Using wall demolition to promote literacy

I am so excited. I do not think that anyone has ever before thought of this particular Exciting Way to Promote Literacy! (I could be wrong)--start knocking down your house!

Yesterday we demolished a large piece of wall. The wretched people who lived in our 150 year-old house before us had build a cupboard blocking the way from the kitchen to the dining room; a box that stuck out a foot and a half into the dining room. Yuck. So we destroyed it. And then it was clear that they had committed other malfeasances...before we knew it, we were down to a large area of bare lathe.

The children were thrilled. Even more so when I suggested that they write letters to put in the walls (not that anyone would ever need to demolish our handiwork). So for half an hour they were busy writing--painless and pleasurable literacy practice.

And won't the people in the future be thrilled when they find little notes in the wall saying, "You are stupid!"

Fortune's Magic Farm, by Suzanne Selfors

Fortune's Magic Farm, by Suzanne Selfors (Little Brown 2009, 264pp)--released today!

Once the town was called Sunny Cove. Now it is Runny Cove, where the rain never stops. No sun has ever shone on ten year-old Isabelle, as she hurries to and from Mr. Supreme's Umbrella Factory, where almost all the townsfolk work. Everything has always been gray and mouldy and slug-strewn.

Except for the apple, a thing of beauty, that an elephant seal spits out at Isabelle one fateful day when she wanders down to the dismal town beach.

Isabelle's grandmother is sick, perhaps dying. The greedy umbrella factory owner is making his virtually-enslaved workers work even longer hours. Mama Lu, owner of the boarding house where Isabelle lives, has discovered Isabella's pet slugs, with disastrously salty consequences. It will take more than an apple, however beautiful, to put things right with Isabelle and her miserable town. It will take a whole garden.

Unable to stand her miserable town any longer, Isabelle journeys across the ocean (on the back of the same obliging elephant seal) to a paradise--a garden of wonderful delight, protected by magic from the greedy eyes of Mr. Supreme and his ilk. This is Fortune's magic farm, a nature preserve of magical plants (curative cherries, floating fronds, vice vines, magnetic mangoes and the like). It is Isabelle's birthright, and her responsibility.

But how can she enjoy paradise while the rain keeps falling on Runny Cove? Especially when she learns that her own parents, whom she never knew, were implicated in its disastrous fall into dampness? Keeping the farm going is vitally important--its plants exist no where else. But surely it is also important to help others (and Selfors does a very nice job with Isabelle's internal struggle here).

I enjoyed this one, especially the dystopia for the young reader that is Runny Cove. Unlike Isabelle, I was a little disappointed when the story took us off to Fortune's farm, where, instead of slugs and evil boarding house matrons, we encountered the pleasures of a sunny garden filled with whimsical magical plants. Maybe I'm just too cynical to enjoy whimsical magical plants, but the wonderful farm never felt as real as the miserable town. However, doubtless the target audience of ten year-oldish girls will find the garden delightful...

My dear husband accuses me, with some justice, of perpetrating gender stereotypes here. In my defense, even though there is a strong supporting character who is a boy, I doubt that any ten year-old male will be drawn to a book whose cover features a pink and purple umbrella, lots of pretty flowers, and a cute fuzzy animal. And a girl. So I will passing this book along to my public library, where it can find its female readership. Any time my husband wants to convince our boys to read it, he is welcome too...

Edited to add--well, I'm wrong here. In Fuse #8's review, she mentions a boy reader who enjoyed this a lot. It just goes to show. Maybe the slugs at the beginning will draw the boys in...

Fellow fans of The Explosionist will share my pleasure

in the news that Jenny Davidson has finished writing its sequel, The Snow Queen! I am just anxious as all get out to read it.

Here's a blurb about it, from a post she put up on Friday at the HarperTeen Myspace site:

"The book takes up with Sophie in Copenhagen at the alternate-universe version of Niels Bohr’s Institute for Theoretical Physics, which was possibly the most exciting of all possible places to be in our own world’s real historical 1930s, and follows her on a strange and stressful journey first to Sweden and then up north to Lappland and the island of Spitsbergen, where she encounters the Snow Queen in her ice palace."

I would never have guessed, never, that the sequel to The Explosionist would be based on a fairy tale...I am now trying to imagine cover art for it that would convey "based on a fairy tale" while staying true to the look/feel of the first book's cover. It might not be hard. This Sophie always did look a tad too fairy-tale princess like for my taste, given that she's still a school girl:

poor poor abandoned books...

This is not my living room.

It is a warehouse of books, abandoned and left to starve by their cruel owner, and now being saved. Except for the ones that are being stepped on.

The Diamond in the Window, by Jane Langton

Every summer for years I would resolve to read my way through all the books in the children's room at the library. Mostly I started, sheep-like, at A. Sometimes, in a fit of wild rebellion, I would start at Z. The result is that my acquaintance with authors whose names begin with L, M, and N is slight (apart from the obvious ones), and I missed out on a lot of books I would really have enjoyed.

For instance, last week I read for the first time The Diamond in the Window, by Jane Langton (HarperCollins 1962, 256 pp), after an on-line acquaintance described it as one of her absolutely most favorite childhood books. I don't know if I would have loved it quite that much, but it would have been right up my alley.

Eddy and Eleanor Hall are orphans, living with their aunt and uncle in an old Victorian house in Concord, Massachusetts. Money is tight, and the bank is threatening to take the house from them. But one day, exploring the far reaches of the upper attic, the children find a wondrous attic room full of the relics of two other children, another brother and sister who vanished mysteriously years ago. There Eleanor and Eddy find a series of riddles scratched onto the window glass, that lead them on a mysterious hunt for both treasure and the lost children...

The episodes where the children journey into strange nightmares in search of the treasure were magical and gripping. What makes this book one I really enjoyed, however, was the juxtaposition of the fantasy sequences with the real-life efforts (all futile and fraught) of the children to solve the riddle. The result is a book that is a bit like Elizabeth Enright's Spiderweb for Two with magic thrown in....

