2012 Totals:
57 books
Pages: 16,555, Audiobooks: 13 hours, 15 minutes
New Favorites: Wrapped, Lost on a Mountain in Maine, Stargirl, Shadow and Bone, The False Prince, The Night Circus
Old Favorites: The Egg and I, O Jerusalem, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and of course, The Book of Mormon!
57. Ruby Redfort: Look Into My Eyes (2012.12.26)
By: Lauren Child
Pages: 383
Genre: young adult fiction / spy / mystery / humor
Bex Rating: 9
Oh Lauren Child, I am your biggest fan.
Ruby Redfort was a fictional fictional spy character in the Clarice Bean novels by my favorite contemporary British author, Lauren Child (creator of Charlie and Lola). But fans were as obsessed with Ruby Redfort as Clarice Bean was, so Lauren Child decided to go ahead and write the Ruby Redfort novels that Clarice loves to read. Now they're just fiction; not fictional fiction.
This is the first (of many, I hope) novels about Ruby Redfort, super-smart 11-year-old. In Look Into My Eyes, we find out how Ruby starts working for the international spy organization known as Spectrum. Her parents, Brant and Sabina Redfort, are loving and kind, but not so smart, so Ruby's espionage exploits go unnoticed by them.
I love Ruby's best friend, Clancy Crew (a good-natured poke at Nancy Drew), the household manager (butler), Hitch, and how Ruby's secret messages are relayed to her each morning via the toaster: messages from Spectrum are toasted onto her bread. The only thing wrong with Ruby Redfort is that she's an American. I missed all of Lauren Child's Britishisms :).
Favorites:
- Ruby made a face. "Frilly" was neither in her vocabulary nor her wardrobe.
- If Ruby wore anything other than jeans and T-shirts, then it was usually secondhand. She was one of those girls who people talked about as "having her own style," which was sometimes meant as a compliment and sometimes not.
- MRS ARTHUR: Cake is in no way essential and should not be present in any child's diet.
RUBY: Cake is one of life's great wonders and who would deny wonder to a child? - Ruby was no early bird, everyone knew that. In desperation her parents had given her an alarm clock which showed a bird pecking at a worm. It made a pleasant tweeting sound if set for any time before 7 AM--later than that and it made sort of a strangled squawking noise.
- He was only about twenty-three and was dressed in a pathetically showy way. All hair product and bleached teeth but no style.
Vocabulary
- cerise: shade of red, from FRENCH rouge-cerise "cherry-red," from cerise "cherry"
By: Jennifer Bradbury
Pages: 309
Genre: young adult fiction / Regency period / Egyptology / adventure / romance
Bex Rating: 10!
I loved it from beginning to end! Jennifer Bradbury is a new writer to watch, in my opinion. I was attracted to it because of the delicious cover, I can't lie. I ordered it through Scholastic when Truman brought home a book order--it is going to be my favorite book to give to friends this Christmas!
This is a wonderfully, believably-written story about Agnes Wilkins, a girl of 17 who is about to make her debut into Bristish society in 1815. When she attends Lord Showalter's garden party and is asked to help "unwrap" a mummy (there really were such parties in England when Egyptology was all the rage), she stumbles on some information that may shape the destiny of the British empire. She is soon caught up in the adventure that she has always longed for.
Agnes loves the novels of "A Lady" (Jane Austen's assumed name when she first published her books) and is constantly quoting them in the book. The research and historical accuracy were perfect, as was the character development and the believability of the plot. I loved it! The ending made me think that there will be more to come and I am excited to see what happens for Agnes next.
Favorite Excerpts:
- Clarisse brought a tray laden with broth and a bit of bread--Mother's preferred remedy for female trouble. But when I found my time coming, I wanted little more than to be left along with half a rack of bacon.
- "A Lady's endings do tend to be insufferably happy," I admitted, recalling all the virtuous young women who managed to marry for love and money simultaneously. Fantasy of the highest order.
Vocab:
- havy cavy: wavering, doubtful, shilly shally
- kissing crust: 1- the soft part of the crust of a loaf of bread that happens when two loaves touch in the baking; 2- the bottom crust, or the small crusty nob at the corner of a loaf; 3- the under-crust in a pudding or pie
- decolletage: the neckline of a dress cut low in the front or back and often across the shoulders.
56. Edenbrooke (2012.12.07)
By: Julianne Donaldson
Pages: 258
Genre: "proper romance" (that's what it says on the cover) / Austen-esque fiction / Regency period / bildungsroman
Bex Rating: 7.5
This book would go in the "gentle books" section of my local library, meaning that, though it is a romance novel, there's nothing smutty or salacious or crude.
This is the story of Marianne Daventry, who has always lived in the shadow of her beautiful twin sister. It's very much written in the style of Jane Austen's novels. It was a quick, fun read, though (as my friend Barb described it) "not very cerebral." Still, I liked it--it's good to read a light-hearted romance novel once in a while. And it did, in fact, make me feel grateful for my husband and for the institution of marriage--always a good thing.
- squab: a thickly stuffed, soft cushion.
- reticule: a small purse or bag, originally of network but later of silk, rayon, etc.
- epee: a rapier with a three-sided blade and a guard over the tip, for use in fencing.
55. A Year Down Yonder (2012.12.05, book club)
By: Richard Peck
Audiobook: 3 hours, 24 minutes (I read it once before--it was great to listen to!)
Genre: young adult / humor / coming-of-age / grandparents / small town life /
Bex Rating: 9.5
54. Turtle in Paradise (2012.12.04)
By: Jennifer L. Holm
Pages: 177
Genre: young adult / Great Depression / coming-of-age / Key West / humor
Bex Rating: 9
Fun Newbery read. Not as good as Holm's other Newbery Honor, Penny From Heaven, but still very enjoyable.
- Mama keeps her hair long as a good dream, because that's the way Archie likes it.
- "I don't like babies. They're like Shirley Temple: everyone thinks they're cute, but the fact is they're annoying."
By: James Patterson
Pages: 424
Genre: young adult / science fiction / superheroes / suspense / thriller
Bex Rating: 7.5
Meh. It's the first James Patterson I've ever read and it was definitely fast-paced and plot-driven, but I didn't care enough about the characters to keep going in the series. It's a lot like X-Men.
52. Lawn Boy Returns (2012.11.15)
By: Gary Paulsen
Pages: 101
Genre: young adult / middle grade / entrepreneur / humorous
Bex Rating: 8
I love Lawn Boy so much that I read to read the second one. It's so short, but the two books together would make a decent young-adult novel about the perils of making too much money.
- Some people take yoga classes or meditate, but for me, sitting on the lawnmower helps me make sense of things. There's something about looking at the picture of the turtle and the rabbit on the throttle that puts everything into perspective.
- Grandma's hair was red. Not red like Little Orphan Annie or Lucille Balle. Red like Bozo the Clown. Red like a fire truck. Red like all the red in the history of the whole entire universe had been concentrated on her head. Her hair glowed. And shimmered. When she moved, I could see . . . sparkles. The brightness made me wince.
- Chapter 7 Title: The Detrimental Influence of Fame and the Loss of Privacy as a Result of Prosperity.
51. Trouble Maker (2012.11.13)
By: Andrew Clements
Pages: 140
Genre: young adult / middle grade / school story / changing course / succeeding in school
Bex Rating: 8
Not quite as good as Extra Credit, but still a quick, enjoyable read, as always.
This is the story of Clay, a sixth-grader who delights in goofing off and causing mischief. He especially wants to impress his older brother, Mitch, who got sent to the principal's office at least two times a week throughout his own school career, and whom Clay idolizes.
But when Mitch comes home from a 30-day jail term, he is not impressed or excited about the stunt Clay pulled that day (drawing a donkey-portrait of the principal and showing it to everyone). In fact, he makes Clay promise that he will change his trouble-making ways and start doing well in school, telling him that he doesn't want Clay to end up in jail, like he did. He takes Clay to the mall and gets him a haircut, buys him new clothes, and Clay promises that he will stop goofing off. Only it's much harder than he thinks.
Here's a great excerpt:
[Clay] knew what Hank thought about him--that he was too afraid to goof around now, afraid of the rules, afraid to have any fun at all.
Fun--there was that word again. What did it mean, anyway?
Was it fun to mow the lawn? No. Not fun.
But . . . it did feel good when he was done. And when his dad looked the lawn over and said "Nice work," that felt good, too. And getting paid his allowance money? That absolutely was fun.
50. Extra Credit (2012.11.12)
By: Andrew Clements
Pages: 183
Genre: young adult / middle grade / school story / pen pals / Afghanistan / succeeding in school
Bex Rating: 9
I've never met an Andrew Clements book I didn't like. He really is the master of the middle-grade school stories. This one goes up with my favorites: Frindle and A Week in The Woods. It's the story of Abby Carson, who finds out, three months before sixth grade is over, that she will be held back if her grades don't improve. And it's also the story of Sadeed, a 12-year-old boy in Afghanistan who receives letters from Abby as part of an extra credit project she is doing.
This story has several really great morals: one of which is that it's an inspiring story about working hard, changing bad habits, and finding success. I especially recommend it for any parent who has a child who is struggling in school with feeling just plain unmotivated. It also highlights the lives of two Afghani children who are trying to succeed academically in a country where education is not universally prized, especially for girls and women.
I loved it! I love the letters between the two kids. I love the interactions between Sadeed and his little sister, Amira. I love how Andrew Clements writes about the interests and hobbies of his main characters--it's always so descriptive and enjoyable to read (in this book, Abby loves rock-climbing).
So good, I think I'll read another . . .
49. Eggs (2012.11.06)
By: Jerry Spinelli
Pages: 220
Genre: young adult fiction / dealing with loss
Bex Rating: 7.5
I don't like sad books, but I can handle them if there is something else to balance the sadness ( a good lesson, great writing, memorable characters, humor, etc). I was glad about the way this book ended . . . but it was still mostly a sad book about sad kids who are mean to each other as they try to sort out their grief. I gave it a 7.5, because it still had a good message and Jerry Spinelli is a good writer.
Good parts:
- He let [the word] hang there: "silly." He said nothing. Unreplied to, the word got bigger and bigger, filling the car, suffocating her, forcing her to open her mouth and take it back, swallow it.
- [His mother's] humming had been the night-light of his life.
- Of course, all of their words for a thousand years could not fill the hole left by his mother, but they could raise a loving fence around it so he didn't keep falling in.
By: Laurie R. King
Pages: 266
Genre: mystery / historical fiction / Sherlock Holmes
Bex Rating: 8.5
My review of this just got erased. I may or may not write it again. But Laurie R King did not disappoint! This installment was MUCH better than the last one, The Pirate King.
47. Clementine and the Family Meeting (2012.10.29)
By: Sara Pennypacker
Illustrated by: Marla Frazee
Pages: 162
Genre: children's fiction / coming-of-age / new baby /amazing illustrations / humor
Bex Rating: 9.5
Why can't every elementary-grade book be this good? If you are unfamiliar with the Clementine books, you are missing a sweet slice of American children's literature. It's as funny as Junie B. Jones, but with some depth. And really amazing, patient parents. I always want to be a better parent when I read these books.
This volume has Clementine worried about a family meeting. Then REALLY worried when the family meeting turns out to be an announcement about a new baby coming to the family. To top it all off, her science project (the class rat, named Eighteen) has escaped, and her best friend Margaret is obsessed with makeup.
Favorite excerpts:
- Just then the meanest lunchroom lady, the one who always says no to more chocolate milk, came out and glared at my class, which meant they were making the really big mistake of laughing when they were supposed to be eating.
- Dad reached over and opened the marmalade, which is a kind of jelly that grown-ups pretend to like even though it has orange grinds in it, which we throw away for a reason.
- "Clementine, I've been thinking, [Dad] said "I tried to put myself in your place, and I asked myself, what if my kids told me they were getting another dad? That they loved me just fine but they thought our family had room for another father, and they hadn't asked for my opinion. How would I feel about that, I asked myself. And the answer was that I would feel a lot like you seem to feel."
