Review of Chime, by Franny Billingsley

Fantasy, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

Chime

by Franny Billingsley

Dial Books, 2011. 361 pages.
Starred Review

Full disclosure: I consider the author, Franny Billingsley, a friend, because we attended the same fabulous writers’ conference in Paris in 2005, so I definitely was predisposed to like this book. However, I was predisposed to like her then because I liked her books so much, so it’s kind of a circular bias — which all started because she’s an outstanding writer.

Though a little way into Chime, I might have quit, because I’m not a fan of dark fantasy, and this book definitely gets dark. However, I was extremely glad I didn’t quit, because by the end I thought this book a masterpiece.

At the start of the book, Briony hates herself, which makes it a little harder for the reader to like her. Here’s how she begins:

“I’ve confessed to everything and I’d like to be hanged.

Now, if you please.

I don’t mean to be difficult, but I can’t bear to tell my story. I can’t relive those memories — the touch of the Dead Hand, the smell of eel, the gulp and swallow of the swamp.

How can you possibly think me innocent? Don’t let my face fool you; it tells the worst lies. A girl can have the face of an angel but have a horrid sort of heart.

I know you believe you’re giving me a chance — or, rather, it’s the Chime Child giving me the chance. She’s desperate, of course, not to hang an innocent girl again, but believe me: Nothing in my story will absolve me of guilt. It will only prove what I’ve already told you, which is that I’m wicked.

Can’t the Chime Child take my word for it?”

At the start of this story, you suspect it’s a historical novel set in a superstitious time when witches were hanged. We’re sure Briony must not be a witch and this must be a story of how she was falsely accused.

The setting fits. Briony’s father is a clergyman in the Swampsea. Her twin sister, Rose, has something wrong with her so that she still acts like a child. Early on, Rose runs into the swamp while Bryony is talking to their new lodger, the handsome Eldric. They set out looking for her, being sure to bring a Bible Ball — a piece of paper with a Scripture written on it. We assume it’s a quaint superstition.

But right away, Briony hears the Old Ones of the swamp calling to her. She has the second sight. That’s how she knows she’s a witch.

“I tried to disbelieve Stepmother when she told me I’m a witch. I knew she was right, yet I tried to make a case for myself, pecking at the proof Stepmother offered — pecking at it, turning it over, saying it didn’t exist. Then pecking at another bit, and another, until Stepmother took pity on me. If I wasn’t a witch, she asked, how else was it that I had the second sight?”

Later, when they go into the swamp again, Eldric’s tutor doesn’t bring a Bible Ball — and sure enough, he gets lured into the Quicks and swallowed by the swamp. We realize that all the “superstitions” Briony’s been talking about — Mucky Face, the Brownie, the Boggy Mun, and hearing ghosts — It’s all real, and she can see them.

There’s also a mystery. Two months and three days before the start of this story, Briony and Rose’s Stepmother died. Right away Briony tells us there’s something more to that death:

“But the villagers are wrong about Stepmother, and so is Father. She would never kill herself. I’m the one who knew her best, and I know this: Stepmother was hungry for life.”

I’m sure this is a book that will get better with each rereading. The author feeds you the details slowly, and your curiosity builds. How did Stepmother die? Is Briony a witch? What caused the fire in their library? Can Briony get the Boggy Mun to stop the Swamp Cough that’s killing Rose?

Yes, the story starts out dark and sinister, but I love the beautiful way it all ends up, and all the different threads that come together. I’d better say no more than that! This is a book well worth reading and rereading. This is a fantasy novel, true, but it doesn’t read quite like any other.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

YA Saves, Revisited

Events, General, Library Links 0

On Saturday night, I posted about the frightful (in more ways than one) Wall Street Journal article that was creating a stir by saying Young Adult books have gotten horribly dark and subversive. The response on Twitter was beautiful with people tweeting about how dark and light YA books have enhanced and even saved their lives, using the hashtag #YAsaves.

Since then, there have been many, many insightful articles on the topic. Two that I especially enjoyed, yes, put in a plug for libraries — where it will never be a problem to find a book for a reader, no matter how picky they are. That’s what we do. That’s what we’re good at. (Today, in fact, I had fun finding a book for an eight-year-old who didn’t like any of her grandmother’s suggestions and introduced herself by saying, “I DON’T want a princess book!”)