This is the first of several books about the Hall family, which makes me happy now, looking forward to reading them, but would have made me even happier then, when it was beginning to seem that I had read everything the library held of interest. Of course, they may not have been in my library. Are there any other loyal patrons of the Arlington Virginia Central Branch from the 1970s and 1980s out there who remember these???

Well. Now I am very surprised. Because the most recent book of the Hall Family Chronicles, the eight instalment, could not have been in my childhood library, because it was published last summer-The Dragon Tree. I am glad that I never got around to reading it when I brought it home from the library last fall...now I will read it in its proper place.

I have also just learned that I actually had read one of the Hall Family books already--book number 4, The Fledgling(1980), which was a Newbery Honor book. Maybe it will make more sense once I've read books 2 and 3. Or maybe it is simply as strange as I vaguely remember it being...

You know that article about cluttered houses

hurting the development of children reading-wise? I saw it linked to yesterday at a couple of blogs, and left somewhat sneering comments, and smugly went down to read to my children, nimbly avoiding the clutter that makes walking around in my living room so enriching.

But then I couldn't find the book we were in the middle of reading.

The Clutter had gotten it. And since a good bit of the clutter is piles of books, it is hard to find the one small paperback that one is looking for.

Perhaps the article is right.

The Goblin King--Twisted Journeys #10

I vividly remember my first Choose Your Own Adventure Book (The Forbidden Castle, published way back in 1982), mainly because I chose correctly every time and ended up safely home again, unlike my sisters, who died. Most of the endings, if I remember correctly, lead to Death.

The same concept of reader directed story has been given new life in the Twisted Journey Series (Graphic Universe/Lerner), with a much more interesting half text/half colorful graphic novel format, and, speaking from limited experience, less death. I recently read the tenth of the series, The Goblin King (by Alaya Johnson, illustrated by Meg Gandy, 2009), and out of the ten different endings I reached, I only died once (she says proudly)!

The Goblin King is a fantasy adventure that's exciting without being scary, casting the reader as a kid on a school trip to a Scotland where the magical realm of fairie is very real. I fought in a battle against goblins, risked my life by agreeing to answer a dragon's riddle, was transformed into a frog, and tried to save a selkie...

Even more fun than reading this to myself was watching my 8 year old read it. Because there are so many endings, he kept going back to it, without loosing interest halfway and putting it down forever, as sadly happens with so many other books. I'm sure another part of its appeal was the way the narrative is split into pages of straight text and pages of graphics--the visuals offer a pleasant break from concentrated reading. The "you" is never shown, allowing readers to be themselves (my first time through, I was given the opportunity to chose exactly the path that I would have followed in real life, which, I am happy to say, worked out for me). Probably some of the words were to hard for my third grader (Lerner rates the series at the fourth grade reading level, and indeed, I had no problems), but here again the graphics helped to keep him reading.

After the (hopefully) successful completion of our next library book sale, I shall ask our children's librarian if she would like to buy more Twisted Journeys for the library (although I am a little leery of Number 9, "Agent Mongoose and the Hypno-Beam Scheme"). And if we just happen to be the first patrons to check them out, so be it...

Here's the riddle the dragon asked me:

I went and I got it.
I sat and I sought it.
When I couldn't find it,
I brought it home.

I didn't know the answer...

Timeslip Tuesday-- Harding's Luck, by E. Nesbit

On Tuesdays, I try to write about timeslip stories. If anyone else would like to join me, I would love the company and will add links. Coincidentally, I do have another time travel post to link to today--over at The Spectacle there's an interesting post about time travel from a sci fi perspective.

My own Timeslip Tuesday book for today is Harding's Luck, by E. Nesbit (1909) a companion/sequel to The House of Arden.

Harding's Luck is a rather unusual Nesbit, in that it tells of an only child--Dickie Harding, living on sufferance with an uncaring woman who injured him so badly as a child that he needs a crutch to walk. With no bantering siblings to lighten things up, and real poverty, as opposed to the struggling intelligentsia found in many of her books, Nesbit has set her sights on a more serious book than her others.

"...there were no green things growing in the garden at the back of the house where Dickie lived with his aunt. There were stones and bones, and bits of brick, and dirty old dish-cloths matted together with grease and mud, worn-out broom-heads and broken shovels, a bottomless pail, and the mouldy remains of a hutch where once rabbits had lived. But that was a very long time ago, and Dickie had never seen the rabbits. A boy had brought a brown rabbit to school once, buttoned up inside his jacket, and he had let Dickie hold it in his hands for several minutes before the teacher detected its presence and shut it up in a locker till school should be over. So Dickie knew what rabbits were like. And he was fond of the hutch for the sake of what had once lived there."

But Dickie sows some seeds in the back bit of earth...and finds that one has grown into a moonflower:


The seeds of the flower, combined with the silver rattle that is his one personnel possession, will take Dickie far from London.

But before the magic begins, a friendly seeming tramp takes him off to beg for a living outside the city. Sleeping outside in the "bed with green curtains" seems wonderful to Dickie, and he finds in the man someone close to a father. True, this is a father that wants him to be an accomplice in a robbery, but one who has grown fond of him as well.

Then time-travelling magic takes Dickie back three hundred years in time, to a life where he is loved, privileged, and no longer lame. There he meets two other children from modern times--Elfrida and Edred Arden (as also told in The House of Arden), whom he will later meet in the present as well.

Yet back in London his "father" is waiting for him, along with all the poverty and physical pain of Dickie's real life. Dickie strikes a balance between past and present, always forcing himself home to see that the man he has adopted is making progress on the path to the settled, uncriminal life that Dickie wants for him. But this balance is disrupted when Dickie learns that he himself has a place in the present time that can give him as much happiness as the past does--he just has to push aside new friends to claim it.

