I resolve to do better

Okay, my last post got interrupted and I never got back to it, so I am completely embarrassed and resolve to do better. Here's the book I most recently read and wrote about on GoodReads. Do you know that site? It's like Facebook for readers! I love it. I use it to keep track of what I have read and what I want to read, to check reviews on books we might get for the library, and to check up on my kids. It's totally invaluable!

The Revolution of Sabine by Beth Levine Ain

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this book set a few years before the French Revolution, but thought it filled with sterotypes -- the fop, the good peasants, the evil aristocrats, the charming, but clumsy, princess who is more at ease walking on cobblestones than dancing in a ballroom -- proof of her essential goodness. That said, I very much appreciated the ending. It's a pleasure to read a book about a teenage girl who recognizes that being parted from her "true love" might be the wisest thing for her, that it might actually help her grow.


View all my reviews.

Mysteries

I'm not normally a big mystery reader. I like them okay, but for some people mysteries are like potato chips. For me, they are more like popcorn. Great every once in a while, but I can leave it be. Now, potato chips, specifically those Kettle Salt and Fresh Ground Pepper ones.....I will eat those until I'm sick, but I digress.

Recently I found myself with two mysteries going. Not only that, they were both historical and with women protagonists. That took some mental aerobics, I can tell you! Anyway, it all got me thinking about mysteries and how fun they are.

So I just finished The Serpent's Tale, by Ariana Franklin. This is the second mystery about Adelia Aguilar, a Salerno-trained forensic pathologist. Turns out Salerno in the 12th century was a well-known center of "modern" medical knowledge, allowing Jews, Arabs and women to study in their college! The first novel is The Mistress of the Art of Death, in which the Henry II has sent to Salerno for a master of the art of death to investigate the murders of some children in Cambridge. He's upset because the Jewish population there is incarcerated and therefore, cannot pay their taxes, a major source of his treasury. Both novels are exciting, surprising and fun, a decidedly macabre way.

The other one I'm reading (not quite finished) is The Tenderness of Wolves, by Stef Penny. This one is a gnarly murder mystery, filled with people who are not what they seem, characters with suspicous backgrounds, and the cold and unforgiving Canadian north in the 19th century. Also exciting, surprising, but not so sure about the fun part.

For kids, I'd recommend Carolyn C. Cooney's Janie series. It starts with The Face on the Milk Carton. What would you do if you saw a picture of your 4-year-old self on a milk carton under the word Missing! Janie can even remember the dress she's wearing in the photo. What Janie does is question everything about her comfortable life, uncovering some hard truths.

Interludes

Check it out! The list of summer reads that we put together every spring is now online at http://library.bush.edu/news/summerreading08.htm

This year the theme is Interludes. I picked it inspired by my daughter Kitri. She called me one recent morning (before 9, in itself an amazing event) as she was sitting on the porch in the sun reading The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, by Jeanne Birdsall. She was thoroughly enjoying herself and the only thing she was missing was her mommy to read it to her.

As I thought about how gratifying the phone call was, about my love for that particular book with its vacation theme, and about the wonderful respite that summer is, the light bulb went on: Books about interludes, books expressing a certain suspension of the mundane. So armed with a theme, we put together a terrific collection of suggested books! From fishing to Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest, from that creative trance of crafting to travel stories -- there's something for everyone here. With some titles you might have to reach a little to see how the theme fits, but I couldn't leave off Garth Stein's new book, The Art of Racing in the Rain, for example.

Mary Ann Gwinn, The Seattle Times book editor, recently referred to "that trancelike state you achieve when you get deep into a book"* -- may your summer be filled with trancelike interludes.

*Gwinn, Mary Ann. "Literary blogger Mark Sarvas ventures into the receiving end of critique." The Seattle Times, May 25, 2008. Accessed online 5/29/08

Funny books

Where are all the funny books? What -- people don't like to laugh anymore? And teens, in particular. I mean, have you read any teen fiction lately? It's all about angst, abuse, and anger. I just read Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, by Gary D. Schmidt. It's a Newbery Honor book and a Printz Honor book, and there are 5 deaths in it, including two father figures and a best friend. Geez, you think maybe we could all just lighten up a little?

So, here is my list of books that are actually fun to read:
First, since I picked on him, is Gary D. Schmidt's newest book, The Wednesday Wars. It's great. It's funny and smart and has a boy protagonist. Eleven-year-olds and up should enjoy this story about how one kid starts to make sense of the world in 1968.

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex is also great fun. Tip and her alien friend J.Lo (he just likes the sound of it so he gave himself the name) take a road trip across America in the wake of an alien invasion. Also for eleven-and-up.

