Review of Cinder, by Marissa Meyer

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

Cinder

The Lunar Chronicles: Book One

by Marissa Meyer

Feiwel and Friends, New York, 2012. 390 pages.
Starred Review

I’ve always loved fairy-tale retellings, but this science fiction version of Cinderella is even better than most. Once again, I stayed up all night reading to finish the book, even though I know that’s not good for me. But the book was so good! Since I was able to take a nap the next day, I’m afraid my bad behavior was reinforced, and it was totally worth it.

Cinder is set in New Beijing, 126 years after the end of the fourth world war, after which the kingdoms of the earth have been at peace. They’ve been at peace, but not without problems. There’s a plague raging, and even the Emperor of the Eastern Alliance is sick with it.

Linh Cinder is a cyborg, which is why she’s a second-class citizen. She’s 63.72% human, but she has some machine parts, like her left hand and foot, and some brain and sensory enhancements. She doesn’t remember anything from before the accident and fire that burned her when she was eleven years old.

Since her adoptive father died, Cinder’s been the one making a living for her family as a mechanic. She’s a good mechanic, as her cyborg enhancements give her special abilities, but she’s surprised when Prince Kai brings in an old android that needs repair.

Cinder barely heard him above the blankness in her mind. With her heartbeat gathering speed, her retina display scanned his features, so familiar from years spent watching him on the netscreens. He seemed taller in real life and a gray hooded sweatshirt was like none of the fine clothes he usually made appearances in, but still, it took only 2.6 seconds for Cinder’s scanner to measure the points of his face and link his image to the net database. Another second and the display informed her of what she already knew; details scribbled across the bottom of her vision in a stream of green text.

There’s something important about the android, but Prince Kai has many other things to worry about. The evil queen of the Lunar Colony wants to marry an earth emperor. But the people who live on the moon have evolved the ability to control the minds of others. If she marries Kai, she will enslave the people of his country as she has her own. But she can apply powerful pressure.

In the meantime, there is a draft of cyborg “volunteers” to test potential plague antidotes. When Cinder’s stepmother decides it’s time for Cinder to “volunteer,” Cinder learns some surprising new things about herself. But she also runs into the prince again.

This book takes the framework of the fairy tale and plays with it. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that instead of losing a shoe when she leaves the ball, Cinder loses a foot. I admit I was sad that there wasn’t a fairy godmother in this story, because I wanted that for Cinder, but it’s quite amazing what she manages to accomplish herself.

And there’s no Happily Ever After yet for Cinder, but the title page warned that this is Book One, so I didn’t expect it. But at the same time, it tells a satisfying story, following the Cinderella basic framework, yet adding in an intricate plot all its own. The future world is credibly and skilfully built. And the romance between Cinder and the Prince is done well.

I’m going to want to read the next volumes just as soon as they come out. Though I will definitely try to start very early on an evening when I have no other plans.

thelunarchronicles.com
macteenbooks.com

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Source: This review is based on a book I got at a library conference.

Sonderling Sunday – Chapter 9 – Meeting the Sonderlinge

Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge, Sonderling Sunday 1

It’s time for Sonderling Sunday! I missed last week because it was my youngest son’s 18th birthday! (Where oh where does the time go?) That reminds me of a funny thing about Germans and birthdays. Did you know that German kids sing “Happy Birthday” in English? Perhaps it was just my landlady’s family, since she grew up around Americans, but I suspect it was more widespread, because the small children who attended this birthday party in 1998 knew the words to the English “Happy Birthday” song.

(The cutie in the bottom right corner is my son, who is now 18 years old.) I believe the birthday girl was 5 years old, and we were so surprised at how well the small children sang in English. I suppose, bottom line, it’s hard to fit Alles gute zum Geburtstag into a nice song.

But back to Sonderling Sunday, the time when I play with language and supply you with delightfully useless phrases to know in German by looking at the translation of James Kennedy‘s The Order of Odd-Fish, Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge, a truly Sonderbook.

We left off two weeks ago in the middle of chapter 9, on page 86 in English, and Seite 110 auf Deutsch.

Last time, we learned several different translations for “dithering,” as the knights of the Order of Odd-fish discussed Sir Oliver’s six-hundred-thousand-page dissertation on the subject. I still find it interesting and not at all surprising that Germans don’t have as many different words for dithering as English speakers do.

