The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks...Should You Read it?

Last year The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks won the CLIP Carnegie Medal, UK's most prestigious children's book prize. Since that time it has caused nothing but controversy. Lorna Thompson, writing for The Telegraph asks, "Why wish this book upon a child?" She goes on to describe The Bunker Diary as a "uniquely sickening read" and one that was probably selected for its shock value. Apparently the book was turned down by publishers for years because of its bleak outcome.

(Beware, what I have to say may contain SPOILERS.)

I knew none of this when I added the book to my summer reading list for potential Mock Printz books. I just knew it had won the Carnegie Medal last year in the UK and was now being published in America. I also knew, from the book flap, it was about a boy who was abducted and forced to live in a bunker, eventually with five other people. The blup on Goodreads says it is "Room meets Lord of the Flies" which dismal but interesting. What I didn't know, until I started reading it, this books dwells almost exclusively on the darker side of human existence---drug addiction, rape, psychological experiments, class-ism, narcissism, murder, suicide, and death. Ugh.

Amanda Craig, writing for The Independent, another UK publication, heads her article with the question, "Should books have happy endings?" She goes on to argue that teen readers don't need happy-endings per se but hope is vital. She concludes,

Brooks's story of kidnapped kids who never escape from their prison offers no hope ... It is depressing both in its nature and its lack of redemption; as a children's critic, I refused to review it on publication... It is the latest in a trajectory for the Carnegie prize which nobody who loves children's books can possibly applaud (Craig).

Pretty strong stuff: no hope; sickening; cannot applaud.

To be fair, not everyone in UK hates the book. These folks, called Millennium RIOT Readers, wrote in The Guardian that they were glad The Bunker Diary won the Carnegie Medal.

The Bunker Diary is very bleak and unusual, but the characters in the story are what made this book important. Their breakdown, because of the helplessness of the situation they find themselves thrust into is what, we felt, drives the story forward to its frustrating and thought-provoking end (MRR).

I'll give them that the ending was both frustrating and thought-provoking. I finished reading The Bunker Diary in bed. As I turned off the light, I wondered how I would ever be able to review this book. What could I possibly say except, don't read this book, it is too depressing? As I tossed-and-turned the thought of rummaging around for a lighthearted, funny book to change my mood entered my head. This book is seriously disturbing. Thinking about the book kept sleep at bay.

Perhaps that is the point of the book. It isn't so much a book about what happens but more about why does it happen and what is the meaning. A reader will be left pondering these questions long after the last page has been turned and the book has been closed.

So, will I recommend this book be added our Mock Printz list? Not a chance. Even though The Bunker Diary is well-written, it is so disturbing and disheartening I'm afraid it will turn off my readers. I won't remove it from the library. They can still read it if they want to but I won't recommend it for our list. There are too many similarly well-written books this year to fuss about with one that leaves the reader with no hope. I want kids to love reading, not be turned-off by it.

Your thoughts?

My rating 4 out of 5 stars. (Which is surprising, I know.)

Please join me in celebrating the blogoversary of Head Full of Books by signing up for aan audiobook giveaway of Egg and Spoon, the 2015 Audie Award Winning book. Click the link to the sign up page.  Blogoversary Giveaway click here.

30 books Summer Reading Challenge

25 / 30 books. 83% done!

Austen in August

Today I am embarking on a summer reading challenge: Austen in August hosted by Roof Beam Reader.  This is a one-month event focused on all things Jane Austen, including her primary texts, any re-imaginings of her works, biographies, critical texts, etc. Follow the link for details. You are welcome to join in, too.

This August I will read What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved by John Mullan, is a professor of English at University College in London. He says in his introduction that "accuracy is Austen's genius" and she had an "exquisite touch." In these twenty essays he will answer twenty questions which should help me to better understand her accuracy and exquisite touch. I'm looking forward to it.

My reading goal is to read an essay a day. Each one appears to be approximately fifteen pages, which seems quite doable. After I finish the Introduction I shall delve into the first puzzle, "How Much Does Age Matter?" I also hope to blog about my progress weekly.

I'm off to feed my Jane addiction.

Feeling panicky....Argh!

Source: Zazzle.com

We've turned the calendar page to August. Summer is now waning and thus a panicky feeling is starting to set in. Why? Because there are so many books I want to read and not enough days left to finish them all before the end of summer.

First, I know I do this to myself. I start with a ridiculously long reading list. This summer my list was somewhere over 40 books. I challenged myself to read 30 books, and I am two books away from that goal, but those other ten+ still exert their pressure on me.  I hear them saying, "Read me. Read me."