The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchit, is brilliant! Tiffany Aching is smart and self-assured, with a good head for cheese and a great vocabulary. She is also overwhelmed by a tribe of 6-inch-tall wild men who want to help her save the world.

For adults, Good Omens, also by Terry Pratchit with Neil Gaiman, is a total hoot. It's time for the Apocalypse, but somehow the Anti-Christ has gotten misplaced. Someone's head's going to roll over that, I can tell you!

And doggone-it -- read Pride and Prejudice! It is the ultimate romantic comedy. Cute young woman meets handsome man; gross misunderstanding at the beginning; tentative friendship derailed by obnoxious friends and relatives; ends in wedding bells. Nora Ephron couldn't have done it better! Jane Austen is the snarkiest!

Well, that gets us started anyway. What are your picks for when you just need a good laugh?

One Ugly Book

Okay, I haven't been tagged by someone and forced to reveal ten things about myself that no one else knows, but here are two things you should know in order to understand this post.

1. I love, love, love post-apocalyptic fiction.

2. I hate, hate, hate sloppy writing and certain grammatical errors. So, although I took home Scott Westerfeld's Uglies with great anticipation, because it portrays a world in which everyone gets an extreme makeover on their sixteenth birthday and goes to live in a special, super-groovy place, my hopes were soon dashed.

My first 'uh-oh' occurred when I read this little inscription: "This novel was shaped by a series of e-mail exchanges between myself and Ted So-and-So ..." AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH! First of all, you never come first, the other person does. Second, it's 'me', not 'myself'. That usage has become almost ubiquitous, but it's wrong. The sentence should read: "This novel was shaped by a series of e-mail exchanges between Ted and me..."

Go ahead, call me petty. Or point out that I used 'their' to modify 'everyone' instead of 'his or her'. And then tell me you couldn't do better than New Pretty Town, the name of the super-groovy place the newly-pretty sixteen-year-olds go to. I managed to get through a few chapters before exercising my option to put down any book that just plain annoys me.

I know this series is hot, hot, hot. Good on ya, Scott Westerfeld. I'll keep buying your books as my students ask for them. But as for me (not myself), I'd rather read The Boxcar Children.

Tamora Pierce

Yay, Mrs. Brown and Lindi for keeping the dream alive. Let's keep on posting.

I'm focusing right now on fiction that features strong girls/women but that aren't romances. I'm not interested in coupledom at the moment. The Tiffany Aching books are great for that. I'm just finishing Wintersmith, and although it's not as laugh-out-loud funny as Wee Free Men, I think it's in many ways more thought-provoking.

I haven't been a big Tamora Pierce fan, but she certainly writes about non-romantic heroines. I just read the mammoth Terrior, the first of the Beka Cooper series (others haven't been published yet, but are planned). I don't care for the violence in this book, but I admired the tough young woman Beka (who is an ancestor of Alanna), persevering in her need to find the perpetrator of a series of child murders.

Teach Me

Teach Me
by R.A. Nelson is one of the best books I have read in a long time. Lately, I've been trying to rekindle my passion for books and find any kind of material that will pull me in and suck me under to the point where reality seems like the story and the book seems like reality. This book did just that. From the moment I picked it up, I was hooked. The story is a little bit riskay but sweet and gripping. Carolina "Nine" decides to take a poetry class her last term of her senior year. In this class she learns about love, obsession and Emily Dickinson from her incredibly handsome teacher, Mr. Mann.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is craving a little romance, forbidden or not. Although this book drags out, it is lengthy in a good way. It leaves one happy that the story continues past the alloted time consumed by the affair.

Tiffany Aching

I just finished Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett and loved it! Funny? Oh yes, this is truly hilarious stuff! This title is the third of his three Discworld novels which feature Tiffany Aching, a young cheesemaker and witch-in-training, in cahoots with the Nac Mac Feegle, a race of 6-inch-tall men who are blue. Now whether that is because their skin is blue or because they are so heavily tattooed is uncertain. (No one really wants to look too closely at a Feegle as they are pretty ugly, nor do you want to ask a Feegle. You would likely be attacked, and believe it or not, a Feegle attack would be fierce and chaotic. The noise alone can stop a grown man. You see, they all use different battle cries and ... oh perhaps I'm getting distracted.) Anyway, the humor catches you and drags you in, and then -- kapowie! Pratchett sneaks in his ideas about what constitutes wisdom and bravery and living a life of integrity.

The Wee Free Men
Hat Full of Sky
Wintersmith

All three are highly recommended. I mean HIGHLY!! recommended.