Review of Orangutan Tongs, by Jon Agee

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Poetry, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

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Orangutan Tongs

Poems to Tangle Your Tongue

by Jon Agee

Disney/Hyperion Books, 2009.  48 pages.

Starred review.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #2 Picture Books

This book is entirely too much fun.  I brought it home and read it to my teenage son, and, as I suspected, he couldn’t resist trying it himself.  For Dr. Seuss’s birthday, we recently had a tweetle beetle binge from Fox in Socks, so it was fun to read to each other and laugh from a new book where I didn’t have the advantage of about forty years of practice.

Orangutan Tongs (Can you resist saying that title aloud?) is a book of tongue twister poems, with illustrations.  They are all quite silly and good for fun and laughter.

My son claimed that he had not been practicing, but I found it highly suspicious that when I came home from work the next day, he was suddenly able to recite the Peggy Babcock poem:

Peggy Babcock at work.  Peggy Babcock at play.

Peggy Babcock tomorrow.  Peggy Babcock today.

Peggy Babcock, repeated, is tricky to say:

Peggy Babcock, Peggy Babcock, Peggy Babcock, ole!

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Review of The Graveyard Book audiobook, by Neil Gaiman

Adventure, Audiobooks, Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

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The Graveyard Book

by Neil Gaiman

Narrated by the author.

Recorded Books, New York, 2008.  7 compact discs.  7.75 hours.

Starred review.

2009 Newbery Award winner.

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #2 Children’s Fantasy and Science Fiction

When The Graveyard Book came out, I checked it out for my 14-year-old son to read, knowing he’d want to read anything by Neil Gaiman.  He told me I should read it, but after listening to Coraline, which was very good but exceedingly creepy, I decided that a book by Neil Gaiman with “graveyard” in the title was bound to be too creepy for me.

However, when The Graveyard Book won the Newbery Award, I decided that as a responsible children’s librarian, I really should read it, and I was completely delighted with it.  There’s a little bit of creepiness, but not nearly so much as Coraline.  In fact, I think The Graveyard Book would make fantastic listening for an entire family on a car trip, because it appeals to a wide range of ages.  (If your kids are old enough to handle the fact that the family is murdered at the beginning, they will be able to handle anything else in the book.)

The premise, and the reason for the name, is the same idea as The Jungle Book, except instead of a baby being adopted by the dwellers of the jungle, a baby is adopted by the dwellers of a graveyard.

The book does begin as a family has just been murdered.  The killer is looking to finish the job, but the baby has toddled off.  In the graveyard, a loving woman who always wanted to be a mother convinces her husband to take pity on the baby and take him in.  As Mowgli’s parents needed the approval of the pack, so this baby needs the approval of the inhabitants of the graveyard.  He’s named Nobody Owens, Bod for short.

There are some fun parallels between Bod’s story and The Jungle Book.  For example, instead of getting kidnapped by apes, Bod gets kidnapped by ghouls.  At first the book seems very episodic (with extremely interesting episodes), but by the end, all the adventures tie together into Bod’s need to avenge his family, escape their fate, and live a life outside the graveyard.

Neil Gaiman’s narration is simply awesome.  He now lives in America, but he has a wonderful voice and just enough British accent to sound incredibly cultured.  He gives the different characters different voices, with accents as appropriate.  I found his reading of the chapter with the ghouls especially delightful.

Although I’m sure this book makes great reading on your own, hearing Neil Gaiman read it makes for an incredible listening experience.  I found myself lingering in the car more than once because I got to work too quickly.

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

Review of Heart and Soul, by Maeve Binchy

Fiction Review, General, Romance, Starred Review 0

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Heart and Soul

by Maeve Binchy

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2009.  418 pages.

Starred review.

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #4 Fiction

Maeve Binchy’s books are warm, friendly, and cozy.  She specializes in telling stories about a community of people.  In Heart and Soul, the community is a new heart clinic in Dublin.  We look through windows into the lives of the people who come to work at the clinic, the patients, and others touched by them.

To add to the fun, the author brings back old friends who played a part in her earlier books.  You definitely don’t need to have read the earlier books to appreciate Heart and Soul, but it does make you feel that you are catching up with old friends.  I found myself wishing that I had not missed her last book, Whitethorn Woods.  I will definitely have to rectify that.

In Maeve Binchy’s earlier books, there seemed to be a pattern that the more ideal the marriage seemed, the more sure you could be that it was doomed.  These more recent books are gentler.  People still have problems, but personally I’m glad that there are less dirty rotten cheating husbands than in some of her earlier books.  Her characters cope with their problems with courage, compassion and resilience, and it’s delightful to spend time in the company of these people.

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Review of Tales from Outer Suburbia, by Shaun Tan

Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

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Tales of Outer Suburbia

by Shaun Tan

Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), 2008.  96 pages.

Starred review.

Truly Shaun Tan is the supreme master of the short-short story genre!

This book contains fifteen illustrated stories that are strange, strange, strange.  They are bizarre, they are haunting, and they are completely delightful.

There’s water buffalo who lives on the corner and points people in the right direction.  There’s an exchange student who leaves a surprising gift.  There’s a boyish expedition to the edge of the world.  All the stories are told as if someone’s matter-of-factly telling something that happened to them, once.

This is the sort of book you have to share.  I found myself exclaiming over each story, so of course I got my teenage son to read it.  Even that wasn’t enough, as I decided I had to share it with my other son, too, so this is his present for his twenty-first birthday. 

As The Arrival did, in many ways this book creates an entirely new category.  Let’s see, I suppose you might call it illustrated science fiction short-short stories.  I think I’ll just call it irresistible.  Try it yourself — read one story and see if you aren’t too intrigued to stop.

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

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

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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

Art, Children's Nonfiction Review, Creativity, Starred Review 0

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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

Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

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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

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

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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

Adventure, Classics, Fiction Review, Graphic Novel, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

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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

Biography, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review, True Stories 0

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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