"But that's not the same thing at all, " I told him.
"Well, not exactly, no. It's different with parents, of course. But the point is, it helped me understand how you felt. I just want you to know that I get it." - "But you said!" I tried in my "I'm-a-kid-so-I've-got-plenty-of-energy-to-outlast-you" voice.
46. The God of the Hive {Mary Russell, book 10} (re-read for the second time 2012.10.28)
By: Laurie R. King
Pages: 354
Genre: mystery / historical fiction / Sherlock Holmes
Bex Rating: 9 (previous review: 2010, #21)
This is really the second part to the ninth Mary Russell book, The Language of Bees. But I like having two separate stories instead of one long 800-page volume. And the villain changes in this tenth book to one far more sophisticated than the religious maniac, Reverend Brothers.
Holmes and Russell are separated for almost the entire novel: Holmes taking care of his son Damian in Holland while Mary cares for Estelle in the forests of Cumbria in England. To me, the best parts of the novel are the chapters where Mycroft is imprisoned and trying to reason his way out of captivity. This book deals with Sherlock's older brother more than any other novel in the series, and it is a great feat of imagination.
I enjoyed this volume much better on my second reading. When I first read it two years ago, I was disenchanted with the Robert Goodman character who helps Mary and Holmes' granddaughter, Estelle. But this time, he charmed me, and I believed in the credibility of his character. Here are some favorite excerpts and vocabulary:
- I had much to learn about small children. Such as the ability to ride pickaback, and the inability to whisper.
- For the [Jewish] rabbis, the existence of god is no more of a question than the existence of air: Doubt is how we converse with Him.
- I wished my eyes when they glared went grey and cold like Holmes' instead of light blue, bloodshot, and concealed by spectacles.
- The gods of this England were film stars and dispensers of tawdry advice, and they embraced bitter frivolity rather than the deep and supple exuberance of woodland creatures. In this England, Ariel would wear a straitjacket, Hamlet would be fodder for the gossip columns.
Vocabulary a la King:
- alacrity: (I should have remembered this one) 1-cheerful readiness, promptness, or willingness 2- liveliness; briskness.
- St Vitus' Dance: named after St. Vitus (3rd century), patron saint of those afflicted with chorea: any of several diseases of the nervous system characterized by jerky, involuntary movements, chiefly of the face and extremities.
- Croix de Guerre: a French military award for heroism in battle; literally "Cross of War"
- moribund: (should have remembered this one, too) in a dying state; near death; on the verge of extinction or termination.
- louche: dubious; shady; disreputable.
- charabanc: a large bus used on sightseeing tours, especially one with open sides and no center aisle.
- mufti: civilian clothes, in contrast with military or other uniforms, or as worn by a person who usually wears a uniform.
- moue: a pouting grimace.
- epicanthic: a fold of skin extending from the eyelid over the inner canthus of the eye, common among Mongoloid peoples.
45. Dead End in Norvelt (2012.10.23)
By: Jack Gantos
Pages: 341
Genre: young adult fiction / coming-of-age / mystery / humor / history / Newbery / Newbery Medal
Bex Rating: 7.5
I thought this book was fairly good, but not Newbery material. I especially can't believe it was the medal-winner, and not just an honor winner. There seemed to be large gaps in the story and parts that happened too quickly and unbelievably. I actually started this book two weeks ago, but stopped reading it and read books 43 and 44 instead. Then I decided to finish it last night.
It's the story of as boy named Jack Gantos (though I don't think it's completely autobiographical) who is grounded for the entire summer when he accidentally shoots his dad's rifle off, not knowing it was loaded. The only thing his mother will let him out of the house for is to help the aging Miss Volker to write obituaries of deceased residents of Norvelt for the town newspaper.
I think my kids might enjoy it more than I did. Some parts were funny, but aimed at a younger audience, I think.
44. The Language of Bees {Mary Russell, Book 9} (2012.10.21)
By: Laurie R. King
Pages: 433
Genre: mystery / historical fiction / Sherlock Holmes
Bex Rating: 9.5 (previous review: 2010, #20)
Definitely the most thrilling installment in the Mary Russell Series. I am glad I had forgotten a lot of the fine details.
The story begins when Damian Adler, Holmes' estranged son from his liaison with Irene Adler, comes into the lives of Holmes and Russell, asking them to help find his missing wife and child. The story takes the trio across the British Isles, chasing a religious fanatic who has gotten hold of Yolanda and Estelle Adler.
This volume is deliciously creepy--with the perfect amount of darkness strewn along the investigative trail. And it has a total cliff-hanger ending. So glad I already have The God if the Hive waiting to be re-read . . .
Favorites:
- Communication is such a complex mechanism: a statement, that, at another time or in a different intonation, would have set alight his smouldering ill temper had instead magically restored companionship.
- I had reached that stage where concern and irritation were piling atop one another to create a volatile mix.
- Harrods is a meeting place for another kind of worship, that of excess in all its glory. Under the stoutest of circumstances, I can tolerate twenty minutes inside its decorative doors before my fingers begin to twitch and my eyes scan the endless halls for an exit. But then, I am not a person who considers browsing through shops a recreational activity. [Oh, Mary, you're a girl after my own heart]
- Considering that they were all here by eight o' clock and it was now half-past, they were well past the first stage of discussing their shock and sadness and well into the I-told-you-so and she-brought-it-on-herself stage.
Vocabulary {as only the peerless Laurie R. King can provide}:
- nostrum: a medicine sold with false or exaggerated claims and with no demonstrable value; quack medicine.
- eidetically: (of visual, or sometimes auditory, images) exceptionally vivid and allowing detailed recall of something previously perceived: thought to be common in children
- alembic: 1- a vessel with a beaked cap or head, formerly used in distilling; 2- anything that transforms, purifies, or refines.
- A Passage to India (book reference), by E.M. Forster
By: Donn Fendler
Pages: 109
Genre: young adult / nonfiction / true account / history / survival
Bex Rating: 10!
I don't give a 10 to just any book. In fact, I think I've only given it to 8-9 books that I've reviewed on this blog in the past five years.
This true story is required reading for all fourth graders in the state of Maine. It is the first-person account of Donn Fendler, a 12-year-old boy who was separated from his father and brothers and lost for NINE DAYS in the forest wilderness of Maine below Mount Katahdin, in 1939. He covered over a hundred miles and went from 74 pounds to 58 pounds in those nine days, surviving by eating small handfuls of wild strawberries and drinking from mountain streams. He lost his shoes and pants on the second day of his journey. He saw two bears and many deer, but the worst thing he encountered (aside from starvation and exposure) was relentless hordes of biting insects. It was national news at the time it happened, and made quite a sensation in all the newspapers and radio shows.
Donn is still alive, and tours schools and libraries in Maine talking with young adults about his experience. You can read more about it here.
I had many favorite excerpts, most of them being times when Donn relates that, after starting his horrible, hazardous journey each morning, he would remember to say his prayers and stop and pray right then. Here are some of them:
- I kept thinking of Mommy and Daddy and wondering about them, and then I said some more prayers and felt better inside. I felt that God would help me if I needed help.
- It never came into my head that a fellow could get so badly lost in the United States of America, and that days would pass without seeing a soul.
- I was pretty stiff, but I knew I had to jump; so I tossed the dungarees ahead of me. In one pocket, I had a big rock I was carrying back to Mommy from the top of Mount Katahdin. Maybe she'd use it as a paperweight or a doorstop. That rock was heavy, and I knew Mommy would like it, so I carried it along.
Well, I didn't have strength enough to toss my pants clear across . . . the pocket with the stone it in slapped onto the side with a dull thud. And there my dungarees hung for a second, slowly slipping inch by inch into the white water, racing below. All I could do was watch them slip.
I couldn't believe it. My pants were gone. There I was like a kewpie or something. What would I say when I came around a bend and found a camp? I couldn't walk in like that and say, "I'm Donn Fendler. Please telephone my dad I'm here." Everyone would die laughing. - I can throw a baseball pretty straight, and there plenty of round stones handy, but I didn't want to kill that deer. I felt glad it had come, and I felt glad it wasn't afraid of me. I watched the deer for a long time. When it had gone, I closed my eyes. Just before I went off to sleep, I thought of a glass of milk--a big, cold glass with white foamy milk in it. Boy, the juice ran down the corners of my mouth just thinking of it! Anyone who doesn't like milk is crazy.
- When I was feeling worst, I got down on my knees and prayed. I had to hunt some moss, because my knees were so sore they almost made me scream when I went down on them, but I found the moss under a tree and I prayed as hard as I could. I prayed out loud, too, asking God to help me to because I needed help, and asking Him not to let Mommy and Dad worry and asking Him for food--just something to keep me going until I found a camp and, oh yes, I asked Him to help me get out and not let my feet go back on me. I had to ask him about my feet because my toes were so stiff I couldn't bend them. They stuck straight out and the ends were cut and worn, and my left foot had a slice cut right out of it.
- I believe in Guardian Angels and, on my trip through the woods, one of the things that comforted me and helped me to bring myself out to safety was this feeling that I wasn't entirely alone.
In the night, in those dark woods, that feeling helped me and, in the daytime, when the going was awfully hard, I felt as though I had someone to lean on, and that helped, too.
42. Journey to the River Sea (2012.09.26)
By: Eva Ibbotson
Pages: 298
Genre: young adult / adventure / Brazil
Bex Rating: 9
I'm glad the first book I read by Eva Ibbotson did not disappoint. I got this from paperbackswap after reading about it in the third Penderwick book (scroll down to review #32). I didn't realize that Eva Ibbotson is a new author and is still writing books now. She's from Great Britain, so it's no surprise that the success of her young adult books has been somewhat overshadowed by JK Rowling and Harry Potter.
Maia is an orphaned girl who's only relatives live in a rubber plantation in the Amazon jungle. She is so excited to meet them and live with them, but they turn out to be completely horrible relatives, only taking her in so they can get their hands on Maia's inheritance. But where her aunt and uncle despise everything about Brazil and long to return to England, Maia falls in love with the Amazon and its people.
Favorite parts:
- Mr Murray was Maia's guardian, but he was also a lawyer and never forgot it. Things had to be done carefully and slowly and written down.
- "Maybe that's the point of fathers. They're people who show you things."
- "[The trustees] don't approve of a stuffed Pekingese in a serious museum."
- A governess who let her charge sail up the rivers of the Amazon and live with Indian tribes could hardly be expected to keep her job.
Vocab:
- kedgeree: (maybe I'll remember it this time, since it's a word I wrote down from O, Jerusalem, review #24 this year) 1- East Indian Cookery . a cooked dish consisting of rice, lentils,and spices.2- a cooked dish of rice, fish, hard-boiled eggs, butter, cream,and seasonings.
- a game of quoits: a traditional game which involves the throwing of metal, rope or rubber rings over a set distance, usually to land over or near a spike (so, like horse-shoes?)
41. Stargirl (2012.09.23)
By: Jerry Spinelli
Pages: 186
Genre: young adult / coming-of-age / high school / first love / being yourself
Bex Rating: 9.5
I loved this book from beginning to end. Thanks for the recommendation, Shelby M!
"Stargirl" is the new girl in school, and it's obvious to everyone she came from home-schooled roots. She doesn't care what other people think. She's completely unique and wants to care for and love everyone. So Leo Borlock is surprised when he starts to fall for her--even more surprised to find out she likes HIM.
Great writing, amazing message, sweet love story, and compelling plot. I wholeheartedly recommend it!
- And each night in bed I thought of her as the moon came through my window. I could have lowered the shade and made it darker and easier to sleep, but I never did. In that moonlit hour, I acquired a sense of the otherness of things.
- A baseball bat could not have hit me harder than that smile did. I was sixteen years old. In that time, how many thousands of smiles had been aimed at me? So why did this one feel like the first?
- She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.
