Review of A Curse as Dark as Gold, by Elizabeth C. Bunce

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A Curse as Dark as Gold

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), 2008.  395 pages.

Winner of the William C. Morris YA Debut Award 2008.

Starred review.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #4 Fantasy Teen Fiction

http://www.elizabethcbunce.com/

http://www.arthuralevinebooks.com/

http://www.scholastic.com/

I do love fairy tale retellings.  A Curse as Dark as Gold takes the basic story of Rumpelstiltskin and sets it in a woolen mill shortly before the Industrial Revolution.  The author retains the feeling of magic and romance, and gives us a determined and strong heroine.

When Charlotte Miller’s father dies, leaving an enormous mortgage on the mill, Charlotte knows she must do something to keep Stirwaters running.  The entire village depends on the mill for their livelihoods.

But everyone says there’s a curse on the mill, and as soon as Charlotte and her sister Rosie overcome one seemingly insurmountable obstacle, another one rises up to take its place.  So when a strange man who calls himself Jack Spinner offers to help, Charlotte seems to have no choice.

This story is dark, as it does involve curses and difficulties.  But Charlotte is such a determined, capable character, you quickly find yourself rooting for her to succeed, even though you can’t imagine how she’ll pull it off.

The author fills the story with details about the woolen industry before the industrial revolution, so it almost feels more like a historical novel than a fantasy.  However, there is a strong undercurrent of magic, which practical Charlotte does not want to acknowledge.

This is a magnificently written book, and I’m excited to learn it’s Elizabeth Bunce’s first.  If this is how she begins her writing career, I will eagerly wait to see what she writes next!

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

Review of A Is For Art: An Abstract Alphabet, by Stephen T. Johnson

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A Is For Art

An Abstract Alphabet

by Stephen T. Johnson

A Paula Wiseman Book (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), New York, 2008.  42 pages.

Starred Review.

Here’s an alphabet book for adults!  Or teens.  Or children.  A Is For Art is amazing and thought-provoking and clever and playful all at once.

The illustrations are photographs of actual abstract art works.  The artist says,

“For the past six years I have been exploring the English dictionary, selectively choosing and organizing particular words from each letter of the alphabet and, based solely on the meanings of the words, developing a visual work of art.  I took ordinary objects and made them unfamiliar, removing functionality in order to reveal their potential metaphorical associations, which can lead in turn to overlapping and sometimes paradoxical meanings.  I call these individual works ‘literal abstractions’ and the ongoing series An Abstract Alphabet….

“And just for fun, I have included the letter shapes of each letter of the alphabet in all the works.  Well, most anyway — you’ll see.

“For me, art, like language, is about discovery.  At its very best it can be moving, transcendent.  Or on a visceral level it can simply make one laugh out loud.  Art provokes, confounds, challenges, surprises, informs, rejuvenates, and stretches our way of seeing the world.  We cannot get enough of it.  So I hope that my work in this book will ignite and inspire dialogues about art, words, and ideas, which might quicken children and adults to generate creative associations and explore new ways of pulling abstractions out of the real.”

This book, left around, will pull people into delighted browsing.

My personal favorite was the sculpture for the letter M.  Here’s the explanation:

Meditation on the Memory of a Princess

“Motionless, a man-made, monochromatic magenta mass mimics multiple mattresses and makes a massive mound near a mini mauve marble.”

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Review of Miss Spitfire, by Sarah Miller

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Miss Spitfire

Reaching Helen Keller

by Sarah Miller

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York, 2007.  208 pages.

Starred review.

Here’s the novelized story of Annie Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher.  Sarah Miller does a magnificent job making us feel what it must have been like for a poor orphan to come miles to teach a spoiled, passionate blind and deaf child, who showed an ability for clever imitation, but didn’t show glimmers of understanding.

Annie taught Helen discipline, and then gave her the power of words.  But she might never have persevered if she hadn’t been a spitfire herself.

