Review of The Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss

Adventure, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Wise Man’s Fear

The Kingkiller Chronicles: Day Two

by Patrick Rothfuss

DAW Books, New York, 2011. 994 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #6 Fantasy Fiction

I already talked about what motivated me to read The Kingkiller Chronicle. This is not a book that stands alone. This is the second part of one story, or rather one epic saga. You should definitely read The Name of the Wind first. And those who read The Name of the Wind will be compelled to read this next book just as soon as they are able.

The annoying part? The story is by no means finished. Not only does this book not stand alone, it doesn’t even break at a very natural place. The frame is that Kvothe is telling his story to the Chronicler over a period of three days, and this is what he told on the second day. I’m a little skeptical that a story of almost a thousand pages could really be spoken aloud in one day’s time, but I wouldn’t want it to be any shorter. Anyway, like any good storyteller, Kvothe breaks at a place that leaves you wanting more.

But the writing and language are still outstanding. The story is still gripping. We cover a few more of the things Kvothe foreshadowed when he introduced himself. In this book, he has more adventures at the University, but then needs to go out to get some money. Along the way, he learns about sex and about making war. Everything he does, he does well.

I admit, I felt pretty cynical about his adventure with Felurian, one of the Fae who drives men mad with her sexuality. However, Patrick Rothfuss is masterful in keeping that part mythical and wondrous. He doesn’t give graphic descriptions, but instead imaginative names (like “Birdsong at morning”) for the things Felurian teaches Kvothe.

And all the adventures along the way are momentous.

Right now, I’m a little disgruntled from having to wait for the third book. But unless Patrick Rothfuss suddenly gets much worse, this trilogy will be right up there with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. If you like fantasy at all, I highly recommend this trilogy. Of course, the one catch to reading it now is that the third book hasn’t been written yet. However, this will give you the delightful excuse to read the first two books again when the third one comes out.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/wise_mans_fear.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 from a Barnes & Noble bookstore.

Review of The Sniffles for Bear, by Bonny Becker

Animal Characters, Picture Book Review, Readalouds, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Sniffles for Bear

by Bonny Becker
illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton

Candlewick Press, 2011. 32 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #8 Picture Books

Mouse and Bear are back! Honestly, I love every book Bonny Becker and Kady MacDonald Denton write. And Bear and Mouse have developed definite characteristics, to which they remain true.

Here’s how this installment begins:

“Bear was sick, very, very sick.
His eyes were red. His snout was red.
His throat was sore and gruffly.
In fact, Bear was quite sure no one
had ever been as sick as he.

“One morning, Bear heard a tap, tap, tapping on his front door.
‘Cub in!’ he rasped.”

Those who know Mouse and Bear will not be at all surprised when Mouse doesn’t appreciate the gravity of Bear’s situation.

After some false starts, Mouse does help Bear get upstairs to bed and does help him write his will. When Bear finally sleeps and gets better, it’s his turn to tend to Mouse.

This book will be most enjoyed by those who have already read the earlier books, because the fun comes from the interaction between fastidious, overdramatic Bear and the always cheery Mouse. This is also a perfect book to read to someone who isn’t feeling well. It will show that you fully understand the gravity of the situation.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Review of Clementine and the Family Meeting, by Sara Pennypacker

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Clementine and the Family Meeting

by Sara Pennypacker
pictures by Marla Frazee

Disney Hyperion Books, New York, 2011. 162 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: Children’s Fiction #7

Hooray! Another book about Clementine! This is now the fifth book about the irrepressible third grader, her family and her friends and the concerns of her life. Clementine’s life is not boring for a second, but all the events seem completely true to a third-grader’s perspective.

The book begins, as the others, with Marla Frazee’s wonderful pictures. We see Clementine, bundled up on the bus, looking droopy and worried. Here’s how the book begins:

“The very first thing Margaret said when she sat down next to me on the bus Monday morning was that I looked terrible. ‘You have droopy eyebags and a pasty complexion. Absolutely no glow. What’s the matter?’

“‘I’m having a nervous breakdown,’ I told her. ‘Our FAMILY MEETING! sign is up, and I have to wait until tonight to find out if I’m in trouble.’

“‘Of course you’re in trouble,’ Margaret said. ‘Probably something really big. Bright pink blush and a sparkly eye shadow is what I recommend.'”

