Review of Help Thanks Wow, by Anne Lamott

Christian, Musings, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Help
Thanks
Wow

The Three Essential Prayers

by Anne Lamott

Riverhead Books (Penguin), 2012. 102 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Other Nonfiction

I’ve always loved Anne Lamott’s down-to-earth spirit, and this book’s title says it all. If you think about it, isn’t it true: Help. Thanks. Wow. Those are indeed the three essential prayers.

She has a chapter for each prayer, with funny and insightful observations. Then there’s a chapter at the end titled “Amen.” Her observations move me, inspire me, make me laugh, and encourage me to pray.

I’ll include some bits from her “Prelude” chapter:

Some of us have cavernous vibrations inside us when we communicate with God. Others are more rational and less messy in our spiritual sense of reality, in our petitions and gratitude and expressions of pain or anger or desolation or praise. Prayer means that, in some unique way, we believe we’re invited into a relationship with someone who hears us when we speak in silence.

Prayer is talking to something or anything with which we seek union, even if we are bitter or insane or broken. (In fact, these are probably the best possible conditions under which to pray.) Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up. The opposite may be true. We may not be able to get it together until after we show up in such miserable shape.

I’ll post more from this book on Sonderquotes, because it’s full of nuggets that uplift and inspire me.

Why am I saying so much? Put simply, my reaction when I finish a book by Anne Lamott is: Wow.

riverheadbooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/help_thanks_wow.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Sleeping Beauty, by Mercedes Lackey

Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Sleeping Beauty

by Mercedes Lackey

Luna, 2010. 345 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Standout: #3 Fantasy Fiction

I do so love Mercedes Lackey’s Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms! They are fairy tale variants, but for once they are written for grown-ups. They appeal to the reader’s intelligence, and a vast storehouse of Tradition powers the magic in the tales. It’s so much fun the way she looks at the way the Tradition would affect real people’s lives.

Take the princesses that get awakened from sleep by a prince’s kiss, for example. There’s Snow White. There’s Sleeping Beauty. And who knew, the Siegfried saga involves him waking a sleeping shieldmaiden who’s actually his aunt surrounded by a ring of flaming roses.

Chapter One of The Sleeping Beauty opens with Princess Rosamund fleeing from a Huntsman and mourning her situation.

It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. Why did her mother die? She had been so good; she’d never done anything to deserve to die!

But of course, the part of her mind that was always calculating, always thinking, the part she could never make just stop, said and if it hadn’t been that, it would have been something else. You just turned sixteen. You know what that means in the Tradition.

Oh, she knew. Sixteen was bad enough for ordinary girls. For the noble, the wealthy, The Tradition ruthlessly decreed what sort of birthday you would have — if you were pretty, it was the celebration of a lifetime. If you were plain, everyone, literally everyone, would forget it was even your birthday, and you would spend the day miserable and alone. Traditional Paths went from there, decreeing, unless you fought it, just what the rest of your life would be like based on that birthday. For a Princess, it was worse. For the only child who was also a Princess, worse still. Curses or blessings, which might be curses in disguise, descended. Parents died or fell deathly ill. You were taken by a dragon. Evil Knights demanded your hand. Evil Sorcerers kidnapped you to marry you — or worse.

Fortunately, Rosamund’s kingdom, Eltaria, has a powerful fairy godmother who is trying to divert all the magic swirling around Eltaria into less harmful channels. But her task isn’t easy.

To add to the fun, Siegfried wanders into the kingdom. I love the summing up Mercedes Lackey gives of Siegfried’s story. When he drank dragon’s blood as a boy and learned the language of beasts, he picked up a bird as a traveling companion who warned him about The Tradition and the fate planned for him.

At ten years old, Siegfried of Drachenthal learned that he had been a game piece all of his life in the metaphorical hands of The Tradition. That he was supposed to go and wake up a sleeping woman, that they would fall in love, and that this was going to lead to an awful lot of unpleasant things. And that if he didn’t somehow find a way around it, he was Doomed.

