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I am so glad that the 48 Hour Reading Challenge bumped
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot, to the top of my reading pile. It is my favorite sort of non-fiction--combining tons of interesting science with people one can care about, and leaving the reader changed by the experience of reading.
The book weaves together four stories.
One is the story of a woman named Henrietta, who loved to paint her toenails red and go out dancing, who loved her children dearly, who was poor, and black, and died of cancer in 1951.
One is the story of what happened to a sample of cells taken from Henrietta's cancerous tumor, and how this HeLa line of cells, with its extraordinary robustness, was used, and is still used, to make many marvellous advances in medicine and the study of cell biology. The first great contribution Henrietta's cells made were in the development of the polio vaccine, but the list goes on and on and on.
The third is the story of the dark side of medical practice in the mid twentieth century, and how the black, the poor, the incarcerated, and the marginalized suffered at the hands of medical research.
And the fourth is the story of Henrietta's children, especially her daughter Deborah. It was years before they learned that part of their mother was immortal--that her living cells had been bought and sold for the cause of medical research, while they struggled with poverty and inadequate health insurance. To learn that part of their mother, who Deborah never knew, was still alive, brought heartache, confusion, and anger.
Into their lives comes Rebecca Skloot, a white woman determined to make the story of HeLa the story of people. It is a difficult journey for Deborah and for Rebecca. This book, weaving the four stories together in a utterly readable, mesmerizing, shattering, and poignant way, is the result.
Read it (if you haven't already).
And then read
this op ed piece in the New York Times from 2013 that continues the story. (or you could read the op ed piece now).
Question: Can one really recommend a book about a Chinese dragon in which the dragon has wings? Or does that throw the whole story so off kilter that all that is good gets overshadowed?
This is the question I was forced to ask while reading
Dragon Keeper (originally Dragonkeeper), by Carole Wilkinson (Hyperion, 2003; winner of Australia's Aurealis Award for best YA novel, but it's really middle grade). It's the story of a girl in the time of China's
Han Dynasty who is the slave of the Imperial Dragon Keeper. He is a nasty piece of work, and the slave girl and dragons are cruelly neglected, to the point where all but one of the dragons have died. Now the Emperor wants to be rid of the last of them....but the slave girl, who does not at this point even know her name, saves the dragon from the hunter charged with killing it, and the dragon (though wounded in the wing) flies off with her (and her pet rat).
The dragon tells her her name, Ping, and though Ping had thought that maybe she'd simply return home, this is not in the cards. For one thing, the dragon hunter is after them, and has spread the story that she is a witch. For another, the dragon doesn't want her too, and is rather insistent that they do things his way. So Ping, her rat, and the dragon head off toward the mythical ocean (on foot, because of the wounded dragon wing). And Ping finds that the dragon is taking a rather bossy tone with her, assuming she'll be there to look after the mysterious Dragon Stone that is his chief treasure, and it's a bit hard for her to trust him entirely. But they journey together, outwitting the bad dragon hunter who's still after them, and meeting sundry other folk (including the new young emperor), and the dragon teaches her to develop the power of her
qi (which is formidable, and magically efficacious) and shares Taoist
bon mots with her. And at last, after doubts and dangers, the secret of the Dragon Stone is revealed.
In short, it's a rather engaging "girl with special gifts on journey with dragon" story. The Chinese setting adds interest (although in that sort of "here is an exotic setting adding interest to this fantasy story" way-- such that quotation marks are called for around "Chinese"). Ping is an appealing heroine (once she gets a name) whose dilemmas and decisions and dangerous circumstances make for good reading. It gets a few bonus points for making Ping the first ever female Dragonkeeper, and one can cheer her on as she develops self-confidence and self-respect, and one can cheer as well for the brave rat friend. However, the main dragon character is not my favorite dragon ever-why isn't he more open with Ping? He's basically using her. Why does he speak fluently aloud, but in broken English when using telepathy? Why does he suddenly not trust her toward the end? Why do his magical powers never come in all that useful? Why is he keeping a comb under one of his scales (this distracted me)?
And most pressingly of all- wings on a Chinese dragon?????
So I'm not sure I'll bother to look for the sequels, and I'm not going to bother to offer this one to my own inveterate fantasy reading child. Though I didn't mind reading it at all-- that the pages turned nicely and I enjoyed it (except when I was being critical)--I think there are better books.
Here's
the Kirkus review, if you want another opinion that is essentially the same as mine.
Today is the third day of the WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign, and it is the Day of Action, which is to say, the day of buying books, and asking our libraries to buy books, and even just checking out lots of diverse books from our libraries, to show they are wanted. So I set of to my local bookstore to find a middle grade book with diversity in it that I didn't already have, preferably one that showed a kid of color on the cover which wasn't about the Civil War (because I've never really wanted to read about the Civil War).
Upon arriving at Barnes and Nobel, I was not overwhelmed by the choices available to me, because one book is not a choice. But at least there was one for me to buy! And happily,
Eddie Red Undercover: Mystery on Museum Mile, by
Marcia Wells, illustrated by
Marcos Calo, was a great book! One that I have no regrets about whatsoever! One that I wouldn't have picked up if it hadn't been for the campaign! (one that is making me use to many exclamation marks).
In any event.
Edmund is an African American kid in New York city with a photographic memory. When his talents come to the attention of the NYPD, they enlist him to help crack a case involving a ring of art thieves...and promise that if he can help solve it, they'll pay the tuition at his private school. Since his librarian dad just got laid off (side note: African American father, very present in son's life, who is a librarian--yay!, library lay-offs, not yay), the tuition offer is so very sweet it can't be turned down (not that Edmund wants it turned down!). And so Edmund starts staking out the art galleries of New York...and finds himself repeatedly squelched by the officer assigned to shepherd him through the detective work.
Fortunately Edmund has a buddy, Jonah, whose ADHD and OCD nature lends itself beautifully to the restless, obsessive compiling of data and searching for patterns. And the two of them, now maverick operators with no NYPD support, close in on the art thieves just as they are about to carry out their next crime...
This was an immensely fun book--I loved Edmund's voice and his self-deprecating humor, and I bet I was grinning as I read. I loved the relationship between his parents, and appreciated their realistic concerns for his safety. I can't really speak to the logic of the puzzle at the heart of the book, because I am a bad reader of puzzle books (I'm more interested in character than clues), but it all seemed to make a certain amount of (admittedly improbable) sense.
If you have a kid around who's ten or so who loves a good urban-kid-solving-mystery book, I pretty much can't recommend this more enthusiastically (although since I don't read this genre much, I don't have a solid basis for comparison).
If you want a book that shows an urban African American family with parents who are loving, well educated, and until recently able to afford an expense private school; a book in which race is something that comes up naturally in the protagonist's thoughts and conversations without being an issue driving the story, and if you want a book that shows the black kid right there on the cover being the hero (in the book he's more organized and never lets his pictures fall like that)-- this, I can say without any doubts at all, is a great book for you!
It is also the only book I have ever read in which the hero puts on his mom's Beyoncé wig from a costume party as the finishing touch to his disguise as a girl scout.
"I pin the hair back with one of my mom's hairclips. Not bad, I think, turning to the side and checking out my new look. I am innocent. A sweet, geeky girl, perfect to let into your house and catalog your most expensive possessions.
I open the door. Jonah stands there, eyes bulging out. A strange noise gurgles in his throat. Clutching his pants, he turns on his heel and sprints down the hallway. I hear the bathroom door slam, followed by peals of laughter. He better not have peed on the floor mid run." (p. 200)
So I'm glad I bought it. And here's another review, at
Ms. Yingling Reads.
(Just for the record, today I also bought
Boys of Blur, by N.D. Wilson, but that I had to order).
If
The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner, met the City Watch books of Discworld and
Bitterblue, by Kristin Cashore, the resulting book might remind one of
The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison (Tor Books, April 1, 2014). Basically, it's about a decent young man (who reminded me of Sam from Discworld, because both have compassion that transcends social boundaries), thrust into a world of dysfunctional corruption and political intrigue, who is lonely, and trapped by power, who has to learn really really quickly who he can trust and how to get things done....
Plot Summary:Maia never expected to be Emperor--his father, ruler of the Elflands, had other sons much more pleasing to him then the despised child of a despised goblin wife. And so, after the death of his mother when he was eight, Maia lived far from the imperial court, abused both physically and mentally by a bitter, drunken guardian.
Then the Emperor's airship explodes--and Maia is the only son left. Half-goblin though he is, he becomes the Emperor, and all unprepared he's forced into a world of daunting etiquette, court intrigue, power struggles, corruption, and treason. Still a teenager, innocent in many ways, Maia is at first at sea in the swirling morass of the court, and he struggles to shake the viciously critical voice of his abuser from his head. But as Maia grows in confidence and power, he must, for the sake of his own sanity, cling to the core of his self--and it is his compassion and basic decency that bring the greatest ripples of change to his empire.
