This Sunday's round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs

The problem with a regular feature such as this is that it is boring to write the same introduction every week:

Welcome to another week of the posts I gathered from around the blogs of interest to fans of middle grade fantasy and science fiction. Please let me know if I missed yours, and feel free to send me links at any time!

It can't be helped. Onward.

The Reviews:

Cold Cereal, by Adam Rex, at Alexia's Books & Such and Random Musings of a Bibliophile

The Coming of the Dragon, by Rebecca Barnhouse, at library_mama

Ebenezer's Locker, by Anne E. Johnson, at Readatouille

The False Prince, by Jennifer Nielsen, at The Book Smugglers (with bonus Code Name Verity before you get to it....)

Fever Crumb, by Philip Reeve, at Fantasy Book Review

Halt's Peril, by John Flanagan, at Karissa's Reading Review

Juniper Barry, at Jean Little Library

The Lunatic's Curse, by F.E. Higgins, at Karissa's Reading Review

The Odyssey, by Gareth Hinds, at Children's Book-a-Day Almanac

Out of Time, by John Marsden, at HumbleIndigo

The Outcasts, by John Flannagan, at Fantasy Book Review

The Phantom Tollbooth, by Nortan Juster, at Book Nut

Rapunzel's Revenge, by Shannon and Dean Hale, at Challenging the Bookworm

Revenge of the Horned Bunnies, by Ursula Vernon, at AmoXcalli

The Stones of Ravenglass, by Jenny Nimmo, at Charlotte's Library

Stonewords, by Pam Conrad, at Charlotte's Library

Stormswept, by Helen Dunmore, at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles

A Tale Dark and Grimm, by Adam Gidwitz, at Sharon the Librarian and at Wicked Awesome Books

Authors and interviews

Geoff Rodkey (Deadweather and Sunrise), at Educating Alice

Pete Johnson (The Vampire Fighters) at Babbleabout Children's Books and Nayu's Reading Corner

Robin LaFevers (Theodosia series, as well as the YA Grave Mercy) at Finding Wonderland

Susan Cooper (The Dark is Rising et al.) at School Library Journal

Ellen Booraem (Small Persons With Wings) at Roots in Myth

Amanda Ashby (talking about the covers of Sophie's Mixed-up Magic series) at Melissa Walker

Other Good Stuff:

A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness, illustrated by Jim Kay, wins both the Carnegie (for writing) and Kate Greenway (for illustration) awards in one fell swoop!

And the winner of the Locus Award for Young Adult book is The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente

Here's an amusing list of 20 things characters in fantasy books should do more often, from Lev Grossman at Lytherus.

A list of middle grade beach reads with lots of sci fi/fantasy at Readatouille

A selection of sci fi picture books at io9 (and here's my own sci fi picture book post from awhile back)

And finally, happy Father's Day! From Darth Vader and Son, by Jeffry Brown (found at Gizmodo, where you can see more)

Because I love Lord Peter's mother

My favorite bit of Dorothy Sayers is the begining of Busman's Honeymoon, in which the reader gets to meet Lord Peter Wimsey's mother through her (warm, witty, slightly cracked, but incredibly sane) letter writing.*

So today there I was at the library booksale, and it being a beautiful June day, there were few customers (worst booksale ever) and I was mildly disheartened.**

But then I went and visited Sounis, where I found this link to letters writen by Sayers from various characters to each other (including a gem from Lord Peter's mother) that had been published in The Spectator in the early years of WW II.

Happy!

*Because of something Lord Peter's mother said about how nice it was that Harriet gave her and Peter time alone together, I did the same the first time we visited my soon to be mother-in-law in England and she thought I was being unfriendly. SIGH.

**though pleased to take back into the fold some unsold books that I had donated to the sale even though I didn't want to so as to increase the number of books at Friends Preview night (as explained here)

Things (of a bookish nature) that keep me awake at night--Numbers 4 and 27

Although, of course, I lead a rich, full life in which books are only part of a whole ensemble of richness and fullness, and although I worry just fine about those other aspects of my life (on an as-needed basis), it is a (sad) fact that thinking about books can keep me from falling asleep.

Last night I had a full blown case of Reason 4, and a mild case of a fairly new worry, Reason 27.

Reason 4: I am organizing a library book sale virtually single handed and God help me in a moment of foolish optimism, exactly the same foolish optimism that strikes me every time, I promised that I would have 3,000 books. I don't. The angry mob of friends night previewers (all 7 of them--we are a small library) will pitchfork me.

Result: A desperate effort to amass at least 200 books from my own house, to fill in the gaps.


However, this mad scrounging of books did do something to alleviate Worry Number 27--that the house is going to collapse from the weight of all the books in it. This is not an entirely unfounded worry. Here is what we found when we took the downstairs bathtub out, and how many more support elements, I ask, are similarly chewed? There are over a thousand books on the second floor of our house....

Burn Mark, by Laura Powell

Burn Mark, by Laura Powell (Bloomsbury, June 19, 2012, YA)-- fascinating witch crime noir, set in London with magically-gifted teenage protagonists (and no love triangle).

It's the modern era, but the Inquisition in England is still growing strong. Witches--those with the "Fae"--are feared and distrusted (with reason, in as much as unscrupulous witches are known to use their gifts for criminal purposes, and a terrorist uprising of witches killed hundreds in recent memory). All known witches are "bridled" with iron...and any witch who breaks the law is executed, by burning. This being a civilized era, however, the witch's clothes are treated with flammable chemicals first, and a numbing drug administered...

Burn Mark is the story of two teenagers, told from their alternating viewpoints--Lucas, the son of a high ranking Inquisitor, a boy used to privilege, and Glory, born into an illegal coven of witch criminals, working class, gum chewing, and wearing lots of make-up. She has always longed for magic so that she can take her hereditary place in the coven; Lucas, on the other hand, is horrified when he develops powerful fae gifts--not only is his own life derailed, but the scandal might destroy his family.

But before Lucas is publicly outed, and bound with iron, he's given a chance to work undercover on an investigation of criminal witchcraft in one of London's covens--a powerful group with whom Glory's own coven has an uneasy alliance. And Glory has been asked the witch to whom she answers to work with him.