First, I loved Cecil Castellucci’s article on the Los Angeles Review of Books blog, “Better to Light a Candle Than to Curse the Darkness.” One thing I loved about this blog post was that it gave me a new motto: “Putting the right book in the right kid’s hands is kind of like giving that kid superpowers.” Yes!

Today I read a parody of the original article, written by Sarah Ockler on her blog. The blog post is called, “All This Darkness! What to Buy the Grownup Reader? (A Parody)” This parody was completely successful with me once I read this paragraph right at the start:

I recently stood slack-jawed in the adult fiction section of my local big box book store, having decided that supporting my community while getting personalized recommendations by professionals who generally adore books and make it their business to know exactly what sorts of things a reader will love was just not on my to-do list this year, feeling stupefied and helpless.

I love it!

Of course, it’s a little ironic that even as I’m defending dark books, I stopped listening to an adult book on CD because it was too dark for me. But I simply wasn’t in the mood for it today. And the difference is that I understand that the particular book I stopped listening to is considered great literature by many, and is a popular book club choice. I’m fine with that. I tend to like lighter books, but that’s exactly how I knew that the mother in the Wall Street Journal article would have been able to find all kinds of great, current, light, uplifting, well-written books for teens if she had only gone to a library and consulted with a professional.

Review of Queen of the Falls, by Chris Van Allsburg

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

Queen of the Falls

by Chris Van Allsburg

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010. 40 pages.
Starred Review

Chris Van Allsburg’s books have always amazed me. One of the first ones my husband and I were given was The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, and those pictures still fill me with wonder and a sense of something mysterious and magical. In fact, all of his books, and all of his pictures, convey that sense of mystery and magic.

What’s amazing is that he managed to convey that same feeling in a nonfiction book about a historical event. But perhaps it’s not completely surprising, since Niagara Falls certainly have wonder and majesty. Still, I don’t think every artist could convey it so well.

This book tells the story of sixty-two-year-old Annie Edison Taylor, who was the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. In fact, she was the first person to even have the crazy idea of going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She hoped to make her fortune after doing this amazing act by traveling on the lecture circuit and showing the barrel.

The book shows the process she went through. There’s an awe-inspiring spread as Annie’s barrel hits the calm right before going over the edge. I wonder if it’s possible to read that page without your pulse quickening.

After her daredevil stunt, fame and fortune did not follow. A grandmother in her sixties didn’t look like a daredevil, and it turned out that the publicists she hired weren’t trustworthy.

Reading this book was an interesting contrast to another book I just read — Amelia Lost, by Candace Fleming, about Amelia Earhart. Amelia Earhart did achieve fame and fortune by doing daredevil stunts and then traveling on the lecture circuit. But Amelia was young and beautiful, and had an outstanding publicist who was also in love with her.

But Annie still achieved something amazing, and this book memorializes her story in a beautiful way.

I like what Annie tells a reporter at the close of this book, with the Falls spread out before them:

“That’s what everyone wonders when they see Niagara. How close will their courage let them get to it? Well, sir, you can’t get any closer than I got. You ask any person who’s stood here, looking out at those falls, what they thought of someone going over them in a barrel. Why, every last one would agree, it was the greatest feat ever performed.

“And I am content when I can say, ‘I am the one who did it.'”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/queen_of_the_falls.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 Minding Frankie, by Maeve Binchy

Contemporary, Fiction Review, General, Light Reading, Literary, Starred Review 0

Minding Frankie

by Maeve Binchy

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2011. 383 pages.
Starred Review

Maeve Binchy’s books always end up keeping me reading until the small hours of the morning. Why, oh why, didn’t I know better than to start reading this book late at night, thinking I could stop after only one chapter? It’s not that the plot is exciting or action-packed, but you definitely get to caring about these people and want to find out what happens to them.

I do love the way she brings characters we’ve already seen in her other books. You don’t by any means have to have read the other books, but you have the sense that these are old friends. Everybody has a story in Maeve Binchy’s books, and in each book she focuses on a set of intertwined lives and the beautiful way they get through.

Minding Frankie is about the birth of a little girl.

Josie and Charles Lynch live in 23 St. Jarlath’s Crescent with their son Noel. They had always hoped Noel would be a priest, and set aside money early on for that purpose. Noel, however, was definitely not interested.

