2011 Sonderbooks Standouts: Children’s Nonfiction

Children's Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs 0

With Children’s Nonfiction books I read in 2011, I had a clear favorite. It’s not one I’ve heard about on book blogs, but when I did hear about it, I immediately ordered a copy and completely loved it. The book is You Can Count on Monsters, which, like my Prime Factorization Sweater, does great stuff visualizing the prime factorization of numbers up to 100. I confess I also like it because it’s somewhat similar to a book I was writing at the time called Colors and Codes that shows how to use Math to make cyphers using colors and patterns. I’ve since finished the book, but am holding onto it while I figure out how to present it to agents or editors. But I was completely delighted that someone had done such a great job presenting a somewhat similar concept. (Not to mention that I find these concepts endlessly fascinating.)

I grant you, I am a math nut, so I don’t necessarily expect to find this book on the top of too many other children’s book lists. But I sure loved it!

Here are my favorite Children’s Nonfiction books read in 2011:

1. You Can Count on Monsters, by Richard Evan Schwartz
2. Me. . . Jane, by Patrick McDonnell
3. Queen of the Falls, by Chris VanAllsburg
4. Drawing from Memory, by Allen Say
5. Amelia Lost, by Candace Fleming
6. All the Way to America, by Dan Yaccarino
7. Sugar Changed the World, by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos

Happy Reading!

2011 Sonderbooks Standouts: Children’s Fiction

Children's Fiction Review, Stand-outs 0

Most years, I have a clear favorite category (YA Fantasy), but not this year! This year I had books I totally loved in all the categories, and I’m so thankful I have a precedent of making categories so I don’t have to rank them against each other.

In Children’s Fiction, I didn’t have such a hard time with the ranking, at least the top of the list. Although I adored Okay For Now, and it’s my pick for the Newbery Medal, my definite most-loved and most-enjoyed Children’s book this year was Tuesdays at the Castle, by Jessica Day George. What can I say? It completely won my heart.

I have to add that Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run had to be included, because it helped convince me NOT to go to the 150th Anniversary and Reenactment of the First Battle of Bull Run, for which I had tickets, on a day when the weather was over 100 degrees and I’d had a headache for three weeks. Since I had a stroke the very next day, I’m absolutely convinced that was a fabulous (possibly life-saving!) decision. Besides, it’s a really fun book!

So here are my favorite Children’s Fiction books that I read in 2011:
1. Tuesdays at the Castle, by Jessica Day George
2. Okay for Now, by Gary D. Schmidt
3. The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, by Wendy Wan-Long Shang
4. Kat, Incorrigible, by Stephanie Burgis
5. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg
6. Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run, by Michael Hemphill and Sam Riddleburger
7. Clementine and the Family Meeting, by Sara Pennypacker

Here are the other lists I’ve posted so far:
Fiction for Grownups
Teen Fiction
Last Year’s Standouts

2011 Sonderbooks Standouts: Fiction for Teens

Stand-outs, Teen Fiction Review 0

Young Adult Fiction tends to be my favorite category, particularly the Fantasy books. This year was no different, except that there were some outstanding fantasy books I loved in both the Adult and Children’s categories. I’m glad I’ve set a precedent of separating the categories so I don’t have to rank them against each other! It’s hard enough ranking these. The top three Fantasy novels were books I thoroughly loved. In the end, The Scorpio Races won out for my favorite because it channeled so much little-girl Black Stallion nostalgia. An awesome book!

The most bizarre, most distinctive, most, well sonder, was definitely The Order of Odd-Fish, by James Kennedy, and its translation, Der Orden der Seltsamer Sonderlinge. But where to rank it? I’m tempted to put it in a category of its own, which it will actually get when I start blogging about reading the German translation (which I intend to do after I get all the Standouts posted, honest).

As with Adult Fiction, I split the books into two categories: Fantasy and Everything Else. Now, a few of these walk close to the line of fantasy, so I went with gutlevel thinking to decide which book goes where.