40. Locked Rooms {Mary Russell, Book 8} (2012.09.19)
By: Laurie R. King
Pages: 485
Genre: mystery / historical fiction / Sherlock Holmes
Bex Rating: 8.5 (previous review: 2010, #16)
I love this book because it finally answers some questions about Mary's past--how the death of her family in an automobile crash affects her for the rest of her life. There are some great chapters from Holmes' point of view, and I love how Laurie King only improves upon Conan Doyle's famous protagonist.
Favorite excerpts:
- "Why does it not surprise me that the sound of a pistol would herald the arrival of my wife," Holmes drawled, and stood away from the door so we could enter.
- It is a singularly disconcerting experience to discover a supremely competent individual brought to her knees; even more so when that person is one's wife.
- "You don't like guns and you don't like motorcars. Are you certain you're American?"
- Sundays were invariably a source of frustration to Holmes: Why was the world so enamoured of its day of rest, rendering itself unavailable to a decent, hard-working detective?
Vocab a la Laurie R King:
- hors de combat: [French] out of the fight; disabled; no longer able to fight.
- in situ: [Latin] situated in the original, natural, or existing place or position
- recherche: [French] sought out with care; very rare, exotic, or choice; arcane; obscure; of studied refinement or elegance; precious; affected; pretentious.
- chary: cautious or careful; wary; shy; timid; fastidious; choosy:
- Aegean stables: The fifth Labour of Hercules was to clean the Aegean stables. This assignment was intended to be both humiliating (rather than impressive, as had the previous labours) and impossible, since the livestock were divinely healthy (immortal) and therefore produced an enormous quantity of dung. These stables had not been cleaned in over 30 years, and over 1,000 cattle lived there. However, Hercules succeeded by rerouting the rivers Alpheus and Peneus to wash out the filth.
39. The Game {Mary Russell, Book 7} (re-read 2012.09.10)
By: Laurie R. King
Pages: 368
Genre: mystery / historical fiction / Sherlock Holmes
Bex Rating: 9 (previous review: 2010, #13)
I savored this book much more than I did when I first read it two years ago. For one thing, I definitely need to read Rudyard Kipling's book Kim, and maybe more Kipling in general. I do think the villain in this book is the most evil of the Mary Russell books so far--he sends a chill up my spine.
This installement has Holmes and Russell traipsing through India to look for one of Mycroft Holmes' lost operatives, none other than Kimball O'Hara, the actual person about whom Kipling based his book, Kim. They are steeped in the world of British occupied India in 1924, not long before India declared her independence
For contemporary crime fiction, you really can't get better writing than Laurie King's Mary Russell series--she is quite an incredible writer and always draws me in. She also must reads stacks and stacks of books for research.
Favorites:
- It meant boarding an Eastbound train, one of those locals that pauses at every cattle shed and churchyard, and which cowers in a siding every fee miles that an express may thunder past in majesty . . . still, I had a book.
- He was so polite, I longed to kick his shins.
- I have no objection to decoration, if it doesn't interfere with function.
- It was never easy, partnering with a man with as much experience as Holmes had---I truly detest the sensation of incompetence.
- Amber, when warm, gives out a faint aroma, the odour of slow time. I out the spilling double-handful up to my face, and inhaled its trace of musk, laced with the tang of betrayal. Sunny Goodheart gave me the necklace because it looked pretty on me; I accepted the gift because it would remind me of consequences.
Vocabulary du jour:
- bailiwick: a sphere of authority, experience, activity, study or interest.
- frisson: A sudden strong feeling of excitement or fear; a thrill.
- box-wallahs: small-scale travelling merchant peddlers in India. They were known as boxwallahs because of the large boxes in which they carried their merchandise
- blancmange: part of the cake family, a sweet dessert commonly made with milk or cream and sugar thickened with gelatin, cornstarch, and often flavored with almonds. It is usually set in a mould and served cold and is traditionally white in color.
By: Anne Ylvisaker
Pages: 224
Genre: young adult / coming-of-age / mystery / small town life / 1929
Bex Rating: 8
This was a fun, quick read about a girl named Tugs Button, who sets out to break a longstanding family trait: that all Buttons are unlucky. She makes friends with the most popular girl in town, wins a Brownie camera, and solves a mystery while she's at it. I loved the historical information about small, midwestern towns in the late 1920s.
Favorite excerpts:
- Tugs looked down through her camera's viewfinder and pivoted slowly all the way around and down and up. It was like watching a movie, seeing the bandstand, the bakery, the soft evening sky go by in that tiny frame. These were the same ordinary sights she'd been seeing her whole life, but suddenly they were sharp and beautiful, like little jewels collected in a box. To think---only this morning she'd been and ordinary twelve-year-old girl with snarly hair, gangly limbs, and a propensity for calamity, and now, just hours later, here she stood, Tugs Button: ribbon winner, Kodak owner.
- Oh the beauty of it. This little box could capture the world. How had she not known that she needed just this very thing in her life?
37. The Egg And I (re-read for 2nd time 2012.08.26,)
By: Betty MacDonald
Pages: 287
Genre: memoir / humor / chickens / hardship / 1930s
Bex Rating: 9.5 (previous review: 2010, review #4)
I am hosting book club soon and chose this book for our members to read. After finishing it for the second time, I am confident I made the right choice. It is FUNNY. Laugh-out-loud hilarious. What a delightful woman Betty MacDonald must have been. I definitely need to read her Mrs Piggle-Wiggle children's books.
This is Betty's recounting of how her brand-new husband "surprises" her by buying a chicken ranch in the mountains of Washington with no indoor plumbing or electricity, and how they make a go of it for 3-4 years in the backwoods of the Olympic Mountains. She's got such a wit! It reads like Wodehouse, but from an American working-class woman's point of view. No wonder I love it.
Favorite new excerpts (in addition to the large amount of excerpts from when I last reviewed):
- Mother had been raised to believe that if you were unfortunate enough to be born with a pale green face, you, if you were a lady, would not for a moment entertain the thought of rouge, but would accept your color as your cross and do nice things for poor people.
- Being chickens, instead of laying in row upon row of convenient new nests, they laid their eggs on the dropping boards at the entrance of rat holes or out in the yard.
- I learned the inadequacy of "Oh dear!" and "My goodness!" and the full self-satisfying flavor of [more colorful expressions] rolled around on the tongue.
- Bob, whom I accused of having been sired by a vacuum cleaner, was of that delightful old school of husbands who lift up the mattresses to see if the little woman has dusted the springs.
- The rooster, now, is something else again. He doesn't give a damn if you take every egg in the place and play handball. He doesn't care if the chicken house is knee-deep in weasels and blood. He just flicks a speck from his lapel and continues to stroll around, stepping daintily over the still warm but lifeless body of a former mistress, his lustful eye appraising the leg and breast of another conquest.
- The parlor was never used. It was the clean white handkerchief in the breast pocket of the house.
- Bob said that the secret of success int he chicken business was to keep the operation to a size that could be handled by one man. He estimated that one man could handle 1500 chickens (provided his wife was part Percheron) by himself and make a comfortable living.
- I got so I could dress chickens like an expert, but have wondered since how this ability to defeather a chicken in two minutes without once tearing the skin, my only accomplishment, could ever be mentioned socially.
- The farmers wanted to be sad and they wanted everyone who called on them to be sad. When you went into the barn you looked over the heifer calves and said, "Lots of t.b. in the valley this year." Then the naighbor said, "Contagious abortion is around, too." I learned that our farmers werelike those women who get an some sort of inverted enjoyment out of deprecating their own accomplishments--women who say, "This cake just turned out terribly!" and then hand you a piece of angel food cake so light you have to hold it down to take a bite.
- Men are so much less demanding in a friendship. A woman wants her friends to be perfect. She sets a pattern, usually a reasonable facsimile of herself, lays a friend out on this pattern and worries and prods at any little qualities that do not coincide with her own image. She simply won't be bothered with anything less than ninety percent congruity, and will accept the ninety percent only if the other ten percent is shaping up nicely and promises conformity within a short time.
A man has a friend, period. He acquires this particular friend because they both like to hunt ducks. The fact that the friend discourses entirely in four-letter words, very seldom washes, chews tobacco and spits at random is drunk a good deal of the time and hates women, in no way affects the friendship. If the man notices these flaws in the perfection of his friend, he notices them as casually as he does his friend's height, the color of his eyes, the width of his shoulders; and the friendship continues at an even temperature for years and years and years.
Vocab:
- mangels: a large coarse yellow- to reddish-orange beet grown chiefly as food for cattle
- Percheron: well-muscled French draft horse, known for their intelligence and willingness to work
By: Steve Augarde
Pages: 448
Genre: young adult fantasy / fairies / adventure
Bex Rating: 8
I felt slightly bogged down in the middle of this hefty book, but the end was pretty exciting, and the writing was both beautiful and . . . comfortable? I mean, all the scenes with Midge and her uncle and cousins were so realistic--like how a real family is, funny and sarcastic and endearing.
When Midge's mom dumps her at Mill Farm to spend the summer with an uncle she barely knows, Midge is surprised to find how quickly she take to country life. But it's nothing compared to her surprise when she discovers (and saves) a tiny, winged horse trapped under some machinery in the cowshed. The horse leads her through the brambles into another world, where The Various, five tribes of little people, live.
This is my third "first book" to read in a row. Not my usual strategy, but it's fun to read new stories and a new series. This trilogy has already been completed, so I won't have to wait for sequels like I will with Shadow and Bone and The False Prince. I picked it up because it was recommended in one of the Penderwick books, and I have loved Jeanne Birdsall's recommendations so far.
Excerpts:
- Midge dumped her carrier bags on the divan bed and decided she liked the room after all. It looked so silly and frivolous--like a wedding hat on a scarecrow--and Uncle Brian was so obviously proud of it, that she made up her mind to love it.
- Ardel was just climbing into the saddle of his speech and had no intention of dismounting at this point.
- It was like sitting in a cinema. In the dim interior of the three-sided [tree]house, the open end became a bright oblong screen, with all the early morning world showing in brilliant technicolour--a slow moving nature film, in real time.
- Midge felt calm, and content just to sit and stare--as one might stare at a deer or a fox in a rare and privileged encounter, each aware that the other one does not belong in the other's world, each aware that the other one means the other no harm, a mirrored glance of curiosity and acknowledgement, before travelling on.
- sack truck = a hand truck, or dolly
- hessian sack = burlap or jute sack
35. Shadow and Bone, Grisha Trilogy, Book I (2012.08.11)
By: Leigh Bardugo
Pages: 356
Genre: young adult / fantasy / epic / Russian
Bex Rating: 9.5!
I can't stop thinking about this book. It was/is the best book I've read in 2012. And a totally new and fresh take on the fantasy epic. Holy cow, I loved it! Complex and realistic main characters, really horrifying monsters, an original fantasy world and landscape, sinister bad guys, true love . . . it's got it all. And it is Bardugo's first novel? Amazing.
The info on the dust jacket flap sounds like a standard fantasy plot: When Alina Starkov, apprentice mapmaker, takes her first trip into The Fold (a nightmarish, dark rift that divides Eastern and Western Ravka), she discovers a dormant ability in herself that may have the power to save her country.
But predictable or standard it is not.
The setting is like an old world Russia, and the descriptions of the country and buildings and customs are beautiful. I don't want to say too much about the book or the plot--you've got to discover it for yourself. Unfortunately, like The False Prince below, this book just came out in June--so it's gonna be a long wait for the next two.
34. The False Prince, Ascendance Trilogy, Book I (2012.08.07)
By: Jennifer A. Nielsen
Pages: 342
Genre: young adult / fantasy / adventure / mystery
Bex Rating: 9.5
The only good thing about being sick: being forced to lie down all day. Sometimes I am too sick to even read, as was the case on Monday, but by Tuesday I was slightly less sick and able to read without feeling like I was going to die. So I finished Wish You Well and then started and finished The False Prince (which I bought with birthday gift card money from the fabulous Carol W.)
