Review of Num8ers, by Rachel Ward

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Num8ers

by Rachel Ward

Chicken House (Scholastic), New York, 2010. 325 pages.
Starred Review

For as long as she can remember, when Jem looks into another person’s eyes, she sees a number. A person’s number never changes.

Jem learned what the numbers meant on the day her mother died of a drug overdose. They are the date of that person’s death.

Naturally, Jem doesn’t like to look people in the eye. She’s been in and out of foster homes and she doesn’t have any friends.

Jem introduces herself like this:

“There are places where kids like me go. Sad kids, bad kids, bored kids, and lonely kids, kids that are different. Any day of the week, if you know where to look, you’ll find us: behind the shops, in back lanes, under bridges by canals and rivers, ’round garages, in sheds, on vacant lots. There are thousands of us. If you choose to find us, that is — most people don’t. If they do see us, they look away, pretend we’re not there. It’s easier that way. Don’t believe all that crap about giving everyone a chance — when they see us, they’re glad we’re not in school with their kids, disrupting their lessons, making their lives a misery. The teachers, too. Do you think they’re disappointed when we don’t turn up for registration? Give me a break. They’re laughing — they don’t want kids like us in their classrooms, and we don’t want to be there.

“Most hang about in small groups, twos or threes, whiling away the hours. Me, I like to be on my own. I like to find the places where nobody is — where I don’t have to look at anyone, where I don’t have to see their numbers.”

Then Jem meets another troublemaking outcast called Spider. She doesn’t mean to make friends with him. He smells rank and he never stops moving. Worst, his number is only a few months away.

But somehow they start hanging out together and become friends. Though they seem to get into yet more trouble together, and Jem’s foster mother isn’t happy about it.

Then they go into London and Jem sees several people at the London Eye whose number is that very day. Spider’s been making a scene, but Jem pulls him away and tells him they have to get away immediately.

So when the disaster strikes and people die, naturally the police start looking for the two teenagers who were seen running away from the scene. Jem and Spider don’t show a lot of judgment, and they steal a car and set out on the run. Meanwhile, Spider’s time is running out.

This is a dark book, because Jem and Spider don’t live nice easy lives, and they don’t show good judgment. (And don’t worry, parents, I think any teen reading this book would realize that they are not showing good judgment.) But their characters seem very real, and we completely believe and understand why they would do the things they do.

Ultimately, I came away from the book uplifted, feeling better for having known Jem and Spider.

I like the way this book shows love between two very flawed but lovable human beings. Spider stinks, and Jem won’t let anyone get near her. No sparkles here! But the love that grows between them seems all the deeper for the flaws.

Of course, the whole premise is a lot of fun. What would you do if you knew the date when each person you met was going to die? Before I read the book, I thought I’d classify it as science fiction. But Jem’s ability is the only thing that makes their world different from ours — and it’s seen as just a fluke psychic ability, not based on science or magic. So I’m going to categorize this book as “Contemporary.” It’s got some ordinary disadvantaged kids in an unusual, but tough situation.

And there’s a great kicker of an ending!

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Battle of the Books Is About to Begin!

Award Winners, Events, General 0

It’s that time of year! School Library Journal is hosting the second annual Battle of the Kids’ Books!

Here’s how it works. The moderators have chosen sixteen highly acclaimed children’s books published in 2009. They match them up in tournament-style brackets (in alphabetical order). At each “match,” a distinguished children’s author will judge between the two books.

Last year, I followed this, but hadn’t read many of the books. It was the Battle of the Kids’ Books that got me to finally read The Hunger Games. But enjoying the Battle of the Books got me interested in other School Library Journal blogs, so I followed the Heavy Medal blog, a Mock Newbery blog, and have read a good proportion of these top 2009 titles.

I’ll list the first round and give my favorites. Here’s where I’d like comments. Which books would you choose in these match-ups?

Oh, I forgot a fun twist they’re adding to this year’s tournament: The Undead Poll. Before the battle begins, they are taking a poll of your favorite contender. In the final round, the book with the most votes that has been previously knocked out of the running will be brought back from the dead. So the final round, judged by our new Ambassador for Children’s Literature, Katharine Paterson, will be between three books instead of just two. The vote closes on Sunday, March 14, so choose your favorite and vote now!

