Stand-out Author: Steven Stosny

Stand-outs 0

I’m doing a series on Stand-out Authors, looking at authors with books among my 2013 Sonderbooks Stand-outs who have had books on previous years’ lists.

Steven Stosny is tied for second place with five books that are Sonderbooks Stand-outs. His contribution this year, Living and Loving After Betrayal: How to Heal from Emotional Abuse, Deceit, Infidelity, and Chronic Resentment was #1 in Nonfiction.

The first book I read by Steven Stosny was also #1 in Nonfiction (Personal Growth) on the 2006 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. 2006 was the year my life completely fell apart, and his book You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore was one of the most helpful books I read the whole year.

In 2007, I was reading every Steven Stosny book I could get my hands on, and three more made the 2007 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. However, 2007 was the year I was getting my Master’s in Library and Information Science, and I didn’t ever get those books reviewed. But the other three Sonderbooks Stand-outs were:

#1 in Nonfiction, Relationships: How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, written with Patricia Love

#2 in Nonfiction, Personal Growth: The Manual of the Core Value Workshop
I got to go to Steven Stosny’s Relationship Boot Camp, and this manual holds much of the information.

And finally, #6 in Nonfiction, Personal Growth: The Powerful Self
All of his books are so affirming, and this one emphasizes that aspect of healing.

You can see why I think of Steven Stosny’s books as a huge part of my healing process! They are all highly recommended.

Review of Whiskers, Tails, and Wings, by Judy Goldman

Children's Nonfiction Review, Folk Tales 0

Whiskers, Tails & Wings

Animal Folktales from Mexico

by Judy Goldman
illustrated by Fabricio VandenBroeck

Charlesbridge, 2013. 58 pages.

This is a nice collection of folktales most children won’t have heard before. Each one comes from a specific region and a specific indigenous people group of Mexico.

After each tale, the people group who tells that tale is described, along with some facts about the region and the featured animals. Spanish and native words are woven seamlessly into the tales, but in case you didn’t catch every detail, there’s a glossary after each story.

As most animal folktales, the ones chosen have an element of playfulness and delight. As the author asks in the Conclusion:

Where else in the world will you find a clever cricket who defeats a puma, a patient turtle who helps create the world, a brave opossum who gives mankind a wonderful gift, a flea who saves humanity, and a frog who, just in time, keeps his heart in his chest?

Only in Mexico!

Yet every culture in the world has tales that are important to its people. Like the stories in this book, all fairy tales and folktales allow people to pass along traditions and knowledge not only among their own community, but also to the world. Through stories we come to understand ourselves as well as the world around us. Perhaps the tales in Whiskers, Tails & Wings will encourage you to share your own stories, discover new tales, and maybe even create your own!

judygoldman.blogspot.com
charlesbridge.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Sonderling Sunday – Stolz und Vorurteil, Kapitel Drei

Austenalia, Sonderling Sunday 0

It’s time for Sonderling Sunday! That time of the week when I play with language by looking at the German translation of children’s books, or, in this case, of an English classic, Pride and Prejudice.

Last time I looked at Stolz und Vorurteil, we covered Chapter Two, so this time we are on Kapitel Drei. This begins on page 8 in my English edition, Seite 12 auf Deutsch.

“assistance of her five daughters” = Unterstützung ihrer fünf Töchter

“satisfactory description” = befriedigende Beschreibung

“barefaced questions” = unverblümten Fragen (“unveiled questions”)

“ingenious suppositions” = raffinierten Spekulationen (“refined speculations”)

“distant surmises” = unbestimmten Vermutungen (“vague conjectures”)

“wonderfully handsome” = erstaunlich gutaussehend

“extremely agreeable” = außerordentlich sympathisch

“easy, unaffected manners” = ungezwungenes, natürliches Wesen (“informal, natural ways”)

“with an air of decided fashion” = mit einem Auftreten von unzweifelhafter Lebensart
(“with an occurrence of undoubtful life-art”)

“noble mien” = vornehme Haltung

“a fine figure of a man” = einen stattlichen Mann (“a stately man”)

“admiration” = Bewunderung

“his manners gave a disgust” = sein Benehmen einen Abscheu hervorrief

“which turned the tide of his popularity” = der das Blatt seiner Beliebtheit wendete
(“which the page of his belovedness turned”)