This book carries the reader into a compelling piece of history, and gives us a window into the mind of someone whose sheer stubbornness was responsible for a miracle.  But how amazing that she didn’t give up before that wonderful day came!

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Review of Hate That Cat, by Sharon Creech

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Hate That Cat

by Sharon Creech

Joanna Cotler Books (HarperCollins), 2008.  153 pages.

Starred review.

Hooray!  Miss Stretchberry moved up a grade, and Jack is in her class once again!  This wonderful follow-up to Love That Dog features Jack doing further explorations with poetry as well as coming to terms with the cat next door.

Hate That Cat plays with language, as Jack writes poems in the style of poets like William Carlos Williams, Walter Dean Myers, and even Edgar Allen Poe.  (The example poems are included at the back.)

This is a wonderful exploration of what you can do with poetry, but along the way it tells a heart-warming story about Jack, who still misses his dog, Sky.

Here’s a wonderful poem Jack writes about his mother, who is deaf:

SILENT SOUNDS OF MOM

(Inspired by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe)

by Jack

See her hands in the air waving here waving there!

What flickering formations

those compositions dare!

How she sing sing sings

in a swish and a bound

bringing sound sound sound

To the silence of the air

to the silentabulation of the hush

and the hums

of the air, air, air, air,

air, air, air–

of the humming and the hushing

of the air.

This book doesn’t take long to read, but it will inspire even an adult reader to look at poetry in a new way.

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Review of Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

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Watchmen

by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

DC Comics, 1986. 

Winner of the Hugo Award.

Starred review.

I finally read Watchmen this week, since I definitely have to take my teenage son to see the movie the day it comes out.  Watchmen is acclaimed by many as the greatest graphic novel of all time, and I can see why.  This book has layers upon layers upon layers of meaning.  You definitely only scratch the surface of all that’s going on the first time you read it.

Set in an alternate 1985, the story begins with the death of costumed hero The Comedian.  Rorschach, another masked hero, thinks there may be a plot against masked vigilantes.  Someone with great power must be behind it, because who else could have thrown The Comedian out a window?

My son is rereading the book in the Absolute Watchmen edition.  The pages and pictures are larger, so it’s easier to see the many important details all lurking in the pages before you even notice them.  As I was writing this, my son noticed another one — that Rorschach didn’t have the distinctive speech bubbles until he really “became” Rorschach.  (I hadn’t noticed that he even had distinctive speech bubbles.)  There are thousands of details planted like that.  This is a graphic novel where you would still notice new details on the twentieth reading that fit perfectly and provide clues to what’s really going on.

This book is a mystery, a social commentary, a science fiction adventure, an alternate history, and so much more.  Mind you, it is a dark story, with lots of sex and violence.  If you wouldn’t be comfortable watching an R rated movie, then you won’t want to read this book.

At first, I thought I just enjoyed it as a work of art.  There’s no question that the book is superbly executed, thought-provoking, and interesting.  However, on reflection, now that I’ve finished it, I find I really did care about the characters.  They grew on me.  I did like them, and they seem like real people, with real concerns and complexities.  For example, I found myself annoyed right along with Laurie when Jon starts talking about what’s going to happen in a few minutes.  Each character is distinctive, with their own hang-ups and desires, and the authors portray that skillfully, and make you care.

Definitely worth the hype.  I’m looking forward to seeing the movie.  And I’m sure I’ll come back to the book some day, and try to pick up a few hundred more details that I missed the first time.

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Review of Playing It By Heart, by Melody Beattie

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Playing It by Heart

Taking Care of Yourself No Matter What

by Melody Beattie

Hazelden, Center City, Minnesota, 1999.  262 pages.

Starred Review.

http://www.hazelden.org/

Melody Beattie is the author of the wonderful books Codependent No More, Beyond Codependency, and The Language of Letting Go.  In Playing It by Heart, she gets even more personal and tells her life story.

