Review of Fat Is the New 30, by Jill Conner Browne

Fat Is the New 30

The Sweet Potato Queens’ Guide to Coping with (the crappy parts of) Life

by Jill Conner Browne

Amazon Publishing, 2012. 254 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #4 Other Nonfiction

I do so love The Sweet Potato Queens! This particular book adds some seriously good advice to the usual humor of Jill Conner Browne’s observations. Of course, keeping your sense of humor IS seriously good advice.

Jill Conner Browne sets the tone in the very first paragraph of the Acknowledgments:

The last few years have afforded me much experience in Coping with the Crappy Parts of Life referenced in the title of this book. However, it must be said that the Crap, plentiful as it has admittedly been, is overshadowed still by the Amazing, the Humbling, the Gratifying, and the Nifty. My prayer for us all is that we’re always able to pay more attention to those things in our lives and laugh our way around the Crap.

In the introduction, which is given the title “Fat Is the New 30!”, she says things like this:

Possibly the very best survival tool ever devised is the Concept of Complete Denial. My seester Judy and I have made this our Life’s Work. (Judy would like for it to be noted that she also has a minor in “Lolling.”) Someone once told me that if you study and practice something diligently for five years, you can become a bona fide expert at it. I shared this tidbit with Judy and we decided that we would commit ourselves to doing whatever it took to accomplish that in our chosen field, and I am happy to report that we were 100 percent successful, and also, it didn’t take us anywhere near five years. We are, as far as we can tell, the World’s Leading Authorities on Denial. No, we didn’t do much — OK, ANY — research into the possibility of the existence of other authorities and/or their potential superiority to us in this, our chosen field. We decided that we are the best, and if anybody says otherwise, well, we will just deny it. So, there. Done.

What I CAN offer you is some much-needed relief from the overwhelming stress we are all mired in (as a direct result of my not turning out to be the World-Saving Little Redheaded Singing Sensation), by making fun of all the messes and the people who made them — even if they are us, which, truth be told, they occasionally are. I will make you laugh even if you don’t want to — I can do that. It will feel good and you will feel better even though most everything will still suck. . . .

Daddy always said, “There are very few situations in life that we really and truly canNOT change, but when we do encounter one of those, then the task at hand is to figure out how to either make fun OUT of it — or to make fun OF it.” That advice has served me well in this life, so I offer it to you. But you don’t have my daddy to help you figure out how to actually DO it — and it does take practice. I got personal training from Daddy, plus I’ve had lots of experience at Spinning Crap Into Fun (also known as “Shit to Shinola” — similar in theory to the storied Spinning of Straw Into Gold — only, actually possible), so I think maybe I can help you with that.

We are fortunate to have many tools with which to fend off everything from boredom to disaster, but remember, no matter how bad it is, it’s much better to laugh than to cry — or to maim and kill, which will only make more trouble for yourself, so I discourage it, no matter how tempting it may be.

Here are some other random lovely bits of wisdom:

So, as you age, which I hope you will do sober — I truly cannot imagine trying to negotiate all these pitfalls drunk — and you find yourself starting a sentence but forgetting the targeted end before you even get to the middle, just keep talking, about anything, it doesn’t really matter what, just keep talking and nobody will notice that you’re lost. If you can REMEMBER to do this, it will serve you well.

How best to survive a spell in the spotlight that is not of our choosing? Laughing at ourownselfs, especially at our own extreme discomfort and/or embarrassment, is not the easiest thing in the world, but I reckon it’s a sight easier than spontaneous evaporation, which would, naturally, be our first choice.

“Money won’t solve all your problems.” That’s another one of those things that only ever gets said by people WITH money. It is true, of course, there are all manner of problems for which money is not the solution. However, it must also be said that if what you’ve got is a MONEY PROBLEM, well, then money is pretty much the only thing that will solve it. Yeppers, money is just the thing for fixing money problems.

