Review of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Traitor to the Nation, Volume 2: The Kingdom on the Waves, by M. T. Anderson

Audiobooks, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

kingdom_on_the_wavesThe Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing
Traitor to the Nation
Volume II
The Kingdom on the Waves

by M. T. Anderson
Read by Peter Francis James

Books on Tape, 2008. 11 CDs, 13 hours, 25 minutes.
Starred Review

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing is a two-volume work. You shouldn’t read the first volume without reading the second, and you definitely shouldn’t read the second volume without reading the first.

The first volume was set just before the start of the American Revolution. Octavian is a slave in Boston who is brought up in an experiment to see if someone of the Negro race can benefit from a scholarly education.

Octavian does benefit, and his scholarly voice is heard throughout the books.

In The Kingdom on the Waves, Octavian goes to fight for the British, since they have offered freedom to all slaves who fight on their side. This gripping tale has him in battles, facing the Yankee enemy, but also small pox and the danger of being captured and put back into slavery.

Octavian makes new friends in the company of freed slaves, and tells their stories, too. The story of how his old friend Bono escaped and got his exquisite revenge had me laughing out loud. I wanted to share the story with someone, it was so excellent — but it had been set up with the entire earlier volume, so I had to be content with chuckling over it myself.

This book is definitely NOT cheery reading. At one point, I had to look at the print copy and check the last page to make sure Octavian and his friends don’t all die at the end or go back into slavery. Come on, I knew they were on the losing side of the war, and it seemed like every terrible event that could happen was hitting them along the way. I had to know the ending was happy, or I just couldn’t handle it!

All the same, this book is a masterpiece. M. T. Anderson opened my eyes to a part of our country’s history as I never imagined it. He clearly did exhaustive research to make the writing authentic, and with Octavian’s cultured, well-educated voice, wrenches your emotions to care about these people and helps you understand what things must have been like.

The characters are distinct and are portrayed with appropriate voices by Peter Francis James, making the audiobook easy to follow even when the story is on such an epic scale. I admit I’m not sure I would have gotten through the book in print form, as I’ve gotten too much in the habit of quickly reading lighter fare. Almost anything I read is lighter than this, but I felt like I was learning much about history as I listened, and I definitely wanted to know what would happen to the characters. And the beauty of a longer commute is that I don’t begrudge a longer book when I’m listening in the car anyway.

A magnificent and eye-opening conclusion to a compelling story.

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

Review of The Lincolns, by Candace Fleming

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

lincolnsThe Lincolns

A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary

by Candace Fleming

Schwartz & Wade Books (Random House), New York, 2008. 181 pages.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #2 Children’s Nonfiction

Candace Fleming’s scrapbook biographies are truly amazing. I reviewed her similar book Ben Franklin’s Almanac back in 2004. This newer book, The Lincolns is equally complete and enlightening.

Instead of just telling us about Abraham and Mary Lincoln, Candace Fleming has brought together photographs, letters, news articles, and things written about them by their contemporaries. It does take time and attention to get through this book, but it is never boring, and you will feel like you have special insight into the great man and his volatile but much-loved wife by the time you are done.

Clearly Candace Fleming put in tremendous amounts of time and research to produce this exceptional book. She has produced a wonderful resource, not merely for children doing reports, but for anyone wanting to know more about the Lincolns and the Civil War.

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

Review of The Marriage Bureau for Rich People, by Farahad Zama

Fiction Review, General, Light Reading, Romance, Starred Review 0

marriage_bureauThe Marriage Bureau for Rich People

by Farahad Zama

Amy Einhorn Books (Putnam’s), 2009. 293 pages.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #7 Fiction

The Marriage Bureau for Rich People is one I will be recommending to many, many library patrons as a pleasant, light-hearted read that will lift your spirits. It also gives you a taste of life in India.

Mr. Ali needs something to do after retirement. His wife tells him,

“After retiring, you’ve been like an unemployed barber who shaves his cat for want of anything better to do. Let’s hope that from today you will be a bit busier and I get some peace.”