It was AWESOME. I tried to savor it, but I also couldn't stop reading once I started. And it's the kind of book in which I can't give to much information, because there is a delightful twist near the end. Here's a quick summary: Sage is chosen along with two other orphan boys (Roden and Tobias) to impersonate a long-lost prince that everyone assumes is dead. Conner, the man who chooses and trains these boys, says that he will keep only one to place on the throne . . . so they are competing with one another to be the most like the lost Prince Jaron.
It was well-written in first person from Sage's point of view, and I love the character development! Everything came together so nicely in the end, and the only disappointing thing about this book is that it just came out in April, so I will have a long wait for the next two installments!
33. Wish You Well (book club: 2012.08.07)
By: David Baldacci
Pages: 420
Genre: historical fiction / coming-of-age / Virginia / coal-mining /
Bex Rating: 9
An excellent book club choice! And my first David Baldacci novel. If they're all this good, I will for sure be reading more.
This book was reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird (a higher compliment I cannot pay any book) and A Northern Light. It is the story of Lou and Oz Cardinal, who move back to the mountain farm where their father was raised when their father dies and their mother becomes comatose after a car accident. There they learn to love the fierce, hard, beautiful life of Virginia mountain farmers by their great-grandmother, who still works the land from sunup to sundown.
It's got amazing character development, beautiful prose, and a plot that keeps you reading. I loved it.
- Their expressions ran the gamut from dour to pleased, the children being the most animated, the grown women appearing the most suspicious, as though they believed their lives were about to be taken, instead of simply their photographs.
- "Look here now. My company is looking to make a substantial investment in bringing this place back to life. How can you stand in the way of all that?"
Louisa stood. "Just like I always done. On my own two feet." - Lou was on the porch trying her hand to darning socks, but not enjoying it much. She liked working outside better than anything else and looked forward to feeling the wind and sun upon her. There was an orderliness about farming that much appealed to her.
32. The Penderwicks at Point Mouette (2012.07.30)
By: Jeanne Birdsall
Pages: 295
Genre: young adult fiction / modern classic / sisters / humor / childhood / coming-of-age
Bex Rating: 9
I love those Penderwick sisters! I thought Jeanne Birdsall made a great move by having the oldest sister in a different setting for the entire book. At first I was sad that I wasn't hearing what was happening with Rosalind vacationing in New Jersey with her friend, Anna . . . but then I realized it was a great way to get to know Skye and Jane better.
Mr. Penderwick and his new wife, Iantha (and her 2-year-old son, Ben) take a honeymoon/academic trip to Oxford without the girls. Rosalind is off to Atlantic City, and Sky, Jane, and Batty get to stay in a little cabin called Birches (which reminds me: I think I love any book in which the houses are named) at Point Mouette, Maine. Best of all, Jeffery gets to come. Romance, broken ankles, writer's block, music, soccer, homemade pies, and boat rides . . . it's contemporary fiction for young adults at its best.
Favorites:
- Jane had occasionally tried to develop her own hidden depths, but she never could decide what to hide and how far down.
- "What rhymes with smile?"
"Bile. As in, Your smile makes me want to throw up." - At first the house shunned her, pretending to be an unfamiliar place---either too small or too big, and with the colors not at all what she remembered---but once she reached the kitchen with it's big family table and Ben's high chair in the corner, all was once again as if she'd never left.
New book recommendations:
- Leepike Ridge
- Journey to the River Sea
- Ivy + Bean books
31. The Zebra Wall (2012.07.23)
By: Kevin Henkes
Pages: 147
Genre: young adult fiction / quirky families / embarrassing relatives
Bex Rating: 7.5
I love Kevin Henkes picture books, and though I didn't love Olive's Ocean (2008, review 27), I thought I'd give The Zebra Wall a try (I got it for fifty cents at the D.I.).
This was a funny and touching story told from the point of view of 10-year-old Adine Vorlob. She has four sisters (Bernice, Carla, Dot, and Effie) and assumes that the baby her mom is about to deliver will also be a girl. All the siblings help paint the nursery wall with things that start with the letter "F," hoping to name the sixth Vorlob girl an F-name.
But nothing goes as planned. Adine's mom goes into labor early and horrible Aunt Irene comes to "help out." She's big, she smokes, she's bossy, and she brought her cat DeeDee with her. Adine is embarrassed of Aunt Irene and feels like nothing will get back to normal.
Even though there are some funny parts, I would not call this story a comedy. I love the message: Adine finally learns to show love to a seemingly unlovable aunt, and to accept her as she is instead of wishing she could change other people.
Three good parts:
- "I don't know, Adine,: Mom answered, flicking the carrot stick over an empty ashtray and blowing imaginary smoke. [Mom] was substituting carrot and celery sticks for cigarettes while she was pregnant. In imitation, Carla and Dot had taken up pretend-smoking vegetables, too.
- The girls surrounded [Dad] on the sofa like petals on a flower, drawing close when he described their [baby].
- "You can make a storm in your teacup," said Aunt Irene.
"What?" replied Adine.
Aunt Irene explained. The tea was the dark sky. The cream formed the clouds. And the sugar--shaken in the cup--was the rain falling.
30. Blue (2012.07.20)
By: Joyce Moyer Hostetter
Pages: 186
Genre: young adult / historical fiction / WWII / polio epidemic / Civil Rights
Bex Rating: 8
I wouldn't have read this book if I hadn't read a review about it on Homespun Light two years ago, which made it sound intriguing. I believe I got the book at Paperbackswap as soon as I read about it, and it has been gathering dust on my shelf until now.
This is the story of Ann Fay Honeycutt, a 13-year-old girl whose daddy leaves her in charge of his jobs when he leaves their home in North Carolina to fight in World War II. The polio epidemic strikes their town hard, and Ann Fay has to grow up quickly as tragedy comes to her home.
I love historical fiction, and this book had just as must history as it did fiction. I cried in several places and was very moved by the descriptions of families dealing with polio striking their children. It made me grateful that polio has been virtually eradicated due to modern medicine.
A few favorite lines:
- When I looked at that polio sign next to the blue star flag Momma hung up there for Daddy being a solider, I felt like I was looking down a double barrel shotgun--and fixing to get blowed all to pieces.
- Being the man of the house while daddy was gone was one thing--but being the woman of the house--that was more responsibility than I could handle.
By: E. Nesbit
Pages: 237
Genre: classic children's literature / fantasy / moral tale / mythical creature
Bex Rating: 8.5
I have never read anything by E. Nesbit, but will be sure to do so now. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, about five British siblings who find a psammead, a sand fairy, when they are digging in the sand near their summer cottage. The psammead gives them one wish per day, and each wish gets them further and further in trouble.
The story is set at the turn of the 20th century, and the original illustrations are delightful. I laughed aloud in several places, sometimes because it was intentionally funny, and sometimes because of the old language and customs. the children call their 2-year-old brother "The Lamb," which I thought was pretty humorous. When one of them accidentally wishes The Lamb would grow up, he calls himself Hilary Devereaux St Maur, so I guess that's his real name.
Here are my favorites:
- London is like a prison for children, especially if their relations are not rich.
- True, they were all as beautiful as the day, but that is a poor comfort when you are as hungry as a hunter and as thirsty as a sponge.
- It is most trying to feel enormously hungry and unspeakably sinful at the same time.
- The Lamb, it appeared, had unfortunately no money about him. This was a great disappointment to the others; but it is a thing that will happen, even to the most grown-up of us.
By: Jeanne Birdsall
Pages: 306
Genre: young adult fiction / modern classic / sisters / humor / childhood / coming-of-age / parents re-marrying / honesty
Bex Rating: 10
I finished this book a few hours ago and promptly ordered the third installment, The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, from half.com (no waiting for my paperbackswap wish to be granted!). I do wish overnight shipping was an option, because I can hardly wait.
Birdsall's first book in the series, The Penderwicks, (read my review: 2011, #19) rightly won the National Book Award for children. And though I loved it, Birdsall has outdone herself with the second book. Though it is set in present-day Massachusetts (I think?), it is very reminiscent of Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and the Betsy-Tacy-Tib books. Somehow Jeanne Birdsall is able to evoke the feelings of a simpler time, as she addresses the trials and troubles that all sisters and girls go through as they grow up.
Incidentally, Birdsall plans on writing five books in the series. I recommend them to everyone.
Favorite Excerpts:
- "Weird? snapped Rosalind. "That's what you think, that Daddy going on dates is weird? It's much worse than weird. What if he falls in love with one of those dates? We could end up with a . . ." Rosalind shuddered. She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.
"You mean a stepmother?"
"A stepmother!" Jane had never considered such a thing.
"Think of Anna," said Rosalind.
Rosalind's friend Anna had a perfectly fine mother, but her father was forever getting married and divorced, then falling in love and doing it all over again. It had happened so many times that Anna no longer bothered to keep track of her stepmothers. She called them all Claudia, after the first one. - [Skye's] routine before each game went like this: ten leg stretches, ten neck rolls, ten push-ups, thirty sit-ups, reciting out loud the prime numbers up to 811--this was for concentration--then five minutes of picturing the other team bloody and repentant. After that came the most difficult part of the routine--five minutes of positive thoughts.
- Just like that, Skye's temper was gone, and she didn't care. For what good was a temper if you couldn't throw it away when your sister was being kneed in the ribs?
- [Anna] always jumped at the opportunity to give advice, as she was the youngest in her family--her two older brothers were away at college--and she had no one to tell what to do, not even a pet.
- "We could be separated and starved and put into cold garrets until we're rescued by rich old gentlemen with Indian manservants." Jane had read A Little Princess so many times she'd lost count.
- What she should do? She couldn't just lie here all day. Was she desperate enough to clean?
Also, Birdsall is good about giving book recommendations via her characters. Here are the ones I haven't read:
- E. Nesbit
- Edward Eager
- The Various, by Steve Augarde (ordered it from paperbackswap)
- The Exiles in Love, by Hilary McKay
By: Eugene Yelchin
Pages: 160
Genre: historical fiction / Russia / Communism / young adult / Newbery / Newbery Honor
Bex Rating: 8
It is a very quick read--I finished it in an hour. I loved the illustrations. Much of this book is autobiographical, and the author/illustrator does a great job of evoking the confusion and the emptiness of Russia during that time.
26. A Mango-Shaped Space (2012.07.04)
By: Wendy Mass
Pages: 221
Genre: young adult fiction / neurological condition / pets / dealing with grief / friendship / ALA Schneider Family Book Award
Bex Rating: 8
I really do love Wendy Mass. I think she is the perfect author for "tweens" ages 11 to 14--I don't know how she gets this age so well, but she does.
I knew about synesthesia before I read this book, but I didn't know much about it. It's a "neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway" (from Wikipedia). The main character in the book, Mia Winchell, has never been able to explain to her family or friends that she sees colors and shapes when she hears certain sounds, and that all letters and words have color and texture to her. The reason I knew about this condition is because my husband, Allen, told me that he used to see color when he practiced the cello when he was 3-4. I learned from reading this book that many children experience this phenomenon when they are very young, but it usually "goes away" as their brain develops. Only one in around 2000 people are classified as synesthetes.
Mia finally shares her color perception with her parents when she is 13, telling them that she knows her colors are what make it very difficult for her to do well in math and Spanish (which is often true for synesthetes). Her best friend, Jenna, is hurt that Mia did not tell her about her colors sooner, and Mia has to deal with all the usual overwhelming teenage emotions on top of being tested and questioned by a neurological expert.
It was very interesting and well-written, but I would have given it a higher rating if some loose ends had been tied up: Mia starts "cheating" in math by using color patterns on her shoes to help her memorize equations, she sneaks to an acupuncturist twice without telling her parents because acupuncture heightens her awareness of colors--she never confesses or is caught about these things, both of which she feels guilty about.