The Fantasy ElementsThe fantasy elements are pretty straightforward. The world is at a nascent industrial revolution stage(airships and mechanical are being build). There's some "magic," most obviously in the ability that some individuals have to communicate with the dead.
But of course the main fantasy element is that the people of the world are elves and goblins, and both have ears that convey body language (this disconcerted me right to the end). The elves and the goblins differ from each other in appearance (the goblins have dark skin and red eyes, and are more robust, the elves white skin and blue/green eyes) and in culture, but they intermarry, and there's a lot of that on the boarder between the two realms. Maia's mother was despised by the emperor not because she was the dark-skinned daughter of the Barizhan goblin king, but because he had dearly loved his previous wife, who died in childbirth. That being said, Maia's abusive guardian did not spare him racial taunts.
Issues of race and identityI'm always a tad leery of books where the characters are "elf" or "goblins," words so loaded with preconceptions. And I make a habit of asking "Is it really necessary for these characters to be "elves/goblins?" In this case, it's not actually crucial; this could have been an alternate Europe/Africa world, with human people who had different skin tones. But I appreciated how the choice to make the characters "fantasy others" allowed Addison to come at issues of race and identity from a different direction. Fantasy such as this allows the familiar to be remigned afresh and strange, which, done well, is thought-provoking.
In any event, Maia is a dark-skinned person in a court where everyone else in power is light skinned, and he'd keenly aware of it. And it's not just mentioned once--his self-consciousness about his physical appearance, his observations of others, a large part of his sense of self, are shaped by this fact and it keeps coming up in his mind. Here's an example, when Maia is at a reception hosted by the Barizhan ambassador:
"It was the first time in his life Maia had been surrounded by people who were like him instead of only snow-white elves with their pale eyes, and he missed several names in the effort not to faint or hyperventilate or burst into tears." (page 195)
So in a nutshell, the issue of race pervades the story, and it's pretty thought-provoking.
(Here's what I'd like to see someday--beautiful dark-skinned elves and short, stocky white goblins. Because if your using fantasy to confront racism, why not go all the way. Except then the main character would be white, so it wouldn't be confronting racism in the same way. And without the negative-ness of "goblin" a lot of who Maia is in relation to the elves would be lost....)
This is also the only fantasy book I can think of in which a young male character is traumatized by an occasion when he was almost very horribly raped. It is also a book in which there are characters who are gay, and characters who might well be gay (or not). Sometimes in some cases this leads to complications. Heterosexuality is the norm, but it's nice to see some diversity. The role of women in a patriarchal society is also addressed, and very nicely too. Maia, himself oppressed and denied an education, is sympathetic to the women he meets who want more than marriage and children.
A specific criticism (or, how my personal reading experience could have been better)It is a very complicated world that Katherine Addison has created here, not so much in terms of the big picture, but because there is a very large cast of characters, many of whom are related to each/plotting against each other/with complicated backstories. And her world comes with complicated naming conventions--perfectly believable, but rather hard to pick up quickly. Fast readers like me, who are bad at names in general, will be confused. I wish the explanatory note and the index had been put at the beginning instead of at the end, and I wish Addison had not relied on names as identifiers, but put in helpful phrases like "his father's aunt" or "the woman he would marry."
The book would have been a more pleasantly immersive experience if I hadn't been reading slowly because of not being at all sure who people were.
(In fairness, the confusion occasioned by naming conventions worked beautifully to make me empathize with Maia, who was experiencing his own confusions right along with me, so as a rhetorical device I can't really fault it.)
And finally, my Final Thought:I liked it a lot. I don't have the urge to turn around right this sec and re-read it, but I can imagine I will want to in the future. I imagine I might enjoy it more a second time, knowing who everyone is.
Some weeks life is busy, and there just isn't time to read and write lots, and so the blogging is slow. And it's been even slower for me because most of the books I have managed to finish recently didn't move me to write about them, mostly because of me not having the mental energy to figure out and express eloquently why they hadn't worked for me.
So last night I turned to a book from a series (
Scholastic's Branches) that promises to build "reading confidence and stamina," both of which I feel I need right about now.
Moldylocks and the Three Beards, written and illustrated by Noah Z. Jones (Scholastic, published in paperback in Jan 2014, and in a hardcover library edition April 29) is the first book in a series--"Princess Pink and the Land of Fake-Believe." My eyes rolled when I read the words "Princess Pink," but not so much so that I was unable to look at the cover more closely. And lo, Princess Pink seemed pretty cool.
So I tried it last night, and rather enjoyed it, and can happily recommend it. If you are a young reader who enjoys the absurd. and who is looking for something fun and easy, this is what you get here.
Princess Pink is not a princess; after seven boys, her mother wanted a one, and so that's what she was named. She hates pink. She turned her pink fairy dress into a cowboy caveman outfit. (Perhaps her hatred of pink, and her taste in dirty sneakers and bugs is a tad polarizing--does the cheesy pizza she enjoys really have to look so gross? And one can enjoy the outdoors without one's shoes stinking. But this is not a book that aims for subtly, so I shall let it pass).
And in any event, Princess Pink opens her fridge one night, and falls (literally) into a the Land of Fake-Believe, where she visits the home of three beards (not nice) in the company of a girl named Moldylocks. The whole beard premise was rather effective, and I enjoyed it.
Recommended for those who don't mind negative portrayals of pink princess stuff.
Not particularly recommended for those who don't like whimsical stories whose primary point is to make learning to read entertaining. Also not recommended for those who loath spiders. There are too many spiders for those readers to take.
Not really recommended to their adults for their own reading pleasure, although it was kind of exactly right for my tired brain last night...........and I might well find myself picking up
Little Red Quaking Hood when it comes out in August.
Note: Princess Pink's family looks to be African-American--pretty darn rare in easy-reader fantasy books! (quick--name another girl character of color in an easy reader fantasy book.............those dots are me not being able to).
Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher
I love the premise of
Echo, by Alicia Wright Brewster (Dragonfairy Press, YA, April 2013). On an alien planet, settled by two waves of colonization from Earth, the apocalypse has been foretold. But the council, whose members can control the elements with their minds, is determined to prevent it. And they are willing to keep trying, even when things don't work out--they simply turn back the clock, rewinding time to give themselves another chance.
When Echo begins, it is the fifth rewind. The council has tried four times already to avert a disaster whose very nature they were at first uncertain of--and with each rewind, they've gained more information. And they've determined that what they need this time around is a teenaged girl named Ashara Vine. This comes as something of a huge, mind-blowing surprise to Ashara, who had no idea that she was one of the very few with the ability to manipulate the ether itself. And it comes as an additional surprise that the man chosen by the council to train her and a small cohort of other young manipulators is her ex-boyfriend, Loken.
Tension builds as Ashara learns about her powers, and the nature of the threat menacing her planet...and builds as she and Loken rekindle their relationship....and builds still more as information from the previous rewinds is revealed, and plots and machinations within the council, and within her world's society, make it more than somewhat uncertain if this time around, the world will be saved.
Do not, however, expect that because this story takes place on an alien world, it is truly science fiction. The world building is not such that I felt I was on a different planet, despite the two suns, and the powers of the elemental manipulators read like fantasy.
Do expect that the romance between Ashara and Loken will sometimes overshadow the end-of-the-world plot, sometimes so much so that I was annoyed (there are times when passionate is appropriate, and times when it is really not to the point). I would recommend this one to those who like romance books that happen to be speculative fiction, rather than to speculative fiction fans who happen to like a bit of romance.
If you enjoy reading about groups of teenagers being trained together to fight with magical powers, you will enjoy that part of the book. However, if your mind follows more or less the same trains of thought as mine, you too might find it odd that the fact that there's a coming apocalypse is broadcast to all and sundry, causing rather pointless stress (there's no escaping the countdown clocks). And you might agree with me that the nature of the threat is ultimately rather unconvincing.
All in all, it's not possible for me to recommend the book wholeheartedly. However, I did truly like the premise of time travel being used to figure out how to avert catastrophe, and the interesting ramifications thereof! And your millage may totally vary; here are some other reviews:
KirkusApocalypse MamaAll In One PlaceThe Urban Paranormal Book BlogFinal note: this is one for
my multicultural book list--Ashara's father is of African descent, which is made beautifully clear in the front cover picture of Ashara!
In my review of
The Menagerie, by Tui T. Sutherland and Kari Sutherland, I said, "You want a book that hits the sweet spot for the nine-year old mythical creature lover? This is what you are looking for." The second book in the series,
Dragon on Trial (HarperCollins, March 2014), has strengthened my conviction.
