Author: Diane Stanley
Age: Children (9-13ish)
(I think I read this book in my early teens, but it came from the children's section of the library. What can I say, when I was a teenager I read kids' books, and now that I'm an adult I read teen books.)
This is another one of those books that I read a long time ago, remembered liking, and re-read so I could tell you about it. I know it's a little young, but I still enjoyed it when I re-read it, and hopefully even if you don't like children's books you'll pass on the recommendation to kids you know. Also, fun fact: Diane Stanley is the author/illustrator of all those fun historical picture books like Cleopatra and Good Queen Bess that I loved when I was a kid. I believe this was her first novel.
When Ginny's mom finds out she has cancer and requires immediate and intense treatment, she packs up thirteen-year-old Ginny and puts her on a plane to stay with her dad, Hugh, in London. Ginny and her mom live in Houston, and she's seen little of her dad while growing up, so she expects that living with him is going to be awkward. What she doesn't expect is for a stranger to pick her up at the London airport and take her to the university where Hugh is an archaeology professor so Hugh's boss can tell her that her dad is spending a year living on an Iron Age-style farm as an archaeological experiment. Ginny is given a hand-woven dress and taken to the farm.
Life on the farm is very different from modern life. All the families participating in the experiment live together in a large, thatched roundhouse. Everything must be done by hand, including growing the food they will eat and making the pots they will cook it in. Ginny quickly becomes popular with the group because she turns out to be a pretty decent cook (in part because, as an American, she actually uses spices). She adjusts pretty well to the new lifestyle (much better than I would have at thirteen!), making friends with seventeen-year-old Corey, a quiet boy who eventually opens up to Ginny, and five-year-old Daisy, whose parents are graduate students with little time for her and are desperately missing her nanny. Ginny even begins to understand and appreciate Hugh, whose stereotypical British reserve makes him hard to figure out at first. But all the time Ginny is missing and worrying about her mother, and finally she conceives of a daring plan to escape back to Houston.
In an author's note at the end of the book, Diane Stanley explains that she came up with the setting first. It's based on a BBC documentary about a group of people who performed this sort of experiment in the 1970s. The setting is really fascinating and is described in much detail. But the book is primarily about human relationships and about learning to let people in. As Ginny's mom seems to push her away, the people on the farm become her family. So the setting is really perfect for this, because it's about a culture in which all of the members of the community are absolutely dependent on each other for survival. Our modern lives in Western society are so isolated, and it's a revelation to everyone on the farm to learn what it means to be close to others, even the members of their own biological families.
Reading this as a mother, I tried to figure out what was going through Ginny's mom's head when she sent Ginny away. It's not like Ginny's a demanding little kid. She's a fairly self-sufficient thirteen-year-old. I would think that Ginny would be helpful and that her mom would want to keep her around. Is it a bit of selfishness on her part, a feeling of "I've spent 13 years looking after this kid and I'm sick and exhausted and it's someone else's turn"? If that's it, while it's not particularly noble, it is understandable. Is it pride, mixed with a desire to protect Ginny, so that she doesn't want Ginny to see her while she's sick? Is it mere practicality--she's going to spend a lot of time in the hospital, and Ginny can't drive, so she can't be left on her own for that long? Does it stem from the fear that she's not going to be around much longer, so she wants Ginny to start bonding with her dad? We never get a straight answer, although Ginny asks many times (after all, Ginny's mom has been her whole life up to now, and it hurts to be sent away). But from what Ginny's mom does say, it seems like she's motivated by a combination of all of these.
The one thing that bothered me about this book was that Ginny seems so naive about her mother's cancer. She's thirteen! So I tried to think back to when I was thirteen and how I would have responded. My sister had cancer when I was twelve, and actually I don't remember it worrying me that much. But hers was a transitory kind--it was supposed to go away on its own. And she never really seemed sick from it, certainly not like all the toddlers with shaved heads at the oncologist's. I felt awful for those kids. But I don't think I ever really panicked about my sister--although that could just be hindsight, because the cancer did go away and it didn't come back, so of course in retrospect it doesn't seem like that big a deal. So I don't know.
This was an enjoyable read. It's not one of my absolute favorites, like The Exiles. But it's pretty good. If you like children's books, you should read it. If you feel too old for them, then don't bother. But keep it in mind if you ever need to find a book for a pre-teen girl (or boy--Ginny isn't super girly).
Other books you might enjoy: historical fiction like The Royal Diaries or Ann Rinaldi; books about time travel like Both Sides of Time by Caroline B. Cooney, Voices After Midnight by Richard Peck, The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks, Switching Well by Peni R. Griffin, and A Handful of Time by Kit Pearson (which is extra cool because it's set on the lake where I spent some of my childhood summers); books about girls whose lives change when their families move to a kibbutz in Israel like One More River by Lynne Reid Banks or Lydia, Queen of Palestine by Uri Orlev; books about family, divorce, and life changes like the Cousins series by Colleen O'Shaughnessy McKenna, My Crazy Cousin Courtney by Judi Miller, and The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Fire and Hemlock
Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Age: YA
I've been doing two things with this blog--I've been reading new books (new to me and recently published) and I've also been re-reading some of my old favorites so that I can introduce them to you. This has been really fun, because I've been reading some that I haven't read in years and years, and rediscovering what I liked about them. Fire and Hemlock is one of these books.
Polly is packing to go back to college after summer break when she gets distracted (as so often happens when one is packing) by an old book of short stories. But what's weird is that it seems like the book had different stories the first time she read it, years ago. Also, there's the photograph called "Fire and Hemlock" that's always hung on her bedroom wall--did it always look exactly like that? The more Polly thinks, the more confused she gets--why are her memories so muddled? Does she really have two different sets of memories?