Okay, here are the first round matches, with my own comments:

Match One:
Charles and Emma, by Deborah Heiligman
vs.
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, by Philip Hoose
Judge: Jim Murphy, a distinguished author of nonfiction

This one, I am neutral about the winner. I have read Claudette Colvin and not Charles and Emma, but I did check out Charles and Emma and look it over, but simply didn’t get around to reading it. I liked the look of it, though — biography told as the story of a relationship. As for Claudette Colvin, you can read my review of that book, and it ended up, like many of these on my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. I will be interested to see which book Jim Murphy chooses. For the sake of making a prediction, I’ll guess Claudette Colvin.

Match Two:
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly
vs.
Fire, by Kristin Cashore
Judge: Nancy Farmer

There’s no question in my mind which book I want to win this round. I read about half of Calpurnia Tate before I got tired of it and decided to read some of the other books clamoring for my attention. There are those who adore that book, but it’s not really my style. On the other hand, I was crazy about Fire, and named it my Teen Fantasy #2 on the 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, which actually puts it higher in my favor than the #1 pick in most other categories.

Since Nancy Farmer writes fantasy, I’m hoping she will also favor Fire. But just in case she or a future judge doesn’t, that book was my pick for the Undead Poll, my favorite of all the contenders.

Match Three:
The Frog Scientist, by Pamela S. Turner
vs.
The Last Olympian, by Rick Riordan
Judge: Candace Fleming

This one’s a tough call, because the books are so different. I just tonight read and reviewed The Frog Scientist, because I’d had it sitting in my house ready to read for some time. The Battle of the Books motivated me to finally do it! I haven’t read The Last Olympian, but I read and enjoyed the first Percy Jackson book, so I think I have the idea.

The Frog Scientist is nicely presented nonfiction, with beautiful photographs and clear explanations of the science involved. The Last Olympian is wildly popular fiction. If I were judging between The Frog Scientist and the first Percy Jackson book, The Lightning Thief, I would probably pick The Frog Scientist, though that might be because it’s fresh in my mind. The Frog Scientist is an outstanding example of what it’s trying to do — present information. The Lightning Thief, while very good, didn’t stand out in my mind among other fantasy fiction titles.

But who knows what Candace Fleming will pick? For my prediction, I’m going to say The Frog Scientist, swayed by the fact that Candace Fleming writes excellent nonfiction herself, and this is similar with excellent accompanying photographs and excellent details.

Match Four:
Lips Touch: Three Times, by Laini Taylor
vs.
The Lost Conspiracy, by Frances Hardinge
Judge: Helen Frost

I’ve read both of these two, and though both were good, I definitely liked Lips Touch much better, so I’m rooting for it in this round.

Match Five (Second Half of the Brackets):
Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Storck
vs.
Marching for Freedom, by Elizabeth Partridge
Judge: Gary Schmidt

It’s probably not fair for me to have an opinion on this one, since I haven’t read Marching for Freedom (though I did look through it), but I loved Marcelo too much to want any book to beat it — except for Fire in the very final round! And even then, I won’t feel too bad if it is Marcelo that beats Fire.

Have I mentioned that half the fun of the Battle of the Books is hearing what the judges have to say about the contenders? Gary Schmidt has written the wonderful Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and The Wednesday Wars, and I’m very interested in what he has to say about Marcelo in the Real World.

Match Six:
Peace, Locomotion, by Jacqueline Woodson
vs.
A Season of Gifts, by Richard Peck
Judge: Cynthia Kadohata

I haven’t read either of these books, though I have heard about them. I have read some other Jacqueline Woodson books and enjoyed them, so I’m going to go with a prediction of Peace, Locomotion, winning this round.

Match Seven:
The Storm in the Barn, by Matt Phelan
vs.
Sweethearts of Rhythm, by Marilyn Nelson
Judge: Anita Silvey

I’m afraid this is another case where I liked The Storm in the Barn too much to want a book I haven’t read to beat it. The Storm in the Barn presents history, but with a touch of fantasy and a lot of emotion — all in graphic novel format. No matter how good nonfiction Sweethearts of Rhythm may be, Storm in the Barn will be hard to beat.