The menagerie in question is home to all manner of creatures, from unicorns and griffins and dragons to a goose that lays golden eggs. And it is the apparent murder of this goose that is the catalyst for this adventure. All the evidence points to a dragon named Scratch--and if Scratch is found guilty, he'll be exterminated.
Zoe and Logan, two middle school kids who are part of the Menagerie team, are convinced Scratch has been framed. But unless they can find who really committed the dastardly deed of goose murder (if murder it was), disaster won't befall Scratch alone--the whole menagerie might be shut down by those in Authority. Together with a new friend, a were-rooster named Marcus (a great addition to the cast, who provides comic relief that offsets the tension nicely), they set off on a detective hunt to find the answers they desperately need.
What makes this series a stand-out in kid appeal is that it beautifully combines the angsts of middle school life with a truly wonderful ménage of magical creatures. The characters and the set-up are so convincing that the menagerie almost seems possible. It's clear that the authors are truly enjoying themselves--so many fun details about the creatures!--and this enjoyment carries over into the reading experience.
Although the case of the missing goose is successfully resolved, bigger questions remain--someone is trying to sabotage the menagerie, and the disappearance of Logan's mom (whom he found out in the first book was a tracker of mythical creatures) remains a mystery. My young one and I cannot wait till book three comes out!
I didn't see anything in this book that made it clear, but I know from the first book that Logan happens to be African American--I hope it's might slightly more obvious in book 3, because it would be nice for readers to be able to pick up on it!
The above-mentioned young one and I are going up to Boston tomorrow to meet Tui T. Sutherland, at
the release party for The Brightest Night, the fifth book in her Wings of Fire series! So exciting. We are taking this one for her to sign too if possible....
Read the rest of this post
And so at last the story of
the Infinity Ring comes full circle--with
The Iron Empire, we are once more back with James Dashner, who wrote the first book of the series (
A Mutiny in Time). Sera, Dak, and Riq have travelled through the centuries fixing Break after Break--all the bits of history that didn't happen as they should have. Now they have travelled to the time when it all began. It is the age of Alexander the Great, and the time of Aristotle--who founded the league of Hystorians who sent the threesome off on their quest.
The mission seems simple. If Sara, Dak, and Riq can keep Alexander from an untimely death, they will have healed the last break, averted the cataclysm that will otherwise engulf the earth, and they'll get to go home to a better world (except, perhaps, Riq, whose future might have been lost due to the changes in the past*). But to their horror, they find their old nemesis Tilda has gotten to Greece before them....and nothing is going to be easy.
I enjoyed this one quite a bit--perhaps because I knew that Finally there would be an end to all the trials and tribulations and excitements, which, though exiting, had filled the previous books almost to the point of saturation. I liked seeing Aristotle play a real role, and Alexander was rather fun to meet as well. And it did indeed all resolve in a satisfactory way...and although this isn't actually the end of the series, at least there's a bit of a breather!
And in this book, the bickering and tensions between the three kids was diminished--they've come to rely on each other, accept each other, and work as a team. Since I'm the sort of reader who doesn't thrive on interpersonal stress, I appreciated this.
This isn't a series that is deeply educational--although young readers will acquire a few basic facts (such as Aristotle being Alexander's tutor), it's not the sort of time travel that gives a rich and detailed picture of the past (not a complaint, just saying). But for those who love action and adventure given point and zest by time travel, these books should be just right.
Nice detail in the cover art I appreciated: it's not always the white boy (Dak) who's shown front and center in the picture of them that's on every back cover. On this one, it's Riq:
disclaimer: review copy received from Scholastic for review
*When reading this, my little one, already wise to the ways of stereotype, said cynically "Oh, the black kid dies." In case you are worried about this too, he
does not die, but stays with Alexander, renamed Hephaestion.
I must say that life was easier back before school started--before I had to leave for work, I had two or three beautiful hours of morning solitude, no socks to find, lunches to pack, buses to put children...which meant that blogging was easier. And I would return from work to more peaceful relaxation time, without endless chivying of reluctant homework doers. I guess I will have to try to write more posts on the weekends...
But in any event, here is a quick look at The Monster in the Mudball, by S.P. Gates, a new book for upper elementary/younger middle school kids from Tu Books, the multicultural sci fi/fantasy imprint of Lee and Low.
The mudball had sat, undisturbed, on the top shelf of closet in London for 20 years, until the day it fell to the floor, and came into contact with water. The mud cracks, and out come feet with boney toes and talons...and young Jin watches in horror as the mudball runs off into the street.
Prisoned inside the mud was a Zilombo, an ancient monster from Africa. Now it's found a den in a derelict waterfront district, near the warehouse where Jin's Chinese grandparents make glorious Chinese dragons for a living. Zilombo had killed many times before, and now she is hungry again. And Jin's baby brother, nicknamed Smiler seems like the perfect tasty morsel.
But A.J. Zauyamakanda, Mizz Z. for short, Chief Inspector of Ancient Artifacts, soon arrives on the scene, determined to recapture the monster. But each time Zilombo returns to life, she has new powers...and Mizz Z., who has fought her before back in her native Malawi, might not be so lucky this time.
Jin and his big sister, Frankie, find themselves caught in a nightmare as they help battle Zilombo, desperately trying save their brother from her talons...
This is the sort of exciting Kid vs Monster book that has lots of older Elementary appeal. There is a lot of monstrous ickiness, lots of danger, and lots of action. Zilombo is almost too much monster to take--the new powers she's developed, though necessary for the plot, seem a tad excessive, though that probably won't bother the young readers, busily cheering Jin and Frankie on! What makes Zilombo interesting is that she's also developing more personhood--with this new awakening, she's beginning to realize that she's lonely, and her nascent fondness for Smiler wars with her savage hunger. Without that bit of monster character development, she would have just chomped him, so it's utterly necessary to the story and works rather well.
Jin is an unusual hero, in that he has dyspraxia, aka "clumsy child syndrome" -- and so he has to be more conscious and self-aware than your typical kid is during monster hunting. He has to work at it, which is a nice twist.
This is one I'd give to a fourth grade boy, or thereabouts, who enjoys stories in which ordinary kids fight extraordinary monsters! I'm not sure there's quite enough depth to satisfy much older readers, although Mizz Z.'s job as Inspector of Ancient Artifacts has intriguing potential...
(and here I am again with a label diemma--fantasy, because it's about a mythical type creature, or science fiction, because it's monsterous cryptozoology....I think I will go with the former).
Here's another review, at
Ms. Yingling Readsdisclaimer: ARC received from the publisher
"They're Mine!"
"No, they're mine! They live in My room!"
etc.
This was the conversation that ensued when it came time to pick a shelf space for the two Astronaut Academy books by Dave Roman, the second of which, Astronaut Academy Re-Entry (First Second, May 15, 2013) was read about five times each in five days by my two boys (nine and twelve).
I would have solved the problem by putting them on my own shelves, if I kept graphic novels in my bedroom. They are that lovable. They are also very funny--both the words and the pictures. And they are also very good value for your money. Not only are they eminently re-readable, but even a fast-reading adult (ie me) will take at least an hour to savor every page the first time through (I didn't let my eyes glide over any of the pictures. I didn't want to miss anything).
On one level, these books deliver sci-fi fun of a very wacky sort. The setting is, after all, Astronaut Academy, where students arrive in robot-cat like school bus in space. There are robots and other high-tech accouterments. There is also a character who is a ninja bunny, and the mysterious Senor Panda. There's the very sci-fi game of Fireball, that plays a major role in the events of Astronaut Academy, and lots lots more.
But what there also is, even more so, is characters to love. From Hakata Soy, the central protagonist, to the kids on Team Feety Pajamas (who spend most of their time in the library, ostensibly Evil, but actually not so much), to the shy, the geek, the sporty kids who make up the gloriously fascinating and diverse student body, there is someone for just about anyone to relate too and sympathize with.
And so the central story line of
Astronuat Academy Re-Entry isn't the Fireball excitement, the way Hakata makes peace with his Past, or even the defeat of the heart stealing fiendish monster from space. Nope, the central story line follows the emotional arcs of lots of kids as they navigate the world of school and friendship and parental expectations (at a wacky school in space, but still universal). And my heart goes out to them all.
(
Here at Tor, you can see nice several pages of the book, staring one of my favorite characters, Thalia Thistle, playing fireball. And some of the heart eating monster stuff).
It's not a straight-forward, linear progression of story--it's told from multiple points of view. And things don't necessarily make Sense, especially if you haven't read the first book. This might make it not a book for everyone. But who cares about sense, says I, when you are given a combination of words that read themselves out loud in your head and pictures that make you smile like crazy?