Glory and Lucas have nothing in common, other than both being teen-aged witches, and their mutual dislike. But as their investigation proceeds, they find a much darker plot than anyone had suspected--one that could jeopardize what little progress had been made in establishing trust between the Fae and the normal. In the course of their gritty adventures through the darkness of London's illicit world of witch crime and into the heart of the Inquisition (with its own illicit darkness), Lucas and Glory are forced to trust each other, and themselves, in order to do what is right (and just as an aside, I appreciated the fact that they did not feel mysteriously drawn to each other despite their mutual dislike).

Burn Mark reminded me very much of Holly Black's Curseworkers series, only not quite as dark, more concerned with class issues, and with more deliberate pacing. Powell takes her time setting up her chessboard, describing her alternate world, and introducing her characters and their circumstances. It's not until the second half that "exciting" things (like death and torture) start to happen.

I myself was just fine with this--I like to spend time with characters, getting to know them, before the death and torture parts start (although, in fairness, there is witch is burned to death in one of the chapters, but it's a peripheral death). I thought the antagonistic relationship between Glory and Lucas, gradually changing as events progressed, was very nicely done. I also liked that, although Glory and Lucas are powerful young witches, and use their abilities during the course of the story, magic isn't a panacea that obviates the need for intelligence and solves all problems! They are kids, with adults telling them what to do, and taking down powerful evildoers isn't easy, which is just as it should be.

The care that Powell takes with her world building makes her world extremely credible, and therefore more powerful to read about. There are, of course, parallels to our own world, with class issue, terrorism, distrust of the threatening "other," but they aren't underlined with a heavy hand.

In short, I enjoyed it, and I think this would be a most excellent one to give to a thirteen or fourteen year old who isn't into the sort of paranormal in which love is of primary importance. Viz age of reader--there's no sex, I didn't notice any bad language (but I might have missed it), and although there's violence, The Hunger Games has more, so I wouldn't mind if my own almost 12 year old wanted to read it.

As a final aside, I want to clarify that I read an ARC of this UK import. I checked with the publisher to see if the British terminology, like "skip" for "dumpster," "PMT" for "PMS", and the use of the word "chav" to describe Glory was retained in the US edition (although there is no word for "chav" in the US...), and was happy to hear that it was!

Here's the Kirkus (starred) review

(disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher)

Waiting on Wednesday--The Shadow Society, by Marie Rutkoski

I am an enthusiastic fan of Marie Rutkoski--her Kronos Chronicles series, that begins with the lovely Cabinet of Wonders, is a favorite of mine. These books are smart, entertaining, historical fantasy, and so Marie Rutkoski is on list of authors whose new books I will trot out to the store to buy (there are a very small number of authors (maybe three) whose books I will run as fast as I can to the store for, and many more I will wander to the store at some point for, and trotting to the store is obviously half way between the two, reserved for maybe ten authors, and shows great enthusiasm).

So I was very pleased to see that she has a new book out this fall! (picture and blurb are from the publisher's catalogue)

The Shadow Society (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 16, 2012) "Sixteen-year-old Darcy Jones doesn’t know
she’s not human—but then, there’s a lot she doesn’t
know, including everything that happened before she was
abandoned outside a Chicago firehouse at five years old.
But when a mysterious boy named Conn arrives at her high school, Darcy begins to discover more about her past—and is not so sure she likes what she learns. Turns out Darcy is a Shade, a creature capable of becoming invisible, but also part of the terrorist organization the Shadow Society, whose main quest seems to be to eliminate as many humans as possible. Conn, a human, has been sent to arrest her, but when the two find that they are falling in love, things get a lot more complicated."

I find the twisted torso of the cover girl disturbing--her head, trunk, and legs all seem to be going in different directions--I tried to do that pose, but failed (definitly one for Jim Hines' wonderful "striking a pose" experiment with the complications of assuming the positions of women on fantasy book covers; that being said, it's not the final art, as indicated on the picture). And the synopsis makes the book sound like not quite my thing. But I trust the author, so I'll almost certainly be looking for this one come October!

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine

Stonewords, by Pam Conrad

Stonewords, by Pam Conrad (HarperCollins, 1991, middle grade, 144 pages--books sure were shorter back then...) Note: usually I have a cover picture right up here in this part. Today, for two reasons, I don't. They are at the end.

In the cemetery off in the woods by Zoe's grandparents' house was a headstone with just one word surviving--Zoe's own name. When Zoe made friends with a mysterious playmate, Zoe Louise, who appeared one day out of nowhere--capricious, willful, entertaining Zoe Louise, who vanishes into the house when playtime is done, who the grown-ups don't see--she never thought of the gravestone.

Of course, the reader makes the connection, especially since it is Underlined by the author....and realizes that Zoe Louise is ghost...

One day, Zoe follows her playmate up the forbidden back stairs off the kitchen, and makes a brief visit to the late 19th century--now she is the ghost, invisible to those around her (and not at all willing to repeat the experiment!). Just as an aside, this isn't time travel as cultural immersion experience--it's a plot element, so we don't get any sort of fully realized historical setting. Which works just fine for this particular story.

As Zoe's understanding that she and her friend are from different times becomes clearer, she realizes to her horror that Zoe Louise is going to die...and she must go back to the past, to try to prevent it....

It is both creepy and atmospheric in good ghostly fashion, but even more than that, it is one of few time travel stories I've read where the time travel builds slowly and inexorably to a terrifying climax. This growing horror is in stark contrast to the domestic details of Zoe's everyday life, and her time spent playing with Zoe Louise.

Stonewords won the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and it's clear from the reviews on Amazon that this one made a huge impression on those who read it young (of course, since it was published in 1991, there was no chance for me to do so!). I wish, though, that I had read it when I was nine or so---I wonder if I would have loved it, and I will never know.

I am not sure I would have-- it gets rather unexpectedly gruesome when Zoe Louise begins to manifest as the dead child she actually is. The other thing I'm not sure I entirely like is the fact that Zoe Louise is not exactly sympathetic. It's quite possible that she couldn't help manifesting as a corpse, but I think if you want someone to travel back to the past to save you, you should ask nicely, and not terrify them. And even when she's not a corpse, she has a streak of selfishness to her that made her not entirely likable.

So though I enjoyed this one just fine as a fast little read, I'm going to recommend instead a similar story, one that I think is even more heart-poundingly powerful--The Ghosts, by Antonia Barber. If you are one who loves Stonewords, do try to get hold of The Ghosts and tell me what you think!

In the meantime, I have added the sequel to Stonewords, Zoe Rising, to my timeslip tbr list....

