Wild Weekend: Foursome

No time for computers this weekend -- it started off with Foolscap, a book-centered SF fan convention that I dragged my kids along to.  The neat thing (well, one of them) about my wonderful children is that they are not only eager to go to this convention with me, they are even willing to go to the panels.  I enjoy Foolscap for the people; it's a bunch of smart and interesting people who tend to read the same kind of books as me, so discussions of books leave me with with long lists of things I want to read, and discussions of anything tend to be animated and wide-ranging.   Everyone tends to punctuate conversations with mentions of books that deal with whatever sort of thing we are referencing, so more book lists!

The kids tolerate or enjoy the discussions, although they loved the Game Show (about books) and other interactive events (chocolate fountain!).  P wore the Funny Hat he won at last year's masquade; if anyone saw the Kid With the Beanie, he's mine.  X got to be a contestant at the Game Show this year, which would have been the highlight of his weekend if things for him hadn't just kept getting better.  Saturday X's cold kept him home so it was just P and me; highlights included discovering that P likes Thai food, stretching our artistic chops to the limits in Iron Crafting, and learning more about how to look at computer art in the docent guide through the art show.  Oh, and picking up more books from both the book sale and the book swap, and letting my kid laugh at me at the Real-Life Achievements panel. It was very hard to be a Good Parent and head out at 10 PM with my ten-year-old, just when the YA book discussion started sparking out good stuff.

Sunday Foolscap had to go on without us because we had major family milestones to celebrate.  My baby brother is turning 40 just as my oldest turns 13, so clearly the day before Talk Like a Pirate Day called for a Boffer Party.  Just to make it super special, we secretly flew in Gramma and two cousins and surprised the birthday guys with the special guests.  A great time ensued.  Let me know if you want an invitation to our next one.

On Monday and Tuesday I hung out with my mom most of the day, while finishing up the library books that absolutely positively had to go back that day.  The five books that I read at some point on this weekend without blogging:

• I Now Pronounce You Someone Else, Erin McCahon.  Story of a high school senior who almost gets married before college.  I found it a bit didactic -- the flags highlighting "this girl isn't really all that mature" and "now she realizes what she will miss" waved a little too brightly, and her come-to-her-senses moment was over-dramatic and selfish.  But the characterization was solid, and I really enjoyed the dynamics of her immediate family, even if her too-good-to-be-true godfather was conveniently oblivious whenever the plot demanded it.  This Cybils YA Fiction finalist was good enough to be uncomfortable to read -- I can't imagine my kids being ready for marriage in that short a time.
• Eye of the Wolf, Daniel Pennac.  This French children's book plays with a magical realism feel that somehow left me cold.  Maybe I just don't get French sensibilites, but I disliked the attempt at a wolfish point of view and found the child more annoying than precious.  Humph.  
• Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing: Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon, ed. by Kendra Preston Leonard.  I'm enjoying the return to reading literary analysis, especially since I'm doing it through the nontraditonal method of reading deep Buffy analysis.  I now remember what diegetic music is.
• Wench: A Novel (P.S.), by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (NOOK).  I liked the complexity of the main character, a woman who loves and hates the man who owns her and who fathered her children.  This is a heart breaking story of the twisted nature of slavery.

• Ninth Ward, Jewell Parker Rhodes.  It was hard to judge this book fairly, since it wasn't the book I wanted.  The ghost part of the story weakened the more interesting depiction of a young girl facing difficult times bravely, both the dangerous world of New Orleans as the floods of Hurricane Katrina start rising, and the emotion troubles of growing up too quickly when her caretaker falters.   I wish I could have offered my sons this Cybils Science Fiction and Fantasy (Middle Grade) finalist so I could get their take on Lanesha's journey, but the library called it home.

Short Stuff: The Duel

I've been keeping on track with reading a book a day for a while now, but this weekend will stretch me -- I'm spending Friday and Saturday at Foolscap talking about books instead of reading them, and then Sunday is the big Boffer Party to celebrate X's entry to teenagerdom, Kevin's entry to old age, and Pirates! So I'm cheating by reading very short books, in particular short books that won prizes for best kidlit translated into English.