Her story is incredible — especially incredible that she survived it.  She has lived through addiction, time in prison, desperate poverty, hospitalization, failed marriages, the death of a son.  And throughout the telling of her story, she draws beautiful, life-affirming insights.

I especially love the way she sums things up toward the end of the book:

“Now there’s at least two ways I can look at all of this.  I can say look at everything I’ve had to go through.  Or I can stand back and say wow.  Look at everything I got to experience, feel, and see.  And as much as I’ve resisted and struggled each step of the way, maybe that’s why I am here: to go through all of this and see from my point of view exactly how all these things feel.”

After reading this book, I find myself praying blessings upon Melody Beattie — because of how powerfully she has blessed me.  If you want a reminder of how powerfully God can redeem desperate situations, I highly recommend this book.

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Find this review on the main site at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/playing_it_by_heart.html

Review of Controlling People, by Patricia Evans

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Controlling People

How to Recognize, Understand, and Deal with People Who Try to Control You

by Patricia Evans

Adams Media Corporation, Avon, Massachusetts, 2002.  300 pages.

Starred Review.

http://www.patriciaevans.com/

http://www.verbalabuse.com/

A friend recommended Patricia Evans’ first book, The Verbally Abusive Relationship, to me.  I found what I began so helpful, I checked out all of her books.  I seem to be finishing them in the opposite order in which they were written.  However, I am finding each book tremendously helpful.

Controlling People helps make sense of behavior that seems inexplicable.  I read most of this book at a time when my mind kept spinning, trying to understand how someone I loved could say some things that seemed completely outrageous.  The scenario described in this book enabled me to understand more clearly how this could be, and strengthened me to keep from the conclusion that I was somehow the crazy one to think this behavior unacceptable.

In the introduction, Patricia Evans says, “You are not alone in your desire to understand the problem of control.  Thousands of people have asked me, “Why would anyone act ‘like that’?”  They describe the way they’ve been treated, and they wonder what compels one to try to control others.  “Why don’t most people who try to control others see that they’re being oppressive?  Are they under a spell or what?” they ask.

“Many people have also asked why they can’t seem to stop attempting to control others, even when these destructive behaviors are driving their loved ones away.  They often say that something seems to “come over” them and things “go wrong.”  At times, they are so unaware of their behavior and its impact that they don’t realize that anything has gone wrong until it’s too late — a loved one has left or violence has erupted….

“This book is a quest to find answers to these questions.  It will take us on a journey of exploration through a maze of senseless behaviors woven into our world.  By the end of our journey we’ll be in a new place with a new perspective on the problem of control.  And the journey itself may very well be spell-breaking.”

She talks about how and why verbal abuse is based on pretending:

“If someone defines you, even in subtle ways, they are pretending to know the unknowable.  There is a quality of fantasy to their words and sometimes to their actions.  Even so, they are usually unaware of the fact that they are playing “let’s pretend.”  They fool themselves and sometimes others into thinking that what they are saying is true or that what they are doing is right.

“When people “make up” your reality — as if they were you — they are trying to control you, even when they don’t realize it.

“When people attempt to control you they begin by pretending.  When they define you they are acting in a senseless way.  They are pretending.  When people act as if you do not exist or are not a real person with a reality of your own … they are pretending.  In this subtle and often unconscious way, they are attempting to exert control over you — your space, time, resources, or even your life.

“We know that they are pretending because in actual fact, no one can tell you what you want, believe, should do, or why you have done what you have done.  No one can know your inner reality, your intentions, your motives, what you think, believe, feel, like, dislike, what you know, how you do what you do, or who you are.  If someone does pretend to know your inner reality:  “You’re trying to start a fight,” they have it backwards.  People can only know themselves.  It doesn’t work the other way around.

“Since you can only define yourself, your self-definition is yours.  It isn’t necessary that you prove it or explain it.  It is, after all, your own.  Self-definition is inherent in being a person.

