Sonderling Sunday – Chapter One

Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge, Sonderling Sunday 0

Okay, last Fall, when James Kennedy sent me a copy of Der Orden der Seltsamer Sonderlinge, I was super excited and promised to blog about reading it. Then last night, when I was thinking about how I’d finally get my review of The Order of Odd-Fish posted today, I wondered when I would start blogging about the German version.

I’ve been following Liz Burns’ reading of Frankenstein, reading along and enjoying her blog posts for “Frankenstein Friday.” That’s when it hit me: I’ve got the perfect title with “Sonderling Sunday.” So that means I simply have to start tonight!

You know, I’d love to have others join me. Since one translation of “Sonderling” is Nerd, maybe some members of the Nerdy Book Club would like to celebrate Sonderling Sundays in their own special way? Maybe it’s something Nerdfighters should celebrate? Then again, it’s going to be about the fun of words and translating a story between languages, so maybe my sister, a self-proclaimed Word Lover, would like to take part? Anyone who thinks of a way to celebrate Sonderling Sundays with me, please let me know in the comments! Meanwhile, let me begin with Chapter One.

The Order of Odd-Fish, Chapter One: 12 pages
Der Orden der Seltsamer Sonderlinge, 1. Kapitel: 14 pages.

With this first chapter, I don’t have to worry about spoilers. With all the chapters, I think it would be nice to give the first sentence in each language (where that won’t cause a spoiler, anyway).

“The desert was empty, as though a great drain had sucked the world underground.”
“Die Wuste war leer, als hätte ein gro?er Abfluss die Welt weggesaugt.”

Weggesaugt. That’s a good word. (Vay-ga-sowgt) You can almost hear the giant sucking sound.

The paragraph about the costume party has some good words:
“A man dressed as an astronaut chatted with a devil.”
“Ein Mann, der wie ein Astronaut gekleidet war, plauderte mit einem Teufel.”

“A gang of cavemen sipped fizzing cocktails.”
“Eine Rotte Höhlenmenschen nippte an sprudelnden Cocktails.”

“A Chinese emperor flirted with a robot, a pirate arm-wrestled a dinosaur, a giant worm danced with a refrigerator — it was Lily Larouche’s Christmas party, and all her old friends had come.”
“Ein chinesischer Kaiser flirtete mit einem Arbeiter, ein Pirat spielte mit einem Dinosaurier Armdrücken und ein gigantischer Wurm tanzte mit einem Kühlschrank. Es war Lily Larouches Weihnachtsmaskenball und all ihre alten Freunde waren gekommen.”

I don’t know about you, but doesn’t a “Weihnachtsmaskenball” sound more fun than a simple Christmas party? And it includes that it’s a masked ball. I don’t think it was a stretch for the translators to include that detail, given the characters we’ve already seen.

Interesting. When they translate the sentences where we meet Jo Larouche, they don’t include the final phrase:
“It was a thirteen-year-old girl, small and thin, with brown skin and black bobbed hair. Her name was Jo Larouche. She was Lily Larouche’s niece. She also lived at the ruby palace, and she was spying.”
“Es war ein dreizehnjähriges Mädchen, ein kleines, dünnes Ding mit brauner Haut und schwarzen, zu einem Bob gestutzten Haaren. Sein Name war Jo Larouche. Es war Lily Larouches Nichte, die ebenfalls im Rubinpalast wohnte.”

You see? Nothing at all about her spying. You think they decided the earlier information that she was hiding in a bush was enough?

They do translate a sentence in the next paragraph:
“Jo never talked to Aunt Lily’s friends, but she loved spying on them.”
“Sie sprach zwar nie mit Tante Lilys Freunden, liebte es jedoch, ihnen nachzuspionieren.”

There’s another word I can’t help but love: “nachzuspionieren.” something like “to spy upon” but so much cooler sounding!

Here’s another sentence for which I just have to check the translation:
“A couple of feet away, a woman disguised as an enormous eggplant was talking to a man dressed like a UFO.”
This becomes:
“Ein Stück neben ihr redete eine als gewaltige Aubergine verkleidete Frau mit einem Mann, der wie ein UFO ausschaute.”

