Review of The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan

Adventure, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

The Red Pyramid

The Kane Chronicles

by Rick Riordan

Disney Hyperion Books, New York, 2010. 516 pages.

Here is Rick Riordan’s eagerly awaited start to a new series, this one based on the gods of ancient Egypt rather than the gods of ancient Greece. I’m going to happily encourage the fans of the Percy Jackson series to snap this one up, as it’s very like that first series — kids with superhuman powers, finding out the ancient myths are true, the world in danger of destruction, and action-packed adventure and narrow escapes.

The chapters in the book switch between the narration of a brother and sister, Carter and Sadie Kane. They hardly know one another, because since their mother’s death, Sadie has lived with their grandparents in London, and Carter has roamed around the world, homeschooled by their archaeologist father. Sadie gets visitation with her father two days a year, and the book opens as one of those days begins.

Carter starts out the book. He says, “I guess it started in London, the night our dad blew up the British Museum.”

The beginning of the book reminded me annoyingly of the first book, written by Rick Riordan, of The 39 Clues. We’ve got a brother and sister who learn they are part of a family with ancient power. They go all over the world, chased by enemies, looking for things to help them. Come on, I heard it before.

However, The Red Pyramid does grow more compelling and more fully fleshed out as it goes on. The power of the Kanes comes from their uniting two ancient bloodlines tracing back to the Pharaohs. Their father’s attempt at the start of the book to “make things right” ends up unleashing five Egyptian gods and encasing their father in a golden tomb with the spirit of Osiris.

Their uncle Amos takes them in, to a powerful and magical mansion in New York City. But all too soon, Egyptian monsters come after them and burn down the mansion. The two start having strange spirit journeys in the night and discover strange new powers.

They go to Egypt and meet magicians from the House of Life. They learn that their father broke ancient rules of the House of Life by releasing the gods. They learn that the god Set is building a giant pyramid under Camelback Mountain in Phoenix and wants to unleash chaos onto the world. But in their attempt to learn to use their new powers and find a way to stop him, the House of Life stands opposed to them.

It’s all well-written, with narrow escape after narrow escape. Sadie has an attitude that if you tell her to do something, she’ll do the opposite — which ends up serving her well. I like the chapter titles — Things like “I Face the Killer Turkey,” “Muffin Plays with Knives,” “Leroy Meets the Locker of Doom,” and “Our Family is Vaporized.” Rick Riordan manages to keep the tone of modern kids and a bickering brother and sister, who learn to work together and deal with their amazing new powers and responsibility for the fate of the world.

You get to feeling for the Kane kids, too. It turns out that their mother’s death had something to do with Egyptian magic, too. And now their father is captured by Set. People around them keep getting harmed. Will they be able to cope?

After reading this book, my reaction is only slightly different from my reaction after reading the first of The 39 Clues: not so much, “I love this book!” as, “I bet kids will love this book!”

I also understand why that little girl in the library yesterday asked for books about hieroglyphics! I have a feeling those books, and any others we have about ancient Egypt, are suddenly going to get checked out much more often!

I do like the way Rick Riordan calms the worries of parents who might not like their children reading about false gods. Toward the beginning, Carter and Sadie have a scene with their uncle:

“‘You’re telling me our parents secretly worshipped animal-headed gods?’ I asked.

“‘Not worshipped,’ Amos corrected. ‘By the end of the ancient times, Egyptians had learned that their gods were not to be worshipped. They are powerful beings, primeval forces, but they are not divine in the sense one might think of God. They are created entities, like mortals, only much more powerful. We can respect them, fear them, use their power, or even fight them to keep them under control –‘

“‘Fight gods?’ Sadie interrupted.

“‘Constantly,’ Amos assured her. ‘But we don’t worship them. Thoth taught us that.'”

The book was too long for me — made it that much harder to sustain my interest. But by the end, I was thoroughly engaged, and I did finish up the book completely satisfied at having spent the time with it. I’m sure its length will please the kids who are fans. More time to spend in the adventure!

Buy from Amazon.com

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

2010 48-Hour Book Challenge

48-Hour Book Challenge, General 3

Hip Hip Hooray! It’s time for Mother Reader‘s annual 48-Hour Book Challenge! The time when the guilt is totally reversed — You get to feel guilty if you’re NOT reading! 🙂 Woo-hoo!

