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Crossed Wires
by Rosy Thornton

December 11th 2008 by Headline Review
Hardcover, 320 pages
0755345541 (isbn13: 9780755345540)
Fiction/Literature, Romance, British

4 of 5 stars

Mina - Wilhemina - is a young, single mother who works at the Sheffield call center for car insurance. Peter is a Cambridge geography professor who's just crashed his car into a tree stump. They're both single, both parents. In America, this would be a definite One Fine Day type of hit. But they're not in America; they're in England. And the class difference between them is palpable, pronounced. Throw in Peter's colorful next door neighbors, Mina's deadbeat little sister, and three of the most fun children in literature, and you've got a full-on MIAM (Make It A Movie).

I almost hate to recommend Crossed Wires as a MIAM, so read it first before Thornton sells a screenplay. Thornton's writing is so cozy - the written equivalent of a roaring fire and the perfect pot of tea. She's speaks directly to those of us who grew up and/or raised children during Harry Potter. She makes Dr. Seuss references. She speaks directly to so many experiences - male couples who have lived together their whole lives but never clarified their relationship; parenting twins; scraping by on just enough money; reading in a university library. Your feeling is that she must have snuck into your brain and shared your experiences, so keen are her portrayals.

I waited to review this novel until the leaves started changing here in Colorado. Crossed Wires involves bonfires and New Year's and coats and boots, so it's not the best summertime read. As a fall read, it's excellent. Buy it if you're a romance (but not erotic romance) fan (think Sleepless in Seattle), or check it out if you're not - though you'll probably end up buying it anyway.

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The Wet Nurse's Tale
by Erica Eisdorfer


August 6th 2009 by Putnam Adult
Hardcover
0399155767 (isbn13: 9780399155765)
Historical Fiction

3 of 5 stars

Susan Rose is a lower-class maid in Victorian England. When she becomes pregnant by the lord's son, she escapes to London where she finds work as a wet nurse, as her mother had done before her. She moves from job to job, as she's needed, all the while commenting to the reader in dry tones about the scandals of the higher classes. When tragedy strikes, Susan has to decide if she can continue the life she's chosen, or if she must return and do her duty by her family.

Erica Eisdorfer is a fellow Duke grad, yet she works for the trade bookstore on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill. Just as Eisdorfer's loyalties are a little mixed up (ahem, Blue Devils vs. Tar Heels), so Wet Nurse's Tale, her first novel, is a mixture of well done and poorly done. In fact, the well done is so well done - warm, accessible, witty writing -  it accentuates the poorly done piece all the more.

Susan is a lower class, illiterate character. She has to hire someone to write letters for her. And yet, the tone of this first person protagonist is that of an educated gentlewoman of poor means - a slightly randy Jane Eyre, if you will. To have Susan address us as "Dear Reader" - suggesting she is herself writing the book, and therefore not illiterate - completely throws us out of the comfortable rhythm of Eisdorfer's otherwise spot-on writing.

For any mom's group who's had the breast v. bottle debate, this is fun with an open perspective that won't invalidate either side; you'll want to buy it so you can underline the bits you like. For any mom who has breastfed, this is a humorous journey into nursing during another era. And for everyone else, it's a bouncy, well-researched piece of historical fiction that's neither sentimental nor hard-nosed. Check it out from the library, especially if you're a fan of Jane Eyre.

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Fade to Blue
by Sean Beaudoin

August 1st 2009 by Little, Brown Young Readers
Hardcover, 208 pages
0316014176 (isbn13: 9780316014175)

4 of 5 stars

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A Royal Pain
by Ellen Conford
September 1990 by Point
Paperback, 171 pages
0590438212 (isbn13: 9780590438216)
3 of 5 stars
what Meg Cabot read to get the inspiration for The Princess Diaries. Conford's novel is what would have happened if Mia had been mistaken.
Just in Case
by Meg Rosoff
February 29th 2008 (first published 2007) by Plume
Paperback, 246 pages
0452289378 (isbn13: 9780452289376)
3 of 5 stars
Rosoff's dark indie humor reminds me why I'm not really a fan, but not because she's not a skilled writer

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Starfinder: Book One of the Skylords
by John Marco

May 5th 2009 by DAW Hardcover
Hardcover, 326 pages
0756405513 (isbn13: 9780756405519)

rating: 5 of 5 stars

Moth was flying his kite near the aerodrome when he heard the dragonfly crash.