Plus dinosaur cars. I loved them in the first book, and I was getting worried that they weren't going to be in this book. But they are.
Here's
my review of book 1--Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity.
disclaimer: review copy received very happily indeed from the publisher.
April is such a hard month--all I want to do is to be outside, getting everything weeded and planted and spruced up, but it's the busiest month at work, busy with the kids' homework, busy busy busy...and so no time to read the big long book that was supposed to be this week's Timeslip Tuesday offering.
So I turned to a quick picture book read --
Bonjour, Lonnie, by
Faith Ringgold (Hyperion Books for Children, 1996), and, um, it's kind of strange.
Bonjour, Lonnie, is a picture book that uses rather vague magical bird-assisted time travel in order to show an orphaned boy, Lonnie, his family, and to give him loving guardians in his own time. The magical bird in question is a singing French one, known as Love Bird, and when it visits Lonnie, it takes him back to early 20th-century Paris...and then vanishes, leaving him to wander past famous monuments to look for it (basically three pages of Paris is great, that don't advance the plot, but are not uninteresting....).
Then Love Bird shows up again, and leads the little boy to a small house wherein are his grandparents--a black man and a white woman, which surprises Lonnie. His grandfather explains he came to France to fight in WW I. He was a great singer (and we have a rather nice introduction to the Harlem Renaissance, and black culture flourishing), but when he went back home, he was oppressed by the prejudice that he found there, and went back to Paris, married a beautiful French girl, and became a famous opera singer.
The scene then changes; Lonnie sees his parents and himself as a baby...he finds out his father was killed as young soldier in WW II, and his Jewish mother sent him to the US to safety with a young friend. She in turn fell ill, no-one could find the kin she had hoped to leave Lonnie with, and so he was there in the orphanage, waiting, all unknowing, for Love Bird to find him.
And because of the love bird, the missing kin are found (and Lonnie's mother reassures him that his new Aunt Connie "has dyed her own graying locks red like yours," which I find very odd) and all is well.
So it's rather strange (the love bird device in particular). The reader knows it's timeslipish, because of being told so, but basically it reads like a dream of shifting scenes and flashbacks. It's not a story, so much as an explanation of the family history with underlinings of African American and WW I and WW II history. It's not un-compelling, and it is rather interesting (especially in it's multicultural emphasis) but I find it hard to imagine curling up and reading it with a child...especially since it might provoke a child to ask questions that they might not be ready to fully grasp--like why Lonnie's Jewish mother felt she had to send him to safety. It's definitely one to read yourself before you read it to a child, so that you can expect what's going to happen next.
Ah gee. I know Faith Ringgold is a famous artist, but her people didn't appeal to me personally (speaking frankly, they looked like zombies, with stiff arms and staring eyes--vibrant, colorful zombies, but still). This, I'm quite prepared to admit, is just my own reaction.
(if you look it up on Amazon, be warned that the blurb given is for another book, so it won't be useful)
Hammer of Witches, by Shana Mlawski (Tu, 2013, upper middle grade/YA).
Young Baltasar has grown up in late 15th-century Spain, a time when the Spanish Inquisition was going strong, listening to the stories told him by his uncle Diego--many of which were drawn from the Jewish heritage Diego and his wife ostensibly renounced when they chose to become nominal Christians (it was either that, or living in terrible fear of discovery--Ferdinand and Isabel did not want any Jews in Spain). But of all his uncle's stories, Baltasar thrills most to those of the brave warrior Amir al-Katib, who fought for the Christian kingdoms of Europe, was betrayed by them, and ended his life fighting on the side of the Moors who were being driven from Spain. Or so Baltasar has always believed.
But that's not actually how Amir al-Katib's story ended. When a sinister oranization, known as the Hammer of Witches, dedicated to fighting witchcraft with any means deemed necessary, imprisons Baltasar, he is questioned under threat of torture about Amir. And he intensively responds with a gift for magical storytelling he didn't know he had--and raises a golem, who carries him home.
Where, of course, the nice folks (not) from the Hammer of Witches know where to find him.
Now his aunt and uncle are dead, and Baltasar is on the run. But he's not alone for long--his uncle has passed on a slim golden chain that belonged ot Amir al-Katib himself, and, much to Baltasar's wonder, it summons an Ifritah--a girl who is have spirit, half human, and full of magic. And when the Ifritah, Jinniyah, takes him to Baba Yaga for advice, Baltasar finds that a great evil is about to head west from Europe across the sea...and that he might be able to thwart it.
And so Baltasar and Jinniyah sail off with Christopher Columbus....a journey wherein the little fleet is beset by magical enemies. But Baltasar can answer each magical creature with one of his own; the real evil (obviously to the modern reader) doesn't come until land is reached, and the Columbian consequences begin.
So. It is tremendously exciting, what with magical adventures, the voyage of exploration, the fact that the Hammer of Witches has a spy embedded in the voyage, the mystery of Amir al-Katib (which plays a large part in the story), and Baltasar's own growing control of his storytelling magic. In particular, Baltasar's time spent with the Taino people, who are describe in rich detail, and who seem much saner than the Europeans, is worthwhile reading.
Just about any reader who likes excitement will appreciate the high-stakes, fast-moving story; those who are Readers to begin with will especially appreciate the strong link here between magic and storytelling. It is a fascinating take on the story of Columbus' voyage, one that respects the Taino and gives them equal agency to the Europeans. There is a strong young female character, too, to round things off gender-wise, and to my surprise it wasn't Jinnyah but someone else....
I didn't find it a perfect read, though, primarily because Baltasar is a very distant first-person narrator. He's awfully good at describing (his words made beautifully clear pictures in my mind), but not so good at sharing enough of his feelings to make me care deeply about him as an individual. And, in fact, at one point I actively disliked him--after the aforementioned girl character witnessed the rape of Taino women, it was creepy of Baltasar to kiss her uninvited, and then, a few pages later, jokingly say to her that "we both know you're dying for another kiss" (page 286).
I was also disappointed by the fact that Jinniyah, the Ifritah, doesn't end up having much of a role in the story--I kept expecting her to be responsible for some major twist in the plot, but she never took center stage, and was often shunted off onto the sidelines.
Still, there was much to enjoy, and it was refreshing to read a book whose main character not only embodies the clash of cultures in 15th century Europe between Judiasm, Christianity, and Islam, but offers an unflinching look at the horror Columbus' voyage unleashed on the native peoples he encountered.
For another perspective, here's
the Kirkus review.
Note on age: This one felt rather tween-ish to me, which is to say for readers 11 to 14. Baltasar himself is fourteen (though, I think, a rather young 14), and a few specific instance of violence, including what happened to the Taino women, pushes this beyond something I'd give to a ten-year old.
disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher
Oh yeah. You want a book that hits the sweet spot for the nine-year old mythical creature lover? This is what you are looking for:
The Menagerie, by Tui T. Sutherland and Kari Sutherland (HarperCollins, March 2013, middle grade), is your basic ordinary boy meets a family who tends mythical creatures, and finds he has a knack for baby griffin wrangling. It's your basic new kid in town finds a niche and makes friends, with a bit of family dynamic stuff thrown in. And it's your basic scary government bad enforcement types and sinister sneakers off in the background threatening everything.
And the sum of these somewhat unremarkable plot points is an adventure with a generous dose of mystery that is eminently readable and very enjoyable, especially, I think, if you are nine years old. Even more especially if you are my own nine-year old, who turned right around after reading it in one day to begin it over again, and who can't wait for the sequel.
Things I especially appreciated:
1. Great baby griffins! The main story revolves around the escape of six young siblings, and their escapades all over town, which vary depending on their personality (one ends up in the library, because books are her favorite sort of treasure, another makes a hoard for himself with the pirate coins in a toy shop, etc.).
Logan, our central character, has the remarkable ability to converse telepathically with griffins, and here he is talking to baby Flurp (her thoughts are in bold) in the library:
"
Flurp ready to write fabulous tales of grand adventure. Furp ready to be most famous author of all time! From nice warm safe cave with much fish. She clacked her beak.
Nothing to eat in here but BOOKS.
"Did you actually--?" Logan glanced through the play-house window. The floor was covered in Harry Potter books, as if Flurp had been been making a nest out of them.
Eat books?! Flurp would NEVER! Flurp would STARVE first!The griffin cub let out a tiny burp that smelled of crayons." (p 105)
Plus Logan knows about griffins because he's seen one on a Diana Wynne Jones book, which made me, DWJ fan that I am, smile!
2. The fact that Logan is African American, and that this has nothing whatsoever to do with anything that happens. It's just who he is.