This has been a crazy and insane week. I’ll blog about that later. Let’s simply say that I am totally ready to forget about all that and READ. I also have a stack of 10 books I’d like to review, so I will want to review the books I get read as well as clear the backlog.

I am not so dedicated that I won’t take some time off to sleep. And I confess I’m not planning to set my alarm on Saturday. And I will go to church on Sunday and I hope also to the local Kidlit Book Club. I will listen to an audiobook in the car on the way!

For the first book, I am halfway through Rick Riordan’s The Red Pyramid, so I will see if I can stay awake long enough to finish that tonight. Mother Reader does request that we read books intended for fifth grade and up, but I confess that this year I’ve been eyeing some of the shorter books. And a lot of my backlog of books to review are picture books. She didn’t put any restriction on what you blog about, so I think it will be okay to get some of those reviews written.

Last year, I completed a total of 23 hours and 30 minutes. But a lot of that time was spent upgrading my blog because it had quit working about a week before. Last year, I finished 5 books and reviewed 5 books and read parts of 6 books, for a total of 1120 pages. I’m hoping I can top all those totals this year. We’ll see!

Anyway, enough rambling on! Woo-hoo! I NEED to read!

Review of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley

Award Winners, Fiction Review, Mystery, Starred Review 1

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

by Alan Bradley

Delacorte Press, 2009. 373 pages.
2007 Debut Dagger Award
2009 Agatha Award for Best First Novel
Starred Review

This wonderfully clever and intriguing mystery published for adults stars an 11-year-old sleuth, Flavia DeLuce. It makes me wonder why the book was not published for children or teens. Though I am sure of this: Parents would not want their children emulating Flavia! Although this qualifies as a “cozy” mystery, which made it eligible for the Agatha Award it won, it is not watered-down or tame, and there’s nothing to keep adults from liking it.

Flavia is one of those brilliant children with a special passion for one subject. Her interest is in chemistry, with a particular focus on poisons. Flavia and her two older sisters have a turbulent relationship — the book begins with Flavia escaping from being tied up in a closet, and we learn that it was her sisters who put her there. Her reprisal is quite brilliant, but not very nice.

The mystery begins when a dead bird appears on their doorstep at Buckshaw with a postage stamp impaled on its beak. Then later, she hears her father arguing with someone, talking about a death, and what sounds like blackmail from the other person. She’s pulled away from listening at the keyhole, but that night she gets up in the early hours of the morning, notices a piece of Mrs. Mullet’s awful custard pie missing, and goes out into the garden.

There she finds a stranger lying in the cucumber patch. He says something mysterious and promptly dies. Flavia reflects:

“I wish I could say my heart was stricken, but it wasn’t. I wish I could say my instinct was to run away, but that would not be true. Instead, I watched in awe, savoring every detail: the fluttering fingers, the almost imperceptible bronze metallic cloudiness that appeared on the skin, as if, before my very eyes, it were being breathed upon by death.

“And then the utter stillness.

“I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

That all happens in the first two chapters. When, before long, Flavia’s father is taken into custody for the murder, Flavia decides to confess herself. For some reason, the authorities don’t take her seriously. So she feels compelled to find out more about the man who died in their garden, his history with her father, and the death of a teacher so many years ago.

Armed with her bike, which she’s named Gladys, Flavia is a resourceful and persistent sleuth. Definitely not an obedient and retiring young lady. Definitely not someone I’d want as my younger sister.

The “About the Author” section at the end of the book says that this is the first of a planned series about Flavia DeLuce. Hooray! If he can keep later books half as inventive and keep Flavia’s spark of mischief a fraction as fiery, that series will be one I’ll snap up just as soon as each volume is published. I can’t wait for more!

Hooray! As soon as I wrote that, I checked Amazon, and the next book is already out! — The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag. I think I’ll be making a purchase….

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/sweetness_at_the_bottom_of_the_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.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Oh, Daddy! by Bob Shea

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Readalouds, Starred Review 0

Oh, Daddy!

by Bob Shea

Balzer & Bray (HarperCollinsPublishers), 2010. 32 pages.
Starred Review

Just in time for Father’s Day comes this book about a boy (hippo?) and his dad that I would love to read to toddlers any time of year. Alas! I am losing my job, so will not be doing any toddler storytimes any time soon, so I have to settle for urging others to try it. Of course, the very best pair for this book would be a father and child, acting it out as they read, especially the hug at the end.

