Review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Audiobook, by J. K. Rowling

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

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,

by J. K. Rowling
Performed by Jim Dale

Listening Library, 2007.  21 hours, 40 minutes.  12 cassettes.

Review written February 22, 2008.

Starred Review.

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2009:  #3, Audiobooks

I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last summer, and finally got to the top of the request list to listen to the cassettes.  After finishing the book a second time, I’m again hit by sadness that the story is over, that there isn’t any more.

I’m reviewing the audiobook separately because I simply have to gush about Jim Dale.  He is incredible!  His vocal range is amazing.  He uses different voices for the enormous cast of characters and makes the books come alive.

We’ve read all seven books aloud as a family, but I still get something new out of hearing Jim Dale read them.  Of course, his British accent adds to the enjoyment!  But more than that, his amazing expressiveness adds a whole new dimension to the books.  If you love Harry Potter, here’s a way to enjoy the series afresh.  If you haven’t read the books and have been meaning to, treat yourself to listening to them.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/hp_deathly_hallows.html

Review of The Arrival, by Shaun Tan

Graphic Novel, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

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The Arrival

by Shaun Tan

Starred Review.
Arthur Levine Books, New York, 2006.

The Arrival is an amazingly effective story of the immigrant experience—told in a graphic novel without any text—or at least without any text that we can understand.

The illustrations, beautifully drawn and wonderfully detailed, show us a man leaving his family behind to go on a long journey.  The pictures seem to be telling a historical story of a man traveling to America.

But then he arrives, and we see fantastic animals such as don’t exist on earth (at least that I know about!).  The letters of the text on signs are incomprehensible.  The clothing is different and strange.  The buildings are wild, unfamiliar shapes.

The man must try to find shelter, learn how to use the machines in his dwelling, find food, (including figuring out what it looks like and how to eat it) and find work.  He meets other immigrants and hears their stories.  And above all, he wants to bring his wife and daughter there to join him.

All this is shown to us without any words we can recognize.  By using strange, alien-looking objects and animals, Shaun Tan communicates the strangeness immigrants experience far more effectively than he could ever have done with words.

This book is shelved in the Young Adult section, but can span all ages from upper elementary to adults.  The powerful, wonderfully crafted images will stick in the reader’s mind for a long time to come.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/arrival.html

Review of Fairest Audiobook, by Gail Carson Levine

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

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Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine

Read and Sung by Sarah Naughton and the Full Cast Family

Music by Todd Hobin

Full Cast Audio, 2007. Unabridged.

Review written January 28, 2008.

Starred Review.

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2009:  #2, Audiobooks.

Here’s a delightful audiobook well worth listening to.

Gail Carson Levine, author of Ella Enchanted, has written a wonderful retelling of Snow White.  Aza lives in Ayortha, where everyone loves to sing.  She’s quite an eyesore, with her pale skin and blood-red lips, but she is blessed with a magnificent voice.

The Full Cast Audio production of this book advertised that it has more songs than a Broadway musical. This is the perfect tale to listen to, since music is such an important part of the story.

My expectations were extremely high.  Full Cast Audio always does an excellent job, using so many actors for their productions.  The book itself was wonderful, and I was looking forward to hearing it done with music.

Perhaps my expectations were too high, as I was a little bit disappointed.  Unfortunately, the Playaway version that I listened to did not have good sound quality (maybe the fault of my headphones?) and tended to static any time anyone hit a high note—definitely detracted from the enjoyment, though that wasn’t the fault of the production.  I think I will want to try it again as a Book on CD, because it was good enough to want to listen to again.

After reading about how wonderful Aza’s voice was, perhaps it was inevitable that I’d be a bit disappointed in any real person trying to play Aza. (Maybe I would have been happy with Charlotte Church?) Sarah Naughton’s voice is definitely nice—it just didn’t quite fit the build-up from the story as being the best voice in the kingdom. In fact, I thought the singing voice of the actress playing Aza’s sister Areta was sweeter.

There were indeed many, many songs, and they were nice—but I wish there had been a few catchier tunes. Maybe it had more songs than a Broadway musical, but the songs weren’t as memorable as you’d find in a Broadway musical.