At ten, Doom didn’t seem quite as horrid a fate to try to avoid as a Girl was. But it seemed that by avoiding that one particular Girl, in those particular circumstances, who would be the first woman he had ever seen who was not an aunt, he would also avoid the Doom. So he did. He got away from Drachenthal, had the bird scout on ahead so that the first woman he ever saw was not his aunt but someone’s lively old granny, and began searching for a way to have a Happy, rather than Tragically Heroic, ending.

At twenty, the idea of a Girl all his own seemed rather nice, but Doom was definitely to be avoided. He had begun to think about this, rather than just merely avoiding all sleeping women in fire circles wearing armor. Other Heroes ended up with Princesses, castles, happy endings, dozens of beautiful children. Why couldn’t he?

The bird had been of the opinion that he ought to be able to, if he could trick The Tradition into confusing his fate with some other sort of Hero’s. That sounded good to Siegfried. . . .

“So in order to hoodwink The Tradition, all I have to find is someone blond, asleep in a ring of fire and flowers, who is not a Shieldmaiden demigoddess, and wake her up?” he was asking the bird, as he hacked his way through the underbrush with his eversharp, unbreakable sword.

It’s an easy to get an idea where this is going, but you will only get an inkling of how much fun and humor is to be found along the way.

Another thoroughly enjoyable offering from Mercedes Lackey.

LUNA-Books.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/sleeping_beauty.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Actor and the Housewife, by Shannon Hale

Chick Lit, Contemporary, Fiction Review, General, Literary, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Actor and the Housewife

by Shannon Hale

Bloomsbury, New York, 2009. 339 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #6 Non-fantasy Fiction

This is the one book by Shannon Hale that I don’t own, and that I didn’t read as soon as it came out. Why? Well, I knew it’s about a Mormon housewife who becomes good friends with a heart throb actor. I’ve always believed that men and women can be friends without hurting their marriages. But when this came out, I had just been burned. My own marriage had imploded. My husband claimed he was friends with a young female co-worker, and it turned out that was just a cover for something else, and our marriage didn’t survive.

But this book is not a treatise on marriage and friendship. If you want that, I highly recommend NOT “Just Friends,” by Shirley Glass. (A nice rule of thumb: Where are the windows and the walls? If the walls are around the marriage and the windows around the friendship, good. You should be able to talk with your spouse about the friendship, rather than the other way around.) This book is a story. It’s a story of a good friendship, but most of all, it’s a story about a great marriage.

Now, it’s not easy on the marriage for Becky Jack to be great friends with a handsome actor. She wrestles with what’s right. Her husband wrestles with what’s right. She even talks with her bishop about it. But let me say it again: This is a great story! These people seem real and alive and this is about a funny, poignant, and difficult situation and how it affects two families and the people around them.

As a matter of fact, I hadn’t decided which book I was going to read next when I checked it out. I brought several candidates upstairs, and thought I’d just read a few pages to decide if I wanted to read this next. . . and ended up finishing the book at 5:30 am the following morning. This was NOT what I had planned. It wasn’t remotely a good idea. But wow! What a good story!

Becky and Felix Callahan meet, by a fluke, when she is in Hollywood, looking over a contract for a screenplay she’s sold to his producer. She is hugely pregnant and not at her best. Then they end up being at the same hotel. They share a ride, have dinner. One thing leads to another, and they become friends.

The book is about a long and wonderful friendship. It covers a span of many years, with high points, hilarious moments, awkward times, and big setbacks. In the long run, the book is even more about Becky’s marriage. Becky thinks a lot about how she can be friends with this Hollywood star, yet still be fully and completely in love with her husband. It works.