Match Eight:
Tales from Outer Suburbia, by Shaun Tan
vs.
When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead
Judge: Julius Lester

This one’s a tough choice. I’ve read both books and thought both were outstanding. Both deserve to go to the final round, and both have a bit of the bizarre in the plot. In the end, though, I would have to pick When You Reach Me, because it did win my heart more than Tales from Outer Suburbia, which definitely won my mind.

The commentary from the judge on this match will be extremely interesting. I’ll go ahead and predict that Julius Lester will pick When You Reach Me, but I may not be as surprised as some if he picks Tales from Outer Suburbia instead.

So — there you have it! On March 15, the Battle of the Kids’ Books will begin. Now I’d like to hear from you. Which of these books is your favorite? (Hurry and vote for it in the Undead Poll before the 14th!)

Do you disagree with me on some of these match-ups? Have you read some of the books I haven’t read and have more insight? Have I slighted one of your favorites?

If you haven’t read any or many (like me last year), I can assure you you’ll add some books to your to-be-read list if you follow the battle.

Let me know what you think! And enjoy the arena seats!

Review of The Frog Scientist, by Pamela S. Turner

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Current Issues, Science, Starred Review, True Stories 0

The Frog Scientist

by Pamela S. Turner
Photographs by Andy Comins

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, Boston, 2009. 58 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a wonderful book that presents a real-life science experiment and a successful scientist to upper elementary through middle school kids. The stunning, colorful photographs, including many different species of frogs, all nicely labelled, would draw anyone into this book.

The book begins with Tyrone Hayes, the frog scientist, and a group of his graduate students, catching frogs from a pond in Wyoming. The pictures of this show a playful side of science!

As the book goes on, it explains in detail the scientific method and the specific experiment Tyrone is carrying out in order to see if the pesticide atrazine causes male frogs to produce eggs instead of sperm. Along the way, it tells about Tyrone and how he became a research scientist.

I love that Tyrone and his students come from many different ethnic backgrounds. It’s not commented on in the text, but you can see from the pictures that science is definitely not just for white males. I love that this is just assumed and not commented on. I love that kids from minority groups can see someone who looks like them successfully doing science.

But that’s by no means all there is to love about this book. As I said, the pictures will draw the reader in, and this is a nice accessible way to introduce the scientific method in an interesting, real-life experiment that could have repercussions regarding our own health.

The story is beautifully and clearly presented, and will give kids a good look at the job of a research scientist — one they might not have ever thought of before.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/frog_scientist.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 Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde

Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

Shades of Grey

The Road to High Saffron

by Jasper Fforde

Viking, 2009. 389 pages.
Starred Review

Nobody writes such bizarre books as Jasper Fforde. No, I need to revise that: Few people write such bizarre books as Jasper Fforde. The back cover mentions Douglas Adams, and I have to admit that Shades of Grey does remind me of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with the same sense of all the normal rules of reality being suspended or bent in bizarre ways.

The first three paragraphs set the stage pretty well and will give you a feel for the book:

It began with my father not wanting to see the Last Rabbit and ended up with my being eaten by a carnivorous plant. It wasn’t really what I’d planned for myself — I’d hoped to marry into the Oxbloods and join their dynastic string empire. But that was four days ago, before I met Jane, retrieved the Caravaggio and explored High Saffron. So instead of enjoying aspirations of Chromatic advancement, I was wholly immersed within the digestive soup of a yateveo tree. It was all frightfully inconvenient.

But it wasn’t all bad, for the following reasons: First, I was lucky to have landed upside down. I would drown in under a minute, which was far, far preferable to being dissolved alive over the space of a few weeks. Second, and more important, I wasn’t going to die ignorant. I had discovered something that no amount of merits can buy you: the truth. Not the whole truth, but a pretty big part of it. And that was why this was all frightfully inconvenient. I wouldn’t get to do anything with it. And this truth was too big and too terrible to ignore. Still, at least I’d held it in my hands for a full hour and understood what it meant.

I didn’t set out to discover a truth. I was actually sent to the Outer Fringes to conduct a chair census and learn some humility. But the truth inevitably found me, as important truths often do, like a lost thought in need of a mind. I found Jane, too, or perhaps she found me. It doesn’t really matter. We found each other. And although she was Grey and I was Red, we shared a common thirst for justice that transcended Chromatic politics. I loved her, and what’s more, I was beginning to think that she loved me. After all, she did apologize before she pushed me into the leafless expanse below the spread of the yateveo, and she wouldn’t have done that if she’d felt nothing.