Today's book was Duel, by David Grossman, winner of the 2000 Marsh Award, translated from Hebrew by Betsy Rosenberg.  It's a standard fifth grade type book, with a kid dealing with a tough situation and succeeding.  I ate these books up with a spoon in my day, and would have devoured this one with extra pleasure for its setting in Jerusalem and interesting bits about histories I'm still unfamiliar with.  It's a kid watching two elderly men fight -- one literally challenges the other to a duel with pistols at noon, and the boy finds a way to stop the fight, and reading it gives hints about life in Israel in the 60's (when the book is set) as well as thirty years earlier -- I hadn't known that women seen fraternizing with the British would have their heads shaved.  I'd leave the books out for my kids to read except that it's due already.

Math Geek: Toby Alone

Timothee de Fombelle's Toby Alone is an ambitious kidlit book that tackles tough issues such as child abuse, environmental abuse, bullying, responsible scientific discoveries, xenophobia, young love, betrayal, and death, but my immediate response is that the math doesn't add up.  This is because I am a shallow math geek.  See, Toby is repeatedly stated to be less than two millimeters tall, but then the size of the leaves and bugs around him don't make sense, and the distances between characters also don't work.  The author has a disconcerting habit of giving these numbers precisely (he was only two millimeters away or something) but if the people are less than two millimeters tall, someone standing that far away isn't exactly in someone's personal space.

I also found Toby hard to like.  Yes, he was smart and athletic and cunning and limber, but all these super powers just made him dull.  Good people loved him, bad people hated him, weak people betrayed him but then felt bad about it.  Whatevers.  No one seemed worried at how unforgiving or arrogant he was.  When the final pages of the book frantically set things up for a sequel, I didn't have the heart to follow him around anymore.  Maybe I just don't have a French sensibility.

Fell Flat: The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon

David Almond has written some amazing children's books, but I don't think The Boy Who Climbed into the Moon (See all Children's Humorous Literature) is one of them.  The slow development of Paul, the shy basement boy who learns to speak his mind and have adventures never gets traction, while the quirky people he stumbles into keep trying too hard to showcase their quirks.  Finally, the anti-war message stomps about in big jackboots, shouting out that "sausages are better than war."  I mean, beef, pork, or tofu sausages?

Polly Dunbar illustrated my edition, but mostly her cheerful pictures pulled the writing down; the art aimed at goofy but the text seemed more focused on quaint, and the dichotomy kept nagging at me.  Even the final sequence when the boy climbs into the moon seemed forced.  Maybe I'm just suffering from too much sleep deprivation so I never embraced the zany, but this one fell flat for me.  Too bad; I was expecting to love it.

Pleasant Surprise: Ready For Takeoff!

Jessica Scott Kerrin's Martin Bridge: Ready for Takeoff! (Martin Bridge) looked like a rather dull early reader where a young boy has experiences and learns valuable life lessons.  And that's true, except that it wasn't dull, and the book is aimed more at a third grade level than a first grade, and I found the dilemmas he faced complex and interesting, even if aimed at an elementary audience.  The first story, with the accidental redemption of the cranky bus driver, surprised me with the power of its sweet (and predictable) ending.  The second chapter's friendship issue with the rocket-painting controversy felt real rather than annoying, and ended with very satisfactory explosions.  The final section dealt with death and deceit in a way calling out for young book club discussions.  I'm trying to get my fifth grader to read it, or maybe even my seventh grader.  He's always game to read anything.

In my quest to read a book from every shelf in my home town library, I've already found some clunkers.  Granted, I've only read picture books and series books, and my expectation of the latter is snobbishly low.  So it's a very pleasant surprise to really enjoy a book I expected to force myself through.

For a final bit of pleasure, the author is Canadian, so this counts toward my foreign author tally!

Giddy-up With a Splash: Whale Rider

I listened to The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera because of the 48 Hour Reading Challenge.  I had picked out a few audio books because I wanted to be able to keep reading even if I had to drive anywhere.  As it turned out, I basically stayed home for the weekend except for one quick pickup, so I only got about fifteen minutes in.  At first my kids were listening in, but I spend a lot more time in the car than they do, so they fell behind.  By the time I got to the whales dying on the beach scene, I was fairly glad they had.  I'm not sure I could handle watching them listen to the death of the whales.

