Belated Donation Total

Okay, so I did a finish line post but I didn't say how much money I raised for First Book.

13 reviews posted x $10/review = 130 dollars
28 comments x $1/comment = 28 dollars
1 "like" on Facebook x .50/like = .50

For a grand total of . . . . 158.50. Woohoo! I'm going to round that up to 160 dollars for the sake of not donating a totally random amount of money.

I'm ready to do this again. Just give me about a year.

Linkity Linkity Loo

Yes, kiddies, it's time for me to clean out my Google Reader once again. Aren't you lucky!

• This is an older Booklights post, but one worth re-reading: When I Was Your Age . . . Susan talks about her experience with parents who can't understand why their second-grader isn't interested in Nancy Drew or other classics. After all, the parent loved them when they were a kid! As Susan points out, when did you love them? In second grade? Or in fifth? She gently explains why the Hardy Boys might be daunting to a kid fresh off Magic Tree House and gives suggestions as to what to explore next.
• When I heard that Hope Larson, author of Chiggers and Mercury, was adapting A Wrinkle in Time in graphic form, I went, "Hmmm!" I'm cautiously intrigued. The lady's good at translating inner turmoil into graphic novel form, and who's more tumultuous than Meg Murray?
• Oh, did you know Dan Gutman corrupted America? All by himself? Quite an accomplishment, if you ask me. Especially considering his weapon of choice was "depraved, acrimonious dribble." Seriously, this is a marvelous response to a parent's indignation over content in his "Weird School" books.
• On her blog, Shannon Hale has a similar response to an objection to Jeff Smith's "Bone" series. Always interesting to see this stuff from the authors' point of view.

That's all you get for today!

48-Hour Book Challenge Finish Line!

Time Stats

Total reading time: 16 hours, 7 minutes
Total blogging time (including this post): 5 hours, 38 minutes
Total networking time: 2 hours, 50 minutes

For a total time of: 24 hours, 35 minutes

Some other statistics

Books finished: 13 (including one audiobook which was partially done at the beginning)
Books given up on: 1

My experience
I had a harder time this year than last (or I forgot how hard it was). I think this was due to a few different factors. One, last year I read all books that I was insanely excited to read, which really helped with my energy level. This year, I had a good smattering of books that I was excited to read, but about half of them were obligations.

They also tended to be shorter, so I didn't get the momentum that I did last year. Only one paper book took me more than two hours, and there were a number that took less than an hour. You'd think that would make it easier, but it was actually harder. How weird. I had the same number of books this year as last, but a much lower time spent reading.

I also exercised both days, which was good to get out of the house and moving, but it tired me out so that I didn't have the stamina to stay up late and read. Of course, I prize my sleep, so I was never going to be one of the 48-hour readers.

Still, I had fun. I always do. There's something about doing this and communicating with a whole group of people who are also doing it at the same time that's just exhilarating. I noticed there were more adult-book bloggers this year, so it was neat to visit their blogs and see what they were up to. And the tweets flew thick and fast!

I'll wait to make my final donation count until Monday evening. Thanks for another great year, Pam, and congrats to everyone who entered this marathon!

Book Review: The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

Book: The Dark is Rising
Author: Susan Cooper
Published: 1973
Source: library

Who I Told I’d Read It: nobody really; this was the audiobook I was listening to while cooking and exercising and doing all the other things it's inadvisable to do with your eyes otherwise occupied.
Time: 2:40:06 (during the 48HBC)

Will Stanton is used to being overlooked and left behind. He's not bitter about it; that's just the way life is for the youngest of a very large family. But on the morning of his eleventh birthday, he wakes into a strange, still world. Inside his house, none of his brothers or sisters will wake up. Outside is not the familiar Thames Valley he's always known, but a snow-blanketed landscape from long ago.

When he ventures out into it, his true nature is revealed to him. He's an Old One, servant of the Light, last in a long line of immortal beings pledged to fight the Dark. And throughout the coming Christmas season, he alone must seek out the six Signs of the Light, that will aid them in their battle. Because if the Dark gets them first, there's no telling what evil will swamp the world.

I read this for the first time in fourth grade, and I can clearly remember the experience. I've never been a high fantasy girl, but The Dark is Rising was my exception. I marinated in this book and its sequels, soaking up the glorious language, the firm anchoring in the English, Cornish, and Welsh countrysides, and the underpinnings of Arthurian myth. It's probably the reason for my persistent Anglophilia. Returning to it, I wondered how the book itself would measure up to my memories.

This is a story of growing up fast and brutal, no question. At a time of year when everyone is permitted to be a child, Will must be an adult, making hard choices for himself and for the family that has always nurtured and protected him. Cooper is almost systematic about stripping away his protection. At different times, he sees almost every member of his family affected by his quest, turned from steady dependable anchors into fearful, helpless human beings in various situations that Will must then handle. It's something we all learn, but not in the space of three weeks. Caught between being an eleven-year-old boy and an immortal Old One, Will yearns to be one or the other, knowing that to fulfill his quest, he must balance both. His humanity is as important to the story as his magical powers, and Cooper keeps him (and us) from arrogance by inserting reminders of old, wild magic that are beyond either.

For sure, this is a book that couldn't have been written today. The Light is good and the Dark is bad and there's an end to it. Post-Watergate (which scandal was probably just beginning to break as Cooper was writing), we require a little more in the way of proof, and we also like to see a little more internal conflict in a person called to a great and terrible destiny. Will sees his duty and falls in line, without question. He has moments of weakness and doubt, but he doubts himself, never the Light nor Merriman Lyon, its representative. Additionally, I had problems with the women in the story, who all tend to be either silly (Will's sisters), evil (a neighbor girl who seduces a human ally away from the Light), or iconic (Miss Greythorne and the Lady). Finally, it's more than a little unlikely that the Six Signs would all turn up so handily close to Will's home.

But those are things you think about away from the grip of the story. Returning to this book after many years dropped me right back into my love affair with it. Maybe it's something about being so devoted to it when I was young, or maybe it's simply the power of Cooper's writing, but I felt all the old prickles of awe and meloncholy that it evoked in me twenty years ago.

Book Review: The Brain Finds a Leg by Martin Chatterton

Book: The Brain Finds a Leg
Author: Martin Chatterton
Published: 2009
Source: review copy from publisher

Who I Told I’d Read It: the publisher
Time: 1:17:52

It all started with the highly unexpected humpback whale attack. Not  to mention the killer koalas, the organized lorikeet poop-strafing, and the SUV-stealing possums. For sure, there are strange things afoot in Sheldon McGlone's sleepy little town of Farrago Bay. Luckily, Sheldon crosses paths with The Brain, a middle-schooler with the mindpower of a Harvard professor. Coincidentally, the Brain has just found a leg, unattached to a body, which might have something to do with the death of local surfer punk Biff Manley, a crime that Sheldon's brother Sean is being blamed for.

Now if The Brain and his new sidekick can figure out what Biff, his leg, the crazed animals, and the local toothpaste manufacturer have to do with each other, they might just get to the bottom of this. That's if they can convince the crocodile that thinks it's a puppy dog to let go of the local police sergeant.

If Sherlock Holmes hijacked a Carl Hiaasen novel and made off with it to Australia, you might get something like The Brain Finds a Leg. Illogical, ridiculous, and all-around-unlikely? Clearly. Loads of fun? Christ, yes.

The Brain has that annoying literary genius trait of giving Sheldon (and by extension, us) barely 1/10th of the real story, so this is not really the book for someone who needs to know what's going on at all times. But this isn't the kind of book you read for the plot. You read for the twisted humor, the oddball situations, and the desire to see just how strange it can get before the end. And the answer? Very strange indeed.