Here’s a bit where Becky has just met Felix and ends up sharing a ride with him to the hotel:

Becky sneaked a glance at Felix before returning her gaze to the window. That whole exchange had felt as unaccountably familiar as Felix’s presence. She had an ah-ha moment as she thought, Augie Beuter! That’s who Felix reminded her of — well, actually, the two men looked and acted about as much alike as Margaret Thatcher and Cher. But the way she and Felix had followed each other’s lead, the way their conversation flowed together, tuned for an audience, that’s how she and Augie used to be. He’d been her assistant editor on the high school paper and partner in debate club. Their five-year best friendship ended when they both married other people. Augie Beuter — she hadn’t seen him since her wedding, and she still missed him.

I don’t have room to insert one of the many scenes of their back-and-forth banter. You can tell they are indeed friends. Their two worlds are completely different, but their story is truly a delight.

squeetus.com
bloomsburyusa.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/actor_and_the_housewife.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Shadowfell, by Juliet Marillier

Fantasy, Romance, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Shadowfell

by Juliet Marillier

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012.
Starred Review

Juliet Marillier’s writing is wonderful. She evokes ancient Celtic magic, and her heroines must face formidable odds with courage, wrestling over what’s right, and then holding onto that. This book reminded me greatly of her Sevenwaters books for adults, and that’s high praise.

At the start of the book, Neryn has been unable to keep her father from gambling away their last coins, and then he decides to use her as his stake. She’s won by a quiet stranger who gets her off the chancy-boat in time to see it destroyed by the king’s Enforcers, meaning her father’s certain death. The man doesn’t harm her. He asks her to travel with him:

“Listen,” Flint said, not meeting my eye now but stirring the fire with a stick, making sparks rise into the night. “You know, and I know, how hard it is to make a journey like that alone. Summer’s over and the Cull’s under way. You should be safe enough here for a day or so; this spot’s well off the known tracks. Tomorrow I have to attend to some other business, but I can be back before dark. It happens that I’m going north too. Travel with me until our paths part ways and you’ll have protection on the road.” He sounded diffident.

He had been kind tonight, in his brusque fashion. But everything in me rejected this suggestion. “I don’t know you,” I said. “I’d be a fool to trust you.”

“You’d be still more of a fool,” Flint said, “to go on alone. I said before, I want nothing from you. This is a simple offer of help. You need help.”

“Thank you, but I’ll do well enough on my own.”

Neryn does go on on her own, but the reader isn’t too surprised when Flint turns up again. We are surprised when we find out all the reasons Neryn has not to trust him.

Neryn has a “canny gift.” She can see and hear the Good Folk. But canny gifts are forbidden in Alban under the reign of King Keldec. Only those in the king’s close personal circle are allowed to use them. Others are killed, or their minds bent to serve the king. Neryn’s own Granny had her mind destroyed when the Enforcers attempted this on her.

But she’s heard of a place in the north, Shadowfell, where things are different, where Keldec’s arm doesn’t reach and canny gifts are welcome. However, to get there requires a long journey.

Along the way, Neryn learns that her own gift may be far more important, and far more powerful, than she realized. She also must wrestle with whom she can trust.

Now, in some ways Juliet Marillier’s romances follow a formula. There’s a very capable, strong man who’s a sinister stranger, but somehow the heroine gets in his power, and he proves to be gentle and kind, takes care of her when she’s sick, and doesn’t take advantage of the situation. Come to think of it, Sherwood Smith’s books also tend to follow this pattern, though in her books the stranger usually kidnapped or captured the heroine for some reason, but still ends up being kind and nurturing. I’m a little ashamed of myself that I inevitably find these books incredibly romantic, but what can I say? I really do. The heroine’s in a vulnerable position, at the mercy of someone who’s rough around the edges, but really good at what he does. But what he does is apparently at odds with everything the heroine holds dear. Should she trust him?

Summarized like that, I know I’m not expressing the magic of these books. Her language pulls you right into ancient Alban. Here are the first two paragraphs. See how quickly she weaves her spell and sets the stage!

