One More 2010 Challenge

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This one needed its own post!! I’ve decided to also join the Twenty Ten Challenge, hosted by Bart’s Bookshelf. Eep. Shouldn’t be too hard… right?

The rules:

  • Read 2 books from each category, making a requirement of 20 books total.
  • The categories are intended to be loose guidelines only, if you decide it fits, then it fits. (Apart from those marked **)
  • Categories marked with ** have tighter rules, and these must be followed.
  • Each book can only qualify for one category.
  • Crossovers with other challenges are allowed.
  • Books read from 01/01/2010 to 31/12/2010 are eligible.

Some of these I was able to fill out now, some of them will have to wait and see.

Young Adult
Any book classified as young adult or featuring a teenage protagonist counts for this category.
1. Wintergirls, Laurie Halse Anderson
2. Marcelo in the Real World, Francisco X. Stork

T.B.R. **
Intended to help reduce the od T.B.R. pile. Books for this category must be already residents of your bookshelves as of 1/11/09.
1. I am Morgan Le Fay: A Tale from Camelot, Nancy Springer
2. The English American, Alison Larkin

Shiny & New
Bought a book NEW during 2010 from a bookstore, online, or a supermarket? Then it counts for this category. Second-hand books do not count for this one, but, for those on book-buying bans, books bought for you as gifts or won in a giveaway also count!
1. Scarlett Fever, Maureen Johnson
2. Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

Bad Bloggers ***
Books in this category, should be ones you’ve picked up purely on the recommendation of another blogger count for this category (any reviews you post should also link to the post that convinced you give the book ago). *** Bad Bloggers: Is hosted by Chris of Stuff as Dreams are Made on.
1. Heist Society, Ally Carter — bad blogger, Liz B. A Chair, A Fireplace & a Tea Cozy.
2. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson, Louise Rennison — bad blogger, Corinne, The Book Nest

Charity
Support your local charity shops with this category, by picking up books from one of their shops. Again, for those on book-buying bans, books bought for you as gifts also count, as long as they were bought from a charity shop.
I think this means I’ll have to actually go to the Friends of the Local Library sale…
1. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
2. A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, by Marina Lewycka

New in 2010
This category is for those books newly published in 2010 (whether it be the first time it is has been released, or you had to wait for it to be published in your country, it counts for this one!)
1. The Girl Who Chased the Moon, Sarah Addison Allen
2. Saving Maddie, Varian Johnson

Older Than You
Read two books that were published before you were born, whether that be the day before or 100 years prior.
1. Howards End, E. M. Forester
2. Over Sea, Under Stone, Susan Cooper

Win! Win!
Have a couple of books you need to read for another challenge? Then this is the category to use, as long that is, you don’t break the rules of the other challenge by doing so! ;)
1. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle
2. Fried Green Tomatoes, Fanny Flagg

Who Are You Again?
This one isn’t just for authors you’ve never read before, this is for those authors you have never even heard of before!
1. The Street of a Thousand Blossoms, Gail Tsukiyama
2. Dream Factory, Brad Barkley and Heather Helper

Up to You!
The requirements for this category are up to you! Want to challenge yourself to read some graphic novels? A genre outside your comfort zone? Something completely wild and wacky? Then this is the category to you. The only requirement is that you state it in your sign-up post.

I’ve been trying to challenge myself to read more by people of color for a couple of years now, and every year, I get to the end and find I didn’t do as well as I wanted. So, here’s another attempt to do so.

1. Mare’s War, Tanita S. Davis
2. Bamboo People, Mitali Perkins

In a Spare Minute: 2010 Challenges

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I’ve decided to join a couple for next year. (So far.) And, since I’ve got a minute (ha!), I thought I’d write them down.

First up, is Amanda from The Zen Leaf‘s GLBT Challenge. Basic rules:

The basic idea of this challenge is to read books about GLBT topics and/or by GLBT authors.