Book Review: Nieve by Terry Griggs

Book: Nieve
Author: Terry Griggs
Published: 2010
Source: LibraryThing Early Reviewer program

Who I Told I’d Read It: LibraryThing
Time: 1:39:14

Weird things have been happening lately. Some of them, Nieve doesn't mind so much, like her parents getting more work as professional weepers. But some things, like the sudden uptick in the number of spiders, the creepy new apothecaries in town, and the nasty candy that the new substitute gives to the whole class, are just worrisome.

Before long, Nieve and her strange new friend Lias are off to the Black City, and it's there she'll discover what's really going on, and what she has to do with it.

This book started out as interestingly weird and quickly spiraled down into totally horrific. It's marked 10-15, but I wouldn't give this to anybody under 12, and even then only if they have a strong tolerance for disturbing stuff. What else can you call scenes of people being twisted into furniture?

A lot of the things seemed to be random details instead of feeding back into the story, too. Certain creepy characters that loom up at the beginning are never explained or positioned within the rest of the narrative, and the motivations of the Big Bad are fuzzy at best. Of course, this is the first book in a trilogy, but I got the feeling that it really didn't have to be.

Book Review: Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell in Love by Lauren Tarshis

Book: Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell in Love
Author: Lauren Tarshis
Published: 2009
Source: swapped

Who I Told I’d Read It: the little girl at work who checked out the first Emma Jean book. Okay, that's a stretch. The truth is, I really felt like reading a quick book I was sure to enjoy.
Time: 0:38:51

It's spring at William Gladstone Middle School, and everyone is showing the effects. With the school dance coming up, nobody can discuss any topic but who is going with whom. Colleen Pomerantz even has a secret admirer, and she's called on super-logical Emma-Jean Lazarus to figure out who it is.

While she is most pleased to assist her friend, Emma-Jean has problems of her own. Every time she sees Will Keeler, her heart has taken to fluttering in the most distracting and puzzling way. Is it possible that Emma-Jean is--gulp--in love?

This is another book that I'd love to read aloud. Emma-Jean's detached and quizzical way of looking at the world, specifically the world of WGMS, just begs to be repeated. ("A chickpea fell off Emma-Jean's fork, as though Vikram's suggestion had caused it to faint." That one almost made me snort chili out my nose, which is exactly as pleasant as it sounds.) But Tarshis is just as adept at capturing the ups and downs of a middle-school girl's life in Colleen's narration, as her secret admirer lends her courage and confidence in the daunting face of seventh grade.

Hilarious, sweet, and quirky, Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell in Love is a worthy successor to Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree. Here's hoping Lauren Tarshis keeps supplying us with more Emma-Jean for quite some time.

Book Review: Gone by Lisa McMann

Book: Gone
Author: Lisa McMann
Published: 2010
Source: purchased

Who I Told I’d Read It: the author, when I bought it at a book signing
Time: 0:51:38

Janie's on vacation, trying to escape the aftereffects of a traumatic police investigation and the news that her dream-catching abilities will eventually leave her blind and crippled. Even in the sun and sand, though, neither she nor her beloved Cabe can quite dismiss it from their minds.

Then Janie's dragged back home by the news that the father she never knew is comatose in a local hospital. To her surprise, he's been close all this time, living in a cabin in the woods, isolated from everyone and everything. Furthermore, it seems that he's the source of her dream-catching, but unlike the only other dream-catcher she's ever known, he is neither blind nor crippled. Janie slowly realizes his self-imposed isolation is the key to avoiding this terrible fate.

So now she must choose--be with Cabe, and become a burden to the person she loves most of all? Or spend the rest of her life whole and healthy, and utterly alone?

In order to not get totally lost in this book, you have to have read the first two. It took me some time to get mentally caught up, as I read the last one during last year's 48HBC. That aside, I think it's a worthy end to an absorbing and somewhat dark trilogy. We even managed to get a little bit of closure on the difficult alcoholic-mother/caretaker-daughter relationship.

(From here on in, there be spoilers. You've been warned.)

Janie's eleventh-hour realization of the true effects of her father's isolation was one I'd come to a long time before. For quite awhile, I really thought that isolation was going to be her choice, and I was all geared up to be mad about it, because the example of her father, comatose and crazy in the hospital, was right there in front of her.

Certainly the ending is not sunshine and puppies. The whole point of such a difficult choice is that neither outcome is particularly palatable. But Cabel and Janie's relationship has been set up as so sturdy and loving that you feel certain that if any couple can handle the fate that awaits them, they can.

Book Review: City of Fire by Lawrence Yep

Book: City of Fire
Author: Lawrence Yep
Published: 2009
Source: Review Copy from publisher

Who I Told I’d Read It: the publisher
Time: 2:07:45

At twelve years old, Scirye feels like she'll never live up to the examples set by her famous diplomat mother or her highly skilled warrior sister. And she's bored, bored, bored accompanying the treasures of the Kushan empire on their visit to a San Francisco museum.

But suddenly, her dull day at the museum turns chaotic. All within half an hour, the museum has been invaded by dragons, her sister lies dead, and one of the greatest treasures of Scirye's people has been stolen. Scirye vows revenge and goes after the thieves.

She's joined on her pell-mell pursuit by Koko and Leech, two street-wise kids who lost their own friend in the attack, and Bayang, who looks like a mousy old lady and fights like an Amazon. Together they go from San Francisco to Hawaii in pursuit of the evil Roland, discovering the secrets of friends and enemies alike. One thing's for sure, this is much bigger than it seems.

I've really liked Yep's work in the past, but I have to say that this is far from my favorite of his novels. The setting--an alternate, magical 1941--is pretty imaginative, which may be part of the problem. The plot is necessarily fast-paced, but every so often, it had to be interrupted for another bit of world-building or character background. Sometimes I would look up from the book and think, "So . . . what's happening again?" It doesn't help that we're bounced from POV to POV, each one having its own background, both personal and cultural, that needed to be explained to the reader. Rather too much information for me, honestly. Kids who are used to dense worldbuilding, though, may sail through this and gobble up the whimsical volcano goddesses and evil shape-shifting dragons.

I did appreciate that the magical creatures (all the way up to gods and goddesses) were not the traditional Arthurian or Greek models, but Asian, Middle Eastern, and Hawaiian. The next book in the series promises some Scandinavian mythology, but unless I see some really good reviews, I don't think I'll pick it up.

Book Review: Persephone the Phony

Book: Persephone the Phony
Author: Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams
Published: 2010
Source: ARC from author

Who I Told I’d Read It: the author, at KidLitCon 09
Time: 0:19:35

Persephone is well-known as a sweet, easy-going girl who never causes trouble. But that's all on the outside. On the inside, she's a seething mass of opinions that she never dares to let out. She feels like a gigantic phony.

Then she meets Hades. Cute, smart, and he likes her a lot. Persephone likes him back, a lot. Her friends and her overprotective mother all say he's bad news, but this time, Persephone the Phony is just going to have to disagree.

It's a good time of day to sit out by the pool and attempt to get a little color on my legs, which have been known to blind unwary onlookers. But this being the desert, I picked a book that was short enough I wouldn't turn the color of a stoplight. Remember how I said Persephone the Phony looked more promising than Athena the Brain? I'm glad to report that my instinct held true. This book carried on with all the things I liked about the first book, like the riffs on mythology, the cute puns, and the lighthearted feel, and fixed most of the things I didn't, like the lack of strong conflict and character development.

