Author: Barbara Robinson
Age: Children
Unfortunately I didn't manage to get this post up before Christmas, but hopefully you will be able to keep it in mind for next Christmas. If you never read this book when you were a kid, you've been seriously missing out. For an adult reader, it's a very quick read (an hour or less) but still funny and wise and a totally worthwhile read. When my baby is a little older, I think I will start a tradition of reading it together every Christmas.
Every year, the children in our narrator's church put on the same Christmas pageant, and every year, it is dull and unimaginative. That is, until the year that the narrator's mother is put in charge of the pageant because the regular director is in the hospital. That's the year that the Herdmans decide to be in the pageant.
The Herdmans are not regular church-goers. They are six of the worst children ever--they lie, they steal, they beat people up and set things on fire. The only reason they come to church is because someone told them there was food there. But when they hear about the pageant, they volunteer for the lead roles (and terrify all the other children so that no one else auditions).
Everyone assumes the pageant will be an utter disaster. (The Virgin Mary wears big hoop earrings and smokes cigars!) But for the Herdmans, the Christmas story is fresh and new and, indeed, miraculous. They bring to their performances a spirit of wonder that was sadly lacking from the usual pageant. Seeing the story through the Herdmans' eyes, the congregation--and the reader--will rediscover what Christmas is all about.
Friday, December 31, 2010
The Trouble With Kings
Author: Sherwood Smith
Age: YA (Completely chaste romance)
I picked up this book because Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith was one of my favorite books when I was a teenager, but for some unknown reason I'd never read anything else by her. I didn't hate this book, but I didn't love it either. I suppose it's fairly standard teen fantasy stuff, but there's nothing particularly wonderful about it. I would give it a resounding, "Meh."
I realized while I was reading it that it's been several years since I read much of this sort of fantasy. I kind of wish that I'd read it back then so I would know if it really wasn't very good in comparison to the rest of its genre, or if it just annoyed me because I've grown out of that stuff (and I really hope it's the former because the latter makes me sad). It's quite cliche...lots of horseriding through mountains and sword battles and princesses needing rescuing and diplomatic strife between various nations with funny-sounding names. The made-up fantasy names irritated me in a way they never did when I was younger...maybe because I've lived in Utah (aka Land of Most Ridiculous Made-Up Names) in the meantime. The main character's name is Flian, which is, I think, particularly bad. I'm not sure how it's meant to be pronounced, but it seems to me that the options are (1) "Fly-in" which sounds like an airplane, (2) "Flee-in" which sounds like a bank robber, or (3) "Flee-ANN," which is maybe not quite as bad, but no matter what there's an insect in there. It doesn't really conjure up the image of a beautiful heroine.
Also, the grammar is particularly bad. I read someone's Twilight-hating blog recently, and the blogger's main quibble seemed to be that Stephenie Meyer uses too many sentence fragments. Well, I hope that blogger never picks up this book, because her head would explode. And here's the thing...I'm not much for the grammar-nazi-just-for-the-sake-of-being-a-nazi sort of thing...at least not when it comes to fiction. And I don't buy the whole "e e cummings is the only writer who can break the rules of grammar, EVER" argument. A few sentence fragments are okay with me, if there's actually some logic to them. But Smith writes almost entirely in fragments, to the extent that the book is almost hard to follow. I don't know if it's just her style, or if it's her attempt at making it sound Medievalesque. But it's pretty bad. (She also uses words like "mislike" for "dislike," which made me laugh out loud.)
Well, enough complaining. On to the plot! When the book opens, Flian has fallen off a horse, hit her head, and lost her memory. While amnesiac, she is kidnapped by a succession of male nobles (only one of them is actually a king, which I found disappointing). After she recovers her memory, she realizes that her kidnappers are after her fortune, and she escapes...only to be kidnapped again. Various things happen (horserides and swordfights and whatnot, like I said before), and Flian starts to realize (as I'm sure you've already figured out) that maybe one of her kidnappers isn't so bad. The romance is highly predictable, but it's still kind of cute. Mostly I think this book lasts too long. All that kidnapping sounds fun, doesn't it...but it takes up like maybe the first 6th of the book. I found myself thinking, "Well, now I suppose everything will be neatly wrapped up" and then comparing how much I'd read to how much was left, and realizing I wasn't even halfway through.
