Author: beth

One More Challenge

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December 2, 2011

8:06 am

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Really, we’re using the word “challenge” a bit loosely here. But I realize my relationship with my local library is a little different from people who don’t, you know, work in their library.

It’s the 2012 Support Your Local Library Challenge, hosted at The Eclectic Bookshelf. For this challenge, I’ll be going for Level 4: Read 37+ library books. (For comparison, so far this year, I’ve read 75 library books (and I’d just like to note here how happy I am to have finally figured out how to do multiple filters on my GoodReads list. Very handy.).)

I think this is a fantastic idea for a reading challenge, personally. Join in! Go forth and check out library books!

That Wonderful Time of Year

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December 1, 2011

2:00 pm

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No, not that one.

It’s Reading Challenge (Planning) Time! I’ll do a wrap-up on my 2011 Challenges sometime later this month, but the time has already come to start planning those 2012 TBR lists.

First up, the challenge that started me down this merry path: The Story Siren‘s Debut Author Challenge!

I had a lot of fun with this one in 2011, and I’m looking forward to finding more great new MG/YA authors in 2012. My preliminary reading list:

    1. The Cabinet of Earths by Anne Nesbet (January 3, 2012)
    2. Shadow’s Edge by Maureen Lipinski(January 8, 2012)
    3. May B. by Caroline Starr Rose (January 10, 2012)
    4. The Book of Wonders by Jasmine Richards (January 17, 2012)
    5. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth (February 7, 2012)
    6. Above World by Reese, Jenn (February 14, 2012)
    7. Article 5 by Kristen Simmons (February 14, 2012)
    8. Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen (February 14, 2012)
    9. Cross My Heart by Sasha Gould (March 13, 2012)
    10. Child of the Mountains by Marilyn Sue Shank (April 10, 2012)
    11. You Can’t Have My Planet, But Take My Brother, Please by James Mihaley (April 10, 2012)
    12. The Mapmaker and the Ghost by Sarvenaz Tash (April 24, 2012)
    13. The Selection by Kiera Cass (April 24, 2012)
    14. The Rock of Ivanore by Laurisa White Reyes (May 15, 2012)
    15. Small Medium at Large by Joanne Levy (June 14, 2012)
    16. The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy by Nikki Loftin (August 21, 2012)
    17. Touched by Corrine Jackson (December, 2012)
    18. The Marble Queen by Stephanie J. Blake (??, 2012)
    19. The Nightmare Factory by Lucy Jones (??, 2012)

Subject to change, of course.

Next up, the EBook Challenge, hosted this year at Workaday Reads. My poor little Nook has been underused of late, since my focus has been on the deluge of Cybils books. I’m going to shoot for the “DVD” level – 25 e-books. No reading list yet, though.

I’m going to take another crack at the Off the Shelf Challenge, hosted at Bookish Ardour. I was clearly too ambitious last year (or maybe distracted by all those shiny new e-books and debuts), so I’m just committing to the “Tempted” level. Five books. Just 5 of the many unread books on my shelves. I can do that, right?

My working list is really just a repeat of last year’s list. Don’t judge.

  1. Crossword Obsession: The History And Lore of the World’s Most Popular Pastime by Coral Amende
  2. Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity edited by Anna Camilleri and Chloë T. Brushwood Rose
  3. Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale by Catherine Orenstein
  4. Wild Heart: A Life: Natalie Clifford Barney and the Decadence of Literary Paris by Suzanne Rodriguez
  5. We Look Like the Enemy: The Hidden Story of Israel’s Jews from Arab Lands by Rachel Shabi

I couldn’t help but add one more this year, but it overlaps quite a bit with some of the other challenges. It’s the YA/MG Fantasy Reading Challenge, hosted at The Book Cellar.