That's not to say it's a particularly meaty book. Hades' bad reputation boils down to little more than being from the Underworld and hanging out in the principal's office (which, we discover, is nothing more sinister than it being the only place he feels comfortable eating lunch). Persephone's conflict with her mother and friends is easily smoothed over, and even the bullyboy Ares is defanged after a blink-and-you'll-miss-it confrontation at a school dance. Persephone's final conclusion, that it's best to balance the go-along attitude with standing your ground, seems to fall into place like a math equation.

Still, if you're looking for an airy snack of a book to feed kids ravenous for more Greek mythology, this book might fit the bill. Just make sure you have something more to toss them in an hour or two.

ETA: My ARC didn't have the cover for this book, just the first. I can't get over this cover. Look how cute they are! Awwwww.

Book Review: Saving Maddie by Varian Johnson

Book: Saving Maddie
Author: Varian Johnson
Published: 2010
Source: ARC from KidLitCon

Who I Told I’d Read It: the author. Actually, I kind of begged for this ARC after reading My Life as a Rhombus. Really shamelessly, too.
Time: 1:04:10

Joshua Wynn is a preacher's kid. Since before he could walk, he's known what that means. He's held to a higher standard than other kids. He has to be an example of how to act and speak and think. And so far he's been pretty successful. He visits the elderly instead of going out partying, heads the youth group instead of the basketball team, sings in the choir instead of dancing in bars--in short, he's everyone's idea of a good guy.

When childhood friend Maddie Smith comes back to town, she's like a walking, talking example of everything Joshua's never allowed himself to be. The years away have changed her, outside and in. But Joshua knows that the girl he once knew--smart and spunky and his best friend in the world--is somewhere inside the slutty-dressing, tequila-drinking, scandalous woman. He's going to find her, and he's going to save her.

He might even end up saving himself.

Like I said, I loved My Life as a Rhombus so much that when I met the author at KidLitCon 09, I begged pretty shamelessly for this ARC. Besides being by an author I already knew I enjoyed, I was hoping this would pick up one of my favorite themes in YA, which is how people fit religion and faith into their life.

It did and it didn't: there's very little of the inner exploration of faith and God that I love. However, what does happen is that Joshua's concept of his own religion, his beliefs about what's right and what's wrong and how his actions make him a good person or not, broadens. In the beginning, he is attempting to fit some robotic mold of the good Christian soldier. There is a line that encapsulates Joshua:

I was supposed to be a shining example of what was good and righteous and wholesome in the world. (Page 28 of the ARC)

Y'all, I almost cracked from the pressure just reading that.

By the end, he's learned to let up on himself a little, understand that if he bends some of the rules that his church and his community have laid down for him, he won't automatically go to hell, or even worse, lose his parents' love. He remains a fundamentally good guy, just one who isn't so rigid about his own goodness.

So does Joshua save Maddie? It's hard to say. Maddie doesn't turn into a Sunday-hat-wearing, choir-singing Good Girl, but thanks to Joshua's love and friendship, she does finish up the novel in a better emotional place than when she entered it, and maybe that's all you really need for salvation.

Book Review: Athena the Brain by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams

Book: Athena the Brain
Author: Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams
Published: 2010
Source: ARC from author at KidLitCon

Who I Told I’d Read It: the author
Time: 0:24:28

Athena's never felt like she fit in down on earth, so it's no surprise when she gets a letter from Mount Olympus, saying that she's actually a goddess, the daughter of Zeus. Whisked away to Mount Olympus Academy, she now must adjust to her goddess powers and at the same time, deal with bullies like Medusa, pretty boys like Poseidon, and just possibly, make new friends.

While entertaining in a fluffy sort of way, this is a pretty clear mashup of various currently popular elements from children's literature. From the Harry-Potter-style summoning to a magical school to the Lightning-Thief influence of ancient Greek mythology, there's not a lot that's new or different about Athena the Brain. Also, while we're told that Athena is having difficulties, she seems to sail through them. Even when she has to leave her best friend and foster sister back on Earth, it doesn't seem to penetrate.

Still, this is cute, and clearly a quick read. For those already in the know about Greek mythology, seeing how the traditional stories get riffed on or adjusted is kind of fun. I particularly liked the way the Trojan War was worked into the plot. But I'd still read the Pandora series by Carolyn Hennessey for mixed-up Grecian fun that's not all surface.

The ARC I got had the next book in the Goddess Girls series packaged with it, Persephone the Phony, and it looks a little more promising. But since I've read some very short books recently, I'm going to hunt through my stack for something I can really sink my teeth into.

Not Really a Review

Spent about half an hour trying to get into Butterfly by Sonya Hartnett. It did get the sense of a 14-year-old not fitting into their own skin marvelously well, tantrums and turmoil and all. Unfortunately, Hartnett's style is one that's most often described as "lyrical." My experience with lyrical is that they spend so much so much time seeing how pretty they can make the words that they forget that things are supposed to, y'know, happen. This held true for this book, too.

Also, there was as much of the story devoted to middle-aged neighbors and grown brothers as there was to Plum, the main character. More, possibly. Certainly there is a sense that Plum's agonizing concerns are really meaningless when compared to all these important things are going on around her. It's more an adult novel with a teenaged protagonist than a teen novel, really. Which is okay for some but not my cup of tea.

Book review: Alison Dare, Little Miss Adventures by J Torres and J Bone

Book: Alison Dare, Little Miss Adventures
Author: J. Torres
Illustrator: J. Bone
Published: 2002 (original)
Source: LibraryThing Early Reviewers program

Who I Told I’d Read It: LibraryThing
Time: 0:18:44

Genies that grant every wish as mischievously as possible, a dad with a secret superhero identity, an archaeologist mom with an evil Nazi nemesis. A little too much for most children's books, but business as usual for Alison Dare.

I got this from LTER thinking it was a graphic novel in the usual sense (well, usual lately). It turned out to be a collection of three Alison Dare adventures, bundled together in one book. In style, they're more like old-fashioned kiddy adventure comic books. Which was fine, once I got used to the notion. I did feel as if I came in during the middle of the story, and had a hard time sorting out who was who. In spite of that, I think it would be great, especially for reluctant readers who want a rip-roaring time.

Clearly drawing on the Indiana Jones trope of adventure (even down to the title font and certain lines of dialogue) Alison Dare never pretends to be anything but itself, a farfetched but utterly entertaining romp with over the top villains and equally over the top heroes.

Book Review: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood

Book: The Mysterious Howling (Book 1 of The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place)
Author: Maryrose Wood
Published: 2010
Source: Review copy from publisher

Who I Told I’d Read It: the publisher
Time: 1:17:49

Penelope Lumley is the newest (and youngest) graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, and she's delighted to get a governess post so quickly. She fondly envisions a future full of bright, well-behaved children, soaking up the education she provides.

And in a way, that's what she gets--but first she has to teach Alexander, Beowulf, and Casseopeia not to chew on their own shoes. For it seems almost certain that her new charges were raised by wolves before they were found by Lord Frederick of Ashton Place, and before she teaches them Latin and French, they have to learn how to put on pants the right way up.

But Penelope is not a Swanburne girl for nothing, and she soon comes to love the three children, quirks and all. Which makes it even more unsettling as she realizes that Lord Frederick might not have the most benevolent of plans for them . . .

I've enjoyed Maryrose Wood's books before, so when this one was offered to me, I took it. There is something very Lemony Snicket about this book, with the over-the-top situations, the Gothic touches, and the sly asides to the reader. It would be fun to read this aloud, in a classroom or as ongoing bedtime entertainment.