The book opens up with the boy telling us, “I may be little, but I’m as smart as two eight-year-olds! I’m so smart, I even show my dad how to do things — and he’s a grown-up!”

Then he gives examples. When he’s getting dressed, Daddy asks him “Is this how you get dressed?” with underwear on his head, oven mitts on his hands, and a pail and a boot on his feet. The smart boy then shows him how it should be done.

Silly Daddy can’t seem to get anything right! Any toddler will enjoy Daddy’s completely silly attempts.

But there’s another level to the book for the adult reader, and probably for the child as he gets older and wiser. In each successive episode, the boy isn’t exactly on task. But when Daddy asks his silly questions, like asking if you should get in the car by climbing through the window, the boy quickly focuses to show Daddy how it’s done.

The progression is delightful and playful, including an example where the boy teases Daddy back. And it all ends up with Daddy’s multiple gyrations in the attempt to give himself a big hug — where he definitely needs his son’s help.

This book reminds me of William Steig’s Pete’s a Pizza, because like that book, it begs to be acted out by a loving parent-child pair. However, I do think it would work well in a toddler storytime, where you could encourage the toddlers to shout “No!” at Daddy’s silly attempts. I would like to try this on a child to see at what age they catch on to Daddy’s cleverness in motivating his son.

Great fun and delightfully silly!

Buy from Amazon.com

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

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

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Ice, by Sarah Beth Durst

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

Ice

by Sarah Beth Durst

Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster), New York, 2009. 308 pages.
Starred Review

When Cassie was small, when her Dad was away from the station, Gram would tell her a fairy tale:

“Once upon a time, the North Wind said to the Polar Bear King, ‘Steal me a daughter, and when she grows, she will be your bride.’…

“And so, the Polar Bear King kidnapped a human child and brought her to the North Wind, and she was raised with the North Wind as her father and the West, South, and East Winds as her uncles….

“When the Polar Bear King came to claim his bride, she refused him. Her heart, she said belonged to another….

“Knowing the power of a magic promise, the North Wind’s daughter sought to counter it with her own bargain. ‘Then I will make a promise to you,’ the North Wind’s daughter replied. ‘Bring me to my love and hide us from my father, and when I have a daughter, she will be your bride.’ And so, the Bear carried the North Wind’s daughter to her human husband and hid them in the ice and snow….

“In time, the woman had a child. Passing by, the West Wind heard the birth and hurried to tell the North Wind where his daughter could be found. With the strength of a thousand blizzards, the North Wind swooped down onto the house that held his daughter, her husband, and their newborn baby. He would have torn the house to shreds, but the woman ran outside. ‘Take me,’ she cried, ‘but leave my loved ones alone!’

“The North Wind blew her as far as he could — as far as the castle beyond the ends of the world. There, she fell to the ground and was captured by trolls.” Cassie heard the bed creak as Gram stood. Her rich voice was softer now. “It is said that when the wind howls from the north, it is for his lost daughter.”

Cassie blinked her eyes open. “And Mommy is still there?”

Gram was a shadow in the doorway. “Yes.”

After this surprising prologue, the book opens the day before Cassie’s eighteenth birthday. Cassie remembers Gram’s story when she tracks down the biggest polar bear she’s ever seen. She smiles to think that if the Polar Bear King existed, this is what he’d look like. She loads her tranquilizer gun so she can tag and measure him.

And then he disappears.

She stays out late trying to figure out how she missed his trail, and is ready for a scolding from her father, back at the Arctic research station. What she isn’t prepared for is his reaction to her story of the giant disappearing polar bear. He tells her she must leave the station right away, fly to Fairbanks to stay with her grandmother. He says the station can no longer be her home.

When she wakes at three a.m. to the sound of the plane that’s come to take her away, she realizes how serious her father is. Gram is on the plane and she tells Cassie the fairy tale was Gram’s way of telling Cassie the truth. Her mother was the daughter of the North Wind. She bargained with the Polar Bear King, and now, on her eighteenth birthday, he’s coming for Cassie.

Cassie is incredulous, but also feels hurt and betrayed that either her father or her grandmother didn’t tell her the truth. She doesn’t want to leave her home. When Gram gives her time to get ready for the flight, Cassie goes outside and calls the Polar Bear King. He comes.

Now Cassie makes a bargain with the Polar Bear King. If he frees her mother from the trolls, she will marry him.

