Review of Guys Read: Funny Business, edited by Jon Scieszka

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Humorous, Short Stories 0

Guys Read

Funny Business

edited by Jon Scieszka

Walden Pond Press (HarperCollins), 2010. 268 pages.

I heard about this book at an ALA Annual Conference event in 2010, where Jon Scieszka gave a great talk on using audiobooks to reach reluctant readers. He talked about starting this series of books with stories that appeal to boys. The first book in the series is what it says: Funny.

And a bonus, of course, is that girls, and adults, will laugh at these stories, too. They got some stellar authors to write the stories: Mac Barnett, Adam Rex, Eoin Colfer, David Lubar, David Yoo, Jeff Kinney, Christopher Paul Curtis, Paul Feig, and Jack Gantos. They even let one woman contribute: One piece is by Kate DiCamillo and Jon Scieszka.

The stories are indeed funny. I especially enjoyed “My Parents Give My Bedroom to a Biker,” by Paul Feig, where his parents do just that, which tips the kid off that they are being influenced by aliens. Then there’s “A Fistful of Feathers,” which is slightly similar, only this time it’s a turkey that wedges its way into the parents’ affections.

Another laugh-out-loud favorite was “Will,” by Adam Rex, where ALL the other kids in Will’s class turn out to have superpowers. Well, not necessarily superpowers. Barry found out over the weekend he’s a wizard and will be finishing the year at a wizards’ school. Aidan recently learned he’s the son of Thor, but he’s not bad for a demigod. In fact, the teacher is getting quite bitter about it.

“‘POP QUIZ!’ she hooted. The class groaned, as classes will, but it sounded feeble. There weren’t even enough kids to get a good groan going anymore. ‘An essay, in two hundred words or less! Explain what you think will happen to a teacher if all her students keep turning into flipping butterflies! Assume she has only two years’ experience and student loans. Show your work,’ she added, and went to hide behind her desk for a while. Usually a screaming teacher was like ice down your back, but Ms. Chadwick had been getting gradually louder since Labor Day.

“No one, strictly speaking, had actually turned into a butterfly. Hannah had sprouted wings from touching some sort of meteorite back in November, but everyone agreed they were really more dragonfly wings than anything else. She’d done a science fair project about it before leaving for St. Peppermint’s Fairy Academy over winter break.”

These stories would be fantastic choices for the Fourth Grade Reading competition they used to have at my sons’ school. Those who chose funny stories always did well, and these would be great crowd-pleasers. They’d also make great read-alouds. Read one story, and I bet you’d have a whole class clamoring to check out the book.

I’m not a guy, but I’m definitely looking forward to future books in this series.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/funny_business.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 Beauty Queens, by Libba Bray

Contemporary, Current Issues, Humorous, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Beauty Queens

by Libba Bray

Scholastic Press, New York, 2011. 396 pages.
Starred Review

Okay, this book is hilarious, laugh-out-loud funny. It is irreverent, has frank sexuality of different types, and makes fun of people who give easy answers — including a Christian leading a song “Jesus is my Co-pilot” while their plane crashes. However, most of the things the author makes fun of fully deserve to be made fun of. The book mostly mocks our corporate culture and the messages we send to women about their bodies and their sexuality. And the book is definitely funny. Did I mention that it made me laugh out loud?

I love Libba Bray from the moment I heard her speech at the 2010 Printz Awards. Funny irreverence is where she shines, and in this book, she harnesses it all into a rollicking tale of survival.

The story is about a group of survivors of a plane crash on a desert island. The plane was filled with Miss Teen Dream contestants, and all the adults (and most of the contestants) die in the crash. But don’t worry! I’ll give you the first page or so, so you’ll know it’s a Happy Story:

“A WORD FROM YOUR SPONSOR

“This book begins with a plane crash. We do not want you to worry about this. According to the U.S. Department of Unnecessary Statistics, your chances of dying in a plane crash are one in half a million. Whereas your chances of losing your bathing suit bottoms to a strong tide are two to one. So, all in all, it’s safer to fly than to go to the beach. As we said, this book begins with a plane crash. But there are survivors. You see? Already it’s a happy tale. They are all beauty queen contestants. You do not need to know their names here. But you will get to know them. They are all such nice girls. Yes, they are nice, happy, shining, patriotic girls who happen to have interests in baton twirling, sign language, AIDS prevention in the animal population, the ancient preparation of popadam, feminine firearms, interpretive dance, and sequins. Such a happy story. And shiny, too.