The marjority of the covers for Stonewords are all so unappealing to me that I am putting them here at the end. Zoe never finds a skeleton glove, and when I myself go through a door in ghostly form, I don't do a marionette imitation. And the third one is rather unattractive, and quite frankly, boring.



But take a look at this one, the Puffin paperback edition of 1994:

Zoe is shown as a kid of color! I quickly thumbed through the book to see if she is ever described physically in any way, and I didn't see anything...so kudos to whoever designed this cover for not defaulting to white!!!!

Although the portal of light doesn't work for me. If it's ever reissued, my suggestion would be to develop the metaphor of the title, and have the gravestone on the cover...

My BEA books, and 2 other nice things that came home recently

So the sad remains of my 48 hour book challenge stack have been cleared away, and now I can use the wood stove as a handy place for my BEA books! Here they are, in all their glory, minus The Miseducation of Cameron Post, which I read on the train home and have already passed on the library:


Thank you, publishers--I look forward to reading them!

And just because I feel like sharing, here are two things that came home at the end of school that pleased me very much.

My eleven year old has his first published comic strip in the school literary magazine. By way of explanation, about a year ago he started drawing a strip called "Castaway Blobs!"-- the story of two blobs adrift in a boat. The other three of us joined in the fun, and we have a nice little collection of Castaway Blobs...Here's the basic image, as drawn by me: For the literary magazine, my son drew on the computer, so some of the charm is lost...but it still tickled me:


My younger son's portfolio of school work included many nice bits of writing, but what struck me most was his response to the following assignment: write as short a piece of fiction as you can that combines the themes of "war" and "friendship."

"Jack? He's, he's...dead."

Pretty darn good use of an ellipsis for an eight year old, if you ask me.

So there you go....

(there are many more Castaway Blobs! in the world, and I could share them if there was interest....)

(and just so as to guard my son's rights: Castaway Blobs! is copyrighted and may not be used without the permission its creator, B.H.)

The Stones of Ravenglass (Chronicles of the Red King, Book 2), by Jenny Nimmo

The Stones of Ravenglass (Chronicles of the Red King, Book 2), by Jenny Nimmo (Scholastic, June 1, 2012, ages 8 and up).

Long before the story of Charlie Bone began, a boy named Timoken fled from his African home, protected by strong magic from the supernatural enemies who killed his parents, and who seek to destroy him. The first part of Timoken's adventures is told in The Secret Kingdom, in which he finds new friends (including a lovely camel, with whom he flies through the air, and three magical leopards, as well as human companions), looses his sister, and survives attempts to kill him.

In The Stones of Ravenglass, Timoken's hope that he and his companions have found a safe haven in a British castle are shattered by the evil machinations of its steward, and Timoken is imprisoned. He and a mysterious wizard (along with Gabar, the camel) escape...and Timoken sets off on a new quest.

This time, instead of looking for refuge, Timoken will build one--a place where he and his friends can be truly safe. But in a war-torn land, safety is hard to come by...even when a friendly dragon joins your cause.

This series is, I think, extremely well suited for children on the younger side of the "middle grade" spectrum--third and fourth graders. As with the first book, there's a fairytale feel to it, a sense of events unfolding in a somewhat episodic way, a story told to the reader as if it happened long ago. It's a story filled with magic--rather miraculous magic, coming from a source external to the main character, in fairytale fashion.

In the first book, I felt somewhat distanced from Timoken as a person--here that distance is lessened, but he still seemed to me "the hero of the story" rather than a fully developed character. I think that although this might not be what I as a grown up am looking for, this might make him a very appealing hero for the younger reader--I imagine it would be very easy for such a reader to step into his shoes, and trill to his adventures.

And those adventures, although not on the grand and sweeping scale of the previous book (which might be a disappointment to that one's readers), have exciting moments of great magic (literally), and the ensemble cast of camel, kids, wizard, and dragon work well together to create an interesting story.

In short: a good one for its target audience, though not one I'd insist that the five or so grown-ups I know of who visit here looking for books for themselves (you know who you are!) get a hold of for their personal reading pleasure.

And yay! for an African boy hero, shown as such on the cover. 2012 has been a year in which multicultural speculative fantasy and science fiction seems especially thin on the ground (I have only encountered 2, besides this one*), and so I hope it does really well.

(disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher)

*In case anyone is curious, these are The Book of Wonders, by Jasmine Richards and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, by Frank Cottrell Boyce. Please let me know of any others you've read!

48 Hour Reading Challenge--my finish line

I put down my last book almost exactly at my finishing time of 6:15, and hurried out into the garden to do some hard manual labor while it was still light...

I ended up reading for 18 hours, and blogging/visiting for 3 hours, for a total of 21-not as much as I would have liked, but there was so much to do after being in New York earlier this week...

Here's what I read:

Stonewords, by Pam Concord (look for a review this upcoming Timeslip Tuesday!)

A Confusion of Princes, by Garth Nix (which was fine sci fi fun--but the problem with having a character who lacks humanity for most of the book is that those of us who love character driven stories are challenged)

Heir Apparent, by Vivien Vande Velde (a fun twist on courtly fantasy)

The Dream Stealer, by Gregory Maguire (a Russian supernatural/fairy tale story, with Baba Yagga beautiful dominating every page on which she appears)

The Kidnapping of Edgaro Mortara, by David Kertzer (my review)

The Blue Cat of Castle Town, by Catherine C. Coblentz (my review)

The Great Wide Sea, by M.H. Herlong (my review)

Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses, by Ron Koertge (twisted fairy tales; review to come)

And a bit over half of Burn Mark, by Laura Powell (review to come Wednesday, d.v.).

Only eight and a half...still lots of books left on the wood stove (with wilting flowers, as promised).

But $18 for Reading is Fundamental, and lots of fun!!! Thanks so much, Mother Reader, and everyone who commented on my challenge posts!

The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, by David Kertzer

Thanks to this year's 48 Hour Reading Challenge (of which I have two hours left...) I have finally finished a book I have owned unread for about eight years, if not more-- The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, by David Kertzer (1997; a National Book Award Finalist). It's an outstanding example of social history, and was one of the most gripping books, including all the fiction I read, that I've encountered this year. I am now a much more educated person. So total win.