As we came down to the shore of Darkwater, the wind sliced cold right to my bones. My heels stung with blisters. Dusk was falling, and my head was muzzy from the weariness of another long day’s walk. Birds cried out overhead, winging to nighttime roosts. They were as eager as I was to get out of the chill.

We’d heard there was a settlement not far along the loch shore, a place where we might perhaps buy shelter with our fast-shrinking store of coppers. I allowed myself to imagine a bed, a proper one with a straw mattress and a woolen coverlet. Oh, how my limbs ached for warmth and comfort! Foolish hope. The way things were in Alban, people didn’t open their doors to strangers. Especially not to disheveled vagrants, and that was what we had become. I was a fool to believe, even for a moment, that our money would buy us time by someone’s hearth fire and a real bed. Never mind that. A heap of old sacks in a net-mending shed or a pile of straw in a barn would do fine. Anyplace out of this wind. Anyplace out of sight.

The worst thing about the book is also the best thing. It’s the first book of a new trilogy. The story comes to a good stopping place, but it’s by no means finished at the end of this book. So I will snap up the next book as soon as it’s published, but I simply hate having to wait.

JulietMarillier.com
randomhouse.com/teens

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/shadowfell.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Audiobook Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein

Adventure, Audiobooks, Historical, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

Code Name Verity

by Elizabeth Wein
read by Morven Christie and Lucy Gaskell

Bolinda Audio, 2012. Unabridged. 10 hours 9 minutes on 9 compact discs.
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out, #1 Teen Fiction
Starred Review

In my mind, Code Name Verity is easily the best book written in 2012. It’s not a pleasant story. It’s not even a happy story. But Wow! It blows you away.

I’m already thinking about how to booktalk the book. Spies. The Resistance. A British pilot stranded in France during World War II. Nazi interrogators. Think that will do it? It’s also a book about friendship.

I already reviewed the print version of the book, which I devoured as soon as it arrived via Amazon. But as soon as I finished, I knew I’d want to read it again. There are lots of things in the second part referred to in the beginning part, and I wanted to see if I would have a new perspective having already finished the book. Besides, I wanted to enjoy it again! So when the audio version was nominated for Capitol Choices, that seemed like a good excuse to reread the book in a different format.

And, Wow! Okay, I realize I’m not being even slightly eloquent. Let me simply say that this is an outstanding audio production of an outstanding story. They got someone from Scotland to read Julie’s parts, and someone from England to read Maddie’s. And they were magnificent. It felt like I was really listening to the two friends talking about their wartime service and their friendship.

I still love this passage. I almost burst out crying in the car when it came up in the audiobook:

Then she hitched up her hair to its two-inch above-the-collar regulation point, swabbed her own tears and the grease and the concrete dust and the gunner’s blood from her cheeks with the back of her hand, and she was off running again, like the Red Queen.

It’s like being in love, discovering your best friend.

I wouldn’t have thought there was a way to improve this book. But listening to Morven Christie and Lucy Gaskell made me feel like I was listening to Julie and Maddie tell me their thoughts.

Now, I suppose I should add that there’s torture that happens in this book. It’s set during wartime, and it isn’t pretty. Julie and Maddie are adults, young ones, yes, but adults serving during wartime. So although Code Name Verity is published as a young adult book, “old” adults won’t feel the least bit like the book is too young for them. And this isn’t a YA book I’d want to give to the youngest teens, because the subject matter is deadly serious. This audiobook is wonderful for listening in the car, but I wouldn’t call it a “family” audiobook if there are young kids around.

But Wow. Code Name Verity is a story of wartime, yes, but it’s a beautiful one. The story of the friendship, of these amazing young women, far outshines the ugly details of wartime.

elizabethwein.com
bolinda.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/code_name_verity_audio.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Liar & Spy, by Rebecca Stead

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Liar & Spy

by Rebecca Stead

Wendy Lamb Books, 2012. 180 pages.
Starred Review

Georges has just had to move; his Dad lost his job; his Mom is working extra shifts at the hospital; his best friend started sitting at the cool table; and he’s dealing with more and more bullying at school. Then there’s a post in the laundry room: “Spy Club today.” When Georges investigates, he meets a kid named Safer.