“This story is brought to you by The Corporation: Because Your Life Can Always Be Better (TM). We at The Corporation would like you to enjoy this story, but please be vigilant while reading. If you should happen to notice anything suspicious in the coming pages, do alert the proper authorities. Remember, it could be anything at all — a subversive phrase, an improper thought or feeling let out of its genie bottle of repression, an idea that challenges the status quo, the suggestion that life may not be what it appears to be and that all you’ve taken for granted (malls, shopping, the relentless pursuit of an elusive happiness, prescription drug ads, those annoying perfume samples in magazines that make your eyes water, the way anchormen and women shift easily from the jovial laughter of a story about a dog that hula-hoops to a grave report on a bus crash that has left five teenagers dead) may be no more consequential than the tattered hem of a dream, leaving you with a bottomless, free-fall feeling.

“This is the sort of thing we are warning you about.

“But let’s not worry, shall we? There’s nothing to worry about. Though there is the threat of war, it happens in the background, in snippets on the nightly news between ads for sinus medicines. It’s none of our concern. This is a happy story.

“Now, our story begins, as many happy stories do, with a blue, blue sky. A blue, blue sky punctuated by thick white clouds; they drift across the expanse like semicolons, reminding us that there is more to come. The pilot, a man in his forties who once stayed on a mechanical bull for a full eight seconds, has just turned off the FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign. The flight is on its way to a remote tropical paradise where the girls will compete against one another for the title of Miss Teen Dream.

“Oh dear. Compete is a rather ugly word, isn’t it? After all, these are such lovely girls, pure of heart and high of spirits. Let’s say that they will be ‘drawing on their personal best,’ and some girls will ‘proceed on a path of Miss Teen Dreamdom’ while others will ‘have the option to explore other pageant opportunities elsewhere at an unspecified future time.’ Ah. There. That’s much better, isn’t it?”

That should give you the idea. If the above strikes you funny, you will enjoy this book, because that is just the beginning.

When twelve girls find themselves on a beach after the plane crash, Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins, Miss Teen Dream Texas, organizes them into two teams, The Sparkle Ponies and The Lost Girls, to find out what they have and deal with the situation. They’re determined to stay Pageant-ready until they are rescued. But rescue is not quick in coming.

Here’s the scene when the Lost Girls come back and report that there are no survivors at the plane crash site:

“Taylor’s sharp clap echoed on the beach, ‘Teen Dreamers! We need to focus like it’s the final interview round and the questions are all about anorexia and current events. Now, I know y’all are upset. This is just plain awful. But God doesn’t make mistakes. Is this a setback, Teen Dreamers?’

“‘Totally,’ wailed Miss Arkansas. Her left arm was broken. It had been bandaged into a ninety-degree angle as if she were perpetually waving to an unseen crowd.

“‘No, ma’am. No, it is not. I know what Ladybird Hope would say. She would say that this is an opportunity for growth and the establishment of your personal brand. Everybody loves a survivor. And everybody loves a Miss Teen Dream contestant. When you put those two together, you have a lot of hope. And big endorsement opportunities when we get back. Let’s get a woo-hoo goin’!’

“A halfhearted chorus of ‘woo-hoo’ rippled through the horseshoe-shaped cluster of exhausted, hungry girls.

“Taylor shouted, ‘Now, I know y’all can be louder than that!’

“‘WOO-HOO!’

“‘That’s the Miss Teen Dream spirit. Sparkle Ponies, report: What did y’all salvage from the plane?’

“The girls listed off their bounty: four hot roller sets, two straightening irons, a few teeth-bleaching trays, five seat cushions, three waterlogged beauty magazines, a notebook, laxatives, diet pills, a few suitcases filled with clothes, evening gowns, a collection of mismatched bathing suit tops and bottoms, various shoes, bags of pretzels, and bottles of water.”