And those erstwhile Wedding Vows? The ones where we promised to love, honor and cherish that Other Person (who, it should be noted, ALSO promised to do the same for US — and we see how well THAT worked out). What if we were to make and keep those vows — to OURSELVES?

Every coin has a flip side — well, except for those trick two-headed coins, but you have to pay extra and have those made special, so they don’t really count and are certainly not germane to this discussion. Suffice it to say that just about everything in this world that is making somebody wildly happy is, at the same time, prolly making somebody else equally miserable. it has become my job to identify those things and make fun of them, with the hope of relieving the suffering for even a moment and thereby furthering the cause of my Ultimate Mission in Life, which is, of course, World Peace.

Things happen that can’t be fixed. Relationships are ended by death, or maybe nobody’s dead, but the relationship might be ruined beyond repair. Sucks. Just make sure you don’t lose the LESSON, too — because there was one, every time.

Forgiveness — such a wonderful thing to give and to receive. We just have to remember to start that process in front of the mirror — you gotta give it to yourself and allow yourself to receive it before you can go any further with it.

If you keep one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow, ALL you can DO is make a very unfortunate mess all over today. And today is all ANY-body has ever got. Let go of yesterday, quit worrying about tomorrow — grab hold of today and get your money’s worth out of it. See if you can make only NEW mistakes today and be grateful for the goodness of the moment.

And my personal favorite:

Life. It’s your birthday present. Open it up and play with it. Act like you like it. (The One who gave it to you is watching, after all. Don’t wanna hurt His feelings.) And if you don’t like your life, CHANGE IT. It is all yours.

That should give you the idea! If you like these tastes, be sure to check out the entire book. You will laugh, and you will be blessed.

sweetpotatoqueens.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/fat_is_the_new_30.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 Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar, by Masaichiro and Mitsumasa Anno

Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar

by Masaichiro and Mitsumasa Anno

Philomel Books, New York, 1983. 44 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Standout: #7 Children’s Nonfiction

How did I not know about this book?! How did I not know there is a picture book that explains factorials?! It was written before my boys were born — and I didn’t know to buy it for them! This is a crime!

I was at the library, refilling our display of children’s nonfiction books. I find that if I put out children’s math books, they get snapped up. I make sure to put out fun children’s math books, like anything by Greg Tang, or A Million Dots, by Andrew Clements, or Piece = Part = Portion, by Scott Gifford. But while I was looking through the 510s for good fun math books, I found Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar.

The idea is simple. Mitsumasa Anno and his son show us a jar that contains a sea and an island. Each island has 2 countries. Each country has 3 mountains. Each mountain has 4 walled kingdoms. In each kingdom are 5 villages. In each village are 6 houses. In each house are 7 rooms. In each room are 8 cupboards. In each cupboard are 9 boxes. And within each box, there are 10 jars.

How many jars are there all together? There are 10! = 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 3,628,800. The second half of the book shows this even more clearly, using dots. And there’s an afterword as well, that explains some of the further uses of factorials.

It’s so simple. So beautiful. And it explains factorials! To children! Yes!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/annos_mysterious_multiplying_jar.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.

This review is posted today in honor of Nonfiction Monday. You’ll find the round-up at The LibrariYAn.

Stand-out Authors: Sherwood Smith

When I posted my 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, it became very clear that I have certain favorite authors. I thought it would be fun to highlight the authors from this year’s list whose books have been Sonderbooks Stand-outs before.

Of all the 2012 Stand-out Authors, Sherwood Smith has the second most, with 12 Stand-outs.

I discovered Sherwood Smith when I read her short story in Firebirds. Since Firebirds was a 2003 Sonderbooks Stand-out (#1 for Short Stories), perhaps we should say Sherwood Smith has 13 Stand-outs.

In 2004, I discovered Crown Duel, and I knew I’d found a new favorite author. In fact, I’d put Crown Duel in my top ten favorite books ever. It was a 2004 Sonderbooks Stand-out, My Favorite Book of the Year. In categories, it was #1 in Young Adult Fantasy.

