Caught Up!

General 0

Hooray! I’ve now written reviews of all the books I have read and was meaning to review! I’m caught up!

Well, almost…. I still need to post all the reviews on my main site, starting with a page for the Sonderbooks Stand-outs 2010. I will update the site by genre, since it’s easier to post all the books on one page at a time. For example, the teen books, then the picture books, and so on. Though I may start with the category with the least to add. Or maybe whichever category the next book I finish reading is in.

Anyway, for tonight, I’m happy to have finished writing the reviews. I wasn’t quite sure I would ever catch up! But I did! Hooray! Now I will get them posted, and then it should be easier to stay caught up, right?

Review of If America Were a Village, by David J. Smith

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Mathematical, Starred Review 0

If America Were a Village

A Book about the People of the United States

written by David J. Smith

illustrated by Shelagh Armstrong

Kids Can Press, 2009. 32 pages.
Starred Review.

I think this is a very cool book. It makes statistics accessible and understandable to children — and to adults.

The premise of the book is this: America now has more than 306 million people, and numbers that big are hard to understand. So we are going to imagine that all the people who live here are reduced down to a village of 100 people. The author proceeds to describe that village, and also what the village would have been like in earlier times of American history. Each person in the village represents more than 3 million Americans in the real world.

The author is presenting percentages, but by talking about actual people in a village, it’s far simpler to visualize and comprehend.

The author discusses many different aspects of the village. What languages do we speak? Where do we come from? Where do we live? What are our families like? (Did you know there are almost twice as many households in our village without children as with?) What religions do we practice? What do we do? How old are we? How wealthy are we? What do we own? What do we use? How healthy are we?

For example:
“If the America of today were a village of 100: 15 would be of German ancestry, 11 would be of Irish ancestry, 9 African, 9 English, 7 Mexican, 6 Italian, 3 Polish, 3 French, 3 Native American, 2 Scottish, 2 Dutch, 2 Norwegian, 1 Scotch-Irish and 1 Swedish. The rest have other backgrounds.”

I don’t know about you, but I would never have guessed that breakdown, and there were many other surprising facts in this book.

In many of the sections, the author compares the American village to the rest of the world, or to America’s past.

It’s funny how talking about America as a village makes a huge list of facts suddenly much more interesting, because now they are in a form you can visualize.

The authors have another book, which I also recommend, called If the World Were a Village. There are nice resources at the end, and ideas for using the book in the classroom.

I like the author’s ending statement in the notes at the back:
“It is my hope that this book will enrich and improve that sense of community — not just who we are, where we live and what we do and believe, but also where others live and what they do and what they believe — and that kids will then be inspired to find ways to make their country and their world a better place.”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/if_america_were_a_village.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 The Book That Eats People, by John Perry

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review 0

The Book That Eats People

by John Perry
illustrations by Mark Fearing

Tricycle Press, 2009. 36 pages.

This book is hilarious. I don’t think I can use it for storytime, because the body count is quite high, and I don’t want to scare very young children. For school-age children old enough to be pretty sure it’s all a joke (Though they may be careful just the same.), this book is perfect.

It all started one day in Little Rock, Arkansas, when Sammy Ruskin forgot to wash his hands after lunch, and the book tasted peanut butter on his fingers.

“So the book — this book — went SNAP! And took a bite! And then another and another. Sammy squirmed and wriggled. Sammy squealed and yelled. Sammy pulled as hard as he could, but the book ate him. Then it coughed up his bones and they clattered across the floor like wooden blocks.”

Sammy was only the first person the book ate. Then its pages tell of further nefarious adventures. It ate a security guard at the library. It ate innocent children. When they tried putting it in jail, it ate its cellmate.

Eventually, when the zookeepers weren’t able to tame it, they put a label on it that says THE BOOK THAT EATS PEOPLE in big, bold letters.

So if you find a book that looks like that, be careful.

Never read it with syrupy fingers.

Never read it with cookies in your pocket.

