The Prince of Fenway Park

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by Julianna Baggot
ages: 10+
First sentence: “The boy who would break the Curse didn’t know that he was the boy who would break the Curse.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Twelve-year-old Oscar Egg feels like he doesn’t fit in anywhere. A mixed-race child, adopted by white parents. He’s the child of divorce, and his father’s a bit on the run-down side. He doesn’t really fit in at school, and even though he’s a die-hard Red Sox fan, he even feels let down by them.

And so when his mother leaves him on the eve of his birthday with his father, he isn’t really surprised.

What surprises him, though, is his father’s world. His dad lives under Fenway Park, along with the other Cursed Creatures. See, the Curse on the Red Sox that prevented them from winning a World Series in 86 years? It’s a real, palpable thing, put on them by an Irish fairy (for reasons I never could quite figure out, but had something to do with selling Babe Ruth in 1919). And it turns out that the only person who can break the curse is Oscar.

There’s some of the Cursed Creatures who don’t want Oscar to succeed, though. And so it’ll take a lot of perseverance, a talent for cracking codes, and some help from some very unusual people to succeed.

This book is impossibly clever. From the moment I realized what Baggott had done — taken a major recent historical event and turned it into a work of fantasy — I was hooked. The fact that Baggott wrote an incredibly engaging story, and threw in a subplot about racism and acceptance only sweetened the deal. Add the fact that it’s a well-written baseball book (and even though I’m not a huge fan, I don’t know how you can grow up in this country and not like it at least a little bit), with facts about the past (from both the Major Leagues and the Negro League) and the spirit of the game; throw in the fact that it’s summertime, and you’ve got a complete winner.

Amazing.

June Jacket Flap-a-Thon

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Ah, June. When my reading totals start going up. When the fluff comes out. And, I’m cheating a little, and choosing four. It was a difficult month to get down to even these four, too. Either I’m getting less picky, or the copy is getting better…. Oh, and I mostly read middle grade books this month, and most of the copy choices are YA books. Interesting.

Enchanted Glass (Greenwillow Books): “Aidan Cain has had the worst week of his life. His gran died, he was sent to a foster home, and now malicious beings are stalking him. There is one person Gran told Aidan to go to if he ever got into trouble—a powerful sorcerer who lives at Melstone House. But when Aidan arrives on the doorstep, he finds that the sorcerer’s grandson, Andrew, has inherited the house. The good news is that Aidan can tell immediately that Andrew’s brimming with magic, too—and so is everyone else at Melstone. The bad news is that Andrew doesn’t remember anything his grandfather taught him. Chaos is swiftly rising, and he has no idea how to control it. A sinister neighbor is stealing power from the land, magic is leaking between realms . . . and it’s only a matter of time before the Stalkers find Aidan. If Aidan and Andrew can harness their own magics, they may be able to help each other. But can they do it before the entire countryside comes apart at the seams?”
Fun, clever, doesn’t give hardly anything away, and yet it makes you want to know: can they harness the magic?

Ash (Little, Brown): “In the wake of her father’s death, Ash is left at the mercy of her cruel stepmother. Consumed with grief, her only joy comes by the light of the dying hearth fire, rereading the fairy tales her mother once told her. In her dreams, someday the fairies will steal her away, as they are said to do. When she meets the dark and dangerous fairy Sidhean, she believes that her wish may be granted. The day that Ash meets Kaisa, the King’s Huntress, her heart begins to change. Instead of chasing fairies, Ash learns to hunt with Kaisa. Though their friendship is as delicate as a new bloom, it reawakens Ash’s capacity for love-and her desire to live. But Sidhean has already claimed Ash for his own, and she must make a choice between fairy tale dreams and true love. Entrancing, empowering, and romantic, Ash is about the connection between life and love, and solitude and death, where transformation can come from even the deepest grief.”
I liked this one solely because it avoided mentioning the Cinderella story at all. It would have been SO easy for the copywriter to throw in a line about a “retelling of Cinderella with a twist” and they didn’t. Kudos to them.