I doubled up on Crown Duel when I reread it in 2009 and named it a 2009 Sonderbooks Stand-out, in the category of Wonderful Rereads.

But in 2004 I naturally read everything of Sherwood Smith’s I could get my hands on, so I also read the three books about Wren and named them all Sonderbooks Stand-outs. In fact, they were my only three Stand-outs in Children’s Fantasy that year:
#1 Wren to the Rescue
#2 Wren’s War
#3 Wren’s Quest

I didn’t find more Sherwood Smith books to read until 2007, when I read Inda, and named it #4 in Fantasy Fiction. However, that was the year I was completing my MLIS degree and didn’t get even all the Stand-outs reviewed. That simply means I have to reread them some time!

In 2009, I started seeing more of her books and devouring them whenever possible. She’s a feature on my Sonderbooks Stand-outs lists since then.

2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, #7 in Teen Fantasy Fiction was Once a Princess

I remember I read Once a Princess the last week of the year. So naturally the first book I read in 2010 was also a Stand-out: Twice a Prince was #3 in Teen Fantasy Fiction.

The truth is, I’m almost embarrassed by how romantic I find Sherwood Smith’s books. So when, that same year, she published a romance novel for an adult audience, Coronets and Steel, it was #1 in Fiction on my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

In 2011, another stand-alone Teen Fantasy, The Trouble With Kings, was #5 on my Sonderbooks Stand-outs list.

And that brings us to last year and my current list of 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

This time, she appears on both my adult fiction list at #4 for Blood Spirits, the sequel to Coronets and Steel, as well as #2 in Children’s Fantasy and Science Fiction for The Spy Princess, which so far is a stand-alone book, but I hope will turn into the first of a series.

Remember Inda, which was a Stand-out, but I never did review? And which I fully intend to reread? Well, Inda turned out to be the first of a four-book series, and, what’s more, I own all four books but haven’t read them. You see, I bought them when I still hadn’t developed a system to force myself to read books I own. I buy books I know I’ll love, but then I wouldn’t get around to reading them because they didn’t have a due date! On top of that, the Inda books are really long, and I’m spoiled by reading lots of young adult books. But now I have a system, and I hope to get to those books this year.

Again, if you missed these books when they first showed up on my lists, that doesn’t mean you need to miss them any longer! Sherwood Smith is another Favorite Author I highly recommend!

Review of Bink and Gollie: Two for One, by Kate Di Camillo and Alison McGhee

Bink and Gollie
Two for One

by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee
illustrated by Tony Fucile

Candlewick Press, 2012. 80 pages.
Starred Review
2013 Capitol Choices List
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#6 Picture Books

This follow-up to Bink and Gollie is as irresistible as the first. Bink is short and wild. Gollie is tall and sedate. They spend a day together at the fair.

In many ways this book is about failure. Failure at Whack-a-Duck and failure at the Talent Show. But it’s not treated as failure. Not at all. After both events, the girls find happy compensation.

The pictures are the crowning glory of this delightful book. Yes, the words are wonderful, but the pictures bring it to life. Bink’s efforts to throw the ball and Whack a Duck take up an entire dramatic two-page spread. Gollie’s stage fright is communicated without a word as the scene widens to show just how many people are listening to her and the frozen look on her face.

There are not very many words on each page, but there is lots and lots of story on each page. Beginning readers will feel they’ve accomplished something, and skilled readers won’t be bored for a second.

The two girls finish up the day in a fortune teller’s tent.

“I see two friends,” said Madame Prunely.
“Is one of those friends tall?” said Gollie.
“Yes,” said Madame Prunely.

“And is the other friend short?” said Bink.
“Yes,” said Madame Prunely.

“Are they together?” said Gollie.
“Without question,” said Madame Prunely.

“That’s all the future I need to know,” said Bink.
“Come on, Gollie!”