There you have it. Who wouldn’t want to know the German words for “an enormous eggplant”? “Eine gewaltige Aubergine.” That’s got to be useful knowledge.

Oh, and an even more useful phrase comes up in the very next paragraph:
“‘Did you see?’ whispered the eggplant. ‘Lily’s gone nuts again.'”
“‘Hast du das gesehen?’, flüsterte die Aubergine. ‘Lily is wieder mal völlig durchgeknallt.'”

Okay, I think that “gone nuts” is easier to say than “völlig durchgeknallt.” But maybe that’s just me.

The man’s response is definitely not as good as the English one “Cracked as a crawdad.” In German, he says, “Sie ist verrückt wie ein Flusskrebs.” No, sorry, not as good. It’s charming in English because it’s alliterative. Take that away, and I don’t think it really works.

Here’s a good paragraph, where the fat Russian Jo noticed earlier turns up again:

“Es war der fette Russe. Wo war er blo? so plötzlich hergekommen? Er war ein schwerfälliges, schäbiges, gewichtiges und auf absurde Weise würdevolles Mammut von einem Mann, mit einem zuckenden wei?en Backenbart in einer glänzenden Uniform, und schwang einen gro?en schwarzen Gehstock.”

Oh, and what that means is:
“It was the fat Russian again — where had he come from? — a lumbering, shaggy, harrumphing, absurdly dignified mastodon of a man, with twitching white whiskers and a gleaming uniform, swinging a great black cane.”

I could be wrong, but I don’t think the translator even made an attempt at translating “harrumphing.” What a shame!

Okay, here’s another exquisite English paragraph. How will this translate?

“‘Do you understand what it means to disturb my digestion, sir?’ said the Russian. ‘That even now, my stomach rumbles with contempt? That my kidneys flood with excruciating acids? That my entire gastrointestinal tract revolts at your ungentlemanly conduct?'”

I don’t know. That’s an awfully high standard to hit. Here’s the translated version:

“‘Ist Euch klar, was es bedeutet, meine Verdauung zu stören, Sir?’, erkundigte sich der Russe. ‘Was es hei?t, dass in diesem Moment mein Bauch vor Verachtung brodelt? Dass meine Nieren in unerträglichen Säuren schwimmen? Mein gesamter Gastrointestinaltrakt angesichts Eures unhöflichen Verhaltens revoltiert?'”

(I don’t know how to get German quotation marks on my computer, so I’m just substituting English ones.)

I kind of like the way the kidneys sentence turned out: “Dass meine Nieren in unerträglichen Säuren schwimmen?”

I like this one:
“‘I am a daffodil,’ he murmured uncomfortably.”
This translates to
“‘Ich gehe als Glockenblume’, erklärte er murmelnd, fühlte sich jedoch sichtlich unwohl dabei.”

A few more words than the English version this time! But what I like about it is the translation of “daffodil,” which I hadn’t seen before. “Glockenblume” is a portmanteau word (like so many German words) meaning “bell flower.” Isn’t that nice?

Well, I’ve taken far too long on this, and Sunday is over, so I won’t finish the first chapter tonight. But what a fun way to increase my German vocabulary, don’t you think? Forgive me if this is boring for those who don’t have a smattering of German, but I’m afraid I’m enjoying it very much. So tune in next week for the next Sonderling Sunday!

Review of The Order of Odd-Fish, by James Kennedy

Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge, Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Order of Odd-Fish

by James Kennedy

Laurel-Leaf Books, 2008. 403 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Standout: #7, Fantasy for Teens

It’s high time I reviewed this book. I first decided I had to read it when I met the author, James Kennedy, at the 2010 ALA Annual Conference when I attended the YA Author Coffee Klatch. It sounded very much like a book my sons would enjoy, since they are big fans of Douglas Adams, so I purchased a copy to give my younger son for his upcoming 16th birthday. (And the next March, I sent a copy to my older son for his 23rd birthday.)