Mr. Ali has decided to open a Marriage Bureau for Rich People. And in fact, he gets so much business he can’t handle it all himself. He deals with Muslims, Hindus, and Christians, and people of different castes. Sometimes parents, brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles seek his services for their relatives, and sometimes the prospective matches come themselves. He learns much about human nature and has many insights on what leads to happiness.

Mrs. Ali finds her husband an assistant, Aruna, to help with the work load. Aruna has her own sad story, since her father’s recent illness strapped the family finances and destroyed her marriage prospects.

The book tells stories of some of the people they successfully match up, and some with whom they are not so lucky. Through it all, we hear about the Alis’ conflicts with their own son, who is involved in political protests, as well as Aruna’s difficulties. Fortunately, events take a happy turn.

This book introduces you to delightful people, tells interesting stories about them, and gives you a taste of India. Thinking about it still makes me smile. In some ways, this reminded me of The Number One Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith — the same pleasant tone, and the same basic idea: friendly main characters interacting with a wide variety of people, with insights on human nature given along the way. Both give a taste of the country where they are set, with The Marriage Bureau for Rich People in India, instead of Botswana.

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Review of Juicy Pens, Thirsty Paper, by SARK

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review, Writing 0

juicy_pensJuicy Pens, Thirsty Paper

Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It

by SARK

Three Rivers Press, New York, 2008. 187 pages.
Starred review.

Here’s a lovely, inspiring, exuberant book of encouragement for writers. Handwritten in a rainbow of colors, SARK (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy) knows exactly what to say to encourage writers to actually put pen to paper.

Here are some examples, which you must imagine in her bright and beautiful handwriting:

“Most of all, I write because of the joy it creates. Writing creates connections and magic and certain kinds of permanent bliss. I can write myself in and out of moods and experiences, and create new places to live in my mind. It’s kind of like pole vaulting with a pen.”

“Last night I ate a lot of ice cream after dinner and then didn’t get much sleep from the caffeine in the chocolate. I could blame not writing on that too.

“Who can I blame for blaming?”

“I’ve learned that literally anything can be used as a reason ‘not to write’ and that these choices are mostly habitual and fear-based and can be changed.”

“We forget that writing is fun and rewarding, or become convinced that it isn’t and load it up with all sorts of reasons why we can’t or don’t do it. We actually think so much about why we aren’t writing, that we forget how to use our energy to actually write.

“This book will remind you.”

“I think of being human as a kind of writing incubator. You are your own hatching station.”

“Reading is most often a source of great joy, which fills wells, cells and provides fuel for our imagination.”

“There is no right or good time to write. There are always days that will be easier or more perplexing than others, but really it’s all just hilarious practicing. I call it hilarious because it’s subject to what life gives and brings us, and that is just so funny and variable.

“If you take time to write every day, it will move like a river or the ocean. I appreciate but do not depend on the moments of days or even days where writing flows smoothly. Sometimes it is stagnant, then rushing, perhaps dripping for long stretches of time.”

“Now I hilariously practice writing daily, and generally like how it feels. I’ve surrendered to being a writer (one who writes) and living that way. Now it’s your turn too! Get yourself a big juicy pen and some thirsty paper.”

The book isn’t only inspiring quotations, but includes plenty of exercises and ideas to jumpstart your own writing. It would be better to purchase a copy and write in it than to do as I did and check it out from the library. Then you can add your own creativity and dip into it again and again.

Just reviewing this book changes my attitude enormously! I love SARK’s joyful and joyous spirit. It’s contagious. If your own encouragement to yourself isn’t enough to get you to write, I strongly recommend SARK’s encouragement.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/juicy_pens.html

Review of Summer on Blossom Street, by Debbie Macomber

Fiction Review, Light Reading, Romance, Starred Review 0

summer_on_blossom_streetSummer on Blossom Street

by Debbie Macomber

Mira, 2009. 361 pages.
Starred Review

Debbie Macomber’s Blossom Street books are like a refreshing break with friends. The books revolve around Lydia Goetz’s yarn shop in Seattle, A Good Yarn. As in the other books, in Summer on Blossom Street, we hear the stories of a small group of people who have come together for a knitting class — and then find their lives knitting together.