It’s actually surprising how well the girls do under these difficult conditions. To add to the fun, the author throws in that they have crashed on an island where a government conspiracy is taking place. What’s more, after some weeks, the cast of the reality show, Captains Bodacious IV: Badder and More Bodaciouser and their shipload of pirates, gets shipwrecked on the very same island.

That should give you the idea. It’s not intended to be realistic. (Or is it?) The story is punctuated with pageant data sheets about the contestants and “Commercial Breaks” in favor of products made by The Corporation. I loved lines like this: “Lady ‘Stache Off. Because there’s nothing wrong with you. . . that can’t be fixed.”

This book is good, silly fun with barbs pointed at our corporate culture. Definitely an entertaining read.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/beauty_queens.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 Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run, by Michael Hemphill and Sam Riddleburger

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Historical, Humorous, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run

by Michael Hemphill and Sam Riddleburger

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2009. 168 pages.
Starred Review

This book was absolutely perfect reading for this weekend — the 150th anniversary of the 1st Battle of Bull Run. I actually had tickets to a reenactment today, an especially big one because of the Sesquicentennial. However, then we had a heat wave and I’ve had a headache for three weeks that I’m really hoping will finish up. Basically, I figured out that being outside during a heat advisory to watch people pretend to kill each other probably wouldn’t be a very smart thing to do. Instead, I read this book, and it thoroughly convinced me I made the right choice!

I love the way the book begins, giving you the tone right from the start:

“All right, let’s get the whole name thing out of the way quickly.

“My name is Stonewall Hinkleman.

“No, it’s not a nickname. It’s my real name. Like I tell my parents — even Stonewall Jackson’s real name wasn’t Stonewall. But they don’t listen and it’s too late now anyway. I’m stuck with it.

“So, you’d think I could at least go by my middle name, right? It’s Traveler, after Robert E. Lee’s horse. Yeah, that’s right, a horse!

“I’m Stonewall Traveler Hinkleman and if you think that’s as bad as it gets, you haven’t heard the worst part.

“You see, both of my parents are Civil War reenactors. This means my dad — who’s really a geeky computer tech — dresses up in a uniform and runs around in fields with a bunch of other boring guys who are all pretending they are in the Civil War. My mother pretends she’s a nurse, even though in real life she barfs at the sight of blood.”

And Stonewall explained all about a reenactment, so I didn’t need to see it myself!

“You want to know what a reenactment is really like? It doesn’t matter which battle it is, because they’re all the same.

“A big bunch of guys wearing blue Yankee costumes come huffing up the hill. Waiting for them are my dad’s friends — a big bunch of guys in gray Confederate costumes. We jump out and we charge. I have to blow my bugle and everybody else fires their guns, which don’t have ammo but are still ridiculously loud. About half of them fall down and pretend to be dead. They roll around with these hilarious grimaces on their faces. Then they’re still for a while, probably taking a nap or eating a candy bar, until the ‘battle’ moves somewhere else and they get back up and rejoin the ‘fight.'”

But the reenactment of the First Battle of Bull Run ends up being completely different for Stonewall. You see, he left his bugle at home. When he goes to buy a replacement, he’s given a magic bugle. He doesn’t know it’s magic until he blows it and it sends him back in time — to the actual Battle of Bull Run. It turns out, he’s been sent on a mission. A crazy right-wing nut has also gone back in time, and he’s planning to change history to make it so the South will win the war. Stonewall’s job is to stop him. Fortunately, the crazy guy’s beautiful daughter, about Stonewall’s age, also got sent back in time.

And the real battle is not anything like a reenactment.

“Am I freaked out? Of course I’m freaked out. Reenactments may be boring, but at least they’re predictable — pretend to charge, pretend to shoot, pretend to die. But there’s no pretend about this. I can actually hear bullets buzzing over my head. I look down. There’s a guy on the ground in front of me holding his bloody stomach and trying to keep his insides from spilling out. I throw up all that leftover soup I ate for breakfast.”