So begins this striking and original retelling of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon.” I’ve already read two novelized versions that I loved: East, by Edith Pattou, and Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, by Jessica Day George. This one is very different, because it sets the story in the modern day.

I loved the way every chapter begins with Cassie’s GPS readings. They go haywire when the Polar Bear King brings her to his castle a mile north of the North Pole.

Bear is a munaqsri with the task of transferring and transporting the souls of polar bears who die into polar bears who are born. His heart breaks when he is not fast enough to be present at a polar bear birth, and the baby is stillborn.

I was delighted that Cassie comes up with a job, a way she can help, using data from the research station. This is not a heroine who is happy to sit alone in a magical castle! She finds a way to work side by side with Bear.

But what I loved most about the book was how it showed Cassie falling in love with Bear. She teases him and cares about him and sees his love for the polar bears. We can see her love for him blossoming on the page.

As in the fairy tale, he comes to her in the shape of a man at night, and on the first night, Cassie swings an ax at him! But as she comes to care about him, she allows him to sleep in the room, and then later she kisses him. Finally, she gives him a wedding night.

And my paragraph there is just about as explicit as the book gets. It’s beautifully romantic without having to go into detail. As in the fairy tale, though, her husband only comes to her in the shape of a man at night, and doesn’t want her to see his face.

When she breaks that taboo, tragedy strikes.

Cassie has grown up on the Arctic research station, so we believe that she is capable of surviving when she sets out to rescue her husband from the troll castle east of the sun and west of the moon.

This is another book I’d like to get into the hands of teens who love the romance in Twilight, because here, too, we have a story of One True Love. We have a heroine who is devastated by the loss of her beloved and is willing to do anything to bring them back together.

Back when the Harry Potter books were at the height of their popularity, my husband had the insight to say that he believed it was so popular because of the aspect of the chosen child. Everyone would like to be told: Here is your destiny. This is what you were born to do.

I think Twilight‘s popularity is similar. We wish that True Love were as simple as the “imprinting” Stephenie Meyer’s werewolves experience. I think that girls, at least, long to experience love that they feel is their destiny, to find their One True Love. And, take it from me, there’s a real satisfaction to calling the rival who steals away their husband, the Troll Queen!

I admit that I always love novelizations of fairy tales. I honestly thought that I’d read too many versions of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” to be impressed by another, but I loved this. Beautiful writing and a beautiful story. A wonderfully romantic tale of True Love you would go past the ends of the earth for.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

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

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Love and War, by John and Stasi Eldredge

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Relationships, Starred Review 2

Love & War

Finding the Marriage You’ve Dreamed Of

by John and Stasi Eldredge

Doubleday Religion, New York, 2009. 222 pages.
Starred Review

I recently filed for divorce, more than four years after my husband abandoned me. Why would I torment myself by reading a book on marriage?

I have a few reasons: First, is that I want to know what went wrong so I don’t repeat the same mistakes. I still believe that God told me that some day our marriage would be restored, and I would want that marriage to be a harmonious partnership before God. It’s inspiring to read about how that can happen.

Actually, I picked up the book ready to quickly turn it back in if I found the contents painful or not applying at all. But I avidly read the whole book, liking it more and more the further I read.

I like everything I’ve already read by John & Stasi Eldredge, particularly Captivating, and The Sacred Romance. I like their way of taking the big picture when talking about the Christian life. They see the Christian life as a grand fairy tale, and I love that approach, as is evidenced by the fact that I’m also reading secular books talking about what fairy tales teach us about life, such as Once Upon a Midlife, by Allan B. Chinen, and Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

The authors tie into that concept right away. In the introduction, Stasi describes watching her husband John conduct a wedding ceremony.

“No matter how many weddings I attend, there is something inexplicably stirring about all this — the ceremony, the making of vows, the great cloud of witnesses, something about this remarkable act feels — how does one describe it? Mythic.”

She gives some of John’s message to the crowd:

“‘Dearly Beloved, you see before you a man and a woman. But there is more here than meets the eye. God gave to us this passion play to reenact, right here and now, the story of the ages. This is the story of mankind, the one story we have been telling ourselves over and over again, in every great myth and legend and poem and song. It is a love story, set in the midst of desperate times, set in the midst of war. It is a story of a shared quest. It is a story of romance. Daniel and Megan are playing out before you now the deepest and most mythic reality in the world. This is the story of God’s romance with mankind.’