“Despite the evidence, it is difficult for many people to realize that the person who defines them is not being rational.  They feel inclined to defend themselves as if the person defining them were rational.  But by trying to defend themselves against someone’s definitions, they are acknowledging those definitions as valid, that they make sense, when they are, in fact, complete nonsense.”

Patricia Evans goes on to explain how someone can fall into this trap of building up a Pretend Person whom they anchor in the body of their loved one.  When the real person acts differently than the way the Pretend Person is supposed to act, including not knowing or not agreeing with their own thoughts and feelings, then they naturally get very angry.

The sad thing is that these Controllers are trying to connect with someone, but end up with severe disconnection.

The author doesn’t leave it at that.  She does offer suggestions for how to become a Spellbreaker and break the spell that Controllers seem to be operating under.  Even if the Controller in your life does not change, she shows you ways to break out of the influence of the spell yourself.  At the very least, the understanding of the dynamics involved helps break the crazy-making aspects of being exposed to these irrational behaviors.

This is a valuable and helpful book.  If any of this sounds the slightest bit familiar, I highly recommend reading further.  Patricia Evans goes into great depth and great detail about this pervasive problem, even covering groups connected by hate.  Ultimately, her message is one of great hope.

“Instead of acting to keep Pretend Person “alive” by means of fear, intimidation, and dominance, former Controllers find that they can accept and give love freely.  Their strength flows from spirit full enough to nurture another, alive enough to act toward good, clear enough to understand, faithful enough to wait and see, fearless enough to reveal the truth, free enough to choose to learn, courageous enough to stand alone, connected enough to love the other.”

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/controlling_people.html

Review of All Creatures Great and Small, by James Herriot

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All Creatures Great and Small

by James Herriot

St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 1998.  First published in 1972.  437 pages.

Starred review.

I doubt I need to say much about this classic story of James Herriot’s tales of starting out as a young veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales.  I’m quite sure I first read it sometime when I was in elementary school.  They’re wholesome stories, and I enjoyed them as much then as I did delighting over them as an adult.

I thought I’d reread All Creatures Great and Small to give myself some good laughs in between other books.  Since the book is mostly episodic — with mainly separate, funny stories — it works well to read it in bits and pieces.

There are overarching threads, like the memorable characters of his employer Siegfried and his brother Tristan.  But mainly the book tells delightful, funny, and heartwarming tales of his work with animals and the farmers of the Dales.

This book is definitely the sort worth coming back to every few years to enjoy all over again.

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Find this review on the main site at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/all_creatures_great_and_small.html

Review of Down Girl and Sit: Bad to the Bone, by Lucy Nolan

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Down Girl and Sit

Bad to the Bone

by Lucy Nolan

illustrated by Mike Reed

Marshall Cavendish Children, 2008.  53 pages.

Starred review

www.marshallcavendish.us/kids

I delight to think of a beginning reader decoding this book and being rewarded all along the way with hilarious inside jokes.  Down Girl and Sit: Bad to the Bone has four chapters, so it is for a child already reading.  But the chapters are short, full of pictures, and laugh out loud funny in a way the narrator would never understand — but the reader does.

Down Girl tells us the story of how she and her friend Sit attempt to train their masters with simple concepts.  For example:  “Cats are bad.  Dogs are good.”

The reader knows that Down Girl is completely misinterpreting her master Rruff’s intentions, as Down Girl earnestly explains how she loyally carries them out.

Especially delightful and reminiscent of “Who’s on First?” is the chapter after Down Girl and Sit tried to be “bad to the bone” to get attention.  Their masters take them, along with another dog Hush, to Obedience School. 

Their poor masters are not very quick learners!  They keep calling Down Girl and Hush by Sit’s name!  Then they start using the name of some dog named “Stay.”

This could have gone on forever, but thank goodness a squirrel ran past.  We all jumped.  We barked and tried to chase him.  Our masters yanked on our leashes.

