More Teasing Choices

Teaser Tuesdays 0

teasertuesdays31It’s already Teaser Tuesday again!

On Teaser Tuesday, hosted by Should Be Reading, you take a book you’re currently reading, turn to a random page, and post two teaser sentences from that page (no spoilers allowed).

Last week, I had so much fun choosing my next book by looking at teasers, this week I’m really going to get carried away. First off, I will say I limited myself to books in the pile by my bed of books I hope to read very soon. And this is only part of the pile. I am not telling how many more piles there are.

I will post the titles and authors after the teasers. I will begin with the books I will probably read first.

Teaser Number One: “Well, you mustn’t be caught by them!” the king said to Minli. “Then they would find out all about my little adventures and then where will I be?”

Teaser Number Two: The dresses and the food didn’t matter, but the laughing did, and you didn’t wear the bells out by ringing them. Did happiness wear out?

Teaser Number Three: This doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but it would seem weird if I didn’t mention that the Hallsteds’ green Cadillac might not actually be green. I am a deuteranope.

Teaser Number Four: There wouldn’t be a chance to get coats. In the falling snow, she could hold the baby against her, using the blanket to shield him.

Teaser Number Five: On the way to lunch on Tuesday, they pause at the front end of the car, united by a common sympathy for ruined metal. Duncan can’t help thinking that given a woman’s bruised face or a bad dent, he knows which one he’d wince at first.

See what I mean I’m having too much fun with this? And that’s only some of the books on my first pile. Let’s see. Remember how in December I was planning to catch up on the 30 books I’ve read and want to review? Well, now there are 39 on my list! You can see that I’ve only written one “official” review in December, but have done plenty of reading.

I’m going to have to chalk it up, again, to headaches. I’m getting these very low-level, very persistent headaches. I can still read, but it’s harder to be creative and write reviews. So — I’m adding more books to my list to be reviewed, and then not reviewing them. This was made all the worse the last few weeks, as the neurologist prescribed a migraine preventative to try — and it turned out to be exactly the medicine I should not take. I think it was responsible for several migraines during that time. All I know is that today the side effects of that medication are done; I feel worlds better — but I still have the very persistent, very low-level headache that I went to see the neurologist about in the first place. In fact, this is the 27th day. Urgh.

Anyway, my reaction to the medication put things in perspective — this low-level headache is really not so bad! By contrast, I almost feel good!

But I suppose I probably won’t get five books read in the next week. Still, I can try. Here are the candidates for my next books to read:

Candidate Number One: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin. This is a children’s novel mentioned on the Heavy Medal blog and nominated for the Capitol Choices list. Looks good. Quite light, with fairy tale overtones. Might be a little too much like the fabulous Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman, which I finished last night.

Candidate Number Two: A Christmas Promise, by Anne Perry. So far, in my light holiday reading in past years, books by Anne Perry have definitely been my favorites. I started this after my MRI last week, so tonight might be a good time to polish it off.

Candidate Number Three: A Young Adult novel with a great cover is How to Steal a Car, by Pete Hautman. Great author, too. I will definitely read this one soon, but am not quite sure when I will get to it.

Candidate Number Four: The Spy Who Came for Christmas, by David Morell. Holiday thriller reading is usually fun, too. If this one involves a baby in danger, I might have second thoughts.

Candidate Number Five: New World Monkeys, by Nancy Mauro. Gotta love that title! This is a novel for adults that looks quirky and funny. Looks like there’s a lot of realistic, and funny, tension between a married couple, too. If that doesn’t get too dark, could add to the fun.

So, I’ve certainly spent enough time on that. Now I’m going to review last week’s teaser, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery.

Fluffy Holiday Reading

Chick Lit, Fiction Review, Light Reading, Romance, Teaser Tuesdays 0

thanksgivingThanksgiving
by Janet Evanovich

Well, on Teaser Tuesday I posted two teasers and asked you to help me choose which to read. I got one comment on Facebook, and I went ahead and ignored that comment!

Yep, my friend Missy told me to skip the Janet Evanovich holiday book, but Wednesday night I went ahead and knocked it off. She said that she’d been disappointed in a different Evanovich holiday book. But I had wanted something light and fluffy, and something I could read in less than two hours.

Sure enough, I read Thanksgiving in about the same amount of time it would have taken to watch a chick flick, it had about that much depth and characterization (not much), was that much fun (lots), and hurt my head a lot less, because it didn’t involve any bright light. So it was exactly what I was in the mood for.