“I’m curious what the audience is thinking. When John speaks of love and marriage as deeper than fairy tale, what does our heart say in reply? I know the young women listening just said in their hearts, Oh I hope that is true! I long for that to be true! The young men are wondering, If that is true, what is this going to require of me? The older women filter this through the years of our actual marital experience; they are thinking, Hmmm. (It is a mixture of Yes, I once longed for that, and, Perhaps it will come true for her; I wonder if it still might come true for me.) And the older men sitting here now are simply thinking, I wonder if the reception will have an open bar.

“‘You don’t believe me,’ John says. ‘But that’s because we don’t understand fairy tales and we don’t understand the Gospel which they are trying to remind us of. They are stories of danger; they are stories where evil is very, very real. They are stories which require immense courage and sacrifice. A boy and a girl thrown together in some desperate journey. If we believed it, if we actually saw what was taking place right here, right now, we would cross ourselves. We would say desperate prayers, earnest prayers. We would salute them both and we would hold our breath for what happens next.'”

I love John’s charge to the couple:

“Daniel, Megan, in choosing marriage you have chosen an assignment at the frontlines in this epic battle for the human heart. You will face hardship, you will face suffering, you will face opposition, and you will face a lie. The scariest thing a woman ever offers is to believe that she is worth pursuing, to open her heart up to pursuit, to continue to open up her heart and offer the beauty she holds inside, all the while fearing it will not be enough. The scariest thing a man ever chooses is to offer his strength without knowing how things will turn out. To take the risk of playing the man before the outcome is decided. To offer his heart of strength while fearing it will not be enough.

“A lie is going to come to both of you, starting very soon, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. It can’t be done. It’s too hard. We had unrealistic expectations. It isn’t worth it. The lie to you, Megan, will be, ‘You are nothing more than a disappointment.’ And the lie to you, Daniel, will be, ‘You are not really man enough for this.’ And so, I have two words for you today. Words that I want you to keep close in your hearts as you go forward: You are. Megan, you are radiant, you shimmer, you shine, you are a treasure of a woman, a gem, you are. Daniel, you are a man, you are strong, and you are valiant. You have what it takes. Hold this close to your hearts. It can be done. And it is worth it.”

Early on in this ordeal of my marriage falling apart, I found help and encouragement from rejoiceministries.org. One helpful lesson they taught me right from the start is that my spouse is not my enemy. Instead Satan himself is the enemy of our marriage. John and Stasi Eldredge echo that message. The “War” in the title is the battle that a man and his wife do together against the Enemy of their marriage.

Right away, they give us tips about how that battle is carried out, with lies. A wife starts believing the lie that she is not valuable, and so she gets petty about wanting her husband to do more around the house, to show that he values her. Then her husband, in turn, doesn’t feel like his wife thinks he is an adequate man, and resentment builds up on both sides.

This isn’t a book about communication techniques or about how to get your spouse to treat you right. This is a book with stories to explain how you can see marriage as a team effort against a mutual enemy. John and Stasi give stories from their own marriage to show how this can play out — both failures and successes.

Love & War is a wonderful book for romantics. It tells you that a great marriage is indeed possible. It gives you a lofty vision and inspires you to work with your spouse to go after it.

And don’t we all start out in marriage as romantics?

Read the book! I won’t try to summarize each chapter, since I would have too much to say. I’ll finish the review with some inspiring words from the authors at the end of Chapter One:

“Because marriage is hard, sometimes painfully hard, your first Great Battle is not to lose heart. That begins with recovering desire — the desire for the love that is written on your heart. Let desire return. Let it remind you of all that you wanted, all that you were created for.

“And then consider this — what if God could bring you your heart’s desire? It’s not too late. It isn’t too hard. You are not too far along nor are you and your spouse too set in your ways. God is the God of all hope. He is, after all, the God of the Resurrection. Nothing is impossible for him. So give your heart’s desire some room to breathe.

“What if the two of you could find your way to something beautiful?

“That would be worth fighting for.”

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

One Crazy Summer

by Rita Williams-Garcia

Amistad (HarperCollins), 2010. 218 pages.
Starred Review

Delphine is looking after her sisters as they make their way on an airplane ride across the country to see their mother who abandoned them when Delphine was four years old.