Then 2011 ALA Annual Conference was coming up, and I saw James Kennedy’s name on the schedule. I still hadn’t read his book! So I tucked my son’s copy into my carry-on and began reading it on the plane. Sure enough, I saw James at the Newbery Banquet, and it was fun to be able to tell him where I was in the book and talk about it. On the way home from New Orleans, I tweeted my progress, and that was fun, too. I was impressed with how he pulled off an excellent ending, which I was wondering about along the way.

Then I could have sworn I had reviewed the book when I finally caught up on writing reviews last Fall. But it turned out it got out of my to-be-reviewed pile when my son decided to finally read it and took it to his room.

I highly recommend the book for fans of Douglas Adams or Jasper Fforde. Only, Douglas Adams and Jasper Fforde have adult protagonists (not that that deters teen readers), but The Order of Odd-Fish has a teen protagonist. So this might be a good choice for teens whom you suspect will enjoy Douglas Adams or Jasper Fforde.

The first word that comes to mind every time I attempt to describe The Order of Odd-Fish is “bizarre.” Like the Hitchhiker’s Guide books, it’s got its own twisted and very funny logic that plays on traditional fantasy tropes.

Take our protagonist, Jo Larouche. She’s got a prophecy about her and is a “chosen” child, but it’s quite different than the Chosen One in more traditional fantasy novels. Make that very different.

Probably the simplest way to capture the spirit of this novel is to give you the description of Jo’s Aunt Lily, including the part where she found Jo:

“The story of Lily Larouche was well known.

“She had been a famous actress long ago, with a reputation for strange behavior. The tabloids knew she was good for at least one sensational rumour per week:

“LILY LAROUCHE THROWS RODENT AT STARLET

“LILY LAROUCHE ARRESTED AGAIN FOR RECKLESS HOT-AIR BALLOONING

“HEARTSICK PRESIDENT SHAVES OFF OWN EYEBROWS IN DESPERATE BID TO WIN LILY LAROUCHE’S LOVE

“The rumors usually proved true. Lily Larouche had hurled a live rat at another actress who had insulted her. For many years, her hot-air balloon had been a nuisance over Los Angeles, regularly disrupting air traffic. And Lily Larouche still had on her desk, floating in a jar of formaldehyde, the lonely eyebrows of President Eisenhower.

“Then came the most mysterious headline:

“LILY LAROUCHE DISAPPEARS!

“She had vanished. Her notorious ruby palace, which for years had hosted the wildest parties in Hollywood, was empty. Nobody knew where she had gone.

“Then, forty years later, there was a new headline:

“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.”

As the book opens, Jo Larouche is now thirteen years old. Unbeknownst to her, she is about to travel to Eldritch City, meet the Order of Odd-Fish, see Aunt Lily regain her memory, and learn why she herself is so DANGEROUS.

And the story has only begun to be bizarre.

I’ll definitely be blogging more about this book. When James Kennedy noted that his book had been translated into German with the title Der Orden der Seltsamer Sonderlinge, I was so delighted, he promised me a copy. As all my readers surely know by now, Sonder is a German prefix meaning “special.” What I don’t proclaim so frequently is that I’d already known that a Sonderling is someone who’s “special” in the less flattering sense of the term — more recent translations include “nerd” and, well, “odd-fish.” But however you want to look at it, I maintain this proves that The Order of Odd-fish is a Sonderbook indeed! James Kennedy did send me a copy of the German edition, and I’m planning to blog about reading it — as soon as I get caught up on posting Sonderbooks Standouts.

Meanwhile, this is definitely a great choice for people who enjoy books that are bizarre, clever, and very funny.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/order_of_odd_fish.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 at ALA Annual Conference for my son, and had signed by the author.

Review of I Want My Hat Back, by Jon Klassen

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

I Want My Hat Back

by Jon Klassen

Candlewick Press, 2011. 36 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Geisel Honor Book
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #4 Picture Books

This book is brilliant. I was happy it won a Geisel Honor for a book for beginning readers, because it’s written in a way that makes it easy for beginning readers and tells a story that will delight them when they understand what’s happened.

I have a co-worker whose favorite picture books are ones where someone gets eaten. I made sure to bring this book straight to her when I checked it out. I also handed it to my teenage son to read. It’s the kind of book everyone enjoys.