An absolute delight for beginning readers.

binkandgollie.com
candlewick.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/two_for_one.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 A Jane Austen Education, by William Deresiewicz

A Jane Austen Education

How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter

by William Deresiewicz

The Penguin Press, New York, 2011. 255 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Nonfiction: Personal Stories

I’m a huge Jane Austen fan. I wrote a paper on her my Sophomore year of college. I had lots of time in which to write the paper — so I read ALL her novels, and then wrote the paper staying up all night the night before it was due.

A Jane Austen Education is perhaps my favorite so far of nonfiction Jane Austen take-offs. William Deresiewicz was a graduate student of literature, and he writes about how things he learned from Jane Austen mirrored and informed his life as he became an adult. He’s not afraid to pull out lessons that he needed to learn, and there’s a lovely combination of personal observations and stories with ideas and examples from the novels.

Here’s how he begins:

I was twenty-six, and about as dumb, in all human things, as any twenty-six-year-old has a right to be, when I met the woman who would change my life. That she’d been dead for a couple of hundred years made not the slightest difference whatsoever. Her name was Jane Austen, and she would teach me everything I know about everything that matters.

He goes through all the novels, matching them up to different periods of his life. There’s lots and lots of good stuff here. He has studied all the novels and studied Jane Austen’s life, so he has plenty of information to convey, and along the way, he comes up with some profound insights and self-deprecating humor. I’ll include at least one paragraph from the chapter on each novel, but there’s a lot more where this comes from.

From Emma:

There was one more thing about my life that had to change, now that I’d read Emma: my relationships with the people around me. Once I started to see myself for the first time, I started seeing them for the first time, too. I began to notice and care about what they might be experiencing, and they began to develop the depth and richness of literary characters. I could almost feel along with their feelings now, as we talked, feel the contours of them as they tried to express them to me. Instead of a boring blur, the life around me now was sharp and important. Everything was interesting, everything was meaningful, every conversation held potential revelations. It was like having my ears turned on for the first time. Suddenly the world seemed fuller and more spacious than I had ever imagined it could be, a house with a thousand rooms that now lay open to explore.

From Pride and Prejudice:

But Austen, it turned out, did not see things that way. For her, growing up has nothing to do with knowledge or skills, because it has everything to do with character and conduct. And you don’t strengthen your character or improve your conduct by memorizing the names of Roman emperors (or American presidents) or learning how to do needlework (or calculus). You don’t do so, she believed, by developing self-confidence and self-esteem, either. If anything, self-confidence and self-esteem are the great enemies, because they make you forget that you’re still just a bundle of impulse and ignorance. For Austen, growing up means making mistakes.

From Northanger Abbey:

Catherine thought she saw things at Northanger Abbey that weren’t really there, but the novel, my professor explained, was not against imagination. Quite the opposite. It was against delusion, against projection, against thinking the same old thing again and again, whether it’s the idea that all balls are “very agreeable indeed” or that all old houses conceal dark secrets. True imagination, he went on, means the ability to envision new possibilites, for life as well as art. Mrs. Allen and the rest of Austen’s dull adults were not ignorant or stupid so much as they were unimaginative. Nothing was ever going to change for them, because they couldn’t imagine that anything ever would.

From Mansfield Park:

How different this was, I realized, from the kinds of stories I had trained myself to tell my friend and his wife, those polished little anecdotes that had to have a laugh at every turn. “You shall tell me all about your brothers and sisters.” All about: no impatience, no competitiveness, no interruptions, no need to worry about being entertaining, no having to watch your listeners’ eyes glaze over while they thought about what they were going to say when you finally stopped talking already. Did Edmund really care about her brothers and sisters? Probably not. But he cared about her, and she cared about them, and that was enough for him. To listen to a person’s stories, he understood, is to learn their feelings and experiences and values and habits of mind, and to learn them all at once and all together. Austen was not a novelist for nothing: she knew that our stories are what make us human, and that listening to someone else’s stories — entering into their feelings, validating their experiences — is the highest way of acknowledging their humanity, the sweetest form of usefulness.