Eddie Russett is the narrator, soon before he undergoes his Ishihara to discover what colors he can see and become a full-fledged adult. Eddie lives in a society centuries after Something That Happened and drastically changed the world. In Eddie’s world, your social position is determined by how much and what colors you can see. Marriage is tremendously important, in hopes of having children with higher color perception. Greys are the lowest level, the working class.

Eddie’s father is a healer, a “swatchman.” He shows people swatches of color to heal them. At the start of the book, he saves a man’s life before “eye death” occurs. Eddie’s father is also going to the Outer Fringes to replace East Carmine’s former swatchman who died under suspicious circumstances.

Their society lives according to the Rules of the wise Munsell who lived centuries before. Unfortunately, Munsell did not see fit to allow the manufacture of spoons, so spoons are extremely rare and highly valued. In the Outer Fringes, people are a little looser with the Rules, but people like Eddie who ask questions and think about how to improve queues are still regarded with suspicion and live in danger of reboot.

Eddie meets some interesting characters in East Carmine. There’s Jane with the incredibly cute nose who once tore off someone’s eyebrow when he asked her out. There’s Tommo who would sell his own grandmother for merits. There’s Courtland, the son of the yellow prefect who will probably be the yellow prefect himself some day. And then there’s Violet, who needs to marry a strong Red like Eddie in order to be sure that her children will still be Purple. And when Violet wants something, Violet gets it.

But there are some sinister and some odd undercurrents in East Carmine. The Apocryphal Man lives upstairs, but no one can speak about him because the Rules say he doesn’t exist. And Eddie first saw Jane in Vermilion, but she wasn’t on the train, so how did she get to East Carmine? And why does no one ever come back from High Saffron?

I confess that it took me quite a long time to get into this book, and I almost decided not to finish it. I checked it out when my hold came in, and I wasn’t necessarily ready for something that is more of a cerebral exercise in oddity than an emotional story. But I did keep going, and by the end of the book, I was charmed. Eddie does learn the truth, and now I very much want to read the upcoming sequels to find out what he is able to do about it.

Like all of Jasper Fforde’s books, this one is extremely clever and very funny, once you’re engaged in the story. My sons are Douglas Adams fans, and I’m definitely going to recommend it to them.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/shades_of_grey.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 My Stroke of Insight, by Jill Bolte Taylor

Biography, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

My Stroke of Insight

A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey

by Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD
read by the Author

Penguin Audio, 2008. 5 CDs. 5 hours, 44 minutes.
Starred Review.

Jill Bolte Taylor was a Harvard brain scientist, a neuroanatomist, when she experienced a stroke at age 37, completely disabling the left hemisphere of her brain.

Because she knew so much about the brain, she found herself watching with fascination as the stroke took away more and more of her abilities, as blood was flooding different parts of her brain. She was home alone, unable to understand spoken language or read written language, but she did get occasional waves of clarity, so she managed to figure out what was happening and call for help, even though it took her a long time to figure out what number to call and how to call that number and she didn’t know what the other person on the end of the line was saying.

It’s fascinating when she tells how she perceived the world when only her right brain was working. She says she felt at one with the universe, like a fluid. She didn’t know where her own body began and ended. She didn’t know what she was seeing, because her eyes just saw random pixels, and she lost her ability to find edges and define shapes.

It took her eight years, but she eventually recovered completely. Though maybe her voice isn’t as accomplished as a professional actress, it meant a lot that she read the audiobook, because the listener can hear for yourself that she is now once again fluent with language.

This book is informative and interesting on so many levels. For the merely curious, it offers all kinds of fascinating information about our brains and how they work. For those who experience stroke some day, it tells you the warning signs, so you may recognize when they are happening. For those who care for a stroke survivor, it tells you how to be an understanding and uplifting caregiver. For example, it’s helpful to remember that they are not deaf, they are just having trouble processing what they hear, so raising your voice is the opposite of helpful. The book also explains the things that helped Dr. Taylor to recover completely.