3. The nice balance of description (cool creatures!) with happenings, and an equally nice balance of the funny with the tense----it felt just right to my own internal nine-year old.
4. The fact that Logan has a cat named Purrsimmon.
And, as a small but worthwhile added bonus, "menagerie" is now in my son's vocabulary.
So give this to the kid who isn't ready for
Fablehaven yet, who loves mythical creature fiction, and watch the pages turn...
One last thing regarding my own boy's experience with it--after taking it to school, and talking it up, he came home to report that at least ten kids, including ones he hadn't expected to be interested, all wanted to read it. But he was a good child, and brought it back home to his mama...
Well, you know, you win some, you loose some...and
Dragon Magic, by Andre Norton (1972), sadly fell into the later category for me.
The premise was interesting enough--four middle school boys of desperate backgrounds and interests all living in the same neighborhood in the early 1970s, but not interested in being friends. Then one of them discovers the magic of the beautiful dragon puzzle he finds in an old abandoned house--a puzzle with four dragons. Each boy in turn puts together a dragon, which whisks him on a journey back in time, and they become friends in the present when they share their experiences.
The boys whose interactions in the present make a framing device for the stories of the past are:
Sig--ordinary guy of Germanic heritage, who finds himself helping Sigurd take on Fafnir.
Ras, aka George--a black kid, whose big brother has embraced the Black Power movement, who finds himself a Nubian prince enslaved in Babylon along with Daniel. He gets to watch Daniel overcome an African swamp dragonish creature.
Artie--would be cool boy, who goes back in time to King Arthur and learns a valuable lesson about meaningful relationships.
Kim--adopted from Hong Kong, he goes back to ancient China where there is a very confusing war going on, and comes back knowing he should try harder to make friends.
So a diverse cast of kids who don't get all that much page time, but who actually manage to be somewhat more than stereotypes, which is good, and four stories that varied a lot in interesting-ness, which wasn't so good. The first two (Sigurd and Daniel) were very interesting, the last two I found tedious.
Which could have been just me. But the particulars of the stories aside, the whole ensemble never felt enough like a cohesive story to rise above the fractures of its form and make me really care. In large part this is because the time travel magic put the boys into characters in the past--they weren't themselves, so there was no ongoing metacommentary. The stories were told straight up,with no ties back to the present, in much the same way as you might find stories anthologized in a book of "Dragon Stories of Many Lands." And on top of that, the boys had almost no agency within their stories, which made them even less interesting.
So that's generally why I didn't care for it. Here's a particular thing that vexed me--in Ras's story, Norton keeps referring to him as "the Nubian" and not by his name. All the other boys were referred to by name, and it bothered me that he was depersonalized this way.
But the dragon puzzle was beautifully described...best dragon puzzle ever.
Yeah for reading books that have been sitting around the house, possibly crying in corners, for far too long! Finally I have read Sarah Zettel's
Dust Girl (Random House, middle grade/YA, June 2012), and I found it good. It is good because although the barest bones of the story are familiar--girl finds out she is half fairy, the opposing sides of the fairy realm fight over her while she figures out how to use her magic--the particulars are very unique indeed.
Callie's mother won't let her go outside the Kansas hotel she runs, in case her skin gets dark and people suspect her father was black. But then the dust comes (this is the 1930s) and there's almost no-one left in town to care. Still her mother won't give up and leave, though the food and money are running out, and Callie is choking her life out on dust, because she's waiting for Callie's musician father to come back.
Then Callie plays the piano for the first time. And her playing awakens the magic in her, and a dust storm like no other comes, blowing her mother away and bringing into town the first (and most truly horrible!) of the magical adversaries Callie must deal with. (Just to give you a taste--they are grasshopper creatures in human guise, and they are very....hungry).
So Callie, and Jack, the boy she just rescued from the abandoned jail in town, hit the road, first running for their lives (grasshopper creatures sure are fast!), and then running less fast for their lives while searching for the people they have lost. On their journey they encounter madness and mayhem and magic...all the while moving through the blighted landscape of the dust bowl Midwest.
So yes, I liked it lots--although Callie was Special, she also managed to be nicely ordinary, and her motivations and actions all made sense to me. Callie also had to think considerably about the fact that her father was black--in the racially charged world through which she moves, she can't forget it--yet this aspect of her story was well integrated with the whole, and though sometimes it was underlined, it never felt overly didactic. And, on top of that, it was a swinging, exciting adventure, with (wait for it!) no Romance front and center, which was rather refreshing--it's nice to read a book in which people are running for their lives without getting distracted by their Feelings for each other. Callie and Jack will probably hook up in the future, when they're a bit older, and that's fine.
But what I really loved was the historical part of this fantasy--I don't turn to Dust Bowl fiction for my reading pleasure, and so meeting that historical landscape in my favorite genre was a lovely treat.
Here's what I especially appreciated--America is not treated as a fantasy blank slate, just waiting for the immigrants to arrive with their magics. Instead, the first magical Person Callie meets is Native American, almost certainly Coyote, and this is what he has to say about it:
"Stupid white people. Stupid yellow people, or stupid brown people. Bringing in all kinds of ghosts and little spirits. Can't even tell who's in the game anymore." (p 31).
And so even though Callie's magical journey doesn't directly involve the native magic of her place, at least there's this acknowledgement that there is an indigenous presence. The only other fantasies for middle grade/YA readers set in North American that I can think of simply do not have this (The Prairie Thief, by Melissa Wiley, and Patricia Wrede's Frontier Magic series), and I think they are the weaker for it.
Note on cover: that's the
new paperback cover up at the top; it comes out in June. Some people thought that the cover of the hardback (at right) didn't show Callie accurately as half black (although since she's been passing as white, or at least, her mother thinks she has, all her life, she has to look at least somewhat ambiguous, and I think the paperback goes a bit too far in the other direction....). But in any event, it's nice to have the paperback showing a Main Character of Color, and so good on ya, Random House.
Note on age: This one is a perfect tween book, great for 11-13 year olds. As far as I can remember, there's nothing in it that would be Inappropriate for younger readers (which is to say there's no sex, but I'm not sure how well I do at registering curse words, since I am married to someone from Liverpool and have become hardened), but there are issues of racial and religious prejudice (Jack is Jewish), law-breaking and human unhappiness/human evilness that make it a bit strong for a younger kid.
A few other blog reviews, by people who were reading it ages ago:
Bunbury in the Stacks,
Someday my Printz will Come, and
alibrarymama
My hopes were high. Yasutaka Tsutsui is one of the most highly regard Japanese writers of sci fi. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is one of his most popular books in Japan. I had never read any Japanese time travel before, and was tremendously eager to do so.
It's the story of a teenaged girl who acquires the ability to slip back in time. Just a few days back, but still enough to ensnarl her in paradoxes, mysteries, and sci-fi intrigue.
It should have been great! When my copy of the English translation (by David Karashima, 2011, Alma Books, 105 pages) arrived, and I saw the beautiful cover, I was even more eager to begin it.
Uh. Total rats, darn, and whine.
Sample extract:
"Morning!" called Kazuo from behind her.
"Oh, morning!" replied Kazuko, considering whether she should tell him all about the incident. Kazuo was a bright individual after all, and might be able to provide some sort of insight. But she quickly decided that it might be better to wait for Goro to arrive so they could all talk about it together.
"Is everything okay?" said Kazuo. "You look a little pale."
Kazuo was always rather attentive, so he often noticed little things like that.
"Oh it's nothing," said Kazuko, shaking her head. "I couldn't sleep much. First because of the earthquake. Then because of the fire! So I'm feeling pretty sleepy today." (p 27)
Maybe most of the blame for the clunky writing and wooden characterization can be attributed to the translator. But the final plot twist at the end, that strained all credulity, must be the author's own, and the way it's presented--future character explains everything at length--is really not sophisticated and sparkling. Plus the future character turns out to be a. 11 years old b. the love interest of this teenage girl, and that was just weird and c. able to conduct mass hypnosis at the drop of a hat on every single person (probably hundreds) with whom he's come into contact in the last few months.
So it was a big disappointment.
The English translation also includes another novella, The Stuff that Nightmares are Made Of. Not only did I find that story clunky as well, but it made me really dislike Tsutsui, because it is never funny when a mother threatens to cut off a five year old's penis with a pair of scissors so he'll be less girly.
City of a Thousand Dolls, by Miriam Forster (Harper, Feb. 2013, YA)
The City of a Thousand Dolls is a sanctuary for unwanted baby girls. It is a producer of young women schooled (depending on their talents and temperaments) in various houses as mistresses, healers, musicians, scholars, warriors, and even assassins. It is the only home Nisha can remember, though she was six when she was left outside its gate. And though Nisha was too old when she arrived to be placed in one of the city's houses, has a role to file as the matron's assistant, and she has friends, and hopes for her life after she is too old for the City. In short, the City runs smoothly along, with transgressions punished severely, escape forbidden, and everyone in their proper place.