Penelope totally won me over by her bone-deep practicality. Upon meeting the children for the first time in a barn, wearing only horse blankets and howling like wolves, she does not take to her heels screaming, as might be expected. Instead, she immediately starts working to win their trust, taking the situation exactly as she finds it without hysterics or accusations. She's about the only one in the book who sees the children as children from the first, since everyone else, from hunting-mad Lord Frederick to silly Lady Constance and the servants that eventually become friends, reacts to them as you would to wild animals. At this point in the series, you don't get much sense of their individual personalities, but I'm hoping that will change.

This is the first in a series, and if the various hints that Wood has provided about the larger story hold true, it will be something very much in the vein of Snicket's multi-volume opus. To which I say, bring it on.

Book Review: The Secret Year by Jennifer R. Hubbard

Book: The Secret Year
Author: Jennifer R. Hubbard
Published: 2010
Source: ARC from author at KidlitCon

Who I Told I’d Read It: the author
Time: 1:03:33

Nobody would ever believe that a princess from Black Mountain would ever go out with a guy from the flats. So Colt Morrissey doesn't even try. Besides, he and Julia like being the only two people who know about them.

When she dies in a car crash, there's only one.

Colt goes through the first year after Julia's death, trying to get on with his life. At the same time he's also living in the previous year, through a notebook full of letters Julia wrote to him and never sent. He reads them carefully, seeing their relationship through her eyes and trying to make sense of her, of himself, and of what happened between them.

I feel like I should have loved this book. I knew that Colt was going through grief in a strange and bottled-up way, but it felt like there was a sheet of glass between me and him. I was never quite able to immerse myself in his story.

One of the things that really kept me from buying into the story was the stated class differences. And that's the problem, it was all stated. Somehow, for all the scenes of big mansions vs. houses with broken-down cars in the yard, I never quite got the us/them mentality. There were some attempted dramatics, some nods at class clashes, but nothing that really illustrated the gulf between Julia's world and Colt's. Since this is what circumscribed the whole relationship, it meant that the secret of Julia and Colt also didn't quite work for me.

I did like that there is no Magical Healing Power of Love in this book, although I thought there would be at the beginning. Colt gets involved with two other girls in the course of the year, and neither one fixes him. In fact, the secret of Julia is what drives both away, in different ways.

I also liked that it was told from a male perspective. This is the kind of story that is most often written from a female perspective, so that was something interesting and different.

In the long run, I'll look out for more of Hubbard's work, because I liked the way she wrote and I think I want to see how she'll do with a different story. But this one just didn't do it for me.

Book Review: Fat Cat by Robin Brande

Book: Fat Cat
Author: Robin Brande
Published: 2009
Source: Purchased

Who I Told I’d Read It: the author, when I bought it at a book signing
Time: 1:51:14

Cat knows the Special Topics in Research Science class is going to be a killer. This is the class where students have to make up a year-long research project based on a picture from a magazine, after all. She's desperately hoping for something in her area of expertise--bugs--but instead she gets a picture of cavemen.

Scrambling for an idea, Cat decides she's going to live like a cavewoman. She's going to give up technology, motor vehicles, all the trappings of modern life. This includes any food items that a cavewoman wouldn't have had access to, like chocolate, high fructose corn syrup, and french fries. For someone like Cat, who loves her Butterfingers, this is going to be pure torture. But she's determined to stick it out, just for the chance to wipe the smirk off classmate/nemesis/ex-best-friend Matt McKinney's face. And hey, if she loses a little of the stubborn poundage along the way, that would be a bonus.

Cat knows the class is going to be a killer. But she never expected it would change her life.

Oh man, what fun.

I decided to read this first because, like I said, Robin Brande always makes me laugh and I was in the mood for that. This fit the bill--fun, funny, a little poignant as Cat works through the issues that led her to treat herself so badly, and also a great romantic plot.

As the weight starts to come off, the things the fat insulated start to come to the surface. One nasty little boil that has to be lanced is exactly what happened between herself and Matt. While we're told there was a traumatic incident a few years before, the specifics are held in reserve for about 3/4 of the book. I was afraid it would be one of those Big Misunderstandings--something misheard, some lie told, and everyone's happy again when it's clarified or disproved. Luckily, that wasn't the case.The incident strikes a nice balance between actual wrong-doing that requires actual forgiveness and the kind of thing a 13-year-old would hold onto for several years, long past when it was time to let go.

Cat's actual weight loss journey also struck a lot of chords with me. I went through a similar transformation myself, if not as drastic. I'm still nowhere near where I want to be, physically. But Cat's awe at her own changing body, her emerging self-confidence, and her delight in her return to the activities she enjoyed in the past (specifically swimming, which is another of my own loves) were all things that I could nod at and go, "Yes, indeed. I hear you, sweetie."

It's a good thing I live alone, because I kept reading aloud bits of dialogue and narration and giggling to myself. Cat's interactions with her best friend Amanda in particularly were funny and warm, in the way that real best friends have perfected. Brande also has a gift for unexpectedly poignant and on-the-nose turns of phrase. There's a section close to the beginning that brought tears to my eyes because it so perfectly described how I felt:

"When I wake up in the morning, it's like I'm wearing this giant fat suit, and if only I could find the zipper I could step out of it and finally go start living my real life."

Nicely done.

The science aspect of it got a little scrambled. While Cat said that her expertise was in bugs, that's the last we ever heard of it. She never even pauses to read a particularly scintillating article on a new species of insect. Also, in the second half of the book, Cat seemed to be making exceptions to her cavewoman lifestyle right and left. I'm kind of glad she didn't win the science fair because I couldn't see how it all fell together into a national-level project. That's okay, though, because the project was just the impetus, not the story. The real story was about transformation, and where it really begins.

One last note: I soooo want a Fat Cat cookbook. Cat loves to cook and eventually becomes the chef at a vegetarian cafe with some of the cavewoman recipes she's created. I'm a terrible carnivore, but the food mentioned all sounded amazing.

Altogether, this was a fun, smart book with plenty of science and laughs mixed in.

The 48-Hour Book Challenge Begins!

As you should know by now if you've been reading this blog at all, this weekend is MotherReader's (in)famous 48-Hour Book Challenge. This year my theme is Books I Told Somebody I'd Read. I have a stack of books I've acquired by various means (some devious, muahaha). These are books I told somebody I'd read--authors, publicists, early reviewer programs. I'm reading them all this weekend, or at least giving them all my standard 50 pages. If I perchance finish the whole stack before the 48 hours are up, I'll dive into my regularly scheduled to-read shelf.

I'm donating to First Book, with a standard rate of 10 dollars per review posted between now and noon on Sunday, and 1 dollar for each comment on a post between now and Monday afternoon. Since my blog feeds onto my Facebook page, I'm also counting comments and "likes" that the blog/FB post generates. 50 cents for a like, 1 dollar for a comment. Plus I'll be Tweeting. My god, you guys, I'm so connected I can't stand it.

If you want in on the divine madness, pop on over to MotherReader's blog and sign up. You do need a blog to play, but consider this your impetus to finally start one. What's there to lose?

If you're visiting from MotherReader's starting line post, click this link: 48-Hour Book Challenge to see what I've posted since then. (Also, welcome to Casa de Bibliovore! Have a seat, raid the fridge, but if you drink any of my Code Red I'll be very unhappy.)

My first book will be Fat Cat by Robin Brande. Just because I feel in the need for something fun, and she always makes me laugh.

. . . And I'm off!

Reading Roundup April 2010

By the Numbers
Teen: 22
Tween: 10
Children: 11

Sources
Purchased: 2
Library: 37

Standouts
Teen: The Secret Life of Prince Charming by Deb Caletti
Just how many ways can women make romantic mistakes? I think this book covers all of them.
Tween: The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon
A very different and provocative view of the Civil Rights movement, the Black Panthers, and the people caught in the middle of it.
Children: Animals Up Close by Igor Siqanowicz
You guys, that lizard is licking his own eyeball. No booktalk is needed.