I really cut down the list of books I wanted to include. Please remember that books I gave a starred review to are books I think are excellent! And ranking my favorites was difficult, and might change on a different day. Remember that this is extremely subjective, and just a measure of how much I personally enjoyed them. All of these are outstanding, memorable, excellent books:

Fantasy for Teens:
1. The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater
2. Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor
3. Chime, by Franny Billingsley
4. Red Glove, by Holly Black
5. The Trouble With Kings, by Sherwood Smith
6. The Ring of Solomon, by Jonathan Stroud
7. The Order of Odd-Fish, by James Kennedy

Other Teen Fiction:

1. Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly
2. Shipbreaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi
3. Page by Paige, by Laura Lee Gulledge
4. Beauty Queens, by Libba Bray
5. Lost and Found, by Shaun Tan

I promise I will get the remaining reviews posted as soon as I possibly can!

Happy Reading!

2011 Sonderbooks Standouts: Fiction for Adults

Fiction Review, Stand-outs 0

It takes awhile to post a new page of Sonderbooks Standouts, so I’ve decided to blog about one category at a time. I will post the pages and reviews as soon as possible, but for now I can post the lists.

I’m starting with Fiction for Adults, simply because that was my shortest list. I also have more of the books already reviewed and/or posted.

The decisions in ranking were still difficult, though. Two books I read seemed resoundingly, lastingly good, and it’s hard to rank them. The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss, is written in lyrical prose and immediately pulls you in. It’s an epic that you can compare to Tolkien with a straight face. However, when I read the sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear, although it is still incredibly well-written, I did get annoyed that the story just stopped at a random place and definitely isn’t finished. I also suffered some excessive eye-rolling at the interlude involving the character learning about sex from a woman of faery whose beauty drives ordinary men mad. Though I have to admit, even that part was written expertly and compellingly.

However, another series I read completely captivated me. Even though I would probably give Patrick Rothfuss the prize for outstanding work of fantasy literature (assuming that when he finishes up, he keeps up the quality), with Sonderbooks Standouts, I’m rating how much I enjoyed reading them. So I have to give my first place honor to Daughter of the Forest, by Juliet Marillier. Like so many of my favorites, it was a fairy tale retelling, and was so incredibly well done, weaving in Irish History and seeming totally realistic.

I always like to separate Fantasy (my favorites) from the other books I read. So here are two lists of 2011 Sonderbooks Standouts in Fiction for Grown-Ups:

Fantasy:
1. Daughter of the Forest, by Juliet Marillier
2. The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
3. Son of the Shadows, by Juliet Marillier
4. The Snow Queen, by Mercedes Lackey
5. Child of the Prophecy, by Juliet Marillier
6. The Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss

Other Fiction:
1. State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett
2. Minding Frankie, by Maeve Binchy
3. The Pericles Commission, by Gary Corby
4. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, by Alan Bradley
5. The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, by Alexander McCall Smith

Books Read in 2011

Stand-outs 0

Tonight I finished making my lists from which I’ll choose the 2011 Sonderbooks Standouts. Not counting picture books, I read 132 books in 2011. Also not counting books during the year that I read but decided not to review. I’ve got 35 picture books on my list (only my favorite picture books read), so that will also be a challenge to narrow down.

I really do enjoy looking over a year of great reading. I hope to post the Standouts tomorrow.

Coming Soon: Sonderbooks Standouts 2011

Stand-outs 0

Happy New Year!

What I like to do, ever since New Year’s Day 2001, is use New Year’s Day to post my list of Sonderbooks Stand-outs, my favorite books I read in the previous year.

I always do wait until the year is OVER to decide which books were my favorites, because, the truth is, I always hope to get a lot more books read than I actually do finish.

The list will not be Newbery or Caldecott or Printz predictions. I think I’ll make another post about those in a couple weeks. These are just the books that I, personally, most enjoyed reading this year. They were not all published in 2011, but my rule is that I had to read them in 2011.

Oh, and today the Cybils announce their short lists. These are great reading, but I’m not even going to peek until I’ve chosen my Sonderbooks Stand-outs, because I don’t want to be influenced.

