Review: Yellowcake by Margo Lanagan

Yellowcake is a collection of ten short stories by the Australian author, Margo Lanagan, who has won two Printz Honors in the past for her novel Tender Morsels and another short story collection, Black Juice. She has also won The World Fantasy award three times. I tell you this to make a point. Margo Lanagan can write and has quite a devoted following among her readers.  Her books and stories, however, aren't for everyone. I fall into that latter camp.

I have a very difficult time with Lanagan's writing. When I read her works I feel as though I haven't been given to key to unlock the meanings. It is very odd since I consider myself a strong reader and I usually do not struggle with reading comprehension. But I am also a fast reader and that may be a problem for me and her books/stories. I may read so fast that needed details are skipped over. I'm not sure what it is.  But of the ten stories presented in this collection I enjoyed and understood clearly five of them. Three of them I had a lot more difficulty reading for comprehension. And two of them I abandoned altogether. If I were taking a test, I'd only get 50%, a failing grade.

The four stories I liked were:

• "The Point of Roses"---A boy and his friends challenge another to guess the hidden objects. He does so but not in the way one would expect from a clairvoyant.
• "The Golden Shroud"---a twist on the Rapunzel fairy tale. I like this one a lot.
• "A Fine Magic"---a gentleman tries to gain the affection of two sisters through magic with disastrous results.
• "Ferryman"---The ferryman, with assistance from his daughter, assist the dead across the great river to the other side.
• "Into Clouds on High"--- a young boy witnesses his mother being elevated/called from on-high. He knows she must answer the call so agrees to help her by learning to do household tasks and helping his father. This was my favorite story in the book.

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30 books this Summer Reading Challenge

13 / 30 books. 43% done!

Review: Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

Maggot Moon is a stunning dystopian novel set in the 1950s. A corrupt regime, The Motherland, rules the land. Anyone who even dares to disagree with The Motherland disappears or is relocated, first to a lower zone and finally to who-knows-where. Standish Treadwell and his grandfather are surviving, just barely, in Zone 9, the lowest of the low levels in society. They try to just keep their heads down and not think about their loved ones who have gone missing. Unfortunately, it is hard not to stand out when you are Standish Treadwell, a young teen with two different colored eyes, a boy who can't read or write due to dyslexia. One day new neighbors move next door and finally Standish has a friend, Hector. For a while life almost seems good as the boys form a bond of friendship. But then the football gets kicked over the wall and everything goes wrong as the boys discover a secret that The Motherland wants hidden. Does Standish have the courage to expose this secret?

One hundred very short chapters, told in an utterly original first-person voice, propel readers through a narrative that is by turns gripping and darkly humorous, bleak and chilling, tender and transporting. --Goodreads

 Maggot Moon is the best YA novel I've read so far this summer and will receive a definite YES vote from me as a 2014 Mock Printz addition. I am not alone in my praise for this stunning little novel as Maggot Moon just won the most prestigious children's book award given in the U.K., The Carnegie Medal.

There is a lot to admire in this little treasure of a novel. It has a completely likeable hero, Standish Treadwell. It reads really fast with its short chapters and compelling plot, which will be attractive to even the most reluctant readers.  Hop on over to the Maggot Moon Webpage. Meet the author, Sally Gardner who decided to make Standish dyslexic because she has dyslexia. Have a listen to the first five chapters of the book after watching a short video about the taping of the audiobook. It is one of those webpages that makes you really happy that you read the book, or really want to read it, depending on your situation. The webpage also has a segment of the interactive iBook which demonstrates what it is like for Sally Gardner when she tries to read the printed word with dyslexia.  It will blow your mind to think about how difficult reading must be for individuals with this condition. Go now. See it for yourself. Then come back and let me know what you think.

Don't neglect a visit to my Blogoverary Giveaway. Sign up and you'll be in the contest to win an Amazon gift card.

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30 books this Summer Reading Challenge

12 / 30 books. 40% done!

Top Ten Tuesday: Best/Worst Movie Adaptations

Top Ten Best and Worst Movie Adaptations (in no particular order)

Best: 

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (2005) adapted for the big screen in 2007. Both the book and the movie are depressing as HELL but so well done.









Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (1954) was adapted for the big screen by Peter Jackson in 2000s. Both the books and the movies are worth the time it takes to read/view them.








Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. The book is amazing and the movie has obviously stood the test of time. If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. (I'm assuming you've seen the movie, but if not, do!)