Still—those are just quibbles. The fact is, for a recorded book, this production is tremendous. They didn’t just read the book; they used many different actors to read the book, and they performed all the songs in a book about music. This recorded book is something special.

I should add that although I was slightly disappointed at first in Aza’s singing voice (though I liked her speaking voice), the Prince’s voice melted my heart. And Queen Ivy’s voice was perfect—her character showed through with every word and every note.

This production would be a wonderful choice for a family trip in the car. You’ve got a compelling story with music to keep everyone entertained. If the kids have heard the story of Snow White, you’ll have fun discussing how the story is the same, yet different. You can discuss other issues that come up. (How important is beauty? Why did the King love Ivy?) In this case, the recorded book offers even more than the original, because it has music.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/fairest_audio.html

Review of Forgive for Love, by Dr. Fred Luskin

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Relationships, Starred Review 0

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Forgive for Love

The Missing Ingredient for a Healthy and Lasting Relationship

by Dr. Fred Luskin

HarperOne, 2007.  234 pages.

Starred Review.

http://www.learningtoforgive.com/

http://www.harperone.com/

After my husband left me, I did a lot of reading about forgiveness.  What do you do when your life falls apart?  Well, I look to books to help.

Of all the books I read about forgiveness, the one that made a breakthrough for me in helping me actually DO it (instead of just thinking about doing in) was Dr. Luskin’s earlier book, Forgive for Good.  (http://www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/forgive_for_good.html)

The key thought that helped me was this:  This person has already hurt me.  Why in the world should I give them power to continue to hurt me by brooding over that hurt?  And he has some practical tips to help you get your mind away from all the ways you were wronged.

I thought that book was so outstanding, when I learned that Dr. Luskin had written a book about forgiving in the context of romantic relationships, I knew I had to read it.

So much of this book rang true for me, quotes from it fill up five pages of my Sonderquotes blog (http://sonderbooks.com/sonderquotes/?s=luskin+forgive+love).

I have come to believe, along with Dr. Luskin, that forgiveness is the essential key to a lasting marriage.

“Think about it.  The centrality of commitment in relationships is expressed through the marriage vows, which ask us to love our partners through richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, and for better and for worse until death.  That means that we promise to love them when they are not doing well, when they have failed, when life is not exactly turning out as hoped, or when we’re going through a financial reversal.  What I see in the marriage vows is a basic prescription:  if we want our relationships to last, we better be prepared to forgive.”

But Dr. Luskin doesn’t only tell us we should forgive, he also shows us how.  This book is full of wise and practical tips toward becoming a better forgiver, and thus a better lover.

As he says in the final chapter, “Both the good news and the bad news about being in a relationship is that you will get many opportunities to practice forgiveness.”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/forgive_for_love.html

Review of Greater Estimations, by Bruce Goldstone

Children's Nonfiction Review, Mathematical, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

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Greater Estimations

by Bruce Goldstone

Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2008.  32 pages.

Starred review.

2009 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Children’s Nonfiction

This book is fascinating.  I brought it to a staff meeting, and my co-workers couldn’t resist looking through the pictures.  I’d enjoy doing a program around this book.

Greater Estimations presents photographs of large quantities of things — rubber duckies, popcorn, parachuters, honeybees, plastic animals, and many other things — and shows the reader strategies for estimating how many there are.  The author also talks about estimating length, height (of buildings), weight (of dogs), area, and volume.

This book can capture your attention for a long time, and if it gets you curious about quantity, the author will have achieved his goal.  He also teaches you ways to satisfy that curiosity on your own.

I find myself wishing that Bruce Goldstone had placed some answers in the back of the book.  I do appreciate his point that estimation is NOT about getting exact answers.  But I do wish he’d given feedback on a few more pages to have some idea if my ability to estimate was improving as a result of his hints.

Anyway, in life you don’t get answers given to you.  This book gives you tools to help you figure out an approximate answer to numerical questions all by yourself.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/greater_estimations.html

Review of Rapunzel’s Revenge, by Shannon and Dean Hale

Adventure, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

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Rapunzel’s Revenge

by Shannon and Dean Hale

Illustrated by Nathan Hale

Bloomsbury, 2008.  144 pages.