This is, quite frankly, not Nesbit's best book. It's pretty forced, and pretty improbable. Dickie is recognized everywhere as being better than your typical poor boy--you know, the nobleness of spirit shining out from eyes too big for the frail body type, who has taught himself excellent diction and vocabulary through judicious reading surreptitiously carried out in a London slum. The tramp, too, turns out to be better than your average tramp--he is Good at Heart, and just needs the steadying influence that a small boy with nobility of spirit can provide. It ends up a bit preachy. The magic here is also not Nesbit's best. It feels a bit like she herself was loosing interest, so she added on to the magic in awkward ways (for instance, we now have three incarnations of Magic Mole, as opposed to the one featured in the first book). Here is the grandest of the three, the Mouldiwarpest:


Very odd.

The time travelling here is a secondary feature--it's a device to provide Dickie with a Paradisal Alternative to his present, both refuge and temptation. It's the easiest time travel experience I've ever read about, with ever possible problem glossed over by a helpful magical nurse.

Despite all this, it is still a Nesbit. And so, worth reading. I did not mind at all re-reading it in preparation for writing this, although it did prove a tricky book to summarize (which is why there was a three week gap).

You can read Harding's Luck on line here, complete with the original illustrations.



Spoiler:



As far as time travelling goes, Nesbit creates a serious and unresolved problem. What the heck happens to the 17th-century boy when the 20th-century one takes his place forever at the end?

6 books that make me happy

I’ve been tagged by Melissa at Book Nut with the Six Things That Make You Happy Meme, which makes me happy, but I’m going to change it, so as to be a bit more on topic, to six books that make me happy.

My six are a mix of old favorites and new discoveries—books I’m glad are in the world and books I’m glad to be reading now.

1. Ten Apples Up on Top. No matter how many times I read this book, the expressions on the animals' faces, especially the dog’s (see above), make me happy. It is brilliant.

2. The Blue Sapphire, by D.E. Stevenson. Jen has talked in the past about her fondness for D.E. Stevenson’s book, Listening Valley. Although I like that one too, The Blue Sapphire is my favorite Stevenson comfort read. It’s plot is not much—girl strikes out on her own, finds job selling hats (which is a lot of fun to read about), gets a stock market tip from a handsome stranger that leads to a solid chunk of money, heads off to Scotland to visit ailing uncle, redecorates his house, finds romance…yeah. Whatever. But believe me, it is truly comforting book.

3. My Family and Other Animals. Gerald Durrell is a favorite author of mine to read when things are grey and despondent. In this book, he combines the sunshine of an idyllic Corfu, a wonderfully insane family, and natural history to create a perfect comfort read.

4. Poison Study, by Maria Snyder. I had read quite a few mentions of this in various blogs, all recommending it. I shall now recommend it too, to anyone looking for a really gripping, really interesting, really good “girl discovering secret powers while a victim of adverse circumstances book.” It makes me happy to think that when I go home in a few hours I will be curling up with it again…

5. What Darwin Saw: The Journey That Changed the World, by Rosalyn Schanzer. A wonderful picture book, that uses Darwin’s own words to tell what he saw. It is so gratifying to bring home a book that is an acceptable offering for one’s eight year old, as this one was. Few things beat seeing your child quietly reading to himself. (Although this morning my boys played their first board game (Parcheesi) alone!!! Without a parent! Without fighting!).

6. And finally, here’s a nod to the small but significant group of books in my possession that make me happy even though I try not to ever open them—the Valuable Ones. One in particular that makes me happy is my first edition copy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as illustrated by Arthur Rackham. I worked my tale off for this book about 15 years ago, when I was a poor graduate student, scrounging at library book sales for anything I though could remotely be traded in for book store credit at my local used book store. It took about two years, but finally I had enough in credit to be able to afford the balance. At last it was mine…However, the owner of the book store kind of hinted that he didn’t want me to do it again. And I haven’t…but oh my gosh it is a lovely book.

And here are the six people I'm tagging next, either for the original version or the books version: Sheila at Wands and Worlds, Anamaria at Books Together, Sibylle at In Training for a Heroine, Els at Librarian Mom, Em at Em's Bookshelf, and Jen, at Jen Robinson's Book Page.

Black Pearls: A Faerie Strand, by Louise Hawes

No sooner do I establish in my mind two categories for re-written fairy tales, those that re-tell vs those that re-imagine (see this post), then I find myself reading a book that defies tidy inclusion in either. The book is Black Pearls: A Faerie Strand, by Louise Hawes, with illustrations by Rebecca Guay (Houghton Mifflin, 2008, 211pp, YA). Hawes takes one nursery rhyme (Banbury Cross) and six fairy tales (old chestnuts such as Cinderella and Snow White), and makes them new by shifting perspective. For instance, she gives us Cinderella after the ball, as experienced by the prince, Snow White as seen by one of the dwarfs, and the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, from the point of view of the singing harp (I really liked this one, never before having wondered exactly who this harp person was). Through this shifting of focus, she allows herself room to add depth and nuance to happily ever after, and the chance to give human emotions, and human pasts and futures, to the fairy tale characters.

As the title suggests, Hawes is not shining light into these stories to make them sparkle in a pretty fairy dust way, but rather to revel dark layers and complexities. This darkness is nicely judged--not so much as to induce prurient squirming or sick horror, but enough to rivet and disturb.

These stories are more than re-tellings (even though Hawes sticks closely to her source material), but they aren't quite re-imaginings (despite the added richness of Hawes' telling, the stories are still quite recognizably themselves, and didn't take me, at least, into new territory. It's harder to do this with short stories, which is why I, in general, prefer novels). What they are, in the end, are fascinating stories, well told, to which are joined some beautiful black and white drawings (the only one of Guay's illustrations that I really don't care for is the cover one...). I imagine that those who like re-written fairy tales will love this book, and even those who don't, particularly, might well like the stories for their own sakes.

Here's another, longer, review at Tempting Persephone

This is funny

I am a bit hesitant to post this, because I don't want to bury the review I just lovingly wrote. So please scroll down and read that too if you haven't already.

But I couldn't resist.