Ah! There’s a lovely paragraph right at the start of this next section, so I’ll start off by quoting the whole thing:

The cockroaches swooped in, snatched away the soup bowls, and served plates heaping with a gooey stew. It was spicy and slimy, and after a few cautious bites, Jo decided she liked it.

That translates as:

Die Kakerlaken stürmten wieder in den Raum, entrissen allen die Suppenschüsseln und servierten Teller mit einem pappigen Eintopf. Er war würzig und schleimig und nach ein paar vorsichtigen Bissen kam Jo zu dem Schluss, dass sie ihn mochte.

Some of the goodies here:

“soup bowls” = Suppenschüsseln
“gooey stew” = pappigen Eintopf (“cardboardy one-pot”)
“slimy” = schleimig (Surely this is where we got the English word?)

Going on, there are more wonderfully useless phrases about being wonderfully useless:

“properly dubious” = angemessen zweifelhaft

“unreliable” = unzuverlässig

“useless” = nutzlos

“out of date” = überholt (shorter in German!)

“contradictory” = widersprüchlich (“speech against”)

“we never publish anything misleading” = wir niemals irgendetwas veröffentlichen, das auf eine falsche Fährte führen könnte (“we never publish anything that can send one on a wrong trip”)

“deliberately misleading” = vorsätzlich Irreführendes (See the root for trip still in there?)

I thought it was funny that with this sentence the German translator did not dither as much as in English:
“Which, er, isn’t too far, actually, sometimes.” = Was, genau genommen, manchmal nicht sonderlich weit ist. (“Which, strictly speaking, sometimes is not especially far.”)

This one sounds better in German:
“an unreliable reference book” = ein unzuverlässiges Lexikon

Here’s a fun one I didn’t know before:
“at once” = schlagartig

“Jo’s stomach dropped.” = Jo plumpste der Magen in die Kniekehlen. (“Jo flopped her stomach in the hollow of the knees.”)

“Rumors, leads, myths, things that are maybe true, maybe not.” = Gerüchte, vermutungen Mythen, Dinge, die vielleicht wahr sind, vielleicht aber auch nicht.

“whiskers” = Backenbart

“hiccups” = Schluckaufs

“dubious” = fragwürdig (“question worthy”)

“discredited metaphysics” = verrufene Metaphysiken

“It is spectacularly tiresome!” = Es ist ungeheuer ermüdend! (“It is monstrously tiresome!”)

“Some of my research positively sparkles with dullness.” = Etliche meiner Metaphysiken funkeln förmlich vor Trübsinn. (“Some of my metaphysics sparkles formally with gloom.”)

“arcane drudgery” = uralter Trübsal (“ancient sorrow”)

I like this translation:
“Oh ho ho, oh no, oh no!” = Nein und nochmals nein!” (“No, and again no!”)

“Jo couldn’t help but smile.” = Jo musste unwillkürlich lächeln. (“Jo must involuntarily smile.”)

“supreme distaste” = überlegenem Abscheu

“Jo gritted her teeth.” = Jo knirschte mit den Zähnen.

Here’s a nice concise way of putting it:
“wet with sweat” = schwei?nass.

“as Sir Alasdair dissolved into snuffling laughter” = während Sir Alasdair vor Lachen Schniefte (“as Sir Alasdair with laugher sniffed”)

That’s all I have time for tonight! I hope to meet the rest of the Order next week!

Meanwhile, here are some highlights:
Most fun to say: Suppenschüsseln, unzuverlässiges Lexikon, Schluckaufs
Best exclamation: Nein und nochmals nein!
Best figure of speech: Jo plumpste der Magen in die Kniekehlen.
Most concise: schwei?nass.

Bis nächste Woche!

Review of Wisdom’s Kiss, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

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

Wisdom’s Kiss

A Thrilling and Romantic Adventure, Incorporating Magic, Villainy, and a Cat

by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011. 284 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s another fairy-tale-type story set in the world of Princess Ben. In fact, Princess Ben, as a grandmother, makes an appearance, though you don’t at all have to have read her story to understand what’s going on.