This book is a completely fun way to learn about Civil War history. I’ve listened to Bull Run, by Paul Fleischman. It’s very excellent and well-written, but I’m not sure I retained a lot. In this case, following along with Stonewall Hinkleman, I got a much better grasp of the advances and retreats involved in the battle. Of course, I’ve also been to the battlefield (It’s a few miles down the road.), so it was easy to visualize the houses, roads, and hills he refers to. (And that made me wonder how they can make the reenactment work at all, since it doesn’t take place on the actual battlefield, just on a big field — without the houses and hills at the actual battlefield.)

I loved it that Stonewall knew what was going on because of his parents being Civil War buffs and his having gone to reenactments all his life. He knew when Yankee charges were due; he knew when to expect retreat. His perspective makes it easy for the reader also to understand the various movements of the battle.

And Stonewall meets his great-great-great-great-uncle Cyrus, the one he’s always mocked for getting shot in the butt at Bull Run and dying of an infection. It turns out that Cyrus is a teen and the furthest possible thing from a coward. In fact, Stonewall would like to just get out of there, but that’s hard to do when someone like Cyrus is around, gallantly helping the injured, capturing artillery, and the like.

I’ll definitely be pushing this book all summer. In fact, I think it will make great reading for the entire Sesquicentennial. It gives you a taste both of what the war was like and also the whole reenactment craze. But even more, it’s a great read. Laugh-out-loud funny, but with real danger and a difficult task.

Sam Riddleburger is the pseudonym of Tom Angleberger, who wrote The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, and he’s becoming my number one choice of author for middle school boys. Though it’s not only middle school boys who love his books.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/stonewall_hinkleman.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 Ring of Solomon, by Jonathan Stroud

Adventure, Alternate History, Award Winners, Fantasy, Humorous, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Ring of Solomon

A Bartimaeus Novel

by Jonathan Stroud

Disney Hyperion Books, New York, 2010. 398 pages.
Starred Review
Winner of the 2011 School Library Journal Battle of the Kids’ Books

In honor of the completion of the 2011 School Library Journal Battle of the Kids’ Books, I thought it would be fun to post my reviews of the books in the competition which I hadn’t yet reviewed, and to feature excerpts from the judges’ brilliant commentary. It’s only fitting to begin with this year’s winner, The Ring of Solomon.

The Ring of Solomon is a stand-alone novel, but it uses the incredible, snarky, powerful, irreverent, infuriating, and footnote-writing djinni, Bartimaeus, from the Bartimaeus Trilogy. The book is truly independent, so you could read it before or after the trilogy. Really, it’s quite brilliant of the author to do this. When you have an unforgettable character who’s a djinni who’s thousands of years old and boasts about his time with Solomon, why not give us a picture of what happened at that time? The only thing the two sets of books have in common is the character of Bartimaeus (and I think another demon or two), and the alternate reality where magicians do works of power by binding demons to their will.

Solomon has a ring with a spirit attached to it that is so powerful, no one can stand against him. Of course, it is with the power of the ring that he gained his amazing wealth and carried out his magnificent building projects.

Bartimaeus starts out in the employ of one of Solomon’s under-magicians, but then comes under the power of Asmira, a dedicated girl assassin sent by the Queen of Sheba to assassinate Solomon and steal his ring — a suicide mission, as far as Bartimaeus is concerned.

When I read this book, I was as delighted as I expected to be. Brilliant writing, hilarious footnotes, and knuckle-clenching dangerous adventure. I liked it that the happy ending was not for the young girl to become another of Solomon’s wives. (I don’t think that’s a spoiler.) Now, there wasn’t as much emotional depth as in The Bartimaeus Trilogy. But that was a much longer work, a trilogy, and a work of towering genius that builds over the course of the three books. This book definitely kept me reading late into the night, had me laughing, and also very tense. It didn’t make me cry, as I’m quite sure The Bartimaeus Trilogy did, but it’s still a brilliantly plotted, wonderfully entertaining book.