Meanwhile, Clementine has to get through the day. Here’s a part I liked very much:

“I opened my backpack and pulled out my IMPORTANT PAPERS folder and found a good surprise: the science fair project report Waylon and I had written was still in there! I’m supposed to keep it until the end of the project, and every day that it’s still in my backpack feels like a miracle.

“As I started reading over the report, I calmed down. This is because lately I really like science class.

“I didn’t always. In the beginning, science class was a big disappointment, let me tell you.

“On the first day of third grade, Mrs. Resnick, the science teacher, had started talking about what a great year it was going to be.

“I looked around the science room.

“No monkeys with funnel hats and electrodes. No alien pods leaking green slime. No human heads sitting on platters under glass jars talking to each other, like I’d seen in a movie once, and don’t bother telling my parents about it because I was grounded for a week already and so was Uncle Frank, who brought me to the movie.

“No smoking test tubes, no sizzling magnetic rays, no rocket launch controls. Just some posters on the walls and a bunch of tall tables with sinks, as if all you would do in a room like this was wash your hands. Margaret had told me she liked science class, and now I knew why: Margaret says ‘Let’s go wash our hands’ the way other people say ‘Let’s go to a party and eat cake!’

“‘Does anyone have any questions?’ Mrs. Resnick had asked that first day.

“I sure did. I wanted to ask, ‘You call this a science room?’ But instead, I just said, ‘Excuse me, I think there’s been a mistake,’ in my most polite voice.

“‘A mistake?’ Mrs. Resnick asked.

“‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’m in the wrong science room.’

“‘The wrong science room?’ she repeated.

“I nodded. ‘I want the one with the invisibility chamber and mind-control buttons and mutant brains spattered on the ceiling. The one with experiments.’

“‘I want that one, too,’ Waylon said. I gave him a big smile.”

Most of the developments in this book happen because of the results of the Family Meeting, so I’ll try to refrain from repeating more good bits.

As always, reading about Clementine simply makes me smile. This week I had the pleasure of recommending the Clementine series to a third grade girl, and I hope she’s made another friend.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Sonderling Sunday — Chapter One, Part Three

Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge, Sonderling Sunday 0

It’s time for Sonderling Sunday, otherwise known as Nerd Sonntag, otherwise known as A Bizarre German-English Phrasebook, otherwise known as Language Fun for Silly People.

What I’m doing is looking at translations found in Der Orden der Seltsamer Sonderlinge of the so-interesting words and sentences from The Order of Odd-Fish, by James Kennedy. I’m hoping to finish Chapter One today.

I left off last week on page 8 of The Order of Odd-Fish and page 15 of Der Orden der Seltsamer Sonderlinge.

Let’s pick up where Lily Larouche returns after having been missing for forty years and where she meets Jo:

“LILY LAROUCHE RETURNS!
(WITH A ‘DANGEROUS’ COMPANION)

“Lily Larouche had awakened in her dusty bed, in her ruby palace. But she had no idea how she had got there. And she had no idea what she had been doing for the past forty years.

“Then she heard a distant crying. She followed the sound to her laundry room — and there, inside the washing machine, she found a baby.

“She also found a note:

“This is Jo. Please take care of her.
But beware.
This is a DANGEROUS baby.”

In the German translation, these paragraphs read:

“LILY LAROUCHE KEHRT ZURÜCK!
(MIT EINER ‘GEFÄHRLICHEN’ GEFÄHRTIN)

“Lily Larouche war in ihrem staubigen Bett in ihrem Rubinpalast aufgewacht, hatte aber keinerlei Ahnung, wie sie dorthin gekommen war. Ebenso wenig wusste sie, was sie in den letzten vier Jahrzehnten gemacht hatte.

“Sie hörte ein leises Wimmern. Daraufhin folgte sie dem Geräusch bis zu ihrer Waschküche und dort, in der Waschmaschine, fand sie ein Baby.

“Und eine Nachricht.

“Das ist Jo. Bitte kümmere Dich um sie.
Aber sei vorsichtig.
Sie ist ein GEFÄHRLICHES Baby.”

Okay, there’s a super good one here, right at the start:

“DANGEROUS COMPANION” = “GEFÄHRLICHEN GEFÄHRTIN”

How lovely! This is another serendipitous one to say three times fast: Gefährlichen Gefährtin. Gefährlichen Gefährtin. Gefährlichen Gefährtin.