But it was light and fluffy and not highly believable or lasting literature and sexy and silly and fun and not necessarily what I want to be known for recommending. So — I thought I’d just talk about it on this blog but not post a review on the main site. But that way, you’d know how the Teaser Tuesday turned out.

And today I had another long wait at a hospital for an MRI, and read further on The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Okay, it’s quite dry reading, but I’m getting pulled in, little by little. I probably should stop reading it when I have a headache, though, I think, as it needs a little more focus than what I’m giving it.

Thanksgiving, on the other hand, did not need much powers of concentration at all! Basically a young woman with a history of being dumped has moved to Williamsburg and meets a fresh-out-of-medical-school pediatrician when his rabbit (of all things) nibbles her skirt. Then a young teen mother mistakes them for a married couple and dumps a baby on them, and Megan falls for the baby (yeah, right) and they take care of it and have a perfect Thanksgiving with their families and confront her former fiance and have a comedy of errors (of course) and go through lust and love and decide whether to live happily ever after.

Light and fluffy, completely unrealistic, but quite a bit of fun. I was a little annoyed that the rabbit hardly ever came into it after the initial scene where it engineers their meeting, but okay that wasn’t the only quibble. And it certainly didn’t have any more plot holes than a similar chick flick and would make a delightful one.

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Review of Prosperity Pie, by SARK

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth 0

prosperity_pieProsperity Pie

How to Relax About Money and Everything Else

by SARK

A Fireside Book (Simon & Schuster), New York, 2002. 206 pages.

As I write this review, it strikes me as ridiculously silly, utterly hilarious that I tried to save the $12.48 Amazon.com price by using the library’s copy. SARK’s books are colorful, creative, and meant to be written in! In a book about prosperity, why am I so stingy, that I will not spend $12.48 to release my own creative spirit? I guess I really needed this book!

Prosperity Pie is, as the subtitle says, all about relaxing. She talks about prosperity, about resources. It contains SARK’s “inventions and discovery systems for expanding your feelings of prosperity, with examples of old patterns transforming into new ones.”

“Mostly, it is an active companion to your own journey of prosperity. This book will serve as a sturdy walking stick, a self-love magnifier, and a kind, wise friend who tells you:

You are enough

You have enough

You do enough

And then bring you chocolate”

(Please realize that those words are written artistically and beautifully on the page.)

If you can use that sort of kind and wise friend, this is the book for you.

Now that I have finished reading it, I am going to order my very own copy with the link below:

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

Help Me Choose

Teaser Tuesdays 0

teasertuesdays31It’s Teaser Tuesday!

Teaser Tuesday is a blog Meme hosted by Should Be Reading. You go to a random page from a book you’re reading and post two teaser sentences from that page.

I think it’s especially fun today, because I wasn’t quite sure what book I wanted to pick up tonight. Bedtime’s still a couple hours away, so let’s see if I get any responses. And I will see what teasers I come up with. Here are the two books I am considering.

Candidate one I started at the doctor’s office last week. It comes highly recommended, has an intriguing premise and has a long wait list at the library, so I need to turn my copy in. The only trouble is that it didn’t quite grab me. But I wanted to give it one more chance. Let’s see what teaser I come up with.

Hmm. Now that I”m doing this, I don’t think I will post the titles and authors until after I have come up with the teasers. Okay, Teaser number one:

What if literature were a television we gaze into in order to activate our mirror neurons and give ourselves some action-packed cheap thrills? And even worse: what if literature were a television showing us all the things we have missed?

Candidate Number Two is a fluffy holiday book. I get this silly hankering for them this time of year. You can kind of tell that’s what it is with Teaser number two:

Megan noticed he was wearing the sneakers with the sutures again. He didn’t have any money, she guessed.

Hmm. I’m still not sure which book I’ll read tonight, though I’m afraid the fluffy one is losing appeal by how hard it was to find a page that had any interesting sentences at all.

The titles of the books are Candidate Number One: The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, and Candidate Number Two: Thanksgiving, by Janet Evanovich.

Which do you think I should tackle tonight? Please vote in the comments! And leave a teaser of your own!