As Polly struggles to remember, we travel with her into her second set of memories, back to when she was ten and accidentally crashed a neighbor's funeral on Halloween. There she met the mysterious Thomas Lynn. Over the next few years, Polly's parents divorce and her world falls apart. Mr. Lynn is one of the few constants in her life, a friend and a sort of mentor. He and Polly make up stories together about a hero named Tan Coul and his assistant, Hero. They're just having fun--until the stories start to come true. To make things even more complicated, Mr. Lynn's ex-wife, Laurel, and her new husband, Mr. Leroy, exert some strange and sinister control over him, and for some unknown reason they are desperate to keep him and Polly apart. In fact, whenever Polly and Mr. Lynn see each other, or contact each other in any way, something bad happens to one or both of them.
Back in the present, Polly realizes that Mr. Lynn does not exist in her first set of memories. How could she have forgotten someone who was so important to her? Did he really exist, or did she just imagine him? And if he is real, how can she find him again?
Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favorite authors. I didn't discover her until I was a teenager, and I'm sorry I didn't find her sooner because she mostly writes children's books and I would have loved to grow up with them. This book is rather different than her usual, however--for one thing, it's for teens, and for another, it's not her typical set-in-another-world sort of fantasy. There are some strange/magical doings sprinkled throughout this book, but for the most part it's a story about the real world, about growing up in a dysfunctional family and the horribly murky, awkward time that is early adolescence. This is one of my very favorite Jones books.
It's also one of the strangest books I've ever read--but that's not a bad thing. Jones' books are usually more complex than they appear on the surface, and they're very heavily based in myth (all sorts of myth, not just the standard Greco-Roman gods). After I finished reading this book, I found an essay of hers about this book specifically and about her literary background (which is extensive) in general. You should definitely read it (see the link at the bottom) after you finish this book, and in fact if you've ever read anything of Jones' you should read it because it will enhance your appreciation and understanding of her work.
In addition to all the mythological themes, it's also a book about memory--always a strange and ethereal thing, but even more so when it comes to childhood memories because, in addition to the passage of time, childhood memories are clouded by the fact that children do not always fully understand what's going on around them. It's always tricky to delve back into that time and try to make sense of it all from an adult perspective, even if your memories haven't been magically altered.
One more thing--(spoiler alert, except not really, because I think it's kind of obvious) if you're bothered by the sort of books where a girl ends up falling in love with an older man who she's known since she was a child (as so often happens in Tamora Pierce, for instance), then this may not be the book for you. Nothing inappropriate happens between Tom and Polly, but it is still kind of weird. Fortunately Tom is darling and Polly is darling, so you really will be rooting for them at the end. Also, the cover art is really weird. The man on the cover definitely looks like a pedophile. That is emphatically NOT what Tom looks like. Tom is very handsome. I'm not saying this solely because I have a crush on him. It says so in the book. But it takes a while to get to it (Polly doesn't think about it when she's a little kid), so I'm telling you in advance to be sure to picture him as hot the entire time.
Links to Jones' essay:
(Note: It took me a long time to find an actual working link for this, so if it stops working let me know because I've also saved the essay on my computer.)
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/kyla/Heroic_Ideal1.gif
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/kyla/Heroic_Ideal2.gif
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http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/kyla/Heroic_Ideal6.gif
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/kyla/Heroic_Ideal7.gif
Age: YA
I've been doing two things with this blog--I've been reading new books (new to me and recently published) and I've also been re-reading some of my old favorites so that I can introduce them to you. This has been really fun, because I've been reading some that I haven't read in years and years, and rediscovering what I liked about them. Fire and Hemlock is one of these books.
Polly is packing to go back to college after summer break when she gets distracted (as so often happens when one is packing) by an old book of short stories. But what's weird is that it seems like the book had different stories the first time she read it, years ago. Also, there's the photograph called "Fire and Hemlock" that's always hung on her bedroom wall--did it always look exactly like that? The more Polly thinks, the more confused she gets--why are her memories so muddled? Does she really have two different sets of memories?
As Polly struggles to remember, we travel with her into her second set of memories, back to when she was ten and accidentally crashed a neighbor's funeral on Halloween. There she met the mysterious Thomas Lynn. Over the next few years, Polly's parents divorce and her world falls apart. Mr. Lynn is one of the few constants in her life, a friend and a sort of mentor. He and Polly make up stories together about a hero named Tan Coul and his assistant, Hero. They're just having fun--until the stories start to come true. To make things even more complicated, Mr. Lynn's ex-wife, Laurel, and her new husband, Mr. Leroy, exert some strange and sinister control over him, and for some unknown reason they are desperate to keep him and Polly apart. In fact, whenever Polly and Mr. Lynn see each other, or contact each other in any way, something bad happens to one or both of them.
Back in the present, Polly realizes that Mr. Lynn does not exist in her first set of memories. How could she have forgotten someone who was so important to her? Did he really exist, or did she just imagine him? And if he is real, how can she find him again?
Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favorite authors. I didn't discover her until I was a teenager, and I'm sorry I didn't find her sooner because she mostly writes children's books and I would have loved to grow up with them. This book is rather different than her usual, however--for one thing, it's for teens, and for another, it's not her typical set-in-another-world sort of fantasy. There are some strange/magical doings sprinkled throughout this book, but for the most part it's a story about the real world, about growing up in a dysfunctional family and the horribly murky, awkward time that is early adolescence. This is one of my very favorite Jones books.
It's also one of the strangest books I've ever read--but that's not a bad thing. Jones' books are usually more complex than they appear on the surface, and they're very heavily based in myth (all sorts of myth, not just the standard Greco-Roman gods). After I finished reading this book, I found an essay of hers about this book specifically and about her literary background (which is extensive) in general. You should definitely read it (see the link at the bottom) after you finish this book, and in fact if you've ever read anything of Jones' you should read it because it will enhance your appreciation and understanding of her work.