My working list so far:

  1. Above World by Jenn Reese
  2. The Book of Wonders by Jasmine Richards
  3. Enchanted by Alethea Kontis
  4. Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen
  5. Shadow’s Edge by Maureen Lipinski
  6. The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy by Nikki Loftin
  7. Stolen Away by Alyxandra Harvey
  8. Touchedby Corrine Jackson
  9. The Treachery of Beautiful Things by Ruth Frances Long
  10. Winterling (Winterling, #1) by Sarah Prineas

I’m thinking that quite a few of the titles will cross over into the e-book challenge. I can hardly wait!

But, for now, Cybils nominees are calling my name….

Book Review: Nerd Camp by Elissa Brent Weissman

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November 1, 2011

7:00 am

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Nerd CampNerd Camp by Elissa Brent Weissman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Problem: Am I a nerd who only has nerdy adventures?
Hypothesis: No.

Ten-year-old Gabe is finally getting what he always wanted: a brother. His soon-to-be-stepmother has a son, Zack, who is his age. Gabe is sure that he and Zack will be best friends, but their first meeting is less than promising. Gabe quickly realizes that all the things he likes – math team, reading, museums and libraries – Zack sees as “nerdy”. The only thing about Gabe that seems to impress Zack is that Gabe is about to go to sleep-away camp for the summer. What Zack doesn’t know is that the camp is the Summer Center for Gifted Enrichment, a gathering of nerdy kids from across the country. Over the course of the summer, in between kayak trips and Color War, logic proofs and poetry writing, Gabe keeps a list of his adventures as evidence for whether or not he really is just a nerd, or if he might be something more.

With an eye for quirky detail, Weissman develops Gabe as a sensitive, hyperintelligent 10-year-old boy. In the first chapter, Gabe recalls staying up on New Year’s Eve with his math team friends, when they calculated the number of seconds from 8:00 p.m. to midnight. He then thinks about calculating the number of seconds until his train in the morning, but he decides that it will just make him too excited to sleep. From his love of math to his cluelessness about girls, we hear Gabe’s perspective on everything. It’s a slyly funny narrative, with humor that even clever Gabe probably won’t pick on until he’s a little older. This is a fabulous contemporary realistic middle grade novel filled with humor and adventure, a great combination. A kid doesn’t have to think he might be a nerd to enjoy this book, although he might finish it thinking that such a thing might not be so bad.

Book Source: Checked out from my library

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Book Review: Darth Paper Strikes Back by Tom Angleberger

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October 25, 2011

7:00 am

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The truth is, I’ve been waiting for this book to hit my library pretty much since I heard it was coming out. The fact that I sort of had to read it now, since it was nominated for this year’s Cybils was just icing on the cake. A really good cake, I’m happy to say.

Darth Paper Strikes Back (Origami Yoda #2)Darth Paper Strikes Back by Tom Angleberger

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It was kind of like that scene where Han and Leia think they’re going to breakfast with Lando. And they’re walking down the hall thinking, “I’d like some chocolate chip pancakes,” and then they get to the dining room and all of a sudden… there’s Vader. (And no chocolate chip pancakes.)

Welcome back to McQuarrie Middle School. Tommy, Kellen, Sara, Dwight, and their old nemesis, Harvey, have started the seventh grade. Dwight’s maybe-magical finger puppet, Origami Yoda, has a new nemesis as well: Harvey has introduced his own origami puppet, Darth Paper. And Darth Paper is on a mission: get everyone to admit, once and for all, that Origami Yoda is just a piece of paper. If Dwight gets expelled from school and sent to the Correctional and Remedial Education Facility along the way, well, that’s just how it is. Tommy is determined to save Dwight (and Origami Yoda), so he is compiling a new Case File of student accounts of how Origami Yoda (and Dwight) helped them since the events detailed in The Strange Case of Origami Yoda.

Angleberger puts the form established in the first book back to good use here. The voices of the different students are clear and distinct, and there is just enough explanation of previous events to bring the reader up to speed. The lively depiction of the drama and humor of middle school life will delight readers from the middle grades on up. While waiting for the next installment (predicted for sometime in 2012), they can work on their own origami skills at Angleberger’s website, OrigamiYoda.com.