“All the way to the airport, Pa had tried to act like he was dropping off three sacks of wash at the Laundromat. I’d seen through Pa. He’s no Vonetta, putting on performances. He has only one or two faces, nothing hidden, nothing exaggerated. Even though it had been his idea that we fly out to Oakland to see Cecile, Pa’d never once said how exciting our trip would be. He just said that seeing Cecile was something whose time had come. That it had to be done. Just because he decided it was time for us to see her didn’t mean he wanted us to go.

“My sisters and I had stayed up practically all night California dreaming about what seemed like the other side of the world. We saw ourselves riding wild waves on surfboards, picking oranges and apples off fruit trees, filling our autograph books with signatures from movie stars we’d see in soda shops. Even better, we saw ourselves going to Disneyland.”

Rita Williams-Garcia had me hooked right there, because I remembered when I was a bit younger than eleven-year-old Delphine when we moved to California in 1970 (two years later than this story is set), and the number one thing I was excited about was going to Disneyland.

I eventually had my dream come true, but not Delphine. Her mother lives in Oakland, far north of Disneyland, and she keeps saying that she didn’t send for them.

Delphine quickly figures out some things.

“I didn’t want to say Big Ma was right. Cecile was no kind of mother. Cecile didn’t want us. Cecile was crazy. I didn’t have to.”

Delphine still needs to look after her sisters, because Cecile is not doing it. As the third of thirteen siblings, my heart went out to her. It wrenches my heart to hear of kids being forced to take on the responsibilities of a parent when they should just be a kid.

But this book goes farther than that, goes much deeper than three kids with a neglectful mother. Cecile is a poet, and the Black Panthers are using her printing press. She doesn’t want to be disturbed by Delphine, Vonetta and Fern during the day, so she sends them to People’s Center to get breakfast and then stay for the program. The People’s Center is run by the Black Panthers.

So begins Delphine’s crazy summer. She’s in California, finding out what her crazy mother is really like, and looking after her little sisters. I like the way Rita Williams-Garcia shows each girl’s personality by their actions and words. Delphine is steady and reliable. Vonetta always wants to be the center of attention. And little Fern always holds onto her beloved Miss Patty Cake and observes the world. But what will happen to them if they stay involved with the Black Panthers and the rally they’re planning?

This novel is richly woven, warm and deep. We get a rich perspective on California in the late sixties, from the perspective of three colored girls. Delphine’s worried about the militancy of the Black Panthers. But on the other hand, she and her sisters count the number of colored people on television and don’t come up with much. They see people staring at them, expecting trouble. They are fascinated by Hirohito, a boy at the center whose father was arrested when the police burst into his family’s home. They begin to adopt the slogans they are taught, “Power to the People.”

I hope this book gets some Newbery attention this year. It’s got all the hallmarks of a winner: A powerful story; round, believable characters we come to love; insight into a period of history from a perspective we probably haven’t heard before; expert and beautiful use of language; consistent and distinct ways of talking that help us understand each character as an individual; and (my favorite) a story that leaves you warmed and smiling, with deepened understanding and with things to think about. This is a book that will stick with you.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

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

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of The Pout-Pout Fish, by Deborah Diesen and Dan Hanna

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Readalouds, Starred Review 0

The Pout-Pout Fish

by Deborah Diesen
Pictures by Dan Hanna

Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2008. 32 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a picture book that’s absolutely perfect for reading aloud to preschoolers, particularly ones young enough to still like kisses.

The Pout-Pout Fish has a big, clownlike frown with puckered, pouty lips. He’s also got a refrain. When the other fish and sea creatures ask him to cheer up in their own rhymed and jazzy ways, the Pout-Pout Fish replies,

“I’m a pout-pout fish
With a pout-pout face,
So I spread the dreary-wearies
All over the place.

BLUB
BLUUUUB
BLUUUUUB”

This scenario repeats with a variety of sea creatures, when along comes a girl fish who shows him that puckered lips have a much better use than pouting! So the book finishes up with our friend singing his song in a modified version, now declaring himself a kiss-kiss fish.

I read this book at a storytime with very young preschoolers, and got them making pouty faces and singing the fish’s song along with me. We all had a delightful time.

This wonderful book is delightfully silly and naturally interactive. A fantastic Storytime stand-by.

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

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

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Firstlight, by Sue Monk Kidd

Christian, Musings, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth 0

Firstlight

The Early Inspirational Writings of Sue Monk Kidd

GuidepostsBooks, New York, 2006. 227 pages.

Sue Monk Kidd got her start writing for Guideposts. She wrote many inspirational pieces for them and for other publications for many years.