In this fifth book of the series, Lydia is starting a class called “Knit to Quit.” Alix, a friend who’s been with us since the first book, and now a newlywed, is trying to, once again, quit smoking. A new customer signs up — to help herself quit loving her ex-fiance, who was arrested, for the second time, for solicitation. He still wants her back, and is very persuasive. What’s more, her own mother is trying to get her to forgive him and take him back. Also in the class, to make things more interesting, a man signs up, told by his doctor to do activities to lower his blood pressure.

Meanwhile further threads and storylines follow Lydia, who would like to adopt, and Anne Marie Roche, bookstore owner, who recently has adopted. The alternating chapters, telling different people’s storylines, keep you interested. I admit, I found myself most interested in Phoebe’s story, and I got a tiny bit impatient when there were too many other chapters breaking that part up. But mostly all the stories were intriguing enough to hook me.

These books are wholesome, uplifting, and encouraging, with enough problems hitting the characters that we don’t just think they’ve got it too easy — but definitely still stories that end up happy. I have decided I want to go back and read the installment I missed, Twenty Wishes, which is the fourth book. I read the third book, Back on Blossom Street, at a time when I wasn’t getting many books reviewed. You can get away with reading these books out of order, but it’s more fun to read along with the series and watch some of our old friends return, still growing and enjoying life.

Another nice thing about the Blossom Street books is that they each include a knitting pattern, the one the characters knit in the class. I haven’t tried any of them out yet, but it adds to the feeling that reading these books is like being in a knitting circle with friends.

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Review of Happiness Now! by Robert Holden, PhD

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review 0

happiness_nowHappiness Now!

Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good FAST

by Robert Holden, PhD

Hay House, Carlsbad, California, revised 2007. 255 pages.
Starred Review

I truly believe that happiness is a choice, and I like reading books that help me remember to make that choice.

You can tell that this book struck a chord with me by how many times I quoted it in Sonderquotes.

To be honest, many of his illustrations were ones I had heard a zillion times in one sermon or another. But I very much liked his overall concepts.

I was especially struck by his discussions about healing the Work Ethic, the Suffering Ethic, and the Martyr Ethic. The Work Ethic says happiness has to be deserved, worked for, earned, or paid for. The Suffering Ethic says that you have to know suffering in order to be happy. The Martyr Ethic teaches that happiness is selfish.

In contrast with those, Robert Holden says:

“One of the greatest single steps you can take to happiness now is to let go of the belief that happiness has to be deserved. You do not deserve happiness, you choose happiness. Happiness is natural. It is freely available to all. It is unconditional. And when you’re unconditional about happiness, then happiness merely happens! Happiness happens, if you let it.”

“Suffering does happen, and it’s regrettable that it does. All of us have suffered disappointment, loss, pain, failure, rejection, bereavement, and so on. In no way am I trying to belittle this suffering, but what I’m saying is that no amount of suffering adds to your greatness. Your Self-worth was established in the heavens the moment you were created. Your worth comes, therefore, from who you are, not what you’ve suffered.”

“The fear that happiness is selfish is not only untrue, it actually couldn’t be further from the truth. Psychology researchers find time and time again that it is the depressed people, and not the happy ones, who are intensely self-focused and self-absorbed. Happy people, by contrast, tend to be outgoing, sociable, generous, loving, and kind. They’re also more tolerant, forgiving, and less judgmental than people who are depressed.”

I found this book to be full of reasons to give up excuses not to be happy. Inspiring and delightful. I’ll conclude the same way the author does:

“The ‘real key’ to happiness, then, is that there is no key! This might seem like bad news, but fear not! The good news is that there is no prison, no door, and no lock. Happiness is open all hours, and if you’re willing to be open to happiness, then you can enjoy happiness now!”

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Review of A Kiss in Time, by Alex Flinn

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

kiss_in_timeA Kiss in Time

by Alex Flinn

HarperTeen, 2009. 371 pages.
Starred Review

On my second day of vacation, I committed the wonderful luxury of staying in bed until noon and reading a novel. A Kiss in Time is the novel I chose.