Harry Potter (all) by J.K. Rowling. My daughter might disagree since she always comments on what is left out of the films that were important points in the books, but I think both the books and the movies are magical. I really like how the actors aged as the characters aged.

Shawshank Redemption from the short story by Stephen King called "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption." I never, ever get tired of this 1994 movie.









Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis, (1950) adapted for the big screen in 2005.










The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I actually thought this latest adaptation of Gatsby was very good and I had just finished rereading the book before seeing it.

Holes by Louis Sachar. I love the book and the movie is fantastic.  Very true to the book.

The Help by Katherine Stockett. I loved both the book and the movie.







Worst:




Eragon by Christopher Paolini. The movie sucks.  Don't watch it, it will make you not want to read the books.












How the Grinch Stole Christmas (The Grinch) by Dr. Seuss. The movie is over-the-top which overpowers the magical message of the book.











Memoirs of a Geisha by Goldman. The book is astonishing. The movie is boring.












The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. The book is simply magical. The movie was disappointing.

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Review: Diego Rivera: an Artist for the People

Diego Rivera: an artist for the people by Susan Goldman Rubin is an excellent, but very short biography of the famous Mexican muralist.  I read the book hoping to find a nonfiction addition to the list of books for my Mock Printz Workshop. However and unfortunately this book is not a YA book so it cannot be included on our list. My library has it marked as a Junior book but the size of the book makes it seem to be an E (Easy or Everybody) book.

I've never read anything about Diego Rivera, though I've read a bit about Frida Kahlo his artist wife. I was aware that his main medium was murals but I didn't know that he did quite a few of them in the United States and one of them was torn down in anger.  Hmm.  That is interesting stuff. His work style is unique and this book shows quite a few examples. If you want "the dirt" on his life, I'd look elsewhere. Who should buy this book? Librarians that service students grades 3-6.

Enter my 4th Blogoversary Giveaway here.

30 books this Summer Reading Challenge

11 / 30 books. 36% done!

Sunday Salon...July 7

Photo by Keith Stapley

Weather: this morning it is overcast but it appears that the sun may break through this afternoon.

Today: We took the dog for a walk around Bradley Lake.  It is a .8 mile loop and she could barely make it around.  Her tongue was really dragging. ha!

Yesterday: We attended a graduation party for our neighbor who graduated from UW this past Spring. Congratulations, Breinn!

This past week: we hosted an Independence Day Block Party for part end of the neighborhood. After a BBQ and nice visit we moved out chairs to the front yard to watch other neighbors fireworks.  The picture was taken by my neighbor.  It is our house flag in the foreground. Thanks Keith for sharing your gift of photography!

Currently reading:

• Diego Rivera: an Artist for the People by Susan Goldman Rubin
• Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

Recently finished:

• The Silver Chair by C.S.Lewis- the 4th book in the Chronicles of Narnia
• Winger by Andrew Smith-a coming-of-age novel that deals with the difficult topic of bullying
• Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver-the effects of climate change on a small community in Tennessee.
• Etiquette and Espionage: Finishing School. Book the First by Gail Carriger- Steampunk fun

Reading goal progress: I have read 10 books this summer toward my goal of 30.  I am 1/3rd of the way!

Scripture: 2 Kings 5 13 Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!”14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

Prayers for: Our church youth group members. Seven were in a rollover accident this week and all sustained cuts and bruises but will recover.

In the garden: time to re-prune the roses and feed them.  All the bushes are looking pretty bad.

From the kitchen: Watermelon. OK. So I didn't make it, but my daughter selected it and I cut it. It was the best and juiciest watermelon I've had in years.

On the web: History for the 4th of July. Crash Course in History by John Green.

Etiquette and Espionage---Where a mother interviews a daughter about the book

Etiquette and Espionage, Finishing School. Book the First by Gail Carriger.

A reviewer interviews her daughter after listening to the audiobook together.

Mother: EE1, as I shall now call Etiquette and Espionage, Finishing School. Book the First, is set in the same world as Gail Carriger's very popular Parasol Protectorate series. Please describe that world for people who haven't read any of the books in that series.

Daughter: I haven't read that series either. Well, it takes place in the late 1800s in Victorian England in a world where vampires, werewolves, and possible mythical creatures exist. There is a Steampunk element with mechanical maids and droids, with flying machines and other odd technologies. The finishing school is in a flying dirigible.

Mother: You and I discussed whether or not we felt that this book would qualify as high fantasy.  What are your thoughts on the subject?