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (Bantam Books): “In 1915, long since retired from his observations of criminal humanity, Sherlock Holmes is engaged in a reclusive study of honeybee behavior on the Sussex Downs. Never did he think to meet an intellect to match his own- until his acquaintance with Miss Mary Russell, a very modern fifteen-year-old whose mental acuity is equaled only by her audacity, tenacity, and penchant for trousers and cloth caps. Under Holmes’ s tutelage, Russell hones her talent for deduction, disguises, and danger: in the chilling case of a landowner’ s mysterious fever and in a kidnapping in the wilds of Wales. But her ultimate challenge is yet to come. Soon the two sleuths are on the trail of a murderer whose machinations scatter meaningless clues… but whose objective is quite unequivocal: to end Russell and Holmes’ s partnership- and their lives. “

It’s very rare that I like the copy of an adult book. But this one is intriguing, capturing the essence of the book, without giving away too much. It also name-drops and yet doesn’t play up either: it’s Sherlock Holmes, that’s a fact, get over it. Quite good.
Skunk Girl (Farrar, Straus and Giroux): “If Nina Khan were to rate herself on the unofficial Pakistani prestige point system – the one she’s sure all the aunties and uncles use to determine the most attractive marriage prospects for their children – her scoring might go something like this:

+2 points for getting excellent grades
–3 points for failing to live up to expectations set by genius older sister
+4 points for dutifully obeying parents and never, ever going to parties, no matter how antisocial that makes her seem to everyone at Deer Hook High
–1 point for harboring secret jealousy of her best friends, who are allowed to date like normal teenagers
+2 points for never drinking an alcoholic beverage
–10 points for obsessing about Asher Richelli, who talks to Nina like she’s not a freak at all, even though he knows that she has a disturbing line of hair running down her back

In this wryly funny debut novel, the smart, sassy, and utterly lovable Nina Khan tackles friends, family, and love, and learns that it’s possible to embrace two very different cultures – even if things can get a little bit, well, hairy.”
I didn’t particularly like the book in the end, but one of the reasons I picked it up was because this flap copy was so entertaining.

Other books read this month:
Harriet the Spy
Eat, Pray, Love
Wintergirls
Blubber
The School of Essential Ingredients
Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Princess of Glass
Greenwitch
The Grey King
Silver on the Tree
Manga Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Where the Red Fern Grows
Much Ado About Nothing
Two Moon Princess
A Song for Summer
Finally
Cosmic (DNF)
Finnikin of the Rock
The Frog Scientist

Running Total: 94 books
Adult fiction: 21
YA: 32
MG: 23
Non-fiction: 9
Graphic Novel: 10
Didn’t Finish: 6

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice

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Or, On the Segregation of the Queen
by Laurie R. King
ages: adult
First sentence: “I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I would have never, ever picked up this book if it weren’t for a suggestion by Kelly at The Written World to do a buddy read. We tossed a few ideas back and forth, and she suggested this one. I had no idea what it was, I’d never heard of the author or the book… but it sounded interesting, so I said yes.

And was most pleasantly surprised.

Mary Russell was 15 years old when she met the by-then infamous Sherlock Holmes. It didn’t take very long for the two of them to become inseparable, and over the years, she ultimately became his apprentice. They tackled a few minor cases together, and as exercises, he lobbed cases (both from the newspaper and a few he was working on) at her. It wasn’t until the kidnapping of the American senator’s daughter, Jessica Simpson, that Mary was able to become a full-fledged partner. And it was a good thing, because soon afterward Holmes and Russell — as they called each other — were to face their most brilliant, most formidable foe yet.

I answered a few questions Kelly asked about the book; head over to her blog to see her answers to the questions I asked her.

When I recommended this book you weren’t entirely sure of it, and then when you finished it you seemed surprised that you liked it. Why didn’t you think that this book was going to work for you?
Mostly because I don’t particularly like mysteries. I don’t know why, because when I finish one — hopefully, it’s good — I realize that I usually have a grand adventure while reading it. They just aren’t at the top of my list of things to read, and I usually have low expectations. Perhaps that’s why I’m generally surprised when I like them!

What was it about the book that made you enjoy it?
I think a lot of it was the way she portrayed Sherlock Holmes. I’ve read some of the stories, but I’m a fan of the Jeremy Brett/BBC Sherlock Holmes series from the mid-80s. I don’t know if King was, too, but I kept picturing Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, and all the quirks and idiosyncrasies he brought to the character. It was also a pretty decent plot, though it took a while for it to get going for me.

Did you find the book believable based on the time period it was set during and what you know about Sherlock Holmes?
Yeah… I guess. I’m not really that versed on early 20th-century England, or even Sherlock Holmes, so I’m not quite sure how to answer that. The introduction of cars and phones in Holmes’ world worked for me.
Did you like Mary Russell? Was she a believable character?
I did like Mary Russell. I thought she was smart and resourceful, with a wicked sense of humor — loved the prank she pulled where she dressed up as the Indian dignitary for the term — and great intuition. I suppose the hesitancy of Holmes to completely trust her was applicable for the time period, but if I had one criticism is was that I wanted more from Mary. Especially near the end.