“Not so definite, however, was what he actually would like to do. Noel was vague about this, except to say he might like to run an office. Not work in an office, but run one. He showed no interest in studying office management or bookkeeping or accounting or in any areas where the careers department tried to direct him. He liked art, he said, but he didn’t want to paint. If pushed, he would say that he liked looking at paintings and thinking about them. He was good at drawing; he always had a notebook and a pencil with him and he was often to be found curled up in a corner sketching a face or an animal. This did not, of course, lead to any career path, but Noel had never expected it to. He did his homework at the kitchen table, sighing now and then, but rarely ever excited or enthusiastic. At the parent-teacher meetings Josie and Charles had inquired about this. They wondered, Does anything at school fire him up? Anything at all?”

Later, Noel got an office job instead of continuing his schooling.

“He met his work colleagues but without any great enthusiasm. They would not be his friends and companions any more than his fellow students at the Brothers had become mates. He didn’t want to be alone all the time, but it was often easier….

“He took to coming home later and later. He also took to visiting Casey’s pub on the journey home — a big barn of a place, both comforting and anonymous at the same time. It was familiar because everyone knew his name.”

Meanwhile, Noel’s parents aren’t sure what to do with the money they had saved to train Noel for the priesthood. And then Charles Lynch is told they don’t want him at his job any longer.

Into this home comes a woman from America, Charles Lynch’s niece Emily. Emily’s father moved to America years ago, and never kept in touch with his family. The family isn’t sure what to expect, but Emily is the sort of person who changes people’s lives by getting to know who they truly are.

She helps Charles and Josie realize what they really want to do is build a statue to St. Jarlath. And she helps Noel realize that he’s an alcoholic and needs help.

But then Noel gets a life-changing phone call. A woman he knew once and spent a drinking weekend with wants him to visit her in the hospital. She tells him she’s pregnant, and he’s the father. And she’s about to die of cancer.

So the book is about Noel trying to get his life together and be a father. The social worker assigned to his case doesn’t think he can do it. But thanks to Emily, there is a community of people around St. Jarlath’s Crescent who care and who help him with minding the little girl, Frankie.

That description doesn’t sound like a book that would keep me up reading through the night. But Maeve Binchy’s books are about Community. The characters are quirky, and some are powerfully flawed, but as we watch them working together, helping each other, working out problems, making mistakes, being wonderfully kind, we get hooked into their stories.

Another uplifting and life-affirming book by Maeve Binchy. I highly recommend getting to know the wonderful people who live in her books.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/minding_frankie.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.

48-Hour Book Challenge Finish Line

48-Hour Book Challenge 0

I hit 30 hours, 30 minutes! Woo-hoo!

Here’s the breakdown:

Reading: 15 hours, 25 minutes
Blogging: 9 hours, 5 minutes
Networking: 4 hours, 50 minutes
Listening: 1 hour, 10 minutes

I read 1,606 pages and finished 8 books.

I wrote 9 reviews, posted 3 blog posts about the challenge, and posted 5 quotations on Sonderquotes, for a total of 7,858 words. I got one of those reviews posted.

I confess, as the time went on, I started reading short books so I’d finish more! For nonfiction, I read a bunch of individual chapters, but here are the books I finished. They were all excellent:

The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, by Wendy Wan-Long Shang
The Seven Towers, by Patricia C. Wrede
The Silver Bowl, by Diane Stanley
Squish, Super Amoeba, by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm
Zita the Spacegirl, Far From Home, by Ben Hatke
Freddie Ramos Springs into Action, by Jacqueline Jules
Freddie Ramos Zooms to the Rescue, by Jacqueline Jules
The Periodic Table: Elements with Style, by Adrian Dingle

With Networking, I didn’t plan to do so much, but got hooked into the YASaves conversation, and then couldn’t bring myself to stay away.

In fact, after writing that sentence, when I went to find the link, I then got hooked into Cecil Castellucci’s fantastic article on the Los Angeles Review of Books blog. This is an awesome quotation: “Putting the right book in the right kid’s hands is kind of like giving that kid superpowers.”

I did not get even close to caught up on writing reviews. But I did make good headway, and I’m hoping that I got into the groove so that more reviews will follow quickly.

What did I learn? I really do love to read! What a fabulous way to spend a weekend! I’m going to have to make more time for it.