Daughter: As I understand it, High Fantasy involves worlds beyond or outside our own. High Fantasy involves mythical creatures that don't exist in our world.  This book certainly involves those elements but more on the lines of Low Fantasy. I think it would be better described as the Steampunk genre since it is set in Victorian times with mechanical creatures playing a role in the plot.

Mother: At the same time as listening to this audiobook you were also reading The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr.  When I asked you about that book, you told me that you didn't care as much about that book as you did about this book.  Please elaborate on what you meant by that.

Daughter: The imaginative world created by Gail Carriger was much more enthralling than the teen drama, angst of The Lucy Variations, which I found annoying at times.  EE1 was a nice escape from reality and a story to get wrapped up in.  Though it did require my rapt attention. If my brain wandered for one moment, I could lose the thread of the story easily. There is the mystery element to the plot, which kept me involved and, of course, it is very humorous in places.

Mother: In your opinion, what types of my readers should pick up this book?

Daughter: If you, like me, are an avid Fantasy reader that enjoys fantastical worlds and magic. If you are a fan of Harry Potter and other such books EE1 will be a natural selection for you.  It is lighthearted and easy reading. Since the main character, Sophronia, is a female this book may be more attractive to female readers. The adventure side of this book may be enough to attract male readers, but aspects of the finishing school, like learning to flutter one's eyelashes or store handkerchiefs in decolletage, are definitely female activities. Since this is the first book in a series, subsequent books may appeal more to males if the mechanical, espionage, and adventure aspects are played up. That will remain to be seen.

Mother: As a busy college student you still squeeze in time to read for pleasure but refuse to start series books. Why do you feel so strongly against starting books in a series? How did this book work for you even though it is the first book in a series? Do you think you will want to read on as sequels are published?

Daughter: I refuse to read books in a series until the series is finished because I end up pining after books then I have to wait months or years until the next book is published. By that time my interest has probably waned. I was tricked into listening to this book with you. I didn't realize it was a series when we started. It is very clearly a first book in a series because the universe gets more and more complicated with many details introduced but unresolved. I'm not sure, at this point if I will read on. If the next book in the series were to come out right now I would definitely read it, but I'm not sure what my interest level will be in a year. I do want my sister to read it, though.  This book is just up her alley and she isn't as off-put by books in a series as I am.

Mother: We listened to the audiobook together. I know that I enjoyed it very much. How did you feel about this recording in comparison to other books you've listened to in the past?

Daughter: The reader of EE1, Moira Quick, did an excellent job switching between different ascents and distinguishing voices. Listening to it helped with pronunciation of names such as Sidheag and Dimity. She kept the story moving along at a nice clip. It never dragged. You and I finished listening to it in three days, which is some sort of record for us and audiobooks. Here is a soundclip of EE1 from Soundcloud for your listening enjoyment. (Soundclip.)

Mother: You are helping me read through a pile of books that are potential Mock Printz contenders this summer. This book was on the pile based on the many starred reviews it has received.  Do you think we should or should not include this book in our 2014 Mock Printz list?

Daughter: No.  Although it is well-written and enthralling, the fact that it is so clearly a first book in a series with so many details unresolved, I don't think it will be selected as a Printz award winner.  I do recommend it to readers grades 6 and up, but I don't think you should add it to your Mock Printz list.

Mother: Thanks for joining me on this project and for helping me with this review. I'm with you. I loved the book, want to read sequels, will recommend it to my readers, but don't think it makes a good Printz contender.  EE1 would make a better Odyssey Award contender, the award given for outstanding YA Audiobooks. I highly recommend this book in that format.

30 books this Summer Reading Challenge

10 / 30 books. 33.33% done!

SYNC - YA Literature into your earphones

Are you an audiobook nut like I am? Will you be spending time traveling this summer with nothing to do going from point A to point B?

Then check out this FREE source of downloadable audiobooks. Each week, SYNC offers two free audiobooks that you can download to your computer, iPod, or smartphone. Click on the link below to access this great resource. There are two new titles each week for the whole summer, one a new(er) YA title, and one a classic. Check out the poster above for the weekly schedules.  Get on it right away as the titles are only available for one week.

SNYC Homepage

Here is a link to the week's titles and the QR codes so you can have a quick listen:
SYNC Links

Soundcloud clips

Thanks to Mrs. Yusko at the Evergreen Library for tipping me off to this.