From Persuasion:

Putting your friend’s welfare before your own: that was Austen’s idea of true friendship. That means admitting when you’re wrong, but even more importantly, it means being willing to tell your friend when they are. It took me a long time to wrap my head around that notion, because it flew so strongly in the face of what we believe about friendship today. True friendship, we think, means unconditional acceptance and support. The true friend validates your feelings, takes your side in every argument, helps you feel good about yourself at all times, and never, ever judges you. But Austen didn’t believe that. For her, being happy means becoming a better person, and becoming a better person means having your mistakes pointed out to you in a way that you can’t ignore. Yes, the true friend wants you to be happy, but being happy and feeling good about yourself are not the same things. In fact, they can sometimes be diametrically opposed. True friends do not shield you from your mistakes, they tell you about them: even at the risk of losing your friendship — which means, even at the risk of being unhappy themselves.

From Sense and Sensibility:

If love begins in friendship, I was now able to see, it has to adhere to the principles of friendship as Austen understood them. The lover’s highest role, like the friend’s, is to help you to become a better person: push you, if necessary, even at the risk of wounded feelings. Austen’s lovers challenged each other: to be less selfish, more aware, kinder, more considerate — not only toward each other but to everyone around them. Love, I saw, for Austen — and what a change this was from the days of my rebellious youth — is an agent not of subversion, but of socialization. Lovers aren’t supposed to goad each other toward extremes of transgression, the way that Marianne and Willoughby did; they’re supposed to teach each other the value of behaving with propriety and decorum, show each other that society’s expectations are worthy, after all, of respect. Love, for Austen, is not about remaining forever young. It’s about becoming an adult.

Now, undoubtedly, my knowledge of all the Austen novels contributed to my enjoyment of this book, but I have little doubt that it would also encourage people to read the novels who haven’t before. All in all, it’s a wonderful contribution to Austenalia, a delightful, thoughtful, even scholarly contribution, and from a male perspective, as a nice contrast to so many others. I highly recommend that Jane Austen fans read this book.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/jane_austen_education.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 my own copy, which I got at an ALA conference.

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 The Journal of Best Practices, by David Finch

The Journal of Best Practices

A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to Be a Better Husband

by David Finch

Scribner, New York, 2012. 224 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 Nonfiction: Personal Stories

This book is sweet. As an adult, David Finch was diagnosed as having Asperger’s Syndrome. It actually opened his eyes to why his marriage was falling apart. He began working on learning how to be a good husband, and kept a Journal of Best Practices.

He writes with plenty of humor. Some of the practices, wives might assume a husband would know without being told. I’m thinking of things like “Laundry: Better to fold and put away than to take only what you need from the dryer.” David Finch used his diagnosis to tackle things like that without blame and simply strive to be nicer for his wife to live with.

Here’s where he explains how the diagnosis helped:

Once I learned that I have Asperger syndrome, the fact that we’d had these serious marital problems seemed less surprising. Asperger syndrome can manifest itself in behaviors that are inherently relationship defeating. It’s tricky being married to me, though neither Kristen nor I could have predicted that. To the casual neurotypical observer (neurotypical refers to people with typically functioning brains, i.e., people without autism), I may seem relatively normal. Cognitive resources and language skills often develop normally in people with Asperger syndrome, which means that in many situations I could probably pass myself off as neurotypical, were it not for four distinguishing characteristics of my disorder: persistent, intense preoccupations; unusual rituals and behaviors; impaired social-reasoning abilities; and clinical-strength egocentricity. All of which I have to an almost comically high degree. But I also have the ability to mask these effects under the right circumstances, like when I want someone to hire me or fall in love with me.

Looking back, I suppose a diagnosis was inevitable. A casual girlfriend might have dismissed my compulsion to arrange balls of shredded napkin into symmetrical shapes as being idiosyncratic or even artistic. But Kristen had been living with me — observing me for years in my natural habitat — and had become increasingly skilled in assessing autism spectrum conditions in her job as a speech therapist….