Safer and his family aren’t much like the other kids Georges knows. Safer plans to train him to be a spy. It starts with things like watching the lobbycam but goes on to checking the laundry of Mr. X, the man who dresses only in black, and progresses to breaking and entering.

I think Safer pictures a little box of evil in a corner of Mr. X’s apartment, and he thinks that if he can find it, he’ll save the world, or at least a small part of Brooklyn.

And who am I to say that he’s wrong?

This is a quiet book, but has more of what Rebecca Stead does well: quirky characters who feel just quirky enough to be real; group dynamics of classes of kids; the strange details of middle school; and especially making new friends.

This book is a lot like When You Reach Me, but without the time travel, so it’s a quieter book. The result is not as flashy, but still excellent, about an ordinary kid coping with a lot of things, and doing it with some stumbles, but coming out on top.

randomhouse.com/kids

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/liar_and_spy.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Attached, by Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Relationships, Starred Review 0

Attached.

The New Science of Adult Attachment
and How It Can Help You Find — And Keep — Love

by Amir Levine, M. D., and Rachel S. F. Heller, M. A.

Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2010. 294 pages.
Starred Review

Perhaps it’s silly for me, recently divorced, to read books on relationships. But I think it’s important to figure out what went wrong and how I could do better next time, if there is a next time. There’s much here that’s applicable to any relationship, not just a romantic one, and it also gives me insight into myself and what makes me anxious. What’s more, I would love to be more secure in relationships, and this book has much to teach me about that, too.

If I ever decide to seriously date again, I am definitely going to buy myself a copy of this book. I think this is one of the best guides I’ve ever read to choosing a partner with whom you can more easily build a harmonious relationship. By the same token, if my ex-husband were ever to want to reconcile, I’d buy myself a copy of this book, in order to avoid some of the mistakes of the past, which I can see clearly written here. Meanwhile, while neither of those conditions is true, I definitely have enjoyed reading the insights this book provides.

The first paragraph of the Author’s Note at the beginning sums up what the authors are doing here:

In this book we have distilled years of adult romantic attachment research into a practical guide for the reader who wishes to find a good relationship or improve his or her existing one. Attachment theory is a vast and complex field of research that pertains to child development and parenting as well as to romantic relationships. In this book we limit ourselves to romantic attachment and romantic relationships.

Some more background from the first chapter:

Adult attachment designates three main “attachment styles,” or manners in which people perceive and respond to intimacy in romantic relationships, which parallel those found in children: Secure, Anxious, and Avoidant. Basically, secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving; anxious people crave intimacy, are often preoccupied with their relationships, and tend to worry about their partner’s ability to love them back; avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.

Armed with our new insights about the implications of attachment styles in everyday life, we started to perceive people’s actions very differently. Behaviors that we used to attribute to someone’s personality traits, or that we had previously labeled as exaggerated, could now be understood with clarity and precision through the lens of attachment. . . .

What we really liked about attachment theory was that it was formulated on the basis of the population at large. Unlike many other psychological frameworks that were created based on couples who come to therapy, this one drew its lessons from everyone — those who have happy relationships and those who don’t, those who never get treatment and those who actively seek it. It allowed us to learn not only what goes “wrong” in relationships but also what goes “right,” and it allowed us to find and highlight a whole group of people who are barely mentioned in most relationship books. What’s more, the theory does not label behaviors as healthy or unhealthy. None of the attachment styles is in itself seen as “pathological.” On the contrary, romantic behaviors that had previously been seen as odd or misguided now seemed understandable, predictable, even expected. You stay with someone although he’s not sure he loves you? Understandable. You say you want to leave and a few minutes later change your mind and decide that you desperately want to stay? Understandable too.