Review of Shelf Discovery, by Lizzie Skurnick

Musings, Nonfiction Review 0

shelf_discoveryShelf Discovery

The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading

A Reading Memoir

by Lizzie Skurnick

With Meg Cabot, Laura Lippman, Cecily von Ziegesar, and Jennifer Weiner

Avon (HarperCollins), 2009. 424 pages.

This was the perfect book to read slowly while I was taking an online class given by the Association for Library Service to Children called “The Newbery Medal: Past, Present and Future.” Because this book was, also, about the books of childhood. Okay, maybe not all the childhood reading this book covered was necessarily “distinguished,” but it was truly memorable. And a whole lot of fun to stroll down memory lane with Lizzie Skurnick and some guest writers, talking about the books we loved as teens. As a matter of fact, a lot of Newbery Medal winners and Honor Books were included, so it was truly pertinent to the class.

I was won over immediately by Laura Lippman’s Foreword to this book, because I have always been a rereader. My father is not a rereader. My sister is not a rereader. They are proud not to be. My sister does not buy books, because she is not going to read it again, so why spend the money? My father is embarrassed when he forgets he’s read a book before and accidentally starts on it again. I, however, have always taken great delight in rereading old friends, and love C. S. Lewis’s essay, “On Rereading.” I knew I would enjoy this book when I read Laura Lippman’s words:

“Some people are baffled by re-reading in general, the re-reading of children’s books in particular. What’s the point? Why waste time revisiting the books of childhood when there’s so much else to read? With these essays, Lizzie Skurnick has answered those questions far more eloquently than I ever could. It’s as if a kindly psychiatrist suddenly appeared with a sheaf of missing brain scans…. By the time we realize the profound influences of our youthful reading lists, it’s too late to undo them. Yes, if I knew then what I know now, I would have read more seriously and critically during those crucial years that my brain was a big, porous sponge. But I didn’t and my hunch is that you, dear reader, didn’t either. So stretch out on Dr. Lizzie’s couch… Contemplate the fact that Ramona Quimby may be a fictional creation on a par with Emma Bovary. We should not be ashamed of re-reading our favorite books, only of re-reading them thoughtlessly.”

But I especially liked what Lizzie Skurnick said about how the books themselves brought her right back to her own experience of reading them:

“When I first started doing reviews of classic young adult literature for Jezebel’s Fine Lines column, I was amused and surprised by the odd, visceral details that returned to me with every work: Pa bringing the girls real white sugar wrapped in brown paper in Little House in the Big Woods, Sally J. Freeman having a man-o’-war wrapped around her foot (who even knew what a man-o’-war was?), Claudia choosing macaroni at the Automat in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. These strong, charged images that have never left me — they’re often even stronger than memories I have of my own life. I simply see the cover, and they come back — like fragments of a dream I can’t quite remember, Proust’s madeleine, but even stranger, since I’ve never even tasted one.

“Some of the lives I read about were very similar to mine (I could see a lot of my own camp life in There’s a Bat in Bunk Five, minus the cute boyfriend, natch), and some couldn’t be more different (despite my best efforts, I have yet to achieve psychic synergy with a dolphin). But it wasn’t about finding myself — or not finding myself — in the circumstances of a girl’s life, as much as I might be fascinated by it. It was about seeing myself — and my friends and enemies — in the actual girl.”

Ah, here is writing a kindred soul, who, like me, was pulled from childhood into the lives of girls in books.

And now the fun comes in to hear her telling about those lives. Some are the same books I loved and cherished myself. Some are quite different. Judging by the copyright dates, Lizzie Skurnick is several years younger than me. She also got hold of some raunchier material than came my way, for whatever reason. (You mean to tell me that’s what’s in Flowers in the Attic? Lauri Ann, you read that? Okay, well.)

But most of it is simple good clean fun. I laughed at some of the themes she found. For example, all the books that describe living off the land. She says:

“I am convinced more than ever that once the great global climactic catastrophe has destroyed the earth, when the stragglers dig themselves out from their damp bomb-shelter hovels and go hard-core low-tech, readers of young adult fiction will make up the core of the new society . . . because we are the only ones who will find living off the land fun.”

Some other chapters’ themes are tear-jerkers, coming of age, danger, runaways, romance, paranormal, and old-fashioned girls, though Lizzie Skurnick has much classier ways of wording them. She really covers a wide variety of titles. Just a smattering of some favorites of mine that she covers are: A Wrinkle in Time, A Ring of Endless Light, Jacob Have I Loved, Bridge to Terabithia, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Understood Betsy, In Summer Light, The Moon By Night, An Old-Fashioned Girl, The Secret Garden, and A Little Princess.