Here's the story: One evening in Bologna, in June of 1858 two officers of the Inquisition knocked on the door of Momolo Mortara, a Jewish businessman. They had come to take, by force if necessary, Mortara's son, little Edgardo. Unbeknownst to the Mortara family, a Catholic servant had baptized him some years before, transforming him into a Christian. As such, the six year old boy could not remain with his Jewish family, but must be raised as a Catholic.

The kidnapping of Edgardo launched a media firestorm, and became a cause célèbre. The mid 19th century was a tumultuous time for Italy--liberals pushed for unification of its desperate states and for constitutional government, and the Catholic church fought to preserve its absolute power over the Papal state (a considerable territory, surrounding Rome). Each side put their own spin on Edgardo's story, in a way very reminiscent of the media today--were Edgardo and his family victims of an enlightened, cruel institution that clung to the past, or was the Catholic church doing its duty in saving the soul of an innocent child, whose heart (according to their accounts) soon turned with love toward the Catholic faith?

Kertzer vividly brings to life the antisemitism of 19th-century Italy (who knew the Inquisition was still going strong, and that Blood Libel was still unquestioned by the many? Not me). Using direct quotes from historical sources extensively, he allows the protagonists in the drama to tell their own stories, guiding the reader through the maze of political and legal intrigue. The cast of characters ranges from the statesmen, rulers, and revolutionaries that I'd heard about (Garibaldi, Napoleon III, President Buchanan), to uneducated peasant girls whose court testimony gives them a voice.

Though I sometimes got a bit confused with all the mad welter of events of Italy's path toward unification, Kertzer kept coming back to Edgardo and his family enough so that the human interest of their story was never lost.

I was appalled, educated, and entertained (and have become determined to read more social history for grown ups).

But for now, back to science fiction and fantasy for the young.

This week's round-up of middle grade fantasy and science fiction from around the blogs

Welcome to another week of what I found in my blog reading of interest to readers of middle grade fantasy and science fiction! Please let me know if I missed your link, and any publishers/publicists/authors out there who have seen reviews of their books that I missed, do feel free to send them my way! I'll take links at any time during the week--just email me at charlotteslibrary at gmail dot com.

The Reviews:

13 Hangmen, by Art Corriveau, at books4yourkids

Bad Island, by Doug TenNapel, at Books Beside My Bed

The Boneshaker, by Kate Milford, at The Book Smugglers

Broxo, by Zack Giallongo, at That Blog Belongs to Emily Brown

The Cabinet of Earths, by Anne Nesbet, at Books Beside My Bed

Children of Morrow, by H.M. Hoover, at Jen Robinson's Book Page

Deadweather and Sunrise (The Chronicles of Egg, book 1) by Geoff Rodkey, at Imagination in Focus

Down a Dark Hall, by Lois Duncan, at Jen Robinson's Book Page

The Dragon of Trelian, by Michelle Knudsen, at Kid Lit Geek

Earwig and the Witch, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

The False Prince, by Jennifer Nielsen, at Stacked

The Game of Sunken Places, by M.T. Anderson, at Book Adventures

Giants Beware! by Rafael Rosado and Jorge Aguirre, at A Year of Reading

The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, by Christopher Healy, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Horton's Miraculous Mechanisms, by Lissa Evans, at Book Aunt

Into the Land of Unicorns, by Bruce Coville, at Fantasy Literature

The Mapmaker and the Ghost, by Sarvenaz Tash, at Books Beside My Bed

The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate, at Sonderbooks

ParaNorman, by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, at The Book on the Hill

The Princess Curse, by Merrie Haskell, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

The Rock of Ivanore, by Laurisa White Reyes, at The HappyNappyBookseller and Children's Atheneum

The Secret Spiral, by Gillian Neimark, at Cracking the Cover

The Serpent's Shadow, by Rick Riordan, at Book Nut, and (audio book) at Karissa's Reading Review

Super Zombie Juice Mega Bomb, by MJA Ware, at Geo Librarian

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin, at The Book Smugglers

The Wrath of Zozimos (Stickman Odyssey) by Christopher Ford, at Book Nut

Two at Time Travel Times Two--This Isn't What it Looks Like, by Pseudonynous Bosch, and Back to Before, by Jan Slepian.

And, at io9, a look at the two WondLa books, by Tony diTerlizzi.

(no authors and interview section this week--perhaps because of BEA?)

Other Good Stuff:

The unpublished prologue for Palace of Stone, by Shannon Hale, at squeetus

Hero vs Villain, by Sherwood Smith, at Book View Cafe (hear, hear, I say)

Katherine Langrish explores "The Perilous Seas of Fairyland" at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles

The Great Wide Sea, by M.H. Herlong

There I was about an hour ago, ready to launch back into reading for the 48 Reading Challenge after sundry distractions, when I realized to my dismay that I was downstairs, and all three books that I was in the middle of were upstairs. So of course I started a new book.

The Great Wide Sea, by M.H. Herlong (2008, Viking, YA, 288 pages), is the story of three boys and their father on a boat in the Bahamas. They are on the boat because the mother died in a car accident (sniff) and the father sold their house and decided to spend the year sailing in the Bahamas. But he didn't ask his sons how they felt about this.

Here's how they felt--the two younger ones (11 year old Dylan and 5 year old Gerry) were sad and unenthusiastic. The older boy, Ben (15), was furious.

And so there they are on the boat, with Ben hating his father, and his father being unhelpfully unsympathetic (being grief-stricken), and little Gerry missing his mama so badly (sniff), and then one day the father is no longer on the boat. He has gone overboard. Almost immediately after that, a storm drives the boat onto a deserted island. The boys manage to survive for a time, but when Dylan is terribly injured, Ben must make a horrible decision...

The emotions of the characters throughout the whole book were pulled just as tautly as they could be--stuck on the boat together, they had no way to escape from each other, so there was no chance of distance bringing diffusion. Ben's feelings of hatred toward his father, and his father's inability to put his own grief to the side to cope with it, made for painful reading, but not (since of course I am a mama to my own boys) as painful as poor sad Gerry and his blankie... I wept.

Even though plot type stuff happens (father overboard, shipwrecked on desert island, terrible accident), it happens mostly in the second half of the book, so this isn't an Action Packed survival adventure, which is what I had been expecting. Instead, it is character driven all the way, even when the disasters are being dealt with. I was utterly engrossed (read it in a single sitting in under an hour type engrossed), but I don't think I'll be reading it again. The emotions of Ben and his family were too painfully real for me to want to revisit it...(and I would have liked more soothing "everything is ok now" at the ending...)