Young Moth had grown up in Calio, the mountain city, dreaming of becoming a Skynight, one of the elite pilots who flew the fragile, beautiful, newfangled flying machines called dragonflies. To the north of Calio stretched the Reach, looking like a sea of fog that never ended. Flat and peaceful, the mists of the Reach flowed all the way to the horizon, and Calio loomed over this vast forbidding expanse like a sentinel standing guard.

There were numerous tall tales about the lands beyond the Reach, and Moth heard the wildest of them from Leroux. Leroux, had once been one of the legendary Eldrin Knights, had taken guardianship of the ten-year-old when Moth's mother died. At first, Moth had been expecially fascinated by Leroux's stories of the Skylords, but at the grown-up age of thirteen, Moth was becoming increasingly skeptical about the existence of these mysterious, powerful and frightening beings from beyond the Reach.

When Leroux died, Moth was faced with an impossible task: to protect Lady Esme, Leroux's pet kestrel. And protecting Lady Esme meant venturing into the forbidden Reach with his best friend Fiona, to find dragons, battle Skylords, and discover the secret hidden within the kestrel herself.

It would be easy for me to ambiguously rave about Starfinder. As I said before, I loved it. But I know that others found it lacking, so I thought I would specify what I loved, so that you can judge whether you might use the same criteria as I.

1. It's intelligent.
The tone of the book doesn't condescend to readers. The narrative might be a little slow for someone only interested in action, but the metaphors and literary elements are delightful for those who choose to identify them. The language is lyrical but not flowery, with lots of good SAT words sprinkled throughout, in only appropriate places.

2. It's original....but familiar.

The Hindenberg meets Fantasyland? Heck, yeah. I never expected, plot-wise, what would happen next. The characters were complex enough to keep me guessing. And the Reach itself is a magical land created wholly by Marco, rather than lifted from the idea of some other one.

While the plot and characters are original, Starfinder, for me, had the feel of so many of my favorite worlds and authors and characters: Narnia, Neverland, Naussica of the Valley of the Wind, Anne McCaffrey, Lewis Carroll, Howl's Moving Castle, Xena - to name a few. In other words, this story felt very comfortable, both exciting and familiar, and that added to its charm.

3. It's got heart.
Marco is careful not to reduce any of the conflicts in Starfinder to dualisms. There are many shades of grey, and the reader is given a chance to think about what his or her own response might be even as Moth or Fiona make theirs. There's a great deal of affection - parental love, friendship - without romance playing much of a role in this book (other than, for example, a husband-wife who are obviously fond of each other.) Whatever the emotions, Marco elicits them organically, without resorting to cliches for loss or joy or anger or exhilaration.

Starfinder would make a great present for boys around ages 12 to 14 who like to read, or for reluctant boy readers ages 12 to 18. I wouldn't buy this for a girl unless I knew she was open to the strong female characters and didn't expect mushy romance. But everyone - everyone - should at least check it out from the library.

Starfinder book tour sponsored by TLC Book Tours.

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The Plague
by Joanne Dahme

May 4th 2009 by Running Press Kids
Hardcover, 272 pages
0762433442 (isbn13: 9780762433445)

rating: 3 of 5 stars

"When I was George’s age, I had an unsettling dream about Princess Joan, and this was at a time when the princess was a stranger to me, known only through a flashing glimpse from a faraway vantage point.”

Nell and her younger brother George are escorting their parents’ bodies to the burial pit for plague victims when the King happens upon them.  He mistakes Nell for his own daughter, Princess Joan.  Without other future prospects, and determined to care for George, Nell agrees to become a companion to the princess, and, two years later, to escort Joan to Spain for her marriage to its prince.  The traveling party is unprepared, however, for the misfortunes they encounter when they land on the continent.  To save her little brother, Nell makes a dangerous agreement with the Black Prince, Edward Platagenet – an agreement which may put the entire country of England in jeopardy.