Review: Winger by Andrew Smith

     Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old junior at a boarding school for rich kids. He’s living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he’s madly in love with his best friend Annie, who thinks of him as a little boy.
     With the help of his sense of humor, rugby buddies, and his penchant for doodling comics, Ryan Dean manages to survive life’s complications and even find some happiness along the way. But when the unthinkable happens, he has to figure out how to hold on to what’s important, even when it feels like everything has fallen apart. -from Goodreads

Winger by Andrew Smith is another YA novel set in a boarding school where the adults are clueless, or worse, and the kids run roughshod over each other. Ryan Dean West, aka Winger, is a young genius who seems intent on getting himself killed in his attempt to appear older than he is to attract attention from Annie, his best friend and love interest. For being as smart and nerdy as he thinks he is, Winger keeps doing unsmart and unnerdy things, many of them related to male genitalia. I am not kidding, the novel seems to be obsessed with the male anatomy and comments about it form the basis for a very crude level of humor throughout it. There really are quite a few light-hearted, funny scenes in the book. However, underneath the humorous veneer, there is a very serious issue---bullying of younger, smaller, and gay boys. This bullying ends with tragic events, too.

Bullying at the high school level is a huge problem in our country, one I don't think any public or private institution can completely deal with alone. But adults, in those institutions, can certainly be more present and aware. They can be more proactive and assertive. When Winger commits a school infraction he is sent to live in Opportunity Hall, where all the troublemakers in this private school live. That makes no sense to me. Putting all the bad kids together, especially the youngest with the biggest and meanest thug. But I guess that authors have to set up their stories somehow and plots wouldn't be very interesting if adults always did the right things and were positive role models for the students, always making decisions that worked the best for everyone involved. So we are left with tales of woe where kids have to learn the lessons after tragedies.  Hmm...maybe the book is more like real life than what I first thought.

Though the book is flawed (what book isn't?), I did find it to be an enjoyable read and will consider it for our Mock Printz reading list.

30 books this Summer Reading Challenge

9 / 30 books. 30% done!

Review: Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

Dellarobia Turnbow is an unhappy, unfulfilled housewife in rural Tennessee, ready to throw away the life that she knows for a sexual tryst with a younger man. Their rendezvous spot, a hunting hut, is on the family property up the mountain. Vanity keeps Dellarobia from wearing her glasses that day so when she encounters a forest aglow with yellow and orange, she thinks God is speaking to her as He did to Moses with a burning bush. The vision she encounters is such an unearthly beauty. She feels like she is "on the inside of joy." Dellarobia abandons her plans to meet up with a lover and descends the mountain a new woman, determined to live a different life.

What she encountered wasn't a burning bush, but an insect, the monarch butterfly. And it's arrival will soon bring the world to Dellarobia's doorstep. The presence of the butterflies on the mountain is an indication that the climate has gone haywire and things in the environment aren't working as they should. But Dellarobia doesn't "believe in" climate change and is very wary of science and scientists, believing, like so many of her neighbors that weather changes are God's will. But soon she will have to confront both her faith and science.

This is my kind of book. First, Flight Behavior is written by Barbara Kingsolver and that gal CAN write. Kingsolver, as Dominique Browning of the NY Times says,  "has a gift of the resplendence of her prose. She takes palpable pleasure in the craft of writing, creating images that stay with the reader long after her story is done." If I had been reading the book rather than listening to the audiobook I'm sure my copy would be full of highlights of these exquisitely written phrases and sentences.

Secondly, the book is spot on. It tackles a very tricky and touchy subject, climate change. And does so from different points of view. As a person who accepts the fact climate change is related to human activities, I found this book instructive to finally see the argument from the other side. As a woman of faith, it was refreshing to have a character, Pastor Bobby, who didn't think that Christians had to check their brains at the sanctuary doors.

In Flight Behavior there are no easy answers but there is reason to hope.  Hope that it isn't too late.  Hope that we, mankind, can change. Hope for tomorrow.  It reminds me of the Emily Dickinson poem, "Hope it is the things with feathers- that perches in my soul- and sings the tune without the words- and never stops-at all."

As I said before, I listened to the audiobook which was read by Barbara Kingsolver herself. I shared the experience with my husband. I always treasure shared literary moments so this was an extra treat for me. Kingsolver does a nice job with the accents of the characters and the pacing of the text. Next time around I'm going to read it for myself, though, because I still want to use a highlighter on the book.  I highly recommend it.

30 books this Summer Reading Challenge

8 / 30 books. 26% done!

What do you think of my new look?

What do you think of my new look?

I've long wanted to take a photo of my daughter, who has nice, long, curly hair, with books jumbled within it. She helped me out beautifully, don't you think?

I have a question, though.  Does anyone know how I can center the photo on my header? There doesn't seem to be any way to command it to do so.