Wisdom’s Kiss centers around two princesses, named Temperance and Wisdom. They are granddaughters of Queen Benevolence and share the tradition of character-based names in the kingdom of Montagne. The story is also about Trudy, a young maid with the Sight. She loves the miller’s son Tips, who has gone off to learn to be an acrobat, and an excellent one.

Despite his mother’s machinations toward the throne of Montagne, Duke Roger of Farina is betrothed to Wisdom, the younger sister. She must travel to Farina for the wedding, and along the way she gets a new lady-in-waiting, Trudy, even though when Trudy looks at Wisdom, she feels great pain.

But then Tips’ troupe is performing in the capital of Montagne, and when Wisdom sees him, she finds out what she really aspires to. But royal betrothals are not easily gotten out of.

This is a fun story, with very creative story-telling, including several different perspectives, The Imperial Encyclopedia of Lax, letters, and a play script. The plot moves along with nice twists and turns and is never the least bit boring.

A lot hinges on love at first sight, which I wasn’t crazy about, but mostly everyone’s actions seem true to character, and even that love seems to have a basis in the characters of the people involved.

This is an entertaining tale, creatively told, and does include romance, magic, and villainy to delight all readers.

catherinemurdock.com
hmhbooks.com

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Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy I got at a library conference.

Review of The Friendship Doll, by Kirby Larson

Children's Fiction Review, Historical 0

The Friendship Doll

by Kirby Larson

Delacorte Press, 2011. 201 pages.

The Friendship Doll tells the story of an exquisite Japanese doll, Miss Kanagawa, sent to the United States in 1928 along with fifty-seven other dolls in a gesture of friendship. The book tells about four girls whom Miss Kanagawa encounters over a period of years. All the girls learn a small lesson from the doll, and the doll herself becomes less haughty and learns about love.

I was put off a bit by the very first story. Bunny is pouty because the mean girl Belle Roosevelt gets to give a speech to welcome the doll, even though Bunny could do it better. The doll convinces Bunny not to play a mean trick herself. It just all seemed a little petty, right from the start. Perhaps that was intentional, so we could see some growth in Miss Kanagawa herself.

I did warm up more to the stories of the other girls. Kirby Larson walks a thin line, but stays on the right side of preachiness, even though the girls learn lessons. But it’s delicately done. The girls Miss Kanagawa encounters are all quite different from one another, and I found myself enjoying each adventure a little more than the one before.

However, I do have one peeve with the second adventure, during the Depression. This could be a spoiler for this particular story, so be forewarned.

Here’s the thing. Lois dreams of flying some day like Amelia Earhart and Bessie Coleman. When she gets to go to the World’s Fair with Aunt Eunice, she wants nothing more than to go on a rocket ride zooming two hundred feet above the ground over the lagoon. On the day of the Fair, she has a quarter to spend how she wishes. Then she even gets permission from Aunt Eunice to go on the rockets. But she sees Miss Kanagawa and gets a message from her: A good friend gives our heart wings. She decides instead to buy some exquisite dollhouse furniture for her friend Mabel who couldn’t come.

Okay, call me selfish, but I really really wish Lois had gone on the ride! The reason I’m mentioning it is this: Isn’t that what girls are so often encouraged to do? Enjoying the moment is selfish — you should buy something for someone else.

Now, I lived in Europe for ten years. I learned after awhile that buying a souvenir for someone else tends to not mean a whole lot to them. Because a souvenir from a place they haven’t been doesn’t have any memories tied to it. But even more than that, why can’t Lois take the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity being offered her and enjoy it to the hilt, without having to feel guilty that her friend can’t share it, too? And what if Mabel doesn’t even like what she picks out? But she’s supposed to like it because Lois sacrificed her dream to give it. Isn’t that a recipe for resentment between them?

Anyway, that’s my take on the admittedly artificial situation. But I should add that this would make a fabulous mother-daughter discussion. What do you think?

I wasn’t crazy about this book, but I did enjoy it. And I think younger girls, especially ones who still love dolls, will find it enchanting. There are some fascinating historical details as well as lots of fuel for discussion.

kirbylarson.com
randomhouse.com/kids

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/friendship_doll.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 book I got at ALA Annual Conference and had signed by the author.