Because I Want To Awards
Most Unsettling Ending: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper
Getting It Just Right Again: The Kind of Friends We Used to Be by Frances O'Roark Dowell
Slavering for the Sequel(s): Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman AND Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
Made Me Rethink the Whole Myth, Oh My God, I'm Such a Geek!: Radiant Darkness by Emily Whitman
Wins the So-Not-Twilight Award: Fairy Tale by Cyn Balog
Was Thiiiiiiiis Close to Being the Teen Standout: Pure by Terra Elan McVoy

The 48-hour Book Challenge is Only 168 Hours Away!

This is my holy schnikes post. Talking to a friend today, I realized we only have 168 hours until the 48-Hour Book Challenge starts. Egad!

I've decided to do Books I Told Someone I'd Read (need snappy title stat!). These are the books that were given to me or that I acquired, promising somebody I'd read them. It could be the author, a publicist, or the LibraryThing Early Reviewer program. I just hadn't gotten around to them yet, so I'm setting aside the 48-Hour Book Challenge to read them all at once. Woohoo!

As to my Greater Good cause, I think I will donate to First Book. This is an organization that provides new books to kids in low-income populations. I don't think anybody needs an explanation for why I want to support this cause.

If you haven't already planned the whole weekend of June 4-6 around the 48-Hour Book Challenge, do it now!

Cybils Book Review: Fire by Kristen Cashore

Book: Fire
Author: Kristen Cashore
Published: 2009
Source: Review Copy from Publisher

In a kingdom called the Dells, there are monsters. Not trolls or giants or many-toothed freaks, but preternaturally beautiful versions of regular animals--turquoise rabbits, glittering gold cats, green raptors--that can bewitch their prey so the helpless victim doesn't even mind being eaten. The most dangerous of these is Fire, the only human monster left.

All her life, Fire has dreaded her own power. With a combination of her stunning looks and psychic coercion, she can make almost anybody do almost anything. She's seen the results in her own father, Cansrel, who played sadistic puppetmaster to a weak-willed king. Fire has gone as far as possible in the other direction, flat-out refusing to exercise her monster gifts. She covers her hair and stays closeted at home. But after the excesses of Cansrel and the previous king, the Dells is rapidly falling to pieces. In the civil war to come, Fire must take control of her powers, and all their capacity for good or evil, in order to save her own homeland and the royal family she has grown to love.

I first read a galley of this in April of last year, and obeyed the strict instructions on the front not to review it or talk about it or even acknowledge by the flicker of an eyelash that it existed. (Not all of those were printed on the cover, by the way.) I probably didn't need to be so coy, or so quick about giving it away. Gah. When it landed on the Cybils finalist list, I went "Whee!" because I'd been wanting an excuse to read it again and review it. Sometimes you read a book, get swept away in the first experience, and gloss over to yourself any flaws in the book. Thankfully that was not the case with Fire.

Fire is terrified of her own power. She has some special skills, some things that make her extraordinary, but it's all genetic. She never asked for nor sought anything that makes her special, yet it's all here and she has to deal with it. The first step toward accepting what she is and owning it comes in a marvelous scene where she deliberately distracts the monster raptors that might otherwise attack the royal party. (Monsters love nothing so much as other monsters' blood.) Where before she's always hidden herself inside, under layers of cloth and stone, she runs outside basically shrieking, "Come and get me!" It's a moment of bad-assery that I didn't expect from our wary and self-contained protagonist, and one that foreshadows her future bad-assery when the occasion calls for it.

As with Graceling, it's impossible not to read this from a feminist viewpoint. It's especially noticeable in the portrayal of how others react to Fire. Either they are helpless before her or they loathe her as a wicked creature. Most refuse to take responsibility for their own response, putting all the blame on her for simply being what she is. Small wonder that Fire is so afraid of herself at the beginning of the novel. Brigan is one of the few who sees the imperfect but courageous young woman beneath the glamor, which is why he works for me as a love interest.

Although Fire is seventeen, this is to me one of an increasing number of true young adult novels--not "YA" meaning 12-18, but books about the experience of moving away from the teen years and into adulthood, maybe 18-24. These are related to teen books in that the main character's identity is often very much in flux, and there are lots of growing pains, but rather than being a teen they are expected to be adults. Subtle but telling difference, that. The political underpinnings of the book--this lord betraying that lord, the heave and ho of a burgeoning civil war--is another factor that ages the target audience, and is probably best suited to previous readers of high fantasy. This isn't just about Fire coming to know herself, it's about the fate of an entire land and people.

Bitterblue, the third in the Dells series, is in the process of being written. Write quick, Kristin Cashore!

Links Ahoy

Yes, children, once again it's time for me to clean out my Google Reader stash.

• How well do you know Judy Blume? Take the quiz and find out. Thanks to 100 Scope Notes.
• Shannon Hale, author of Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack, defends the place of graphic novels in literacy. I may copy this out and hand it to parents who slap the manga out of their dismayed child's hands. Y'know, to keep myself from slapping them.
  
•  And in the oh-my-God-just-freakin'-awesome column: Everything about this enthralls me. The original Tenniel. The use of the iPad's accelerometer to control the illustrations. The music! It almost makes me want to buy an iPad. 

48-Hour Book Challenge - Now It's Official

I was going to put "Now it's personal," but really, isn't it all?

Go sign up for MotherReader's 5th annual 48-Hour Book Challenge! Now, today!

I really am looking forward to this. It's a marathon, for sure, but last year I derived enormous support from comments, both those left on my blog and the ones I left on other blogs. I also followed the Twitter hashtag religiously. And it felt so good to tally up my reviews and comments to come up with a final total donation for the American Cancer Society.

So join in the fun!

Top 100 YA Books of All Time

Lo, in those days, Persnickety Snark sent out a command. And she spake thusly: "Thou shalt gather thy top ten YA books of all time, and thou shalt send them unto me. Eleven shalt thou not gather, neither shalt thou gather nine, excepting that it be on the way to ten. Twelve is right out."

And then did the Bibliovore wail, and gnash her teeth, and tear her hair, for it was a grievously difficult command. But finally it was done, and sent in, and hopefully, the Internet shall see it and know that it is good.

1. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton - I'd heard about this book for years, but never read it. When I finally picked it up, I thought, It can't be that good. Nothing can be that good. OH BUT IT IS. Bobby and Suzy can just go suck their malts, because this is real life--doing your best with what you've got, which frankly ain't much, and navigating the unholy mess that is the adult world, where people hate each other or love each other for the way they comb their hair.

2. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume - Okay, this one's a little young. But I think that older teens can still read it, because it takes the biggest questions about growing up and looks at them head-on. Who is God? Who am I? Am I really ready for this grown-up stuff? And best of all? Blume gives us no answers, just the reassurance that it's OK to ask the questions.

3. A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle - Another Big Question book. Why do people die? And how is it possible to live with joy knowing that it will all end someday?

4. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson - The high school ostracism, the slow reveal of What Really Happened, the healing through art . . . another book that couldn't possibly be as good as people say it is, and yet it is.

5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - Just like the Outsiders, this is about doing what nobody ever have to do and facing what nobody should ever have to face, and coming out the other side. (BTW? TEAM PEETA.)

6. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler - Being yourself when yourself isn't good enough for your family takes a special kind of courage. I especially loved that she didn't lose any weight but got buff instead. Kick-boxing girls FTW!

7. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot - Actually, the whole series, with all its tangle of embarassments, false starts, mistakes in love, and the agonizing process of constantly redefining friendships, relationships, and self. Which proves that just because you're a princess doesn't make your life perfect. Far from it.

8. Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr - The slut/stud dichotomy, the fracture of family, the daddy's little girl syndrome . . . I could talk for hours about this book.

9. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by David Levithin and Rachel Cohn - This is the kind of thing that could only happen when you're a teenager. And yeah, it's not likely to happen to a lot of teenagers, but falling in love almost at first sight, the trippy Alice-in-Wonderland odyssey through New York's indie music scene, the weird friends . . . it could only happen once in your life, if it happens at all.

10. Boy Toy by Barry Lyga - Another one about sex and power, and the messed-up way our society approaches it.

And since I only remembered about it a couple of days before it was due, this was all those books I could think of right away. (And there you have a summary of my entire scholastic career.) I know I'll see the final list and shriek, "OH MY GOD HOW COULD I FORGET THAT ONE?!?!" several times.

What's on your top ten list?

Book Review: Julia Gillian and the Art of Knowing by Alison McGhee

Book: Julia Gillian and the Art of Knowing
Author: Alison McGhee
Published: 2008
Source: Swapped

Julia Gillian seems to have the perfect life. She has an excellent name (of which she always uses the full version), two loving parents, a great dog named Bigfoot, interesting friends like her upstairs neighbors and the adults in her neighborhood, and lots of skills and talents.

But not all things in Julia Gillian's life are perfect. She's scared of the green book that she started reading, and immediately stopped when it became clear to her that the dog (so like her own Bigfoot) would die. She hates that her parents are taking classes all summer and can't do all the summer things they usually do. She's frustrated that she can't conquer the claw machine in the hardware store and get the meerkat doll that she's longed for.

More and more this summer, she has to resort to her fierce raccoon face mask for courage. She's always been able to predict what will happen next, but all of a sudden she seems to have lost what she calls "the art of knowing." The world seems to be closing in around her with doom-laden headlines. Is this really what growing up is about?

What a quietly marvelous piece of work this was. What really made it stand out for me was that Alison McGhee respects her main character's fears. There is never a Pollyanna moment, with Julia Gillian realizing that "Oh, things aren't so bad!" Because they are. The scary headlines are real, the dog does die in the green book, and you can fail to capture that elusive meerkat doll. None of that is going away, and very little of it isn't as bad as it seems. The only thing to do is recognize your own fear and press forward in spite of it.

This isn't an action-packed book. It takes place mostly within Julia Gillian's head, as she contemplates and works through her various feelings in reaction to a summer that is not the summer of her dreams. The reflective child, beset with their own fears and misgivings, will recognize her as a soul sister immediately. In this tender book, McGhee ably captures the way that very small things can loom large in the mind of a sensitive child. There are two more Julia Gillian books in the works, and I wouldn't miss them for the world.

Reading Roundup April 2010

By the Numbers
Teen: 22
Tween: 10
Children: 12

Sources
Review Copies: 1
Swapped: 9
Purchased: 2
Library: 28

Standouts
Teen: Out of the Pocket by Bill Konigsberg
Outed by surprise, gay quarterback Bobby Framingham attempts to keep his feet and make his way through a storm of media and personal attention. I loved the more nuanced reactions of his friends and teammates--some raging homophobia, some immediate acceptance, and everything in between.
Tween: Lucky Breaks by Susan Patron
Our Lucky does some growing up. I appreciated Patron's willingness to have Lucky do things out of jealousy and spite, and then deal with what comes next.
Children: Best Friends and Drama Queens by Meg Cabot
Meg Cabot may know just about everything about the workings of the female brain, at any age. Allie Finkle, half tomboy and half girly-girl and all real, runs headlong into a sophisticated new classmate. If you're betting on Allie, you'd be right.

Because I Want To Awards
Actually Made Me Forget He Was a Freakin' Bear: Ice by Sarah Beth Durst
Awesome-tastic Nonfiction: The Lincolns - A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary by Candace Fleming
Very, Very Familiar: Geektastic - Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castelluci
 Man, I So Knew I Was Gonna Cry: Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nichols
I Had No Idea Bubbles Were So Useful: Bubble Homes and Fish Farts by Fiona Bayrock

48-Hour Book Challenge is on the Horizon

MotherReader put out a save-the-date for the 48-Hour Book Challenge. If you've never indulged in this divine collective madness, make 2010 your first year. A bunch of us read and review as much as humanly possible in a 48-hour period. (Some people really and truly read for 48 hours straight. I reel just thinking about it.) It's lots of fun, even more so because we're all egging each other on. Watch MotherReader's blog for more updates, and if you have something to donate as a prize, let her know! This year it's scheduled for June 4-6.

You know what this means, don't you? It means I have less than six weeks to figure out my reading challenge theme for this year. Most people don't do themes, but they're not as nuts as I am. In the past I've done ARC-a-Palooza and the Hypetastic Carnival.

My ideas so far: re-reading childhood faves, clearing off the shelf-of-shame (meaning, those classics I really should have read but haven't), and finally tackling those books I promised somebody I'd read. Votes? Any further ideas? Let me know!

Top 100 YA Novels of All Time!

Whoa, you guys. We only have four days to submit our picks for the Top 100 YA Novels of All Time to Persnickety Snark.

How can I possibly pick? Gaaaaah!

And on a related note, the very first book that popped into my head was, Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. Which, if you'll remember, was on Betsy Bird's Top 100 Chapter Books of All Time. Number 36, I believe.

Does this just fall in the grey area between childhood and YA? Maybe so. Which is a good description of the book, period.*

What are your picks? Submit them! (By the way, love the form, Ms. Snark.)

*Pun intended.

Poetry and Me (a poem) (maybe)

I'm not really into poetry. I don't get it. At least that's what I say.

 

Maybe I'm just a prose person.

Prosaic.

With everything that entails.

 

I could care less about meter, and feet, and beat, and things like that.

(Don't ever ask me to drum. It's not pretty.)

Symbols. What are those plums in the icebox, really?

(Aren't they plums?)

I don't get it.

 

But oh, I love Robert Frost and his road less traveled.

And Shakespeare's sonnets, some of them are pretty good too.

And verse novels, although I hardly ever review them because I don't know if they're good poetry and it seems to me

you have to talk about that.

 

And I love to sing. Not just making music, but the flow of the words and how they fit into the notes.

And that's poetry. That has to be.

It's certainly not prose.

Or prosaic.

(I still can't keep a beat. Clapping is ugly too.)

 

Some authors, you know, you have to read out loud.

And that I love too, rolling the words on my tongue like M&Ms.

 

Sometimes, I'll just listen to people talking.

Not to what they're saying, but to the movements of their voice.

The rhythm of their sounds.

(This is even better when they're speaking in a different language.)

Did you know there's a word for that?

Prosody.

The song of the human voice.

 

Maybe it's not that I'm not into poetry.

Maybe I just don't know what it really is.

Top 100 Children's Books of All Time - My Score

It's a rule of the internet - you give us a list, we'll give you a meme. Another rule is that if it exists, there is a fetish community for it, but this post has nothing to do with that.

This one's based on Betsy Bird's top 100 children's books of all time and has been bouncing happily around the kidlitosphere since Betsy announced the number one book on Monday morning. It's very simple, bold the ones you've read. I'm going to go one further and star the ones that I read as a kid. Of course, it being me, I have to provide color commentary.