I was just browsing at a new to me site, The Spectacle, where "Authors talk about writing speculative fiction for teens and pre-teens," and I found this. Click through to see what Harry Potter and The Bad Beginning would look like as Penguin Classics...

The Farwalker's Quest, by Joni Sensel

The Farwalker's Quest, by Joni Sensel
(Bloomsbury, 2009, 384 pp- released yesterday!)

After the Blind War ended, no person left on Earth could see. Slowly, new skills arose that kept a small population alive --ways of knowing the world through inner powers. By the time sighted children began to be born again, the new ways of being had become firmly set, and Finders, Tree-Singers, Farwalkers and other folk with magical skills were part of life. But that was years ago, and now there are no more Farwalkers to forge ties between distant places, and people have retreated into small settlements with almost no connections between them. The technological wonders of the past are a thing of myth, and the Vault that some say holds these lost treasures is thought by most to be a story for children.

In one small village, a girl named Ariel and her friend Zeke are about to leave school, Zeke to follow his father's path as a tree-singer, Ariel to follow her mother's path as a Healer. But a chance climb into Zeke's tree leads her to a telling dart caught in its branches--a strange relic of the past.

Strangers follow it, Finders who have come to claim it, bringing death to the children's village. And Ariel and Zeke become caught up in a dangerous quest to discover the message that the dart was carrying, journeying farther than they had ever imagined existed, with their lives at risk every step of the way. As they struggle to elude their pursuers and solve the riddle of the telling dart (helped along the way by a friendly ghost), they discover truths about themselves and their world that will make it impossible to ever go home again...

This is a truly riveting story. Plot-wise, it may sound like your basic quest, but Sensel has made her story something fresh and engrossing with her skillful characterizations and able world building. The ending is a tad unsatisfactory, for a variety of reasons that I won't say anything about because I don't want to be spoilerish. But it wasn't so unsatisfactory as to ruin the book. (edited to add--a large part of my vague dissatisfaction came from the fact that it is not clear in the book that there will be a sequel, and I felt left hanging. But this is actually the start of a series, with the next book coming in 2010! Goody!).

Because there's some scary violent bits, this might not be one to give to younger children, but for a sixth grade boy or girl on up, it should work nicely.

other reviews: Becky's Book Reviews, Joelle Anthony's Blog

While looking for other reviews, I came across a post by Sensel at The Spectacle (which is a site I'm going to add to my blog roll right now), where she shares this snippet that I find very amusing:

"First teen reader: Matt, the son of a friend. He was 13 at the time and thought the MC, Ariel, “should have more weapons.” (Sorry, Matt. IMO, it didn’t fit her character.)"

Despite her lack of weaponry, Ariel is a kick-ass heroine...and you can read the first chapter of her adventures here!

you could win a copy of Cybermage....third of the Worldweavers books

A book I read with great enjoyment for the Cyblis was the second of Alma Alexander's Worldweaver's trilogy, Spellspam. Although I wished I had read the first one before diving into Spellspam, I enjoyed it very much (after I had figured out who was who). It was a very entertaining mingling of computers and magic, not too childish for older readers and not too adultish for younger ones, and just as soon as I get my tbr pile down to bare wood, I hope to go back and read the first book, Gift of the Unmage.


Today I have entered to win the third book, Cybermage (which has just come out) at a new to me blog that I have just added to my fantasy blog list--Fantasy and Sci-Fi Lovin' Blog! You can enter too, by March 4.

misc. things

Sibylle, at In Training for A Heroine, has given me the Premio Dardos Award! I am tickled. Thanks! I will think about who to pass it on to that might not have gotten it already.

Re Kindle. I dunno if I will ever get one. Or want one. But I do know that I am so tired, just tired, of thinking about rabbits mating whenever I read the word. Remember? Watership Down? "Oh Hazel, Clover is getting ready to Kindle!" Does anyone else have this problem? Now that I am thinking more about it, I've decided I hate the word in general. It has a twee patronizing sound to it.

Re library book sales. I wish that someone else existed who would make sure the starting time on the flyer I mailed out was the same as the time that it said on line and in the library newsletter. It almost never is. I hate that part of the job.

Re the Zoning Board. We got a card in the mail telling us that the zoning board had sent us a certified letter. I immediately assumed it was a Warning about our Illegal Chickens (we aren't zoned for chickens, but the eggs sure come in handy in these Difficult Economic Times. They only owe us $22 in Costs at this point, so only 110 more eggs before they are out of debt). It took five days before the letter was actually in my hands, and of course, it was a non-issue seven houses down the street. Our chickens are safe. They had better stay safe until they produce those 110 eggs.

Pride and Predator (without the Prejudice)

Elizabeth Bennett is going to be facing a new challenge in this forthcoming movie.

"It felt like a fresh and funny way to blow apart the done-to-death Jane Austen genre by literally dropping this alien into the middle of a costume drama, where he stalks and slashes to horrific effect," Furnish told Variety.

Read more here at the Guardian.

Why not unicorns? Lydia could be gored.

My new fantasy/science fiction blogroll

I have just added a mini-blogroll of other places to find lots of middle-grade and young adult science fiction and fantasy. I am certain I have missed many fine blogs, and would love suggestions...

More fun with the Doofuzz Dudes! (and a chance to win a copy of their first adventure)

Last June I wrote about the Doofuzz Dudes, the heroes of a fantasy adventure series by Australian writer Roslyn J. Motter. These books are great for elementary school age readers--my own eight-year old loves these books, as do many of his friends. He was very happy that two more have since came our way! The Cobra Curse and Space Spiders continue the wild fun, as Toby and his friends revisit the magical land of Moondar and its neighboring realms, travel back in time, and head out into space! For more information about the Dudes, here's their website.

















So in order to share my son's pleasure in these books with another young reader, I'm giving away a signed copy of the first book-The Doofuzz Dudes Rescue Moondar! Please leave a comment by midnight, Saturday, February 21st to win! Open to all, regardless of location--Roslyn Motter has been incredibly generous in sending us multiple copies to share with my son's class and our library, so I'm happy to pass it on!