Starred Review.

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2009: #2, Teen Graphic Novels

http://www.shannonhale.com/

http://www.spacestationnathan.com/

http://www.bloomsburyusa.com/

I am a huge Shannon Hale fan.  So though I normally would not have rushed to buy a graphic novel, when I heard that she had written one with her husband (The artist, though having the same last name, is not related.), I simply had to buy it.

This wasn’t up there in the best-thing-I’ve-ever-read territory like her novels, but all the same, this book is completely delightful.  Though, come to think of it, it’s the best graphic novel I’ve ever read.  (Don’t tell my son!)

Rapunzel’s Revenge tells the tale of Rapunzel, set in the old West.  Rapunzel is no wimpy princess, waiting for a prince to set her free.  When she learns at twelve years old what “Mother Gothel” has done to her real mother, and how she terrorizes the countryside, Rapunzel confronts her.  She’s promptly placed in a tower made from a giant tree that Mother Gothel made with her growth magic.  The same magic begins to affect Rapunzel’s hair.

There are some fun things in the illustrations.  I love the three books Rapunzel has in the tower:  Girls Who Get Saved and the Princes Who Save Them, How to Make a Twig Bonnet, and There’s Always Bird Watching.

With nothing to do in the tower, she practices her lasso skills by using her ridiculously long hair, braided into rope.

Finally, after she turns sixteen, her hair is long enough for her to use it to escape her prison.  It’s after her escape that she sees a traveling adventurer who heard about the beautiful maiden in a tower.  She points him to the tower and tells him the maiden is slightly deaf, so he should be sure to yell as loud as he can.

On the way back to Gothel’s villa to rescue her mother, Rapunzel becomes a vigilante, helping people with her amazing lasso of hair.  She falls in with a rogue named Jack who’s been having some trouble with giants.  Rapunzel convinces Jack to help her rescue her mother and bring justice to the countryside, which has been sucked dry by Gothel’s magic.

Here’s a girl who doesn’t need saving!  This imaginative adventure has a heroine you can cheer for.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/rapunzels_revenge.html

Review of Are You Ready to Play Outside? by Mo Willems

Animal Characters, Easy Readers, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

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Are You Ready to Play Outside?

An Elephant & Piggie Book

by Mo Willems

Hyperion Books for Children, 2008.  57 pages.

Starred Review.

Sonderbooks Standout 2009:  #5 Picture Books

Geisel Award Winner 2009

http://www.pigeonpresents.com/

http://www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com/

Mo Willems is a genius.  I am currently reading several books that tell me it is not my circumstances that determine my happiness, but the story I tell myself about those circumstances.  I have heard sermons about contentment.  I have lectured at length to my children that complaining will only make them unhappy.

None of those things was remotely as effective as this book.  Not as funny, either!

Now, I was set up to enjoy this book.  The day before I read it, I was doing a quick run to the grocery store.  We had expected an ice storm, but instead we got nasty, cold, heavy, near-freezing rain.

I do not like rain in the winter.  I tend to think how much I would prefer snow.  Rain in winter is almost as cold as snow, but not as pretty, and not as fun.  It soaks into your clothes much more quickly, and doesn’t brighten a dark day like snow does.

As I came out of the grocery store, the fleeting thought crossed my mind that it was a shame I had to make a grocery run today.  Loading groceries into the car in the pouring, cold rain is not a fun thing to do. 

No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than I looked up and saw a mother and son walking toward the store.  The mother had an umbrella, but the little boy, about three years old, wasn’t paying any attention to staying under it.  He was positively dancing with joy at being out in the rain.  His shiny yellow boots splashed the pavement with zest, and you could instantly see how excited he was about this wondrous chance to go shopping in the rain!

Kind of put things in perspective for me!

The next day, this book, Are You Ready to Play Outside? came to the library.

Piggie is so excited about playing outside with Gerald!  They will run!  They will skip!  They will jump!  NOTHING will stop them!

Then it begins to rain.