I loved Alex Flinn’s Beastly, where she sets the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” in modern-day New York. When I heard she was doing a version of “Sleeping Beauty,” where Sleeping Beauty is woken up by a modern day American teen, I simply had to snap it up.

Now, I’ve got a special interest in Sleeping Beauty tales, because several years ago I attempted to write my own version where Sleeping Beauty was sleeping in a castle in Germany, and is woken by an American military kid whose last name is Prince. Unfortunately, I got bogged down with details. How does she get an ID card? A passport? I couldn’t decide whether she’d get media attention and be a celebrity princess or just adapt to modern life as some sort of refugee. What’s more, in my version, all of her family and her life before were dead, so it got rather depressing.

My own attempt to write the story gives me that much more admiration for Alex Flinn pulling it off so beautifully. Mind you, Orson Scott Card has already done a magnificent job in his book for adults, Enchantment. But with A Kiss in Time, Alex Flinn has written the light-hearted teen fantasy I was shooting for. I was delighted with the way she had the entire kingdom sleeping, as in the original fairy tale, and figured out a way to deal with them waking up in the 21st Century.

Jack is something of a screw-up, and he’s had enough of museums, so he decides to ditch the tour group his parents sent him on and spend a day at the beach. He brings along his friend Travis, but they have some trouble with the directions they’re given and somehow wind up struggling through a thick hedge of thorns. On the other side, there’s a medieval kingdom, where everyone’s asleep. Travis thinks they might as well help themselves to some jewels, but then Jack discovers a gorgeous girl asleep in a room by herself. Something compels him to give her a kiss….

Well, Talia’s father wakes up awfully angry with Talia for having touched a spindle despite all his warnings. He throws Jack in the dungeon, since, after all, a commoner shouldn’t be kissing the princess. Talia’s willing to help Jack escape to Florida, but he seems strangely reluctant to marry her. In Florida, Talia has a lot to learn about the modern world, but it turns out there are things she can teach Jack about dealing with people.

And both teens have a lot to learn about true love.

This is a light-hearted and fun approach to the age-old story, and the question of how have people changed across the centuries. My hat goes off to Alex Flinn for doing such a wonderful job telling this tale.

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

Review of The Story Sisters, by Alice Hoffman

Fiction Review, General, Starred Review 0

story_sistersThe Story Sisters

by Alice Hoffman

Shay Areheart Books (Crown), New York, 2009. 325 pages.
Starred review.

Sisters Elv, Meg, and Claire Story have their own language, Arnish, created by Elv, along with stories of the fairyland Arnelle. But Elv’s fantasies begin to take a dark path. On top of that, threesomes are always difficult, and Elv and Meg begin an unspoken rivalry for Claire’s devotion. But Elv’s path becomes dangerous; Claire, once rescued by Elv, cannot continue to follow her.

The story of the Story Sisters is dark and sad, but somehow it is also uplifting and beautiful. Some terrible things happen to them; they let each other down in tragic ways. But in the end family (blood family and chosen family) pulls them through.

This book did get me crying. I found myself forgetting it was fiction and wanting to ask God why He let some of these events happen to these girls! Yes, the author created a believable world. And in her cruelty to her characters, she made a wonderfully compelling story. Some terrible things happen, but the characters eventually rise above their difficulties.

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Review of The Marriage Benefit, by Mark O’Connell, PhD

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Relationships, Starred Review 0

marriage_benefitThe Marriage Benefit

The Surprising Rewards of Staying Together

by Mark O’Connell, PhD

Springboard Press, New York, 2008. 214 pages.
Starred review.

Recently, a friend said, “Don’t you love it when science catches up with the Bible?” I was rather amused by the word “Surprising” in the title of this book, just as I was with the word “Unexpected” in the title of the book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, by Judith Wallerstein, which presented a study that showed — surprise, surprise — that divorce isn’t good for kids.

Our culture floods us with the message that divorce is a happy solution to marital difficulties. This book attempts to present answers to the question, “Why stay married?” using research and the author’s own counseling experience. He finds that, in fact, long-term marriage can have many benefits for those willing to invest themselves into it.