What I’ll do next time: Get more sleep BEFORE the 48-hour Book Challenge. Needing sleep was my downfall as far as getting any more reading done, and I was tired the whole time. At the end of the challenge, I planned to take a short nap, and then get my weekend errands done. I slept for 4 1/2 hours! So now I’ll be a bit behind all week, but it was worth it!

YA Saves

48-Hour Book Challenge 1

I was taking a little break to “Network” — reading tweets from authors and other readers. I learned about this frightful Wall Street Journal article.

It started with Libba Bray’s brilliant and passionate responses:

I’d like to roll my eyes at this article, but I can’t. And not just because one of my eyes doesn’t move that way. But because I genuinely

believe that these articles are hurtful, that they goad banners & keep much-needed books out of the hands of the teens who should be reading

them. Books are, at their heart, dangerous. Yes, dangerous. Because they challenge us: our prejudices, our blind spots. They open us to new

ideas, new ways of seeing. They make us hurt in all the right ways. They can push down the barricades of “them” & widen the circle of “us”

And when one feels alone–say, because of a terrible burden of a secret, something that creates pain and isolation, books can heal, connect

That’s what good books do. That’s what hard books do. And we need them in the world. I’m going to shut up now, @WSJ. But only for a little

while and only because I want dessert.

Then, Maureen Johnson asked people to post their own stories of how reading YA has helped them, with the hashtag #YASaves. The stories that followed are simply incredible.

One of many things that got to me about the article: If the woman who couldn’t find a good current YA novel had gone to a LIBRARY instead of to a bookstore, where Librarians with Master’s degrees work, I am absolutely sure that she could have found a current YA novel that she would have been happy to give to her teen. Librarians are knocked in the article for giving dark books to teens. We’re actually quite good at finding the right book for the right reader. And we could even find a book that would make that mother happy. And if she let her own teen pick a book, we could find a book that would make her happy.

And we might find a book that would save her life.

Review of The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

The Great Wall of Lucy Wu

by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

Scholastic Press, New York, 2011. 312 pages.
Starred Review

Full disclosure: I met Wendy Shang at KidLitCon09 and liked her very much. She’s also a local author, a member of the awesome DC KidLit Book Club, and a volunteer for Fairfax County Public Library — so an all-round wonderful person! Anyway, I was definitely predisposed to like her book, but I confess I didn’t expect to love it like I did. In fact, I checked it out as soon as I saw the library had ordered it, but I found myself putting off reading it. I expected some sort of problem-novel book about being Chinese in America.

I decided I really should read my friend’s book, and chose it as my first choice for the 2011 48-Hour Book Challenge. And I was completely delighted with it! Yes, okay, it does have issues about a sixth-grader being Chinese in America. But mostly, it’s a great story about an American kid whose sixth-grade year does not turn out as she expects it to.

Lucy Wu has been looking forward for ages to the day when her older sister Regina, the one everyone thinks is so perfect, moves out of their shared bedroom and goes to college. But Lucy’s hopes come crashing down when she learns that her grandmother’s long-lost younger sister, Yi Po, is going to come visit for several months. And the only place where she can sleep is that bed Regina vacated in Lucy’s room.

Then Talent Chang tells Lucy’s mother that her mother is starting Chinese school on Saturday mornings. Never mind that Lucy has basketball practice at that time. Her parents see this as her chance to learn how to communicate better with Yi Po. Lucy loves basketball. She lives and breathes basketball.

“When I tell people that I play basketball, I usually get two kinds of reactions. The first is an awkward pause while my entire height of four-foot-nothing gets examined up one side and down the other, followed by something like, “O-kaaaay. What other sports do you like?” The second, while more positive, is really not any better. It’s a big fishy grin, followed by, “Oh! Just like Yao Ming!” Like I have anything in common with a seven-and-ahalf-foot-tall male basketball player, other than the fact that we’re both Chinese.

“But I love basketball. The day I got the hang of dribbling the ball through my legs counts as one of the best days of my life, and that feeling I get when I know the ball’s going in because everything has lined up perfectly is the greatest rush. To me, getting the ball to an open teammate on a no-look pass is a thing of beauty. And tell me there’s something more exciting than the last few seconds of a tied-up basketball game where tenths of a second count.”