Usually I only listen to books I've already read; I dislike the lack of control I get from an audio book; the narrator doesn't speed up or slow down at my mental commands, which I do a lot when reading a book.  But I enjoyed this one, maybe because I'm a sucker for non-American accents, and I found the description of Maori life in transition enough to grab my attention even in the staccato rhythm of listening to a story on my mainly short jaunts across town.  Strangely, my favorite sections were the ones in Australia and New Guinea, which I guess makes sense given my single complaint.

The appendix said that the author wrote this book for his daughters, but there is a real dearth of female agency in the book.  Kahu doesn't make many decisions, just quietly tries to please her grandfather and quietly accepts his contempt for her as just.  Even her final moments of mounting the whale seem passive, as if she is following a script destiny laid for her.  I much preferred hearing about the narrator growing up, learning more about his traditions, going abroad to work and then returning home, with his compassionate but nonjudgmental view of the grandfather's unfair treatment of Kahu.  I've never seen the movie, but I see it's streaming on netflix so I guess I'll give it a try.

Battle For Skandia and Icebound Land

Go Vikings! I mean Skandians. My sixth grader is chugging through the Ranger Apprentice series, and I'm tagging along for the ride.  Books Three and Four: The Icebound Land and The Battle for Skandia have John Flanagan again providing swift excitement, good camaraderie, and even UST! (for the acronym challenged, that's unresolved sexual tension)


 I do find it amusing that these Australian-written books take place over a mock-Europe, with French-types and Viking types and steppes types in roughly the same places.  It seems Great Britain is not an island though, but then my geography isn't the best in real life, let alone in fictional worlds, so don't take my word for it.  It's nice that the separate plot strands come back together; Halt pitches a fit to get himself banished so he can traipse across pseudo-France with Horace, and then catches up with his apprentice in time to be trapped in Viking Land with him.  Meanwhile Will and Evanlyn meet noble and despicable vikings, she learns her life is forfeit if she is recognized, and Will gets addicted to an evil drug so she gets a chance to make decisions and save people.  Whew! The plot tension moves around a bit; we get a bit of worry with the blood feud between the princess and the uberjarl, but conveniently that goes away when it's time to worry about Halt's legal feud with his own king.

The battle scenes do not have the gritty realism of Stirling's Change series; arrows only run out when the plot needs them to, for example.  But all the kids get a chance to be heroic, the bad guys aren't too stupid, and Evanlyn cures Will's drug addiction, which is always a good thing.  I'll keep reading, although I would go at a slower pace if not for my son's single-mindedness. B+

Loyal Reader Me: Emily Rodda's Raven Hill Mysteries

I know Emily Rodda's works through her Rowan series, and my son X loved her Deltora Quests books.  So I when I saw a new book with her name on it at the Book Fair, I scooped it up.  It's a serviceable middle grade series book about six friends who band together to form Help-For-Hire, a chore-doing business.  They of course end up solving mysteries while doing the chores.

The first two books in the series are combined in Emily Rodda's Raven Hill Mysteries: Ghost of Raven Hill/Sorcerer's Apprentice, which also shows the pattern of having each book narrated by a different member of the team.  The stakes are high enough to be interesting, with arson and sabotage in the first book and violent muggings and kidnapping in the second, but with enough daily concerns to pretend that it's all possible in everyday life.  I've offered it to X, but he isn't nibbling because there seem to be no dragons involved.  He also doesn't think that liking one book by an author has any connection to reading other books by that author.  He's a bit dim that way, but he's cute to have around the house.

The setting confused me. I know Emily Rodda is Australian, so I assumed the books were set there. A few clues in the text make it seem Australian, or at least not American, but then the kids refer a few times to a character's dad coming "from Australia" to visit. But no one seems to think that is a particularly big trip. I appealed to the Internet, and the books were originally in Australia with the dad in America, so I guess when they were reprinted here they just flipped the dad's location. Which is amusing, because it doesn't actually work. But it turns out there are dozens of these books, some written by contract writers, and it's like an Australian Nancy Drew or something, which seems quite fun.  B

Heredity: The Widow and the King

John Dickinson, author of The Widow and the King, is the son of Peter Dickinson, who is married to Robin McKinley.  That's the main reason I pick up his books, actually.  He writes well enough to be read in his own right, but that's a big shadow he stands in.