100. The Egypt Game - Snyder (1967) *
99. The Indian in the Cupboard - Banks (1980) *
98. Children of Green Knowe - Boston (1954)
97. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - DiCamillo (2006)
96. The Witches - Dahl (1983) *
95. Pippi Longstocking - Lindgren (1950) *
94. Swallows and Amazons - Ransome (1930)
93. Caddie Woodlawn - Brink (1935) *
92. Ella Enchanted - Levine (1997)
91. Sideways Stories from Wayside School - Sachar (1978) *
I still remember, vividly, the kid who got the potato tattoo. Potato! Tattoo!!
90. Sarah, Plain and Tall - MacLachlan (1985) *
89. Ramona and Her Father - Cleary (1977)*
88. The High King - Alexander (1968)
I don't actually remember if I did or not. Ugh. Isn't that awful?
87. The View from Saturday - Konigsburg (1996)
86. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Rowling (1999)
85. On the Banks of Plum Creek - Wilder (1937) *
84. The Little White Horse - Goudge (1946)
83. The Thief - Turner (1997)
I remember reading this for the first time and going, "Hey, MWT can't do that in first person! But she DID. And it was AWESOME."
82. The Book of Three - Alexander (1964)
81. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon - Lin (2009)
Loved it. Reviewed it. Smirked at my own perspicacity. Then had to spell-check perspicacity.
80. The Graveyard Book - Gaiman (2008)
79. All-of-a-Kind-Family - Taylor (1951)*
78. Johnny Tremain - Forbes (1943)*
77. The City of Ember - DuPrau (2003)
76. Out of the Dust - Hesse (1997)
75. Love That Dog - Creech (2001)
74. The Borrowers - Norton (1953)*
73. My Side of the Mountain - George (1959)
72. My Father's Dragon - Gannett (1948)*
71. The Bad Beginning - Snicket (1999)
70. Betsy-Tacy - Lovelace (1940)
69. The Mysterious Benedict Society - Stewart ( 2007)
68. Walk Two Moons - Creech (1994)
67. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher - Coville (1991)*
66. Henry Huggins - Cleary (1950)*
65. Ballet Shoes - Streatfeild (1936)*
64. A Long Way from Chicago - Peck (1998)
63. Gone-Away Lake - Enright (1957)
62. The Secret of the Old Clock - Keene (1959)*
61. Stargirl - Spinelli (2000)
60. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle - Avi (1990)
59. Inkheart - Funke (2003)
58. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase - Aiken (1962)*
I still remember figuring out the secret of a secondary character and going, "Oh! OH!" I love that feeling.
57. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 - Cleary (1981)*
56. Number the Stars - Lowry (1989)*
55. The Great Gilly Hopkins - Paterson (1978)
54. The BFG - Dahl (1982)*
53. Wind in the Willows - Grahame (1908)
I tried! Honestly, I did!
52. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007)
51. The Saturdays - Enright (1941)
50. Island of the Blue Dolphins - O'Dell (1960)*
49. Frindle - Clements (1996)
48. The Penderwicks - Birdsall (2005)
47. Bud, Not Buddy - Curtis (1999)
46. Where the Red Fern Grows - Rawls (1961)
45. The Golden Compass - Pullman (1995)
44. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing - Blume (1972)*
I was traumatized by Fudge eating the turtle. That poor turtle! Swimming around in Fudge's stomach!
43. Ramona the Pest - Cleary (1968)*
42. Little House on the Prairie - Wilder (1935)*
41. The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Speare (1958)*
One of my first swoony romantic books. Oh, Nat! With your huge, manly . . . ship.
40. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Baum (1900)
39. When You Reach Me - Stead (2009)
38. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Rowling (2003)
37. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - Taylor (1976)
36. Are You there, God? It's Me, Margaret - Blume (1970)*
Like practically every American girl since 1970, I owe my understanding of menstruation to Judy Blume. I was also kind of blown away by Margaret's Jewish/Catholic family.
35. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Rowling (2000)
34. The Watsons Go to Birmingham - Curtis (1995)
33. James and the Giant Peach - Dahl (1961)*
32. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - O'Brian (1971)*
31. Half Magic - Eager (1954)*
30. Winnie-the-Pooh - Milne (1926)
Parts of it. Do parts count? Do I get, like, .5 point?
29. The Dark Is Rising - Cooper (1973)*
Probably kickstarted my Anglophilia.
28. A Little Princess - Burnett (1905)*
27. Alice I and II - Carroll (1865/72)*
26. Hatchet - Paulsen (1989)*
Weirdly enough, the old cover looked exactly like my brother. No. Exactly. It was freaky, I tell you.
25. Little Women - Alcott (1868/9)*
24. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Rowling (2007)
23. Little House in the Big Woods - Wilder (1932)*
22. The Tale of Despereaux - DiCamillo (2003)
21. The Lightning Thief - Riordan (2005)
20. Tuck Everlasting - Babbitt (1975)
I know. I know!
19. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Dahl (1964)
18. Matilda - Dahl (1988)*
Did anyone else jump up in the middle of class and shriek, "I KNEW IT!" when Miss Honey revealed who the Trunchbull was? No? Just me then.
17. Maniac Magee - Spinelli (1990)*
16. Harriet the Spy - Fitzhugh (1964)*
15. Because of Winn-Dixie - DiCamillo (2000)
14. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Rowling (1999)
My favorite Harry Potter. I knew from the beginning what Harry would do for his parents' murderer. I got the identity wrong, of course, but I knew what he'd do.
13. Bridge to Terabithia - Paterson (1977)*
I . . . I . . . I'm getting a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves.
12. The Hobbit - Tolkien (1938)
Never got the love for this book, or LOTR in general. Only reason I finished it was because I was reading it for a class. I am now erecting a tomato barrier.
11. The Westing Game - Raskin (1978)
Actually, I may have. Or maybe it was her other one. Y'all, I just don't know anymore.
10. The Phantom Tollbooth - Juster (1961)
9. Anne of Green Gables - Montgomery (1908)
True story, I once declared my intention of naming any future children Anne and Gilbert. Luckily for them, they haven't materialized yet.
8. The Secret Garden - Burnett (1911) *
First child I ever encountered in a book who was a brat and not ashamed of it one bit. Too awesome.
7. The Giver -Lowry (1993)*
I never knew there was a controversy about the end until years after I read it. Amazement. Wasn't it obvious that he lived?
6. Holes - Sachar (1998)
I once used this book to explain the concept of magical realism to a family member. Still not sure they got it.
5. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - Koningsburg (1967)*
I was so envious of these kids. They got to swim in a fountain.
4. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - Lewis (1950)*
I felt soooo smart for spotting the resurrection allusion when I was ten. Of course, I had no notion it was intentional. I thought it was a neat coincidence. Oh, small me. So clever and yet so dumb.
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - Rowling (1997)
Ensnared from the first line. ". . . perfectly normal, thank you very much!"
2. A Wrinkle in Time - L'Engle (1962)*
Speaking of book crushes, raise your hand if you still have a secret soft spot for gangly, smart redheads who talk about "dreamboat eyes.". . . The rest of you are lying.
1. Charlotte's Web - White (1952) *
After sobbing my way through Charlotte's exceedingly gentle death, the ending soothed my bruised heart.

What's my score? 77/100, a little lower than I thought but not utterly shame-making, especially since it counts books I'm not sure if I've read and books I tried to read and couldn't.