It pours.  Piggie is NOT a happy pig.

Gerald, an elephant, first tries shielding Piggie with his ear, but it is still raining.  Piggie doesn’t see how anyone could possibly play outside with all this rain.

Then they see two worms come out, exuberantly happy, splishing and splashing in the rain.

They decide to try it.  They run!  They skip!  They jump! 

Piggie decides he loves rain!  He hopes it rains all day!

Then it stops. 

Piggie is not a happy pig.

Fortunately, Piggie has an elephant for a friend, who has a solution.

Of course, once again, what makes this book a masterpiece is Mo Willems’ amazing ability to convey emotion with his simple cartoon drawings.  For example, Piggie’s frustration over the rain is palpable.  And I never imagined that worms could look so joyful!  Elephant and Piggie turning somersaults and kicking up their heels in the rain proclaim complete exuberance.  Add to that the suspense of the early-reader language and timing, with each expression and emotion getting full page treatment, and you have an utterly magnificent book.

It’s funny.  It’s emotional.  And it conveys a life-changing lesson in a way that sticks.

What more could you ask for in an easy reader?

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Review of Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, by Mem Fox

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

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Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes

by Mem Fox

illustrated by Helen Oxenbury

Harcourt, 2008.  40 pages.

Starred review.

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2009: #4 Picture Books

http://www.memfox.net/

http://www.harcourtbooks.com/

I saw this book listed on more than one end-of-the-year Best of 2008 list.  I’ve loved Helen Oxenbury ever since my 20-year-old son was a toddler who memorized the text in her Tom and Pippo books and “read” the books along with me.  Mem Fox I discovered later, but have an extra-special fondness for her books, particularly Harriet, You’ll Drive Me Wild!  http://www.sonderbooks.com/PictureBooks/harriet.html

So I simply had to check this book out.  I was completely enchanted.  I will definitely be using this book at my very next Mother Goose Time for babies and parents.  The book is only a few months old, and already I find myself thinking of it as a classic no parent of a baby should be without.

There was one little baby who was born far away

And another who was born on the very next day.

And both of these babies, as everyone knows,

had ten little fingers

and ten little toes.

Mind you, the picture on the page with “had ten little fingers and ten little toes” shows baby hands and feet so precious you just want to eat them up!  (No one draws babies so utterly adorably yet lifelike as Helen Oxenbury.)

The book goes on, in the sweet rhyming cadence, to tell of babies from all over the world.

As each set of two new babies is introduced, the earlier babies look on as a kind of adorable chorus.

The final stanza is what clinches this book as such a delightful exploration between parent and baby:

But the next baby born was truly divine,

a sweet little child who was mine, all mine.

And this little baby, as everyone knows,

has ten little fingers,

ten little toes,

and three little kisses   [Here are the earlier babies are laughing in anticipation!]

on the tip of its nose.

What can I say?  I think this is going to get tucked in with the next baby shower gift I give.  Absolutely delightful!  Go to your library and look at the illustrations, if you don’t believe me!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/ten_little_fingers.html

Review of Paper Towns, by John Green

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

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Paper Towns

by John Green

Dutton Books, 2008.  305 pages.

Starred review.

http://www.sparksflyup.com/

http://www.nerdfighters.com/

www.penguin.com/youngreaders

Wow.  Paper Towns isn’t quite like any other teen novel I’ve read.  At first glance, it’s a typical teen novel about parties and girlfriends and pranks and prom and graduation.  But it goes so much deeper, dealing with profound questions like whether we can ever truly know another person.

The opening of the book is awesome:

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle.  Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust.  But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us.  I could have seen it rain frogs.  I could have stepped foot on Mars.  I could have been eaten by a whale.  I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea.  But my miracle was different.  My miracle was this:  out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

Quentin and Margo were friends as kids, but he hasn’t seen much of her since they started high school.  She moves in a much more brilliant circle.  Then, one night late in their senior year, Margo knocked again on Q’s window.  She convinced him to drive her on a wild night of sweet revenge.  The next day, she disappears.

Paper Towns deals with Quentin’s quest to find Margo.  As he looks for clues, he comes to terms with the fact that no one knew the real Margo.  Each of her friends saw her as someone slightly different.  Can we ever truly know another person?