Review of The Reading Promise, by Alice Ozma

Audiobooks, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

The Reading Promise

My Father and the Books We Shared

by Alice Ozma
Narrated by the author

Hachette Audio, 2011. 7 hours on 6 CDs.
Starred Review

It should come as no surprise that I’m crazy about a book about a father reading to his daughter. Alice Ozma and her father Jim Brozina had “The Streak” going — he read to her for 3,218 days in a row, from a day when she was in third grade to the time she went off to college.

My initial reaction? I’m mad at myself for never counting the nights their Dad and I read to our sons. And what a brilliant idea! With a “streak,” the kids don’t decide they’ve outgrown being read to nearly as soon. Indeed, Alice’s father had exactly that in mind, because he didn’t want Alice to decide she was too old for this, as her sister had done. Obviously, the strategy worked beautifully.

Alice Ozma reads the audiobook herself. At first, I thought her voice sounded way too young for it, but as the book got going, since she’s talking a lot about when she was a child, that is perfect, and I got used to her voice by the time she was talking about being older. In a lovely touch, her father narrates the foreword he wrote, and reads all the sentence excerpts from classic children’s books placed at the beginning of each chapter.

This isn’t an outline of every book they read. They don’t talk about every day of reading. Instead, there are lovely vignettes about different times in Alice’s reading life and her relationship with her father.

And my goodness, they have some entertaining vignettes! I laughed and laughed over the way Alice’s father convinced her she could go out on a highwire act — except they didn’t have a costume the right size. Or the way the family accommodated her at the funeral of Franklin the fish. Or how her father convinced her that getting in the dreaded kiss-lock with a boy was life-threatening. But the funniest one of all (and I’m just a little ashamed of saying this) was when she talked about her terrible fear of the corpse of John F. Kennedy.

To be completely fair, it was not the person himself whom I was afraid of, initially. I was afraid of his dead body, and I had somehow become convinced that it would appear one night on my bottom bunk, all laid out and ready for a funeral. I don’t know where I got this idea, and I’m happy to report that today it makes me laugh. Then, though, it was a very grave and serious matter.

Every night, I would go through a huge ordeal to avoid the body. At first I tried going to bed while it was still light out, but because it was winter that only gave me an hour or so from the time I got home from school. And if I went to bed early, it meant waking up early, while it was still dark out. So the darkness was unavoidable. Instead, I tried turning on all the lights in my room and sleeping with them on. My parents didn’t even yell at me, but finally the overhead light in my room burned out and I wasn’t tall enough to replace it. My father was, but I think he made a conscientious decision not to do so. As I got older, contrary to my parents’ expectations, the fear actually got stronger. By middle school, avoiding JFK’s dead body, which was obviously lying in state on my bottom bunk, was the focus of my evening….

The fear soon shifted from JFK’s dead body to JFK in general and included even photos of or quotes about him. So it was with great terror that I learned my father was planning a family trip for my sister and me shortly after my mother moved out, and one of the stops was the JFK Memorial Library. My father tried to convince me that I liked libraries more than I feared JFK. I had to point out to him that he did not know his own daughter.

I like the way she finishes off that sad but hilarious chapter:

I couldn’t appreciate it then, but it takes creativity to lie shivering and shaking in your bed, wondering if your cats will know how to defend you, not against ghosts or the boogeyman, but against the immobile body of one of the most famous and beloved ex-presidents of the United States. Thanks to The Streak and my father, imagination was not something I lacked.

The book does progress beyond these vignettes to a sad story of its own. Alice Ozma’s father was a school librarian, and an outstanding one, who emphasized reading to children. In the name of “progress” he was ordered to stop reading to them, to emphasize computers, and his entire collection was put in storage. Here’s where he tells Alice, now in college, about it:

“Neither of them understand what I’m trying to do. [The principal] ordered hundreds of new books this summer without listening to my suggestions. He said we needed all new, current books because students like new things. He put everything but the picture books, fiction or nonfiction, in storage.”

I put up my hand to fight in defense of the collection my father had spent years building, but he raised his eyebrows and gestured his hands in agreement and continued.

“I know! It’s absurd! Here’s the worst, Lovie — the library already owned some of the books he ordered! We had them in hardcover, and he ordered them in paperback. I never order paperbacks because they fall apart in less than a year. He ordered flimsy, paperback versions of books we already had. After all the budget cuts, that is how he uses our precious library money. When there are things we really needed, books that the children would have cherished. And where is the collection I spent so many years putting together? In boxes, in the school basement.”