Remember, it’s always hungry.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/book_that_eats_people.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 Little Bee, by Chris Cleave

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Literary, Starred Review 0

Little Bee

by Chris Cleave

read by Anne Flosnik

Tantor Audio, 2009. 11 hours. 9 compact discs.
Starred Review.

This is not a cheery story. A few weeks earlier, I checked out the book on Hot Picks, but I saw it was going to have some awful scenes, so I decided not to read it. However, when I began listening to the audio version, I was utterly enchanted.

Two different characters take turns narrating the story. The first, Little Bee, is an illegal refugee to the United Kingdom from Africa. She takes up the tale to tell what happened when she was released from the Immigration Detention Center after two years. Her African accent is mesmerizing. Her way of looking at the world is captivating. Her images are delightful. Her story is terrible, but she has an inner light that shines in spite of all that happened to her.

Sarah is the other narrator. With her proper British accent, she tells what happened on the day Little Bee showed up at her house, the day of her husband Andrew’s funeral. She had met Little Bee two years before, on a beach in Nigeria, on a day that changed all their lives.

Now, in a suburb of London, Sarah is left with her four-year-old son who refuses to remove his Batman costume. Sarah has two, so one can be cleaned while he’s wearing the other. Little Charlie is so realistic, so funny, and so pathetic, as he represents all of them wearing a secret identity.

The two women tell their stories out of sequence, so by the time you find out what happened on the beach, you are completely enthralled, wanting desperately to know every detail. The storytelling is masterfully done, with wonderful images that make you look at life with a fresh perspective.

I have to admit that this book included one of the most horrible scenes I have ever imagined. It didn’t even end happily. But I loved the book. Anne Flosnik doing Little Bee’s voice completely won me over right from the start. Hearing the words with an African accent gave them much more power than when I tried to read the print version myself. I liked Little Bee right away, and wanted to hear her story.

This book has some tough issues, so it’s not for everyone. But it is superbly crafted, and I highly recommend it. Especially the audio version, which is exquisite.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/little_bee.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 The Lost Conspiracy, by Frances Hardinge

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Lost Conspiracy

by Frances Hardinge

Harper, 2009. 568 pages.

The Lost Conspiracy is an amazing work of imagination. Frances Hardinge has created a fantasy world completely unlike any other I’ve ever read about, yet she makes the whole thing seem real.

There are two peoples on Gullstruck Island, the Cavalcaste and the Lace. They are separated by religious differences and language differences, and the Cavalcaste do not trust the Lace. There is only one Lost among the Lace, the girl Arilou. Her sister Hathin takes care of her, but is not at all sure that she is truly Lost. Arilou has never mastered any language known to Hathin, but she pretends to understand and declare Arilou’s wishes and proclamations.

The Lost are important people on the island. They are able to separate their senses from their bodies. So they are used to send messages, to check the weather. They can see without being seen and go anywhere they are needed — or their senses can.

The author describes the Lost:
“Like all Lost, he had been born with his senses loosely tethered to his body, like a hook on a fishing line. He could let them out, then reel them in and remember all the places his mind had visited meanwhile. Most Lost could move their senses independently, like snails’ eyes on stalks. Indeed, a gifted Lost might feel the grass under their knees, taste the peach in your hand, overhear a conversation in the next village, and smell cooking in the next town, all while watching barracudas dapple and fflit around a shipwreck ten miles out to sea.”

Then comes a terrible day when all the Lost on Gullstruck Island suddenly die — all except Arilou. Hathin fears that means Arilou is not really Lost, just an imbecile. But people decide that the Lace are to blame, and Arilou must be the mastermind behind it all. Hathin must get Arilou to safety, if she can find any such place.

This is a dark story, with lots of death and revenge-seeking. It’s also a mystery — Why did the Lost die, and who killed them? It’s an adventure story as Hathin tries to protect Arilou. It has many humorous parts along the way. And it’s an amazingly imaginative story, as we discover a multitude of fantastic details about that other world. It seems so real, yet completely different from our own world.