This year, there’s a catch: I’m way behind. I’m way behind on writing reviews, and I’m way behind on posting reviews.

Now, I have a very good excuse. I had a stroke at the end of July, and wasn’t recovering as quickly as I’d hoped. In fact, as of October, I was feeling worse instead of better. But when I went to the ER about it, they told me I hadn’t had another stroke and just sent me home, so I decided to try to ignore it.

However, a few days before Christmas, I saw the neurologist. He was not impressed with my tales of slight dizziness, which I had to admit was nothing at all as bad as when I actually had the stroke. But then he did a neurological exam and found that my eyes aren’t tracking together if I look up and to the right. He said I probably had another stroke, a mini-stroke this time.

So, it seemed perhaps I shouldn’t ignore my symptoms after all. On Tuesday, I noticed at work that now I was seeing double when I looked up and to the left as well. The neurologists’ office said I should go to the ER for that, though they did a CT scan that didn’t show any problems. I had an MRI & MRA done on Thursday and now need to wait for an appointment to go over the results. And on top of everything else, I’m still feeling a persistent low-grade dizziness and am extra tired. And this all happened right in the middle of trying to get Christmas gifts and cards sent.

What it all boils down to is I haven’t been posting much. I’m reading as much as ever — lying around a lot, so of course! But getting the reviews written and posted is harder. I’ve missed a lot of work, and when I do work, I tend to be too tired to do much at home. So I’m getting more and more behind.

I’m afraid that by the time I post the 2011 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, no one will care any longer. But I’m going to do it anyway! (After all, the fun of having your own website is doing it for your own enjoyment.) Here is my plan:

1. I will make my list. I’ll post it, with links to the reviews that are already up.
2. I’ll post the already-written reviews of stand-outs, probably one category at a time.
3. All the while, writing reviews of the books I haven’t reviewed yet.
4. I’ll post the rest of the reviews as I write them.

Some day, maybe I’ll catch up! I’m probably going to be forced to stop reviewing every book I read, but for now I’m going to at least review the 2011 Stand-outs.

I’ll get back to you soon!

Review of Child of the Prophecy, by Juliet Marillier

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Child of the Prophecy

by Juliet Marillier

TOR Fantasy, 2002. 596 pages.
Starred Review

Child of the Prophecy is the third book in Juliet Marillier’s Sevenwaters Trilogy. She has managed to make each book completely different from the others, each romance totally distinct, and yet all of them equally brilliant.

I expected this third book to be all about the obvious child of the prophecy, Johnny, who was born in the second book and foretold in the first book. Instead, the book is about Fianne, who is the granddaughter of the evil sorceress Oonagh, who enchanted the brothers into swans in the first book. Lady Oonagh still lives, and now she is sending her granddaughter to Sevenwaters to finally get vengeance and destroy the people of Sevenwaters.

However, Fianne is a daughter of Sevenwaters herself. She finds herself loving the family that she meets for the first time. But if she reveals anyone she loves to her grandmother, her grandmother will use that love against her by attacking them.

It was strange to read this book and find yourself rooting for Fianne — even knowing that she was a tool in the hands of the sorceress.

Juliet Marillier brings the book and the trilogy to a wonderful and satisfying conclusion, weaving another magnificent tale in this third book.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/child_of_the_prophecy.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 of the book, purchased via Amazon.

Gained in Translation

Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge 0

Last Thursday, I posted about how happy I was to receive a copy of Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge direct from the author, James Kennedy. The first thing both he and I noticed about the translation was that it appeared much longer than the original book, The Order of Odd-Fish.

Now, I suspect this is simply because German takes more letters to say the same thing. James expressed the suspicion that perhaps they had gotten carried away and added episodes when translating (which you must admit would be quite interesting).

It occurred to me that I did have an easy method at hand to test my hypothesis. You see, when we moved to Germany, my very first purchase was a copy of one of my very favorite books, Momo, by Michael Ende, in its original language, German.