In addition to all the mythological themes, it's also a book about memory--always a strange and ethereal thing, but even more so when it comes to childhood memories because, in addition to the passage of time, childhood memories are clouded by the fact that children do not always fully understand what's going on around them. It's always tricky to delve back into that time and try to make sense of it all from an adult perspective, even if your memories haven't been magically altered.
One more thing--(spoiler alert, except not really, because I think it's kind of obvious) if you're bothered by the sort of books where a girl ends up falling in love with an older man who she's known since she was a child (as so often happens in Tamora Pierce, for instance), then this may not be the book for you. Nothing inappropriate happens between Tom and Polly, but it is still kind of weird. Fortunately Tom is darling and Polly is darling, so you really will be rooting for them at the end. Also, the cover art is really weird. The man on the cover definitely looks like a pedophile. That is emphatically NOT what Tom looks like. Tom is very handsome. I'm not saying this solely because I have a crush on him. It says so in the book. But it takes a while to get to it (Polly doesn't think about it when she's a little kid), so I'm telling you in advance to be sure to picture him as hot the entire time.
Links to Jones' essay:
(Note: It took me a long time to find an actual working link for this, so if it stops working let me know because I've also saved the essay on my computer.)
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/kyla/Heroic_Ideal1.gif
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/kyla/Heroic_Ideal2.gif
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http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/kyla/Heroic_Ideal6.gif
http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/kyla/Heroic_Ideal7.gif
Recommended for readers who like: Tamora Pierce; Howl's Moving Castle; White Oleander; A Great and Terrible Beauty; Wake; mythology; books about dysfunctional families and complex mother-daughter relationships
Other good books to start with, if you're new to Jones: The Dalemark Quartet (first book Cart and Cwidder) -- these were my first introduction to her writing; The Chrestomanci series (first book Charmed Life) -- probably my favorite Jones series.
Death on the Nile
Author: Agatha Christie
Age: Adult
(Note: I've been reading Agatha Christie since my early teens. There's absolutely nothing dirty or inappropriate in her books...except for the pervasive theme of murder, of course.)
Agatha Christie is one of my very favorite authors, and this is my favorite Agatha Christie mystery. So that should give you an idea of how much I like this book. I just re-read it, and even though I knew exactly how it was going to end, reading it was still a thoroughly enjoyable experience. That's a good mystery novel, in my opinion--plots and characters that are interesting enough to stand on their own with the mystery removed.
Linnet Ridgeway is a beautiful young heiress who is used to getting exactly what she wants, when she wants it--her house, her clothes, her jewelry--even her best friend Jackie's handsome fiance, Simon Doyle. Linnet dazzles Simon, and, after a whirlwind romance, they head to Egypt for what should be a fairytale honeymoon. But the spurned and betrayed Jackie has other plans. She follows them everywhere--staying at the same hotels, taking the same tours, and generally making a nuisance of herself. In desperation, Linnet and Simon sneak away from their hotel and board a boat that's traveling up the Nile. But just when they think they're in the clear, Jackie turns up on the boat! And then Linnet is murdered. Obviously Jackie is the prime suspect--but she has an absolutely airtight alibi.
Before the Jackie situation, Linnet believed herself to be universally adored. But, as the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (fortuitously touring Egypt on the same boat) discovers, almost all of the other passengers have their own reasons to want Linnet dead. Among the seemingly pleasant group of upper-class tourists who have spent the past week together, there are, among others, a jewel thief, an embezzler, a blackmailer, and a known killer with a price on his head. The question is--who actually did it?
There are several things I love about Agatha Christie. First, the mysteries themselves are great--the solution isn't obvious, but she does give you enough clues to figure it out yourself if you really, really think. (That said, I've only figured out the solution to one of her mysteries before the reveal maybe twice in all the time I've been reading them.) And even though she's written dozens, the murders are always unique and full of twists and turns. And she's good at changing things up now and then. You read a few, and you start to think you know which sorts of people turn out to be murders and which don't, and then all of a sudden she totally surprises you. Second, the characters are always interesting--all of them. And there are usually a lot of them, because there are lots of suspects in every case. I read a review recently that said even her minor characters have a lot of work put into them. I would argue that, in fact, there aren't really minor characters in an Agatha Christie--there's more of an ensemble cast. Third, there's always a little romance--not a lot, just enough to be darling. As a female writer, Christie understands that the most satisfying ending is one in which the killer is caught AND the right couple ends up together.
Christie wrote for several decades, but I especially love the 1930s tourist stories, like this one. The settings--time and place--are so Indiana Jones. Maybe it's escapism on my part--a leisure class, traveling to exotic places where they're pampered (no hostels for these guys)--but it thrills me. Plus you know their clothes are fantastic.
So, why is this my favorite Christie? Well, it has my favorite setting, my favorite murder, my favorite characters, and my favorite romance. If you haven't read any Christie, this is a good place to start. And if you have, but you haven't read this one yet, you need to remedy that right away.
Age: Adult
(Note: I've been reading Agatha Christie since my early teens. There's absolutely nothing dirty or inappropriate in her books...except for the pervasive theme of murder, of course.)
Agatha Christie is one of my very favorite authors, and this is my favorite Agatha Christie mystery. So that should give you an idea of how much I like this book. I just re-read it, and even though I knew exactly how it was going to end, reading it was still a thoroughly enjoyable experience. That's a good mystery novel, in my opinion--plots and characters that are interesting enough to stand on their own with the mystery removed.
Linnet Ridgeway is a beautiful young heiress who is used to getting exactly what she wants, when she wants it--her house, her clothes, her jewelry--even her best friend Jackie's handsome fiance, Simon Doyle. Linnet dazzles Simon, and, after a whirlwind romance, they head to Egypt for what should be a fairytale honeymoon. But the spurned and betrayed Jackie has other plans. She follows them everywhere--staying at the same hotels, taking the same tours, and generally making a nuisance of herself. In desperation, Linnet and Simon sneak away from their hotel and board a boat that's traveling up the Nile. But just when they think they're in the clear, Jackie turns up on the boat! And then Linnet is murdered. Obviously Jackie is the prime suspect--but she has an absolutely airtight alibi.