The challenge runs year-round, and there will be three levels of participation:

  • Lambda Level: Read 4 books.
  • Pink Triangle Level: Read 8 books.
  • Rainbow Level: Read 12 or more books.

You don’t need to choose your books right away, and they can change at any time. Overlaps with other challenges are fine.

My four books:
1. Howards End, E.M. Forester
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
3. My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park, Steve Kluger
4. Fried Green Tomatoes, Fanny Flagg
As You Wish, Jackson Pearce
Challenge #2 that sounded interesting was the Flashback Challenge hosted by . The Basic Rules:

The Flashback Challenge will run from January 1, 2010 – December 31, 2010. If you’re super-excited and want to reread a book before that, feel free, and let me know. If many people do so, then I’ll do a December challenge linky post and you can all link to it here. Otherwise, we can hold them over to January. You can sign up for the following levels:
Bookworm – Up to three books
Scholar – Four to six books
Literati – Over six books

Within these levels, we have mini-challenges! These are:

1. Re-read a favorite book from your childhood
2. Re-read a book assigned to you in high school

3. Re-read a book you loved as a adult

If I do it the way I want to, I’ll be doing the Literati level. But we’ll see how many of these I actually get to.

1. The Wrinkle in Time series, Madeline L’Engle (childhood)
A Wrinkle in Time
Wind in the Door
A Swiftly Tilting Planet
2. The Dark is Rising series, Susan Cooper (adult)
Over Sea, Under Stone
The Dark is Rising
Greenwitch
The Grey King
Silver on the Tree
3. some of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
4. Howards End, E. M. Forester
5. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
6. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (high school)
The Girl in Hyacinth Blue, by Susan Vreeland
Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes
Nine Parts of Desire, by Geraldine Brooks
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

2009 Challenge #7: Dewey’s Books Reading Challenge

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I was not as affected by Dewey’s death as some bloggers out there, but I did like reading her book reviews. She was an interesting reader; broad in her tastes with a tendency to pick the ones that were challenging, either to the norm or to herself. I tried to pick ones that I remember thinking, when the review went up, that I should read that book. And, I’m glad I did.

1. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
2. Maus and Maus II, Art Spiegelman (also for the Jewish Lit Challenge)
3. Story of a Girl, Sara Zarr
4. So Many Books, So Little Time, Sarah Nelson
5. Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, Courtney E. Martin

I don’ t think there’s one on this list that I didn’t like in some way or another. Thank you, all, for picking up the pieces in order to fill the hole she left when she died.

Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters

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The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body
by Courtney E. Martin
ages: adult
First sentence: “I have carried this book around inside of me for years.”
Support your local independent bookstore, buy it there!

I was conflicted while reading this book. On the one hand, it’s chock full of useful and relevant insights — my library copy is fairly dog-eared, and at times I thought that this would be one that I’d like to own. On the other hand, I felt like a foreigner in a strange land. Martin kept talking about “my generation” and “my parents generation”, and I’m sandwiched between the two. I can relate to some of the issues with the body that Martin pointed out as “common” among women — either in myself or in my friends — but, either I/we are in a much better place than “most” women, or maybe it’s just with the women Martin knows and younger that these issues of hating ones body are prevalent.

That said, this book did scare the hell out of me when it comes to raising my girls. There’s SO much that can go wrong with raising girls, and much of it is placed on the shoulders of the mother. (Though, much to my satisfaction, there’s a chapter on the influence fathers have in the lives of their daughters. Which I made Hubby read.) And so, while I was reading it, I was hyper sensitive to everything my girls did. (I even asked them straight up what they thought of their bodies; both M and C looked at me funny and asked if I was feeling okay.) I have to give Martin credit for tackling all the tough subjects: not just the out-and-out eating disorders, but all the gray area in between. Porn, guys expectations, pressure we women give each other, the drive for perfectionism, exercise, college, high school, sex, faith (or lack thereof). It’s all out there, candid and honest, and Martin discusses how all of it relates to how we look at our bodies.