The Blue Cat of Castle Town, by Catherine Cate Coblentz

A while back I made a list of fantasy cat books for kids, and an anonymous commenter enthusiastically recommended one I'd never heard of -- The Blue Cat of Castle Town, by Catherine Cate Coblentz (1949--a Newbery Honor book the following year). So I requested it from the library forthwith.

The story of the titular blue cat begins when he is just a little blue kitten, born under blue moon long ago in a meadow by a river in Vermont. His anxious mother knows that blue kittens can hear the song of the river, and follow that song to strange fates. But despite her efforts, the kitten hears. The song praises the power of the individual to create beauty--"all that is doing, do well"-- and the river sends blue kitten on a quest to Castle Town, to sing that song to the people there who might have ears to hear. There is one man in Castle Town, though, that the river warns blue kitten against--Arunah Hyde, whose own song is all about moving quickly through the world racking up more and more money and power...

And so the kitten sets off. He finds in Castle Town that the songs of its great artisans have been stifled by Arunah's distorted priorities, but with his purring, encourages a pewter smith, a weaver, and a carpenter to create beauty. Arunah almost gets a hold of him, but the kitten (now a cat) escapes. His hardest task of all, though, is to bring the river's song to a girl who thinks she's ugly and unloved and worthless, encouraging her to create one of the most beautiful works of art in the whole town...a beautiful embroidered carpet.

The Blue Cat of Castle Town is a magical fable, with a beautiful message (and lots of nice descriptions of artisans at work!). I imagine that if idealistic, self-consciously pious (from time to time) little me had picked up this book I would have loved it, and striven to live up to its moral.

Even now that I am Hardened and Cynical, I still can feel its pull...and I want to go out myself and create something of lovely wonderfulness...(well, actually right this minute, I want to go get my last potatoes planted, but gardens count somewhat, even though no one I know has ever looked at some potato plants and been hit over the head by their stunning beauty). That being said, as a grown-up, I felt that the Message trumped the story to such an extent that I don't think I'll be re-reading it, though it will most certainly linger vividly in my mind!

I will offer it to my nine year old, who is reading cat books at the moment. He will love the beginning cute little kitten part, but I am not entirely certain he will appreciate the fable aspect...

The best part of the book, I think, is that the stories of these craftsmen are based on real people, who actually made the things described. The book was inspired by a trip the author took to Castleton, Vermont, where she heard of this rug, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the blue cat is down at the bottom):


And she visited the Castleton church, and saw the famous pulpit (which I can't find a picture of, which I find hard to believe, and so I am now planning to go there myself (it's 3 hours and 49 minutes away) and take one....). I looked for a nice example of the pewter by the craftsman in the book--Ebenezer Southmayd--and (somewhat ironically, but not surprisingly) found that it is indeed lovey, and really, really expensive!

Here's the full text of the song of the river (page 16)
"Sing your own song, said the river,
"Sing your own song.
"Out of yesterday song comes.
It goes into tomorrow,
Sing your own song.
"With your life fashion beauty,
This too is the song.
Riches will pass and power. Beauty remains.
Sing your own song."
"All that is worth doing, do well, said the river. Sing your own song.
Certain and round be the measure,
Every line be graceful and true.
Time is the mold, time the weaver, the carver,
Time and the workman together,
Sing your own song.
"Sing well, said the river. Sing well."

And if anyone wants to sew their own little bit of this rug, there are kits...

Seventh annual 48 Hour Reading Challenge!!!!

I've officially started my 48 hours of reading as of 6:15 pm when I arrived at my bus stop and cracked open my first book....Here is my stack (making my stack is always one of my favorite parts of the whole challenge. Beginnings are always so full of promise and frisking optimism....

I like looking at other people's stacks too. Not that I'm competitive or anything (la la la), but it's fun to see what other people are reading!

I do think mine is aesthetically pleasing, although I take points off myself for having some upside-down books (and I think it's bad form to have a book with no title on the cover--that tapestry-esque one in my pile is a book called The Broken Thread, for those who were wondering).

Here's what I'd like to see--a gallery of before and after pile pictures. In my after picture, the petals of the rose will have fallen onto the remaining books, lending a tired, gentle melancholy to the whole ensemble.

This year I'll be contributing to Reading is Fundamental, as requested by Mother Reader--either one dollar per book, or one dollar per hour, whichever is greater.

Do join the fun, even if you can't (like me) promise to spend all that much time reading! It's a lovely way to feel all comradely in our reading.

Forsaken, by Katherine Langrish

Just sneaking in one quick review before I plunge into the 48 hour reading challenge...

I am an avid reader both of Katherine Langrish's books (such as The Shadow Hunt), and her blog, Seven Miles of Steel Thistles (which is a rich feast for fairy tale lovers). So when I saw that she had a new book out in 2011--Forsaken--, which is a retelling of Matthew Arnold's poem, The Forsaken Merman (which is sad and lovely) I added it to my mental tbr list...and on impulse, I ordered if from the Book Depository last month (cause it's not out in the US). And it came, and I read it, and found it good. But I am not the intended audience, and so this one isn't one I can evaluate on the basis of whether or not it worked for me.

Forsaken is part of the Rivets series, from publisher Franklin Watts. These are books that are "Perfect for readers who want to enjoy a book by a bestselling author, but who lack the stamina for a full-length novel," with a reading age of 8-9 years, and an interest range of 8-14 years. What we would call in the US "high-low." It's a really, really hard category of book for me to review--I'm not lacking in reading stamina myself, and I'm not an educator of struggling readers. So as an individual, such books will never be best beloved to me (because of being too short!), and I have to make a slight effort to judge them on whether or not they succeed in telling a compelling story in a condensed, clear, manner.

On to the book.

Forsaken tells of the daughter of the Mer King and the human woman who gave up the land to live with him beneath the sea. This woman is unique among the merfolk, not just because she has legs, but because she has an immortal soul. Though she loves her husband and children, one day the call of the church becomes to strong for her to bear, and she returns to land. It was to be just a holiday...but she doesn't return.

And her baby is crying and starving, and her ten-year old daughter, Mara, cannot stand it. So she goes in search of her mother, up the noxious river, onto dry land, and into the church itself. It is a painful journey

"Hand over hand I pulled myself uphill, digging my elbows into the sharp white gravel. My fingers bled and my eyes filled with stinging grey dust. My delicate tail fins became tattered and curled" (page 27).