But now the City of a Thousand Dolls is home to a murderer. Girls are being killed.
And Nisha, used to moving freely throughout the city, must find out who the killer is. Her own life is at stake. As she investigates, she finds that there are secrets both within the City and in her own past...secrets that will change her life forever.
I read it in as much of a single sitting as a person with needy loved ones can. I liked it for the setting (I have a penchant for books that stay in one place), I liked it for the difficult concept of the City-is it a place of refugee and opportunity for girls who might otherwise be victims of infanticide, or is it a prison?--and appreciated that the people within the city thought about that issue themselves. I liked the details about small things. And I appreciated the fact that this isn't yet another medieval European fantasy; instead, it is more South Asian in setting and culture. So though the world-building wasn't perfect (and I have some niggling questions about the mechanics of the whole city thing), I was happy to keep reading.
However, there's a disconnect that makes me unable to heartily recommend this one.
To wit,
The City of a Thousand Dolls is marketed as Young Adult, and indeed, because of the whole premise of (some) girls being trained to be mistresses, it's not one to give a naive younger reader (though the author doesn't spell out what being a mistress is all about, and there is no sex within the book itself). But it skews young in plot and characterization, and ended up feeling more middle grade than teen. A teen might find Nisha an incompetent detective (she is no Nancy Drew, but, in justice, she never thought she was), too naive to be credible, and may well find the reveal of Nisha's specialness, her romance, and the denouement of the story, all too much to take (and in fact it was all too much like a kid's wish fulfillment for me to swallow).
And there are cats with whom Nisha has a telepathic bond. Girls having telepathic bonds with cats always makes me think of 10 or 11 year olds, perhaps because when I was that age telepathic cats would have been my own dream come true....
So, uh, I'd hand this to the 10 or 11 year old girl who already is conversant with the concept of women whose role in life is to provide men with pleasure, who wants an exciting mystery/unrealistic romance with bonus telepathic cats.
But like I said, I did find it a page turner....
Way back in May of 2009, I began to conciously seek out multicultural children's books, primarily in
an effort to add color to my sons' bookshelves. One of the books that I ended up buying in that initial burst of enthusiasm was
The Little Yokozuna, by Wayne Shorey (Tuttle Publishing, 2003, middle grade). And I have only just now finished it, partly because of tbr pile inertia, and partly, and sadly, because when I started it back then I realized it wasn't very good.
I still think it isn't very good. But as well as being multicultural, it is a time travel book, and so in a vague desire for completeness (someday I will have reviewed every children's time travel book ever written in English, Magic Treehouse books and other series-es for the younger reader excepted) I'm going ahead and posting about it.
Basic plot--Japanese demons have kidnapped an American girl, called Little Harriet. She disappeared in a museum garden, and her six older brother and sisters have found that the garden serves as a portal, that has whisked them, in pairs, into a whole series of other gardens, mostly Japanese. One pair of siblings ends up in Japan in the 1960s, where they meet a Japanese boy, Kiyoshi-chan. He and his family are kind and helpful. Another pair ends up becoming friends with a haiku-writing monkey named Basho. The third pair ends up in an underground pit of demons. They are reunited. They meet an enigmatic old man who is enigmatic. Demons are glimpsed; one is beheaded. More gardens are visited, too quickly to explore in detail.
Finally the six American kids and one Japanese kid end up at a Japanese demon/god sumo wrestling match. The Japanese kid enters the ring to fight for their lives (and Little Harriet).
The enigmatic old man enigmatically leads them to Little Harriet. The American kids go back to modern Boston.
Here is what I liked: Some of the garden descriptions are appealing. I like learning about new things--I now know more about sumo wrestling.
Here are the reasons why I didn't like it:
1. The character names. "Little Harriet." Her brother, "Owen Greatheart." (He wasn't even all that greathearted). Another brother, "Knuckleball." The fact that when we meet the oldest sister, Annie, her brother is calling her "Granny." This confused me. I thought she was a grandmother. The fact that Kiyoshi-chan is never just Kiyoshi (although maybe that's a nod to the reality of 1960s Japan???).
2. The multiple jumps in perspective. I coped reasonably well with all the different narrative strands, but I object to shifts in narrative perspective from one paragraph to the next.
3. The resulting fact that I never felt I knew any of the characters well enough to care about them as individuals. In particular, what with a considerable portion of the book's beginning told from the perspective of Kiyoshi-chan, I felt invested in him, and so was somewhat put out to find him becoming a minor side-kick (even when he took center stage as a sumo wrestler, and thus became the title character, "yokozuna" being the highest rank in professional sumo, he stayed minor). I think, also, that if an author tells me some of the kids are blond, but then goes out of his way to say that one has skin "the beautiful dark color of smooth chocolate," he should maybe tell me more about the familial circumstances of the kids (and make a vow never to use chocolate as a skin color descriptor ever again. I got stuck for a while at this point, thinking deep thoughts like "milk chocolate is smooth but not dark" etc.).
3. The fact that the plot made little sense, with motivations and meanings that never felt properly developed. WHY, for instance, did the kids travel through time? There is no reason, plot-wise, for this, and it didn't add to the sense that I was reading a coherent story. And what was with the talking monkey? I am fundamentally against talking monkeys whose only purpose is to introduce Basho's poetry, in a somewhat twisted fashion, to the young.
In a nutshell: It was like a confused fever dream, and I'm not adding it to my son's bookshelf.
And so that concludes this week's edition of Time Slip Tuesday. Tune in next week for a book I like more than this one.
The field of YA dystopia may be crowded these days, but
Orleans, by Sherri L. Smith (Putnam, March 2013), goes to show that new and powerful stories of young people surviving in the face of disaster can still be told. It is a heart-twisting story of riveting intensity.
Rita and Katrina were only the beginning. Storm after storm followed, and the number of survivors in the flood-wrecked delta shrank each time. Then came the Fever--deadly, and incurable, and a threat to the whole country. So then came the quarantine--a wall was built around the Gulf Coast area, just until the Fever ran its course, or a cure was found. Surely, the government reasoned, that wouldn't take long. Then the survivors could be part of the United States again.
But the Fever has held its own, and everyone still living behind the wall is a carrier. Because the Fever affects different blood types differently, some are healthier than others (the O types are less affect). Tribes, based on blood, have formed, and blood is a commodity.
And a fifteen year old girl, Fen de la Guerre, has just promised a dying woman who was the leader of Fen's tribe of O positives, and who was the only person left to her in the world she truly loves, to save the new born infant her friend died giving birth too. For a short while, the baby will be free of the taint of the fever, so if Fen can keep herself and the baby alive long enough to get to the wall, the baby has a chance of being smuggled out to safety.
But Fen knows to her cost how hard it is to survive in the Delta. Her parents are dead, and she herself endured horrors (including rape) before finding a place in the O positive tribe. War between the tribes is flaring up to an even more deadly level than before, blood slavery, sickness, and human predation are rampant, and Fen has little more than hard won survival skills to keep herself and Baby Girl safe. But she has hope....
Then a new wrinkle enters the picture. Daniel, a young scientist from up north illegally enters the delta, obsessed with finding a cure to the fever. He has no clue what he will find behind the wall...but amidst all the horror and violence, there he meets Fen. And Fen, because she can't just leave him to die, and because there's a chance he can help her, saves his life....and they journey together, until they reach the wall.
This all too believable future world might sound tremendously dark, and Fen's life on her own has been full of horror. The story as a whole is gut-wrenching, page-clenching, and not for the faint of heart. Yet it is not
depressing. Because Fen never lets herself sink at all into any self-pity, because she never gives up, because she never considers any choice other than survival, and keeping true to her promises, I couldn't pity her either, though my heart certainly ached something fierce. The brutality is not rendered less brutal by the fact that Fen has kept her integrity, but because she has, and because the reader right in there with her, there's no sense of emotional manipulation by the author. There are bad things. Terrible things. But there is always hope.
There are still decent people in this world--like the Ursuline sisters, still keeping faith and tending to the dead, hope that the ravaged world of the Delta will heal, and, even when I turned the last page, I still had hope for Fen.
And there is one scene in particular, the All Souls' Day parade, that is a tremendous bit of heart-stopping, numinous-filled testimony to the power of the human spirit.