Book Source: Checked out from my public library

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Book Review: Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard

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October 20, 2011

7:00 am

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Like MandarinLike Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The winds in Washokey make people go crazy.

At fourteen, Grace Carpenter doesn’t quite fit in anywhere. Her pageant-obsessed mother has never quite forgiven her for an incident during the Little Miss Washokey Pageant seven years ago and is now utterly focused on grooming Grace’s little sister, Taffeta, to win that same competition. At the beginning of her first year of High School, the administration moved her up to Sophomore status, separating her from her friends every hour of the day except homeroom and lunch. She spends her free time roaming the badlands, picking up interesting rocks, dreaming of getting out of her tiny Wyoming town.

Grace knows of one other person who doesn’t quite fit in: beautiful 17-year-old Mandarin Ramey, who moved to town seven years ago and has maintained a distance from everyone ever since. Grace has admired her from afar since the first time she caught a glimpse of her. When the two girls are thrown together for a school project, Grace finally has the chance to get to know Mandarin, to try to be more like her. But the more she learns, the less sure she is that she wants to be like Mandarin, and the more she realizes she needs to be like herself instead.

Self-discovery is a familiar theme in young-adult novels, and Hubbard explores it in fluid prose. Grace’s colorful first-person narration is peppered with unexpected similes: the flower pinned to her hair in that last pageant flew “across the stage like a paper boat caught in an eddy of rainwater” (3); during a big storm “the river brimmed over its banks and jumbled up all the boulders like a kid spoiling a marbles game” (22). Her observations are often dryly funny, the sarcastic wit of a smart teenager aching to break out of her everyday life. Her girl-crush on Mandarin is realistically and sensitively drawn, and the betrayals that only those closest can commit strike hard. While in the beginning, Mandarin is the one who seems to live her impulses out loud, it becomes clear that under even the quietest exteriors, passions run deep. (I, like several other readers, found myself wondering if there was more than friendship to Grace’s relationship with Mandarin. Hubbard has a lovely answer to this question on her web site.)

It is a poignant tale, beautifully told. Fans of contemporary realistic fiction will find much to love here.

This is Hubbard’s debut novel. I read it for the Debut Author Challenge, and I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for her next book, slated for publication in 2012.

Book Source: Checked out from my public library

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Book Review: Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

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October 18, 2011

8:00 am

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WonderstruckWonderstruck by Brian Selznick

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ben wished the world was organized by the Dewey decimal system. That way you’d be able to find whatever you were looking for, like the meaning of your dream, or your dad.

With The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Selznick smashed open the category of “picture book”, using his fabulous pencil illustrations to tell the story of early cinema in an organic way. In this book, his innovative style is perfect for simultaneously telling two stories.

In 1977 Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, Ben Wilson is feeling lost six months after the death of his mother. He has never met his father, but a chance discovery makes Ben think he might be able to find him.

In 1927 Hoboken, New Jersey, Rose Kincaid is trapped in a lonely world. Her father keeps her cooped up at home, convinced the world is too dangerous for a Deaf girl to venture out alone. Determined Rose does just that, running away with no plans to return.

After an opening illustrated dream sequence, Ben’s story is told in conventional prose, alternating stretches with almost-wordless scenes from Rose’s life. The two tales, originally separated by 50 years and over a thousand miles, intertwine and become a single narrative by the end of the book.

Selznick appends a note on his inspiration and historical liberties taken, plus a bibliography for more information. He has clearly done his research on the various topics woven into Ben’s and Rose’s stories: the history of museums, the cities of Gunflint Lake and Hoboken, and Deaf Culture, as well as details specific to life in 1927.

It is a spectacular book, truly unlike anything else out there, with the possible exception of Hugo Cabret. Which is a bit of a shame, really, as it would be a mistake to come to Wonderstruck thinking, “Oh, yeah, I’ve seen this sort of thing before.” This is even better. Let yourself be amazed.