“forbidding, disagreeable countenance” = abstoßendes, übellauniges Gesicht
(“repulsive, ill-tempered face”)

“unreserved” = freimütig (“free-speaking”)

“scarcity of gentlemen” = Mangel an Herren

“standing about by yourself in this stupid manner”
= so stumpfsinnig allein herumstehen
(“so stupidly alone around-stand”)

“fastidious” = anspruchsvoll (“demanding-full”)

“tolerable” = passabel

“wasting” = verschwendest

“lively, playful disposition” = lebhaftes, spielerisches Naturell

“anything ridiculous” = allen Absurden

“which had raised such splendid expectations”
= das so glänzende Erwartungen geweckt hatte
(“that so shiny expectations waked had”)

“sprained his ankle” = einen Knöchel verstaucht

“any description of finery” = jegliche Beschreibung von Putz

“shocking rudeness” = empörenden Unverschämtheit (“outrageous insolence”)

“so high and so conceited” = so überheblich und eingebildet

And that’s the end of Chapter 3.

There were lots of fun, descriptive words in this section. The next time you see einen stattlichen Mann, who is erstaunlich gutaussehend and außerordentlich sympathisch, for whom you have much Bewunderung, you’ll know how to give a befriedigende Beschreibung!

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!

Buy from Amazon.com

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!

Review of The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, by Kathi Appelt

Animal Characters, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp

by Kathi Appelt

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2013. 327 pages.
2013 Cybils Finalist
2013 Capitol Choices Selection (audiobook)
2013 National Book Award Finalist

Bingo and J’miah are raccoons who live in Sugar Man Swamp, and they are True Blue Scouts. Here is information from the first page of the book:

For as long as raccoons had inhabited the Sugar Man Swamp, which was eons, they had been the Official Scouts, ordained by the Sugar Man himself back in the year Aught One, also known as the Beginning of Time. Of course, Bingo and J’miah would follow the orders. They knew them by heart.

OFFICIAL SUGAR MAN SWAMP SCOUT ORDERS

  • keep your eyes open
  • keep your ears to the ground
  • keep your nose in the air
  • be true and faithful to each other
  • in short, be good

These orders were practical, and the raccoon brothers had no problem following them. Besides, Bingo and J’miah weren’t ordinary Swamp Scouts. They were, in fact, Information Officers, a highly specialized branch of the Scout system. And because of this there were two additional orders:

  • always heed the Voice of Intelligence, and
  • in the event of an emergency, wake up the Sugar Man

The first additional order was easy enough, as we shall soon see, but the second was a different matter. The problem? Nobody really knew exactly where the Sugar Man slept, only that it was somewhere in the deepest, darkest part of the swamp. He hadn’t been seen in many years.

An emergency does come up in the course of the book. And waking up the Sugar Man is indeed a problem.

We also follow the fortunes of Chap Brayburn and his mother, who run Paradise Pies, by the edge of the swamp. Chap’s Grandpa Audie recently died. Grandpa Audie had loved the swamp, just as Chap does.

But now the owner of the swamp, Sonny Boy Beaucoup, is planning to evict them, unless they can come up with a boatload of cash. Then he’s going to pave over the swamp and build The Gator World Wrestling Arena and Theme Park.

So both Chap and the raccoons are facing emergencies. Emergencies that the Sugar Man can solve. But how to find him? And how to wake him up without incurring his wrath? It’s going to take some careful work.

This story is told with a folksy voice, which I found slightly annoying, but could be charming. Our library doesn’t have the audiobook on CD, but in Capitol Choices I’ve heard that this version is completely delightful. There are tall tale elements in the tale and over-the-top characters. The result is a lot of fun and would make great family listening.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/true_blue_scouts.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!

Review of Ann and Nan Are Anagrams, by Mark Shulman and Adam McCauley

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review 0

Ann and Nan Are Anagrams

A Mixed-Up Word Dilemma

by Mark Shulman
illustrated by Adam McCauley

Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2013. 32 pages.

This book is terribly silly, but it makes me laugh. Throughout the story, there are words and phrases that are anagrams of one another, set off with the same typeface as the other part of the pair.