Before the Jackie situation, Linnet believed herself to be universally adored. But, as the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (fortuitously touring Egypt on the same boat) discovers, almost all of the other passengers have their own reasons to want Linnet dead. Among the seemingly pleasant group of upper-class tourists who have spent the past week together, there are, among others, a jewel thief, an embezzler, a blackmailer, and a known killer with a price on his head. The question is--who actually did it?
There are several things I love about Agatha Christie. First, the mysteries themselves are great--the solution isn't obvious, but she does give you enough clues to figure it out yourself if you really, really think. (That said, I've only figured out the solution to one of her mysteries before the reveal maybe twice in all the time I've been reading them.) And even though she's written dozens, the murders are always unique and full of twists and turns. And she's good at changing things up now and then. You read a few, and you start to think you know which sorts of people turn out to be murders and which don't, and then all of a sudden she totally surprises you. Second, the characters are always interesting--all of them. And there are usually a lot of them, because there are lots of suspects in every case. I read a review recently that said even her minor characters have a lot of work put into them. I would argue that, in fact, there aren't really minor characters in an Agatha Christie--there's more of an ensemble cast. Third, there's always a little romance--not a lot, just enough to be darling. As a female writer, Christie understands that the most satisfying ending is one in which the killer is caught AND the right couple ends up together.
Christie wrote for several decades, but I especially love the 1930s tourist stories, like this one. The settings--time and place--are so Indiana Jones. Maybe it's escapism on my part--a leisure class, traveling to exotic places where they're pampered (no hostels for these guys)--but it thrills me. Plus you know their clothes are fantastic.
So, why is this my favorite Christie? Well, it has my favorite setting, my favorite murder, my favorite characters, and my favorite romance. If you haven't read any Christie, this is a good place to start. And if you have, but you haven't read this one yet, you need to remedy that right away.
Other books and movies you might enjoy: Midsommer Murders; Rex Stout (author of the Nero Wolfe mysteries); Murder on the Orient Express; Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (also published as The Boomerang Clue); Evil Under the Sun; And Then There Were None; Murder in Mesopotamia
Monday, October 18, 2010
The Exiles
Author: Hilary McKay
Age: Children
I'm the sort of person who usually has a hard time answering questions about my "favorite" book or my "favorite" author; I love too much and there are too many and I'm just not very decisive. But Hilary McKay is absolutely and undoubtedly my very favorite children's book author. (And by children's books I mean juvenile chapter books, not picture books. This book is probably for 8-12 year olds.) I have read her books over and over and over again, from the time I was the age they're written for until now, and no matter how many times I've read them before or how old I get, they never cease to delight me. So, if you're the sort of person that still enjoys reading a good kids' book now and then, you MUST read this. Otherwise you must ensure that your own children read it at some point.
The exiles are the four Conroy sisters--Ruth, 13; Naomi, 11; Rachel, 8; and Phoebe, 6--who have been sent away to spend the summer with horrible Big Grandma in Cumbria while their parents waste an unexpected inheritance (which could have been spent on books and ponies) remodeling the house. The girls LIVE for reading. Books are very nearly all they think about. They don't like Big Grandma. She's loud and mannish and a bit scary, and she doesn't seem to like them at all either. Big Grandma thinks the girls are spoiled and that reading is bad for them. So, this summer, they won't find any books in her house. Instead, they will be forced to find other ways to amuse themselves--hiking, gardening, picnics on the beach, fresh air and exercise. Ruth decides to become a natural historian, and starts a bone collection, but has trouble getting the flesh off the carcasses she collects. Early in the summer, without really meaning to, Naomi devours the last of the strawberries in the garden, and is guilted into hours and hours of yardwork to atone. Rachel keeps a diary of everything she eats. Phoebe invents fishing in a bucket of water--all the peace of the sport with none of the stress of actually trying to catch anything. But the girls are stubborn. Even as they begin to develop new hobbies, they never give up their relentless quest for something--anything--to read.
I know this is a bit of a cliche, but this book will honest-to-goodness make you laugh out loud, and it will also make you cry. The Conroy sisters are a bit like the brothers from Malcolm in the Middle, except they're obsessed with reading, not destruction (in the girls' case, any wreckage is inadvertent). The book is full of scheming and adventures and sibling rivalry (no perpetually and preternaturally well-behaved Boxcar children here). McKay excels at capturing the world as it appears to children, and she's a master of subtle humor.
Recommended for readers who like: Zilpha Keatley Snyder (The Headless Cupid); Nancy K. Robinson (Oh Honestly, Angela!); Colleen O'Shaughnessy McKenna (Too Many Murphys); Barbara Park (Skinnybones; My Mother Got Married...and Other Disasters); Barbara Robinson (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever)
Age: Children
I'm the sort of person who usually has a hard time answering questions about my "favorite" book or my "favorite" author; I love too much and there are too many and I'm just not very decisive. But Hilary McKay is absolutely and undoubtedly my very favorite children's book author. (And by children's books I mean juvenile chapter books, not picture books. This book is probably for 8-12 year olds.) I have read her books over and over and over again, from the time I was the age they're written for until now, and no matter how many times I've read them before or how old I get, they never cease to delight me. So, if you're the sort of person that still enjoys reading a good kids' book now and then, you MUST read this. Otherwise you must ensure that your own children read it at some point.