I think this book would make an excellent book club choice, because there is so much to learn about the condition that would generate lots of interesting discussion. Here are my favorite parts:
- [Mom] shrugs and flashes a small smile. "I'm not blind, you know. He looks a little like Paul Newman."
"The salad-dressing guy? No way." - Not surprisingly, there's a lot of the tofu-loaf left. It actually tastes better the day after. Maybe it tastes better because everything tastes better when you are wearing old flannel pajamas at midnight.
By: Laurie R. King
Pages: 331
Genre: mystery / historical fiction / Sherlock Holmes
Bex Rating: 8.5
Of the eleven current Mary Russell books, this one and The Pirate King are my least favorites. But it still gets an 8.5. I liked it better then second time, because it deals with characters from O, Jerusalem, and the first time I read Justice Hall (2009, review #21). I had not yet read O, Jerusalem. I hate reading things out of sequence, but sometimes it happens.
Mary and Holmes are recruited to help their friends Mahmoud and Ali, the Bedouin vagabonds they had lived with for six weeks in Palestine. Only the true identity of these cutthroat wanderers is revealed: Ali is really Alistair Hughenfort, and Mahmoud is really Maurice Hughenfort, heir to the duchy of Beauville in Berkshire.
This book reads like an episode of Downton Abbey: It is 1924, the Great War is over, and Holmes and Mary are guests in the immense "country house" of Justice Hall (equipped with the full staff of house-help), trying to work out the complexities of the entail of the estate amongst the squabbling (and murderous) would-be heirs.
Here are my favorite excerpts:
- Holmes and I wore our patience like a pair of horse-hair shirts, prickly and ill-fitting . . .
- When threatened in Palestine, Ali had generally responded with a drawn knife; I couldn't help speculating what the country house equivalent might be. Cutting insults at forty paces? Charades to the death?
- "I believe in that case I shall spend the afternoon at the baths. Steam and an expert massage are the only means of dispersing a beating."
- The time had come; the inevitable could be delayed no longer; I had to join the party.
And Laurie R. King never disappoints to supply some new vocab:
- The Gordian knot:
1- pertaining to Gordius, ancient king of Phrygia, who tied a knot ( the Gordian knot) that, according to prophecy, was to be undone only by the person who was to rule Asia, and that was cut, rather than untied, by Alexander the Great.2- Idiom: "cut the Gordian knot," to act quickly and decisively in a difficult situation; solve a problem boldly. - pillion:
1- a pad or cushion attached behind a saddle, especially as a seat for a woman.2- a pad, cushion, saddle, or the like, used as a passenger seat on a bicycle, motor scooter, etc.3- a passenger's saddle or seat behind the driver's seat on a motorcycle. - samovar: a metal urn, used especially by Russians for heating water for making tea.
By: Laurie R. King
Pages: 425
Genre: mystery / historical fiction / Sherlock Holmes
Bex Rating: 9.5
I re-read the first 4 volumes of the Mary Russel series last year, and am ready to re-read the second half (5-11) before the TWELFTH BOOK comes out in September. We'll see if I can get through all of them by then.
I have already reviewed this book (2010, review #10), but here are my favorite excerpts:
- My mind had retreated from my body's discomfort and was miles away, reliving the strange sensations of that glorious night's swim [in the Dead Sea], the unnaturally thick, slippery water followed by the tingling all-over scrub in the clear spring the half-moon that rode the black sky, the eerie colours the fire made burning the scavenged, mineral-laden driftwood, like a hot rainbow in the circle of stones.
- Ali produced a dish of some unidentifiable meat that tasted like chicken but had rather too many vertebrae, and as I perched gingerly on the inadequate carpets, picking meat from bones, I reflected on the incongruity of how difficult it was proving to keep kosher in the Holy Land.
- I did not really understand my feelings about Holmes. I was nineteen years old and for the last four years this unconscious figure on the bed had been the pillar of sanity and security in my daily life. However, he was also my teacher, he was more than twice my age, and furthermore he had never given me the least indication that his affection for me was anything other than that of a master for a particularly promising student. Five weeks earlier I had been a maturing apprentice who was moving away into another field, but the events of the last month, both at home and here in Palestine, had shaken that comfortable relationship to the core. I had been given little leisure time in which to contemplate the consequences of my change in status from apprentice to full partner, from pupil to . . . what?
- The sun heated the rocks around us, causing a smell of warm dust to rise up and mingle with the crisp odour of the wet stones in the stream below . . . I could begin to understand the appeal of a monk's cell in the desert. If only the vow did not include obedience . . .
- To our right rose the Citadel, somewhere to our left lay the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, before us sprawled the great labyrinth of the bazaar, and all around us swirled an informal market, a miscellany of goods and peoples. I saw none of these. I did not notice the picturesque Copts and the Armenians, did not register the toasted sesame smell of the round bread loaves that passed beneath our noses on the panniers of a donkey, did not even hear the strange, flat clang of bells or the "bakshish" cries of beggars or the polyglot of tongues. My whole being, my entire awareness, was taken up by a small, crudley lettered sign, propped up in the window of The Grand New Hotel: Baths.
- I yawned; he looked at me with that dreadfully cheerful, superior attitude of the earliest bird around.
And here are two fabulous vocab words from this fabulous book:
- logy: lacking physical or mental energy or vitality; sluggish; dull; lethargic.
- kedgeree: 1- East Indian Cookery . a cooked dish consisting of rice, lentils,and spices.2- a cooked dish of rice, fish, hard-boiled eggs, butter, cream,and seasonings.
Here is a link to Jamie Oliver's take on this dish
By: Michael Scott
Pages: 517
Genre: fantasy / science fiction / young adult / mythology
Bex Rating: 7.5
I feel bad that I gave this installment of the Nicholas Flamel series the lowest rating, but it just didn't satisfy. I think Michael Scott has a lot of amazing ideas and obviously he is an expert of mythology and folklore . . . but all six of these books have moved at such a terrifying speed (each book lasts one day) that there is little room for character development. It's exciting, but I don't care enough about the characters for the excitement to matter.
That said, the series is fun, and you do learn quite a bit about actual history, with a bunch of entertaining legends and myths thrown in. I got the book because 1- I wanted to find out how it would end and 2- I know my boys will love this series.
Here are two excerpts worth posting:
- "Do you know the greatest gift a parent can give a child?" [Hekate] asked.
"Independence. To allow them to go out into the world and make their own decisions, travel their own paths." - "Don't you think villains are much more interesting?" [William Shakespeare] asked. "They get all the best lines."
By: Wendy Mass
Pages: 289
Genre: young adult / coming-of-age / dealing with death / best friends / New York
Bex Rating: 9
I love Wendy Mass! This book was as well-written and thought-provoking as her others have been. I think Every Soul A Star is still my favorite of hers, but this one is definitely one I recommend.
Though Jeremy Fink's dad died five years ago in a car accident, Jeremy receives a package from his father a month before his thirteenth birthday. It's a locked wooden box with the words "The Meaning of Life" carved into the top. Now Jeremy and his best friend, Lizzy, are searching all over New York for the four keys that will unlock the box.
{caveat: Jeremy's best friend does get her first period in the book. There are not many details and it's very tastefully written, but you might want to share this book with kids age twelve and up.}
Favorite excerpts:
- Mom told me once in times of trouble to project sunny thoughts: butterflies, babies laughing, hot dogs in a ballpark on a sunny day. So I think of babies laughing in a ballpark surrounded by butterflies eating hot dogs. Very small, tiny hot dogs.
- I believe that once you find something you love, someting that works, why keep looking for more? Stop wasting your time looking for something better and enjoy what [ you have].
- "If everyone were interested in the same things, think of how boring life would be. What if everyone wanted to be a chef? There'd be lots of people making meals, but no one growing the food, delivering it to the market, stocking it on the shelves. Right?"
- I reach under [the couch] and my hand lands on something squishy. I grab hold of it and pull out an orange bunny Peep from a long Easter ago. Even I wouldn't eat it now. the scary thing is, it still looks perfectly fine. Dusty, but fine. I think Dr. Grady was wrong. At the end of the world will be bacteria, cockroaches, and Peeps.
- "You take the flotsam," I tell her. "I'll take the jetsam."
"You always take the jetsam!" she says, pretending to pout. - There must be a hundred people stamping their feet and shouting my name. It's like a scene from a bad teen movie where the lovable loser finally runs for a touchdown or approaches the popular girl in school.
By: Andrew Clements
Pages: 167
Genre: young adult / coming-of-age / family relationships / finding oneself / friendship / music / poetry
Bex Rating: 8
This is the sequel to Clements' Things Not Seen. I didn't get that the title of the first book was alluding to Hebrews 11:1 until I saw the title of the second. Cool.
This was a very quick read, but it was a good story and very engaging. It's the story of a girl named Gwen, whose whole life revolves around playing the violin. She lives with her grandfather in New York City and is preparing to audition for college scholarships, when her Grandfather suddenly disappears. Suddenly, she is on her own.
Then she meets Robert (Bobby Phillips from Things Not Seen), and he helps her to get through her fear and uncertainty. Until (dun dun DUN!) Robert realizes that they are being followed by someone who doesn't want to be seen.
It wasn't quite as good as Things Not Seen, and was actually a little scary . . . but I quickly ordered the third book, Things That Are from paperback swap.
Favorite Excerpts:
- As I try to decide how large my cocoa should be, it occurs to me that its nice not to have to rush home to see how Grampa is doing. And immediately I'm ashamed of myself for having such a selfish thought. But then I have to admit it's still true. {I like how Clements is able to write down this quick succession of thoughts/emotions that I have experienced myself}
- My girlfriend. Part of me didn't want to hear [him say] that. The part that doesn't want anyone treading on my dreams.
- I'm too shy to talk about how shy I am.
By: Andrew Clements
Pages: 251
Genre: young adult / coming-of-age / family relationships / finding oneself / blindness / poetry
Bex Rating: 9
Wow. This was a great book. And I've only ever read Clements' books that deal with middle-graders, ages 10-13ish. But this main character is fifteen and I was so impressed with how the style was adjusted accordingly.
The premise sounds like it might be a little corny: Bobby Phillips wakes up one morning and he is invisible. But Andrew Clements is such a gifted writer: the invisibility is a great metaphor for finding out how we see ourselves and how we see others.
Bobby accidentally bumps into a girl and is worried that she'll find out he's invisible--and then he sees that she is blond. Her name is Alicia and she and Bobby become friends. I love the transformation Bobby makes from the beginning of the book to the end--it's a great, fresh idea.
19. Don't Look Now, Clarice Bean (2012.04.29)
By: Lauren Child
Pages: 252
Genre: young adult / humor / British / grade school
Bex Rating: 8
This is my third Clarice Bean book to read and I utterly loved it. I think this particular volume was the most serious, as far as the difficult, real-life situations that Clarice has to deal with: her utterly best friend moves to America, her house is falling completely apart and under constant construction, and she is always dodging exceptionordinarily mean bullies.
Throughout the book, Clarice looks to her hero, the fictional international super spy Ruby Redfort (who Clarice knows and loves from television, books, and movies) to help her get through her trying circumstances.
- avant-garde: doing something in an exceptionordinarily modern and different way
- I am going to be mainly most probably late.
- She is a typical example of a person who wastes time telling people they are wasting time.
- I make a slight groaning sound--this is a good touch and suggests a disappointment and eagerness not to miss a smidge of school. Parents like this and are more likely to keep you home if they know you are keen on going.
- Mom is at the bottom of the stairs staring at Dad with her hands on her hips--this way of standing means she has asked him a question which isn't really a question, ie, will you be back by seven? And Dad is saying "Yes I will be back by 7." He has learned that this body language of Mom's means--whatever you do, make sure it is agreeing.
18. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (2012.04.25)
By: Helen Simonson
Pages: 368
Genre: contemporary fiction / love story / social commentary / British / humor
Bex Rating: 9
I love having stacks of great books to read! This was on my PaperBack Swap wishlist for only a few months before my wish was granted. I enjoyed every deliciously-written minute of it.