But you don’t have to take my word for it! In School Library Journal’s Battle of the Kids’ Books, all four judges who were offered a choice between The Ring of Solomon and another excellent children’s book chose The Ring of Solomon. Below are excerpts from their explanations of their choice:

The first round judge, Adam Rex, called The Ring of Solomon “a rollicking fantasy about a waggish djinni who becomes unwittingly embroiled in plots to steal a ring of unfathomable power.” He says, with footnotes, “Stroud has crafted what you might claim on one hand to be an old-fashioned save-the-world adventure, complete with the requisite all-powerful MacGuffin and a real mustache twirler of a villain or two. He’s also made something that’s fresh and modern–modern in its sense of humor, modern in its irreverence. Okay, maybe irreverence isn’t all that modern, but it always feels like it is. Doesn’t every generation think they invented it?” He also says, ” Every chapter left me wanting more–if Stroud and I were in a Scheherazade/King Shahry?r situation I totally would not have killed him at any point.”

In the second round, judge Patricia Reilly Giff was confronted with a choice between a graphic novel retelling of The Odyssey vs. The Ring of Solomon. She describes the book as ” inventive, action packed and hysterically funny.” One of the factors that led her to choose The Ring of Solomon as the winner was that she “had to stay up at night to keep reading, just to see what Stroud had in store, those twists and turns that kept me guessing until the end.”

In the third round, Karen Cushman freely admitted, “I am not a big reader or a big fan of fantasy novels. When I saw early on that A Tale Dark and Grimm and The Ring were both in my bracket, I anticipated I would have an easy time eliminating them. This just goes to show you how much I know. And now I publicly shed my credentials as a thoughtful, caring, mature person and reveal my snarky, ironic underbelly.

“Woo hoo! The Ring of Solomon! I was gobsmacked. What a book!”

Karen Cushman goes on to eloquently point out the powerful themes that show up in this book, underneath the snarky humor and gripping adventure:

” I found it exuberantly plotted, with evocative descriptions, terrific language, and intriguing
characters, both human and otherwise.

“I loved the distinctive voice of the rude, irreverent, sarcastic, resourceful, and surprisingly lovable Bartimaeus. Sure, djinni eat people but still I felt great pity and compassion for his deep longing for home and hatred of his enslavement.

“The book is wonderfully funny but had wise things to say about slavery and freedom, mindless obedience, and dying for empty concepts. Asmira, the teenaged Sheban sent on a suicide mission, is a true believer to a fault. Wise Solomon tells her, “I’m not your master…try not to need one.” And Bartimaeus says, “I know I’m enslaved…That gives me just a shadowy slice of freedom.” As Jonathan Stroud tells it, the issues of 950 BCE are the same we face today–the dangers of terrorism, fanaticism, and zealotry, and the price of power.”

Finally, in the Big Kahuna Round, Richard Peck was faced with three outstanding fantasy titles, Keeper, A Conspiracy of Kings, and The Ring of Solomon. His explanation of the charms of The Ring of Solomon is truly eloquent:

“Even the viewpoint flits. At moments when Bartimaeus is stuck in a bottle or some other tight corner, the spotlight falls on Asmira, a mortal maiden capable of mayhem (and acrobatics), sent by the sour Queen of Sheba to murder the King and steal his empowering Ring.

“‘Steal the Ring? Kill Solomon?’” says Bartimaeus. “‘…I might as well eat myself feetfirst, or put my head under the bottom of a squatting elephant. At least those options would be entertaining to watch.’”

“But of course this odd couple won’t become thieving assassins. They will in fact find the sudden self-knowledge we expect in books for the young. But their epiphanies are gussied up beyond reason by wordplay and action/adventure, and more special effects than Avatar and Rango put together, all in full color.”

He sums up his decision:

“You could have fooled me. I didn’t expect I’d pick as winner four-hundred pages of magic fantasy with Biblical allusions and a footnote on the Songs of Solomon. But I do.

“Because its very length and the wit of its diction are stinging retorts to both the grade-level textbook and Facebook.