This book is a work of genius, all woven together with intricate imaginative details. The darkness of the story kept it from quite winning my heart, but my imagination was interested enough that I definitely wanted to find out what happened.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/lost_conspiracy.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 The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life, by Steve Leveen

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth 0

The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life

How to get more books in your life and more life from your books.

by Steve Leveen

Levenger Press, 2005. 123 pages.

This book is a celebration of reading. Steve Leveen talks about how to get more books into your life, with ideas like making a personal lifetime reading list, listening to audiobooks, and sharing books with others in book clubs. As an avid reader myself, most of his ideas were not new to me, but I did enjoy reading the ideas of another book lover for savoring books.

Some of his writing is a celebration of the reading life:

“Book love is something like romantic love. When we are reading a really great book, burdens feel lighter, cares seem smaller, and commonplaces are suddenly delightful. You become your best optimistic self. Like romantic love, book love fills you with a certain warmth and completeness. The world holds promise. The atmosphere is clearer and brighter; a beckoning wind blows your hair.

“But while romantic love can be fleeting, book love can last. Readers in book love become more skilled at choosing books that thrill them, move them, transport them. Success breeds success, as these lucky people learn how to find diamonds over and over. They are always reading a good book. They are curious, interested — and usually interesting — people.”

I especially like his conclusion:

“On the first page of this little guide, I suggested that I could help you find more time to read. I hope that by employing some of the ideas in this little book and others you discover, you’ll fall deeply in book love — not once but perpetually. Then you will not have to worry about finding the time to read; that time will come to you. You will naturally do some things less as you read more. What those things will be is obviously your decision.

“Finally, I hope you read some books for no reason other than pure enjoyment. Let a fine story grab hold of you, let yourself be embraced in this uniquely human pleasure with sweet abandon. As you collect books for learning, also collect books that make you laugh and cry and shudder and forget the real world completely. It is good for us in more ways than we know.”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/well_read_life.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 Victory of Eagles, by Naomi Novik

Adventure, Alternate History, Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review 0

Victory of Eagles

by Naomi Novik

Read by Simon Vance

Books on Tape, 2008. 10 hours, 30 minutes. 9 compact discs.

This is the fifth book about the dragon Temeraire, his captain Will Laurence, and how the Napoleonic Wars would have gone if dragons were in the fight on all sides.

Because of what they did at the end of the last book, Temeraire and Laurence are in disgrace. But the powers that be can’t punish Captain Laurence as they would like to, because they need him to keep Temeraire under control. But can anyone really control Temeraire and stop his insidious ideas about rights for dragons from spreading among the other dragons?

This book is not as upbeat and positive as the other books, because it starts out with defeat. Napoleon successfully invades England. But can he keep it? This is where Temeraire may make the difference.

I was sad when this book ended, since Naomi Novik hasn’t written the next book in the series yet. Simon Vance does a great job with the accents of dragons and men, and I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to him tell this saga as I travel back and forth to work.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/victory_of_eagles.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 The Dream Stealer, by Sid Fleischman

Bedtime stories, Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Readalouds 0

The Dream Stealer

by Sid Fleischman

Pictures by Peter Sis

Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins), 2009. 89 pages.

Here’s a gentle but exciting story about a little girl from Mexico who took on the Dream Stealer.

The Dream Stealer is supposed to only steal bad or frightening dreams, but he started feeling afraid of them himself, so he stole some good dreams, including a dream Susana was dreaming about her best friend who moved away.

Susana wants her dream back, so she figures out a way to trick the Dream Stealer and force him to take her to his castle to find her lost dream and get it back. But there are some frightening dreams stored at the castle.

This book would be nice for a first chapter book to read aloud to children or for a child ready to read chapter books on his own. There are thirteen short chapters with plenty of illustrations. The story is interesting and imaginative, and you’re never too frightened for plucky Susana.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/dream_stealer.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 He’s Just No Good for You, by Beth Wilson

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Relationships 0

He’s Just No Good for You

A Guide to Getting Out of a Destructive Relationship

by Beth Wilson
with Mo Therese Hannah, Ph.D.

GPP Life (Globe Pequot Press), Guilford, Connecticut, 2009. 271 pages.

