Review of Constable & Toop, by Gareth P. Jones

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Paranormal, Starred Review 0

Constable & Toop

by Gareth P. Jones

Amulet Books, New York, 2013. 391 pages.
Starred Review

I like the blurbs at the front of Constable & Toop. They’re by “The Ghost of Oscar Wilde,” “The Ghost of Dr. Johnson,” and other distinguished ghosts. The Ghost of Emily Brontë says, “I very much enjoyed the melancholy and tragedy contained within these pages. The humor was less to my taste.”

Sam Toop can talk to ghosts. The ghosts know him as a “Talker,” and often ask him to help them with their unfinished business, like give a message or uncover a hidden will. But there’s something terribly wrong at the church where one of the ghosts wants his body buried.

Meanwhile, Lapsewood has been doing his desk job faithfully, in death as in life. But when he gets transferred to another department, and expected to check on residents of haunted houses, as the past Outreach worker has gone missing, he also stumbles on something terribly wrong.

At the same time, Clara’s parents invite an exorcist to their home. As Clara had suspected, they did have a ghost haunting their home, but the exorcist banishes her. After that event, nothing feels right, but things are even worse after the body of a girl is found in their home.

Constable & Toop is set in Victorian London, at a time when people were obsessed with death and funerals and the supernatural. Gareth Jones spins an entertaining tale of plots and murderers, among the living and the dead, and good people who try to do their bit to help.

This story is highly imaginative, intricately plotted, and a whole lot of fun.

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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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 To Dare Mighty Things, by Doreen Rappaport

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

To Dare Mighty Things

The Life of Theodore Roosevelt

by Doreen Rappaport
illustrated by C. F. Payne

Disney Hyperion Books, New York, 2013. 44 pages.
Starred Review

This book does exactly what a picture book biography should do. It gives the reader a fantastic introduction to the life of a great man. There are big, beautiful pictures, showing active scenes. The text covers the highlights of his life, beginning with his curious childhood. I especially like the quotations featured on each page, in large bold print.

Here’s text from a two-page spread about his childhood. The quotations are much larger than the rest of the text.

Teedie stuffed hedgehogs into drawers.
Sometimes they escaped.
Guests were warned to check water pitchers for snakes before pouring.

“He has to be watched all the time,” his mother told his father.

He illustrated and wrote books about ants, spiders, ladybugs, fireflies, hawks, minnows, and crayfish.
His fingers were always stained with ink.
He collected animal and bird specimens and created a museum in his room.
He smelled. The whole house smelled.

“All growing boys tend to be grubby; but the ornithological boy is the grubbiest of all.”

Of course, with the cover image simply the head of Theodore Roosevelt, I’d love to see people pose with the book in front of their face.

This is an accessible book for young children, giving them an overview of Theodore Roosevelt’s life and work in a beautiful package that will catch anyone’s interest.

doreenrappaport.com
cfpayne.com
disneyhyperionbooks.com

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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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Shadow Throne, by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

The Shadow Throne

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Scholastic Press, New York, 2014. 317 pages.
Starred Review

This is Book Three of The Ascendance Trilogy, and brings events to a satisfying conclusion. Yes, you should read The False Prince and The Runaway King first to properly enjoy this book.

War has come to Carthya. And rather than only Avenia advancing against young King Jaron, they have persuaded Mendenwal and Gelyn to fight with them. Carthya is surrounded. Worse yet to Jaron, Imogen, whom he sent away for her own safety, has been kidnapped by Avenia.

Jaron has several goals, and many of them depend on misdirection. He hopes to fight the armies separately. Amarinda needs to get to her home country to ask for their help. And above all, he wants to rescue Imogen, though Mott persuades him that her kidnapping was a trap to capture Jaron. Jaron does have plans, which have repercussions all the way up to the end of the book, but the reader gets the impression that his plans, while good, depend much upon luck as well. Still, there are some nice twists and turns to the story. I confess, at one point I peeked at the end of the book to make sure about something that had apparently happened. I’ll simply say that things look terribly grim at several points, but there is a nicely satisfying ending. And how events get to that point makes an exciting story.

The book is a little episodic. Jaron deals with one threat, then another different threat, then another different threat, and so on. This meant I took a little longer to read it than most books I like this much, because it was possible to put the book down (until the last third or so).

However, this was a grand finish to an exciting and clever series. I didn’t reread Books One and Two before I started this one, but that’s all the more reason to reread the entire series, which I am absolutely sure I will want to do some day soon.

jenninielsen.com
scholastic.com

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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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Only Necessary Thing, by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Christian, Musings, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Only Necessary Thing

Living a Prayerful Life

by Henri J. M. Nouwen
compiled and edited by Wendy Wilson Greer

Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 1999. 224 pages.
Starred Review

Here is an excellent choice for reading small bits daily as a devotional book. They are sections taken from the body of work by Henri Nouwen, compiling his teaching on prayer.