As far as I can tell, it is simple happy circumstance that these sound so much alike. This is a case where the translation trumps the original by at least ten points.

Some other words from these paragraphs:

“dusty” = “staubigen”

Instead of “forty years,” the translator used “four decades” = “vier Jahrzehnten.”

“crying” = “Wimmern”

“sound” = “Geräusch”

“laundry room” = “Waschküche” (Wash kitchen)

Let’s move on. I simply must tell you how this paragraph is translated:

“‘Balderdash,’ said Aunt Lily. ‘Whoever left that note was just having their little joke. The girl’s as dangerous as a glass of milk. Lived with her for thirteen years, so I should know. Not a peep, not a pop.’

“Jo glared at Aunt Lily.”

In German:

“‘Papperlapapp’, erklärte sie. ‘Wer diese Nachricht hinterlassen hat, hat sich einfach nur einen kleinen Scherz erlaubt. Das Mädchen ist genauso gefährlich wie ein Glas Milch. Ich lebe jetzt seit dreizehn Jahren mit Jo zusammen, sollte es also wissen. Sie ist so still wie ein Mäuschen.’

“Jo warf ihrer Tante einen bösen Blick zu.”

Okay, I think this is my favorite translation so far:

“Balderdash” = “Papperlapapp” Too fun!

As for the rest, we’re going to encounter this one later:

“joke” = “Scherz”

I’m a little disappointed with the translation of “Not a peep, not a pop.” They just said, “She is as quiet as a mouse.” (Something with peep and pop would have gone so very well with Papperlapapp, too!) And they don’t really say Jo “glared” at Aunt Lily, more that she gave her an evil look.

Ah! In the next paragraph we have a new translation of daffodil! Here’s the German:

“Der Oberst wirkte ein wenig enttäuscht und selbst die Osterglocke auf seinem Kopf schien ihre Blätter ein wenig hängen zu lassen. Doch dann erholte er sich. ‘Blödsinn. Ich wei? von höchster Stelle, dass Jo Larouche tatsächlich gefährlich ist und dass ein extrem bedeutungsvoller Gegenstand, ein Gegenstand, der in den falschen Händen möglicherweise sogar gefährlich sein könnte, noch heute Abend hierher geliefert wird, an ebendiese. . .'”

This is translated from:

“Colonel Korsakov looked disappointed — even the daffodil on his head seemed to droop a little — but then he rumbled, ‘Nonsense. I have it on excellent authority that Jo Larouche is dangerous — and that an extremely important item, an item that may even be unsafe in the wrong hands, will be delivered here tonight, to this very — ‘”

Yes! This time “daffodil” is translated as “Easter bell,” “Osterglocke.” Oh, the delights of language! And the daffodil doesn’t just droop. It “lets its leaves hang a little,” “schien ihre Blätter ein wenig hängen zu lassen.”

Of course, you have to catch this one:

“Nonsense” = “Blödsinn”

“important” = “bedeutungsvoller” (which I would have translated “meaningful”)

“possibly” = “möglicherweise” (I knew that one already, but it’s just fun to say.)

Well, I simply must include the dramatic next paragraph:

“But Korsakov never finished. A futuristic white sports car burst out of nowhere, skidded through the rosebushes, and spun to a stop in the sand. Its door flew open and the hedgehog leaped out, shouting, ‘All right, where is he? Let me at him!'”

This translates as:

Der Russe kam nicht dazu, seinen Satz zu beenden. Ein futuristischer wei?er Sportwagen tauchte wie aus dem Nichts auf, fegte durch die Rosenbüsche und kam schleudernd im Sand zum Stehen. Der Wagenschlag flog auf und der Igel sprang heraus. ‘Also gut, wo steckt er? Lasst mich zu ihm!'”

From these:

“skidded” = “fegte”

“spun to a stop in the sand” = “kam schleudernd im Sand zum Stehen” (I’ll give equal points to those phrases.)

“car door” = “Wagenschlag”

“hedgehog” = “Igel” (I still don’t get that one.)

Here’s another dramatic paragraph:

“There was a shrieking blast of wind that sent sand flying, paper lanterns swaying. A plane roared far above — and something fell from the sky, down into the garden, and down onto the hedgehog’s head.”