Critics have compared Helen Simonson's debut novel to the works of Jane Austen, because she is so deft in her treatment of the people in a close-knit British village, Edgecombe St Mary.
This is a book about what happens when you fail follow the expectations placed upon you by your community. When Major Ernest Pettigrew's brother dies, he realizes that he is truly alone, though it is years since his own wife has died. He begins, to the shock of his neighbors, courting the beautiful and intelligent Jasmina Ali, a Pakistani shopkeeper who lives in his village.
To quote my sister Bonnie, "I don't want to read a book about old people falling in love." Well, even though this statement made me laugh uproariously with its shamelessness . . . um, I pretty much feel the same. Enter: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. It was written so well, it was such an interesting and original perspective, and the characters were so darn endearing . . . bring on more of the same! I loved this book
- This was the dull ache of grief in the real world: more of dyspepsia than passion.
- The Major wondered how he was usually featured in his son's calendar. He imagined himself flagged with a small yellow sticky note--important but not time-sensitive, perhaps.
- Alice Pierce from next door had come round yesterday with a hand-painted condolence card and a casserole dish of what she said was her famous organic vegetarian lasagna and informed him that it was all over the village that he'd lost his brother . . . Unfortunately, he did not have the same kind of Bohemian friends as Alice and so the dish was now fermenting in his refrigerator, spreading its unpleasant plankton smell into the milk and butter.
- He had forgotten that grief does not decline in a straight line or along a slow curve like a graph in a child's math book.
- "Don't be ridiculous," said Roger , "Americans are just like us."
The Major [gaped] at such a peremptory dismissal of any distinction of national character between Great Britain and the giant striving nation across the Atlantic. The Major found much to admire in America but also felt the nation was still in its infancy . . . America wielded her huge power in the world with a brash confidence that reminded him of a toddler who has got hold of a hammer. - " . . . sometimes when we pick and choose among the rules we discover later that we have set aside something precious in the process."
- He was sorry now for the many times he had rebuked Roger and his friends--he had underrated the joy of their rowdiness.
- "I do not wish to be one of those men who bends and shapes the rules of his religion like a cheap basket to justify his comfortable life and to satisfy every bodily desire."
- "I did warn Roger about the line between opulence and bad taste."
"That was your mistake my dear," said the Major. "They are the same thing." - There was a distinct symmetry to their troupe: and as they passed, it came to the Major that they had been arranged in order of their willingness to participate, the lead girls wriggling their arms with abandon while those in the back trudged with sullen embarrassment.
- " . . . he stopped in his tracks to peer at a giant black bottle brush that he supposed must be a Christmas tree. It reached the ceiling and was decorated only with silver balls in graduated sizes. It glowed in waves of blue light from the fiber-optic tips of its many branches. "Good Heavens, is it Christmas in Hades?" he asked.
- The turkey . . . had proved to be organic, which meant it was expensive and skinny.
- "You are not the first man to miss a woman's more subtle communication," said the Major. "They think they are waving when we see only the calm sea, and pretty soon everybody drowns."
- So, he thought, do all men steal and display the shiny jackdaw treasure of other people's ideas.
Fun & New Vocabulary!
- tumescent: 1. swelling; slightly tumid 2. exhibiting or affected with many ideas or emotions; teeming. 3. pompous and pretentious, especially in the use of language; bombastic.
- theodolite: a precision instrument having a telescopic sight for establishing horizontal and sometimes vertical angles, used for surverying.
- pelmet: a decorative cornice or valance at the head of a window or doorway, used to cover the fastenings from which curtains are hung.
17. The Night Circus (2012.04.19, book club)
By: Erin Morgenstern
Pages: 387
Genre: contemporary fiction / fantasy / love story / magic / allegory
Bex Rating: 9
The dust jacket of this book is wallpapered with starred reviews from all sorts of respectable book critics, and most of them compare the book to "a dream" in some way or another. Though the reviews were well-written and definitely piqued my interest about the book, I got tired of the dreamy, dreamlike, dream state as-though-it-was-a-dream descriptions.
Then I read it.
It really is like a dream. A lovely dream that you can't quite describe but wish you could have again.
This is the story of Celia and Marco, two abandoned children who are brought up by magicians and, unknown to them, are bound to eventually face each other in a duel to the death. Their duel is to take place in Le Cirque de Reves, The Night Circus, a traveling circus of the most spectacular and ethereal entertainment the world has ever seen. Each of them uses their skills to enhance and shape the aspects of The Night Circus. But as soon as they meet, Celia and Marco fall desperately in love, and their love for one another is reflected in the tents of magical wonders that they continually add to the circus.
It was so original and beautiful. I loved it. Favorite excerpts to come.
16. Utterly Me, Clarice Bean (2012.04.12)
By: Lauren Child
Pages: 190
Genre: young adult / humor / British / grade school
Bex Rating: 8
I absolutely and completely love utterly everything Lauren Child does. She is my favorite and my best.
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| Clarice Bean and her creator, Lauren Child |
(If you are unfamiliar with Charlie and Lola, the best television show ever made, for kids and adults, then you should find out more.)
Anyway, Clarice Bean is Lauren Child's character for slightly older kids. She is like Lola as an elevenish-year-old. I found Clarice Bean Spells Trouble at the D.I., read it and loved it, and promptly added all the other Clarice Bean books to my Paperback Swap wish list. Here are my favorite excerpts:
- When I get home, I go straight upstairs to Mom's closet. I take a mini cheese with me because they are my favorite things at the moment, and you never know when you might want something to nibble. Mom's closet is a good place to be alone by yourself.
- Dad usually has to have a telephone with him at all times. He utterly mustn't be uncontactable for even a second.
- Grace Grapello is my archenemy. The reason she is my worst person at school, apart from Mrs Wilberton, is because she is such a know-it-all and she is always annoying me with annoying comments and she can be a real meanie.
15. The Wednesday Wars (2012.04.11)
By: Gary D. Schmidt
Pages: 264
Genre: young adult / Newbery Honor (2008) / 7th grade / coming-of-age / education / Shakespeare / literature / 1960s
Bex Rating: 8.5
Finally I am out of my reading funk. I had two weeks of trying to read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, The Happiness Project, and The Trumpeter of Krakow . . . but I couldn't get into any of them. Clementine helped me jump start my reading motor, I guess. Sometimes I forget that young adult fiction is my default genre.
This was a great school story about Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader trying to survive the political climate of the 60s (Civil Rights, the assassinations of MLK and Robert Kennedy, the Vietnam war, "flower children"), a domineering father, the school bully, escaped class rats, a girl named Meryl Lee Kowalski, and Mrs. Baker, a teacher who he's sure is out to get him.
Mrs. Baker makes him read a new Shakespeare play every month, and Holling relates what happens in each play to his own life. He realizes, as the seventh grade year goes on, that Mrs. Baker is helping him to face every challenge he comes up against.
I loved it, and it definitely deserved a Newbery Honor (it was beaten for the medal by Good Masters, Sweet Ladies, and I agree with ALSC's tough decision) It's funny, well-written, and a great story about the power of literature to teach lessons. The book is filled with great Shakespearean quotes, and I realize that one play I have never read or seen is The Tempest--it may be next on my reading list (though I always read Shakespeare along with a movie version, since that is how it was meant to be presented . . . and it is much easier to follow). Anybody seen a good film version of The Tempest?
14. Clementine, Friend of the Week (2012.04.08)
By: Sara Pennypacker
Pictures by Marla Frazee
Pages:161
Genre: children's fiction / young adult / humor / 4th Grade
Bex Rating: 9
I have reviewed the first three Clementine books on this blog, which I started reading in 2008. You don't have to read them in order (but if you're like me, you must). They are must-haves. I was so delighted when this one (the fourth) became available on Paper Back Swap [if you are not a member, and you love to read, and you love CHEAP, then I recommend you join this site, like Melanie recommended it to me. Go ahead and say I recommended you--then I get a free credit :)]. I ordered it right away. Now I only need the newest fifth one, Clementine and the Family Meeting.
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| This is one example of the illustrations, which, in my opinion, are what push these books from good to great. |
Here are two of my favorite excerpts:
- My parents are always going on about the Golden Rule. "That 'Do' in 'Do unto others' can cover a lot of territory," they're always saying. My dad says it could mean, "Be quiet in the movies, as you would have others be quiet in the movies unto you." My mom says it could mean, "Don't interrupt people when they're drawing unless it's an emergency with blood, as you would have them not interrupt you when you're drawing unless it's an emergency with blood."
- Lilly wanted her usual picture---a rainbow with three tulips under it. I sit next to Lilly in class, and I'm getting pretty tired of that rainbow and those tulips. I tried to talk her into something more interesting. "How about a plate of spaghetti under that rainbow?" I suggested. "How about a zebra eating those tulips?"
But Lilly doesn't have much of an imagination. She shook her head. "I'll stick with the rainbow. But I guess you could make four tulips if you want to."
By: Jane Austen
Pages: 375
Genre: Classic Romantic Fiction
Bex Rating: 9.5
This is, believe it or not, my first time reading anything by Jane Austen, thanks to my dear friend Tricia. I have tried to read P&P before, but every time I started, and read about Mrs. Bennett telling Mr. Bennett that "Netherfield Park is being let at last," I remembered that I had seen every possible movie version of this book, and that those words were as familiar to me as if I had read them a thousand times.
It was wonderful. I loved it as much if not more than my favourite film adaptations (The Keira Knightley version for the music and cinematography, and the Colin Firth version for, well, Colin.). The descriptions were lovely, the people hilarious and serious and realistic in turn, and I flatter myself that, should I choose to employ my powers to that end, I could happily converse like a character from an Austen novel for at least a fortnight hereafter.
I finished the book at 3 AM this morning, and, since I got only four hours of sleep, went ahead and checked the Keira Knightley version out at the library and watched it with Mollie today while Calvin napped. I think that's the fourth time that I have watched a movie/TV during the day since we moved to Idaho in 2008 (this is not braggadocio, it would only be so if I liked regularly watching movies or TV during the day . . . but I don't).
My favorite passages:
- Mrs Bennett: "I am astonished, my dear, that you should be so ready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly of anybody's children, it should not be of my own, however."
- Mr. Darcy: "The power of doing anything with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance." (Hmmmmmm)
- Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours.
- To his wife [Mr. Bennett] was very little otherwise indebted than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his wife, but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given.
- Lydia: "But you know married women have never much time for writing. My sisters may write to me. They will have nothing else to do."
I can officially add this book to my list of favorites. I mean, favourites.
12. The Woman in White (2012.03.16)
by: Wilkie Collins
Pages: 646
Genre: gothic / mystery / classic fiction
Bex Rating: 7.5
This is a tough book to review because it was so loooooooooooooooooong. Which should give you an inkling of my enjoyment: if it's a long book, I don't want it to seem long.
I got this book because it's supposed to be one of the first mystery novels ever published in the the English language. It was written in 1860 in England.
Here's my attempt at a synopsis:
Walter Hartright meets a woman dressed all in white when he is on his way to teach art to two half-sisters, Laura Fairlie and Marian Halcombe, who reside at Limmeridge House. He soon finds that the woman in white, an insane asylum escapee named Anne Catherick, has a connection to Limmeridge and its inhabitants. In the course of time, Walter falls in love with Miss Laura Fairlie, but just as he discovers that she is engaged to be married to Sir Percival Glyde, Anne Catherick sends Laura a letter, warning him that Sir Percival is a wicked man. Walter leaves Limmeridge with a broken heart when Sir Percival (who deceives all into thinking him incapable of evil) and Laura are wed. Walter flees to South America, attempting to forget Laura and her marriage exploring the jungles of the Amazon. Meanwhile, Sir Percival separates Laura from her beloved sister Marian and takes her abroad to Europe. When the couple returns from their honeymoon, they are accompanied by the Italian Count Fosco and his wife. Marian meets them at Sir Percival's home, Blackwater Park, and soon discovers that Sir Percival and Count Fosco are in evil cahoots. Anne Catherick attempts to contact the two sisters, then mysteriously and suspiciously disappears. Marian perches on the rooftop in a rainstorm and overhears an evil plot between the two men, but becomes so ill from exposing herself to the elements that she contracts typhus. When she awakens, she discovers that her sister Laura has died, and the entirety of Laura's inheritance falls to Sir Percival. But wait! It was really Anne Catherick who died and was buried in Laura's name, and Laura was admitted to the insane asylum with Anne Catherick's name. Walter barely escapes South America with his life, but returns to the land of his forefathers to fight for the woman he loves and bring the two villains to justice. Whew.