Is 12 sisters too many? Princess of the Midnight Ball, by Jessica Day George

It seems to me that there are two types of fairy tale novelization. On the one hand are the Re-Tellings, that stick so closely to the original that the familiarity of the story is a large part of what engages the reader. A classic example would be Robin McKinley's Beauty, her first stab at the story of Beauty and the Beast. Yes, it's fleshed out, but its plot is identical to its parent story. On the other hand are the Re-Imaginings, where the original story serves as catalyst and backbone for something wholly new, such as Elizabeth Bunce's Curse Dark as Gold, Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels, and Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing. Like all generalities, these two categories don't hold every fairy tale novelization neatly, but I think it's a handy little heuristic device.

Princess of the Midnight Ball, by Jessica Day George (Bloomsbury, 2009), is a lovely example of the former category, following the traditional version of the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses with hardly a wobble. George tells the story with verve and grace, adding enough to the background to make a satisfying context for the princesses and the soldier home from war without overwhelming them.

I would have just loved this book to pieces had I read it when I was twelve. And even my more jaded self thrilled to the bits of the story I knew--the soldier's meeting with old woman and the gift of the cloak of invisibility, the three nights he visits the underworld and the souvenirs he brings back, his weight making the boats he rides in heavy. Not to mention all the twelve sets of worn-out dancing shoes. I think the book is a success as a re-telling--it was a very pleasant read, one I'm happy to recommend-- but it doesn't have quite the power that one finds in the best re-imaginings.

Part of being a faithful re-telling is that you can't start axing characters to suite your story. It is a tricky thing, though, to take on so many sisters--only five of the twelve came alive for me. Perhaps twelve princesses is just too many.

I was reminded of a criticism that Noel Streatfeild got from John Galsworthy, regarding her second book, Parson's Nine (about the nine children of a parson). He said:

"...that she had managed something difficult to achieve in that book because all nine children came alive with the exception of the youngest--Manasses. That she must always remember that no character must come into a book unless he or she could stand on their own two feet, otherwise they were creatures of cardboard. (pp 50-51 of Beyond the Vicarage, the third book of Streatfeild's autobiography, 1972).

I myself can't remember little Manasses at all.

And now I am thinking about how many sisters a book can support. Three is easy peasy (Streatfeild's own Ballet Shoes). Four is no problem--(Little Women, The Exiles, by Hilary McKay, The Penderwicks, by Jeanne Birdsall). Five can be tricky. Even Jane Austen failed a bit with Mary, in Pride and Prejudice, making her, in my mind, too much a caricature. In Wildwood Dancing, mentioned above, the number of "princesses" is cut to five, which made the book stronger. Moving up in numbers, there's a rather obscure school story called Seven Sisters at Queen Anne's, by Evelyn Smith, that I think does rather a nice job with them all, although it's been a while since I read it. Brothers, being found more often in books for boys, I am less conversant with. The only book I read recently with lots of brothers is Zoe Marriott's Swan Kingdom, but since they turn into swans fairly early on and fly off stage, they are not a problem character-wise.

Speaking of brothers, there are twelve of those (one for each girl, of course) in Princess of the Midnight Ball. A few have names, and thus identities, but none have character, which I thought was a bit of a missed opportunity. Oh well, the last thing any of the good guys wanted was for them to come alive...but if George ever wanted to revisit this particular world (and I would like her too--it was interesting and engaging) it might be kind of neat if one of the blokes from the underworld were to take on a larger role. I want to know more about them!

small note: although this is more a YA book than not (primarily because the main characters are not children), there is nothing that will make the modest reader blush...

I have just had a nice time finding other reivews, which I had been carefully avoiding while thinking about mine: Becky's Book Reviews, Deliciously Clean Reads, Estellas Revenge, Presenting Lenore, The Magic of Ink, and Wands and Worlds.

Please, miss, may I have some more of that romance?

In honor of Valentine's Day, here is a story of thwarted romantic reading. It's about one of those books where the romance creeps up on little cat feet, until with a sizzle the sparks start flying and the reader is overcome with gleefulness...for about two paragraphs. And that's it.

Here, taken from page 218 of The Cygnet and the Firebird, by Patricia McKillip (1993), is the fictional romance that frustrates me most, because I can't stand that there isn't any more of it. The first speaker is a prince caught by an enchantment that transforms him each day into a firebird. The second speaker is the heir to her own holding, a young woman with the most insatiably curious mind for magic of any heroine I know, who is determined to break the spell.

"You used to look like a mage."

"What does a mage look like?"

"Like a closed book full of strange and marvellous things. Like the closed door to a room full of peculiar noises, lights that seep out under the door. Like a beautiful jar made of thick, colored glass that holds something glowing inside that you can't quite see, no matter how you turn the jar."

"And now?" she whispered. He came close; the light at their feet cast hollows of shadow across his eyes, drew the precise lines of his mouth clear.

"Now," he said softly, "you aren't closed. You're letting me see."

He slid his hand beneath her hair, around her neck. She watched light tremble in a drop of water near the corner of his mouth. He bent his head. The light leaped from star to star across his face, and then vanished. She closed her eyes and he was gone..."

Oh, I was so hopeful when this book, and its prequel (The Sorceress and the Cygnet), were recently republished as one volume (entitled Cygnet). It must, I told myself, mean that a third book is coming out, and they will actually get their kiss....but no joy yet.

Anyone else have a favorite frustrating fictional romance?

Cybilian Winners!!!!!

The winners of the 2008 Cybils Awards have been announced!

In my own dear category of Science Fiction/Fantasy, we have:

The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman! (for middle grade):

And

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins! (for young adult):


Congratulations!

There are, of course, winners in several other categories, all very fine books indeed!

Wanting and Fearing books...