The exiles are the four Conroy sisters--Ruth, 13; Naomi, 11; Rachel, 8; and Phoebe, 6--who have been sent away to spend the summer with horrible Big Grandma in Cumbria while their parents waste an unexpected inheritance (which could have been spent on books and ponies) remodeling the house. The girls LIVE for reading. Books are very nearly all they think about. They don't like Big Grandma. She's loud and mannish and a bit scary, and she doesn't seem to like them at all either. Big Grandma thinks the girls are spoiled and that reading is bad for them. So, this summer, they won't find any books in her house. Instead, they will be forced to find other ways to amuse themselves--hiking, gardening, picnics on the beach, fresh air and exercise. Ruth decides to become a natural historian, and starts a bone collection, but has trouble getting the flesh off the carcasses she collects. Early in the summer, without really meaning to, Naomi devours the last of the strawberries in the garden, and is guilted into hours and hours of yardwork to atone. Rachel keeps a diary of everything she eats. Phoebe invents fishing in a bucket of water--all the peace of the sport with none of the stress of actually trying to catch anything. But the girls are stubborn. Even as they begin to develop new hobbies, they never give up their relentless quest for something--anything--to read.
I know this is a bit of a cliche, but this book will honest-to-goodness make you laugh out loud, and it will also make you cry. The Conroy sisters are a bit like the brothers from Malcolm in the Middle, except they're obsessed with reading, not destruction (in the girls' case, any wreckage is inadvertent). The book is full of scheming and adventures and sibling rivalry (no perpetually and preternaturally well-behaved Boxcar children here). McKay excels at capturing the world as it appears to children, and she's a master of subtle humor.
Recommended for readers who like: Zilpha Keatley Snyder (The Headless Cupid); Nancy K. Robinson (Oh Honestly, Angela!); Colleen O'Shaughnessy McKenna (Too Many Murphys); Barbara Park (Skinnybones; My Mother Got Married...and Other Disasters); Barbara Robinson (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever)
A Reliable Wife
Author: Robert Goolrick
Age: Adult
As promised, I've been working on reading actual adult books. Unfortunately, this one is the sort of strange and depressing adult book that reminds me why I generally prefer the ones for teens. But just because I didn't like it very much doesn't necessarily mean you wouldn't...it may be more a matter of personal taste than anything actually wrong with the book itself.
Ralph Truitt is a very wealthy businessman living alone in a small town in Wisconsin in 1907. He's in his fifties and has kept to himself for several decades, following multiple personal tragedies. But now at last he is ready for a change, so he's placed an ad in a newspaper for "a reliable wife."
Catherine Land is the woman who answers the ad. She, too, has had a miserable life, but she also has big plans to change that--she is going to marry Truitt and then slowly poison him, so that she will be left alone to enjoy his wealth.
Tony Moretti is a prodigal and lascivious young pianist. He is beautiful, poor, and bitter. And he may be Truitt's long-lost son.
These three lives intertwine in a "Desire Under the Elms" fashion. Each has their own agenda. Truitt wants redemption. Tony wants revenge. And Catherine wants love and money, but if she can only have one, she'll settle for money.
Okay, here's what I didn't like about this book. Number one: All the characters, especially Truitt, think about sex ALL THE TIME. Which is okay. I have nothing against sex. But the author doesn't have to tell us SO much about it. After the first five or ten pages of semi-graphic description of Truitt's thoughts, I get the point. I can grasp that Truitt thinks of nothing but sex and flesh and touching naked flesh and oh that lovely naked flesh. I can remember that. The story can thus progress without me needing to be reminded on every single page.
Number two: It is just so dang depressing. When I first started to read it, I hoped that the characters would find some happiness. They seem like people who ought to finally be able to reach each other and move beyond the horribleness of their previous lives. But as the book progressed, I realized that they're all such truly awful, awful people that it's hard to wish them any good or really to relate to them at all.
Number three: Apparently this is a psychological thriller, which is not the same thing as a regular thriller. A psychological thriller is, apparently, a book in which people spend a lot of time thinking and not a ton happens. For a book about three people who want to kill each other, it's not really a page-turner.
A note from the author at the end of the book explains that the inspiration for the story came from a non-fiction book called Wisconsin Death Trip, which I have not read, but a google search reveals that it's a book of photographs and news stories about crime, murder, and death in rural Wisconsin at the turn of the century. So this book seems to be mostly about the madness brought on by lengthy and miserable winters. And I can relate to that and it is an interesting premise.
So. I didn't really like it. It's not awful. It's certainly not badly written. (No wading through the "Um, like, yeah." "Um, like, nuh-uh." that's in some of the teen books.) If you like tales of tragedy and striving for redemption and people who think about sex constantly, then you will probably like it. For me personally, I'm going to look for something happier to read next.
Other books you might like: Desire Under the Elms; Les Miserables; My Antonia; The Devil in the White City; Marie, Dancing (Note: With the exception of Desire Under the Elms, I did really like the other books listed here. So if you read this book and like it, you should definitely read the others. If you read this description and it kind of interests you, except for all the things I didn't like about it, then you should read the others.)
Age: Adult
As promised, I've been working on reading actual adult books. Unfortunately, this one is the sort of strange and depressing adult book that reminds me why I generally prefer the ones for teens. But just because I didn't like it very much doesn't necessarily mean you wouldn't...it may be more a matter of personal taste than anything actually wrong with the book itself.
Ralph Truitt is a very wealthy businessman living alone in a small town in Wisconsin in 1907. He's in his fifties and has kept to himself for several decades, following multiple personal tragedies. But now at last he is ready for a change, so he's placed an ad in a newspaper for "a reliable wife."
Catherine Land is the woman who answers the ad. She, too, has had a miserable life, but she also has big plans to change that--she is going to marry Truitt and then slowly poison him, so that she will be left alone to enjoy his wealth.
Tony Moretti is a prodigal and lascivious young pianist. He is beautiful, poor, and bitter. And he may be Truitt's long-lost son.