And so Mara's mother is faced with a choice--does she jeopardize her soul, and return to the sea, or deny her family, and stay on land?

It is a tightly told little story with a big emontional punch. Mara is a forthright narrator, and her pain comes through clearly. The conflict facing Mara's mother is likewise addressed directly. It's rare to see a character in a fantasy book for younger readers confronting a fundamental religious dilemma, and those who believe in a loving God will appreciate her final choice.

So there's the story, and the question is--does this succeed in being one that will hold the interest of a reader up to fourteen years old? I think, for the most part, that it would--it's thought-provoking and compelling, and it's easy to empathize with Mara's painful journey onto dry land. My one reservation is that Mara is only ten years old, which I think would off-put readers older than that. However, I'd give this one in a heartbeat to the seven or eight year old girl who isn't ready as a reader for the long tomes that comprise much of today's middle grade fantasy--the girl who's ready to be challenged by a story, but doesn't quite have the stamina (to use the publisher's word, and why not), for the longer books.

So I'm not at all sorry to have bought it, even though it only took me ten minutes (possibly less) to read it. But I'd really like Katherine Langrish to write another book for me....

Here's another review, at Awfully Big Reviews

Preping for the 48 Hour Reading Challenge...with bonus pictures of my (former) book bathtub

So this weekend is Mother Reader's annual 48 Hour Reading Challenge, which I look on as a much needed push to get books out of the tbr clusters and into permanent homes, be those homes the library book sale, the library shelves, or hard-won real estate on my own shelves....I am glad that this falls during the warmer months, because I can use the woodstove as my display area:

(Isn't the puffin nice? My older son made it in art this year, and I feel that it has a lot of personality.)

My pile is a carefully chosen mix of library books, review copies, and tbr pile books, with a bit of non-fiction livening up the sci fi/fantasy. It would be awfully nice if they all proved to be gripping fast reads, or, failing that, books whose first ten pages will let me know that I don't want to read anymore.

(The pink rose is from our thriving rose bush of unfortunate pinkness, that bloomed even more prolifically and pinkly this year. The rose bush of beautiful redness would require a ladder if I wished to pick beautiful red roses.)

There are many books that could be on this pile but aren't. For instance, there are all the books that were in the downstairs bathtub:


The family that owned our house before us didn't let little things like walls stop them from installing this bathtub in what was once the pantry--it stuck out half a foot into the dining room, inside a cupboard-like structure. Their towel cupboard stuck out a good foot, built in the space where the door used to be, blocking the way from the dinning room to the kitchen. So in any event, there was this bathtub, not being used, and of course I put books in it and all was well (?).

However, all good things come to an end. We are going to add on a new downstairs bathroom at some point, but first we are demolishing this one, and the tub is now just a memory. The demolition in progress:

(If you look closely you can see the original dining room wall paper (large leaves on a raspberry background). I assumed at first it was Victorian, but now, after having done a quick bit of research, I'm thinking perhaps 194os. Regardless, we aren't going to try to find it again).

Happily, it being summer, the woodrack inside was empty, so:

But this is clearly a temporary solution, and only a third of the books fit, and the rest are on the floor of the hall. Of course, once the dinning room and ex-bathroom walls are rebuilt (and why, I ask myself, has our nice contractor not contacted us for weeks?), there will be, for a while, all that lovely ex-bathroom space where the washer and dryer will go eventually, but for the moment, I clearly just need to read. 48 hours will help, but it is never enough....

An introvert went to BEA (final BEA post before launching into a mad whirl of reading and reviewing)

I am home, and aching more than some what--I cleverly (?) and deliberately self-sabotaged myself at BEA this year by not bringing a suitcase with wheels, so that I would only take books that I really truly wanted. There were thirty seven of them--one more would have made it intolerable to stagger from the bus to the train--and so I am happy on that count.

My final tip for introverts at BEA is to go for a second year! It is so much more comfortable to be in a familiar setting, and though my spot outside where I could be alone was off-limits due to construction, I found a nice secluded doorstep that I had all to myself. Knowing what you are doing, in a purely practical, physical sense, makes any situation easier for an introvert, and, you know, probably for extroverts too! (Waves to extroverts).

My confidence as a blogger increases every year, and I engaged in several meaningful and interesting conversations with not only fellow bloggers and line-mates, but with publishers, which was pleasing.

It was lovely seeing all of you who I saw, though I am sad that there were people I didn't see who I wanted to.

I saw no signs of bloggers behaving badly this year, perhaps because there weren't that many piles of arcs! Every line that I was in behaved well, and the only person I saw doing something naughty was a quite old man, not a blogger, who jumped with surprising nimble-ness over one of the chains that had closed off a signing line.

Here is a useful thing that I learned at the Book Blogger Convention that I will apply to my blogging:

When tweeting a review, tweet at the publisher. There's a good chance your tweet might be picked up by them, increasing your review's reach, and it's a nice way to make sure the publisher knows about it (especially if you don't have an email address for them that you are confident about).

The question then becomes--is there a Master List of publishers and their myriad imprints with twitter handles???? If so, could I get it?

And here's the book that made my children happiest: Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers (coming August 2012), which was the last book I took, as I passed the Scholastic booth on my way out the door:


And here's the book that I had never heard of before that I was happiest to get an ARC of--Passion Blue, by Victoria Strauss (November 2012, from Amazon Children's Publishing). Here's the blurb:

"When seventeen-year-old Giulia, the orphaned, illegitimate daughter of a Milanese nobleman, learns she’s to be packed off to a life behind convent walls, she begs an astrologer-sorcerer for a talisman that will secure what she’s certain is her heart’s desire: true love and a place where she belongs. But does she really know the compass of her heart? The convent of Santa Marta is full of surprises, including a workshop of nuns who are creating paintings of astonishing beauty using a luminous blue mixed from a secret formula: Passion Blue. As Giulia’s own artistic self is awakened she’s torn: should she follow the young man who promises to help her escape? Or stay and satisfy her growing desire to paint?"


And on the back there is this: "A lovely read." -- Megan Whalen Turner. If MWT told me a Captian Underpants book was a lovey read, I'd believe her.

Did you know that the Marshall Cavendish line of books has metamorphosed into Amazon Children's Publishing? I didn't. So there, along with forthcoming books, were old friends like Chalk, and Amazon books like Zetta Elliott's A Wish After Midnight, and the Cybil's first shortlisted self-published book, available first only as an ebook, but now "officially" published --Angelfall, by Susan Ee.