I found this to be a sweet little story.  It put me in mind of Karen Cushman’s The Midwife’s Apprentice or Catherine Called Birdy, though, frankly, The Plague lacks Cushman’s depth and finesse.  The Plague is supposed to be aimed at teens, but it seems more appropriate in a late-elementary or mid-grade marketing scheme.  The characters, while promising, don’t develop beyond a sort of idealized dualism (good vs. evil).  The plot is simple, but engrossing enough, and the vocabulary doesn’t quite reach SAT levels.

Having said that, it’s almost as though the lack of character development is intentional, because they show such potential.  Nell’s motivation is simple: she wants to protect her younger brother.  George, Nell’s brother, is slightly superstitious and actually has healing abilities (which he doesn’t discover until after his parents are dead.)  Together they’re protective and affectionate, which resonates with me because of the relationship I have with my own younger brothers.

A good summer read for just-graduated 5th or 6th graders.  A possible gift for a 5th, 6th, or 7th grader studying medieval Europe.  A super-fast, fun read for older fans of plague-fiction and people who hate rats.

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Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace
by Ayelet Waldman

May 5th 2009 by Broadway
Hardcover, 224 pages
0385527934 (isbn13: 9780385527934)

  rating: 3 of 5 stars

 “The morning after my wedding, my husband, Michael, and I, were lying on a vast expense of white linen in the bridal suite of Berkeley’s oldest hotel; engaging in a romantic tradition of newlyweds the world over: counting our loot.”

(I didn’t realize until halfway through this book that the above-named Michael is Michael Chabon.  Don’t tell Moonie.  Waldman also went to law school with some guy named Barack Obama.)

Given the humorous quote on the front of the ARC I received, I expected Bad Mother to be equally humorous, possibly irreverent, and even somewhat flippant.  That’s not, however, how it begins.  Ayelet Waldman comes out swinging every ounce of intellectual muscle she’s got; she’s a formidable contender.  Bad Mother starts out less as a book of humor than as a feminist critique, almost scholarly and certainly political, of current expectations of women who are mothers.  With humor thrown in.  (A similar tactic is used by Jessica Valenti to soften the serious message in  Full Frontal Feminism.)

Waldman sets up her book with a chapter about “bad mothers,”  mothers like the the woman Waldman reprimanded on the bus who was yanking her daughter’s hair as she braided it.  Why do we obsess over “bad mothers”?  (Besides the fact that “worrying about egregious freak-show moms like Wendy Cook and Britney Spears distracts us from the fact that, for example, President George W. Bush cheerfully vetoed a law that would have provided health insurance to four million uninsured children.) By defining for us the kind of mothers we’re not, they make it easier for us to stomach what we are.

Waldman informally polled her friends to find definitions of Good Mothers and Good Fathers.  A definition of a Good Mother always involved self-abnegation: “she is able to figure out how to carve out time for herself without detriment to her children’s feelings of self-worth.”  The same people “had no trouble defining what it meant to be a Good Father.  A Good Father is characterized quite simply by his presence.”

She ends the first chapter with a question.  “Can’t we just try to give ourselves and each other a break?”  My good postmodern deconstructionist self cheered.  My brain and my heart were engaged.  I settled in for more discussion, re-thinking, and questions to spur us toward a new paradigm of expectations for motherhood.

After such an auspicious beginning, Bad Mother rolls into territory that is more memoir/social commentary, territory that is humorous, irreverent, and, at times, flippant.  Waldman spends the remaining seventeen chapters self-consciously bragging about what a fabulous partner and father Chabon is, enumerating what she perceives as her failures as a mother, and offering the mechanisms she used to cope with the fact of these "failures."

The underlying message from Waldman is: “Here are the terrible things I’ve done – just be glad you haven’t done anything this bad.”  After the conclusion to that first chapter, I’d hoped that Waldman would be proposing a different way of thinking; an entirely different way of analyzing motherhood. 