Mr. Brozina did fight back, but eventually, he retired. However, Alice got a front row seat on this battle and how much it hurt the kids in the school. By the end of the book, her dad’s reading to seniors and preschoolers and to children in hospitals.

But inevitably, his mind wandered back to the children he had left behind. After working in a school made up mostly of minorities and almost entirely of children who qualified for free lunches from the state, he always worried about the students who slip through the cracks. A library without books seemed like a nightmarish punishment for students who desperately needed literacy to move on in the world and rise out of poverty. I knew that he couldn’t settle with the injustice for too long. His announcement did not come as a surprise.

“I’m running for the school board,” he said one day, as though waking up from a long nap.

Alice Ozma ends her book with something of a manifesto.

We called it The Reading Streak, but it was really more of a promise. A promise to each other, a promise to ourselves. A promise to always be there and to never give up. It was a promise of hope in hopeless times. It was a promise of comfort when things got uncomfortable. And we kept our promise to each other.

But more than that, it was a promise to the world: a promise to remember the power of the printed word, to take time to cherish it, to protect it at all costs. He promised to explain, to anyone and everyone he meets, the life-changing ability literature can have. He promised to fight for it. So that’s what he’s doing.

She ends with a sample Reading Promise in which you can fill in your own name, with this explanation:

My father was not the only person to make this promise. I made it, too, just as millions of people have made it around the world. Since books were first created, copied by hand beside glowing firelight, many have recognized them for the treasures they really are. Men and women everywhere have valued and protected these treasures. They may not start a reading streak, but the commitment is still there. There is always time to make the commitment to read and defend reading, and it is a commitment that is always worthwhile. This is more important now than it has ever been before. Unfortunately, my father’s situation is not unique: day by day, literature is being phased out of our lives and the lives of our children. This is the time to act. This is the time to make a promise.

There you have it. This book includes heartwarming stories about a girl and her father, and it progresses to a call to action about the power of literature. This wonderful story will remind you of the power of reading together and stir you to action.

makeareadingpromise.com
HachetteBookGroup.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/reading_promise.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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Front and Center, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Front and Center

by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Houghton Mifflin, 2009. 256 pages.
Starred Review

This book was a lovely end to the Dairy Queen trilogy. I was disappointed the library didn’t have this one on CD, but that was a cool excuse to purchase the book at get it signed by Catherine Gilbert Murdock when I got to hear her speak.

DJ’s back to school, and hopes to just melt into the woodwork, but she finds herself the center of attention. She’s trying to figure out where to go to college, trying to improve her basketball game, and trying to forget Brian Nelson. But then Brian starts acting differently, actually willing to be seen with her, while her good friend Beaner wants something more than friendship. DJ’s got life and college and romance to figure out, and it all makes a lovely conclusion to the trilogy.

I don’t really need to say a lot about this book, because those who have come through the first two books with DJ will definitely want to know what happens next. I promise you’ll enjoy the final installment!

catherinegilbertmurdock.com
www.hmhbooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/front_and_center.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 book I purchased and had signed by the author.

Review of Another Brother, by Matthew Cordell

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review 0

Another Brother

by Matthew Cordell

Feiwel and Friends, New York, 2012. 36 pages.

At last! A picture book that features a family with 13 children! Okay, they’re sheep, but still, it’s a gap that needed filling.

If a human child thinks he has it bad when he loses his parents’ focus, he can imagine what it’s like for Davy. “For four glorious years, Davy had Mom and Dad all to himself.” But then Davy gets a brother, then another and another, until finally he has twelve little brothers.

Now, I do have a big peeve with this book. The brothers are specifically mentioned as coming one at a time — but they are all pictured as the same age, and going through the same stages at the same time. Um, that’s NOT how big families work.

But that’s not really the point. The point is Davy’s got twelve little brothers, all mimicking him and getting in his way and being annoying.

“It’s only a phase, Davy,” Mom said. “Because you’re the oldest, your brothers look up to you.”

“When they get old enough,” said Dad, “your brothers will have their own interests. Then they won’t copy you.”

The book isn’t meant to be realistic. It takes a sibling problem and makes it hilarious by taking it to the extreme and illustrating it with completely silly pictures.