During my happy reading childhood, it became clear to me that I was lucky not to have been born 100 years earlier. I remember my horror at how thrilled Laura was to get her one book as a gift in Little Town on the Prairie--the thrill of it! and I have countless, unspecific, memories of children in books not being allowed to read fiction because of Satan, concomitant descent in to moral turpitude, etc.

Is this later phenomena is an American thing, a holdover from the Puritan mindset? Do we still, as a country, carry with us a vague fear that fiction (Harry Potter aside) will corrupt our youth?
I am thinking about this because of today's post at the Guardian Book Blog, that font of useful stuff for spin-off blog posts, entitled: "Warning: books may damage your health." (tongue in cheek) seems to suggest that a different mindset holds sway across the pond.

How can one not read all of a post that includes such thought provoking utterances:

"After last week's Children's Society report declared that Britain's youth were devolving into feral illiterates, the government insisted that what they need is a damn good reading." The author goes on to propose that "books – lumped together into a single medium, individual content unspecified – have come to be seen as the natural catalyst for wholesomeness."

Hmmm....

Judging books by their covers

In two days, we will know which books won the Cybils Awards. I have a tender interest in this announcement, as I was panelist for science fiction/fantasy. I thought that it would be fun to go back and take a look at the books nominated, and to judge them by their covers.

Here are my three favorites:

I think this is a beautiful cover. I just had to buy the book the moment I saw it. I like that Charlotte looks like an ordinary person, and I love the gold thread binding her hands...






I find the swirling action and fine detail very appealing here. I think it adds to the appeal that (I guess) Balsa is depicted in a very gender neutral way--boys won't be put off.





A cover that inspires daydreaming. Lovely.








And now, two covers that I so so so did not like. That I, in fact, hated.

Can you tell that this book is a fast-paced adventure focusing primarily on the exciting story of a gypsy boy with magical powers who must get an imprisoned girl out of France during the Terror? Can you tell that it is one boys might really really like? No? Neither can I. This is such an unfair cover to stick on a really great book. Grrr.




I loved this book. I loved the main character, the titular Stranger to Command. But what is up with the guy on the cover? He looks seriously wet. His long hair does not work for me. His posture has no zest in it. I can't imagine this guy being an effective leader even after he has gotten to know command a bit better. And why do we have to see him twice? It doesn't add to his appeal. I hate that he got shoved into my head as a mental image of the main character, and I still haven't quite gotten over it.



On a happier note, here's my choice for most beautiful cover girl. Isn't she lovely?









Edited to add:

My esteemed co-panelist Laini suggests that The Unnameables, by Ellen Booraem, could be included in the unfortunate covers category. I am not sure I agree. Sure, it gives absolutly no idea of what the book is about, but yet, having read the book, to me it convayes some of the wild magic of the Goatman, the catalyst for change on the island where the book is set, and the metaphoric embodiement of creativity. Or whatever.

Non-Fiction Monday is here!

Non-fiction Monday is here today--please leave a link to your post in the comments, and I'll add them to the list!




If you are looking for a truly great book about Leonardo da Vinci for a five to nine year old, here is our favorite-- Leonardo da Vinci by A. & M. Provensen. The Provensen's have taken Da Vinci's marvelous creativity and, with considerable creativity on their own parts, made it into a pop-up book. So the reader can, along with Leonardo, hoist a model of the church of San Giovanni up into the air, practice various flying contraptions ("By very good luck Zola was not hurt. Leonardo and his apprentices gave up flying for the time being"), turn the pages of Da Vinci's notebook (with varied detailed facsimiles of his drawings), and read a sentence of his disguised writing-- Evom ton seod nus eht. Da Vinci wrote from right to left, backward. It is great fun, and a beautiful introduction not just to Da Vinci but to Renaissance Italy.

Here are the other folks participating in this edition of Non-Fiction Monday, with more links to be added as they arrive:

At Book Moot, Camile looks at The Lincolns.

Tricia at the Miss Rumphius Effect has a post looking at two sets of Double Plays--two books on the same topic. One set of books is on the wolves of Yellowstone, the other is on Wangari Mathaai.

At Just One More Book you can find a chat about Animals At the EDGE: Saving the World's Rarest Creatures, which is an exciting look at work of the Zoological Society of London’s EDGE of Existence Program an engaging introduction to the science of conservation.

At Picture Book of the Day, you can find Ella: A Baby Elephant's Story.

A Wrung Sponge is offering Red Scarf Girl, a "true memoir of a 12 year old girl coming of age during China's Cultural Revolution" which looks fascinating.

At the Jean Little Library The Periodic Table: Elements with Style, which I think is right up my 8 year old's alley...

At Lori Calabrese Writes! Honda: The Boy Who Dreamed of Cars

Here's Callista's review of 10 Things I Can Do to Help My World posted at The Well-Read Child, and along the same lines, Amanda's news that Penguin has put out a really nice Young Reader's edition of Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin's bestseller, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Journey to Change the World...One Child at a Time.

Becky has a review of Duke Ellington His Life In Jazz.

Abbey has a little roundup of nonfiction titles she's read lately over at Abbey (the) Librarian

Tweet! Tweet! at Simply Science offers a fresh look at the United Tweets of America, with activities (and gosh how my five year old loves that book. Just saying "western meadowlark" to him cracks him up).

Tying in nicely with the tweets is this post at Chicken Spaghetti, where you can find "Wonders of America: Yellowstone."

If you have ever wondered how handwritting is being taught in schools these days, head over to Books Together, where Anamaria looks at Script and Scribble, a book for grown-ups.

And at Sweetness and Light, there's a look at Graphing in the Desert.

Wendie's Wanderings lead us to Baby Animals of the Grasslands.

The Road of the Dead

The Road Of The Dead by Kevin Brooks (2006), shortlisted for the 2007 Carnegie Medal.

I knew from the first sentance that this was going to be Dark.

"When the Dead Man got Rachel I was sitting in the back of a wrecked Mercedes wondering if the rain was going to stop."