Granted, Waldman’s commentaries and anecdotes are both poignant and hilarious.  (“A Good Mother doesn’t resent looking up from her novel to examine a child’s drawing.”)  She's a hell of a writer.  From opinions about breast feeding and Attachment Parenting and sending snacks to preschool, to her own stories about terminating a pregnancy and about revelations concerning her own mother’s parenting style, Waldman's rich writing moves along smoothly, like a bottle pouring a nice merlot.  It’s certainly a book worth reading.

I wouldn’t buy this book for your own mother, but it would make a great gift between (or among) girlfriends, or for someone who considers Michael Chabon her secret boyfriend.  And, unless you live in Berkeley (as Waldman does, and reminds her reader…frequently) or Boulder, it would surely spark heated discussion in a book or moms’ club. And even if you’re not in love with Michael Chabon, I dare you to admit that there’s not some part of you that wants to be as wise and funny and erudite as Waldman when you grow up.

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If I Stay by Gayle Forman

April 9th 2009 by Dutton Juvenile
Hardcover, 199 pages
0525421033 (isbn13: 9780525421030)

rating: 4 of 5 stars



"Everyone thinks it was because of the snow."

Because I try to maintain a no-spoiler policy in my reviews, I am using for a synopsis the wording provided by the publisher.

Choices.  Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love – music – even if it means losing her boy friend and leaving her family and friends behind?

The one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes.  Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one.  And it’s the only one that matters.

The words I’d use to describe this book have all been taken: “graceful,” “lovely,” “gentle.”  Also “page-turner,” “imaginative,” “haunting” and “stay-up-very-very-late-to-finish.”  Okay, maybe I’m the first to use that last phrase.

The plot is gripping, but it’s the characters in If I Stay that make it so unforgettable.  For example, when her little brother was born, Mia’s dad gave up his long hair and leather jacket, donned a bow tie and became a teacher.  And yet the transition was natural, and typical of the bonds that Forman so deftly creates in this close-knit and authentic family.  Adults are adults, teenagers are teenagers, and without preaching, Forman demonstrates how that dynamic grounds Mia.  Mia herself is the sort of protagonist you fall in love with, you root for, a narrator who easily steps into the ranks of Bella and Hermione.

I’ve thought and thought, but I don’t think this book will appeal to teen guys.  Otherwise, I’d recommend the book for anyone high school or older.  I would also highly recommend it as a library check-out for parents and grandparents of teens.

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How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am
by Charles Grodin

April 9th 2009 by Springboard Press
Hardcover, 240 pages
0446519405 (isbn13: 9780446519403)

 rating: 4 of 5 stars

“My first memory of something having a powerful, lasting effect on me came when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.”

I saw an interview once with Cameron Crowe in which he said that his movie “Almost Famous” was like blowing a kiss his early years as a roadie/music reporter and the people who’d been part of those experiences.  I think, in a similar way, How I Got to Be is Charles Grodin’s kiss-blowing to his own past, both his boyhood and his journey from theatre to film to journalism.  And it’s a sweet kiss.

Grodin’s newest book includes behind-the-scenes tales that feature actors, directors, writers, producers, journalists and politicians with whom he’s worked. It’s best to think of this book as a collection of essays.  Other than Grodin himself, there’s no cohesive thread throughout.  There’s a chapter about Dustin Hoffman and the movie The Graduate, a chapter about Grodin’s perspective on doctors and modern medicine, a chapter about Grodin’s work in Washington, D.C.

I had not known that Charles Grodin was such a political activist.  In fact, he’s received the William Kuntsler Award for Racial Justice and has been honored by Habitat for Humanity for his humanitarian efforts on behalf of the homeless.  One of my favorite anecdotes in How I Got to Be was the one in which Grodin describes his experience making a documentary with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.  The three created a primetime special with actual footage from Vietnam, to explain how and why Simon & Garfunkel were writing anti-war music.

Your Father’s Day shopping begins and ends here.  As I was reading this book, I made a mental note just about every other page that this would be a great gift for my dad or either of my grandfathers.  Despite the fact these three men wouldn’t agree with Grodin’s politics, I doubt they could resist the wry humor and honest appraisal of a life well-lived that Grodin offers in How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am. 