These three lives intertwine in a "Desire Under the Elms" fashion. Each has their own agenda. Truitt wants redemption. Tony wants revenge. And Catherine wants love and money, but if she can only have one, she'll settle for money.
Okay, here's what I didn't like about this book. Number one: All the characters, especially Truitt, think about sex ALL THE TIME. Which is okay. I have nothing against sex. But the author doesn't have to tell us SO much about it. After the first five or ten pages of semi-graphic description of Truitt's thoughts, I get the point. I can grasp that Truitt thinks of nothing but sex and flesh and touching naked flesh and oh that lovely naked flesh. I can remember that. The story can thus progress without me needing to be reminded on every single page.
Number two: It is just so dang depressing. When I first started to read it, I hoped that the characters would find some happiness. They seem like people who ought to finally be able to reach each other and move beyond the horribleness of their previous lives. But as the book progressed, I realized that they're all such truly awful, awful people that it's hard to wish them any good or really to relate to them at all.
Number three: Apparently this is a psychological thriller, which is not the same thing as a regular thriller. A psychological thriller is, apparently, a book in which people spend a lot of time thinking and not a ton happens. For a book about three people who want to kill each other, it's not really a page-turner.
A note from the author at the end of the book explains that the inspiration for the story came from a non-fiction book called Wisconsin Death Trip, which I have not read, but a google search reveals that it's a book of photographs and news stories about crime, murder, and death in rural Wisconsin at the turn of the century. So this book seems to be mostly about the madness brought on by lengthy and miserable winters. And I can relate to that and it is an interesting premise.
So. I didn't really like it. It's not awful. It's certainly not badly written. (No wading through the "Um, like, yeah." "Um, like, nuh-uh." that's in some of the teen books.) If you like tales of tragedy and striving for redemption and people who think about sex constantly, then you will probably like it. For me personally, I'm going to look for something happier to read next.
Other books you might like: Desire Under the Elms; Les Miserables; My Antonia; The Devil in the White City; Marie, Dancing (Note: With the exception of Desire Under the Elms, I did really like the other books listed here. So if you read this book and like it, you should definitely read the others. If you read this description and it kind of interests you, except for all the things I didn't like about it, then you should read the others.)
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Up the Down Staircase
Author: Bel Kaufman
Age: Adult
Everyone who's ever been a teacher, or been married to a teacher, should read this book. In fact, everyone who's ever had a teacher should read it, too. It's funny, poignant, and a fairly quick read.
The book chronicles Sylvia Barrett's first semester of teaching English at a NYC public high school in the 1960s. Miss Barrett is young, pretty, and, at the beginning of September, enthusiastic. As the semester progresses she deals with dozens of problems and frustrations--some petty, and some much more serious. There are never enough desks, books, or red pencils to go around. The administration is over-bearing and unsympathetic. Other teachers hate the children. And the children have their own problems--unrequited love, abortion, suicide, poverty, homelessness, truancy, delinquency, and no sense of self-worth. Miss Barrett begins to wonder if she's really cut out to be a public school teacher in a big city, or if she would find more happiness and fulfillment as a professor at the small private college that has offered her a position, along with promises of a beautiful campus, enthusiastic students, and the chance to teach an entire course on her beloved Chaucer.
It's written an interesting format, and each chapter is different...dialogue, students' essays, bulletins from the administration, notes passed between harried teachers, excerpts from a student's notebook, student suggestions from Miss Barrett's suggestion box, letters from Miss Barrett to her best friend, and even scraps of paper from the trash can. It's rather interactive, because only the letters from Miss Barrett to her friend provide any clear commentary or narrative from her perspective. The rest of the time, the reader is left to experience the notes, suggestions, and administrative mandates as Miss Barrett would experience them, and draw his or her (when, oh, when will "their" be acceptable as third person sexually-ambiguous singular?) own conclusions.
I know my summary above makes it sound sad, but it's really quite funny through the sadness. It's a book that makes you laugh a lot and think just enough. The most depressing aspect is probably that absolutely nothing about the public school system has changed in the past 50 years. So. Read it. Laugh. Think about education reform. And then spend some time thinking about how grateful you are to your teachers--the ones you had, and the ones who are teaching or will teach your kids. Because it's a hard job.
The best quotes from reviewers:
"A rib tickler and an eye-opener."
"Witty, wise...seldom has a humorous novel been at the same time as important."
"It is the kind of 'funny' that hurts."
Recommended for readers who like: At the moment I'm having a hard time coming up with other books that are quite like it. But there are dozens of movies in this teacher-who-makes-a-difference genre: Mona Lisa Smile, Freedom Writers, Remember the Titans, Stand and Deliver. If you like any of these movies I'm sure you'll like this book. And even if you don't like the movies, well, the book isn't quite like them. It's more humor and less dripping poignancy. And, without giving too much away, it's more about the little ways people can be changed than about big dramatic revolutions. But perhaps the little changes are just as worthwhile, in the end.
Age: Adult
Everyone who's ever been a teacher, or been married to a teacher, should read this book. In fact, everyone who's ever had a teacher should read it, too. It's funny, poignant, and a fairly quick read.
The book chronicles Sylvia Barrett's first semester of teaching English at a NYC public high school in the 1960s. Miss Barrett is young, pretty, and, at the beginning of September, enthusiastic. As the semester progresses she deals with dozens of problems and frustrations--some petty, and some much more serious. There are never enough desks, books, or red pencils to go around. The administration is over-bearing and unsympathetic. Other teachers hate the children. And the children have their own problems--unrequited love, abortion, suicide, poverty, homelessness, truancy, delinquency, and no sense of self-worth. Miss Barrett begins to wonder if she's really cut out to be a public school teacher in a big city, or if she would find more happiness and fulfillment as a professor at the small private college that has offered her a position, along with promises of a beautiful campus, enthusiastic students, and the chance to teach an entire course on her beloved Chaucer.