The illustrations are simple and flat, with the eyes looking straight at the reader. The text is color coded for the speaker, with a bear walking through the pages looking for his hat. He wants his hat. He loves his hat. Each animal he meets, he asks, “Have you seen my hat?” After their various responses, he says, “OK. Thank you anyway.”

Eventually, after he’s lying down in despair, a deer asks him what his hat looks like. When he describes it, the bear — and the reader — suddenly remember where he’s seen it before. This moment of realization is portrayed so cleverly with a red page and wide open eyes.

Describing this book takes more words than are in the book — and reading the book is so much better. The ending is left ambiguous for the tender-hearted, but most kids will be proud to figure out what really happened. And you have to admit, the bear is repeating what was said to him.

I promise all ages will enjoy this book! Check it out and read it yourself.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/i_want_my_hat_back.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 A Ball for Daisy, by Chris Raschka

Animal Characters, Award Winners, Contemporary, Good for the Very Young, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

A Ball for Daisy

by Chris Raschka

Schwartz and Wade Books, New York, 2011. 32 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Caldecott Medal Winner
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: Picture Books #7

Here’s a truly wonderful wordless picture book. Chris Raschka portrays the heights and depths of emotion with simple painted lines and colors.

A Ball for Daisy features a little dog named Daisy. You can clearly see that Daisy loves her red ball. She plays with it, wags her tail when she catches it, and cuddles up next to it for a nap.

But when Daisy and her owner take it to the park, another dog begins to play, and he pops Daisy’s ball. Daisy’s sadness when this happens is unmistakeable.

Fortunately, there’s a happy ending as the other dog and its owner make things right the next day.

The pictures in this book are exuberant and varied, making the simple story great fun to read. The pages where Daisy’s trying to figure out what happened to her ball include shaking the limp casing, howling, and just being sad. The pages where Daisy is playing or sleeping reflect Daisy’s joyful and unworried existence. There’s a nice circular feeling as the end echoes the beginning, with Daisy cozying up to her new ball. All’s right in the world.

What child doesn’t know what it feels like to lose something? The story is universal, and can be “read” by the very young, yet will still fascinate older people with the beauty of the artwork.

I’m pleased with the Caldecott committee’s decision this year, as I have a feeling children will be enjoying this book for years to come.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/ball_for_daisy.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 I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, by Alan Bradley

Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, by Alan Bradley

Delacorte Press, New York, 2011. 293 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Standout: #4, Other Fiction

Lovely! A fourth Flavia DeLuce book! I am so happy with how quickly Alan Bradley is writing! And I was all the more happy when I saw this was a Christmas book. I thought it an interesting coincidence that I read two Christmas mysteries this year (The other was A Christmas Homecoming, by Anne Perry), and both involved a theatrical company secluded at an English country home at Christmas in a snowstorm, when a murder occurs. Honestly, I enjoyed this one more because it had Flavia deLuce!

If you haven’t met Flavia before, you will probably do fine just reading this one; you will get the idea. But all the books are so much fun, I do recommend reading them all.

Flavia is an 11-year-old chemical genius with a deep love of poisons. And she’s very good at solving mysteries, but not so good at leaving crime solving to adults. Her mother died years ago climbing mountains, and her father doesn’t pay a lot of attention to bringing up his three daughters. Flavia and her older sisters manage to torment each other rather mercilessly. I did like that it wasn’t quite as bad in this installment — they showed some affection for each other at Christmas.

I love Alan Bradley’s titles, and this one comes from Alfred Tennyson’s poem, “The Lady of Shalott.” In this book, Colonel de Luce, still needing to raise money, has rented out Buckshaw to a film company. The family is still planning to use their own rooms. But then, with the village visiting to see the great film stars perform Romeo and Juliet, a blizzard hits and everyone camps out at Buckshaw — and someone dies. Flavia herself finds the body — in the middle of the night.

I’ve always said that a nice murder mystery makes the perfect Christmas reading, and I thoroughly enjoyed this one. If you can’t be snowed in yourself, how nice to read about others being snowed in, anyway. And I still can’t help but love Flavia. In this book, she does some excellent deducing, and it’s her own home, so surely she can be forgiven for nosing where she’s told to stay away?