“And because the fun is in how the tale is told, the yarn spun. Jonathan Stroud doesn’t control language; he unleashes it. The real magic here is in the turning phrase, and how much our texting young need that, and the liberation of laughter.”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/ring_of_solomon.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 Clementine’s Letter, by Sara Pennypacker

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Humorous, Starred Review 0

Clementine’s Letter

by Sara Pennypacker
pictures by Marla Frazee

Hyperion Books for Children, New York, 2008. 150 pages.
Starred Review

I am so hooked on Clementine! This is the third book about this irresistible third-grader who knows how to pay attention — to the important things.

Just when Clementine is getting the hang of third grade and in sync with her teacher, he applies for a special program to send a teacher to Egypt. The class is supposed to write letters to the judges about their teacher, and Clementine decides to write a letter to make sure he doesn’t go.

Meanwhile, she has to deal with a substitute. A substitute who doesn’t know how things are done in their classroom.

“The rest of the morning got worse. By the time the recess bell rang, I bet I heard a hundred ‘Clementine-pay-attention!’s. And every time, I was paying attention!

“But okay, fine, not to Mrs. Nagel, because she had gone from boring to extra-boring. Instead, I was paying attention to the astoundishing idea that had jumped into my head when I passed by the trash-and-recycling area last night. Which was the opposite of boring, believe me.”

Sara Pennypacker doesn’t settle for just the story of what happens to Clementine at school. She also weaves in Clementine’s interactions with her parents and baby brother, her neighbor the prissy Margaret and Margaret’s brother Mitchell, and Clementine’s scheme to buy her mother a present. I love the way Clementine goes to find names for her brother. Since her name is also the name of a fruit, she feels her brother should have the name of a vegetable. She finds some interesting names at the Chinese grocery, and from then on we hear about Bean Sprout and Bok Choy and Scallion.

These books would make absolutely wonderful bedtime reading — if only I had a child young enough. I’ll keep it in mind some day for a grandchild! And meanwhile, if you’re lucky enough to have an early-elementary-school-age child to read aloud to, I think the Clementine books would make a delightful choice.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/clementines_letter.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 Suite Scarlett, by Maureen Johnson

Contemporary, Humorous, Light Reading, Teen Fiction Review 0

Suite Scarlett

by Maureen Johnson

Point (Scholastic), 2008. 353 pages.

In Scarlett’s family, when you hit your fifteenth birthday, you get keys. But these are not keys to a shiny new car. These are keys to a hotel room in an old Art Deco hotel in New York City.

Scarlett’s family owns the Hopewell Hotel, and a fifteenth birthday tradition has developed:

“At age fifteen, each Martin was ‘given’ a room in the hotel to care for. This was not an ancient tradition — it had started with Spencer four years earlier. He had gotten the rough-and-ready Sterling Suite. Lola had the attractive but small Metro Suite. The Empire Suite was something else entirely — the showpiece, and the most expensive of the hotel’s twenty-one guest rooms. It was rarely occupied, except for the occasional honeymoon couple or the lost businessman who couldn’t get a room at the W.

“So this was either an honor or a ‘we don’t actually want you to have to deal with any guests’ gesture.”

But soon after Scarlett receives the key, a guest arrives, planning to stay the whole summer. Her name is Amy Amberson, and she’s a former actress. She’s extremely interested in manipulating other people’s lives, and soon is messing with Scarlett’s, and manipulating Scarlett into messing with other people.

Meanwhile, the Hopewell is not doing well. They’ve had to let their cook go, and Scarlett will not be able to get a summer job, so that she can help at the hotel. Meanwhile, her brother Spencer is running out of time on the deal he made with their parents. If he doesn’t get a role on Broadway before his scholarship offer to culinary school expires — next week — then he needs to give up acting long enough to go to culinary school.

So when Spencer gets a part in a version of Hamlet that’s not on Broadway in the usual sense (it’s in a parking garage on the street called Broadway), he wants to make it work. And he wants Scarlett to help him. And Spencer’s new friend on the cast happens to be tremendously handsome. But things don’t go smoothly, so of course Mrs. Amberson wants to get involved.