I found it fascinating that when only her right brain was working, Dr. Taylor found herself much more sensitive to a person’s energy. She could easily sense if someone was angry or tense or worried, and those people were not nice to be around. But she could also easily sense loving, compassionate people, and she experienced those people as a healing presence.

In her right brain, Dr. Taylor was much more peaceful and joyful. She did find, as she recovered, that she could choose which of her old brain patterns to allow to come back into play. She chose not to restore old patterns of resentment and anger. A big part of her stroke of insight was finding out how much that goes on in our brains is our own choice.

The word I keep thinking of in association with this book is “fascinating.” It’s a tremendously interesting story for anyone who has a brain.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/my_stroke_of_insight.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 Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft

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

Why Does He Do That?

Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

by Lundy Bancroft

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 2002. 408 pages.
Starred Review.

This is a fascinating, informative, and tremendously helpful book. Lundy Bancroft has worked for years with abusive men and their partners. He understands how they think and why they do what they do. He’s seen the same behaviors and patterns come out again and again.

This book communicates his deep understanding of abusive men, clearing up many common myths about domestic abuse. He talks about what a man needs to do in order to change and helps the partner understand how she should respond.

His introduction says it well:

“I have been working with angry and controlling men for fifteen years as a counselor, evaluator, and investigator, and have accumulated a wealth of knowledge from the two thousand or more cases with which I have been involved. I have learned the warning signs of abuse and control that a woman can watch out for early in a relationship. I’ve come to know what a controlling man is really saying, the meaning that is hidden behind his words. I’ve seen clues to recognizing when verbal and emotional aggression are heading toward violence. I’ve found ways to separate out abusive men who are faking change from those who are doing some genuine work on themselves. And I have learned that the problem of abusiveness has surprisingly little to do with how a man feels — my clients actually differ very little from nonabusive men in their emotional experiences — and everything to do with how he thinks. The answers are inside his mind.

“However, as delighted as I am to have had the opportunity to gain this insight, I am not one of the people who most needs it. The people who can best benefit from knowledge about abusers and how they think are women, who can use what I have learned to help themselves recognize when they are being controlled or devalued in a relationship, to find ways to get free of abuse if it is happening, and to know how to avoid getting involved with an abusive man — or a controller or a user — next time. The purpose of this book is to equip women with the ability to protect themselves, physically and psychologically, from angry and controlling men.”

Along the way, he presents answers to twenty-one questions he is commonly asked by women about their abusive partners, as a way of giving them the information they most need to hear.

I like his central goal:

“If your partner’s controlling or devaluing behavior is chronic, you no doubt find yourself thinking about him a great deal of the time, wondering how to please him, how to keep him from straying, or how to get him to change. As a result, you may find that you don’t get much time to think about yourself — except about what is wrong with you in his eyes. Once of my central reasons for writing this book is, ironically, to help you think about him less. I’m hoping that by answering as many questions as possible and clearing away the confusion that abusive behavior creates, I can make it possible for you to escape the trap of preoccupation with your partner, so that you can put yourself — and your children if you are a mother — back in the center of your life where you belong. An angry and controlling man can be like a vacuum cleaner that sucks up a woman’s mind and life, but there are ways to get your life back. The first step is to learn to identify what your partner is doing and why he does it, which is what the pages ahead will illuminate. but when you have finished diving deeply into the abuser’s mind, which this book will enable you to do, it is important to rise back to the surface and from then on try to stay out of the water as much as you can. I don’t mean that you should necessarily leave your partner — that is a complex and highly personal decision that only you can make. But whether you stay or go, the critical decision you can make is to stop letting your partner distort the lens of your life, always forcing his way into the center of the picture. You deserve to have your life be about you; you are worth it.”

At the beginning of the book he explains what abuse is. It’s surprisingly hard to spot in your own relationship, since the partner never starts out by being abusive.

“One of the obstacles to recognizing chronic mistreatment in relationships is that most abusive men simply don’t seem like abusers. They have many good qualities, including times of kindness, warmth, and humor, especially in the early period of a relationship. an abuser’s friends may think the world of him. He may have a successful work life and have no problems with drugs or alcohol. He may simply not fit anyone’s image of a cruel or intimidating person. So when a woman feels her relationship spinning out of control, it is unlikely to occur to her that her partner is an abuser.