Secondly, most of the thirty+ books on my list are potential Printz winners, that means they were published this year. I host a Mock Printz event at my school, as do the librarians at the other high schools in the district. Every year we attempt to select a reading list of good YA books that are potential Printz award books. For the past several years we have selected good lists but usually there are one or two clunkers in the batch. Usually those clunkers are books that none of us have actually read. I am bound and determined to not do this this year. I want each book on our list to be read by at least one of us. Pressure.

Thirdly, I was all caught up on my book club reading then we met and changed our list. Sigh. You know what that means? Another book onto the pile of books screaming to be read,

Fourth, I put a bunch of books and audiobooks on hold at the library. Guess what? They are all coming in at the same time. Why does that always seem to happen? Nothing. Nothing. Everything.
Of course, I can't renew the books so I have to attempt to read them quickly or get back at the end of the line. Double sigh.

Fifth, call me crazy. But just to add a bit of pressure to my poor nerves I've decided to join the challenge AUSTEN IN AUGUST reading challenge since the mailman just delivered a book I don't even remember ordering, What Matters in Jane Austen? How could this Janite resist?

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Remind yourself, Anne, the books will still be here in Fall if you can't get to them this summer.

How are your reading nerves?

Treasure trove of book lists!

I am a junkie for book lists. Imagine my delight when I stumbled upon this site today which has or creates in all kinds of book lists...award books, audiobooks, books into films, best books in a category. etc. I just about had a seizure and died. This stuff is right up my alley...the kind of lists I love.

Here are a few gems I gleaned from the site. Go to BookList yourself and have a look around. See you can find some more gems. I may have missed something.

1. Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Finalists and Winner announced. This is the book award given out by the National Council of English teachers which  “demonstrates a positive approach to life, widespread teen appeal, and literary merit.” And the winner is: Glory O'Brien's History of the World by A.S. King. If you haven't read it, I can personally recommend it. I understand why a team of English teachers would pick something by AS King as their winner since this gal can write!

2. The 2015 ITW Thriller Awards Announced in July. ITW stands for International Thriller Writers. Their mission is  “to provide opportunities for mentoring, education and collegiality among thriller authors and industry professionals; and to grant awards for excellence in the thriller genre.” They have winners in several categories. The YA winner is Nearly Gone by Elle Cosimano. I am not familiar with the ITW or with this book but want to look into it. I have many students who really enjoy the thriller genre and are always looking for new books.

3. All the best books: Narrative Nonfiction. Someone took the time to cull through lists of 172 award lists and Best-of-Books lists for 2014. From those they select the books named most often. These three titles (not YA) were listed most often in the Narrative Nonfiction category. I found a similar list for Biographies and memoirs, history, short stories, etc.

•  The Empathy Exams by Leslis Jamison #1
•  Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
•  The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeh Kolbert

Now I doubt I will buy any of these books for my library but I am interested in reading them myself.

4. 2015 Audie Awards were announced in May. Audie Awards go to the best audiobooks of the year in a lot of categories. As you may know I am an audiobook fanatic so it is surprising that I somehow missed the announcement this year. The adult fiction winner is All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, the book I am listening to right now. The best children's audiobook was Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. And the best YA audiobook of the year is Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maquire.  It just so happens that I am sponsoring a free giveaway right now and winner will receive a copy of the CD-set of Egg and Spoon. Follow this link to sign up to win.

5. The Locus Awards for Sci-Fi and Fantasy Books were announced in June. Another award organization I haven't heard of, nor have a I heard of the winning YA book, Half a King by Joe Abercrombie but you can bet I will look into them. Clariel by Garth Nix was one of the finalists and I really enjoyed that book.

6. The Nebula- Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy award went to Love is the Drug by Alaya Dawn Johnson. A disturbing look at what if a virus affects many of us and closes down our government. This was not my favorite book I've ever read but I like it when books I have selected win awards. It makes me feel like I have good taste in books. Ha!

7. The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in fiction was awarded to the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning, All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr. It is fun to read this announcement today, even though it was announced over a month ago because I am currently reading (listening) to this book. I get it why this book and author are deemed the best of the best, the writing is amazing.

“History is about studying how, when, and where large numbers of human beings fell under the spell of various myths. But storytelling is about watching individuals operate inside those historical narratives."- Anthony Doerr

Remember to sign up for my giveaway, an audio-CD set of the marvelous book, Egg and Spoon. Follow the link here.

X: a novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon

This is embarrassing to admit. Before I read X: a novel I knew very little about Malcolm X. This revelation got me thinking about how little I know about other civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr. In the case of Malcolm X I knew he lived for a time in Harlem and in Boston. I knew he had spent some time in prison and he was Muslim. That was about the sum total of what I knew about this famous American who helped champion for the rights of African-Americans in a very turbulent time in our history, the 1950s and 60s.