Suite Scarlett is a whole lot of fun. I’ve been meaning to read it for awhile. I actually started listening to it in audiobook form, but the narrator was too perky for me. However, I was already interested, so I finished the book in print form.

This book is a big elaborate comedy with plots and counterplots all fitting together in the end. The characters are varied and believable, from meddling Mrs. Amberson to Scarlett’s spoiled little sister Marlene, who recovered from cancer and now thinks the world revolves around herself. I like the interaction in the Martin family — They definitely love each other, but have some realistic bumps in the relationships between siblings.

This light-hearted book is a lot of fun to read.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/suite_scarlett.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 Interruption of Everything, by Terry McMillan

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

The Interruption of Everything

by Terry McMillan

Read by Desiree Taylor

Penguin Audio, 2005. Unabridged. 10 CDs, approximately 12 hours.
Starred Review.

A big thank you to my sister Wendy for giving me this audiobook. It’s another one I’ve been meaning to review for a very long time, but didn’t get around to because it wasn’t a library book, and so didn’t have a due date. I know I listened to it more than a year ago, because I remember I was the same age as the protagonist, forty-four years old. But what happened in the book is still vivid in my mind, even after all this time. Perhaps since I listened to it, and thus “read” it over a long period of time, it stuck in my mind all the longer.

Marilyn Grimes is 44 years old and begins going through almost every issue a woman can face in midlife. She and her husband are growing apart, and she thinks he might be straying. She’d like to go back to school and pursue some old dreams, now that her kids are grown. But she still seems to be looking after everyone else.

Her mother’s mind seems to be drifting; her foster sister is in trouble with the law; her own hormones are doing strange things; her ex-husband comes back into her life; her husband goes to South America to “find himself.” Her daughter is expecting; her son gets into a ski accident; her mother-in-law, who lives with them, is finding romance. And that’s just part of it.

Honestly, before the end of the book, in my mind I was begging the author to have pity on poor Marilyn. But I needn’t have done so. Marilyn handles it all with humor and grace, and enough breakdowns and discouragement to still seem human. Her relationship with her two friends Paulette and Bunny adds laughter and perspective to her life as she navigates all the pitfalls of midlife and figures out what course she wants to set for the rest of her life.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/interruption_of_everything.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 Complete Peanuts: 1973 to 1974, by Charles M. Schulz

Humorous, Nonfiction Review 0

complete_peanuts_7374The Complete Peanuts

The Definitive Collection of Charles M. Schulz’s Comic Strip Masterpiece
Dailies & Sundays
1973 to 1974

by Charles M. Schulz
Introduction by Billie Jean King

Fantagraphics Books, 2009. 323 pages.

It’s that time of year again. Every six months, Fantagraphics Books comes out with another two-year volume of their collection of the complete Peanuts comic strip, and every six months, I need to remind my readers how marvellous each new volume is.

In the 1973-1974 collection, we have many wonderful classics of the strip. Charlie Brown almost meets his hero Joe Shlabotnik. Incredibly, Charlie Brown’s team wins a baseball game — but then has to forfeit because of gambling. Then he has his whole episode where he develops a rash like a baseball seam on the back of his head.

Lucy continues to bewail the fate of being in love with a musician, poor thing. Sally continues to write reports with creative explanations. (Did you know that people who encourage vandalism are Evandalists?) Snoopy is still quite the athlete, and still does impressions. I loved the strip where he imitates a vulture — but stops, embarrassed, when Woodstock lands next to him and starts doing the same thing.

Snoopy’s writing career is flourishing, or at least he is spending much energy pursuing it. His rejection letters achieve new heights. I love the way most of his works (filling only four panels, after all) are an elaborate set-up for a bad pun. Charles Schulz does a great job showing us how bad Snoopy’s writing is that way. For example:

She wanted to live in Canada. He wanted to live in Mexico. Thus, they parted. Years later, when asked the reason, she replied simply, “I just didn’t like his latitude!”

Ah, so beautiful.

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Review of My Fair Godmother, by Janette Rallison

Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Humorous, Teen Fiction Review 0

my_fair_godmotherMy Fairy Fair Godmother

by Janette Rallison

Walker & Company, New York, 2009. 311 pages.