Quentin must also face some of his own fears and figure out who he is himself.  Why did Margo choose him on her night of revenge, and why did she leave clues for him to find?  Did she expect him to find her?

I admit that, as a fan of John and Hank Green’s Brotherhood 2.0 video blog (see http://www.nerdfighters.com/ ), I had a tendency to “hear” Quentin’s voice as John Green talking.  However, that worked fine and made the character that much more believable and likeable.  It’s refreshing to read a teen novel from a guy’s perspective.

The author pulls off all this profundity with a light touch.  Quentin has friends who are nerdy and quirky, and he doesn’t go on his quest alone.  Some of the teen antics will make parents cringe, but other than that it makes for fun, light-hearted reading.

I read the latest posts on John Green’s blog at http://www.sparksflyup.com/, where he talks about some of the amazingly profound questions teens have asked him.  I think that’s his secret — He has nothing but respect for the thinking of teens.  He doesn’t water down the philosophical questions behind the story here.  So although it is indeed a teen novel, the issues raised are issues about being human, and will give people of all ages something to ponder.

I did enjoy An Abundance of Katherines, but I do think that John Green has grown as an author and I find Paper Towns an outstandingly well-crafted novel.  (What I’m trying to say is that I liked this new one even better!)

As a librarian, it will be interesting to see who I can get to read this book.  (I’ve already talked my teenage son into reading it, but he is already a fan of http://www.nerdfighters.com/, so he didn’t take any convincing.)  I find myself wishing it didn’t have a picture of Margo on the cover, since I think there are many teenage boys who would thoroughly enjoy this book, and I will have to talk them into trying a book with a picture of a girl on the cover.  (There are two covers for this book, one with a bright, happy Margo, and one more dingy, sad and dark.)  At any rate, for now the book is on hold, so it’s getting some buzz, and I will not have copies on the shelf to recommend to anyone. 

Definitely worth reading, for readers of any age who are willing to have some fun and explore questions about how they see the world.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/paper_towns.html

Review of Let It Snow

Christmas, Contemporary, Romance, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

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Let It Snow

Three Holiday Romances

by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle

Speak (Penguin), 2008.  352 pages.

Starred Review

http://www.sparksflyup.com/

http://www.maureenjohnsonbooks.com/

http://www.laurenmyracle.com/

www.penguin.com/teens

Okay, I’m in the mood for holiday reading, and this book of three intertwined holiday romances was completely delightful.  I began reading during a dentist appointment, and found when I got home, my recovery demanded further reading.

The three stories are all teen romances, delightfully told.  John Green’s story, told from the guy’s perspective, is in the middle, and makes a nice subtle change from the other two, but I loved all three.

Maureen Johnson tells the  first story, where Jubilee Donegal is on a train to visit her grandparents in Florida instead of at her boyfriend’s big family Christmas Eve Smorgasbord.  Her parents were arrested in a riot over collectible Flobie Santa Village buildings, and Jubilee got sent to Florida.  Unfortunately, she doesn’t get far before the train is stopped by snow.  She’s in a car with a group of cheerleaders off to a cheerleading competition and a cute guy obsessed with trying to call his girlfriend (and failing).  What can she do except go out through the snow and try to get to the Waffle House she sees across the highway?

What follows is a delightful story of adventure and eye-opening revelations and, yes, romance.

John Green’s story involves a guy and two friends trying to get through the snow to the Waffle House, where their friend, the store manager, is telling a hysterical tale about a group of cheerleaders needing “help” working on cheers.  He needs them to bring a Twister game, but if they take too long, someone else’s friends might beat them to it.  Once again, things don’t happen as they expect.

In Lauren Myracle’s story, we see the ex-girlfriend of the guy on the train, despairing because he didn’t show up and he didn’t even call.  Meanwhile, her friends need her to do a little something for them — and they don’t want to hear that there’s been another “crisis.”

The stories dovetail beautifully.  They are all funny and sweet and wonderfully entertaining.  Definitely recommended holiday reading!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/let_it_snow.html