Here are some words from Flavia herself:

“Most chemists, whether they admit it or not, have a favorite corner of their craft in which they are forever tinkering, and mine is poisons.

“While I could still become quite excited by recalling how I had dyed my sister Feely’s knickers a distinctive Malay yellow by boiling them in a solution of lead acetate, followed by a jolly good stewing in a solution of potassium chromate, what really made my heart leap up with joy was my ability to produce a makeshift but handy poison by scraping the vivid green verdigris from the copper float-ball of one of Buckshaw’s Victorian toilet tanks.”

Flavia de Luce isn’t someone you forget in a hurry. This is a lovely addition to the series, and I hope that Alan Bradley continues to add books quickly.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/half_sick_of_shadows.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 Faith and Will, by Julia Cameron

Christian, Musings, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Faith and Will

Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives

by Julia Cameron

Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, New York, 2009. 221 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #1 Other Nonfiction

A big huge thank you to my sister Becky for giving me this book. It was kind of funny: I had already checked it out and was posting quotations from it in Sonderquotes when she gave me a copy. It was good to own a copy, because I think I have pulled more quotations from it than any other book I’ve read since I started posting Sonderquotes. So I’ve taken a very long time reading it, with all the time it’s spent in my Sonderquotes queue, and it’s good the library copies were available to others during that time.

Julia Cameron begins the book this way:

“I would like to begin at the beginning, but I do not know what the beginning is anymore. I am a person at midlife. I am a believer who is trying one more time to believe. That is to say I am caught off guard by life and by feelings of emptiness.

“I want there to be more reassurance than I currently feel that we are on the right path. By ‘we’ I mean God and me. I have been trying consciously to work with God for twenty-five years now, and a great deal has been made of my life that I think has a lot of value — but I am one more time asking for something to be made of me and it that I myself can hold on to. Me. Personally. Not as some abstract but as a genuine comfort.

“I am a writer and a teacher — “worthy” things, but I am not feeling my worth in them right now. I must again come to some relationship to God that will enable me to pursue my career as an outward manifestation of inwardly held values. In other words, what needs mending here is probably not the outward form — I suspect that after a great deal of soul-searching I would still come back to being a writer and a teacher — but the inward connection. I must feel I am doing what God would have me do.”

What follows is a book of musings and meditations, talking about faith, guidance, and choices. There are no chapter divisions, so the book rambles a bit, but I found the rambling tracked well with my own thinking. She reassured me and encouraged me that God is good and God’s will for us is good, creative, and joyful.

I pulled lots (and am still pulling) and lots and lots of quotations from the book that resonated for me. Read through some of these on Sonderquotes, and you will get a good sense of whether this book would delight you as it has delighted me.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/faith_and_will.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 given to me by my sister.

Other Books from 2011

Animal Characters, Biography, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Nonfiction Review 0

I currently have 43 reviews I’ve written that are waiting to be posted, a stack of books waiting for me to review them, and more books I’ve read in 2012 now piling up. I began Sonderbooks when I was working half-time, and I reviewed everything I read (at least everything I enjoyed). I hate it when I can’t keep that up! However, now I’m working full-time, and last July, I had a stroke. Since then, I need more sleep than I did before. I also had more reading time, so I simply got farther behind. Worse, I still have not recovered. Last Thursday, I had a Transient Ischemic Attack (a mini-stroke) lasting only three seconds. But it means the Coumadin I’m taking is not effectively keeping me from strokes, and what’s more, now I feel awful and only lasted a half-day at work today. I’m up writing this in hopes it will make me tired enough to get some sleep when I go to bed.

Anyway, enough complaining! All that is to say that I read some great books that are sitting here waiting and waiting to be reviewed. I’m going to list them now with brief reviews, because they deserve attention and readers. But in the interests of catching up, I’m not going to give them their own pages on Sonderbooks. (Sigh.) I’ll go until my laundry’s done and see how far that takes me.

The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, by Jeanne Birdsall

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2011. 295 pages.