Something occurred to me as I was going through this list, and it's that so many of the books I read as a child, I don't actually remember what happens, but I remember the feel of the book. I remember what it made me think of and ponder and obsess over. Also, I remember where I was. I can picture almost perfectly the classroom and the time of day where I first found out who the Trunchbull was to Miss Honey. I remember sitting on my toy chest in my room and reading about Laura in the Big Woods. I remember getting The Secret Garden for my ninth birthday and ignoring my new Barbie doll to read it. I couldn't give you a synopsis of most of these books if my life depended on it, but they're still there, sitting in some corner of my brain like a jewel in a dragon's cave, occasionally sparkling up into my thoughts when the light turns the right way.

And that's why children's literature is important.

Banned Books Are Here Again

Once again, the ALA has put out the list of the ten most banned and protested books in America for the past year, and once again I reflect on how many people in our country need a hobby. From the ALA website:

1. ttyl, ttfn, l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs
2. “And Tango Makes Three” by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: Homosexuality
3. “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Anti-Family, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group, Drugs, Suicide
4. “To Kill A Mockingbird,” by Harper Lee
Reasons: Racism, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group
5. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group
6. “Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group
7. “My Sister’s Keeper,” by Jodi Picoult
Reasons: Sexism, Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group (Bibliovore's note: Ummm. Wasn't this written for adults?), Drugs, Suicide, Violence
8. “The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things,” by Carolyn Mackler
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group
9. “The Color Purple,” Alice Walker
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group
10. “The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Nudity, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

Say it with me, people: "I have every right to stop my kid from reading a book. I have no right to stop anybody else's kid from reading a book." Sigh.

It being the end of a decade, we also get the most challenged books of the 00s. Our old favorites like Robert Cormier and Scary Stories to tell in the dark are back, and of course, Harry Potter. My favorite reasoning? Harry Potter's anti-family themes.

. . . Yeah.

P.S. Wait, Twilight has explicit sex? I so missed that. Somebody tell me a page number so I don't have to read the whole book to get to it.

Book Review: Willow by Julia Hoban

Book: Willow
Author: Julia Hoban
Published: 2009
Source: Local Library

"To lose one parent . . . may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

Willow always thought she had an all-right life. She had decent parents and a neat brother and good friends. But that was before the rainy night that both her parents were killed in a horrifying car accident, and she was at the wheel. Now Willow is living in a tiny, tiny world, filled only with pain. She divorces herself from everything good in a twisted penance. The only thing she can do to let the pain is to cut herself. Somehow, when that razor bites into her skin and the blood wells up, she's able to handle it again. At least until the next time.

Then she meets Guy, and it is through her blooming relationship with him that Willow's world of pain opens up, one inch at a time, to let life back in again.

After I closed this book, I was struck by how little happened. Not to say that nothing happens, but there was very little Huge Drama. Willow does not land in the hospital as a result of her cutting, she doesn't faint in the middle of school, there's no enormous blowup with counselors and teachers and others swarming around her. (One exception is a rather spectacular meltdown directed at her brother.) Everything is outwardly small-scale. She makes baby steps toward new friends and Guy and her brother David. But it all feels huge because it's such a seismic shift for Willow to reach out again.

Another thing Hoban does incredibly right is Willow's halting progress away from cutting. She takes steps through her grief and back into real life: going back to her old house, finally opening up to her brother and forcing him to open up her, talking to the best friend she's been avoiding, and most of all letting Guy into her painful little world. But at the same time, she clings to her razors. While the frequency of her cutting diminishes, she clutches them like a lifeline until the very end, and even then you know that during bad times to come, she'll think about the gleaming steel edges with longing.

That's not to say this is a perfect book. Stylistically, Hoban uses italics and ellipses so much as to make it annoying. Also, Guy was a little too wonderful. He was allowed to let off steam occasionally, in frustration and horror over what Willow was doing to herself, but there was a real White Knight vibe about him: the perfect boy, sent to rescue Willow from herself. Finally, I often got frustrated at Willow's blame cycle. She made everything her fault.

But of course, that's where her head is. That's why she's cutting, because there's no other way to let it all out, and that's the final thing that Hoban does amazingly well. This is not the story of pain diminishing. Willow will always be the girl who was driving the night her parents were killed. That's not something that anyone can fix, ever. But throughout the novel, Willow learns to forgive herself, take on her own grief, and start living again.

Friday Glee: Oh, These Kids Today

Check out this recently published article: Teachers Bemoan Thrilling Books and Cinema

Recently, in this case, being April 2, 1932. The Irish Times dug this out of their archives to share with us all.

Just in case you thought this generation was the only one crying, "Such trash is being published nowadays! Won't somebody think of the children?"

The Parent Problem?

Everyone's reacting to this lately: The Parent Problem in Young Adult Lit. The author, who also serves as the children's book editor of the Times, seems to be decrying the rise of less-than-perfect parents. Not just those problem-novel staples of alcoholics, abusers, and abandoners, but also flat-out hapless: physically present, mentally checked out. These parents, she seems to say, aren't realistic and certainly are lesser characters than the parents in YA lit of her youth.

The line that I and fifty-seven other bloggers are pointing to is

the father in “Once Was Lost” becomes somehow peripheral, his problems more muted and less interesting than his teenage daughter’s.

And that's a problem in a YA novel . . . why?

She traces this change to the change in expectations over the past decades, but I think she's focusing on the wrong end of the stick here. By definition, the YA novel is about teenagers. This is an age that routinely thinks all adults couldn't put their pants on without the respective legs being clearly labeled. This is also an age where kids are finding out that their superhero parents are, well, not. That they have problems they grapple with, just like the kids.

What do you think?

And the Winner Is . . .

Well, I actually don't know yet. I'm a little behind on the two great kid's-book battles going on at the moment.

The first is Fuse #8's countdown of the greatest chapter books of! All! TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMME! Well, she doesn't really put it like that, because I imagine her throat would get sore.

As of this writing, she's at #5 (From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, in case you're interested), having counted down from 100. Some have been a surprise to me (seriously, guys? That many of you liked The Phantom Tollbooth?) and others have made me preen, newly vain in my own clearly excellent taste. Ever the trouper, Betsy is doing one per day. What will be #1? Place your bets now!

The second big contest of the past month has been SLJ's Battle of the Kid's Books. It's been fascinating to read some of the judgments, and my favorite are the ones where the author-judge says flat-out, "This is totally my subjective opinion because they're both awesome, mmkay?" The Peanut Gallery (reactions to the judgments) have also been worth the reading.

But the One Book to Rule Them All turned out to be . . . *drumroll while I check the website* Marching For Freedom by Elizabeth Partridge. As if that's not enough nonfic love, the Zombie Book was Pamela Turner's excellent The Frog Scientist.

Congratulations!

ETA: And if you think you'll go into Book Battle Withdrawal once Betsy's announced her number 1, never fear, for Nerds Heart YA is here. Contestants to be announced soon, according to the website. And there was much rejoicing.

Reading Roundup March 2010

By the Numbers
Teen: 15
Tween: 5
Children: 5

Sources
Review Copies: 1
Swapped: 2
Library: 18

Standouts
Teen: A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
Well, what did you expect? Review soon.
Tween: No Laughter Here by Rita Williams-Garcia
A tween book about female genital mutilation. This was a brave book for Williams-Garcia to write, but the bravest thing about it is that she doesn't fix everything all better in the end.
Children: Julia Gillian (and the Art of Knowing) by Alison McGhee
A tender examination of fear and courage in the heart of a nine-year-old, armed only with a raccoon mask. Review soon.

Because I Want To Awards
So Totally Would Have Won Standout if Not For Eugenides: Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers
Most Wrenching: Willow by Julia Hoban
For the So-Over-Twilight Crowd: Life Sucks by Jessica Abel AND Uninvited by Andrea Marrone
The Weirdest Thing You Will Ever Experience Sober: The Order of Odd-Fish by James Kennedy