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Exodus
by Julie Bertagna

April 1st 2008 (first published 2002)
by Walker Books for Young Readers
Hardcover, 352 pages
0802797458 (isbn13: 9780802797452)

 rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Once upon a time there was a world. . .a world full of miracles.”
 
Mara Bell is fifteen years old and the exact image of her grandmother Mary. She lives on Wing, an island in the northern part of an Earth nearly drowned by the melting of the polar ice caps.  The waters are continuing to rise, and Mara must trust the instincts she inherited from the strong women in her family.  She convinces her neighbors to flee the island for refuge in one of the sky cities, the tall feats of technology so high as to be safe from the storms and rising waters.  When they reach the nearest city, however, they are barred from entering and treated like so much refuse that is expelled from the white city itself.  Mara has to risk everything to save her people and the other refugees, and possibly fulfill a prophecy.  And the waters continue to rise.

The cover of the copy of Exodus that I got from the library there is a quote from The Guardian: “A miracle of a novel. . .a book you will remember for the rest of your life.”  I’m a theologian.  Floods and Exodus.  I remember another book with these phrases that have shaped my life.  I didn’t think another could.

I was wrong.  There is so much original, so much beautiful, so much of heartrending genius in this novel.  The plot moves quickly and effortlessly, there’s action and science-fiction and myth (Joseph Campbell style) and romance.  The best I can tell you is to run, run, run and read it yourself.

Read this book.  You’ll not be sorry.  Your heart and your head will reconnect with our own world of miracles.

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The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane 
by Katherine Howe

May 22nd 2009 by HarperCollins Canada / Hyperion Voice
Hardcover, 371 pages
1401340903 (isbn13: 9781401340902)

rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Peter Petford slipped a long wooden spoon into the simmering iron pot of lentils hanging over the fire and tried to push the worry from his stomach."

In 1692, amid the Salem witch trial frenzy, Livvy Dane stands among the women accused of practicing witchcraft.

Three hundred years later, PhD candidate Connie Goodwin spends her summer in a small town near Salem, cleaning up and clearing out the rustic house that belonged to her mother’s mother.  Along with overgrown belladonna and actual mandrake root, Connie discovers a key and a slip of paper bearing the name “Deliverance Dane.”

It’s coincidentally fortuitous that just as Connie needs a dissertation topic with a newly discovered primary source, her grandmother’s ancient belongings suggest that Deliverance passed down an original book of spells.  It’s also coincidentally fortuitous that the first and only man she meets in Marblehead is a hunky steeplejack with intellect to match Connie’s own.

There seem to be a lot of coincidentally fortuitous happenings in Physick Book.  I won’t go so far as to claim deus ex machina, but neither would I argue if someone else wanted to suggest it.  If there are coincidences, Howe weaves them deftly into the story so that they (almost) seem natural.  Other details are more forced, such as a reference to a huge cellular phone to emphasize the 1991 setting.

And while the plot machinations can be easily absorbed, less comfortable are the chapters in which, jumping back in time to the events of 1692, Howe writes in the  dialectical speech of Puritan New England.  Unlike, say, Jim’s speech in Huckleberry Finn, the Nor’easter dialect Howe depicts is confusing, gawky, and jars the reader out of the story.

Despite its foibles, I would call Physick Book a solid first novel.  Howe’s own academic proweress (and snobbery) is evident (there’s a recurring joke about Cornell not being an Ivy League school.)  And the thorough research is crafted into the fantastically accessible history lessons.  The pacing is remarkable – 400 pages, flipping periodically back to 17th century Salem, and there was never a time I felt as though I could skip ahead, nor did I want to.

What strikes me most about the book, however, beyond its technical merit, is that it’s got a lot of heart.  Not the mushy-gushy kind, but the subtle intimacies shared among women, between mothers and daughters, close friends, mentors and their students, and even women separated by centuries.  Howe’s female characters are empowered and conscious of their voices (or lack thereof).  This is feminism at its best, comfortable and in a natural, organically occurring state.
 

An intelligent gift book for a woman in your life – friend, colleague, wife, mother.  Pre-order this book for Mother’s Day, print a picture of its cover to slip in the card, and write “For making my childhood magical.”  It would also be a good beach read for someone not really into typical ice cream romances.

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