Here’s his “Invitation” at the front of the book:

The invitation to a life of prayer is the invitation to live in the midst of this world without being caught in the net of wounds and needs. The word “prayer” stands for a radical interruption of the vicious chain of interlocking dependencies leading to violence and war and for an entering into a totally new dwelling place. It points to a new way of speaking, a new way of breathing, a new way of being together, a new way of knowing, yes, a whole new way of living.

It is not easy to express the radical change that prayer represents, since for many the word “prayer” is associated with piety, talking to God, thinking about God, morning and evening exercises, Sunday services, grace before meals, sentences from the Bible, and many other things. All of these have something to do with prayer, but when I speak about prayer as the basis for peacemaking, I speak first of all about moving away from the dwelling place of those who hate peace into the house of God. . . . Prayer is the center of the Christian life. It is the only necessary thing (Luke 10:42). It is living with God here and now.

Some other sections struck me, so I’ll list a few for you here. This will give you the idea of the book. It’s got thoughtful, meditative insights on living a prayerful life.

But, as Christians, we are called to convert our loneliness into solitude. We are called to experience our aloneness not as a wound but as a gift — as God’s gift — so that in our aloneness we might discover how deeply we are loved by God.
It is precisely where we are most alone, most unique, most ourselves, that God is closest to us. That is where we experience God as the divine, loving Father, who knows us better than we know ourselves.
Solitude is the way in which we grow into the realization that where we are most alone, we are most loved by God. It is a quality of heart, an inner quality that helps us to accept our aloneness lovingly, as a gift from God.

Another:

Prayer, then, is listening to that voice — to the One who calls you the Beloved. It is to constantly go back to the truth of who we are and claim it for ourselves. I’m not what I do. I’m not what people say about me. I’m not what I have. Although there is nothing wrong with success, there is nothing wrong with popularity, there is nothing wrong with being powerful, finally my spiritual identity is not rooted in the world, the things the world gives me. My life is rooted in my spiritual identity. Whatever we do, we have to go back regularly to that place of core identity.

From the section on “Belovedness”:

God does not require a pure heart before embracing us. Even if we return only because following our desires has failed to bring happiness, God will take us back. Even if we return because being a Christian brings us more peace than being a pagan, God will receive us. Even if we return because our sins did not offer as much satisfaction as we had hoped, God will take us back. Even if we return because we could not make it on our own, God will receive us. God’s love does not require any explanations about why we are returning. God is glad to see us home and wants to give us all we desire, just for being home.

I liked this one from the section on “Forgiveness”:

The interesting thing is that when you can forgive people for not being God then you can celebrate that they are a reflection of God. You can say, “Since you are not God, I love you because you have such beautiful gifts of God’s love.” You don’t have everything of God, but what you have to offer is worth celebrating. By celebrate, I mean to lift up, affirm, confirm, to rejoice in another person’s gifts. You can say you are a reflection of that unlimited love.

And finally, I love the image in this one:

Forgiveness is the great spiritual weapon against the Evil One. As long as we remain victims of anger and resentment, the power of darkness can continue to divide us and tempt us with endless power games. But when we forgive those who threaten our lives, they lose their power over us…. Forgiveness enables us to take the first step of the dance.

Some beautiful thoughts for people interested in deepening their prayer lives.

CrossroadPublishing.com

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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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 March, Book One, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Graphic Memoir, History, Starred Review 0

March
Book One

by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

Top Shelf Productions, 2013. 123 pages.
Starred Review
2014 Coretta Scott King Honor Book

This is not a graphic novel, it’s a graphic memoir, and all the contents are true. Congressman John Lewis tells about what it was like for him as a young man involved in the Civil Rights Movement. The comic book format combined with the personal remembrances give this book an immediacy that will stick with the reader.

There’s a frame that’s in place on the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration. The congressman is telling two kids visiting his office what it was like when he was their age. And then he tells how he first heard about people speaking up for civil rights, and how he went to nonviolence training, participated in and organized sit-ins, and began the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

This is only Book One. There’s a sort of prologue scene crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge during the March on Washington. We don’t get that far in the story, though we do learn, right at the start, that of all the speakers that day, John Lewis is the only one who’s still around.

This graphic memoir makes history come alive in a dramatic way.

I’m reading it because it’s the last contender I hadn’t read for School Library Journal’s Battle of the Books, which starts next week. I’m not surprised to find some powerful reading here. It fits in well with the other contenders.

topshelfcomix.com

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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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Walk Your Butt Off! by Sarah Lorge Butler with Leslie Bonci, and Michele Stanten

Health, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Walk Your Butt Off!