But are such behaviors effective or worthwhile? That’s a different story. People with a secure attachment style know how to communicate their own expectations and respond to their partner’s needs effectively without having to resort to protest behavior. For the rest of us, understanding is only the beginning.

They talk about their quest to translate attachment theory into a practical guide that can help people’s lives.

We discovered that unlike other relationship interventions that focus mostly either on singles or existing couples, adult attachment is an overarching theory of romantic affiliation that allows for the development of useful applications for people in all stages of their romantic life. There are specific applications for people who are dating, those in early stages of relationships, and those who are in long-term ones, for people going through a breakup or those who are grieving the loss of a loved one. The common thread is that adult attachment can be put to powerful use in all of these situations and can help guide people throughout their lives to better relationships. . . .

This book is the product of our translation of attachment research into action. We hope that you, like our many friends, colleagues, and patients, will use it to make better decisions in your personal life. In the following chapters, you’ll learn more about each of the three adult attachment styles and about the ways in which they determine your behavior and attitudes in romantic situations. Past failures will be seen in a new light, and your motives — as well as the motives of others — will become clearer. You’ll learn what your needs are and who you should be with in order to be happy in a relationship. If you are already in a relationship with a partner who has an attachment style that conflicts with your own, you’ll gain insight into why you both think and act as you do and learn strategies to improve your satisfaction level. In either case, you’ll start to experience change — change for the better, of course.

Highly recommended for anyone who is in a romantic relationship or wants to be in one.

attachedthebook.com
tarcherbooks.com
penguin.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/attached.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Dying to Know You, by Aidan Chambers

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Dying to Know You

by Aidan Chambers

Abrams, New York, 2012. 275 pages.
Starred Review

In Dying to Know You, Aidan Chambers writes a young adult novel from the perspective of a 75-year-old writer with writer’s block, and accomplishes the surprising feat of pulling it off.

I had meant to return this book along with several others that I just wasn’t getting around to reading. But when I looked inside to get a grasp of what it was about, I was pulled in, took it back home, and couldn’t stop reading until I finished.

The writer who tells the story is approached by Karl Williamson, a young man who doesn’t read. His girlfriend Fiorella insists that Karl must write about himself if they are to continue their relationship. Now, Karl has dyslexia, and he doesn’t want Fiorella to know it. So he approaches Fiorella’s favorite writer, figuring that he can write something that will satisfy her.

Why, exactly, the writer agrees to help Karl is something we don’t fully understand at first. But no, the novel is not all about how Fiorella is deceived and finds out much later what’s going on. No, Fiorella, finds out fairly early on and isn’t happy about it. Along the way, the writer comes to care about Karl and his mother. They form a friendship that provides insights into both of them and their vocations.

In fact, this book is about much more than one boy and his relationship with a girl. There’s a lot here — vocation, love, friendship, adversity, expressing feelings, and art.

Here’s a small taste, not about a major point, just a little thought along the way:

It seems to me there are two kinds of people. There are those who prefer everything to be spelt out, clear and direct, nothing left to doubt. The others are people who prefer to read between the lines, who don’t want every i to be dotted, every t to be crossed. They need room to decide for themsleves what you mean.

I have to confess that by nature I belong to the spellers-out. But I was learning that Karl belonged to the understaters, the ambiguists.

Sometimes the spellers-out need to restrain themselves, and sometimes the understaters need to be given a hint, a clue to help them.

This book is a good story in the spelled-out sense with a whole lot under the surface to please any ambiguist.

amuletbooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/dying_to_know_you.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Twelve Kinds of Ice, by Ellen Bryan Obed

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Twelve Kinds of Ice

by Ellen Bryan Obed
illustrated by Barbara McClintock

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, Boston, 2012. 61 pages.
Starred Review

It doesn’t seem like it would work in a children’s book — an adult talking about what it was like for her growing up as a child in Maine. But the story is told firmly from a child’s perspective, and it does work, completely. I’m afraid it may cause a wave of discontent across America. If I had read it as a child growing up in Los Angeles, already sad because I never got to have snow, it would have added a new thing to wish for — ice.