That did start a trend. Here are some of the books in my German collection (though none of these have “Sonderling” in the title!):

I especially liked getting books originally written in German, which is why you’ll find Drachenreiter (Dragonrider) and Tintenblut (Inkblood, translated Inkheart), by Cornelia Funke, and Die unendliche Geschichte (The Neverending Story), by Michael Ende, as well as the original version of my childhood beloved book Heidi. Der kleine Prinz (The Little Prince) was given to me by my German landlady as a favorite book of hers (with cassette to listen to it), and I purchased Püh der Bär and Stolz und Vorurteil (Winnie-the-Pooh and Pride and Prejudice) because it’s so much fun to have such great classics in another language. Besides, I have the originals just about memorized, so I can easily understand the German.

Then there’s ourHarry Potter collection:

We own the American edition, British edition, and German edition of all of the first six books. (And I definitely need to make a trip back to Europe to purchase the seventh in the UK and in Germany.)

As for the first book:

My husband did a lot of traveling with the Air Force Band, and soon buying a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the local language became a souvenir to get excited about. We have Book One in American, British, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Bulgarian, Czech, Chinese, and French. Okay, I’ve only actually read the editions in American, British, German, and French. But the others are fun to look at!

So, this seems like a pretty good sample to me. Do Germans need more pages to tell a story?

We already found the page counts for James Kennedy’s book:
The Order of Odd-Fish: 403 pages.
Der Orden der Seltsamer Sonderlinge: 511 pages.

Just for fun, let’s check all the editions of Harry Potter Book One first:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (original): 223 pages.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: 309 pages. (Looks like the Americans dragged this one out.)
Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen: 335 pages.
Hebrew version: 321 pages.
Japanese version: 191 pages.
Bulgarian version: 264 pages.
Harry Potter a Kámen mudrc? (Czech version): 285 pages.
Chinese version: 462 pages.
Harry Potter à L’École des Sorciers (French version): 232 pages.

Interesting. They are totally different lengths, and German is the second longest, beaten only by Chinese. (I’m surprised that Chinese and Japanese are so different, but it looks like Chinese doesn’t use as much of each page. Maybe they start a new line for a new paragraph?)

How about the rest of the Harry Potters?

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (original): 251 pages.
American version: 341 pages.
Harry Potter und die Kammer des Schreckens: 352 pages.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (original): 317 pages.
American version: 435 pages.
Harry Potter und der Gefangene von Askaban: 448 pages.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (original): 636 pages.
American version: 734 pages.
Harry Potter und der Feuerkelch: 767 pages.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (original): 766 pages.
American version: 870 pages.
Harry Potter und der Orden des Phönix: 1021 pages.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (original): 607 pages.
American version: 652 pages.
Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: 656 pages.

Those books are certainly consistent! Interesting how much longer the American books are than the British ones. It definitely looks like less words on a page. But the Germans still manage to be longer, every time.

Let’s check some more books translated from English to German:

Winnie-the-Pooh: 148 pages.
Püh der Bär: 157 pages.

Pride and Prejudice (my fancy edition): 367 pages.
Paperback at the library: Also 367 pages.
Stolz und Vorurteil: 452 pages.

The Little Prince (Okay, this one was originally in French): 97 pages.
Der Kleine Prinz: 125 pages.

Maybe it’s different if the book starts out in German, so let’s check those:

Momo (original): 285 pages.
Momo (fancy American hardback, with illustrations): 227 pages.

Die unendliche Geschichte: 428 pages.
The Neverending Story: 384 pages.

Heidi (original): 333 pages (with illustrations).
Heidi (American paperback): 198 pages.

Tintenblut: 707 pages.
Inkheart: 576 pages.

Drachenreiter: 448 pages.
Dragon Rider: 536 pages.

What’s this? My last example is the only one where the English version turns out longer. Looking inside, it does seem to pretty clearly have less words on a page.

Now, those math nuts among us could have further fun determining the percentage each German book is longer than the English one, but it’s getting late. Despite the one very last exception, it looks like it is perfectly normal for German translations to contain more pages than English ones. So I will still look sharp for cleverly concealed additions, but I think this is simply a case of needing more space. I would be very interested to find out if the German books also take longer to read. I suspect that would be much closer, but that one, I’m not going to sample.