This book is imminently accessible, which is both a positive and a negative. Positive, because it’s mostly a series of personal essays, vignettes about Martin, her friends, and the girls (and men) she talks to. This approach makes a tough subject interesting, or at least not-boring, and she keeps you turning pages. However, the drawbacks are that Martin lacks authority, which makes the book easier to brush off. Sure, she quotes psychologists and scientists, but the book lacks weight. It’s easy to feel as I did: these are other people. These are people she knows; it isn’t my world.

I’ll leave you with a little taste of the book, a few quotes from the many pages I turned down:

Our bodies, our needs, our cravings, our sadness, our weakness, our stillness inevitably become our own worst enemies. It is the starving daughter within who must be shut down, muted, ignored… eventually killed off.

Being thing may get you noticed, but it will not get you seen, and it will never get you truly, fiercely loved. Only all four dimensions of your beauty — spirit, soul, mind, and, yes, body — will get you that. Both men and women are trapped in this maze of self-scrutiny, weight or shape preoccupation, preening and primping, searching and spending. But love doesn’t dwell at the end of this maze, even if you do find your way through…. There is no one-size-fits-all beauty, no perfect girl, no ideal guy. There is only a fit, plain and simple and miraculous.

True health is “the middle path,” along which control is sometimes lost, sometimes won, without much fanfare. There are unexpected and delightful detours along the way. There is no “good” or “bad”, only “right now” — tastes, moods, the occasional craving, like different kinds of weather, all welcomed and satisfied without judgment,. True health is balance. Balance is freedom.

You know what is really, powerfully sexy? A sense of humor. A taste for adventure. A healthy glow. Hips to grab on to. Openness. Confidence. Humility. Appetite. Intuition. A girl who makes the world seem bigger and more interesting. A girl who can rap. A loud laugh that comes from her belly. Smart-ass comebacks. Presence. A quick wit. Dirty jokes told by an innocent-looking lady. Hooded sweatshirts. Breakfast in bed. A girl with boundaries. Grace. Clumsiness. A runny-nosed crier. A partner who knows what turns her on. Sassy waitresses. Pretty scientists. Any and all librarians (okay, maybe this is my issue). Truth. Vulnerability. Strength. Naivete. Big breasts. Small breasts. Doesn’t matter the size, they all fascinate. A girl who can play the blues harp. A girl who calls you on your bullshit but isn’t afraid to love you inspite of it. A storyteller. A genius. A doctor. A new mother. A woman who realizes how beautiful she is.

Here’s to accepting our bodies.

November Jacket Flap-a-thon

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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

Love, Aubrey

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by Suzanne LaFleur
ages: 10+
First sentence: “It was fun at first, playing house.”
Support your local independent bookstore, buy it there!

I’ve read about a lot of grief, trials, abandonment, and loss in the books this year for the Cybils. But few have touched me like Love, Aubrey did. Eleven-year-old Aubrey has suffered quite a bit in the past few months: her father and younger sister Savannah died in a car crash that left Aubrey and her mother alive, but scarred. And when, on a hot August day, her mother takes off and just doesn’t come back, Aubrey feels like it’s probably for the best. After all, if everyone’s going to leave, who needs them? Only, when her Grams comes — out of concern, since Aubrey’s not answering the phone — and discovers the situation, she whisks Aubrey back to Vermont, to real life, to friendship, to love, and eventually to the path of healing.

On the back of my copy there’s a quote by Sarah Weeks, author of So B. It, that says, “LaFleur has a rare gift — an authentic middle grade voice.” I have to completely agree. The dialogue doesn’t seem affected. The narrative — which is punctuated by heartfelt letters from Aubrey to various people — flows seamlessly. Aubrey grabs your attention in a way that’s unique and heart rendering. The pain she feels — at the loss of her beloved father and sister, and at the abandonment of her mother — is palpable. It’s a beautiful book.

