Remembering Maurice Sendak

Over the last several months, I'd been thinking about famed picturebook author Maurice Sendak.

It bagan with the two-part Grim Colberty Tales on the Colbert Report.  I both admired Sendak for how brutally honest he was and feared ever meeting him and falling under his scrutiny.

So, after hearing of his passing, I bought two books in his honor.

The first was his recently published Bumble-Ardy.

It's the rhyming story of a pig named Buble-ardy who has never had a real birthday party.  So, when he goes to live with his Aunt Adeline and turns nine, he decides to have a costume part.

To be honest, I wasn't crazy about this picturebook.  While the rhymes were fun and the illustrations were delightfully old-school, nothing about the story really struck me.

The other book I bought, while not exactly appropriate for children *cough* a page on stripper poles *cough*, did prove to be an enjoyable tribute:

I Am a Pole (and So Can You!) is the book that Stephen Colbert published after his interviews with Sendak.

From the "Caldecott Eligible" sticker on the cover, Sendak's blurb of "The sad thing is, I like it!," an illustration of him to the illustrations that Sendak and Colbert made together prove to be fitting tributes to Sendak's personality.

Goodbye, Mr. Sendak!

You've set the bar high for all who follow!

Audiobook Review: Rotters

Kraus, D.  (2011).  Rotters.  New York:  Delacorte Press.

448 pages.


Rotters won the 2012 Odyssey Award.  Since I was so in love with past audiobook winners like The True Meaning of Smekday and The True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I made it a priority to listen to this year's winner.

When I first began listening, I was haunted by the feeling that I'd heard Kirby Heyborne's voice previously and that--for some as of yet unknown reason--I didn't like him.  I went to audible and searched through the books he's read for--and my goodness, there were a lot--and I figured it out.  He read one of the characters for a book that I absolutely detested--Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen.

I tried not to let that ruin the experience of Rotters.  But it wound up not mattering, because, I hated Rotters for reasons all its own.


Appetizer:  Sixteen-year-old Joey Crouch's mom has died and he is sent to Bloughton, Iowa to live with his father, a man Joey has never met and whose only known act was to deafen his mother in one ear.

After arriving in Iowa, Joey quickly learns that his father, Ken Harnett, is ostracized from the town and Joey finds himself in a similar position at the high school.  Accustomed to getting straight-A's, Joey is bullied by a teacher and other students.

Less than excited about the turn his life has taken, Joey seeks to discover what it is his father does.  The answer will take Joey into an underworld of grave robbers and into a different and scary new life.


Sooo, I hated this book.  Seriously, hated it.  First off, I thought it took way too long to get to the grave robbing portion.  Next, I found the entire story to be frustrating.  I hated most of the characters.  Hated the dark underworld Joey was entering.

I found myself wishing for zombies.  Or unicorns.  Or to be listening to a different book.

I eventually got my final wish.


Opening Quotation:

"This is the day my mother dies.  I can taste it right off:  salt on my lips, dried air, the AC having never been switched on because she died from heart failure while reclining in front of the television, sweating in her underwear, her last thought that she needed to turn on the air because por Joey must be roasting in his bedroom.  Pulmonary embolism:  it is what killed everyone on her side of the family and now it has killed her, while I slept, and this salt is the bitter taste of her goodbye.
Turns out, her heart is not what got her."  (p. 3).


Tasty Rating:  !

#Challenge: YA Paranormal Romance Review Mad-Lib

Back by popular demand!

Here's another Mad Lib for your enjoyment.  This one is structured roughly as a review of a YA paranormal romance novel.  So, if you pull from one such book your review my eerily make too much sense.

For those of you new to my online Mad Libs, take out a book you're currently reading.  I'm going to make 10 suggestions of where to find names or words from a particular part of speech.  You record your answers and after you have them all, copy and paste the incomplete review at the bottom of the text (no peeking before!) into the comments section and insert your words.  Let me know which book you pulled your comments and names from.  Be sure to also include you email (at) address (dot) com in the post so I can contact you if you win.

To the mad libber with the craziest review, I'll offer a $10 giftcard to the online book retailer of his or her choice.

Let's say the due date to post your response in the comments will be May 15, 2012 at 7 PM Central.

Now, on the the mad libbing!

Find the following in your book of choice:

1.  List the first type of animal, supernatural being or piece of technology mentioned in your book.  Reading a work of historical fiction?  Then use "ye ol' butter churn" as your answer.
2.  An adjective used in one of the quotation blurbs by another author recommending this book on the front or back cover, in the front pages, etc.  If no authors recommended the book, then use the first adjective you encounter as you start reading the story.
3.  A protagonist's name.
4. and 5.  Two adjectives found on page 72 of your book (or on the nearest page with adjectives)
6.  Another character's name.
7.  An item of clothing that the first character described in chapter one or two is described to be wearing.
8.  An active verb used on page 37 (or the nearest page with text) of your book.
9.  The final verb used in the last sentence of chapter four.
10.  How much you paid for your book

Have all of your words?

Great!

Now copy and paste the following into your comment and fill in the appropriate blanks with the names and words you found.