“The symptoms of abuse are there, and the woman usually sees them: the escalating frequency of put-downs. Early generosity turning more and more to selfishness. Verbal explosions when he is irritated or when he doesn’t get his way. Her grievances constantly turned around on her, so that everything is her own fault. His growing attitude that he knows what is good for her better than she does. And, in many relationships, a mounting sense of fear or intimidation. But the woman also sees that her partner is a human being who can be caring and affectionate at times, and she loves him. She wants to figure out why he gets so upset, so that she can help him break his pattern of ups and downs. She gets drawn into the complexities of his inner world, trying to uncover clues, moving pieces around in an attempt to solve an elaborate puzzle.”

A partner being abused commonly accepts all that blame when it begins. Lundy Bancroft’s words are comforting:

“Part of how the abuser escapes confronting himself is by convincing you that you are the cause of his behavior, or that you at least share the blame. But abuse is not a product of bad relationship dynamics, and you cannot make things better by changing your own behavior or by attempting to manage your partner better. Abuse is a problem that lies entirely within the abuser.”

“The abuser creates confusion because he has to. He can’t control and intimidate you, he can’t recruit people around him to take his side, he can’t keep escaping the consequences of his actions, unless he can throw everyone off the track. When the world catches on to the abuser, his power begins to melt away. So we are going to travel behind the abuser’s mask to the heart of his problem. This journey is critical to the health and healing of abused women and their children, for once you grasp how your partner’s mind works, you can begin reclaiming control of your own life. Unmasking the abuser also does him a favor, because he will not confront — and overcome — his highly destructive problem as long as he can remain hidden.”

Some good points the author makes about abuse, based on years of working with abusers are:

“Abuse grows from attitudes and values, not feelings. The roots are ownership, the trunk is entitlement, and the branches are control.

“Abuse and respect are opposites. Abusers cannot change unless they overcome their core of disrespect toward their partners.

“Abusers are far more conscious of what they are doing than they appear to be. However, even their less-conscious behaviors are driven by their core attitudes.

“Abusers are unwilling to be nonabusive, not unable. They do not want to give up power and control.

“You are not crazy. Trust your perceptions of how your abusive partner treats you and thinks about you.”

Here are some good points from the chapter on how abuse begins:

“You do not cause your partner’s slide into abusiveness, and you cannot stop it by figuring out what is bothering him or by increasing your ability to meet his needs. Emotional upset and unmet needs have little to do with abusiveness.

“Certain behaviors and attitudes are definitional of abuse, such as ridiculing your complaints of mistreatment, physically intimidating you, or sexually assaulting you. If any of these is present, abuse has begun.

“Abused women aren’t ‘codependent.’ It is abusers, not their partners, who create abusive relationships.”

Then he talks about how abuse looks in everyday lives. These are some of the points:

“For the most part, an abusive man uses verbally aggressive tactics in an argument to discredit your statements and silence you. In short, he wants to avoid having to deal seriously with your perspective in the conflict.

“Arguments that seem to spin out of control ‘for no reason’ actually are usually being used by the abusive man to achieve certain goals, although he may not always be conscious of his own motives. His actions and statements make far more sense than they appear to.”

“Be cautious, and seek out assistance. You don’t deserve to live like this, and you don’t have to. Try to block his words out of your mind and believe in yourself. You can do it.”

In the chapter toward the end on abusers who change, the author advises:

“You cannot, I am sorry to say, get an abuser to work on himself by pleading, soothing, gently leading, getting friends to persuade him, or using any other nonconfrontational method. I have watched hundreds of women attempt such an approach without success. The way you can help him change is to demand that he do so, and settle for nothing less….

“Those abusive men who make lasting changes are the ones who do so because they realize how badly they are hurting their partners and children — in other words, because they learn to care about what is good for others in the family and develop empathy, instead of caring only about themselves.”

There’s a lot more in this book. I like some of the advice to the abused woman toward the end:

“If you give yourself a long enough taste of life without being cut down all the time, you may reach a point where you find yourself thinking, Go back to that? For what? Maybe I’ll never stop loving him, but at least I can love him from a distance where he can’t hurt me.…

“The only time an abusive man will deal with his issues enough to become someone you can live with is when you prove to him, and to yourself, that you are capable of living without him. And once you succeed in doing so, you may very well decide that living without him is what you would rather do. Keep an open mind, and make sure you are not clipping your own wings on top of the clipping that he has given them.”