But, it’s not a sad one. Yes, it deals with death and abandonment, but most of all it’s about love and healing and hope. Which is difficult for an author to get across without being preachy. LaFleur does so admirably: the adult characters — aside from the mother, which becomes forgivable, or at least understandable, by the end of the book — are present, anchors in Aubrey’s world, and yet it’s Aubrey who is propelling the action of the story, pulling the readers into her world.

In short: a perfect gem.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

Cotillion

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by Georgette Heyer
ages: adult
First sentence: “The Saloon, like every other room in Arnside House, was large and lofty, and had been furnished, possibly some twenty years earlier, in what had then been the first style of elegance.”
Support your independent bookstore: buy it there!

Now this is quintessential Georgette Heyer. Silly, fun, captivating, and all-around good times: the Georgette Heyer that I would happily recommend to everyone.

Kitty is the ward of a grumpy, miserly old man, who has bequeathed his fortune to her under one condition: that she marry one of his grand-nephews. It doesn’t sound like a bad deal — Kitty thinks she’s in love with one of them already — except that the one that Kitty likes doesn’t show up at his uncle’s command to offer for her. She attempts to run away, and then runs into Freddy — another grand-nephew — and talks him into offering for her, mostly because she wants to visit London. Freddy — an all-around good guy, and plain hilarious in the book — agrees, they both away to London, where all sorts of adventures, misadventures and happenings, well, happen.

I did this one as a buddy read with Corinne at The Book Nest and we chatted a bit about it.

Melissa: A bit of background: I noticed that Corinne had had a less-than-positive experience with a Georgette Heyer book (as did I recently), and I thought it’d be fun — since I was reading one for my in-person book group — to see if we could both have a better experience with Heyer. We searched our collective libraries for a common book, and decided upon Cotillion (which I think was recommended to me by Heather at A High and Hidden Place). So… what did you think overall?

Corinne: OH HO HO!! I can now see why people are thrilled with Heyer this was a complete gem. Full of frivolity and love and match-making and characters that made me laugh out loud. Really, out-loud laughing.

Melissa: I totally agree! There were parts that just had me in tears… and I absolutely LOVED Freddy. He killed me. I loved the way he talked, though it occurred to me when I finished that he was a bit more 1920s than 1820: he reminded me of Bertie Wooster! (I dog-eared this quote as quintessential Freddy: “Dash it, Jack!” said Freddy, stung. “Any girl would rather marry me than Dolph or Hugh! No use saying Dolph’s an Earl: he’s run off his legs, besides being dicked in the nob! As for Hugh–lord!”)

Corinne: I didn’t think of Bertie, but of course! I totally agree. It slayed me every time he said someone was “touched in the upper works,” or “buffle-headed.” And of course, there ARE those characters that actually were “touched” – as Freddy says – Heyer’s characters felt perfectly caricatured and yet…NOT annoyingly predictable. At first I worried that Kitty would be too simpering for me – but what a lovely surprise to have her be so scheming and forthright!

Melissa: That’s a great point. They are pretty caricatured — the innocent girl, the annoying rector, the simpering Earl, the frivolous lady, the cad (ooh, we must talk about Jack!). But I loved them all. And I loved how they interact with each other, too. There were some great character dynamics going on in the book. Did you have a favorite character?

Corinne: Freddy – to be sure, for reasons already mentioned. He’s a riot, but deeper than you’d think. And to be honest, Uncle Matthew was also a favorite. Maybe I just have a soft spot in my heart for crabby and penny-pinching old uncles, but lines like this: ‘Man’s an idiot!’ said Mr. Penicuik. ‘Small fire be damned! Not when I’m going to sit here myself, clodpole!” We didn’t get to see him much in the book, but I enjoyed our time with that guy. So, what did you think of Dolph, though? And Jack? Can you imagine a more opposite pair of cousins?