This becomes:

“Ein kreischender Windsto? wirbelte Sand auf und lie? die Papierlampions heftig schaukeln. Hoch über ihnen dröhnte ein Flugzeug hinweg und etwas fiel vom Himmel in den Garten und dem Igel auf den Kopf.”

We’ve got:
“shrieking blast of Wind” = “kreischender Windsto?”

“sent sand flying” = “wirbelte Sand auf” (might mean “whirled sand up”?)

“paper lanterns flying” = “Papierlampions heftig schaukeln” (“paper lanterns violently rocking”)

“plane roared” = “dröhnte ein Flugzeug” (“droned the flying thing”)

And let’s finish up the chapter with the final paragraphs:

“Jo scrambled back, just barely avoiding Korsakov as he thudded into the sand, and tripped over the thing that had fallen from the sky — a brown cardboard package, with these words written across the top:

“TO: JO LAROUCHE
FROM: THE ORDER OF ODD-FISH

“After that, everyone had the leisure to start screaming.”

Auf Deutsch:

“Jo krabbelte hastig zurück. Es gelang ihr gerade noch, sich vor der massigen Gestalt Korsakovs in Sicherheit zu bringen, als der Russe mit einem dumpfen Aufprall auf dem Sand landete. Dabei stolperte sie über das Ding, das aus dem Himmel gefallen war. Es war ein brauner Pappkarton, auf dem die Worte geschrieben standen:

“EMPFÄNGER: JO LAROUCHE
ABSENDER: DER ORDEN DER SELTSAMEN SONDERLINGE

“Dann endlich hatten sich alle so weit erholt, dass sie loskreischen konnten.”

Some final goodies:

“scrambled back” = “krabbelte hastig zurück” (“crawled quickly back.” I picture her crawling backwards like a crab.)

“just barely avoiding Korsakov” talks about in the nick of time avoiding his massive body safely.

“tripped” = “stolperte”

“cardboard package” = “Pappkarton”

“screaming” = “loskreischen”

There you have it! We’ve gotten through one chapter, and it only took three weeks! Isn’t this fun?

I just have one more thing to say:

Papperlapapp! And beware of gefährlichen Gefährtin!

Review of Mathematics 1001, by Dr. Richard Elwes

Mathematical, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Mathematics 1001

Absolutely Everything That Matters in Mathematics in 1001 Bite-Sized Explanations

by Dr. Richard Elwes

Firefly Books, 2010. 415 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: # 5 Other Nonfiction

Boy, I wish I’d had this book 25 years ago, before I started grad school in Mathematics! Come to think of it, I would have loved to have it as an undergrad, to get a much wider grasp of the subject. As it is, when I began reading this book, a couple pages or a section a day, I decided this was a book I had to own, and I ordered myself a copy.

Now, I grant you that I have no idea if this book will be interesting to any of my readers. I found it absolutely fascinating. In grad school, I got an inkling of the things mathematicians study, but this book presents an overview of the subject in all its splendor.

Dr. Elwes is brilliant at giving the reader the broad perspective, with enough details to fascinate, rather than confuse. Many of the topics cover the foundations of an area of mathematics, and others cover unsolved problems, and everything in between.

When I put this book on hold and my copy came to the library, I was delighted with the topic I happened to open to when I was glancing through it:

Librarian’s nightmare theorem

“If customers borrow books one at a time, and return them one place to the left or right of the original place, what arrangements of books may emerge? The answer is that, after some time, every conceivable ordering is possible. The simplest permutations are the transpositions, which leave everything alone except for swapping two neighbouring points. The question is; which more complex permutations can be built from successive transpositions? The answer is that every permutation can be so constructed.

“In cycle notation, (1 3 2) is not a transposition, as it moves three items around: 1 to 3, 3 to 2, and 2 to 1. But this has the same effect as swapping 1 and 2, and then swapping 2 and 3. That is to say, (1 3 2) = (1 2)(2 3). The librarian’s nightmare theorem guarantees that every permutation can similarly be expressed as a product of transpositions.”

Is that not a delightful merging of my two fields of study? (Don’t answer that!)