Most people intuitively know how to function and interact with people — they don’t need to learn it by rote. I do. I was certain that with enough discipline and hard work I could learn to improve my behaviors and become more adaptable. While my brain is not wired for social intuition, I was factory-programmed to observe, analyze, and mimic the world around me. I had managed to go through school, get a good job, make friends, and marry — years of observation, processing, and trial and error had gotten me this far. And my obsessive tendencies mean that when I want to accomplish something I attack it with zeal. With my marriage in dire straits, I decided that even if I needed to make flash cards about certain behaviors and staple them to my face to make them become second nature, I was willing to do it.

Kristen didn’t know it, but that was what her life was about to become — her husband, with the best of intentions, stapling flash cards to his face. Okay, not to his face. And there were no staples involved. But flash cards? Definitely. Many people leave reminder notes for themselves: Pick up milk and shampoo, or Dinner with the Hargroves at 6:00. My notes read: Respect the needs of others, and Do not laugh during visitation tonight, and Do not EVER suggest that Kristen doesn’t seem to enjoy spending time with our kids.

I found two things particularly endearing about this book:

1) That he was willing to make so many changes to make life easier for his wife.
2) That his wife loved him despite the hugely egocentric life he was living before the diagnosis and that she never asked him to be perfect. (Some of his descriptions of what he was doing before are pretty outrageous. But she clearly loves him.)

This is a lovely and humorous story about two imperfect people, one exceedingly quirky, learning to live together with love and grace.

SimonandSchuster.com

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

Stand-out Authors: Shannon Hale

I’ve now posted 12 years of Sonderbooks Stand-outs, and this year I noticed there were a lot of repeats from previous years.

Now, I don’t think I’m biased in a bad way. Yes, I expect good things when I pick up these authors’ books, but they consistently turn out good ones. Some of them can’t seem to write a book I don’t like.

So, looking at only the authors who appeared in the 2012 list, I thought it would be fun to look back at their previous books that were Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

I’m going to start with Shannon Hale, because she has 3 books on the 2012 Stand-outs, and she also has more total books on all the Stand-outs lists than any other one of this year’s authors, with 15 books.

How, you may well ask, did Shannon manage to get more books on my Stand-outs lists than she has published? Well, her books tend to be stand-outs both in print form and as audiobooks.

Let’s do a retrospective.

In 2003, Shannon published her first book, The Goose Girl. It was my favorite book of the year, and #1 in Young Adult Fantasy.

In those days, there weren’t as many book blogs. I e-mailed Shannon to tell her I’d named her book a Sonderbooks Stand-out, and we struck up an e-mail friendship. Judging by how much I love all her books, it’s obvious we are kindred spirits.

2004 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #4 in Fantasy for Young Adults was Enna Burning, the second of the Books of Bayern.

2005 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #9 in Young Adult Fantasy was Princess Academy. I was so happy when it won a Newbery Honor, even though I’m a little more partial to the Books of Bayern myself.

2006 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2 in Teen Fiction was River Secrets (edged out only by The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner)

2007 was Shannon’s first year with multiple Sonderbooks Stand-outs. I got to listen to an audiobook of The Goose Girl (#2 in Audiobooks), and she wrote my favorite book of all of hers, Book of a Thousand Days, which was #1 in Teen Fantasy Fiction. And she broke into adult books with Austenland, which was #2 in Romance Fiction.

She topped her record in 2008 with 4 Sonderbooks Stand-outs:
Three of them were Audiobooks:
Book of a Thousand Days was #1.
Enna Burning was #4.
Princess Academy was #6.
And Rapunzel’s Revenge was #2 Graphic Novel of the year.

2009 Sonderbooks Stand-outs had another of the Books of Bayern, with Forest Born at #3 in Fantasy Teen Fiction.

After 2009, Shannon had twins, so there’s no surprise she had a few years off my lists. In the meantime, I got to meet her at the National Book Festival. I was so happy when she knew who I was as soon as I said my name!