Go from Sedentary to Slim in 12 Weeks with This Breakthrough Walking Plan

by Sarah Lorge Butler with Leslie Bonci, MPH, RD, and Michele Stanten

Rodale, 2013. 298 pages.
Starred Review

This is the book I used in 2013 to lose ten pounds and increase my fitness level.

I checked out a copy from the library and liked it so much, I bought my own copy, which I could write in.

This year, I moved to a condo next to a small lake. I wanted to increase my fitness and lose some weight. The beautiful thing about walking is that my beautiful lake was wonderful motivation. (I did stop when the weather got cold and dark. But I plan to start up again in Springtime.)

It’s now been two years since my stroke. I did not have the stroke because of poor fitness, but after having the stroke, I was much less active, and I ended up with pretty poor fitness.

What I like about the program presented here is that they gradually increase the amount of work you do. The first week’s workout has you do 2 to 4 brisk walks for 20 to 30 minutes. You will also do 3 Speed Walks. The first week, the Speed Walks just involve a 2-minute warm-up at an easy pace, followed by 4 minutes at a brisk pace and 1 minute at a fast pace 4 times. You finish up with 3 minutes of easy walking.

As the weeks progress, the amount of time you spend walking at a “fast” pace increases. Since they use descriptions of “easy,” “brisk,” and “fast,” anyone can adapt this program to their own level. About halfway through the program, they add in Challenge Walks, just walking as fast as you can for 15 minutes. They also have you time your walking at the start and at the end of 12 weeks.

Now, I had some interruptions. When I had a month-long headache, I took some time off walking, and had to start back up a few weeks earlier than where I left off. They have some diet advice, which I didn’t pay a lot of attention to. (I was more interested in fitness than losing weight, though I was very happy to lose ten pounds.)

They have tips along the way to help your walking form, and inspirational stories from their test group.

I think this is a great program for people at any fitness level. You can adapt what it means to do “easy,” “brisk,” and “fast” walking to whatever you need it to be.

rodalebooks.com

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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 via Amazon.com.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 All the Truth That’s in Me, by Julie Berry

Historical, Mystery, Romance, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

All the Truth That’s in Me

by Julie Berry

Viking, 2013. 288 pages.
Starred Review

I read this book simply because it’s in School Library Journal’s Battle of the Books, which commences March 10. I’m not sure what I expected, since I hadn’t heard much about it, but I was blown away and kept reading well into the night.

This is a rare book that’s written in second person voice, addressed to “you.” But the speaker is not addressing the reader. It soon becomes clear that she’s addressing the young man she loves.

Here’s how the book begins, with the heading “Before”:

We came here by ship, you and I.

I was a baby on my mother’s knee, and you were a lisping, curly-headed boy playing at your mother’s feet all through that weary voyage.

Watching us, our mothers got on so well together that our fathers chose adjacent farm plots a mile from town, on the western fringe of a Roswell Station that was much smaller then.

I remember my mother telling tales of the trip when I was young. Now she never speaks of it at all.

She said I spent the whole trip wide-eyed, watching you.

She still watches him. She remembers when he smiled at her, gave her posies. But something terrible happened, and now the whole village barely notices she is there.

We get bits of what happened, all along the way. We find out why she doesn’t speak. She was gone for two years. When she came back, she was out of her head, left for dead, with half her tongue cut out.

Then ships are sighted off the shore, coming toward the town. The Homelanders are bringing war to them, wanting their fertile farms. All the men of the town must fight, even though their arsenal was destroyed, even though they are doomed.

But Judith knows where to find help – only she must confront her own nightmares.

And after she does so, everything changes.

This book is marvelously constructed, revealing bits of the past at a natural pace, as it comes up in the present, finally with mysteries solved at the very end. I find myself wanting to read it all over again, knowing now how it all fits together.

And ultimately, it’s a love story. And a story of healing. And a story of courage. And a story of a wounded girl finding her voice.

julieberrybooks.com
penguin.com

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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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Peace a Day at a Time, by Karen Casey

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review 0

Peace

A Day at a Time

365 Meditations for Wisdom and Serenity

by Karen Casey

Conari Press, 2011.
Starred Review

I’ve been a fan of Karen Casey’s writings for several years now. After I went through her daily meditations book, Each Day a New Beginning for a full year and a half, I wanted to start another one.

Peace: A Day at a Time is a collection of meditations from Karen Casey’s other books, so some were, indeed, a repeat from Each Day a New Beginning. But that’s all good! Her writings indeed help you start each day at peace.

Here’s an example of a day’s meditation from early in the year, titled “Unique Journey”:

The more comfortable we are with the knowledge that each of us has a unique journey to make, a specific purpose to fulfill, the easier it is to let other people live their own lives. When family members are in trouble with alcohol or other drugs, it’s terribly difficult to let them have their own journey. Because we love them, we feel compelled to help them get clean and sober. In reality, all we can do is pray for their safety and well-being. Their recovery is up to them and their Higher Power.