So when they announce there’s going to be a basketball game this year between the teachers and the sixth-graders, and the Captain of the sixth grade team will be chosen by who can shoot the most free throws, well of course Lucy wants to be Captain, and her best friend Madison is sure she’ll win. But then she learns that Sloane Connors wants to be Captain.

“She’s the head of a little group that Madison and I secretly call the Amazons, and they can make your life miserable in a thousand different ways.”

Lucy does not want to cross Sloane, but unfortunately Sloane already found out that Lucy was planning to try out for Captain. Lucy wishes Madison would let her be a coward and give up, but Madison is adamant that Lucy will win and lead the team to victory.

I was going to just dip into this book while I was focusing on writing reviews, but I found myself reading it eagerly. And when I finished, I had a big smile on my face. This is a lovely, well-crafted book. Lucy comes across as a very real American kid. Yeah, she complains a bit much about having her great-aunt move into her room — but honestly, what American kid wouldn’t? There’s a boy she likes, and you won’t believe what happens when she gets a chance to have a good conversation with him. (This was beautiful, in a catastrophic way, but I won’t give it away.)

All the elements are woven together expertly — Lucy’s passion for basketball, her relationships with her family members, her birthday party plans, Chinese school and the girl Talent Chang who is annoyingly perfect but wants to be friends, school and the mean girls going after her, embarrassment over the ways she and her family are different, and even some cross-cultural awareness as to what Yi Po went through during the Cultural Revolution. It’s all in there and told in an engaging, warm, and delightful way.

And it’s all woven together with the story of a Chinese idiom that illustrates that things often turn out quite different than you expect. Bad things often turn out to be good, and good things often turn out to be bad.

Well, with this book, I was predisposed to like it, and it turned out to be delightful beyond my expectations. I wonder if there is an idiom for that?

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Saturday Morning Check-In

48-Hour Book Challenge 0

Good Morning! I’m off to a great start on the second day of the 48-Hour Book Challenge!

I decided that Tim having the SAT today was absolutely perfect — I took the day off work, and got up early — all the better to read! Of course, I listened to an audiobook in the car. The one I was listening to was the third CD of Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese. It was kind of funny — they were talking about a doctor facing a difficult delivery of twins. Very specific. And then the doctor decided to crush the baby’s brain in order to get it out. Very graphic.

Of course, I apologized to my son for the unfortunate selection. He understood that I was listening so as not to have a break in the 48-Hour Book Challenge. He said it was no problem — that would probably be the selection they would have him analyze on the SAT.

Of course, that made me laugh! That would be the day! A selection involving a woman’s reproductive system and crushing the brain of a baby? Yeah, that would go over great on the SAT! So I sent him off to the test with a laugh. (I do love that kid’s sense of humor!)

Today I actually don’t have any more commitments at all except picking Tim up from the SAT at 12:45. Oh, and I need to call my Mom to wish her a Happy 70th (!) Birthday! But otherwise, my biggest challenge will be staying awake to read. I might give in and take a short nap — the better to stay up late tonight.

I did finish one book yesterday, and absolutely loved it — The Great Wall of Lucy Wu, by Wendy Shang. I did write a review, and promise to post it after I have written five reviews. Here are my stats so far:

Hours Reading: 5 hours, 45 minutes
Hours Blogging: 3 and a half
Time Listening: 20 minutes
Time Networking: 30 minutes

Grand total: 10 hours, 5 minutes

Not bad for 18 hours into the challenge. If I took 8 hours to sleep and shower and eat and do my writing, I hope that tomorrow, with going to church, I can keep it down to less than 10 hours — I want to hit 30 hours. It will be a challenge, but I might be able to do it….

Book stats are 418 pages read, one book finished. (I read a lot of excerpts from nonfiction.)

I’ve written 4 reviews, posted 4 quotes, and written one other blog post, for a total of 4,814 words.

Now, I am not writing reviews as quickly as I will need to if I want to make significant progress on getting caught up. I will have to start making them shorter. However, I am enjoying writing them, and I am writing them, so it’s all good. I have begun reading The Seven Towers, by Patricia C. Wrede, and I’m loving that, too.

This is proving to be a truly beautiful weekend! Read on!

48-Hour Book Challenge 2011

48-Hour Book Challenge 4

Woo-hoo! I am now officially beginning this year’s 48-Hour Reading Challenge at 4:30 on Friday!