These first two books, I grant you, I read without having read the books that came before them. I read them anyway, because they were on the Heavy Medal blog’s Mock Newbery Shortlist. This book comes after The Penderwicks and The Penderwicks on Gardam Street.

Quite some time ago, I tried to listen to Penderwicks on audio and got several chapters in, but finally decided I simply couldn’t stand listening to the grandmotherly voice of the reader. Reading The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, at first I heard that same voice in my head and was very put off, but as I persevered, I got more into the story.

The basic story is the classic one of four sisters having fun together. In this book, the oldest sister, Rosalind, is having vacation separate from the younger three. So Skye is concerned about being the OAP (oldest available Penderwick). As someone from a big family, that bothered me a bit that one of the children should feel so responsible for her younger siblings. Parents, that is your job! Though their Dad is going on his honeymoon, so he’s not there, but they are staying with an aunt, for goodness’ sake!

However, that, too, I was able to get past. Once I settled in and enjoyed it, it was a lovely vacation story about three sisters having vacation adventures with their friend, a boy, and new friends they met in Maine. I have to admit I would have loved to read these books with my kids — if I had had daughters instead of sons. This is a nice solid middle grade story, but I do think better for girls than boys.

The Trouble with May Amelia, by Jennifer L. Holm

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York, 2011. 204 pages.

The Trouble with May Amelia is a sequel to Newbery-Honor-winning Our Only May Amelia. This is another solid choice for middle-grade girls, this time historical fiction set in Washington State in 1900. With this one, I was put off by the present tense voice, which I’m prejudiced against, and I didn’t already know the characters like most readers would have. However, I was still quickly pulled into the story.

May Amelia’s the seventh child and the only girl in a Finnish family whose father believes that Girls Are Useless. May Amelia wants desperately to believe that she’s not, but there are some things she’s not good at — like cooking and mending. The book covers plenty of entertaining adventures of pioneer life on the Nasel River.

Then a man comes around who’s got an investment that’s sure to make the family millions. May Amelia’s father has her translate. She does her best, and the reader can see that she does yet be fully aware of impending doom. In fact, lots of troubles befall the family, but through it all we’ve got an upbeat, very fun book to read. I am looking forward to reading Our Only May Amelia when I get there on my quest to read all the Newbery winners and Honor books.

The Story of Charlotte’s Web: E. B. White’s Eccentric Life in Nature and the Birth of an American Classic, by Michael Sims

Walker & Company, New York, 2011. 307 pages.

This one’s for adults. It’s a biography of E. B. White, and especially focuses on the parts of his life that contributed to the creation of his masterpiece, Charlotte’s Web. I wasn’t surprised to learn of the in-depth research he did on spiders while writing the book, and am all the more impressed by how well he wove those things into the story. I also was not surprised to learn that he had always loved farms and farm animals. That certainly is also obvious in his book.

Those who love children’s literature in general and Charlotte’s Web in particular will enjoy this book.

The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale, by Carmen Agra Deedy & Randall Wright, Drawings by Barry Moser

Peachtree, Atlanta, 2011. 228 pages.

Here’s another solid middle-grade choice, this time for boys or girls. This one’s definitely for people who like animal stories. It has a similar flavor to The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo.

The book is set at an inn which still exists today, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, at the time when Charles Dickens was a frequent guest. The main character is a street cat, Skilley, who loves cheese — and The Cheshire Cheese has the best cheese in England.

A resident mouse, Pip, and Skilley come up with a plan. Skilley will catch mice at the inn, but then he will let them go. In return, they will bring him cheese, and they will be allowed to stay at the inn. But this cozy plan has trouble when another street cat is brought into the inn. On top of that, there’s someone in the attic who claims the fate of the entire country rests upon his own fate. Meanwhile, Charles Dickens is looking for an opening for his novel about the French Revolution….

That’s all I have time for tonight, but I hope maybe I’ll have won these books some readers. Happy Reading!