Can you tell that I’m trying to cram all the good advice and important information into this review? There are many common myths about abusive situations in our culture, and this book cuts through the mythology and shows you the truth. If you suspect you might be in an abusive relationship, or if you have a friend or relative in an abusive relationship, I highly recommend reading this book.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Catching Up

General 1

I started Sonderbooks back in 2001, before I’d heard of a “blog”. It started as an e-mail newsletter, which before long I turned into a website. I was regular about posting until 2005-2007, when my marriage fell apart, I moved from Germany back to the States, and studied for and got a Master’s in Library Science. Along the way, I learned more about XML and website design, so I upgraded the look of the website, but didn’t transfer the more than a thousand reviews I’d already written.

Eventually, I added a blog, because the more I learned about them, the more I realized they were perfect for what I was doing — reviewing books as I read them. However, I wanted to keep the website going, since a book is still good even years after I’ve written the review. Besides, I didn’t want to lose all the reviews I’d already written before I started the blog.

I love writing Sonderbooks! I began it as a way to share all the great books I was reading with my friends. It has become a way that I’ve met new friends and helped people find good books to read. It’s also a way to keep track of all the great books I’ve read.

Back in December, I wanted to get through the pile of books that I’d read but hadn’t reviewed. I decided to just focus on writing the reviews and not worry yet about posting them to the main site. Well, I did it! I caught up and got rid of my big pile of books and posted my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

Now I’m trying to get all those reviews on my blog posted to the main site. I’m trying to read slowly while I’m doing that! The easiest way is to post all the books from one genre at a time. So far, I’ve posted the Teen Fiction, Picture Books, and Children’s Fiction reviews. I still need to post Fiction, Nonfiction, and Children’s Nonfiction. Once I’ve done that, I will feel happily caught up.

But that’s what’s going on, and why my new reviews are coming a little less frequently for awhile.

Review of Making Mischief, by Gregory Maguire

Art, Biography, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Making Mischief

A Maurice Sendak Appreciation

by Gregory Maguire

William Morrow (HarperCollins), 2009. 200 pages.
Starred Review.

Lavishly illustrated with Maurice Sendak’s creations, Making Mischief is based on a symposium on Maurice Sendak’s work which Gregory Maguire presented in 2003. He goes into far more depth than I expected, and gives the reader a whole new appreciation of Maurice Sendak as an artist.

The approach Gregory Maguire takes is much more interesting than a simple chronological summary of Sendak’s work. He begins by discussing Maurice Sendak’s artistic influences, with fascinating examples from his artwork.

Next, he looks at four motifs that appear throughout Sendak’s work: Flying, reading, children, and other monsters. He approaches Sendak’s life work “as if it were a single creative act,” looking at it as a whole.

Then he looks at some unifying factors, such as the way his paintings so often look like a scene on a stage, with a traveling ensemble of characters.

I especially enjoyed the last two chapters. In Chapter Four, he shows us his personal answers to the following question:

“Suppose all of Sendak’s artwork were hanging in a museum on the corner, and the building caught on fire. You have the chance to save only ten pieces of artwork for posterity. Which ten do you save, dear?”

The final chapter, Chapter Five, I found especially delightful. He presents the complete text of Where the Wild Things Are, illustrated with wholly different illustrations from Maurice Sendak’s work, including eleven different images for the phrase, “and it was still hot.” Almost as much fun as a wild rumpus!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/making_mischief.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 Mare’s War, by Tanita S. Davis

Award Winners, Contemporary, Historical, Teen Fiction Review 0

Mare’s War

by Tanita S. Davis

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2009. 341 pages.
A 2010 Coretta Scott King Honor Book

I’ve always enjoyed books about teens driving with an elderly relative or acquaintance and being changed by the experience. Some notable examples are Rules of the Road, by Joan Bauer, Hit the Road, by Caroline B. Cooney, and Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech.

Mare’s War is along those lines. Octavia and her older sister Tali have been ordered to spend their summer vacation driving across the country with their grandmother, Mare, to go to a reunion in Alabama. Along the way, Mare tells them about her days as a member of the Women’s Army Corps during World War II.