Don't go looking for Daniel to come in and romantically make things all better for Fen. He's a tourist, a babe in the woods, a complication in Fen's mission, and though he does end up with a huge part to play, it's not the part of Fen's lover and protector. Instead, read this one if you want to get to know a girl who is damaged, strong, brave, and sad, who keeps going because there is nothing else to do.
This is one for those looking for multi-cultural sci fi/fantasy--race, but not because it is a story where "race" is important. In this world, people are defined by blood type, so race isn't something we hear much about. It is mentioned, and indeed, there's a sociological twist involving race, blood-type, and tribal identity. Based on the few bits of description of Fen, I pictured her in my mind as black, but skin color is the least of people's worries in this world.
Personal note--Fen narrates her story in the English of the tribes, which doesn't include many verb forms; I was worried that it would bother me, but it didn't.
Read more about Orleans and its creator, Sherri L. Smith, at these other stops on its blog tour:
Monday, March 4 –
The Compulsive ReaderTuesday, March 5 –
The Story SirenWednesday, March 6 –
The OWL for YAThursday, March 7** –
GreenBeanTeenQueenFriday, March 8 –
I Read Banned BooksMonday, March 11 –
Poisoned RationalityTuesday, March 12 –
The Book SmugglersThursday, March 14 –
Literary EscapismFriday, March 15 –
Cari’s Book BlogFriday, March 29 –
A.L. Davroe(disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.)
The Lost Girl, by Sangu Mandanna (Balzer + Bray; August, 2012, YA, 432 pages)
Eva has lived in cozy cottage in northern England all the sixteen years of her life, with her beloved foster mother, and caring guardians dropping in to visit lots. She looks on the outside like a normal, attractive, Anglo-Indian girl.
Eva has been in danger all her life. There are people who think she is an abomination, a monster who must be killed.
Because Eva doesn't just look like an Indian girl--she is a direct copy of one. She was made by a sinister organization of genetic tinkerers to be the exact echo of a girl named Amarra, a girl growing up in far-away Bangalore. If Amarra should die, Eva will be sent to take her place, and perhaps, even to serve as a vessel for Amarra's very essence. Every week the letters from Amarra, full of the details of her life, arrive. When Amarra gets a tattoo, Eva must get one also, so their bodies match.
Eva doesn't want to be an echo. She wants to be "Eva," a name she chose for herself. But those that created her will kill her if she tries to live a life of her own.
Then Amarra dies.
Eva does her best to be Amarra....but there are things that Amarra never told her. And even the best echo cannot truly take the place of a lost child, and Eva is much more than a good little shadow....
At which point, things surge from being a fascinating speculative fiction character study to a life or death drama with stakes just as high as they can get! (with bonus forbidden romance).
Yes, this is one for the lover of character (me). And the lover of Themes being Explored (identity, and the rights we have to our own lives, and whether the created life is inherently monstrous (with many references in the book to Frankenstein) and how grief and love plays out for different people). There was action, too, especially toward the end (our girl Eva and her love fighting the Powerful Bad Guys).
And it was a really darn good read. An all in one evening, great gulping glass of water on a hot day read. Three and a half hours of all absorbing prose. Oh yeah.
It wasn't all rainbows and happy reading, though. For instance, I would have liked more richness to the Indian part of the setting, when Eva is living Amarra's life--I never felt as though I was there.
More critically, the actual premise--that echoes can take the place of a real person--is rather ridiculous; I can't imagine an echo ever successfully filling the void of the dead person. Nor does the whole set-up of the echo creators seem reasonable (even for speculative fiction). Much salt is required to swallow the central point of the story. If that's the sort of thing that bothers you, this might not be the right book for you.
(thanks to Margo Berendsen, who's
review of the book inpired me to get a hold of it!)
Spirit's Princess, by Esther Friesner (Random House, April, 2012, middle grade/YA) tells of the childhood of Himiko, daughter of the chieftain of the small Matsu clan. By around 238 AD, Himiko was a queen, but before she reaches that point (which will presumably happen in the sequel to this book), she has lots of growing up to do....and so this is a book for the reader who has patience, one who is interested in the small things of life, and who doesn't demand happenings (in this, the cover is misleading--Himiko looks like an Action-Oriented princess, but that part of her life is yet to come). It's also a good one for the reader who likes historical fiction that explores the lives of little known women--the author's note at the end explains that Himiko's story is based on fact, which pleased me very much.
Himiko is the only daughter of her father, and so is the "princess" of her village. It is a narrow life, as her father distrusts all outsiders, and Himiko is not permitted to follow her dream of become a great hunter like her older brother (and even if she had been encouraged to follow this path, a fall in childhood leaves with a permanently lame leg). Slowly she realizes that her path lies elsewhere, as a shaman for her people. And so, interspersed with various family dynamics, we are told of her apprenticeship to the village shaman, which is kept secret from her dictatorial, xenophobic father, who simply wants to see her nicely married off.
There are shadows of a danger to come, which finally does arrive right at the end of the book. But until then, there's lots of family dynamics, with nicely drawn secondary characters, some interesting descriptions of Himiko's rather restricted life, some magical encounters with spirit world (although not quite enough for my taste), and hints of more story to come.
I myself rather enjoyed it, though at first I was doubtful--- I felt that it wasn't quite necessary to spend so much time with five-year old Himiko (adolescent Himiko becomes more interesting). But even though I did read it avidly, appreciating the different culture, appreciating Himiko's various dilemmas and her growing familiarity with the spirit world, and hoping that it would all work out, I couldn't help but feel that this story is simply the prologue to a more exciting one to come.
And indeed, this is a good time to have read the book, because I am very much looking forward to its sequel,
Spirit's Chosen, which comes out this April, and will not have as long to wait!
note on age: I'd be most likely to give this one to a ten or eleven year old girl, although it is described as being for ages 12 and up. There is nothing in the book that would give your typical middle grade pause, and I think older readers are more likely to be put off by the fact that Himiko is a little kid!
This week's adventure in reading fantasy books for grown-ups (though it has huge YA crossover appeal) was
Norse Code, by Greg van Eekhout (2009), one I enjoyed very much indeed. It is a swirlingness of Norse mythology in which two main characters try to fend off the annihilation of Ragnarok, and are forced to be very brave indeed.
When the story starts, Fimbulvetr, the unending winter, has arrived--three years have passed on earth with no spring. And Kathy Castillo, an MBA student, has been murdered, only to find her newly dead self offered a new life as a Valkyrie. Recruitment for Odin's army has been stepped up, and NorseCODE, a secret project funded by the Aesir gods, is tracking down every mortal descendant of Odin it can. Even ordinary ones like Kathy, now known as Mist.But Mist goes AWOL. Instead of being a good Valkyrie, recruiting others, she decides that what's really important is finding her way to the kingdom of Hel, where most of the dead end up-- like Mist's sister, also murderd. To get to Hel and save her sister, Mist needs a guide, and the only choice is the Vanir god, Hermod, who made the journey himself once before (to save his own brother--it didn't work out). Hermod is a kind of loner god, not really into the mead-soaked fun and games of his family, and rather preoccupied with tracking down the wolves who are going to devour the sun and the moon....but off they go to Hel.
And then lots happens. Basically, Mist and Hermod team up to try to diffuse Ragnarok, despite all the weight of prophecy and immortal machinations pushing it forward to its deadly conclusion. They don't have much going for them--some help from Odin's eight-legged horse, and a bunch of dead farmers from Iowa (tornado victims) who, along with Mist's sister and the blind god
Höd, have formed a resistance movement in Hel. Odin's all-seeing eye might help if they can get it, and then there's a sword partly forged from Nothing, that might be useful....
So there's a lot happening, and Mist and Hermod don't really know what the heck they are doing for much of the book, and even when they do know, they have a hard time being special enough to do it, and sometimes people die, and Ragnarok keeps on progressing--yet it wasn't depressing! I do not like depressing books, so this was good.
Reasons why it wasn't depressing, even though when the story begins it is never ending winter and it's all grim and one isn't at all sure if one wants to read it:--Mist and Hermod manage to muddle through at every turn; they keep on trying, even when things look their darkest. This keeps the reader from loosing hope too (I hate it when I loose hope).
--There are lots of little funny bits, little zingers that made me chuckle and longer bits of the author not taking things too seriously but not falling into farce.
--There is violence, and there's at least one graphic mentions of intestines, but it doesn't have the off putting pages of gore and fighting that one might encounter in grown-up books (and some middle grade fantasies)
--I liked the romance. If this were written as a YA book, there would be lots more about the romance, with angst and thrawtingnesses etc. This is a nice grown up romance, tastefully presented--growing tension, followed by brisk mutual enjoyment snatched from despair, conducted offstage. Though I wouldn't actually have minded a bit more conducted onstage.....
--I really liked the farmers from Iowa. Plain People of Middle America ftw!