Review of Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi

Adventure, Award Winners, Science Fiction, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

Ship Breaker

by Paolo Bacigalupi

Little, Brown, and Company, New York, 2010. 326 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Printz Award Winner
2010 National Book Award Finalist
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2 Other Teen Fiction

Ship Breaker tells the story of a boy caught on the wrong side of progress in a future world after the Age of Acceleration has ended. The story is gripping, with Nailer in life-or-death danger on every page. Yet Paolo Bacigalupi builds a world that shows the consequences of society’s actions now, without ever letting the story slow down to tell us what’s going on. We learn through the eyes of the characters.

The book begins with Nailer crawling through the ducts of an old oil tanker, lit only by LED glowpaint on his forehead. He’s after the light stuff – copper wiring, steel clips, things that can be dragged out to his crew waiting outside.

The author doesn’t have to tell us they’re poor. He describes the wire being pulled out of the duct, “She sucked the wire out like a rice noodle from a bowl of Chen’s soup ration.” We begin to understand that he’s scavenging parts when we read about the new clipper ships: “Replacements for the massive coal- and oil-burning wrecks that he and his crew worked to destroy all day long: gull-white sails, carbon-fiber hulls, and faster than anything except a maglev train.”

Nailer was too slow in there, and he needs to go back in to get more scavenge before a big storm hits. He forgets to renew his LED paint, and gets caught in the dark. That’s okay, he’s finding plenty of copper wire that leads him out – until a duct collapses under him and he falls into a tank of oil.

“How could he die in such a stupid way? This wasn’t even a storage tank. Just some room full of pooled waste oil. It was a joke, really. Lucky Strike had found an oil pocket on a ship and bought his way free. Nailer had found one and it was going to kill him.

“I’m going to drown in goddamn money.

“Nailer almost laughed at the thought. No one knew exactly how much oil Lucky Strike had found and smuggled out. The man had done it slow, over time. Sneaking it out bucket by bucket until he had enough to buy out his indenture and burn off his work tattoos. But he’d had enough left over to set himself up as a labor broker selling slots into the very heavy crews that he’d escaped. Just a little oil had done so much for Lucky Strike, and Nailer was up to his neck in the damn stuff.”

Then one of his crewmates, Sloth, finds him. He begs her to bring help, to get him out, but she can’t resist the thought of pulling her own Lucky Strike. But when Nailer does find a way out, even though the oil goes out with him, Sloth is exposed as a traitor, and Nailer’s new nickname is Lucky Boy, because everyone knows he should have died.

That dramatic incident is important, because after the storm Nailer and his crewmate Pima find a wrecked clipper ship with one lone survivor. The rings on the girl’s fingers alone would be enough to set them up for life. But Nailer doesn’t have the heart to kill the girl, because he now knows what it was like to be left for dead. That incident gets him thinking throughout the book about what it means to be family, what it means to be Crew.

The tension in this book doesn’t let up for a second, and it’s life-or-death danger on almost every page. Nailer and Pima aren’t the only ones to find the girl, and the group with Nailer’s father is not at all interested in keeping her alive, only in getting money from her.

They go from one danger to another, with Nailer trying to figure out not only what’s the right thing to do, but also how to stay alive.

This book is a thriller all the way along, with a never-flagging plot. And it presents hard-hitting commentary and questions about our way of life now.

I finally read this book when taking a class on the Printz Award. It definitely seems worthy of the award it won: Besides telling a rip-roaring story, it warns us that in our policies even now, we should look out for the little guys. We should think about the consequences of the things we do.

Here are my notes on his brilliant acceptance speech at the Printz Awards.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/ship_breaker.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 Stuck, by Oliver Jeffers

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Readalouds, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Stuck

by Oliver Jeffers

Philomel Books, New York, 2011. 36 pages.
Starred Review
2011 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2 Picture Books

Reading this picture book made me laugh out loud, and then, of course, try to get everyone around me to read it.

“It all began when Floyd’s kite became stuck in a tree. He tried pulling and swinging, but it wouldn’t come unstuck.

“The trouble

    REALLY

began when he threw his FAVORITE SHOE to knock the kite loose. . .

“. . . and THAT got stuck too!”

Floyd throws more and more things up in the tree. The pictures help make the predicament hilarious. And there are some surprising reflections: “Cats get stuck in trees all the time, but this was getting ridiculous.”

There are a couple of times we think he’s doing something constructive, like fetching a ladder.