It's written an interesting format, and each chapter is different...dialogue, students' essays, bulletins from the administration, notes passed between harried teachers, excerpts from a student's notebook, student suggestions from Miss Barrett's suggestion box, letters from Miss Barrett to her best friend, and even scraps of paper from the trash can. It's rather interactive, because only the letters from Miss Barrett to her friend provide any clear commentary or narrative from her perspective. The rest of the time, the reader is left to experience the notes, suggestions, and administrative mandates as Miss Barrett would experience them, and draw his or her (when, oh, when will "their" be acceptable as third person sexually-ambiguous singular?) own conclusions.
I know my summary above makes it sound sad, but it's really quite funny through the sadness. It's a book that makes you laugh a lot and think just enough. The most depressing aspect is probably that absolutely nothing about the public school system has changed in the past 50 years. So. Read it. Laugh. Think about education reform. And then spend some time thinking about how grateful you are to your teachers--the ones you had, and the ones who are teaching or will teach your kids. Because it's a hard job.
The best quotes from reviewers:
"A rib tickler and an eye-opener."
"Witty, wise...seldom has a humorous novel been at the same time as important."
"It is the kind of 'funny' that hurts."
Recommended for readers who like: At the moment I'm having a hard time coming up with other books that are quite like it. But there are dozens of movies in this teacher-who-makes-a-difference genre: Mona Lisa Smile, Freedom Writers, Remember the Titans, Stand and Deliver. If you like any of these movies I'm sure you'll like this book. And even if you don't like the movies, well, the book isn't quite like them. It's more humor and less dripping poignancy. And, without giving too much away, it's more about the little ways people can be changed than about big dramatic revolutions. But perhaps the little changes are just as worthwhile, in the end.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Mockingjay
Author: Suzanne Collins
Age: YA
This is the third and final book in the Hunger Games trilogy. If you haven't already read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, don't read this review! There may be spoilers!
This book, like the other two, was very vivid. I finished it Sunday evening, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I dreamed about it that night and I woke up thinking about it the next morning. If you've read the first two, which you should have, then you know what they're like...exciting, entertaining, thrilling. It's more of the same. Some people have said that it's slower than the first two, and maybe it is at the beginning, but with these books "slow" is a relative term, and it certainly doesn't equate to "boring." And the finale is as heart-racing and un-put-downable as ever. I have come up with a cunning plan, and it is this: I am going to make my husband read these books, and then when he gets down to the last 60 pages or so I am going to start nagging him incessantly about making dinner.
When the book opens, Katniss is in District Thirteen, where the local government wants her to become the face of the rebellion. She has mixed feelings about this, and she's not sure who to trust. Meanwhile, Peeta is still in the hands of the Capitol, and they're trying to use him against her. Et cetera, et cetera, lots of things blow up. I really enjoyed this trilogy. I felt like every book contributed to the story and there was very little of the filler that you get in some trilogies--you know, the kind where the second book just seems absolutely useless.
I really like Katniss. She's heroic, but she's not a superhero. In fact, she seems to spend most of this book in the hospital, recovering from various adventures. This isn't one of those stories where someone gets shot in a battle scene but they wrap a t-shirt around it and grit their teeth and fight through the pain, and then the next time you see them they're totally fine and if someone mentions it they're all "Oh yeah, haha, I got shot. How silly!" Actions have consequences in this story. And that makes it more...realistic, I guess...at least inasmuch as a sci-fi adventure story can be. Also, it makes you see how much their cause really means to them, and how far they're willing to go for it.
I like all of Katniss's conflictedness, too. She's so self-doubting and self-deprecating. Kind of like Bella Swan, except with Bella it's the sort of self-doubt that comes from not really thinking very much of your self, for no real reason other than that you're a teenage girl, and wondering what on earth any boy--let alone a boy you really like because you can see how fantastic he is--would see in you. And that's okay; in my opinion it's believable because I've been there. But with Katniss it's more complex than that. What she doesn't like about herself is that she's KILLED PEOPLE. A LOT of people. But at the same time, when she wonders what all these gorgeous boys see in her, well, we readers know what they see in her. She's actually a really good person who does awesome things all the time. I think she's what we all secretly hope we are when we're having our own self-doubting moments. Silly of us, isn't it, to sit there and think to ourselves, "Gosh, I really suck," but then behind that we're thinking, "I bet I only think I do but I'm actually really cool. Just like Katniss." Or maybe that's just me.
Like the other books, this book also has the whole "controlling the media = controlling the world" motif, only this time it's more about news stories than reality TV shows. I think about that sometimes. Everything we get from the media about politics seems to be SO much one extreme or the other that I wonder if any of it is real at all, if our government is really doing or not doing anything they say they are, or if they're actually doing something completely different and having a good laugh at us.
The other thing I mused about while reading it was the strange situation in which Katniss finds herself, where she's surrounded by all these other people whose sole aim is to keep her alive, even if they have to give their own lives for it. I've always thought that would be really weird. You know, to be the president of a country or something and have all these bodyguards, all these people who exist just to take a bullet for you. I mean, what makes one person's life more valuable than another's? Does anyone really believe that they, single-handedly, are the only ones who can run everything and fix the world's problems, that no one else could step up and take their place and do an okay job, if they needed to? I guess it's an especially weird thing to think about in the U.S., where we change our leadership every 4-8 years anyway. But after reading this book I think I understand it better. Some people and some positions have symbolic value that may be completely unrelated to capability, but is still actually a really big deal.