Ruben has always been able to feel things other people can't. Even though he is in London, miles from his sister, he feels it when she is raped and murdered on a rainy night far away on Dartmoor. Three days after his family hears officially that she is dead, fourteen-year old Ruben and his older brother Cole set off to bring her body home. But the police won't release her until their investigation is closed, and Ruben and Cole decide to travel to the remote village where Rachel was last seen alive to find out exactly what happened.

Nasty things are going on in that village, and soon the boys are caught up in a deadly tangle of violence and greed as they follow the ancient road of the dead across Dartmoor. It becomes clear that Rachel's death was not the work of one sick individual, and Ruben begins to wonder just how far Cole is prepared to go to find out the truth. And what he himself might be willing to do, for Rachel, and for his brother.

"I looked down at the hallway again. The doors were still closed, but I could feel something happening now. The silence had changed. It was a silence about to be broken. Then one of the doors slowly creaked open--and I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger." (p 240)

In a series of nutshells: Suspenseful and creepy. Violent. Lots of action. A remote gothic village, with a handful of very nasty people (a rather un-nuanced "gallery of bad guys). A slight subplot involving a gypsy girl. A bit of thought provoking-ness about what it means to deliberately decide to commit violent acts.

The first half of the book--the journey from London to Dartmoor, the set-up of the mystery, Ruben's psychic powers, and the relationship between the two brothers--was engrossing. Things got a bit much for me when the book became pretty much non-stop danger and violence and guns going off, and so, in a gender stereotype way, this is one I'd more happily recommend to a "boy" than to a "girl." Unless, of course, she's a girl who likes murder/thrillers in which lots of people get hurt.

Here's another review, at Vulpes Libris, with lots of interesting stuff in the comments.

postscript: I read this thinking it would fit into my on-going fantasy/science fiction way of blogging, but Ruben's paranormal abilities are so overshadowed by the mystery and mayhem that I'm not even going to label it as anything other than YA....

For members of Team Zombie

If you are a zombie fan, head over here to Tor, where a "Name that Zombie" contest could win you books about, yes you guessed it, zombies....

Team Zombie members might also be gleeful to read that Betsy over at Fuse #8 perdicts Evil Unicorns will be the next Big Supernatural Type thing saturating the market....Or perhaps they won't be that happy--even bad publicity is better than no publicity, and an Evil Unicorn is way cooler than a Good Zombie.

Two new Toon Books

We were very happy that Stinky, a Toon Book, was named a Geisel Award Honor Book a few weeks ago. We are very fond of it in our house (it gave my older son the title for his own blog, Pickled Bananas).

Last week two new Toon Books-The Big No-No, and Luke on the Loose-came our way, and we read them with great enthusiasm and enjoyment. They are pretty darn excellent young reader books for the child just getting going on independent reading, coupling good stories with lavish graphic novel type spreads of pictures. They are also fun to read aloud.

Luke On The Loose, by Harry Bliss, is a wild and wacky pigeon chase through the streets of New York. In Central Park one day, young Luke's father strikes up a boring conversation with another adult. A flock of pigeons catches Luke's eye, and with a blood curdling YAAH! he sends them flying. Off he goes in pursuit-YAAH! YAAH! flap flap flap through Manhattan and into Brooklyn, leaving a trail of feathers and startled byststanders. His father and the police and the firefighters set off to the rescue...Fun!

Benny And Penny: The Big No-No, by Geoffry Hayes, has less mayhem, but a more character driven plot. Benny and Penny, two mice siblings, embark on a series of no-nos that leads to a mud war with the new neighbor child. When the misunderstanding is resolved, they become friends.

We like them both lots--perhaps Luke more so, just because of the wonderful insanity of it...

Congratulations to the winners of my giveaway, and thanks to everyone who stopped by

Thanks to a random number generator, I now know that the winners of my blog birthday giveaway are Sharonanne and Anamaria! Congratulations!

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to say happy birthday!

And if you want an arc of the new Ranger's Apprentice book, don't forget to enter that giveaway by Feb. 15 (link at right).

Moribito Vol. 1: Guardian of the Spirit, and a bit of a preview of Vol 2, coming soon!

One of the many fine books nominated for the Cybils in Science Fiction/fantasy, that we just didn't have room for on our short list, was Guardian Of The Spirit (Moribito vol. 1) by Nahoko Uehashi (translated by Cathy Hirano and illustrated by Yuko Shimizu). Aside from the gripping story, this is an utterly beautiful book qua book, what with all the decorative touches. So it was very pleasing to see it win the Batchelder Award last month.

Years ago, eight lives were lost so that a girl named Balsa could live. The girl grew up determined to pay back that debt, and so she honed her fighting skills and dedicated her life to saving others. Now she totally kicks ass--you could think of her as a medieval Japanese Katsa (of Graceling fame). So far things have gone as smoothly as they can for an itinerant woman warrior, but Balsa's life is about to get more complicated. For the boy she has just saved from drowning is the second prince, who has just become the morbito--the guardian of the water spirit on whom the prosperity of the land depends. And powerful people want him dead.

History is written by the victors, and in the official chronicles of this land the water spirit is an evil monster. What the histories don't say is that the true evil is the monster that seeks to kill the water spirit every time it is incarnated. So Balsa has her hands full as she leads the boy prince up into the wildlands at the edge of the realm, struggling to keep him alive (shades of Katsa again), and, in the process, beginning to question the violent course she has chartered for her own life.

Here are two other reviews, at Fuse #8 and The Ya Ya Yas.

I just learned today that the next book in the series (there are ten so far in Japan) is due out in a few months. So that is my Waiting on Wednesday book--Guardian Of The Darkness (Moribito vol 2). I hope it is as exciting, thought-provoking, and enjoyable as the first one!


Here's the description from Amazon:

"Balsa returns to her native Kanbal to clear the name of Jiguro, her dear mentor, who saved her life when she was six years old. But what should be a visit of truth and reconciliation becomes a fight for her life when she learns that Jiguro had been a member of King Rogsam's personal bodyguard. After Jiguro fled Kanbal with her, Rogsam sent the other bodyguards after them one by one--Jiguro's best friends, whom he had to kill to protect Balsa. Now, with the help of two Kanbalese children, Balsa must unwind the conspiracy surrounding Jiguro and the mystery of the Guardians of the Dark."