Melissa: No, I can’t! I felt sorry for Dolph, being pushed around by his mother so much. And maybe he was a bit “dicked in the nob” but he was sweet, and he meant well. And, Jack, well… actually, I was surprised at what a cad he was. One of the things I find interesting about Heyer (as opposed to, say, Jane Austen) is her willingness to delve into the seamier side of Edwardian society. The fact that it was well known that Jack was a, um, libertine, was pretty surprising to me. Aren’t they supposed all supposed to be pure and unsullied?

Be sure to check out her blog for the second half of the conversation!

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

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by Kristin Levine
ages: 10+
First sentence: “I’ve been wrong before.”
Support your local independent bookstore, buy it there!

It’s 1917, Moundville, Alabama and Dit is not quite 13 years old. He’s also the sixth of ten children, and tends to get lost in the crowd. All Dit wants to do is play baseball and earn enough money for the Fourth Hunt and do well at both, so his Daddy will notice him and not think he’s just another one of the kids. Then Emma moves in next door — her father’s the new postmaster — and Dit’s life completely changes. Emma’s the opposite of Dit: smart, bookish, an only child, and African-American. And yet, the two of them form a friendship that will last.

It’s a remarkable book, from the voice — Levine gets the Southern drawl without using dialect, and Dit’s voice is so spot-on I could just picture him in my mind — to the tackling of issues — in this case race and racism in the South during the Jim Crow days — without being heavy handed. The characters were incredibly sympathetic, from Dit’s desire to just be noticed and Emma’s desire to just be accepted in this backwater Southern town. It feels like a series of vignettes, though they are sewn together in a way that works toward a plot. And Levine wrote Dit’s growth and acceptance of Emma as a friend, and the conflict that their friendship makes in this small town, in such a way to keep the reader involved and interested. There’s also a sub-plot, again involving the conflict between black and white, which does get a bit melodramatic towards the end, but not so much that it derails the book. And, I have to admit, the end made me tear up.

Because, in the end, it’s all about friendship and how — no matter how different we seem — friends make our lives better. And what can be better than that?

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

Black Angels

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by Linda Beatrice Brown
ages: 10+
First sentence: “Luke took the key out of the sideboard drawer in the dining room, took a rifle and put the key back very carefully.”
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Support your local independent bookstore, buy it there!

Fiction about children during wartime is pretty overdone, in my humble opinion. Do we really need another book that illustrates the horrors of war, the trials that the children go through, the pain of separation? Probably not. But in this case, I’ll make an exception: Brown’s book takes the generic child-in-war story and moves it beyond the cliche to something else. Something more gripping, more lyrical, more — dare I say it? — poignant.

Luke is twelve years old. He hates his master, he hats the South, and he is running away to join the Union and fight to end slavery and free his people. Daylily is ten. She’s been freed by her master, but in the journey north with her Gramma and Buttercup (whom we never really find out much about), the two are brutally murdered. We’re never quite sure if they’re murdered by Union or Confederate soldiers, but the fact of their murder renders Daylily silent and bruised. She’s lucky to be left with her life, and she knows it. Caswell is seven, and he’s the son of a wealthy landowner who’s off fighting for the Confederacy. He’s lost in the woods, trying to find a neighbor’s house and his Mamadear who was carted away in the night because she was in labor.

The three manage to meet in the woods, going north, and make an unlikely trio. Yet dire circumstances make strange bedfellows. And when they meet Betty Strong Feet, things get even more unusual. The three children learn about survival, and working together, but most of all about love and friendship in the face of adversity.

The plot arc is huge: not only do we follow the children through the few months during their time in the woods and with Betty, but we follow their paths for the ten years after they got separated. This didn’t quite work for me: I felt that the book got preachy and too altruistic near the end; on the one hand, it was important to see how the children had changed because of their experiences together, but — on the other hand — perhaps it would have been nice to leave that to the imagination.

Minor quibble with the ending aside, the book was lyrical, descriptive and quite powerful. A fresh look at a overdone subject.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)