What I liked:
1- The narrative is told by many different people. First Walter Hartright, then Marian Halcombe, then Count Fosco, then a bunch of servants, then Walter again. The styles are pretty different and it was probably a pretty revolutionary way of telling a story when it was written.
2- Count Fosco. Best character of the book. He's morbidly obese, wears the most replendent clothing money can buy, speaks always with courtesy and respect, loves all animals, and is incredibly intelligent. He never fears that he could possibly be in the wrong, and is so self-assured and Machiavellian . . . he's really an interesting and refreshing kind of villain. Accordingly, I shall name my next rooster Count Fosco.
3- The mystery was good. Despite the incredibly length and detail, I still wanted to find out what Sir Percival's secret was, and how it would all end.
4- These passages:
- There are no children, Thank Heaven, in the house. But the servants (persons without nerves) will encourage the children from the village. Such brats! Oh dear me--such brats! Shall I confess it? I sadly want a reform in the construction of children. Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise.
- Any woman who is sure of her own wits is a match at any time for a man who is not sure of his own temper.
- I have always cultivated a feeling of humane indulgence for foreigners. They do not possess our blessings and advantages, and they are, for the most part, brought up in the blind errors of Popery.
- The best men are not consistent in good, why should the worst men be consistent in evil?
1- The rampant misogyny. I know it was 1860, but still. My hackles raised at some of these passages, which were not said for humorous effect, but were supposed to be believable and acceptable because they were said by a woman character:
- How can you expect four women to dine alone at dinner every day, and not quarrel? We are such fools, we can't entertain each other at the table.
- I daresay it was very wrong and very discreditable to listen, but where is the woman, in the whole range of our sex, who can regulate her actions by the abstract principles of honour?
2- That Walter ended up with Laura instead of Marian, the clear choice between the two leading ladies. Laura's virtues were that she was pretty, blonde, and sweet, in that order. Wilkie Collins makes it clear that Marian Halcombe is strong, independent, intelligent, and has a totally perfect body, which Walter observes when he first sees her before she turns around and shows her "dark" face . . . that darkness of complexion being what turns him to her pretty, blonde, and empty-headed sister.
11. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (re-read (audiobook), 2012.03.02)
By: Alan Bradley
Narrated By: Jayne Entwhistle
Length: 9 hours, 53 minutes
Genre: mystery / post-war Britain / humour /
Bex Rating: 10
I usually enjoy a favourite book even more the second time, because I can savour it. If I had read it again, I know I would have loved it even more than I did when I first read it back in 2009 (book #31). But listening to Jayne Entwhistle's amazing narration pushed the experience over the top. Indeed, I can't stop thinking in a British accent, and this entire review is being written in that same frame of mind. I convinced Allen to listen to it at work when he asked me what I liked about the Flavia DeLuce mysteries (there are four now), and he raved about the audio version so much that I had to give it a go myself.
This is the best book ever chosen for the book club I belong to, and I include my own picks (Ella Minnow Pea, Eat Cake, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn) in that subset.
Flavia DeLuce is an eleven-year-old chemistry genius, obsessed with poisons. She lives in Buckshaw, her family's sprawling ancestral mansion, with her detached father and two self-absorbed older sisters. She awakens one night to hear her father arguing with a strange man, then finds the man dead in the cucumber patch the next morning. Did her father kill the stranger? Flavia will protect her father at all costs, but she means to find out who killed him and why.
I don't think I properly appreciated Alan Bradley's genius and original writing when I read it the first time--I was too caught up in the story to notice that he has a gift for metaphor that is equal to the best writing I've come across (if it does not surpass it). I laughed aloud so many times while listening to Flavia's thoughts, deductions, and antics. I recommend this series unreservedly to everyone. And if you are lucky enough to listen to the audiobook . . . well, Bob's your uncle!
10. The Forgotten Garden (2012.02.26, book club)
By: Kate Morton
Pages: 549
Genre: contemporary fiction / generational epic / fairy tales / mystery / redemption
Bex Rating: 7.5
I still can't decide if I like this book or not. I mean, I did like it. But I had such a feeling of dread the whole time I read it . . . unfounded dread, because there was never a really dreadful scene or any gratuitous descriptions. But I didn't really like the recurring theme of abandonment . . .
This is the story of Nell, a four-year-old girl who is found abandoned on a ship that sailed from England to Australia. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. But on her 21st birthday, when they tell her the truth about her past, she loses all her moorings and distances herself from the family who loved and raised her. Years later, Nell's granddaughter helps to unravel the secret of her past.
The book jumps around from 1910ish to 1950ish to 1975 and 2005. I don't usually read "epics" like this that span generations, but it was pretty intriguing and well-written (despite its daunting length), and I wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery, too. All the loose ends were tied up very neatly, I must say.
Favorite excerpts:
- Cassandra always hid when she read, though she never knew quite why. It was as if she couldn't shake the guilty suspicion that she was being lazy, that surrendering herself so completely to something so enjoyable must be wrong.
- Ever since Eliza had discovered the book of fairy tales in Mr Swindell's rag and bottle shop, had disappeared inside its faded pages, she'd understood the power of stories. Their magical ability to refill the wounded part of people.
- "We're all unique, just never in the ways we imagine."
9. The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ (re-read, 2012.02.22)
An Account Written by the hand of Mormon, taken from the plates of Nephi, translated by Joseph Smith, Junior
Pages: 531
Genre: scripture / spiritual / self-help / nonfiction / Christian
Bex Rating: 10 (of course)
I have never "reviewed" The Book of Mormon here on my blog. Which is a shame, because I have read it more than I have read any other book. And doubly shameful, because I should be quick to share this book with people who read my blog, and to write down some thoughts for myself, my family, and my posterity.
What new things can you learn from reading a book for the nineteenth time? More than you can write about or tell about. Maybe another reason I haven't written about The Book of Mormon is because the scope is so broad and deep . . . it's difficult to know where to begin. But writing something is better than writing nothing. If you want to know what The Book of Mormon is, you can read the introduction here.
This time when I read The Book of Mormon, I did something that I had heard suggested for many years, and I finally took the suggestion. Instead of studying my personal copy, I got the inexpensive copy that the missionaries give away. I used a red marking pencil to mark every word and verse and chapter that had to do with Jesus Christ. Anything that had to do with His name, His characteristics and attributes, His titles, or His words, I marked. And it's pretty astonishing to look back through this book and see that there's not a page that's not thick with red marking.
This book really will help you draw near to Christ, and to me, that is its greatest message. Every single person on the earth has a personal Savior who knows and loves them, regardless of their belief in Him. He desires for us to seek Him, not for Himself, but for our own salvation and happiness. Our Father in Heaven and His son Jesus Christ want us to be happy--in fact, that is why we exist: so we can have joy.
One verse that stood out to me toward the end of my reading was Ether12:41. "I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in you forever."
If you are seeking for Christ, or for goodness, or happiness, or truth, I personally know that you can find it all in The Book of Mormon. To request a free copy, click here.
8. Life's Lessons Learned: Personal Reflections (2012.02.12)
By: Dallin H. Oaks
Pages: 165
Genre: Latter-Day Saint / self-improvement / spiritual / essays / nonfiction / religious / memoir
Bex Rating: 9.5
I have been reading this book piecemeal since my mom loaned it to me last Fall. One thing I love about it is that I can "hear" Elder Oaks' voice as I am reading--his distinctive way of speaking carries over into his writing.
This is the perfect Sunday book. You can read a few small chapters at a time and just ruminate on them all week. Each of the 38 chapters was very short--several of them were only two pages--and each was a small treatise on one Gospel subject or lesson that Elder Oaks learned throughout his life. I especially enjoyed the biographical information about Elder Oaks' boyhood, but it was all very uplifting and motivating. I am looking forward to both applying the things I learned, and seeking out more literature of this kind for my Sunday reading.
Below are some of the passages that strongly affected me personally:
- There is a strong tendency in most of us to spend most of our time doing what we feel comfortable in doing--to seek to fulfill our responsibilities through activities in which we feel a sense of mastery or at least familiarity . . . I knew I must not surrender to that tendency. The most important parts of my new calling [as an Apostle] . . . were those parts I knew nothing about, the parts where I would have to start all over from the beginning.
I knew that if I concentrated my time on doing things that came naturally--the things I felt qualified to do--I would never measure up as an Apostle. I would always be a former lawyer and judge. That is not what I wanted. I decided I would focus my efforts on what I had been called to be--not on what I felt qualified to do. I determined that instead of trying to shape my calling to my credentials, I would try to shape myself to my calling. ~from Transistion to the Apostlehip, chapter 23 - One of the many things I learned later in my life is the difference between sins and mistakes. I wish I had known this difference earlier, since it would have helped me as a parent and also as a gospel teacher.
We have seen some very bitter finger-pointing among Latter-day Saints who disagree with one another on the policies a government should follow, the political parties they should support, or the persons they should elect as public servants. Such disagreements are inevitable in representative government. But it is not inevitable that they would result in the personal denunciations and bitter feelings described in the press or encountered in personal conversations. Even if our political adversaries are making the wrong choice (as we suppose), that is generally a matter of error (mistake) rather than transgression (sin).
Even though they have taught their children all the commandments and principles they need for righteous and provident living, parents are still susceptible to the serious error of failing to distinguish between mistakes and sins. If well-meaning parents call teenagers to repentance for teenagers' numerous mistakes, they may dilute the effect of chastisement and reduce the impact of repentance for the category of teenage sins that really require it. ~ from Sins and Mistakes, chapter 30 - Study it out as if it all depended on you, and pray as if it all depended on the Lord. ~from Second Marriage, chapter 35
By: PG Wodehouse
Pages: 245
Genre: humor / satire / screwball / British / modern classic fiction
Bex Rating: 9.5
I always return to the antics of Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves, "the gentleman's gentleman," because Wodehouse wrote so much about their madcap adventures that I'm not even halfway through the canon. Carry On, Jeeves happens to be the first collection of Jeeves stories. You don't have to read them in order, but there are references made to the first books in subsequent books.
I love so many things about Wodehouse--the names of his characters (Sir Roderick Glossop, Charles Biffen "Biffy", Heloise Pringle, and Lord Bittlesham), the way Bertie shortens any word he can ("I've been meaning to go to the exhibish"), and especially Wodehouse's delightfully sharp descriptions. There are few books that make me laugh out loud as often as these ones (only The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald has come close). I always marvel that these books were written in the 1920s and 30s! Here are my favorite excerpts:
- [Edwin] was fourteen now and had just joined the Boy Scouts. He was one of those thorough kids and took his responsibilities pretty seriously. He was always in sort of a fever because he was dropping behind schedule with his daily acts of kindness. However hard he tried, he'd fall behind and then you'd find him prowling about the house, setting such a clip to try and catch up with himself that Easeby was rapidly becoming a perfect hell for man and beast.
- It was one of those still evenings you get in the summer, when you can hear a snail clear its throat a mile away.
- Lady Malvern was a hearty, happy, healthy, overpowering sort of dashed female, not so very tall but making up for it by measuring about six feet from the O.P. to the Prompt Side. She fitted into my biggest armchair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew that they were wearing arm-chairs tight about the hips that season. She had bright, bulging eyes and lot of yellow hair , and when she spoke she showed about fifty-seven front teeth. She was one of those women who kind of numb a fellow's faculties. She made me feel as if I were ten years old and had been brought into the drawing room in my Sunday clothes to say how-d'you-do. Altogether by no means the sort of thing a chappie would wish to find in his sitting-room before breakfast.