(editorial aside: I've labeled this one both middle grade and ya. Middle grade, because of the exciting plot and lack of Adult Content. YA, because of the complexity of the plot and the relatively mature heroine. I am not going to label it girl book or boy book, because it fits my criteria for both!)

Why I now want to read Fly Girl, and why I hope to get the chance to soon

Today over at Finding Wonderland I read a most thoughtful discussion with Sherri L. Smith, author of Fly Girl. By the time I had finished, I knew I wanted to read the book. Happily, the gods then pointed my mouse toward Reader Rabbit, who is giving a copy away...and I have now doubled my chances of winning!

A preamble about world building, leading to Viking Raiders for Non Fiction Monday

A few days ago, Jo Walton over at Tor wrote a post called "Real world reading for fantasy writers," making the point that the more you know about the time and place on which you are basing your imaginary world, the better your world will be. One of her suggestions was to look at children's books- "Children’s non-fiction almost always has illustrations, which can be very useful, and it’s usually easy to read and lets you know what it is that you want to know, so you can approach the adult books from a point of less ignorance. Also, children are assumed to be more interested in the practical details of life—I have no idea why."

My own eight year-old child is fascinated by world building--drawing maps of imaginary places, and pictures of the temples and castles and weapons therein (with a heavy emphasis on the weapons). I would love to see him start putting details of this kind into his stories as he becomes a more competent writer.

So today I have been wondering what specific children's non-fiction books to put in a list both for adult fantasy writers and for children just beginning to discover the joys of writing stories that have material foundations in the past. And I am thinking that this might be a nice thing to start exploring on non-fiction Mondays, gradually leading to a lovely Book List.

A book that came quickly to mind was Viking Raiders (Time Traveler), an Usborne book. The edition I have, by Anne Civardi and James Graham-Campbell, illustrated by Stephen Cartwright, was published way back in 1977. It was revised and reissued in 2003.

This is the sort of book that is just downright enjoyable. It starts with a hook for young readers--you are asked to put on a magic helmet and travel back in time. Next, you meet all the Viking characters you will encounter in Viking times--their lives provide a story arc for the non-fiction. Then things get really cool, with a bird's eye view of Earl Knut's Farm, in the year 890 A.D--lots of little things to see, lots of labels hither and thither, busy people (actually, come to think of it, a bit like Richard Scarry). Next a cutaway of the longhouse, the building of a Viking ship, launching a raid, trading, immigrating to Iceland, and more...all with wonderfully detailed illustrations.

At the end, as a pièce de résistance, there is a map of the Viking world showing lots of little Vikings and Viking ships going all over the place. As a coda, there is a two page, more text-heavy, spread on "The Story of the Vikings"--straight up fact for those who want to learn more.

We really like this book in our house. I shall read it to the boys again tonight, and maybe we can all draw Viking settlements and dragon-prowed warships and swords and shields afterwards....

Anyone else have any favorite non-fiction Viking books, good for world-building purposes?

Today's Non-Fiction Monday roundup is here at Picture Book of the Day.

Blog Birthday Giveaway

My blog is now 2 years old! Being an extrovert (see previous post) it would like to have an enormous party and invite everyone over...it will have to be happy with a book giveaway.

I started blogging after cruising around the various blogs looking for books I thought it would be fun to buy for my local public library. I'm the president of the Friends, and I reward myself for the long and dusty hours I put into the booksales by using a bit of the money to buy books I would like the library to have...Soon I decided that I wanted to be part of the blogging fun myself, so I started my own. Being too shy to leave many comments on other blogs, it took a while before anyone actually read what I wrote, which is perhaps a good thing, since I didn't know what I was doing (for instance, I didn't know that you had to click "resume editing" for the spelling mistakes to actually be fixed. Shudder).

It is gratifying these days that every month more people visit. It is even more gratifying that I have been able to pass on over 200 books to my library, courtesy of various publishers, to whom I am very grateful. I hope that people reading my reviews have gone on to enjoy the books; I know they've been enjoyed by many patrons.

To celebrate, here is a small book giveaway. There are three children's books, and one ya/adult book--if you want one or the other, please mention that in your comment, otherwise you'll be entered for both. Please leave your comment by 7:30am EST this Friday, the 6th of February. I'm sorry, but I can't afford to send the books overseas (will they ever bring back Surface Mail? I miss it so).

The children's books, courtesy of Little,Brown are:




South, by Patrick McDonnell. An utterly charming book in which Mooch the cat helps a lost little bird on his journey south.








Willow Buds #2: When Toady Met Ratty (No. 2), written and lavishly illustrated by Mary Jane Begin.








AMERICA: The Making of a Nation, by Charlie Samuels, an engrossing non-fiction book with lots and lots of pictures and flaps.





The young adult/grown up book is The Ghosts of Kerfol, by Deborah Noyes. This one is courtesy of Candlewick Press, who very generously sent out Cybils review copies (thanks!!!) I think this is the most beautiful piece of a girl on any cover of 2008.

Here's what I said about the book in an earlier post: This is a series of five stories, moving forward in time from Edith Wharton's classic ghost story, "Kerfol," which tells of a young Frenchwoman accused of murdering her jealous husband. His body was found at the bottom of the stairs, savaged by dogs. But there were no dogs alive at the manor house of Kerfol that day...Gothic horror combined with great writing makes this one a page turner. I am not at all sure why this is marketed as a Young Adult book, because I think it is a better fit for grown ups. Although certainly many teenagers, in particular those who like their books dark and Gothic, will enjoy it as well. Not a book to read on a cold, dark night, especially if you are staying by yourself in an old French mansion.

So. Thank you, everyone who has read and commented on my blog, and thank you, publishers who have sent me review copies!