Whoever is doing their covers is doing a bang up job!

Deep Thoughts From Bea (not really)

Don't you just hate days when you wake up and realize that you are going to fail your children? You'll notice that I am not in line outside the Javits Center, waiting in line for a ticket to see John Green so that I can get his autograph for my boys. I also kind of liked the look of the Good King Wenceslas advent calender that was being given away at a ticketed signing (Christmas is just around the corner)...but not enough to drag my weary self out of the house just yet. (I only had one (generous) cocktail at Little Brown's lovely party last night, so it can't be that.....).

I have noticed no bloggers behaving in anyway other than pleasant attendees. The only person I saw behaving badly was an older man who was not a blogger jumping nimbly over the white chain that had closed a signing.

I found one of the books I really wanted discarded in the mail room--What Came from the Stars, by Gary Schmidt. The nice person at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had looked for one for me, but didn't have one....so it was rather pleasing to encounter it, sad and abandoned, and give it a good home.

I have been, however, very good about not ending up with books I won't read. Since I self-sabotaged myself on purpose by not bringing a wheeled suitcase, I can only take what I can get from the Javits Center to Penn Station.....

Greetings from New York

Of course I meant to have reviews scheduled for the days I was at BEA, but although I successfully did almost everything on my pre-BEA task list (see the bottom of this post) this didn't happen. Oh well.


What did happen is that I went to the Book Blogger Convention at BEA. I count it a success, because I chatted to almost all of the people on my list of people to see that would be there: Sheila, and Angie, and Cecelia, and Cat, and Maggie, and Janicu, and said hi to a few more people I hope to see more of later, and hope to see more today.

Viz the conference: I think that blogger conferences are almost at the point when they need to break it up by experience--to have a track for people new to blogging, and a track for those of use who no longer need to hear "You don't have to review every book you get." So although it was not unenjoyable, I didn't actually learn much.

That being said, I would have been happy to listen to the lawyer talking about libel for longer. He involved us in his presentation--we got to vote on what we considered potentially actionable language from real book reviews. Basically, don't say things that aren't true as if they were statements of fact. Fine: It appears as though this author has not completed elementary school. Not fine: The author is a fascist (if there is no factual evidence the author is). Since I rarely make bold, declarative statements, I think I am safe. But it is good to know that there is an organization called Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, who might be able to help if I did get a threatening letter....

Then I went to an event at Scholastic, in which eight great writers with books coming out late summer/fall performed extracts from their books in ensembles of four. All did a great job, but perhaps most memorable was James Dashner, channeling Downton Abbey in his role as Maggie Stiefvater's malevolent aunt, in a scene from Sharon Cameron's The Dark Unwinding... Thank you, Scolastic and the authors involved, for a great evening!

And today, the exhibit floor and another wild evening of publisher fun...

The June 3 round-up of middle grade sci fi and fantasy posts from around the blogs

Welcome to another round-up of the middle grade sci fi/fantasy posts I found in my weekly blog reading! Let me know if I missed yours!

The Reviews

Albrek's Tomb (Adventures Wanted #3), by M.L. Forman, at The Write Path

At the Firefly Gate, by Linda Newbery, at Charlotte's Library

Battle of the Zombies, by The Beastly Boys, at Back to Books

Castle in the Air, by Diana Wynne Jones, at HumbleIndigo

The Council of Mirrors, by Michael Buckley, at Ms. Yingling Reads

Dandelion Fire, by N.D. Wilson, at Random Musings of a Bibliophile

The Door in the Forest, by Roderick Townley, at Bibliophile Support Group

Dragon Castle, by Joseph Bruchac, a joint review at Maria's Melange and The Brain Lair

Earwig and the Witch, by Diana Wynne Jones, at Reads for Keeps

The Emerald Tablet, by P.J. Hoover, at Raising Boys World

Eye of the Storm, by Kate Messner, at The Reading Zone

The False Prince, by Jennifer Nielsen, at Beyond Books and To Read or Not To Read

Liesl and Po, by Lauren Oliver, at Thoughts of an Endless Dreamer

The Ninnies, by Paul Magrs, at The British Fantasy Society

Ordinary Magic, by Caitlen Rubino-Bradway, at A Backwards Story, Charlotte's Library, and My Precious

The Paradise Trap, by Katherine Jinks, at Ms. Yingling Reads

The Serpent's Shadow, by Rick Riordan, at The Write Path

Song, by Jason Lethcoe, at HumbleIndigo

The Unseen Guest, by Maryrose Wood, at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea-Cozy and Sharon the Librarian

A two for one at Ms. Yingling Reads-- Zac and the Dream Stealers, by Ross MacKenzie, and The Color of Bones, by Tracy Edward Wymer.

Authors and Interviews

Jennifer E. Smith (The Storm Makers) at There's a Book

Caitlen Rubino-Bradway (Ordinary Magic) at A Backwards Story

Derek the Ghost (Scary School) at The Book Pixie

Anne Ursu (Breadcrumbs) at Novel Novice

A character interview with the princes from A Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, at Small Review

Other Good (?) Stuff

Harry Potter, Seriously--at Nine Kinds of Pie

Question: can you think of any mg sff titles that are quotations from famous poems? At Tor, there's a post that plays one of my favorite type cocktail party games--how many spec fic titles come from Blake’s “The Tyger” and how many from Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.”

Another interesting question--Would a unicorn be qualified to be president? Some people think not...and have raised questions about what exactly is hiding beneath Mitt Romney's hair... (I myself think that just because someone might have a horn doesn't mean they shouldn't be president. And have now spent far too long trying to imagine a unicorn wanting to be president).

And now, before I go off to BEA on a 4:30 bus, I must
a. dig up and pot lots of plants from the garden as a present for my son's teacher who has a new house with no plants in the garden yet
b. go to Staples to print out and mount two posters for a public meeting on underwater archaeology at one o'clock this afternoon
c. attend said meeting, and give a brief talk (mercifully already written)
d. write a blog post for Monday
e. plant tomatoes and potatoes (I am awfully late on planting this year)
f. go to the bank

If you are going to BEA, and might want to say hi, this is what I look like (give or take a cat and a blanket):

Haunted Waters, by Mary Pope Osborne

So there I was browsing in my local used book store with about forty dollars of trade-in credit to spend, and I saw on the shelf a signed first edition copy of Haunted Waters, by Mary Pope Osborne (Candlewick, 1994, YA, 153 pages), a retelling of the story of Undine. My eyes lit up, and I pounced on it....because I WAS CONFUSED. I though this was a rare book by Elizabeth Marie Pope (author of The Perilous Gard), and I was ever so so happy...