What did you think about the case and how it related to the plot?
Hm. I’m not sure what you’re trying to ask… if it’s how did I think the case related to the growing friendship (love?) between Holmes and Russell, then I thought it worked very well. I would have liked to seen more of them cooperating, bantering back and forth, using their minds and deductive reasoning to solve cases. But, if you’re asking what I thought of the main case as a whole, I thought it was interesting, but not especially super-well plotted as far as mysteries go. Then again, I’m not the world’s best judge of that! I found it interesting, if a bit meandering.

Easy question: Will you be reading the rest of the books in the series?

Maybe. Not right away; I don’t feel an urge to rush out and get the next book. This one stood alone quite well. But, maybe if I ever get in a mystery mood again, I’ll seek out the next one in the series.

The Frog Scientist

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by Pamela S. Turner
Photographs by Andy Comins
ages: 9+
First sentence: “THe sun is just peeking over golden Wyoming hills as Dr. Tyrone Hayes wakes his team.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I’m really kind of at a loss as to what to say about this book. Really, the only thing is: I think it’s very cool. I think it’s cool because it’s about an African-American research scientist. How many books are there out there about minority scientists? (Then again, I’m not sure I’ve read many books about scientists; maybe there are tons.) I think it’s cool because the photography is fabulous, even if it is mostly just frogs. Then again, I think it’s cool because it takes frogs seriously, and actually makes the study of them sound fascinating and appealing.

I think it’s cool because it connects the study of frogs to the environment and gives the science behind it all relevance. I think it’s cool because it is quietly environmentalist, without being preachy. I think it’s cool because while being a scientist isn’t really cool or hip or sexy, it is interesting.

But most of all, I think it’s cool because it’s accessible to kids. Simple text, without a lot of science speak, but it never talked down to the readers. Here’s hoping that someone, somewhere reads this book and wants to become a frog scientist.

Now, that would be cool.

Sunday Salon: A Few Things that Fascinate Me

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Sherry at Semicolon did this last week, and while, like her, I am not an author, I am a bit of a list-maker, and for some reason this exercise — to come up with a list of things that fascinate me, inspire me, and I can never seem to get enough of reading about — caught my fancy. Sherry did 52, which impresses me to no end, but I found it was a stretch for me even to come up with 25. Maybe I’m not all that fascinated in things? Or maybe just a few things really take up my time? At any rate, here’s my list:

  1. Food, subcategory nonfiction — Books about the growing of food, the making of food, the selling of food.
  2. Food, subcategory memoirs — especially those in the food service industry
  3. Food, subcategory fiction — books like Garden Spells, where it’s very evocative with the food. Magical realism helps.
  4. Food, subcategory cooking — I love to cook, and while I’m not as experimental as I could be, I do love to make and eat a well-made meal.
  5. Travel. Memoirs of people who have traveled, experienced most any place throughout the world. But I specifically love…
  6. France — the language, the food, the culture, living in France and…
  7. The UK — love the English stories, love the Irish stories, love the Welsh stories (even though I can’t pronounce the words!), love the Scottish stories. Love the history, the culture, and the accents.
  8. Memoirs — I like hearing other people’s personal stories, not just travel stories. I especially like them when they’re interesting and well-written.
  9. Strong girl characters. What makes these girls strong, and how they tackle what the world gives them.
  10. Beauty and body image. It may be tough for me to read about, but I feel a need to know, especially with raising four girls.
  11. Friendship — both same- and opposite-sex. How do people become friends, how do they stay friends, what’s involved.
  12. Family dynamics — issues of parenting, yes, but also sibling dynamics. How and why do they (or do they not) get along.
  13. The King Arthur legend and mythology. I’m not quite sure what the draw is, but I love this story.
  14. England’s Renaissance (an offshoot of #7) — from the Tudors through Elizabethian times — the culture, the time period, Shakespeare
  15. Folklore — not just King Arthur (though his legend in particular), but all the stories that are handed down in any particular place. I especially like Asian folk tales.
  16. Oral Histories — it’s kind of like #8… the personal stories of the past, the things that didn’t quite make the history books, but give us a flavor for the world. (Like These is My Words.)
  17. Fairy tales — original adaptations of traditional tales, mostly, but I’m curious any retelling of any fairy tale
  18. Religions — not so much Christianity, since I consider myself one, but rather other religions. I’m curious about them, their beliefs, and their philosophies of life. And this goes for “made up” religions, as well.
  19. Humor — what makes me laugh, does it live up to the “hype”, and especially when there’s a balance between the inane and the brilliant.
  20. Women’s roles in society — how they’ve changed over the centuries, what makes a “strong” woman, issues of feminism.
  21. Good storytelling — when an author — doesn’t matter if it’s fantasy, or realistic, YA/MG or adult — gives us a good tale, with characters that are worth spending time with.
  22. Jacket Flap Copy — in my dream world, I would love to have a job writing jacket flap copy (and on the side, I’d be a pastry chef). What makes good copy, what draws one in to the book.
  23. Photography. What makes a good photograph? And the act of capturing history or beauty fascinates me.
  24. Architecture — I’m not a student of it, but looking at beautifully made buildings, from old houses to new skyscrapers, fascinates me.
  25. Dance — I suppose this is an offshoot of #10, but I love to watch people dance, to see the way dancing interprets the music (which I also love). I also love to move my body, though I rarely do so in public anymore (though perhaps I should?).