Why should I, a woman going through divorce, read this book? Well, I do think that God is asking me to wait and pray for restoration, and I definitely have moments when I think that’s insane. This book helped remind me of why a healed marriage could, in fact, be a good thing, and is still something worth praying for. It was an encouraging reminder of how marriage can be. I especially liked his words about the power of forgiveness and how good and transformative it is for the person doing the forgiving.

I do highly recommend this book for married couples, especially those approaching midlife. The author has plenty of wise insights as to how to stay married, as well as pointing out why it’s worth it.

The author’s own words tell you what to expect:

“This is a book about marriage, but it’s not the kind of ‘how to make your marriage better’ book that we have come to expect. This is a book about how stretching the boundaries of what we imagine to be possible can turn our intimate relationships into remarkable oppportunities for growth and change. This is a book about how our relationships can make us better.

“And this is also a book that offers a radical and contemporary answer to an age-old question. Why stay married? Because our long-term relationships can, at their best, help us to navigate the maddeningly relentless passage of time. They can teach us how to find purpose and meaning even in the face of life’s most immovable limits, making growing older an expanding, rather than a diminishing, experience. . . .

“In the pages that follow, I will argue that our long-term intimate relationships can help us to grow up, or, to put it another way, they can help us to live fully and creatively even as our private hopes and expectations meet the immutable realities that come with our advancing years. Even better, they can help us with core midlife challenges while bringing us joy, allowing us moments of unexpected laughter and lightness, and helping us to become our best selves.”

A major theme of this book is personal growth and that a long-term relationship can be a wonderful help toward that goal.

“This book is organized around two simple principles:

“First, if we are to get better as we grow older we will need to find growth and meaning through the very hardships and limitations that we often seek to avoid and deny.

“Second, more than any other means available to us, our long-term intimate relationships can help us with this critical life task. By opening ourselves to intimately knowing, and intimately being known by, someone different and separate from ourselves, we can uncover the world of untapped possibility that lies unexplored within our own selves.

“By now it is probably obvious that we’re not talking about a quick fix. If our relationships are to be all that they can be, if they are to become opportunities for meaningful change and growth, we will need to give them time. And in this age of fast and easy gratification giving things time is becoming a lost art.

“This is particularly true when it comes to love.”

Mark O’Connell gives the central take-home message of this book to be:

“We have the power to change ourselves, often in surprising and important ways. And we change best when we allow ourselves to be changed by someone to whom we are very close.”

I found this to be an uplifting and encouraging message, and one I’m excited to tell other people about.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/marriage_benefit.html

Review of Wise Guy, by M. D. Usher

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review 0

wise_guyWise Guy

The Life and Philosophy of Socrates

by M. D. Usher

Pictures by William Bramhall

Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2005. 36 pages.

I find it rather amazing that M. D. Usher was able to write an accessible picture book biography of Socrates, based entirely on ancient sources (as the endnote declares).

The book tells an entertaining, vividly illustrated story, with sidenotes on scrolls that simply and clearly explain details of Socrates’ life and philosophy. I especially like the pictures of Socrates dancing. We’re told he loved to party.

Here’s an example of one of the sidenotes:

“What is an idea? Is it a thing you can smell, taste, or touch? If not, is it any less real than a bed or table? What is the difference between the idea of a bed and the bed itself? Socrates argued that the carpenter must have an idea or image of a bed in his mind before he can go about building one. But where does this idea come from in the first place? Socrates seems to have believed that objects in our world have an invisible, eternal blueprint to which they correspond. The eternal blueprint of a bed may not seem so very interesting, but Socrates applied the idea to larger concepts, like right and wrong and good and bad. Just as a carpenter with vast knowledge and experience can make a good bed, and in turn be a good carpenter, a person who has studied the blueprint of right and wrong can be a good person.”

This isn’t a book that students will seek out for reports, but it’s an entertaining picture book biography with surprisingly intriguing ideas. Reading this book gave me the idea of making a display at the library of picture book biographies — as a group they are underappreciated and hidden away in the more “serious” biographies. But they make intriguing reading, are highly educational, and give you an inspirational look at the lives of some truly great people.

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