Now, having sized up the task, in my next installment, I will tackle Kapitel Eins.

Review of The Mislaid Magician, by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

Alternate History, Fantasy, Mystery, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Mislaid Magician
or
Ten Years After

Being the Private Correspondence Between Two Prominent Families Regarding a Scandal Touching the Highest Levels of Government and the Security of the Realm

by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

Harcourt, 2006. 328 pages.
Starred Review

I loved these authors’ earlier books, Sorcery and Cecilia and The Grand Tour, so much, it was a no-brainer to buy this third book about cousins Kate and Cecy in a magical regency England just as soon as it came out. However, I was still at the stage where I only got library books read, because library books have a due date. So the book sat in one of my many to-be-read piles and peeked out at me tantalizingly.

Well, after I loaded up on Advance Review Copies at ALA Annual Conference this summer, I decided to make myself a rule, or I’d never get any of those books read. Now I alternate. After every library book, I read a book I own. It’s working great, and this was one of the first books I own that I selected. I was so happy to finally get around to reading it!

The books are set in an alternate England, where people mix their attention to manners with magic. The authors have written the books by writing letters between the characters, Kate and Cecy, who are cousins. It’s been a long time since I’ve read the earlier books, but that wasn’t a problem with understanding what was going on. And, after all, the book is set ten years into the young ladies’ marriages, so it’s probably appropriate to read it later.

At the start of the book, Cecy and her husband James are asked by the Duke of Wellington to investigate the disappearance of a distinguished magician who was investigating a problem with the ley lines — lines of magic that run throughout England. They leave their children with Kate and Thomas, and the precocious children of both couples figure into the correspondence.

What follows is a mystery and an absorbing adventure. This is clever, light reading. There are some very fun and surprising bits of magic thrown into the mix. I don’t need to say a lot more. These books take regency England mixed in with magic. If that sounds delightful to you, you should definitely read them. This one isn’t really a romance like the first, but it is a fun mystery and reminds me more of Amelia Peabody books from when Ramses was young.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Review of Erika’s Story, by Ruth Vander Zee

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review, True Stories 0

Erika’s Story

by Ruth Vander Zee
illustrated by Roberto Innocenti

Creative Editions, Mankato, MN, 2003. 24 pages.

I actually found this book when I was weeding library books that hadn’t been checked out in two years. This one was in good condition, and when I started reading it, I was transfixed. It was too good to weed from the collection, and too powerful not to check out and review.

I should add that nonfiction picture books like this one easily get lost on the shelves. It’s not suitable for a school report, and kids usually don’t go looking in the nonfiction section for powerful stories. So they don’t get read as often as they deserve to be.

The story in this book is simple, and it’s powerfully told. The author met a Jewish lady in Rothenburg, Germany, and relates her story. The lady, Erika, speculates about how it must have been for her parents, herded onto a cattle car headed for the concentration camps. But she doesn’t know anything about them for sure.

“As the train slowed through a village, my mother must have looked up through the opening near the top of the cattle car. With my father, she must have tried spreading the barbed wire that covered the hole. My mother must have lifted me over her head and toward the dim daylight. What happened next is the only thing I know for sure.

“My mother threw me from the train.”

Erika was taken in by a woman who risked her life by caring for Erika and giving her a name and an approximate birthdate. She grew up and married and had children of her own.

The story is told simply and starkly. The pictures are beautiful and realistic. It’s interesting that the artist doesn’t show anybody’s faces except the baby, as if to emphasize all that Erika doesn’t know about her family. The pink baby blanket is also the brightest spot of color in the pictures from the past.

The story is also gently told, with an emphasis on Erika’s survival. You could read this to a child and then talk about it as much or as little as you like, but it’s a relatively gentle introduction to the horrors of the Holocaust.

And it’s definitely powerful for an adult reader, too. What would it take for a mother to throw her baby off a train? The book doesn’t ask any questions like that, which leaves the readers asking themselves.

Buy from Amazon.com

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