Perhaps it’s getting where I’m biased about Shannon’s books because I like her so much, but I became her friend because of her books, and I’m not going to stop telling people how wonderful I think her books are simply because I think she’s wonderful, too.

And this year she’s back on my 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs three times!

Midnight in Austenland completely hit a sweet spot for me. It’s for adults, a Jane Austen take-off, and has a divorced heroine seeing the truth about how valuable she is. It was my favorite adult book of the year.

And then Palace of Stone was #6 in Teen Fiction, and I finally read Shannon’s one book that I hadn’t read yet, The Actor and the Housewife, which was #6 in Other Fiction.

I think it’s safe to call Shannon Hale one of my favorite authors! If you haven’t read all her wonderful books, consider this a To Be Read List!

Review of Austenland, by Shannon Hale

Austenland

by Shannon Hale

Bloomsbury, 2007. 197 pages.
Starred Review
2007 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2 Romance Fiction

I read Austenland when it first came out, but 2007 was a hectic year for me, what with finishing up my MLIS degree and working half-time and desperately needing a full-time job (and eventually finding one). So I didn’t get a lot of books reviewed that year, and never did post a review of this book.

This year, when Midnight in Austenland came out, it was a lovely excuse to reread Austenland and finally remedy that fault. I did not need to reread Austenland at all to enjoy Midnight in Austenland, since they involve different characters. But it did make a lovely excuse to enjoy this one again.

I am an avid and unashamed Jane Austen fan, and this book is one of my favorite take-offs on her work. The idea is simple: A theme park in England where women can pay to spend a few weeks immersed in a Jane Austen novel, to pretend they are really there.

Jane Hayes wasn’t rich enough to go there on her own steam, but her great-aunt Carolyn spots Jane’s hidden DVD of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth, and Aunt Carolyn figures out Jane’s obsession. She has some wise words about figuring out what’s real.

But then Aunt Carolyn goes a little farther. In her will, she gives Jane an all-expenses-paid trip to Austenland. The trip is nonrefundable, so Jane decides to take it. She reflects:

Jane lay back down, but this time placed the throw pillow under her head. Okay, all right, she would go. It would be her last hurrah. Like her friend Becky, who’d taken an all-you-can-eat dinner cruise the night before going in for a stomach stapling. Jane was going to have one last live-it-up and then quit men entirely. She’d play out her fantasy, have a staggering good time, and then bury it all for good. No more Darcy. No more men — period. When she got home she’d become a perfectly normal woman, content to be single, happy with her own self.

She’d even throw away the DVDs.

Well, needless to say, things don’t turn out quite as Jane expects. Along the way, we’ve got all kinds of fun and of course some mistaken first impressions.

This is a light and fluffy book, and so much fun. Clearly, Shannon Hale filled it with love and respect for Jane Austen, and she pulled off an appropriate tribute that’s a wonderful book in its own right.

Now I just wish someone would really create such a place as Austenland, and that I could go!

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/austenland.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 my own copy, purchased from Amazon as soon as it was published.

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 Oh, No! by Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann

Oh, No!

Words by Candace Fleming
Pictures by Eric Rohmann

Schwartz & Wade Books (Random House), New York, 2012. 36 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Sonderbooks Stand-out #9 Picture Books

This book charmed me from the moment I saw it. I simply had to read it aloud. The story can be sung to the tune of “Froggie Went a-Courtin’,” with a few adjustments. In place of “Uh-huh,” you’ve got a refrain of “Oh No!” in very appropriate spots at the end of each verse, and other fun sound effects earlier in the verses.

The story is simple: Several animals fall into a hole, and can’t get out, and it looks like Tiger will eat them. When each animal falls in, we have appropriate sound effects: “Ribbit-oops!” for frog; “Pippa-eek!” for mouse; “Soo-slooow!” for loris; “Grab on!” for sun bear (bending down a branch); and “Wheee-haaaa!” for monkey. When tiger comes to taunt them, anticipating his dinner, it’s “Slop-slurp!”