Robert (or Bert)’s Grandma Reagan tells him about anagrams. Then she says:

”Anagrams are easy to SPOT
But hard to STOP.
Now take the TOPS
off the POTS
hurry to the POST office,
and bring me your AUNT.
She’s A NUT.”

Robert doesn’t even have an aunt! GRANDMA REAGAN is in ANAGRAM DANGER!

You can tell the story isn’t exactly profound. But, combined with the exuberant pictures and more than 101 anagrams hidden in the book, it’s still a lot of fun.

I like some of the products sitting on the kitchen shelves: Old Nose Noodles, A Mean Noisy Mayonnaise, Mad Scrubber Bread Crumbs, and Eats? Ouch Hot Sauce.

Some of the anagrams are really a stretch, such as Nature’s Rat Restaurant. But it’s all in good fun, and kids will have fun spotting them all.

Of course, when he sees that his sisters’ names are anagrams (using the title phrase), he cries out, “Sister, resist!”

If you like word play, it’s hard to resist this silly book.

chroniclekids.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Review of Rose, by Holly Webb

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

Rose

by Holly Webb

Sourcebooks, 2013. 234 pages. Originally published in Great Britain.
Starred Review
2013 Cybils Finalist

Rose lives in an orphanage. She wants nothing more than to get out of the orphanage and go into service some day. She wants to do a good job as a maid, and have nobody notice her.

So when she’s selected to be underhousemaid at a grand house, the home of an important alchemist, she thinks her dreams have come true. But why does it feel like the walls and stairs are moving, like she can talk to the plants, and how can she hear the cat talk to her?

Strange things happen around Rose, and she’s terribly afraid she’s not the ordinary person she wants to be. But then some children in the neighborhood mysteriously disappear, including Rose’s best friend from the orphanage. She’s determined to find her friend, even if it means using magic to do so.

This is a warm and sparkling story, with a lot of heart. You can’t help but like Rose, with her humble aspirations, excitement at living in a grand house, and loving desire to help her friend.

My one quibble is that the rules of magic in that world aren’t clear. (Though they aren’t for Rose either.) At her level, it seems like she can do anything she wishes for hard enough. I hope as the series goes on, those things will become more clear. But even with that quibble, I enjoyed every bit of this book.

We’ve got the below-stairs look at a grand English house — with magic thrown in. The result is a lot of fun.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/rose.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 copy I received as a judge for the Cybils Awards.

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!

2013 Stand-out Authors: Maeve Binchy

Stand-outs 0

I’m featuring Stand-out Authors: Authors who appeared previously on my Sonderbooks Stand-outs and are back for 2013.

Two authors appeared for the fifth time this year. But one of those makes me sad, because this will presumably be her last appearance. Maeve Binchy died in 2012, so her 2013 Sonderbooks Stand-out, A Week in Winter, which was #5 in Fiction, is her last book. (Though there are a few I missed, so maybe she can still be on the list posthumously.)

A lot more of Maeve Binchy’s books are my favorites than just five, but I began reading her work before I ever started writing Sonderbooks. In fact, she first showed up on the list in my second year of doing them, 2002, with the book Quentins, which was #2 in Fiction for Grown-ups. Quentins tells about the proprietors of a restaurant in Dublin, and I love that it’s mentioned in almost all her later books.

She consistently continues to appear every few years. In 2004, it was Nights of Rain and Stars, which was #1 in Literary Fiction. In this book, a group of tourists witness a tragedy in Greece, and they form a bond. We learn what’s going on with each person. I also love that some of these characters are referred to in later books. Maeve Binchy’s books are like big family gatherings. You don’t have to know the earlier references, but there’s extra richness if you do.

I think I skipped a couple books there, because the next Maeve Binchy Stand-out is #4 in Fiction in 2009, Heart and Soul. This book features people who work in a heart clinic in Dublin. Again, she gets us inside the heads and hearts of a wide variety of people.

Finally (before this year), we have #2 in Other Fiction in 2011, Minding Frankie. Minding Frankie is about a little girl whose mother dies, and the community of people who come together to care for her.

Community. Getting inside people’s heads and hearts. Maeve Binchy’s books get under my skin every time. She is sadly missed already.