“Destructive relationships make women small. They eclipse the vitality and expansiveness of our spirit, reducing the parameters of our world. They make us feel unworthy and ‘less-than,’ eventually leading to a hunger in our soul as we inhabit a relationship that doesn’t nourish us. Instead of being as luminous and full as the feminine moon, we become too constricted to bring forth our light — and may no longer feel the right to shine.”

So begins Beth Wilson’s book, designed to help women face unpleasant realities. First, she discusses the dynamics of a destructive relationship. They are hard to spot when you are in the middle of one, because we don’t want to admit what’s happening. She asks some questions that will help you evaluate if this applies to you.

She doesn’t focus on obvious abuse, physical abuse and threats of violence:

“This book is about the more subtle behaviors that, unchecked, systematically disintegrate a woman’s vitality and self-confidence. Verbal abuse coupled with cruel behaviors are the main culprits we’re focusing on.

“Verbal abuse is tricky. Unless it’s blatant — threatening physical assault or direct character assassination — it can be more likened to a razor blade than a machete. In the hands of an extremely skilled man, it can be a scalpel of control, with each incision creating a small but significant wound that must be perpetually mended in order for a woman to remain intact. And because these people want to avoid being labeled ‘abusive’ — and many of them have convinced themselves that they are not — their first line of offense is to undermine, manipulate, confuse, invalidate, and dismantle a woman’s sense of self, and her self-confidence. This they do very well. The more easily you can spot words and actions that undermine and invalidate you, the better off you’ll be. This book will help you understand his maneuvers and sleight-of-hand tactics so you can make better sense of a crazy-making situation — and see things for how they really are. It will help you learn how to differentiate between thoughtless words and actions and those devised to undo you.”

After analyzing destructive relationships in their various forms, Beth Wilson helps you decide whether to stay or go, and if you go, helps you to plan when and how. Then she gives you advice for recovering and going on to live a better-than-normal life.

I could relate to the fantasies she described in the chapter on why people stay.

“When it comes to destructive relationships, love is not enough. It can’t fix our problems and it can’t fix our problem person. But why should we let that stop us? We try to love harder, to be kinder, to be more understanding and more patient, often bending ourselves into elaborate contortions to take up the slack and, hopefully, achieve a more harmonious relationship. Unfortunately, all the qualities that define love prove to be futile instruments for change. More often than not, they simply add to our stress and make us more anxious to please in an effort to demonstrate our undying devotion. We overcompensate. Meanwhile, he keeps on doing what he’s doing.

“The truth is, none of us can force another person to change, not even if our intentions are noble. And though love can transform, when it comes to toxic men we can’t love them strong enough or hard enough. We can’t heal them and make them into someone better. We can’t fill the holes in their heart and the pain of their childhood. Recommitting ourselves daily to be a better wife — or a better girlfriend — hoping to fill in the gaps so all will be well is simply unrealistic and, sadly, an exercise in futility.”

Here’s a book to help women face reality so they can make better decisions about how to act. This is a life-affirming book.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

January Stats

General 0

So, after NaNoWriMo in November, I’m now keeping track of how I do at writing and blogging. I get a kick out of numbers, so here are my stats for January.

I succeeded in spending 30 minutes per day on my book! It is still a ways from being ready to submit again, but I am making progress. I added a net change of 1,531 words and wrote 2,363 words in my “planning” brainstorming file.

On my blogs I wrote 19,872 words, for a grand total of 27,660 words. That’s a lot less than the NaNoWriMo goal, but it’s still a lot of words. And to be fair, when revising a book, you do a lot of deleting words, too!

I wrote 43 book reviews, and I DID finish reviewing all the books I read in 2009! I still have 7 books to review that I read in 2010, and I still want to post all the reviews to my main site. But getting them written was a great accomplishment.

For the Comment Challenge, I didn’t meet the stated goal, but I did leave 44 comments and I did discover some new kidlit blogs I hadn’t read before. I’m going to see if I can increase that amount in February.

Also this month, I applied for a job which would enable me to stay in the public library even if the budget cuts go through. So here’s hoping!