yet, at the same time, I was thinking if I could do that, I would want to help everyone FEEL BETTER and that could potentially make you go nuts. And I totally wanted to smack her father upside the head! And her brother too! What did you think of what happened to him?

Melissa: How much do I manage to answer that without giving too much away?!? Actually, I thought the subplot with the brother was the weakest part of the book. I kept wanting more Rose, more exploration of the food, more exploration of how Rose handles the food and less with her brother. Okay, he’s weird. And I got that he was doing weird stuff, but… it just wasn’t interesting? I think it would have been a different book had maybe Bender glanced at Rose’s childhood, but spent more time with Rose after she developed into her own; I wanted to know more about the cafe owners. Though, on the other hand, perhaps Bender was looking at the family dynamic as a whole?

Heather: I kept thinking he seems so autistic and no one seemed to want to help him. I mean, did anyone try to figure out what was wrong with him? In fact, it seemed he was encouraged to escape. He was definitely different and I agree, it felt kind of week. Almost like Bender wouldn’t even figure out what to do with him!

I think she was looking more at the family dynamic. It seemed Rose was the most normal, even with her “skills.” I thought their whole interaction was pretty interesting. They were always so together (eating meals together, watching TV together, etc), to not seem to know anything about each other. Well, except for Rose, of course. What did you think of their dynamic?

Be sure to head over to Heather’s for the rest of the conversation.