Review of Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Humorous, Starred Review 0

Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

by P. G. Wodehouse
read by Jonathan Cecil

BBC Audiobooks America, 1992. 5 hours, 11 minutes, on 5 CDs.
Starred Review

There’s nothing like a P. G. Wodehouse audiobook to make a long drive seem short! I so love his understated humor, Bertie Wooster’s way of speaking and outrageous similes. And Jeeves! Always, he saves the day.

P. G. Wodehouse books remind me of a Seinfeld episode. Several different threads all get entwined together, and at the end, Jeeves works them all out. And you laugh hard along the way.

I have lost track of which Jeeves and Wooster books I have read and which I haven’t, and on top of that, I’ve watched the wonderful Jeeves and Wooster BBC video series. So I was very happy when it turned out that this book comes after the events in the series, and I’d never read it before. I was familiar with all the characters, but this was further adventures, with Bertie going back to Totleigh Towers, because it looks like the marriage of Gussie Fink-Nottle and Madeleine Basset is in jeopardy — and Bertie knows that if that happens, Madeleine will insist on marrying him. And at the same time, Stephanie Bing has a little job she wants Bertie to do for her, which can never be good.

All the same characters are there from Bertie’s previous narrow escape from Madeleine Basset, but he’s in an entirely fresh fix.

Of course, Shakespearean actor Jonathan Cecil reading this book is the only thing that could make it even better than the print version. This audiobook is an absolute delight.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/stiff_upper_lip_jeeves.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 audiobook 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!

Sonderling Sunday – Ken Kiang and Hoagland Shanks

Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge, Sonderling Sunday 2

It’s time for Sonderling Sunday, that time of the week when I play with language by looking at the German translation of children’s books. This week, I’m back with my stand-by, the book with the most bizarre phrases of all, The Order of Odd-fish, by James Kennedy, Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge.

Last time, we left off at the start of page 202 in the English edition, Seite 254 auf Deutsch.

Have you ever wondered how they decide which phrases to put in a phrasebook? Well, think of this as a set of phrases that have actually been used! So surely English-speaking travelers to Germany could find a use for them, nicht?

“former life” = ehemaligem Leben

“petty” = armselig (“pathetic”)

“to leave anything undone” = etwas unerledigt zu lassen

“loathed” = verachtete

“repulsed him” = widerte ihn an

“unbearable disgust” = unerträglichem Ekel

“smug” = Selbstgefälliges (“self-pleasing”)

“self-satisfied” = Selbstzufriedenes

“vowed” = schwur

This isn’t as melodious:
“happy-go-lucky handyman” = unbekümmerte Faktotum (“unencumbered factotum”)

Here the alliteration was preserved:
“humdrum happiness” = fade Fröhlichkeit

“guessed” = vermutete

Here’s a good one:
“wild pleasures” = ausschweifendsten Vergnügungen (“extravagant pleasures”)

This whole sentence needs to be translated:
“That is, what if Ken Kiang gave Hoagland Shanks unlimited access to any kind of pie he wanted?”
= Was wäre, wenn Ken Kiang Hoagland Shanks unbegrenzten Zugang zu jeder Art von Kuchen gewährte, nach der ihn gelüstete?
(“What would be, if Ken Kiang Hoagland Shanks unbounded access to each kind of Cake granted, after which he lusted?”)

“addicted” = süchtig

“generosity” = Großzügigkeit

“a changed man” = ein verwandelter Mensch

“desperate things” = verzweifelte Dinge

“but at best would serve to numb him against his sordid existence”
= sondern höchstens noch dazu dienten, ihn gegen die Erbärmlichkeit seiner Existenz abzustumpfen
(“but at highest still served to, him against the wretchedness of his existence to blunt”)

“suicidal quest” = selbstmörderische Aufgabe

“encroached upon every idle moment” = sich in jedem winzigen Moment an ihn heranschlich
(“in each tiny moment on him sneaked up”)

“unquenchable emptiness” = unfüllbare Leere

“a ravenous nothing” = ein alles verschlingendes Nichts (“an all devouring nothing”)

“jerk back” = zuckte er zurück

“mounting terror” = steigendem Entsetzen

“fantasized” = ausgemalt (“painted”)

“pity” = Mitgefühl (“with-feeling”)

And that’s it for Chapter 16! We are now more than halfway through the book!

There are some good phrases to try to work into your conversation this week! If you find you have steigendem Entsetzen when confronted with ein alles verschlingendes Nichts, you have all my Mitgefühl!