Oh, one other thing I wanted to talk about. The romance thing. I just don't get the standard literary contrivance in which a girl is always finding herself having to choose between two, or more, gorgeous men. Does this really happen to anyone ever? If so, I would like to hear about it. I've always felt lucky just to have one guy at a time who was into me. But I guess it works as far as making a story more interesting. We've got this (sort of silly) idea in our entertainment culture that the only part of a love story that's entertaining is the part BEFORE the characters are for sure in love with each other. After that, I guess it's all just toilet seats up and down and lids on toothpaste, or something. Because dating people or married people NEVER have any real conflict ever again. Uh-huh. But anyway, that's how it's supposed to work in books and TV shows, so the hard part for writers who write for longer than one book or one season is how to keep two people perpetually in the state of a not fully defined relationship. And what Collins does with Katniss and Peeta in Book Three is certainly an interesting and unusual twist. That's all I'll say.
Those are my musings. If you've read the first two, you're dying to read this book anyway. I don't have to tell you to. If you haven't started the trilogy yet, well, you're not supposed to be reading this review. But just in case...you should read them. They're well-written, the characters are interesting, and the stories will both entertain you and make you think.
See my The Hunger Games review for book recommendations.
Age: YA
This is the third and final book in the Hunger Games trilogy. If you haven't already read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, don't read this review! There may be spoilers!
This book, like the other two, was very vivid. I finished it Sunday evening, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I dreamed about it that night and I woke up thinking about it the next morning. If you've read the first two, which you should have, then you know what they're like...exciting, entertaining, thrilling. It's more of the same. Some people have said that it's slower than the first two, and maybe it is at the beginning, but with these books "slow" is a relative term, and it certainly doesn't equate to "boring." And the finale is as heart-racing and un-put-downable as ever. I have come up with a cunning plan, and it is this: I am going to make my husband read these books, and then when he gets down to the last 60 pages or so I am going to start nagging him incessantly about making dinner.
When the book opens, Katniss is in District Thirteen, where the local government wants her to become the face of the rebellion. She has mixed feelings about this, and she's not sure who to trust. Meanwhile, Peeta is still in the hands of the Capitol, and they're trying to use him against her. Et cetera, et cetera, lots of things blow up. I really enjoyed this trilogy. I felt like every book contributed to the story and there was very little of the filler that you get in some trilogies--you know, the kind where the second book just seems absolutely useless.
I really like Katniss. She's heroic, but she's not a superhero. In fact, she seems to spend most of this book in the hospital, recovering from various adventures. This isn't one of those stories where someone gets shot in a battle scene but they wrap a t-shirt around it and grit their teeth and fight through the pain, and then the next time you see them they're totally fine and if someone mentions it they're all "Oh yeah, haha, I got shot. How silly!" Actions have consequences in this story. And that makes it more...realistic, I guess...at least inasmuch as a sci-fi adventure story can be. Also, it makes you see how much their cause really means to them, and how far they're willing to go for it.
I like all of Katniss's conflictedness, too. She's so self-doubting and self-deprecating. Kind of like Bella Swan, except with Bella it's the sort of self-doubt that comes from not really thinking very much of your self, for no real reason other than that you're a teenage girl, and wondering what on earth any boy--let alone a boy you really like because you can see how fantastic he is--would see in you. And that's okay; in my opinion it's believable because I've been there. But with Katniss it's more complex than that. What she doesn't like about herself is that she's KILLED PEOPLE. A LOT of people. But at the same time, when she wonders what all these gorgeous boys see in her, well, we readers know what they see in her. She's actually a really good person who does awesome things all the time. I think she's what we all secretly hope we are when we're having our own self-doubting moments. Silly of us, isn't it, to sit there and think to ourselves, "Gosh, I really suck," but then behind that we're thinking, "I bet I only think I do but I'm actually really cool. Just like Katniss." Or maybe that's just me.
Like the other books, this book also has the whole "controlling the media = controlling the world" motif, only this time it's more about news stories than reality TV shows. I think about that sometimes. Everything we get from the media about politics seems to be SO much one extreme or the other that I wonder if any of it is real at all, if our government is really doing or not doing anything they say they are, or if they're actually doing something completely different and having a good laugh at us.
The other thing I mused about while reading it was the strange situation in which Katniss finds herself, where she's surrounded by all these other people whose sole aim is to keep her alive, even if they have to give their own lives for it. I've always thought that would be really weird. You know, to be the president of a country or something and have all these bodyguards, all these people who exist just to take a bullet for you. I mean, what makes one person's life more valuable than another's? Does anyone really believe that they, single-handedly, are the only ones who can run everything and fix the world's problems, that no one else could step up and take their place and do an okay job, if they needed to? I guess it's an especially weird thing to think about in the U.S., where we change our leadership every 4-8 years anyway. But after reading this book I think I understand it better. Some people and some positions have symbolic value that may be completely unrelated to capability, but is still actually a really big deal.
Oh, one other thing I wanted to talk about. The romance thing. I just don't get the standard literary contrivance in which a girl is always finding herself having to choose between two, or more, gorgeous men. Does this really happen to anyone ever? If so, I would like to hear about it. I've always felt lucky just to have one guy at a time who was into me. But I guess it works as far as making a story more interesting. We've got this (sort of silly) idea in our entertainment culture that the only part of a love story that's entertaining is the part BEFORE the characters are for sure in love with each other. After that, I guess it's all just toilet seats up and down and lids on toothpaste, or something. Because dating people or married people NEVER have any real conflict ever again. Uh-huh. But anyway, that's how it's supposed to work in books and TV shows, so the hard part for writers who write for longer than one book or one season is how to keep two people perpetually in the state of a not fully defined relationship. And what Collins does with Katniss and Peeta in Book Three is certainly an interesting and unusual twist. That's all I'll say.
Those are my musings. If you've read the first two, you're dying to read this book anyway. I don't have to tell you to. If you haven't started the trilogy yet, well, you're not supposed to be reading this review. But just in case...you should read them. They're well-written, the characters are interesting, and the stories will both entertain you and make you think.
See my The Hunger Games review for book recommendations.
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