Thankfully I know more now that I've read X: a novel. This novelization of Malcolm X's early and formative years was written by his daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, and Kekla Magoon. It was decided to write in the fiction format for the sake of cohesion and to add a few artistic liberties. I always tell students who ask me how a book can be fiction if the person really lived that the fiction aspect can be the parts of the story that can't be proved, liked actual conversations between two people. Without those details the story just becomes a dry encyclopedia-type accounting of the person's life.

X: a novel opens in Lansing, Michigan where Malcolm and his family grew up. His father had already been murdered and his mother was trying vainly to keep the family fed and together. At some point everything fell apart. Malcolm was sent to live in a foster home, the mother was sent to an insane asylum, and the rest of his siblings lived with other family members. Eventually Malcolm went to Boston to live with a half-sister. It was in Boston where he learned the ways of the street and started down his path toward prison. Along this circuitous path to prison he saw a lynched man hanging in a tree, heard Billie holiday sing "Strange Fruit", a song about lynching, and was nearly beaten to death for being black. All the while, even in his most dark days of debauchery, the teachings of his parents kept rattling around his is head. The mantra instilled in him from birth would chant, "Up, up you mighty race, accomplish what you will." (Marcus Garvey quote.)

Finally in prison for robbery, Malcolm Little could be still long enough to allow those life lessons and voices to filter into his soul. He convert to Islam, started reading, and started formulating a plan for righting the wrongs of the oppressed in the country. That is where this novel ends. The reader is left to reflect on his life up to this point and must take it upon themselves to research what he did after getting out of prison before his assassination in 1965.

I listened to the audiobook version of X: a novel. Unfortunately, I think this book would have worked better for me in the print version. Listening to hour upon hour of "Malcolm took this drug", and "Malcolm did this illegal thing", or "Malcolm was high when he did this" got a bit tedious. I suspect if I had been reading the print edition my eyes would have flown over those bits to linger on the parts where he was more reflective on his life and his motivations. At the end of the book is a time line of Malcolm's life and his family tree. It also contains an author's note by Malcolm's daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz and historical information relevant to the story. As I listened to this information on the very last disc it was clear if I'd hand a book in hand I could have looked at these anytime during the story when I was confused about the timing of events or of family members names and ages. Usually audiobooks are my favorite way to consume a book, but not this time.

Reviewers love this book. It has earned at least six starred reviews which is just about the best it can do. This is an important book in American history and should be widely read. I recommend that readers select the print edition, however. If you select it in an e-book, be aware of the information at the back of the book, go there and bookmark those pages for easy access as you read.

My rating 4 out of 5 stars.

Please join me in celebrating the blogoversary of Head Full of Books by signing up for aan audiobook giveaway of Egg and Spoon, the 2015 Audie Award Winning book. Click the link to the sign up page.  Blogoversary Giveaway click here.

30 books Summer Reading Challenge

24 / 30 books. 80% done!

TTT: Favorite retellings

Favorite Fairy Tale Retellings (with book trailers)

Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and Bookish.

1. The Lunar Chronicles: Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress by Marissa Meyer

     Cinder-Cinderella; Scarlet-Little Red Riding Hood; Cress-Rapunzel; not yet published: Winter-Snow White all retold in a future world full of cyborgs, space ships, and lunar creatures. My students love this series.

2. Entwined by Heather Dixon

     Retelling of the Grimm Fairy tale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." Very dark.

3. The Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maquire

     Retelling of several Russian fairy tales that include magical geese, a phoenix, mistaken identity. Very fun. By the author of WICKED.

(Not a book trailer, it is a one-minute teaser for the audiobook. Sign up to win, details below.)

4. The Book of Lost Things by John Connelly

     This book turns fairy tales on their heads. Everything you think you know about fairy tales is turned upside-down and backwards. This is a favorite book for sure.

No official book trailer available

5. Far, Far Away by Tom McNeal

      A retelling of Grimm's "Hansel and Gretel." Another favorite book!

6. Cloaked by Alex Finn

     A mash-up of over five rather obscure fairy tales. Good fun.
This trailer may not be official but it is fun, too.

7. Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

     A modern fairy tale based loosely on Greek Mythology. I didn't learn about this until after I read the book so now I want a reread to find all the similarities.

(No official book trailer available.)

8. The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh

     A retelling of 1,001 Arabian Nights. Book #1 in a new series. I just finished listening to the audiobook last week. No official book trailer is available.

9. Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

     A very popular retelling of Grimm's Goose Girl Fairy Tale. It is the first book in a series of four.

(I couldn't find an official book trailer.)

10. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan

Retelling of Snow White and Rose Red. Very dark and complex.
This is NOT an official trailer for the book but it is pretty good. I warn you, it contains SPOILERS.

And drum roll for my favorite of all retellings...

11. Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

Based on Celtic Mythology about the legend of eich uisce, deadly horses that come out of the sea.

Love it!!!!!
(If you watch only one trailer, watch this one. Maggie did the art and the music for it.)

Join my blogoversary give-away 
for an audiobook of the wonderful Russian Fairy Tale
Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire.
Follow the link here and sign up on the official page by making a comment and leaving your e-mail.
Click This Link!

 

Blogoversary Giveaway. Enter to win.

It's My Head is Full of Books sixth blogoversary. Time to celebrate with a give-away.

If you enjoy listening to audiobooks.

If you enjoy fairy tale retellings.

If you enjoy anything Russian.

If you enjoy books by the author of Wicked, Gregory Maguire.

If you aren't sure about any of the above but you like winning free stuff.

Enter to win the audiobook of Egg and Spoon by Gregory Maguire

Listen to a four-minute preview of the audiobook here. Doesn't the reader have a magical voice?

Audio Sample: Egg and Spoon

Here's how to enter:

In the comment section below leave me a little note and include your name and email (make the email fancy so it can't be picked up by bots, but I will be able to contact you if you win.) International guests may join in the give-away, too. 

The audiobook contains regular audio CDs. It is recorded in English.

Enter by August 13, 2015 at noon, PDT

Good luck.

Sunday Salon, August 2nd

A male Anna's Hummingbird who guards our feeder keeping other hummingbirds away.

Weather: hot. The past few days have been record-breaking temperatures. Today there are high clouds and it is muggier than in the last few days. Everything is tinder-dry. There was a huge brush fire near an area high school yesterday and the smoke permeated the whole region.

Open House: Dan and Rita had an open house party this week to show off their new home and to celebrate Rita's Master's Degree and new job. Their house looked so cute and they have such big plans for the future. Congratulations, you two!

Wine Tasting: the Fellowship Committee at church hosted a wine tasting yesterday evening at our favorite place, Rainier View Winery. My friend JoLeigh and her husband Clay make the wines and have a little tasting room. For $6.50 we got to taste five wines. Usually I am all-over the sweet, berry wines but yesterday I was more interested in the drier reds. I bought a delicious Malbec bottle to share.

Mondays: Don's new schedule is 4 days a week, 10 hour days. Mondays are his new days off. For the summer we have decided to make this our exploration days. Tomorrow we will head to the Washington Coast for a day of cooler breezes and sandy feet. Generally temperatures are at least twenty degrees cooler at the coast. I always laugh when people on blogs talk about "beach reading" since it is the unusual day one can comfortably sit and read at the beach in Washington.

It's a job! Carly finally landed a job and will start working on August 10th. After making over 100 job applications she found a job as a receptionist at the hospital. It is not a dream job. She was really hoping for something doing medical research, but it gets her in the door. She will apply again for graduate schools in the Fall, hoping this new job will give her more experience to site on her resume.

Currently reading:

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr...(audiobook); This National Book Award finalist claims no neutral readers. People either love or hate it. We'll see which side I fall on
• Nimona by Noelle Stevenson...(graphic novel); a side-kick to the evil supervillain keeps goofing up his plans. Parts are pretty silly but I am enjoying it.

Completed this week:

• X: a novel by Ilaysah Shabazz...the early years of Malcolm X. Audiobook. An interesting and totally unknown to me, look at his early and formative years.
• Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (e-book) A coming-of-age story about a young gay boy as he is forced to "come out" by circumstances. This book is getting a lot of love in the blogging world for good cause.
• We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach...(Audiobook, YA) a large meteoroid is bearing down on earth and there is a 66% chance it will make contact and wipe out life on earth. These are the last few weeks before the "possible" end. 

Book Clubs: In both my book clubs this month we discussed two clunkers---The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (SOTH book club) was much less fun and lighthearted than the movie. We all liked the movie better, which is a rarity. Deep, Down, Dark (RHS book club) about the 33 Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days. It was interesting but a bit too long for our liking and since it covered all 33 men, we all got confused about who did what and when. It was a good read, not such a good book club selection. Selecting good books for book club discussions is not as simple as just picking a well-liked book. Often those are the worst for discussions.

Rubber Biscuit: Yesterday as Don and I drove home we listened to an old CD of the Blue's Brothers (Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi) and we just laughed and laughed over this song: Rubber Biscuit. Like everything, I was able to find it on YouTube. Enjoy!