Both title characters in this book are there because of their parents.  Even as children, men follow them from loyalty to their family.  It's a good book to look at the nature of hereditary aristocracy with; why should power pass to children?  The boy has some claim to magic talismans, perhaps magic affinity, but the girl has only her parentage.  Is that enough?

Dickinson tackles big issues; loyalty, betrayal, courage and what to do when it falters, responsibility to one self and to others, religion, feudalism.  His characters start out weak and immature, even for their ages.  That was hard for me, since I do tend to prefer characters I admire, and I don't get many of those in this book.  The boy doesn't listen to his mother, which makes things very hard for him, since (of course) she was right.  ALWAYS.  The girl stays selfish and blind about love; she never questions whether she has the right both to the loyalty of those around her and to pick her lover only for her own pleasure.  By the end both kids have grown up and faced some tough decisions and responsibilities, and the magic of the world addresses these issues directly and spookily.  I'll be looking for the third book in this series, as the writing and depth of character are enough to make me push past my rather childish wish that the characters I want to like be better than they are.  B

WWII on the Axis Side: Don't Say a Word

I've mentioned my youthful obsession with WW II books.  Most book are written by enemies of the Germans, either Allies or Jewish refugees.  Occasionally there will be a book about a Hitler Youth, but they usually reform by the end.  There aren't many books about patriotic Germans who don't like what the government is doing but try to get along with honor and survival.

Barbara Gehrts' Don't Say a Word fits that description.  Gehrts explains in an afterward that her book is heavily based on her personal experiences, and the vivid descriptions and often clear viewpoint suggest that her memory is a good one.  She says she wrote the book after hearing a youthful debater dismiss the fear of violence as trivial, as she was appalled.  The story follows a German family in Berlin, at first protected by the father's position in the Luftwaffe but still precarious because they aren't Nazi's.  Neither are they heroic underground partisans; they are afraid to do much to help their Jewish neighbors or to let anyone hear their complaints about Hitler.  Their battles are small and believable, with spurts of bravery followed by hesitance and fear.  The father keeps his battles against Hitler as far from his family as possible, which means that they survive after his discovery and arrest.  I enjoyed viewing this new perspective, and seeing how the time lines of the war looked from inside the Reich.  I'm glad Alex at The Children's War reviewed this book so I knew to look for it.  B+

Aspergers Explained, Finally

I'm continuing my quest to understand more about Aspergers and autism in general, and this time I picked out a nonfiction title from the kids section. Kathy Hoopman wrote All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome, and with a title like that I figured I'd like it.

It's basically a picture book, with fun pictures of kittens illustrating a line of text describing common attributes of people with Aspergers. Of course, cats make everything look good, so it's a very positive portrayal. This is the first book on this topic I've gotten that X enjoyed as well; he considers it the best description so far of how he feels sometimes. I just have to remember that X is basically a cat, and then his reactions and misunderstandings make a lot more sense.  A

Defensive Challenge: Read Around the World Challenge

Ever since I started the challenge to read a book in each state, I have been amazed at how many of my books take place in other countries.  Or in fantasy worlds, of course, but there's not much I can do about that.  To force more books back into the USA, I shall start BookDad's Read Around the World Challenge.

This challenge is for books I'm sharing with my kids, so picture books through YA counts, and the AUTHOR has to be from a different country, which makes it a bit harder.  I'm not sure if I can count the books that I read that I try unsuccessfully to share with my kids, though.  We'll see how desperate I get.

I think I'll go back to the beginning of March and count from there. After all, that's when I began paying attention to how many far-flung books I was reading.  I'm going medium -- Savvy Traveler: 20 or more books from 3 different continents.  I'd do the large one, but the author rule intimidates me a bit.  I can't always tell.