And, if you happen to find yourself in Queens between September 2011 and January 15, 2012, make sure to catch Wonderstruck in the Panorama: Drawings by Brian Selznick at the Queens Museum of Art. It looks like an exhibition not to be missed.

Book Source: Checked out from my Public Library

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Book Review: The Alice Behind Wonderland by Simon Winchester

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October 17, 2011

7:00 am

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I re-read Alice in Wonderland not too long ago, and I was charmed all over again by the story. Since I enjoy biographies, and I generally like Simon Winchester’s writing, this book seemed right up my children’s-literature-loving alley.

The Alice Behind WonderlandThe Alice Behind Wonderland by Simon Winchester

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Yet, for most, even after the book is finally shut and put back, the memory of the image proves hauntingly and lingeringly distracting, and for a long while.

Winchester begins this slim volume with a description of a photograph Charles Dodgson (better known today as Lewis Carroll) took of then-six-year-old Alice Liddell, after a discussion of how the photo ended up in a library at Princeton. This first chapter is a good indication of what is to come: a curiously circuitous look at the life of Dodgson and the creation of both Lewis Carroll and his famous book, the girl who inspired it, and quite a bit about the history of photography.

While I have enjoyed Winchester’s writing in the past (I read The Map that Changed the World a couple of years ago), I don’t think this is his best. It just meanders a bit too much, the tone even wavering from conversational to a touch too formal. And there are a couple of oddly repetitious bits; the explanation that Alice’s sister, Lorina, was named after their mother and nicknamed Ina appears at least twice, for example.

It is a pleasant read, and a relatively quick one, full of bits of trivia about both Dodgson and his social world. But rather than bringing the reader into Dodgson’s world, let alone that of the girl in the title, Winchester’s prose maintains the distance between then and now.

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Book Review: Taking Off by Jenny Moss

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October 13, 2011

8:00 am

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On January 28th, 1986, the day after my 10th birthday, I was just one of millions of kids waiting to see the very first “Teacher in Space” broadcast from the shuttle Challenger. Some of the classrooms (though not mine) had televisions at the ready. The launch had been repeatedly delayed, and we didn’t know when it would finally happen.

That morning, there was an announcement over the loudspeaker: teachers in the classrooms with TVs should not turn them on. What was not announced, left to our families to explain at home, was that the launch had ended disastrously due to, in the words of public affairs officer Steve Nesbitt, “a major malfunction.”

Jenny Moss was a NASA engineer at the time, involved in the training of Challenger crew members Judith Resnick and Ellison Onizuka. In Taking Off, she evokes the atmosphere of late-1985 Houston, as seen through the eyes of a teenage girl, an aspiring poet in a town full of Science Geeks.

Taking OffTaking Off by Jenny Moss

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

No one labels me as an eccentric, but that’s because they don’t know what’s in my heart.

In the late Fall of 1985, Annie is a high school senior in suburban Houston, and her comfortable life is on the verge of being completely upended. Her best friend wants her to go to college in Austin with her. Her boyfriend of two years wants her to stay in town with him. Her mother wants her to be friendlier to Donald, her mother’s boyfriend. Annie isn’t sure what she wants, except that she wants to be a poet, an idea she keeps secret from the engineers and space program geeks who populate most of her town. Then, she meets Christa McAuliffe at a dinner party. She can’t help but feel inspired by the famous “Teachernaut”, so inspired that she decides to take a road trip to Florida to see the Challenger launch. And maybe, while she’s at it, figure out where she wants to go.

This is a quiet novel, with a lot of introspection. As it opens, Annie is caught between conflicting impulses and would really rather hole up at home than deal with making decisions about her future. While it is a situation many teens will recognize, the story lacks action, making it less than compelling. Even the romantic subplot, with its potential for angst and drama, ends up feeling underwhelming. The book might find its audience with adults who remember the Challenger disaster and will appreciate former NASA engineer Moss’s attention to detail.

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