- I don't know if you have ever experienced the sensation of seeing the announcement of the engagement of a pal of yours to a girl whom you were only saved from marrying yourself by the skin of your teeth. It induces a sort of -- well, it's difficult to describe it exactly; but I should imagine a fellow would feel much the same if he happened to be strolling through the jungle with a boyhood chum and met a tigress or a jaguar, or what not, and managed to shin up a tree and looked down and saw the friend of his youth vanishing into the undergrowth in the animal's slavering jaws. A sort of profound, prayerful relief, if you know what I mean, blended at the same time with a pang of pity.
- It is a peculiar thing in life that the people you most particularly want to edge away from always seem to cluster round like a poultice.
My other reviews of Wodehouse: How Right You Are, Jeeves (2011: #17), The Code of the Woosters (2010, #26), Right Ho, Jeeves (2010, #14).
6. Finally (2012.01.31)
By: Wendy Mass
Pages: 296
Genre: young adult fiction / coming-of-age
Bex Rating: 7.5
Not as good as 11 Birthdays, which is a story set in the same fictional town of Willow Falls and has a few of the same characters. I wouldn't call it a sequel, but it helps if you have already read 11 Birthdays.
That said, I definitely want my daughter Mollie to read this book when she is 11 or 12. It's about a girl named Rory who just can't wait to turn twelve, because her whole life her parents have told her, "You can have a cell phone when you're twelve," "You can get a pet when you're twelve," "You can shave your legs when you're twelve," et cetera. Rory actually started writing down each thing that her parents said she could do, and presents them with "The List" on her twelfth birthday. It's a cute, funny, sometimes painful story of what life is like for a pre-teen. Wendy Mass really gets this time of life.
The best book I've read of Mass' so far is called Every Soul A Star [2011 book reviews, number 39], but I am looking forward to reading A Mango-Shaped Space some time soon.
5. The Complete Persepolis (2012.01.29)
By: Marjane Satrapi
Pages: 341
Genre: memoir / graphic novel / political history / revolutionary Iran
Bex Rating: 7
I feel conflicted about the rating I gave this book. As a history of revolutionary Iran (roughly from 1980 to 1995), I was very interested in all the things I never knew about. I knew NOTHING about Iran before I read this memoir and it was interesting, sad, shocking, and almost unbelievable how Iran changed from being fairly progressive in 1980 to being oppressive, fundamentalist, and tyrannical as it still is now.
But as a memoir, I didn't like it. Marjane seems to equate freedom with no boundaries or rules or restrictions in her life. She spent four years in Austria as a teenager presumably to go to school (her parents sent her there to get her away from the oppressive Iranian government), but ends up being self-absorbed and addicted to drugs. When she returns to Iran, she drowns in self-pity and loathing and tried to kill herself. She marries her boyfriend of three years and knows two weeks later that she will get a divorce. I cannot say I would do better had I grown up in her circumstances, but I hope I would. The bottom line is that I prefer to read a memoir that uplifts and inspires rather than beats down and depresses.
I thought the art was amazing and perfect. And I would like to know more about Iran and how it came to be what it is today. I especially like this excerpt from the forward: "Since [1979], this old and great civilization has been discussed mostly in connection with fundamentalism, nationalism, and terrorism. As an Iranian who has lived more than half of my life in Iran, I know that this image is far from the truth . . . I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists. I also don't want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom, who died in the war against Iraq, who suffered under various oppressive regimes, or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten."
4. Crossed (2012.12.23)
by: Ally Condie
Pages: 367
Genre: young adult fiction / dystopia / coming-of-age / science fiction
Bex Rating: 7.5
It wasn't as good as it's prequel, Matched (read last year, book review # 46), but I still enjoyed and will still read the third (and final?) book when it comes out this Fall.
Every other chapter is told from either Ky's or Cassia's point of view. Ky is sent to the outer provinces, and Cassia figures out a way to get there to find him. Xander is only this this book for a few pages, but Cassia discovers Xander has a secret while she tries to find The Rising.
There is a "fight" between Ky and Cassia near the end, and it's hard to believe how it happens--but I guess most fights are like that in real life :). These books are comparable to The Hunger Games, but far less violent and not quite as gripping.
3. Chick Days {An absolute Beginner's Guide}: Raising Chickens from Hatchlings to Laying Hens (2012.12.16)
By: Jenna Woginrich
Pages: 128
Genre: how-to / raising chickens / nonfiction / memoir
Bex Rating: 9
I borrowed this book from my dad. Though neither he nor I need to read it, we both want to. Because we are chicken people. Why, when I have a tantalizing stack of new books from Christmas waiting to be read, do I choose the chicken book?
It soothes my soul, people. :)
The author of this book chronicles her farm adventures on her blog, Cold Antler Farm. I haven't been a follower, but I just might after this enjoyable read. The book is a great resource for anyone interested in starting to raise chickens for eggs, but it's also filled with well-written, enjoyable, memoir-style essays about the joys of the farm lifestyle. I related with Jenna in so many ways. She expressed more than once that "Once you get chickens, you may start getting ducks, rabbits, and goats." I've got the ducks and rabbits, and the goats (and/or sheep) are a fond daydream.
If you are thinking of getting chickens, this book is a graphically beautiful choice. You can also find all kinds of great resources online. My two favorite chicken sites are mypetchicken and backyardchickens.
2. Anya's Ghost (2012.01.12)
By: Vera Brosgol
Pages: 221
Genre: graphic novel / fantasy / ghost story / teenage angst
Oh, I loved it--deliciously creepy. This is the story of Russian-American Anya, who wishes she was thin, popular, and American. When she falls down a well, she meets a ghost named Emily, who died in the same well ninety years ago. Emily begins following Anya around . . . just what she needs.
Allen got this graphic novel for me for Christmas and I love it--it's a difficult genre in which to weed out the undesirable stuff. This one had some swearing and teenage situations--appropriate for 14 and up, I would say. The panel progression was perfectly done, and I love the way Brosgol draws people. It's always amazing to me how a cartoonist can portray emotions so well in so few lines.
1. Parenting the Ephraim's Child: Characteristics, Capabilities, and Challenges of Children Who Are Intensely MORE (2012.01.10)
By: Deborah Talmadge and Jaime Theler
Pages: 263
Genre: self-help / parenting / psychology / nonfiction
Bex Rating: 9.5
Reading this book is a great way to start a new year (though I started it several months ago and have been reading it piecemeal). Allen actually picked this book up at the D.I. (our favorite thrift store) and when I read the title I was like, "What the heck?" But as soon as I read the description on the back, I knew we needed to buy it and read it. Here's what the back says:
"Like those of the tribe of Ephraim, an Ephraim's child has great determination, energy, and a headstrong will. Ephraim's children are also often high-maintenance, emotional, controlling, and aggravating. What other sources don't tell you is that these children are special and covenant people . . . These are the children of the final days, when strength of character will be so crucial."
My copy is now thoroughly marked up, highlighted, and dog-eared. This is the parenting book I have been needing, for my sweet, bright, enthusiastic, tenacious, and determined seven-year-old, Brigham. It's very similar to Mary Sheedy Kurcinka's Raising Your Spirited Child, but with lots of scriptures and supporting information from prophets and apostles for an LDS parent. The basic underlying message of this book is: these characteristics and traits your child was born with are STRENGTHS, not weaknesses, and children with these temperaments are the very ones the world needs right now. The title comes from this statement made by Brigham Young:
"The sons of Ephraim are wild and uncultivated, unruly, ungovernable. The spirit in them is turbulent . . . No hardship will discourage these men . . . there is no hardship that this people would not face and overcome."
The first 12 chapters help you understand your child's temperament, and I'm so glad those chapters come before the chapter on "discipline", because the authors state (and I agree) that you can't discipline your child without understanding them. Some of the aspects of temperament are: intensity, persistence, adaptability, awareness, sensitivity, activity, control, and independence. Every time I read a situational example, I couldn't believe how exactly the same my Brigham behaves. It was so refreshing, encouraging, and validating to know that because of his temperament, he really does require more time, more patience, more of my energy than other children do.
The chapter on discipline was so excellent, because the authors explain why "discipline" is good and right and necessary, but "punishment" can only exacerbate the behavior. "Punishment is directed at the child himself. Discipline is directed more at the objectionable behavior of the child; it is something we do for our children, not to them." Discipline is motivated by love. {AMEN!}
I was constantly sharing paragraphs from the book with Allen, and I was very touched and grateful when he told me a few nights ago, "I'm going to read that book after you. Really, is there any book I should read more than one that helps me to be a better parent?"
I could go on and on about all the things I learned and am still realizing about Brigham and about myself, but I'll just recommend the book to anyone who thinks they might have an "Ephraim's Child." Here are some of my favorite passages:
- The world needs people with conviction; people with purpose . . . We know these children are not fence sitters. It is not in their nature. They are going to get into the thick of things, simply because they are not content just to sit. We want a child who, once his feet are set on the right road, will not turn aside no matter the obstacles, difficulties, or temptations. The Ephraim's Child is blessed to already possess a large measure of persistence, perseverance, and determination. It will be easier to endure to the end when one is already steadfast, unfailing, and resolved. We are told that those who endure to the end shall be saved at the last day. Isn't that the end goal for us all?
- When thinking about sleep schedules, consider sleep to be "food" for the brain . . . You don't withhold feeding because it is socially inconvenient; you anticipate when your child might become hungry. Same for naps. A parent coming home late from work would not starve his baby by withholding food until he arrived and could feed the child. Same for the bedtime hour; let's not "sleep-starve" our baby's brain by keeping her up too late.
- Our active kids need to hear from us that we appreciate and value their abundant energy.
- We don't want to calm our kids down. What we need to do is help these children to harness and direct their abundant energy into productive channels. Great energy is needed to accomplish the Lord's work.
- Learning to express strong emotions, like anger and frustration, respectfully and selectively is learned behavior. You don't have to be a victim of your emotions. You can choose your response. You don't have to react. And as you make those choices, your children are watching and listening. You are their role model, teaching them with your words and actions what adults do when faced with a rush of powerful emotions.
- If you are worried about giving your child too much control, remember that control is not the same as authority. You can and should maintain your parental authority, but you can often do that best when allowing your Ephraim's child some control . . . "We must give our children the control we don't need in order to keep the control that we do."
5 comments:
Loving this bec. I don't think either of my children are as exuberant as your handsome Brigs, but that sounds like a good book to read for any parent. And I love that graphic novel snippet. I might just have to borrow it from you! You have great recommendations! Love you!
Katie, I love your choice of words! "Exuberant" is the perfect word for my little Briglet.
I thought your review of the behavioral book was insightful.
Being what is called ADHD has been one of the greatest assets I have. Sure I get distracted by birds flying by my window and managing my time with email and internet distractions is a struggle, but ADHD lets you hyperfocus also. You just have to learn to focus on important things or choose jobs/careers that meet my particular neuroses.
I had very good teachers that were willing to work through my issues. My second grade teacher had a special rule for me that I had to have one part of my body touching my desk at all times. I can remember hopping around my desk with one foot hooked around the leg of my chair while the rest of the class was sitting quietly and paying attention. My sixth grade teacher let me read almost non-stop as long as I did my homework. He let me get up whenever I felt like I needed to and walk around or go to the library.
Brian, I'm so glad you shared this. It helps me to know that both now and in the future, Brigham will be other people's favorite person . . . because that's how we feel about you and Leila! We need more hyper-focused, exuberant people like you and Brigham in the world!
I am glad you posted this. I have a child with autism and am always looking for positive books about parenting "intense" children. Definitely going to be checking this book out on amazon. I liked the part about not calming them down but harnessing their energy. Definitely need to read that part!!! :)
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