So if a child thinks he’s got it bad with an annoying little brother or sister, he can just imagine what it’s like for Davy. I guarantee that if you do find a kid who has twelve younger brothers like Davy, he will be far too old for this book, so Davy’s problems will definitely look extreme. Nothing like a bit of perspective!

matthewcordell.com
mackids.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Top 100 Children’s Novelists – #3 Lois Lowry

Top 100 Writers and Illustrators 0

Top 100 Children’s Novelists: #3, Lois Lowry, 327 votes

Here’s another living author in the coveted #3 Top Children’s Author slot. (By my count, only half of the authors in the Top 10 Children’s Novelists are still alive.) Lois Lowry showed real depth with one book in the Top 10, another in the Top 100, and six different books appearing in the poll.

Here are Betsy’s posts about Lois Lowry’s books in the Top 100:

#4, The Giver, 260 points

#50, Number the Stars, 42 points

The other books which received votes, with comments where they were given, were:

Anastasia Krupnik, 17 points

“(This book is, I know, a longshot for making the top 100, but I love it, so I’m giving it a big bump by putting it at the top of my list. Anastasia was exactly who I wanted to be and who I wanted to be friends with when I was 10. I had a green notebook and still to this day keep a list of words that I think would make an f-is-for-fabulous sound poem.)” — Dana Chidiac

“I loved Anastasia because she was a normal girl with normal problems (glasses, acne, cool-but-embarrassing parents, annoying little brothers, etc). She was also smart and funny, and I envied her hiking boots with red laces (and later her tower bedroom).” — The Sauls Family

Gossamer, 4 points

“Stays with you long after the story is over – beautifully written” — Cheryl Phillips

A Summer to Die, 2 points

The Willoughbys, 2 points

I find I haven’t reviewed any of the books above, though I read most of them when I was an adult but before I became a librarian. Just for fun, and to show some of the scope of Lois Lowry’s writing, here are her books which I have reviewed:

Messenger
Gooney Bird Greene
Gooney Bird and the Room Mother
The Birthday Ball

And here is Lois Lowry’s own site.

Review of Lucky for Good, by Susan Patron

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

Lucky for Good

by Susan Patron
read by Cassandra Campbell

Random House, Listening Library, 2011. 5 hours, 30 minutes on 5 CDs.

I was very happy when a third book about Lucky Trimble came out. And this time, I was able to listen to it, as I did the first book, the Newbery-winning The Higher Power of Lucky. Cassandra Campbell does a wonderful job reading it, with a particularly good French accent for Lucky’s Mom, Brigitte.

I enjoyed this book, since they were characters I already love. I like the way Lucky thinks about quirky things, and we go off in tangents along with her thoughts.

I’m afraid I would have liked this book better, though, if it had ended with the third CD. There’s a big climactic scene, an excellent one with danger and luck and humor. When I put that CD away, I remember wondering what was left to happen.

Then today I listened to the last two CDs, and I’m afraid nothing much did happen. There was a plot arc going for the first half of the book, but then it fizzled out. I really think pretty much everything that happened in the last two CDs could have been moved to before the big climactic scene, and it would have given the book a more unified whole.

Miles’ mother returns, and that’s a big part of the book. Lucky’s afraid she’ll take Miles away from Hard Pan, and I do like the resolution given to that worry. However, in the last part of the book, we learn that Miles’ mother Justine is kind of a religious nut. She won’t let Miles read books she doesn’t agree with, and is talking about home schooling him. That is never really resolved. And Miles is very unhappy with the new beliefs he feels he has to adopt. I didn’t like that part. I’m a Christian, but my beliefs are a lot closer to Lucky’s than they are to Justine’s, and I still didn’t like seeing Justine as a straw figure, a caricature of someone who believes things that are completely opposed to science. Lucky and Lincoln talk with Miles about it, but I really don’t like to see them talking about caricatured beliefs. I feel like they’re saying that Christianity is simply not scientific, without actually showing the views of Christian scientists at all.

Okay, I know there really are people like Justine out there. And I do like the way Lucky relates to her. And I like it that they acknowledge that knowing Jesus saved Justine from addiction. But I wasn’t crazy about that part of the story.