Still not knowing what I had done, I began reading. Right at the beginning, in a short prologue, we are told that the sea king has delivered his niece to a human family, to liven up the merfolk gene pool. So when a medieval knight, lost in a demonic wood, meets an improbable fisherfolk family--kind old man, insane old woman, and beautiful but mysterious girl who swims really well--we can guess who this girl is! Especially since her name is Undine.

A storm of supernatural strength kicks up, forcing the knight to stay with the fisher family. For no good reason (other than animal attraction) he falls for Undine (since she is virtually monosyllabic it can't be for her wits, although in fairness, since she's apparently never seen another person in her whole life (evil demonic spirits don't count) she hasn't had much chance to develop that part of her personality). The Undine falls for him too (for even less clear a reason--she was getting tired of swimming all day, I guess, and having demonic spirits looking through the windows), and a handy priest washes ashore who marries them.

The knight, however, hasn't thought things through all that well viz the demons that lurk around the girl and her general mysteriousness, and she hasn't thought things out either (although how would she know that not everyone likes swimming as much as she does? But still I would have liked her to be a tad more aggressive in trying to find out answers, instead of being all mysterious and inarticulate) and things don't go well.

And as I read all this, I kept waiting for the fine writing of Elizabeth Marie Pope--for the characters to leap of the page and become people I cared about, and it didn't come. Instead I got what felt like overly careful writing, and overly conscious story-telling, all from the point of view of Lord Huldbrand, who never became a particularly sympathetic character. Here's a random example of the prose style:

"Lonely music wafted from a shepherd's flute. I looked back at Undine. She clutched her shawl and stared at the barley field. Did the rippling silver-gold grain remind her of her ocean waves? Was she yearning for the sound of the fisherman's pipe? For a terrible moment, I regretted having stolen her from her old life.

Then the fisherman's words came back to me. He had begged me to take Undine far away from the inhuman force haunting their shore. Revived by the memory of his charge, I began leading my horse through the swelling fields." (page 56)

In a nutshell, it's a doomed relationship: Huldbrand needs to talk to Undine more than he does; she needs to try to answer him.

In a second nutshell, it's all very medieval fantasy Gothic, but without enough emotional heft behind the gothic-ness to make it work for me.

In a third nutshell, I wish it had been an Elizabeth Marie Pope book instead.

But yet I was interested enough to want to see how the story played out, and I read the book in a single sitting (it's short). So if you have patience with narration that is unrelentingly Narrated, and if you like retellings, especially those with Dark Mysteries at their core (which unfortunately aren't mysteries to any reader who's read the prologue), you may well enjoy this one more than I did.

For anyone put off by the cover, on which Undine looks like she's having a shower, Candlewick released a new edition in 1996, with a different, and much more beautiful cover, that looks like the sort of handsome book that one might like just for the handsomeness of it...

The paperback cover, however, goes off in a different direction entirely--not one I particularly care for.

How to leave home (to go to BEA) if you are an introvert

I was very happy to see that my post of tips for introverts attending Book Expo America was pleasing! Today, the day before I leave for New York, I thought that I would write a post about the introvert's perspective on leaving home to go to BEA, and how to make this a happier thing. This one is, even more so than the first, written for my own peace of mind, because I found it soothing (although I am not entirely sure how tongue in cheek I am being).

From my own experience, it's very easy to happily sign up to go to large exciting events (like BEA), but then, as the day approaches on which you will actually leave home, it becomes all too clear that it was Bad Idea. The safety and comfort of home is never so dear to the introvert as it is on the day before she has to leave it, especially if she is going somewhere new and strange filled with lots of people.

But a stressed introvert is one who is burning through her precious emotional reserves before she even leaves home. This is not good.

Issue #1: Denial

-- The introvert might expend great quantities of energy in a desperate attempt to deny the fact that she is actually going away the next day.

Relax. Tempting though it might be, don't try to start a major renovation project in your house. It will still be there when you come back. Instead of deciding that you must clean out the insides of your cupboards, either do soothing tasks--like dusting your books, which will bring back happy memories, and remind you of why you are going to BEA in the first place, or do tasks that provide quick gratification--tidy up the place next to the door where the mail gets dumped.

-- if you are both a procrastinator and an introvert, you might also put off packing, because once you've packed, you no longer have days and days in which to quietly putter around your house and it is Undeniable that you really are leaving home.

Don't fall into this trap, tempting though it is. Allow the process of packing to soothe you by focusing on the really interesting question of what book you will take to read on the bus/train/plane that will a. hold your interest satisfactorily b. be one you will not mind leaving behind once you get there.

Don't look on packing clothes as something tedious. Introverts sometimes worry that no one will care about them. Demonstrate to yourself that you, at least, care, by taking the time to make sure that you are not packing one of the (many) black tee shirts that has white paint paint on it. Important: Find your party shoes today, not half an hour before you need to leave. If you are an introvert, you might not have worn your party shoes for a year or so, and you may well have no clue where you carefully put them (the top shelves of the closets all have books on them, so at least I know where not to look). Once you have managed to find them successfully (d.v.), you will have a boost of self-esteem.

Issue #2-- Social Anxiety

You may well be fretting about socializing, and you may well be utterly sick of fretting about socializing, and be finding it all very tedious. So stop. Now.

--make a list today of the people that you know already who will be there, and who you are really pretty sure will be glad to see you. Email these people today, if you haven't already (I've actually done this!). Get their cell phone numbers (if you are me, consider going out to actually buy a cell phone today). Even if this list has only two people on it, you now have something tangible with which to bolster your social courage.

--remember that you are going because there are people you have been wanting to meet in real life for ages! It might help to find pictures of these people, so that you can get some sense of what they look like--you can then start to imagine talking to them, and you might be able to recognize them.

--tell yourself to just grow up and get over it. Adopting this sort of tough persona is useful not just mentally, but physically--if you hold yourself in a confident way, you will actually feel more confident. And if you are thinking hard about your posture, you will have less room in your head for other, more weakening, thoughts.

--stop over thinking it all, for crying out loud, and just go have fun!

sigh (although I do actually feel better now myself, which is all to the good!)