So, those are mine. What are some of yours?

Library Loot 2010-23

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So, the question is: when you go on vacation, do you stock up on books to take with? Or do you not check out books, for fear they’ll come due while you’re gone? It looks like we did a bit of both….

Picture Books:
No, David!, by David Shannon
Song of Middle C, by Alison McGhee/Illus. by Scott Menchin
Sylvie, by Jennifer Sattler
Cowboy Ned & Andy, by David Ezra Stein
Super Sam!, by Lori Ries/Illus. by Sue Rama

Easy Readers:
Mouse Tales , by Arnold Lobel
There Is a Bird On Your Head!, by Mo Willems
I Will Surprise My Friend!, by Mo Willems
Elect Me!, by Fran Manushkin/Illus by James Demski, Jr.
Practice Makes Perfect, Rosemary Wells
The Secret Birthday, Rosemary Wells

Middle Grade Fiction:
Turtle in Paradise, by Jennifer Holm

YA Fiction:
Incarceron, by Catherine Fisher
A Step From Heaven, by An Na

Non-Fiction:
Freemasons: A History and Exploration of the World’s Oldest Secret Society, by H. Paul Jeffers
The Everything Freemasons Book: Unlock the Secrets of This Ancient And Mysterious Society, by John K. Young and Barb Karg
Builders: A Story and Study of Freemasonry, by Joseph Fort Newton

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.

Finnikin of the Rock

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by Melina Marchtta
ages: 15+
First sentence: “A long time ago, in the spring before the five days of the unspeakable, Finnikin of the Rock dreamed he was to sacrifice a pound of flesh to save the royal house of Lumatere.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

This is a dark book. I’m not going to beat around the bush: there are dark, harsh, brutal moments in this book. They’re not graphic — thankfully — but they are there, and they are effective in their purpose.

Ten years ago, the unspeakable happened in Lumatere: assassins came, invaded the castle and brutally murdered the king, queen and most of their children. The country was sent into chaos and more than half the citizens fled into exile. An impostor seized the thrown, and the country was left under a curse: no one can enter, no one can leave, until the rightful heir returns. Finnikin of the Rock, son of the captain of the King’s Guard, is on the outside, and has spent the intervening time learning from the King’s First Man, and visiting the exile camps, working on a way to gather his people in a new land; he has no hope for ever returning to Lumatere.

Then, he meets Evanjalin, a novice in one of the goddess’s orders — in many ways, this book has the same magical feel as Mists of Avalon; very female-centric, very earthy in its magic — who gives Finnikin some hope that they can actually return to Lumatere. The journey that they take to get to the doors involves danger, betrayal, pain, and hope as they find and gather together what’s left of the Lumaterian elite, and decide exactly how to break the curse and dispose of the impostor that keeps the country in darkness.

The book starts out incredibly slow; in fact, I had several people tell me when they saw the book that they just couldn’t “get into it”. And I can see that; it’s quite plodding to begin with. But, it’s also one of those books that if you give time, if you invest yourself in it, you will be richly rewarded. The romance isn’t swooning, but it’s solid and beautiful. The payoff at the end, the hope for the country which, as a reader, you’ve become invested in, is palpable. 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. And, the story could have been tightened; there was a lot of background that didn’t quite feel truly necessary, not to mention the vast number of characters to keep track of.

But, after a while, the clunkiness became less important, and I was swept away with the mythology, the connection Marchetta built with the characters. Evanjalin is a strong female character, not kick-butt, but strong-willed, smart, and a presence of character that is quite awesome. Finnikin is her match in most every way; he’s a bit slow to come around, but he cares about his country and is fierce in his loyalty. It’s rewarding to see their relationship pan out.

Then again, it’s rewarding to see this story, as painful as it is, come to its fruition.

KidlitCon 2010!