I didn’t think Mare’s War was as powerful as the other books I’ve mentioned in the driving-with-the-elderly genre. In the first place, Mare’s story was told in separate chapters, as she experienced it at the time, not in the actual words she would have used to tell her granddaughters. And although the girls were interested in her story, they weren’t significantly changed by it. The book felt on the long side, because they were taking a leisurely road trip juxtaposed with Mare just getting through the war, so the plot had no sense of urgency.

However, Mare’s story was fascinating, so I still enjoyed the book very much. I had no idea that a company of black women served in the US Army overseas during World War II. I thought Tanita Davis did a great job expressing what that must have been like for those women.

The girls do gain a new appreciation for their grandmother, and the reader does, too. We definitely root for her as she experiences things completely new, learns how capable she truly is, and forms friendships she can count on forever.

This book shines a light on a piece of history I never thought about before, and tells a good story at the same time.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/mares_war.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 Kitchen Table Wisdom, by Rachel Naomi Remen

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Kitchen Table Wisdom

Stories That Heal

by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

Riverhead Books, New York, 10th Anniversary Edition, 2006. 337 pages.
Starred Review.

In her Preface to the 10th Anniversary Edition, Rachel Naomi Remen writes,

“Because I am not a writer, when I sat down to write, all I had were my memories. The stories I had lived through and the stories I had shared. The stories people had told me in the supermarket, on airplanes and in the ladies room. So I told my computer a story. And then another. And another. When the manuscript deadline arrived, I had four hundred pages of little stories.

“I was mortified that this was all that I had to show after a year of work. In the world of medicine, where things that can be expressed in numbers are considered truer than things that can only be expressed in words, stories are considered poor form and storytellers are highly suspect. My tendency to tell stories had always been frowned upon by my medical colleagues and rejected as ‘anecdotal evidence.’ They preferred to measure truth in terms of hard data. So I had learned to keep my stories to myself….

“Now, ten years later, I too am less afraid, less apologetic. When I wrote Kitchen Table Wisdom, I had no idea what it would come to mean to people, about the way it would reach people and strengthen them, the way it would touch people and make them feel less alone. I have discovered the power of story to change people. I have seen a story heal shame and free people from fear, ease suffering and restore a lost sense of worth. I have learned that the ways we can befriend and strengthen the life in one another are very simple and very old. Stories have not lost their power to heal over generations. Stories need no footnotes.”

In the original Introduction, she talks about how she found these stories, when male doctors asked her to talk with patients, expecting a woman to be more comfortable with that.

“At first, I was surprised that people with the same disease had such very different stories. Later I became deeply moved by these stories, by the people and the meaning they found in their problems, by the unsuspected strengths, the depths of love and devotion, the rich and human tapestry initiated by the pathology I was studying and treating. Eventually, these stories would become far more compelling to me than the disease process. I would come to feel more personally enriched by them than by making the correct diagnosis. They would make me proud to be a human being.

“These stories engaged me at another, more hidden point. I too suffer from an illness, Crohn’s disease, a chronic, progressive intestinal disease which I had developed at the age of fifteen. So for me, these conversations eased a certain loneliness. This was a different sort of connection than the easy banter and camaraderie I enjoyed with the other medical residents. This was the conversation of people in bomb shelters, people under siege, people in times of common crisis everywhere. I listened to human beings who were suffering, and responding to their suffering in ways as unique as their fingerprints. Their stories were inspiring, moving, important. In time, the truth in them began to heal me.

“Everybody is a story. When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don’t do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering. Despite the awesome powers of technology many of us still do not live very well. We may need to listen to each other’s stories once again.”

For some time now, I’ve been reading one or two of these stories every morning. What a blessing! They are stories of healing, stories of wonder, stories of transcendence. And they do pass along wisdom, a wisdom Dr. Remen learned from people coming from all walks of life. Truly a beautiful book.

“All stories are full of bias and uniqueness; they mix fact with meaning. This is the root of their power. Stories allow us to see something familiar through new eyes. We become in that moment a guest in someone else’s life, and together with them sit at the feet of their teacher. The meaning we may draw from someone’s story may be different from the meaning they themselves have drawn. No matter. Facts bring us to knowledge, but stories lead to wisdom.”

Buy from Amazon.com

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