Several other things at the end didn’t feel right to me. Something big happens with her father, quite out of the blue. I wish things had built up to that a little. Especially since Lucky was thinking a lot about her father, and thinking a lot about big things happening to people she loves. If it all had been connected a little more, this would have felt like part of the story arc, rather than a random sad happening.

In the beginning, Lucky gets a very interesting assignment as a punishment. Lucky’s working on it a lot — right up until that climactic scene in the middle. Then it’s not mentioned again until the end. Did the principal really accept it at the end of the summer? Why wasn’t it mentioned when they were still in the school year? And how in the world did Lucky find out her ancestors on her mother’s side, when all she knew (last we heard) was her mother’s first name and where she was born?

In the beginning, Lucky also meets an interesting but hostile 8th-grader. That is also pretty much dropped after the big climactic scene in the middle.

And Lincoln heads off to Knot Camp. So he’s not even in the last part of the book. It might have been nice to either end it when he leaves, or, if the summer is only going to be a small part of the book, have him come back right before the end.

However, did I mention how good that big climactic scene in the middle was? Beautiful! A perfect comedy of errors, a lovely play on the quirky people of Hard Pan whom we’ve come to know and love.

The problem the book starts out with is compelling. Brigitte’s Cafe is violating Ordinance 1849! The way the book deals with it is compelling. I just wish that had been the main story arc of the entire book.

Anyway, I loved the first three CDs, and still enjoyed (if not quite as much) the last two. And anyone who’s already come to know Lucky and the delightful people of Hard Pan, California, will definitely want to read this last adventure. (Oh, that’s another thing. The subtitle said this is the final installment of the Hard Pan Trilogy. Why? What is it about Lucky starting junior high that means we won’t get to read about her any more? I think she’ll get even more interesting the older she gets. Still, I guess if the author wants to move on to other characters and other stories, I won’t complain. But I hope she won’t rule out the idea of ever writing more about Lucky.)

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

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Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Catching Up!

General 0

Woo-hoo! I just finished writing reviews of all the books I’ve read and meant to review! Woo-hoo!

This is a momentous week, because yesterday was one year since the day when I had my stroke. I’m pretty certain I’ve been pretty seriously behind on writing reviews since that day. Because when you’re spending a lot of time in the hospital or in bed, you do have time to read, but you don’t have so much time to review what you’ve read.

Today also marks the day when I’ve worked two consecutive pay periods without taking ANY time off — neither sick leave nor annual leave. (And even better, the last time off I took was for annual leave, not sick leave.) Back last January, I promised myself that when I managed to go two pay periods without taking leave, I would then need to seriously look for a way to get back to working in Youth Services — and tomorrow I have an interview!

In fact, I’ve applied for not one but two Youth Services Manager positions. One is at my current branch, and one is in the neighboring county. I will be very happy if I am offered either one of them, and that they are coming right when I feel I’m truly recovered from the stroke and right when I promised myself I’d look for a Youth Services position is such a lovely touch.

Of course, I can’t really say I’m caught up on reviews — because now I have 73 drafts ready to post!

But I’ve written them!

You may well ask, why don’t I just schedule them to post every day for the next 73 days? Well, I’ve kind of written myself into a corner. Yes, I post all my reviews on this blog, but I also post all the reviews on the main Sonderbooks site, by type of review. So when I post a review on the blog, I also post it on the main site, and I like to do that together. But now that I’m caught up on actually writing them, I can shoot for posting one or two reviews every evening. And I can make a goal of, on my day off, making sure I’ve written reviews of all the books I finished the past week, in hopes I’ll never get so frightfully behind again.

I’m also having some fun choosing which reviews to post. I’m trying to keep variety. And I decided to pull from the end and from the beginning. So I’ll look at the reviews I wrote the longest time ago and post one of those, and then I’ll post a review I’ve written recently (preferably a recently published book). So the poor books in the middle are languishing, but I’ll have to hold some kind of big celebration when I finally really catch up. It almost makes me want to slow down my reading!

Mind you, in addition I’m now running six blog series: Top 100 Writers and Illustrators, Sonderling Sunday, Conference Corner, Librarians Help, Sondy’s Selections, and Prime Factorization Fun. So I’m getting where I like to alternate reviews with one of these series.

So much blogging, so little time. But for tonight, I’ve caught up on writing reviews! Huzzah!