I highly recommend this book for any student considering math as their future field of study, as well as anyone who ever enjoyed studying math. For that matter, this book would also be good for anyone who finds math at all intriguing. If you can resist it, go ahead. But if reading the paragraphs above makes you happy, you’ll find a thousand more where that came from.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/mathematics_1001.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 my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com.

Capitol Choices and Reading Plans

Award Challenge, General 0

I had such a wonderful time at the 2012 Morris Seminar, learning how to participate in Book Evaluation Committees, I’ve decided to finally join Capitol Choices.

Capitol Choices is a Washington, DC, area group that makes lists every year of Noteworthy Titles for Children and Teens. I decided to join the Ten to Fourteen Reading Group.

I think this is a nice transition position to being on an award committee some day. It’s a voluntary group, and I don’t feel obligated to read every single book being considered (though I will definitely try). I’m planning to read more new books in that age group than anything else, but I’m not going to read exclusively from this group.

And that brings me back to my Crazy Reading Plan which I posted in January. It’s March 3rd. How am I doing?

Well, I find I love the plan and the variety it brings to my reading. The one thing I don’t like is how long it takes me to go through one cycle. Here’s what I’ve read so far:

Rereads: 3 books
Books I Own: 3 books
New Library Books: 3 books
Award Winners: 2 books (a Cybils Finalist & a Printz Honor book)
Prepub ARCs: 2 books
Older Library Books: 2 books
Capitol Choices Considerations: 1 book
Exceptions (read to finish Heavy Medal reading list): 2 books
Nonfiction finished (I usually read these a chapter at a time): 5 books
Short Chapter Books read between other books in the cycle: 3 books
Children’s Nonfiction: 2 books
Audiobooks: 3 books

Put that way, it adds up to 31 books, which is not bad at all for March 3rd. The part I don’t like is that I’ve only gotten through two complete cycles of my Plan.

But I am enjoying it. I love that I’m getting around to rereading favorites (so far, all three books were ones I loved and reread before reading a newly published sequel). I love that I’m slowly getting award winners, which I’d been meaning to read, read. I love that I’m reading books I own. I love that I’m getting a few ARCs read before they’re published.

In fact, I’ve decided to make the cycle even slower. First, I’ve decided, for awhile anyway, to alternate between books on my plan and books for Capitol Choices, either already on the In Progress List or that I think might be good candidates. That will be my way of compromising between reading more of these books than anything else, but still getting to read adult books.

But the other, very silly thing I’m doing is adding Awards to my Award Winners Workbook. When I started my plan, I had lists from six different awards of books I haven’t read that have been honored by those awards. Confession: I had lots of fun making those lists. When I hear about another award for middle grade or YA books, I find myself making another list.

So far I’ve added:
SLJsBoB books I haven’t read yet, from the present or past (18 books).
Andre Norton Award Winners and Finalists (27 books).
Edgar Award Winners and Finalists for Children’s and Young Adult Books (336 books).
LA Times Book Prize Winners and Finalists for Young Adult Literature (19 books).
I’m currently in the process of adding:
Past Capitol Choices List books for ages ten to fourteen and fourteen and up (hundreds of books).
Josette Frank Award Winners (74 books).

As you can see, this is getting completely ridiculous! I will be very lucky if I get ONE book read from each award list before the year ends, let alone all the books honored this year. My one hope is that by reading for Capitol Choices, I’ll read most of next year’s award winners before they win, thus meaning my lists won’t grow faster than they get depleted.

And there’s something about putting a book on a list that comforts me in the belief that I WILL read it some day. So many books, so little time is the story of my life. This way I can operate in the belief that I’ll get to the truly good books some time or other!

And of course the overarching principle is that I love rules and I love reading and I love variety — and I think this Plan is FUN! So onward I go!

Review of Audiobook Enchantress from the Stars, by Sylvia Louise Engdahl

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

Enchantress From the Stars

by Sylvia Louise Engdahl

performed by Jennifer Ikeda

Recorded Books, 2006. 9 compact discs, 10.5 hours.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Audio Rereads

I already reviewed Enchantress from the Stars on Sonderbooks back in 2001, back when it was an e-mail newsletter. I’m finding that listening to audiobooks is a good way to reread and savor truly great books like this one. For one thing, I “read” more slowly than I ever can stand to do with print. And it’s a whole new way to enjoy it.