She covers 73 titles, so, obviously, there are many more. I had not read most of them, but somehow half the fun is the fondness and the spirit with which she tells about them. And I will definitely have to look some of these up.

I recommend doing like I did and reading a chapter or so a day. I am going to start following her blog, Old Hag.

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

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Review of Knitty Kitty, by David Elliott

Animal Characters, Bedtime stories, Picture Book Review, Readalouds 0

knitty_kittyKnitty Kitty

by David Elliott

illustrated by Christopher Denise

Candlewick Press, 2008. 32 pages.

Okay, I’m a sucker for picture books with knitting in them. This one’s a simple bedtime story book with a cozy theme.

Clickety-click.
Tickety-tick.
Knitty Kitty sits and knits.

Knitty Kitty knits a hat to keep the first kitten cozy, mittens to keep the next kitten toasty, and a scarf to keep the third kitten comfy.

But the kittens decide to use the new things on their snowman, so at bedtime they need something — or someone — else to keep them cozy, comfy, and toasty.

The solution is snuggly and warm with lots of “Night-night”s to send your child off to sleep. It just makes me want to have a sleepered child to snuggle off to bed with this book. The warm and cozy illustrations are just perfect. I hope this book is still around when I have grandkids because this will be a perfect book for the knitting grandma I will be to read!

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

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Review of Thunder-Boomer! by Shutta Crum

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

thunder_boomerThunder-Boomer!

by Shutta Crum

illustrated by Carol Thompson

Clarion Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), 2009. 32 pages.
Starred Review

I should have reviewed this book in the summer, when I first read it, and when I meant to review it. And that’s simply a reflection of how behind I am on getting reviews written.

This book is a positively wonderful expression of a summer storm. The illustrations and the text combine with the onomatopoetic expressions written in the pictures (Who’s responsible for that? The author or the illustrator or both together?) to transport you into a summer storm, complete with thunder and lightning and hail.

The book starts with an oppressively hot summer day. Mother fans herself with her hat (“Swish, swish, swish”) and puts her feet in the pond next to Tom who’s slapping his feet against the surface (“plap, plap, plop”), and says, “We need a thunder-boomer.”

We see the wind pick up. It catches the clothes on the line. The dog catches Dad’s underwear! The sky darkens ominously. I love the way Carol Thompson captures the way the colors of the day dramatically change as the storm approaches and leaves. Together, they catch the sounds of the storm, the drama and the emotions of the storm.

At the end, they discover a gift from the storm, a little kitten whose purr is like the voice of the storm.

This is truly a beautiful book. Okay, it’s a little more appropriate for late summer than for early winter, but the story is nice any time of year.

If I were choosing books for consideration for next year’s Caldecott, I’d definitely hope this one gets considered for an Honor for the beautiful way the watercolors evoke the power and spirit of the stormy day, with the rain even bleeding out of the picture areas into the white space, like water leaking into the house. (Oh, except reading the note about the illustrator, I learn that she lives in England, so she wouldn’t be eligible. Well, this book is a truly distinguished work of art.)

A wonderful cozy adventure of waiting out a thunderstorm in a nice safe shelter.

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

Review of A Wrinkle in Time Audiobook, Performed by Madeleine L’Engle

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Old Favorites, Science Fiction, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

wrinkle_in_time_audioA Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L’Engle

Performance by the Author

Listening Library (Random House), An Unabridged Production on 5 compact discs, 5 hours, 17 minutes.
Text copyright 1962, performance copyright 1993 Tesser Tracks, Inc.
Newbery Medal Winner 1963.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: Wonderful Rereads

In the online Newbery Medal class I took, we were all asked what was our favorite Newbery Medal winner, and no book was mentioned more than Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. (For me, it’s second only to The Hero and the Crown.) Imagine my delight as I was taking the class when I discovered that our library had a version of the book on CD read by the author herself!

Madeleine L’Engle spent some time in the theater, and she’s not a bad reader at all, besides knowing how she meant certain things to be pronounced. I wrote a review of A Wrinkle in Time way back when I first started writing Sonderbooks, in August 2001, in only my third “issue.” I find it amusing that I complained that it was hard to read it aloud because I couldn’t figure out how to read Mrs Which. Because when I listened to this production, and Mrs Which’s voice was done with a reverberating echo, I immediately thought, “Oh! That’s how she meant it to be read!” (I also thought it was a little unfair, because you can’t add that when you read it aloud to your own kids without special equipment!)