Mother Reader is the blogger who sponsors the Challenge. This is her sixth year doing the 48-Hour Book Challenge, and my third year participating. As I said in my round-up last year, this is the time when the guilt is totally reversed — You get to feel guilty if you’re NOT reading! 🙂 Woo-hoo!

The rules are most reasonable and quite lovely. As Mother Reader says, this is “that weekend extravaganza that lets you say, “Back off, I’m reading.”

In fact, that statement makes me think I need to point out what our theme song should be:

Seriously, I love the 48-Hour Book Challenge and look forward to it all year. This year, because I have to take my son to the SAT tomorrow morning (while playing an audiobook), I actually have both Friday and Saturday off. So I am planning to stretch myself and see if I can hit the 30 hour mark this year.

I’m afraid I’m going to be unspiritual and skip my small group Bible study tonight. We’re even doing a book study, but I will be so close to 30 hours… I won’t, however, skip church Sunday morning, so that’s the main “interruption.” If I’m not lingering to talk so much after church, this is why!

Of course, I’d meant to get started much earlier today. But I decided I really should run some errands first. Had to buy snacks, right? And then it seemed like a good idea to take a nap. It’s going to be tricky going all the way until 4:30 on Sunday, since the big question will be whether or not I can skip my Sunday afternoon nap. I have my doubts! That will give me a few hours left on Sunday to get ready for a long week’s work — I’ll be working the next 6 days.

Now, the point of the 48-Hour Book Challenge is to pick a 48-hour time block on the designated weekend and read and blog about books as much as possible in that time. Blogging time counts.

This year, I’m way, way behind on writing reviews. There are stacks of books which I have read this year, and very much want to review, but simply haven’t done it yet. So my goal for this weekend is not quite as much fun as spending 30 hours reading. I want to spend the majority of my time writing reviews. I want to get within reach of catching up on that backlog.

Now, I probably won’t post all the reviews I write today. It works well for me to write them ahead and then post one a day. When I post the reviews, I add in links to related reviews and things like that and a link between the blog and the main site, www.sonderbooks.com. But I think I will keep track of my progress by posting a review after every five reviews I write. And I simply have to get some books read, or where’s the fun in the challenge? So I’ll definitely be reading some books, too. In fact, I think the key to reading instead of sleeping is to find one of those books that I can’t put down if I wanted to. So I hope I can pick a good one!

Review of The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred, by Samantha R. Vamos

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Readalouds, Starred Review 0

The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred

by Samantha R. Vamos
illustrated by Rafael Lopez

Charlesbridge, 2011. 32 pages.
Starred Review

What an exuberant book! And a beautiful and joyous way to easily learn some Spanish words. Fun to read out loud, too.

The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred riffs off the idea of “The House That Jack Built” with a cumulative story of making rice pudding, arroz con leche. This one, however, adds the innovative idea of introducing the items and animals in English, but then once you know what they are, using the Spanish words in later recitations.

For example, a couple steps in:

“This is the goat
that churned the cream
to make the MANTEQUILLA
that went into the CAZUELA that the farm maiden stirred.

“This is the cow
that made the fresh milk
while teaching the CABRA
that churned the CREMA
to make the MANTEQUILLA
that went into the CAZUELA that the farm maiden stirred.”

As you can hear, the Spanish words inserted are fun to say, and the chant takes on a musical feel. This book makes you want to read it aloud, and I found myself doing that even as I just read the book to myself to review it. How much more fun it would be to read to a roomful of children or a child on my lap.

But the plot does get more interesting than just the simple cumulative story. After all the ingredients are in the CAZUELA,

“the CABRA gave out spoons,
the GALLINA sang a tune,
the PATO beat a TAMBOR,
the BURRO plucked a banjo,
the VACA shook a MARACA,
and the CAMPESINO and the farm maiden danced . . .

“. . . and no one watched the CAZUELA that the farm maiden stirred.”

Don’t worry! They do get their delicious dish, and the recipe is provided at the back of the book (as well as a glossary and pronunciation guide).

What makes this book absolutely perfect and completely irresistible is the pictures. The best words I can use to describe them are exuberant and joyous. The colors are bright. And the people and animals are happy and completely given over to celebration.

So this book has it all: Something educational, something traditional, a little bit of plot, great fun for the ear, and delightful to the eye. A winner in every way!

Buy from Amazon.com

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