“. . . and up he threw it.

“I’m sure you can guess what happened.”

Floyd throws more and more things into the tree, getting bigger and more ridiculous things all along the way. My favorite one is “A curious whale in THE WRONG PLACE at THE WRONG TIME to knock down the lighthouse…”

The pictures remind me very much of the video game where you collect things by rolling over them as progressively bigger things get stuck.

Well, this is another book I don’t want to say too much and ruin it for you. Me telling you the story isn’t nearly as funny as the words and pictures of this book discovered together. Anybody who’s old enough to ever have gotten something stuck in a tree will enjoy this book.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

2012 Morris Seminar – The Alchemy of Book Evaluation

Events, General 0

This year I got to be a part of the William Morris Seminar. The purpose is to train new people to be part of book and media evaluation committees for ALSC, the Association for Library Service to Children. This is the group that awards the Newbery, Caldecott, Geisel, Siebert, Odyssey, and other medals. The seminar was made possible from a grant by William Morris, and is an invitational seminar presented every two years. I applied each of the three times it has been offered, and this time was selected to participate.

Part of the thrill was getting to meet and talk with a group of 30 people as excited about Book Evaluation as I am. Just like me, these people got excited talking about the strengths and weaknesses of children’s books published last year.

Our speakers were people who have served on multiple committees, and who have recently chaired committees. They have lots of knowledge of the process and lots of experience with making a good discussion happen.

The first speaker of the morning was Vicky Smith talking about “The Alchemy of Book Evaluation.” I’ll give some of my notes from her talk.

She said when you’re assigned to a book evaluation committee, first, you need to evaluate yourself. Because, after all, “Text is context.”

She did say that, as a former English major, she is hyperaware of the Intentional Fallacy – the false idea that anyone can know what the author originally intended.

You should know the sort of reader you are: Fast or slow? Easily distracted or easily submerged in a book? Do you read for language, character, plot, or theme? What books did you love when you were 12 years old?

When you’re on an ALSC committee, you have to transcend the reader you are. For example, if you’re a plot-driven reader, you’re good at seeing how the plot works – but you need to overcome that.

Do you have biases? Your biases can help illuminate a book, but also blind you.

What do you know? Use your expertise without Hubris. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Beware of Hubris!

Know what you don’t know and be open to the book. Understand your context. The book you are evaluating was not written for you. You are not evaluating the book for personal pleasure reading.

Understand who the book is for. Some books are specifically gender-skewed, ability-skewed, etc. You just need to understand who it’s directed for.

Books may not be literarily spectacular, but still important.

Who is the book for? What is the book for?

Is joy and fun any less important than big deep messages?

Why are you evaluating this book? Your committee’s charge is important.

You need to get over wanting a book you can use with your kids.

Greet the book on its own terms. Think about: What does this book do, as opposed to: What doesn’t it do?

Every book deserves the most open mind possible.

What does this book do? What doesn’t it do? That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Remember that “offensive” has a million different definitions. What, in particular, do you think is offensive?

Does the book do what it does with integrity? If there are stereotypes, is that a bad thing?

Pay attention to your reactions to the book.

Don’t go into your encounter with the book looking for flaws. If you do find a flaw, you’re obligated to check. (Find an expert.)

Everybody has a different opinion of what is a fatal flaw. Why is it there? Is it really a flaw?

Book Evaluation is hugely relative. We can’t apply standards that give the same result every time.

***

That was the first talk we got to listen to. It made us eager to begin! We’d all read a list of books for small group discussion later.

This talk was interesting to me because it did point out to me that a Book Evaluation committee is very different than what I am trying to do on my blog. On my blog, I’m giving my own reaction to the book. But in a committee, you’re looking at a book as children’s literature. You want to observe your own reactions, but you’re trying to evaluate the underlying quality of the book for its true audience.

However, even though this isn’t what I’m trying to do on my blog, this is all very good advice for Readers’ Advisory on my job. It’s good to know a book’s strengths so I can figure out who would enjoy the book. Readers’ Advisory is also not about what I like or don’t like; it’s about finding the right book for the reader in front of you at this particular time.