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I didn’t get to bed until midnight last night, for a variety of reasons — Hubby’s out of town, K took a late-late nap which messed everything up, I was watching a Bollywood movie — or else it would have occurred to me earlier to write up a post about KidlitCon 2010!

*smacks head*

It’s announced! Yay! (If you can’t tell from the button, it’s October 22-23rd in Minneapolis. I’ve never been to Minneapolis, only through the airport, and that alone is enough to excite me.)

And, I’m telling you people: I’ve only been to one, but given the choice between going to anorher KidlitCon and my 20th High School reunion, I’m strongly leaning toward the former rather than the latter. It’s a great experience: meeting fabulous people, talking about interesting things, experiencing a shared love and interest in children’s and young adult literature.

I promise you, if you can find a way to get to Minneapolis (after all your BEA and ALAing), it’ll be more than worth your time and effort and money.

Don’t forget to follow them: the KidlitCon blog, and on Facebook and Twitter. Hope to see as many of you as I can there!

Skunk Girl

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by Sheba Karim
ages: 13+
First sentence: “I’m a giant in the sky flying over crimson-roofed houses, dressed in a wool turtleneck and jeans.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Nina Kahn wants to be something other than what she is: a Pakistani girl in a smallish town in New York during the 1990s, at odds with her culture and with the American society she wants to be a part of. She’s the daughter of immigrants, and even though she’s grown up in America, she still feels like she’s at the fringes of her high school. It’s partially because her parents are fairly strict Muslims: Nina’s not allowed to date, or go to sleepovers, or even wear shorts, or even — perhaps most especially — shave. It doesn’t help that Nina finds the whole traditional Pakistani (or even Muslim) thing a bit off-putting; she doesn’t really speak Urdu that well, her best friends are white, and she likes the new guy at school, Asher, who’s half-Jewish and half-Italian.

The question is: where does she really belong?

It’s an interesting question, one that’s been explored in many venues, especially with children of recent immigrants. I’m not sure I’ve seen it with a Muslim family before, but there’s much that I’m sure could be substituted for East Asian or even Hispanic families: the desire of the parents to keep the language, the culture, and — in this case — the religion from their former country intact. Sometimes it’s successful, sometimes it’s not. There’s an element of racism: of trying and not quite succeeding in fitting in, of not quite being accepted fully by mainstream American society. It’s an interesting portrait; the religious element made it stand out from other first-generation American stories, and Nina was a very likable character.

However, I really wanted something — anything — to happen. It was very much a slice-of-life portrait: here’s Nina in school, here’s Nina obsessing over Asher, here’s Nina’s friends doing teenager things like having sex or getting smashed at parties while she watches TV at home with her parents, here’s Nina not quite fitting in with her parents’ Pakistani friends, here’s Nina learning to accept herself. But there was no real conflict, no real hook to hang the book on, nothing to make me really feel Nina’s discomfort and her inner conflict between what her parents want and what she wants.

There’s also a time disconnect: setting the book in the early 1990s distances it from something that’s still a very real issue for minority teens today. It felt modern enough, and perhaps setting the book 17 years in the past gives it a slightly more timeless feel (or maybe the author really just wanted to write, “Hey, you know that email thing? I think it’s going to be big!” in her book?), but it seemed awkward to me: it could have been just as easily set in current times, and perhaps would have made it more effective.

Which is too bad, because it could have been a really interesting story.

Cosmic

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by Frank Cottrell Boyce
ages: 11+
First sentence: “Mom, Dad — if you’re listening — you know I said I was going to the South Lakeland Outdoor Activity Center with the school?”

I had high hopes for this one. I really did. It was on my radar a couple of years ago when it was nominated for a Cybils, but no one could find a copy, so it went unread. And so, when someone (Betsy at Fuse #8? I know Sherry at Semicolon reviewed it…) reviewed it and liked it, I stuck it on my list.

Now, remember: this may just be me. In fact, it probably is. I have a bad habit of not being able to read books from any other perspective than my own. And I can really see an eleven or twelve-year-old boy absolutely loving this one. But, me? I couldn’t get more than a third of the way through the book before my suspension of disbelief completely failed.

See, our main character, Liam, is a 13-year-old boy who can pass as an adult. Well, at the very least people seem to think he’s an adult: he’s tall, he’s mature (physically, at least) for his age. And so, when an opportunity for the “ride of a lifetime” comes up, he gets one of his friends, Florida, to pretend she’s his daughter, and off they went.

And, that’s as far as I got. I really have no interest in seeing what happened once they got there. The book was slightly amusing, though all the Worlds of Warcraft references were driving me nuts. (If I were a gamer, I might care more.) But, honestly, I didn’t care enough about the humor to keep me interested in the story.

Darn.