So, what did I like? Well, like I said, the romance was kind of cute, although in stories like this I always find myself sadistically wishing that the girl would fall for an actual villain, not just an apparent villain who turns out to be grossly misunderstood and really quite wonderful--my version would be much more interesting. And as far as female fantasy characters go, Flian's not bad (if you can get past the name, of course). She is neither completely helpless nor the sort of girl who really just wants to be a man. Her main love is music, but after all her kidnappings she decides to try to learn to defend herself. She takes swordfighting lessons, but she never becomes fantastic at it. She manages to be brave and smart AND feminine, imagine that.
Age: YA (Completely chaste romance)
I picked up this book because Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith was one of my favorite books when I was a teenager, but for some unknown reason I'd never read anything else by her. I didn't hate this book, but I didn't love it either. I suppose it's fairly standard teen fantasy stuff, but there's nothing particularly wonderful about it. I would give it a resounding, "Meh."
I realized while I was reading it that it's been several years since I read much of this sort of fantasy. I kind of wish that I'd read it back then so I would know if it really wasn't very good in comparison to the rest of its genre, or if it just annoyed me because I've grown out of that stuff (and I really hope it's the former because the latter makes me sad). It's quite cliche...lots of horseriding through mountains and sword battles and princesses needing rescuing and diplomatic strife between various nations with funny-sounding names. The made-up fantasy names irritated me in a way they never did when I was younger...maybe because I've lived in Utah (aka Land of Most Ridiculous Made-Up Names) in the meantime. The main character's name is Flian, which is, I think, particularly bad. I'm not sure how it's meant to be pronounced, but it seems to me that the options are (1) "Fly-in" which sounds like an airplane, (2) "Flee-in" which sounds like a bank robber, or (3) "Flee-ANN," which is maybe not quite as bad, but no matter what there's an insect in there. It doesn't really conjure up the image of a beautiful heroine.
Also, the grammar is particularly bad. I read someone's Twilight-hating blog recently, and the blogger's main quibble seemed to be that Stephenie Meyer uses too many sentence fragments. Well, I hope that blogger never picks up this book, because her head would explode. And here's the thing...I'm not much for the grammar-nazi-just-for-the-sake-of-being-a-nazi sort of thing...at least not when it comes to fiction. And I don't buy the whole "e e cummings is the only writer who can break the rules of grammar, EVER" argument. A few sentence fragments are okay with me, if there's actually some logic to them. But Smith writes almost entirely in fragments, to the extent that the book is almost hard to follow. I don't know if it's just her style, or if it's her attempt at making it sound Medievalesque. But it's pretty bad. (She also uses words like "mislike" for "dislike," which made me laugh out loud.)
Well, enough complaining. On to the plot! When the book opens, Flian has fallen off a horse, hit her head, and lost her memory. While amnesiac, she is kidnapped by a succession of male nobles (only one of them is actually a king, which I found disappointing). After she recovers her memory, she realizes that her kidnappers are after her fortune, and she escapes...only to be kidnapped again. Various things happen (horserides and swordfights and whatnot, like I said before), and Flian starts to realize (as I'm sure you've already figured out) that maybe one of her kidnappers isn't so bad. The romance is highly predictable, but it's still kind of cute. Mostly I think this book lasts too long. All that kidnapping sounds fun, doesn't it...but it takes up like maybe the first 6th of the book. I found myself thinking, "Well, now I suppose everything will be neatly wrapped up" and then comparing how much I'd read to how much was left, and realizing I wasn't even halfway through.
So, what did I like? Well, like I said, the romance was kind of cute, although in stories like this I always find myself sadistically wishing that the girl would fall for an actual villain, not just an apparent villain who turns out to be grossly misunderstood and really quite wonderful--my version would be much more interesting. And as far as female fantasy characters go, Flian's not bad (if you can get past the name, of course). She is neither completely helpless nor the sort of girl who really just wants to be a man. Her main love is music, but after all her kidnappings she decides to try to learn to defend herself. She takes swordfighting lessons, but she never becomes fantastic at it. She manages to be brave and smart AND feminine, imagine that.
You may also like: Crown Duel; Tamora Pierce; Diana Wynne Jones; The Princess Bride; Ella Enchanted
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