For some of us it’s a leap of faith to believe there really is a Divine plan of which we are all a part. And perhaps it’s not even necessary to believe. But we’ll find the hours of every day gentler if we accept that a Higher Power is watching over all of us.

Being able to let others live and learn their own lessons is one of our lessons. The more we master it, the more peaceful we’ll be.

This book is highly recommended for daily thoughts on letting go and living the life you were made to live.

redwheelweiser.com

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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 personal copy, purchased in a physical bookstore. (Believe it or not!)

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Africa Is My Home, by Monica Edinger, illustrated by Robert Byrd

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Africa Is My Home

A Child of the Amistad

by Monica Edinger

illustrated by Robert Byrd

Candlewick Press, 2013. 60 pages.
Starred Review

I should mention right up front that I’ve met Monica Edinger on a few occasions and had a chance to talk with her and enjoyed the conversation tremendously. She is one of School Library Journal’s Battle Commanders in the Battle of the Books! So I was definitely predisposed to like this book.

But there’s a whole lot to like! This book is based on a true story of Margru, a girl who was on the ship Amistad, where the slaves fought back. She ended up gaining her freedom and going back to Africa in her adulthood as a missionary.

The book is presented as fiction, but the author explains in a note at the back that she researched the book intending to write nonfiction, but because of a lack of material about when Margru was a child, she was able to present the story more effectively writing as fiction, from Margru’s point of view, “giving Margru a voice of her own.” The author says, “The story is still true; those instances where I have imagined her feelings, invented dialogue, or created scenes are based on my research and on firsthand experiences in Sierra Leone.”

And the story is a dramatic one. It covers Margru being sold into slavery, the dramatic revolt on the ship (after they had already landed in Cuba and been sold), and then the long process where the mutineers were put on trial and their fate was decided. During this process, it also describes Margru’s feelings about America (All those clothes! And snow!) and how she went to school, became a Christian, and decided to train to be a teacher to teach her people at home in Africa.

The book is not long, and there are illustrations on every set of pages, so it’s accessible to children who are as young as Margru, nine years old when she was sold into slavery. A powerful story that really happened, this will capture children’s imaginations.

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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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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 Cress, by Marissa Meyer

Fairy Tale Variant, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Cress

The Lunar Chronicles, Book Three

by Marissa Meyer

Feiwel and Friends, New York, 2014. 552 pages.
Starred Review

Cress continues the Lunar Chronicles, begun in Cinder, and continued in Scarlet. All of the books play off a fairy tale, in a science fiction setting, but the story they tell is something wholly new. All of the books do feature a romance for our heroine, and each of those romances is totally different from the others.

I completely loved Cinder, but wasn’t as enthusiastic about Scarlet. I didn’t really buy the creation of wolf-human hybrids, or if they exist that Scarlet would fall in love with one. Cress gets back to the rest of the story, so I again loved this volume.

In case you don’t get the reference, Cress is a version of “Rapunzel,” since that’s essentially what the German word means. Never mind that in this case, “Cress” is short for “Crescent Moon.” Instead of a tower, Cress is imprisoned in a satellite. She’s good at hacking, so she tracks all the Earthen news feeds for the Lunar Queen, and enables them to hide the Lunar ships.

Cress has been ordered to track down Cinder and Thorne, who now have Scarlet and Wolf along with them. But instead of giving them up to the Lunars, she contacts them and convinces them to rescue her. But then the witch — actually, the mind-controlling thaumaturge — returns unexpectedly, and the rescue doesn’t go as planned, separating the team into different groups.

Cress and Thorne are thrown together, trying to survive in the desert. Meanwhile, Cinder needs to make plans. Above all, she needs to stop the wedding of Queen Levana to Emperor Kai.

Marissa Meyer is skilled at keeping us interested in several different plot threads at the same time. She keeps the sections short, but they’re equally packed with action, so we’re never annoyed with her for what she left behind.

Cress is quite different from our earlier two heroines. She’s naïve and given to daydreams, which makes sense for a girl imprisoned in a satellite. Yes, she has long hair. The thaumaturge didn’t allow sharp objects on the satellite. She’s short, and she’s a shell with no mind-control powers, so you might think she wouldn’t help their mission. But her detailed knowledge of Lunar cyberwarfare is exactly what they need.

This book works as a book in a quartet should — it’s got a wonderfully satisfying story on its own, with a beginning, middle, and end. But there’s definitely a bigger story still going on, and Queen Levana still threatens Earth at the end of this book. The next book, Winter, is promised “soon,” and I can hardly wait!

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/cress.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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs 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!