Paper Towns: Carly and I went to see the movie of John Green's Paper Towns this week. We liked it but both of us like the book better. Typical.

Years of Love: tonight we are celebrating with friends their 50th wedding anniversary. Such an accomplishment in today's society to not only stay married for 50 years but to stay in love for all those years, too. Congratulations, Jane and Bill!

Celebrate This Week: August 1st

Carly and Rita goofing around and celebrating sisterhood years ago. It is time to celebrate again.

This week I am celebrating the accomplishments of my daughters, Rita and Carly.

Rita obtained a Master's Degree in Education in June and secured a new teaching position as a middle grades math teacher 3 minutes from her home. For the past several years she has had to commute over 45 minutes to get to work. Yay for Rita!

Carly will be starting work as a receptionist at the hospital next week. This is not her dream job but a transition job, hoping to gain experience that will enhance her chances of getting into graduate school. Since April she has probably applied to over 100 jobs, an arduous task. Yay for Carly.

This post is part of the CELEBRATE This Week Link Up that Ruth Ayres hosts each Saturday. Click here to read more posts from the CELEBRATE Community, or click the little icon below.

The Wrath and the Dawn audiobook

This last week I have finished listening to three audiobooks and I am working on my fourth. Some books are better (in my opinion) in the audio format because the voice actor can pronounce hard to pronounce words, like foreign words or made up words and places in fantasy books. They also can help build the tension by using their voice as any good story teller can do. The actor can bring humor or sadness to the text that may have been missed by the reader. The opposite can also be true. If the actor reads the text too slowly, mispronounces words, or doesn't understand the text they are reading it can really distract from the listening experience. I think the best example I can give is the time I tried to listen to one of Bill Bryson's book when he wasn't reading it. The voice actor just didn't get the timing of the jokes and didn't put the emphasis on the text where Bryson himself would have.

One of the audiobooks I finished this week was The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh and read by the actress Ariana Delwari who has roots in the Middle East. Her pronunciations were spot on, especially for the characters names which I would have stumbled over if reading the print edition. For this reason, I can recommend this format of the book.

The Wrath and the Dawn is an imaginative retelling of 1,001 Arabian Nights. In this book, as in the original, Shahrzad (Scheherazade) marries the wicked king who has been murdering all his brides after only one day, because she wants to exact revenge for the death of her friend and for all the innocent girls. She "buys" herself a one night reprieve by telling the king a story, promising she will finish it the next night. She continues to do this gaining one night at a time until the king issues a general order in which Shazi is not to be killed automatically the following day. Along the way she comes to admire, possibly love this tortured king. But does she come to this opinion too late?

The language of the book is rich, exotic, and colorful just like the land where it is set. We can easily picture the gossamer curtains, the jeweled headdresses, the plates full of delicious and dainty foods. When the wind picks up we can see in our mind Shahrzad's dark tresses whip about. We feel the tension in the palace caused by some unknown source. We want to know what it is that is making the king behave in such a monstrous way.

As I listened to The Wrath and the Dawn I was reminded how much I enjoyed the 1,001 Arabian Nights tales as a young girl. I must have had a young reader's edition because I remember reading them myself. I recall being swept up in the stories. In fact, I am determined to go back and read some of the tales again as soon as I can lay my hands on a book. It was this aspect of the book that I liked the best.

What I didn't care for, or even fully understand, was the weird love triangle between Shazi, an impulsive childhood friend, and the king. It was hard to understand how and why Shazi could change her allegiances so quickly. But my main beef with the book should be leveled at the publisher. I didn't know the book was the first book in a series. I thought it was a stand-alone book. No where on the CD case does it indicate being part of a series. As the tension was building I kept looking at the time left on the disc wondering how all the action would be resolved in such a short amount of time. Then BOOM it was over, ending on a huge cliff-hanger. Sigh. Be forewarned!

I guess I was living with my head in a hole, however. If I had just bothered to look around the Internet a bit I might have run into the interview with the author, Renee Ahdieh, where she said, "I'm working on edits for the second book in the series, tentatively titled The Rose and the Dagger. I really can't wait to share it with readers, and I feel so lucky to have people already awaiting the sequel. For any writer, that's a dream come true. As for details, I can promise sword fights, swooning, and a possible tear or two!" (Huffington Post). 

I predict this is going to be a very popular book in my library this Fall. When I peeked at the reviews for it on Goodreads I could hear the actual swooning. Ha!

My rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

30 books Summer Reading Challenge

23 / 30 books. 76% done!