Listening to Madeleine L’Engle read the book herself was like hearing a friend coming back from the grave to tell a story, and a warm and loving story. Madeleine expresses all Meg’s peevishness in her voice. She’s an imperfect, flawed kid — but she saves the day.

Listening to A Wrinkle in Time inspired me afresh. I may have to purchase my own copy and make a new tradition of not only reading A Wrinkle in Time every few years, as I used to do, but now listening to it every few years, read to me by Madeleine L’Engle herself.

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

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Review of Al Capone Does My Shirts, by Gennifer Choldenko

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

al_capone_does_my_shirtsAl Capone Does My Shirts,

by Gennifer Choldenko

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 2004. 225 pages.
2005 Newbery Honor Book
Starred Review

I had meant to read this book for a very long time, since my sister was working as a park ranger at Alcatraz when the book was published, so I have an extra fondness and interest in the island. I still haven’t ever been there myself, but superimposed her stories of camping out on the island with what was in this book, and, well, I have to visit some time! (Wendy, have you read this book yet? What do you think of it? Please comment!)

I finally got Al Capone Does My Shirts read when I took an online class on the Newbery Medal and had to read two Honor books from the same year as one of the Medal winners I read. I chose to read Al Capone Does My Shirts, and Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, having already read The Voice That Challenged a Nation, all from 2005, the year that Kira-Kira won the Medal. Now, I might have chosen the Medal differently, but I do have to agree that all four of those books are truly distinguished contributions to American literature for children. (And one of the things we learned in the class is that you may not agree that the Medal winner is the one best book of the year, but you can be pretty darn sure that the set of books honored is going to be a collection of excellent books.)

In Al Capone Does My Shirts, Moose Flanagan has just had to move with his family to Alcatraz Island. It’s 1935 and jobs are scarce, and his father got a good job offer as an electrician there (with some time as guard on the side), so they have to move so they can afford to have his sister Natalie go to the Esther P. Marinoff School, where his mother is convinced Natalie will learn to go on to live a normal life.

Moose is not happy about moving to Alcatraz. He’s not happy about his new school, he’s not happy to watch his sister while his mother takes on extra work, and he’s especially not happy about the warden’s daughter who looks sweet on the outside but seems bent on breaking all the rules and getting everyone else in trouble.

You can tell Moose is a great brother. He knows what Natalie needs and he’s extra considerate of what’s going to upset her (like losing her box of buttons or letting them get messed up). But he’s just a kid himself. Somehow, he’s the one people want to blame when other people’s schemes go awry.

Watching Moose cope with a new home — on a prison island, no less — new routines with his parents’ jobs, making new friends and trying to fit in, and even finding a way to help his parents get his sister to the desired school, all gives us lots to root for and sympathize with. This is an interesting, humorous and inspiring story about a quirky fact of American history — that families actually lived on Alcatraz Island, in a separate compound from the prisoners.

Gennifer Choldenko has recently written a sequel, Al Capone Shines My Shoes. I assure you that I will NOT wait so long to read it!

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

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Review of The Storm in the Barn, by Matt Phelan

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Historical, Starred Review 0

storm_in_the_barnThe Storm in the Barn

by Matt Phelan

Candlewick Press, 2009. 201 pages.
Starred Review.

The Storm in the Barn, like L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, is a uniquely American fairy tale, but this one is written in the form of a graphic novel.

Given the setting of the Dust Bowl, this book shows us poor dejected Jack Clark, a kid who’s eleven years old and hasn’t ever seen rain since he was seven. The doctor thinks he may have dust dementia, as his sister has dust pneumonia.

Jack isn’t sure himself. Is it dust dementia, or is he really seeing an evil man made out of a thunderstorm, with lightning in his bag, a man who is hiding in the old abandoned barn and causing all their troubles? If Jack can release the lightning, can he save the country?

The images in this book are haunting and surreal. They will leave the reader wanting to know more about this bit of American history. I like the way the author weaves in Jack’s sister reading from Baum’s Oz books, since telling American fairy tales was exactly what Baum also tried to do, along with Jack tales from Europe that fit right in with Jack’s own story.

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