After Savannah gives her brilliant older sister Jane a makeover, Savannah’s boyfriend suddenly sees Jane’s charms and takes up with her. In Savannah’s despair and sorrow, she gets a visit from her fairy godmother, but unfortunately learns that her fairy godmother is only fair at the job.

In fact, she seems a bit hung up on fairy tales. Savannah learns that life as Cinderella or Snow White is not much fun. Then she thinks she makes a wish that can’t be twisted — and ends up stuck in the Middle Ages until a nice guy from school can make himself a prince.

I admit I was thrown a bit at first, because the book started from Jane’s perspective. I was completely delighted to have a handsome, intelligent guy see the light and fall for the plainer, calculus-loving sister for a change! Oops! We weren’t supposed to be happy about that….

Well, several chapters further on, I was able to drum up some sympathy for Savannah. I must admit I’m not sure she didn’t deserve a few weeks as Cinderella, but she got them, and they did their work. Mostly, the author does a grand job making a delightful mess of fairy-tale situations and magic and the meaning of love.

Here’s a passage after Jane and her boyfriend get pulled into the Middle Ages, too:

Then I had to explain to Jane and Hunter how my fairy godmother had misunderstood certain statements I’d made and had sent Tristan back in time to become a prince. He still had two tasks left before he could achieve that goal and return to our time.

“Kill a dragon?” Hunter said as though he both envied and feared for Tristan. “Can you do that?”

“I’ve got to.”

Jane shook her head, disbelief seeping into her tone. “But your leprechaun told us that all you had to do to come home was to ask your fairy godmother.”

“Oh, well, that just means you were duped by a leprechaun,” I said.

Hunter cocked his head and looked at me narrowly. “Your fairy godmother won’t help you at all?”

“My fairy godmother won’t even take my calls. She’s sort of a teenage, airheaded shopping diva who didn’t pay attention very well in fairy school.”

Jane sat down on my bed and rubbed at her forehead wearily. “Well, that figures.”

I followed her with my gaze. “Meaning?”

“They must match fairy godmothers to people by type. You pretty much just described yourself.”

A truly fun tale of a clash between modern high school dating and fairy tales as they would be if you actually had to live in them.

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Review of Letters from Rapunzel, by Sara Lewis Holmes

Contemporary, Humorous, Teen Fiction Review 0

letters_from_rapunzelLetters from Rapunzel

by Sara Lewis Holmes

Winner of the Ursula Nordstrom First Fiction Contest
HarperCollins, 2007. 184 pages.

Cadence Brogan feels like Rapunzel. Only her tower is Homework Club, and she doesn’t have hair long enough to rescue her.

Cadence is a newly-identified genius who harnesses her creativity working hard to not give her teachers what they want. When she is required to do homework during after-school Homework Club, she keeps busy writing, but she’s writing letters to a mysterious “friend” of her father’s, using the pen name Rapunzel.

Cadence became Rapunzel when her father went away, a victim of the Evil Spell. Her mother calls it C. D., clinical depression, but Rapunzel is poetical, like her father, and thinks of it as the Evil Spell. She found a torn up letter her father was going to write to this mysterious friend. She doesn’t have even a name, but she does have the post office box number. The fragment says,

. . . You are the secret to my success as a poet and a human being. Writing these letters every day has helped me keep my heart open, to be willing to live, to keep the darkness . . .

Maybe if Cadence, as Rapunzel, can write letters to this mysterious benefactor herself, maybe she can draw back the darkness and get her father back from the hospital.

The book, Letters from Rapunzel tells the story of her quest, in the form of the letters she sends to the box, along with copies of her creative alternatives to her teacher’s assignmments. There is plenty of humor in the situations Cadence gets herself into, but plenty of poignancy as well, as she deals with her father’s absence and Evil Spell on top of pressures from school and her Mom. She uncovers things no one wanted to tell her along with some profound truths about herself.

This is definitely a promising first novel. It covers some profound issues with a light touch. Quick reading that will make you smile, but will also make you think.

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