Enchantress from the Stars is particularly suited for audiobook form, because it’s supposedly the narration of Elana, a space traveller from a highly advanced society, giving a report of what happened on Andrecia. When she talks from the perspective of the other two main characters, she changes tone, but Elana is the voice telling the story, and Jennifer Ikeda does a good job of becoming the actual voice of Elana.

This book is so brilliant because it provides a perfectly plausible explanation for many traditional fairy tales. A Space Empire, less advanced than Elana’s society, is trying to take over Andrecia, which still has a medieval society. The Andrecians are so primitive, the Imperials don’t even think they’re human. They bring machines to clear the ground for a colony, and the Andrecians believe it is a fearsome dragon.

Elana’s people can’t reveal themselves to the Imperials, but she can reveal herself to the Andrecians, posing as an Enchantress. She is able to give them gifts of magic (awaken latent powers) to fight the dragon — and send away the Imperials. But none of this is simple.

I loved experiencing this book again in audio form. I love the way the story works from all three perspectives, and I love all the food for thought it provides. It’s fun that any one of the three cultures could actually be Earth, in the past or in the future.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Battle of the Kids’ Books is Coming!

Events 0

My post is up on School Library Journal’s Battle of the Kids’ Books (SLJsBoB) website!

In that post, I told my reasons for loving SLJsBoB and how much fun it is to participate through reading the books and commenting.

Here, I will point out that you still have time to read the books before the competition begins on March 13th! Don’t delay! It’s lots of fun! Here are the Brackets with the books that will be competing.

Now, I hadn’t seen the Brackets before I wrote the post that’s up today. So now I will point out that Amelia Lost, Chime, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Drawing from Memory, and Okay for Now are all 2011 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

Interesting! I only now noticed that all of these Sonderbooks Stand-outs are in different first-round pairings from each other. So I don’t need to tell you which book I will root for in those pairings. I’m going to go with my Stand-out every time.

Now, I only have four more books to read before the Battle starts. Most of them I will try to review before March 13th. Based on what I’ve read now, my picks for the remaining pairings will be:

Match Two: Between Shades of Gray vs Bootleg. I haven’t read Between Shades of Gray yet, and Bootleg was very good, so I’ll pick Bootleg with the caveat that this pick may very well change after I read the other book. I think that judge Gayle Forman’s books are more similar to Between Shades of Gray, but I have found that often judges pick the book least like the ones they write. (With lots of exceptions, though.)

Match Six: Heart and Soul vs Inside Out and Back Again. Again, I haven’t read Inside Out and Back Again, and Heart and Soul is amazing. So I’ll go with Heart and Soul unless Inside Out and Back Again blows me away, which it may.

Match Seven: Life: An Exploded Diagram vs A Monster Calls
This one there’s no question in my mind: I’m rooting for A Monster Calls. I’ve read both, and while Life: An Exploded Diagram was good, A Monster Calls was dazzling. Also, Life felt much more like an adult book to me. I think if I’d chosen to read it as a piece of adult literary fiction, I would have known what to expect and enjoyed it a lot more. My main reasons for not naming A Monster Calls a Sonderbooks Stand-out were personal. I read it when having mysterious health problems, and it’s about a mother dying. But the book is outstanding!

So, those are the only matches that don’t have a Sonderbooks Stand-out competing, and I’ll go with my Stand-out for all the others.

Meanwhile, you can already take part by participating in the Undead Poll. In this, you vote for your favorite title and, if it has been knocked out earlier in the competition, it will come back from the dead in the final round.

I decided to vote for Okay for Now, because I was sad it didn’t get any Newbery recognition. I’ve also found that a lot of people, like me, love it, but also a lot of people really don’t like it. So, in case it gets knocked out by a judge who falls into that second camp, I want it to have another chance.

Thinking about it later, I kind of wish I’d voted for Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Because two of my favorites, Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Chime are in the same half, one of them is definitely not going to make the Final Round. So I should have voted for the one that I like a tiny bit better than the other, to give it another chance. Oh well! Here’s hoping it makes it to the Final Round despite me! And I won’t mind if it’s Chime either, though my ideal final round would be Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Chime, and Okay for Now. But the only way that will happen is if one of those first two wins the Undead Poll. So get out there and vote!

PS: HOW much fun is it to have an SLJsBoB icon?!!! Monica and Roxanne told me I could post it on my site.