But someone bigger than Tiger comes along to help, the tables are turned, and no one gets eaten. Will the animals help Tiger out of the trap? “Oh, no!”

Caldecott winner Eric Rohmann has outdone himself with the beauty of these illustrations. The book has so many elements great for a storytime picture book: A catchy tune or rhythm (if you don’t want to sing it), fun sounds, repetitive and progressive story line with nice twists, animals they might not have known, and a turn-about story that will appeal to their sense of justice.

Now, there are some places where the exact tune has to be adjusted a bit. Personally, I found I was not capable of reading it straight, without putting it to the tune. Others may have better luck! But either way, this book begs to be read or sung aloud, and you will definitely want to share it with a child.

candacefleming.com
ericrohmann.com
randomhouse.com/kids

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/oh_no.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.

2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs: Nonfiction

I announced my 2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs on January 1st, but I’m highlighting each category on my blog. Then I’m updating the webpages of all the already-posted reviews in that category with my Sonderbooks Stand-outs Seal. (I always love alliteration.)

Nonfiction for adults is the final category left. Sometimes I don’t give it all the attention it deserves, and this is the category where I have the most reviews still to post, but there are some truly wonderful books listed here.

I read Nonfiction differently than I read Fiction. I didn’t use to read a lot of Nonfiction until I started working in a library, back in 1998. Then so many fascinating books came past my desk, I started devouring them. But I quickly learned that if I read them at bedtime, like I do novels, I’m not going to be able to stop thinking about them when it’s time to sleep.

So I read Nonfiction at the table. I’ve got a “book chair” for propping them up, and I read while I eat. (Yes, even library books. Don’t tell!) When I finish eating and keep reading, I read while I knit.

And instead of reading them one at a time, like I do fiction, I’ve got an elaborate rotation worked out. I’ve got piles of inspirational nonfiction, narrative nonfiction, and educational nonfiction, and I read one chapter at a time, then take the next book from the pile and put the one I just read on the bottom.

Yes, it takes a long time to get through the books that way. Some of these listed here I began in 2011. Some books never made the list, because I found I didn’t really remember what I’d last read. (The good ones stick in your mind.) And of course, some were excellent books, but just not my very favorites.

There were exceptions, particularly in Narrative Nonfiction (Personal Stories). Some I couldn’t stop and once I started, I sat down and finished. In fact, several of these Personal Stories Stand-outs were in that category. With A History of English in 100 Words, I moved it to my daily pile and read a section on one word each day. It still took almost 100 days (some days I read an extra section), and isn’t a flashy book, but looking back, I really enjoyed that tidbit each day.

My favorite nonfiction book read this year, The Reading Promise, I listened to in Audiobook form. It had so much going for it: An issue I feel passionate about (reading to children), laugh-out-loud and heart-warming anecdotes about a kid and her dad, references to much-loved children’s books, and even a call to action at the end.

So here are my personal favorite Nonfiction books read in 2012, broken into two categories and ranked simply by how much I enjoyed them. All the books are recommended. I’ve written reviews of all of them, but not all are posted yet. I will remedy that in the next week or two.

2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, Nonfiction: Personal Stories:

1. The Reading Promise, by Alice Ozma
2. Some Assembly Required, by Anne Lamott, with Sam Lamott
3. A Jane Austen Education, by William Deresiewicz
4. Map of My Dead Pilots, by Colleen Mondor
5. The Journal of Best Practices, by David Finch
6. The Boy Who Met Jesus, by Immaculee Ilibagiza
7. Love Isn’t Supposed to Hurt, by Christi Paul

2012 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, Other Nonfiction:

1. Help Thanks Wow, by Anne Lamott
2. So Good They Can’t Ignore You, by Cal Newport
3. A Praying Life, by Paul E. Miller
4. Fat Is the New 30, by Jill Conner Browne
5. Victory Over Verbal Abuse, by Patricia Evans
6. The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge
7. Each Day a New Beginning, by Karen Casey
8. The Story of English in 100 Words, by David Crystal

Happy Reading!