I'll start with what I've already got.  I can see I'll have to come back when I'm all techy and put in maps and such.

Europe:

1. Candle Man, by Glenn Dakin (England)
2. Don't Say a Word, by Barbara Gerhts (Germany) (translated)
3. The Widow and the King, by John Dickinson (England) 
4. Harmony: A Vision For Our Future, by The Prince of Wales
5. Princess Grace, Mary Hoffman. 
6. The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon, David Almond (UK)
7. Littlest Pirate King, David B. (France)
8. Toby Alone, Timothee de Fombelle (France).  Translated, even!
Australia and Pacific Islands



The Burning Bridge, by John Flanagan (Australia)
All Cats Have Aspergers, by Kathy Hoopman (Australia)
Guardian of the Dead, by Karen Healey (New Zealand)
Raven Hill Mysteries, by Emily Rodda (Australia)
Icebound Land, by John Flanagan (Australia)
Battle for Skandia, by John Flanagan (Australia)
The Sorcerer of the North by John Flanagan (Australia)
The Siege of Macindaw by John Flanagan (Australia)
The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera (New Zealand)
Asia





Allison, by Allen Say (Japan)
The Duel, by David Grossman (Israel)
North America



I'm Your Peanut Butter Big Brother by Selina Alko (Canada).  This is an interesting picture book about a biracial family that compares almost everything to food; we were very hungry after we read it.
Ready for Takeoff (Martin Bridge), by Jessica Kerrin (Canada)
Africa



Jafta: The Homecoming, by Hugh Lewin (South Africa)
Once Upon a Time, Niki Daly (South Africa).  This was a book about reading, which was a delightful surprise.
Lake of the Big Snake, Isaac Olaleye (Nigeria).  Two naughty boys have to outwit the snake to get back home.  The word order switched around a bit, and it was interesting to see the different onomatopoeia used.
Anna Hibiscus, by Atinuke (Nigeria)

And that's it.  A few more books set in other countries, but it turns out the authors are American.  Good golly, this is going to be harder than I thought.  I've got a Canadian book on my bedside table right now, so I've got the three continents, but 20 books may not be such a doddle after all.  A challenge that's challenging -- jinkies!

Creepy Powers: Candleman

For Christmas this year my son gave me Glenn Dakin's Candle Man, Book One: The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance.  He gave everyone books, because he's a nice kid.  It's a middle grade steam punk book about a boy who is a Chosen One, but interestingly the boy spends most of the book being a bit of a milk sop.  The Bad Guys captured him at his birth and help him in complete isolation, telling him that his health demanded the restrictions, and he doesn't question this until he meets up with the Good Guys.  Even then he finds many things a bit shocking -- instead of hot water, people drink TEA, to give only one example.

I was very primed to like this book (see present from my son, above), but I did quibble with the length of time Theo spent being timid and cautious.  Yes, it was realistic, but when I read steam punk I want ACTION.  I want killer umbrellas.  I want goggles with poison spray.  Theo spends a lot of time looking for nonviolent solutions, and also being frankly appalled at his nasty superpower.  It's as creepy as his hand on the cover makes it seem.  By the way, the cover shown above is the UK one, which is also extremely creepy but in a different way. My copy is just called Candleman, by later editions give that name to the series and call the first book Society of Unrelenting Vigilance. B

The Boy Stood on: The Burning Bridge

The second book in John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice series opens the horizons nicely. In The Burning Bridge (The Ranger's Apprentice, Book 2), Will goes off to visit a neighboring country to discuss the dangers of the evil lord Morgarath, but doesn't actually complete his errand because of the evil plots of said lord.   Will gets to be curious, brave, stubborn and loyal.  We also get to see Will's friend Horace, who tags along being strong, loyal, and talented, as well as a bit of apprentice diplomat Alyss (another of Will's castle friends) as she goes off diplomatting in her insightful, tactful, feisty way with Ranger Halt.

There's not much depth, but plenty of action and even a new girl on the adventure side.  And the end throws in an extra Viking adventure, which promises to make book three even more fun.  My sixth grader is eating these up, and I bet the fourth grader would like them as well if he'd open the book.  B