“Down girl!”  “Sit!”  “Hush!”

Finally!  They got our names right.  Now they might pass the class.

We looked to see if the teacher was smiling.  He was not.

Well, I can’t blame him.  We have been working with our masters for a long time.  We haven’t gotten very far either.

I wanted the teacher to cheer up, so I jumped up and kissed him.

“Down, girl!” he said.

Yes!

I wagged.  It is very, very hard to train a human.  But sometimes, just sometimes, they can surprise you.

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Review of Loving What Is, by Byron Katie

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Loving What Is

Four Questions That Can Change Your Life

by Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell

Harmony Books (Random House), New York, 2002.  258 pages.

Starred review.

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #4 Other Nonfiction

http://www.thework.org/

http://www.stephenmitchellbooks.com/

http://www.randomhouse.com/

Loving What Is is hard to describe.  It doesn’t quite fit into the box of any religion or philosophy I might try to fit it into.  In my view, this is a tool that a person from any religion can use to move further along their own spiritual path.

The title probably says it best.  With her process, Byron Katie shows you how to begin to stop arguing with reality and start loving what actually is happening in your life.

Katie doesn’t tell you what to think.  The Work she presents consists of four questions you ask yourself.  She doesn’t tell you how to answer them.

You start with a stressful thought.  She even suggests you fill out a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet to find thoughts you are thinking that are causing you stress.  I can use the example, “My husband should not have left me.”

Question One is:  Is it true?

It’s a simple question, and usually our gut reaction is Yes, of course it’s true!  In my example, the Bible even says that he was sinning, so of course he should not have done that.  He hurt people, didn’t he?

Question Two asks, Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

This question takes you deeper.  After all, what do I mean by “should”?  I’ve got a much closer relationship with God than I did before my husband left.  I’m happier and healthier, and am enjoying pursuing my own interests and passions more than I was able to when I was living as a wife.  Can I absolutely know that he should not have left me?

Question Three asks, How do you react when you think that thought?

For my example, the answer’s easy.  When I think the thought, “My husband should not have left me,” I get angry and sad.  I start wanting some kind of compensation.  I feel sorry for myself.  I want to make him change.  Bottom line, none of those reactions make me feel good.

Question Four asks, Who would you be without the thought?

Notice that she doesn’t tell you to give up the thought!  Katie’s far more gentle than that.  She just asks you to envision what you would be like without the thought.  In my example, I’d be happier, freer, and much more satisfied with my life now.  I’d have a lot more joy in the present.

Finally, she follows up the questions by suggesting that you look at “the Turnaround” and see if that statement might be even more true.

In my example, “My husband should not have left me,” there are at least three turnarounds:

I should not have left me.

I should not have left my husband.

My husband should have left me.

Just looking at the first one, when I’m in my husband’s business, brooding about what he should have done, aren’t I in that moment leaving myself?

Besides that, I can’t do anything about what my husband does, only about what I choose to do and think.

My example is not as complete as the many examples given in the book of people from a wide variety of circumstances going through the four questions with Katie’s help.

I find my resistance to the ideas here is mainly centered on the idea that no one “should” sin.  I don’t like the turnaround “My husband should have left me,” because it sounds like condoning sin or calling evil good.  (How arrogant I sound even admitting that!)

I can deal with it better when I realize that Katie’s ideas greatly help to get me to a Joseph place:  “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, to accomplish what is now being done.”  After all, if I am happier and healthier than before my husband left me, what is there still to be angry with him about?  Who am I to get hung up on what he should or should not do?  What business is that of mine anyway?

This is why I think that Katie’s ideas can be helpful for anyone from any religious background.  Unless that religion encourages you to judge your neighbor — but I don’t think there are many of those out there!

She helps you examine what you are thinking and how that fits with reality.  You can become much more joyful about what actually is happening to you.

Definitely ideas worth thinking about!

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/loving_what_is.html