The story is told beautifully and simply. You’d think it would lose effectiveness because it’s about all their childhood winters, and isn’t the story of one particular year — but it stays wonderfully evocative.

And who knew it took so long before they could use their vegetable garden as a rink? The beginning “chapters” (almost more like poems) are simple:

The First Ice

The first ice came on the sheep pails in the barn — a skim of ice so thin that it broke when we touched it.

(There’s a full page illustration of three kids looking in the bucket.)

The Second Ice

The second ice was thicker. We would pick it out of the pails like panes of glass. We would hold it up in our mittened hands and look through it. Then we would drop it on the hard ground to watch it splinter into a hundred pieces.

(This time the illustration shows a girl looking through a round pane of ice.)

The different types of ice continue. There’s field ice and stream ice and black ice, where they can skate on the lake. All of those come before they’re ready to turn their summer vegetable garden into a skating rink for the entire community — Bryan Gardens.

Then the book changes. She talks about rink rules, her Dad’s skating tricks, skating parties, and having a big Ice Show. Here’s a chapter from later in the book:

Late-Night Skate

After homework was done, after Dad had flooded, after lights were out in neighbors’ houses, my sister and I would sometimes go out for a skate. Late-night skates were more exciting than daytime skates. We were alone with our dreams. We would work on our figure eights. We would work on our jumps and spins. We would put on music and pretend we were skating before crowds in a great stadium. We would try out moves that we’d seen figure skaters doing on television or in a picture in the newspaper. We were planning and practicing for some distant Olympics.

This is a lovely little book. It’s short and not intimidating, but it’s going to be hard to know which children might be interested in it. It will be a good choice for readers beginning with chapter books. There’s definitely not an action-packed story, but the reader who tackles it will be drawn into a world of anticipation, joy, and skill. I’m looking forward to finding out what kids say about it at our Mock Newbery Book Club in January.

I’m not sure what to call this book. My friend who grew up in Maine says things aren’t like that any more there, so I think the closest category is Historical. I’ll probably cop out and call it a beginning chapter book, since it’s so short, has lots of pictures, and is non-threatening. It pulls you into a time where children’s activities were centered around the world outdoors. Even reading about such a time and place is refreshing.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/12_kinds_of_ice.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Feynman, by Jim Ottaviani

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Graphic Memoir, Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Feynman

written by Jim Ottaviani
art by Leland Myrick
coloring by Hilary Sycamore

First Second, New York, 2011. 266 pages.
Starred Review

How to make the life and work of a brilliant, if quirky, physicist accessible to the general reader? Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick have done an amazing job by putting the biography in graphic novel form.

Not only do they present the scope of Richard Feynman’s accomplishments, including such a wide variety from work on the atomic bomb to work on the committee investigating the space shuttle’s explosion, they also present the basic idea of some of his pioneering concepts in physics. And they talk about his personal life, including his first wife who died not too long after their marriage, and his defense of a man who was running a strip club, and his decision to give up drinking.

The one thing I didn’t like? It was hard to tell apart all the physicists in their shirts and ties. I finally got to where I could spot Feynman by his crazy hair, but that was about as far as I got.

However, this book inspired me to want to read more about Feynman, and it was a fascinating and interesting story in its own right. It didn’t inspire me the way Feynman’s Rainbow did, but it was another side to a man who made a big difference on our planet.

This is Teen Nonfiction, and I decided to post it on the regular nonfiction page rather than the Children’s Nonfiction page, because even in the graphic memoir format, it’s going to go way over the heads of most children, but most adults won’t mind reading a comic book about a great scientist.

firstsecondbooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/feynman.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.