--It is also not any longer than it needs to be. Clocking in at a brisk 292 pages, there was no wallowing in pointlessness.
In short,
Norse Code is the best Ragnarok novelization I've ever read, and the best girl with bare shoulders holding a sword on the cover book I've ever (though it was my first, as far as I can remember, on both counts, so that isn't saying much), and, much more meaningfully, a cracking good read.
Note: I do not think you have to be deeply conversant with Norse mythology to appreciate it, but on the other hand, I think you need to have at least heard of Ragnarok and Odin's gang and Valkyries etc.
Additional note: Mist is from Mexico--her family immigrated when she was a child-- which is neither here nor there as far as the story goes, but there it is, so I'm counting this as multicultural fantasy, and anyone who has been wanting to read about a Hispanic Valkyrie need look no further.
Sometimes even picky readers of historical fiction (ie, me) are allowed to just enjoy the ride, especially when the ride in question is to a steampunk 19th-century London that never was.
The Friday Society, by Adrienne Kress (Dial, YA, Dec. 2012), is a playful mystery/thriller in which three teenage girls--an inventor's assistant, a magician's assistant, and a would-be samurai warrior from Japan find their paths (littered with dead bodies) crossing....and they end up working together, in a sisterhood of mad talent, to foil your basic megalomaniac evil genius plot to destroy London.
(Yay! A one sentence summary!)
So sure, it isn't historical fiction at its most un-anachronistic, but a lot of the fun comes from the author's relaxed and playful use of modern turns of phrase. As in the first two sentences, which made me feel all happy to read the book:
"And then there was an explosion.
It was loud. It was bright. It was very explosion-y."
I liked all three girls--Cora, the serious inventor, Nellie, the beautiful girl who's an ace escape artist, and Michiko, formidable swordswoman confronted by barriers of language and culture. They were each strongly individual, with nicely doled out back-story and motivations and opinions. The point of view shifts between the three girls, which was good, in large part because it gave the reader a chance to get to know Michiko, and hear her thoughts. I liked how Cora and Nellie, even though they couldn't exactly have complicated conversations with Michiko, never treated her as an exotic other--she was a person and an equal. The one real reservation I had, regarding Cora being swept off her feet by feelings of physical attraction to a jerk, proved to be a reservation that the author shared, and not something she thought was ok, which was a relief.
I liked the story--it was enough of a steampunk thriller to be interesting, without the thriller-ness using up too many pages with violent chases etc, which I often find tedious. (nb--people who actually like tightly plotted thrillers that exercise their brains might find it untightly plotted, and might put in some critical thinking type comments here, but I am not that reader).
In short, I liked reading the book! It was just the sort of escapist fun that makes for excellent bus ride reading. This came as a very pleasant surprise, because I did not much care for the author's two middle grade fantasy books. I think her writing has improved lots--I felt here that she was in control of her story, which was not quite the feeling I had gotten in the past.
Infinity Ring: Divide and Conquer, by Carrie Ryan (Scholastic, November 2012)
In an alternate reality, history played out very differently. Deliberate interventions were made with the course of events by an evil (in a power-mad, ruthless sort of way) organization that dominates the present of three kids--Dak, Sera, and Riq. But the Hystorians are fighting back, and their hopes rest on these kids, who are able to travel back in time to fix the mistakes with the help of the powerful Infinity Ring. (This is all explained in Book 1-- A Mutiny in Time, and if you really want to understand what's happening, you have to read that first).
But how to fix mistakes when you don't know what really should have happened? In Paris of 885, are the kids supposed to be keeping the Viking raiders from sacking Paris? That's the puzzle that Dak, Sera, and Riq have to solve in this episode of their ongoing saga, all the while somehow managing to stay alive as Beserkers attack. The whole survival thing becomes particularly challenging for history obsessed Dak--he just can't resist going out to get a closer look at a real Viking longship. Unfortunately, he gets a closer look at the Vikings than he bargained for....
So, there's lots of historical mayhem, puzzles to solve, Vikings to outwit, etc., with a dash of the three kids growing up a tad for good measure. Raq is still somewhat unlikable (though he's improving), Dak too impetuous, and Sera, always the most sympathetic of the bunch, is falling in love---with a dude from the 9th century (no future in that).
It's a fun, fast, read--time travel made relatively easy with the help of technology, with an emphasis on excitement rather than deep thoughts. A fine addition to a series that many older elementary/younger middle school kids should enjoy, and dog fans in particular should appreciate this instalment--there's a great Viking dog.
My only complaint is that few concessions are made for the reader who doesn't know her history all that well. In book one, any school kid would know that it was Columbus who was supposed to have discovered America. But who knows all that much about the Viking invasion of France? I now know a lot more than I did, for which I am grateful. But though a little historical background, detailing what actually happened, would have given things away if put at the beginning, would have driven the history lesson home if placed at the end....
added bonus: the adventures of the three kids play out on-line, with the code given in this book opening the way to a new episode....
added bonus 2: the kids are multicultural, as shown on the back cover.
Summer of the Mariposas, by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Tu Books, October 2012, 12 and up), is an utterly enthralling story about five Mexican American sisters who go on road trip to take a dead man home to Mexico, and who are beset by supernatural forces on the way.
When I get a book to review that I already know I want to read, I don't look at the blurb on the back jacket--I don't want preconceptions. I'm saying this because all the while I was reading
Summer of the Mariposas, I was thinking--wow, this is almost a retelling of the Odyssey! How clever I am to have noticed this! (I was also thinking that I would never want to take a road trip with a corpse). And then I look at the back, and read, in big letters: "Odilia and her four sisters rival the mythical Odysseus." I guess that means I was on to something, but I feel a lot less original now....
When their papa left Odilia and her sisters, their mama had to go to work. So the girls are spending their summer neglecting their chores and running wild--which includes going down to a secret spot on the Rio Grande to swim. And there, one day, they find a drowned man, and in his wallet are pictures of his children.... Growing up on the boarder, the girls are well aware of boarder crossings gone wrong, and their hearts are moved by the thought of his family waiting for news in Mexico. So the younger sisters decide that the only thing to do is to avoid the tangles of boarder bureaucracy and drive him home themselves. Having made their delivery, they'll then go further into Mexico, to visit their paternal grandma, who they haven't seen for years.
Odilia, the oldest of the five, is the only one who thinks the whole thing is a bad idea. But she can't let her sisters go alone. And so, with the corpse neatly dressed, a touch of rogue applied, and a spritz of perfume for freshness --"Oh great," [Odilia] retorted, "So now he's not just going to look like a prostitute, he's going to smell like one too?"--they cross the border.
But while they were extracting the drowned man from the river, Odilia was visited by the spirit/ghost/goddess Llorona--doomed for eternity to try, and fail, to keep her own boys from drowning. Llorona has come to help Odilia find her way on this quixotic quest--giving her a magical earring that will bring help in times of trouble. The reader begins to suspect that this is going to be no ordinary, earth-bound, adventure...
Indeed it isn't. The girls' journey takes them from one supernatural trap to another. Though Odilia finds her instincts screaming at her with almost every encounter, her sisters rush on heedlessly into danger (it takes the younger girls a long time before they start learning from their mistakes--which is useful for the plot, but which stretches credulity). There's a witch who wants to keep them as her pets forever, an almost deadly encounter with a ravenous
chupacabras, harpy-like owls who torment the sisters with a litany of their failings, and a deadly warlock. But each time hope seems lost, Odilia calls on the magic of her earring, and help comes.
And then the girls must go home, face the music of the police and the feds (they were all over the news as suspected kidnapping victims) and bring what they learned back with them to their poor hardworking mama...Which leads to my only slight reservation about the book--the whole quest seemed largely to have come about so that the girls could be pushed into growing-up a bit, which seems like a lot of effort for not all that much point on the Supernatural Force's side of things (although Odilia does give something back). But still. Better that, I think, than the girls being Chosen Ones of Too Much Point--this way, the fantastic is still part of our world, part of the very real character arcs of this family of sisters.
It's often easy to describe a book as an amalgamation of other books...This meets That. It's tricky here, because I can't think of a single other YA book that is at all like a story of five very real sisters on a road trip through a Mexican fantasia (The closest I'm getting is
The Indigo Notebook, by Laura Resau, but it's a stretch). The Odyssey meets...something oh so very different from the cannon of European-based quest fantasy, something fresh, and fascinating, and entertaining as all get out.
Here's another review at
Finding Wonderland.Disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.
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I have more time now that school started. Less driving my daughter around in the morning or it's REALLY early--5:15 am to get to 5:45 swim practice.
Thanks for the review. I'll be doing a giveaway of this in October (without a review). I think people will like this.