Firstlight is a collection of some of her early writings. They make an inspiring, uplifting collection. I made a habit of reading a section or two in the morning during my devotional time.

I think her philosophy is summed up by these words:

“I believe in stories. The world has enough dogma. It’s stories we need more of, stories that reverence the still, small voice that sings our life. As Anthony de Mello observed, “The shortest distance between a human being and Truth is a story.” Jesus, himself, told stories about the most common things in the world: a lost sheep, a seed that falls on rocky ground, a woman who sweeps her house in search of a coin, a man whose son runs away from home.

“All personal theology should begin with the words: Let me tell you a story.”

Sue Monk Kidd writes her devotionals as stories — stories that illustrate the hand of God, or perhaps a lesson about life, or perhaps a reminder of joy.

This book will give you something to smile about as you start your day.

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

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

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, read by Alan Cumming

Adventure, Alternate History, Audiobooks, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Leviathan

by Scott Westerfeld

read by Alan Cumming

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2009. 7 CDs. 8.5 hours.
Starred Review.

I blame this book for making me late to a meeting last week. I set off in my car, popped the next CD in the player, and got enthralled in the story. I was halfway to my usual workplace when I realized I should have driven to the government center!

I was reluctant to read this book. Even though I liked the series that began with Uglies, and respected the level of the writing and world-building, I’d gotten rather tired of them. It only took a few minutes of listening to Leviathan to realize that this book had an altogether different flavor and that I wouldn’t get tired of it any time soon.

Leviathan is in the relatively new steampunk genre, which, as the author explains in a note at the end, combines a vision of the future with an alternate version of the past.

The book tackles the beginning of World War I from the perspectives of a boy in Austria and a girl in Britain. But events unfold very differently than they did in our world.

The boy is Aleksandar, the fictional son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose death sparked the Great War. The book opens with a loyal count and a small company escaping with Alek after his parents’ death, because now he is heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and the people who killed his father want him dead.

They make their escape in a giant Stormwalker, a powerful war machine created by the German-speaking powers in this alternate world where they had an advanced understanding of technology. Alek had been wanting to learn to pilot one, but he never imagined learning to steer one at night, and in secrecy.

Meanwhile, in England, commoner Deryn Sharp from Glasgow is pretending to be a boy so she can enlist in the Air Corps. However, in her world Darwin changed everything, by not only discovering evolution, but also unlocking the secrets of DNA. Deryn lives in a world of fabricated beasts, living machines that can do anything you can imagine, but that also manufacture their own fuel (using digestion) and heal themselves.

On Deryn’s first day in the service, on her solo flight, she gets caught in a storm and manages to save her own neck, but gets picked up by the great airbeast Leviathan. The Leviathan has a crew of hundreds and is a cross between a whale and many other species, with innards that breathe hydrogen to keep it afloat.

The Leviathan is headed for a secret mission in Constantinople and the Ottoman Empire. But war breaks out around them, and Deryn’s path crosses with Alek. Can Darwinists work with Clankers to save both sets of lives?

This audiobook is full of exciting escapes and adventures from start to finish. As you would expect in a book involving a world at war, there are many different accents involved, and Alan Cumming does a superb job differentiating the characters by their accents and voices. I found myself starting to exclaim “Barking Spiders!” like Deryn after listening to this book for awhile.

And Scott Westerfeld has a complicated and strange world to present, but he pulls it off beautifully, never letting the action lull as he lets the characters describe their new experiences, such as Deryn flying over a London swarming with fabricated beasts and Alek learning to make a Stormwalker run. Alan Cumming manages to keep the excitement in his voice for the entire audiobook, as there are almost always exciting things going on. I hope he took lots of breaks while recording!

The one thing I didn’t like about this book is that it is definitely not a stand-alone story. It ends when they’ve gotten out of one narrow escape and have revealed some of the secrets, but the story and the war are definitely just beginning. And who knows how long it will be before the next installment comes out? Not fair!

One thing’s for sure, when the next book is published, I will want to read it just as soon as it comes out. This one was excellent on audio, but if the audio version doesn’t come out the same time as the print version, I may not be able to wait.

Leviathan made fantastic commuting-time listening, except for being too interesting to listen to when I wanted to go somewhere other than my normal workplace. It also was one of those books that made me want to sit in the car in my parking place until I got to a good stopping place — but a good stopping place never came.

Buy from Amazon.com

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