Hot Hairy Lurve in the Cafeteria (a title of Shel's own invention) is about falling in lurve with a

____(1)____ and this lurve is ____(2)____!!!!!!!!

I thought ___(3)____ was a ____(4)____ and ____(5)____ character.

As for the main love-interest, ____(6)____, (s)he made my ____(7)____ ____(8)____.

Overall, I would ____(9)____ Hot Hairy Lurve in the Cafeteria to anyone who has ____(10)____ to give me.

REVIEW: Chopsticks (OHMYGOSH, AWESOME! One story: told in music, illustration, texts, articles and videos. Read it now!)

Anthony, J. & Corral, R.  (2012).  Chopsticks.  New York:  Razorbill.

No page numbers....but, I'd guess it's more than 300 pages.  Since most of the stories is told in images or small bits of text, it's a great read.


Appetizer:  In December of 2009, 17-year-old Glory Fleming, a piano prodigy, disappears.  But, much of the story of Chopsticks focuses on 18 months earlier, when Glory was still performing and an Argentinian boy named Francisco moves in next door to her house on Usher street in the Bronx.

A romance soon begins.

But the question is, can their romance survive as Francisco struggles with racism and bullying at school and Glory with her controlling father/manager who insists on touring.  Can the two teens find a way to be together?


This novel is shared predominantly in images, with much of the plot being pieced together by found objects like newspaper clippings, programs, family albums, text messages, etc.

And it is wonderfully done.  A relatively simple story, I found that a lot of details--like Francisco's anger with his ESL homework (pictured below) to add deeper layers and criticism.

I also loved the different forms of communication.  Throughout the text messages Francisco and Glory exchange are urls to youtube videos that, while a little inconvenient to set down the book and type into my laptop, provide a lot of secondary depth.  I liked the references to Sylvia Plath and Pablo Neruda.  The book also includes playlists of songs that the two exchange, really providing a lot of focus on music.  This story does an amazing job of using a lot of different forms to tell a story.  I approve.  I approve strongly.

Plus, there's an app version of the book.  (But alas, after already spending $20 on the book, I'm too cheap to spend another $7 on the app.  Somebody else buy the app and tell me what you think!)

If a teacher wanted to find a way to include Chopsticks into a classroom, he or she could focus on looking at a section of a text as an anthropologist, studying a person or culture through the objects they have.


Dinner Conversation:

Tasty Rating:  !!!!!

REVIEW: Slice of Cherry (Kill Bill + Dexter + a lot of magical realism)

Reeves, D.  (2011).  Slice of Cherry.  New York:  Simon Pulse.

505 pages.


Appetizer:  Sisters Kit and Fancy are close.  Very close.  In fact, with their mother working so much, they're pretty much all each other has ever since their father was convicted to death row as a serial killer and the family was ostracized from the entire town of Portero due to the fact that their father killed several of the neighbors.

After abducting a young trespasser who wanted to steal something from the house of the Bonesaw Killer and torturing him in the basement, the two sisters slowly begin to form a plan, establishing a gateway to another world where they can get away with murder.  Kit and Fancy begin to advertise their problem solving services to the residents of Portero in the hope of being able to reconnect with the community.  But as their plans unfold and the body count rises, Fancy and Kit's relationship becomes strained.


Set in the same fantastic Texas town as Reeves's other novel, Bleeding Violet, there are a few moments when the characters from that novel make their presence known.  When comparing the two, I'd have to say I preferred Bleeding Violet, as a character, I could sympathize with the character of Hanna a little more.  While still very interesting, and even when taking on a bit of the feel of Kill Bill's Bride character by exacting vengeance against characters who wrong others, I couldn't really connect with Kit or Fancy.

This novel is doing a lot of really complex stuff:  exploring the tension of coming to age, of acknowledging the violence of the world, of the sisters' relationship changing as they encounter these realities, face falling in love with two brothers for the first time as well as seeking trust, control and escapes from reality.  This book makes me wonder what it's like in the author's head.


Dinner Conversation:

"Fancy only allowed three people in the whole world to get close to her:  Daddy, who was on death row; Madda, who was working the graveyard shift; and Kit, who was dead to the world in the bed next to hers.  And so when she awoke to find a prowler hanging over her, violating her personal space, her first instinct was to jab her dream-diary pencil into his eye.
But even in the dark of night with a stranger in her room, Fancy wasn't one to behave rashly. Daddy had been rash, and now he was going to be killed.  No, Fancy would be calm and think of a nonlethal way to teach the prowler why it was important not to disturb a young girl in her bed late at night." (p. 3)

"She had far-sight.  That's what Daddy called it, an ability to see what was happening in the next room or miles away.  All she needed was something reflective to look at and she could see anything:  She could even make up things.  Like the happy place, a world she'd invented after Daddy had gone away, a world she needed.  The real world had stopped being fun a long time ago."  (pp. 14-15)

"'I know how sy you girls are,' she said gently, "but Juneteenth means something, especially in our family.  You girls are direct descendants of Cherry du Haven.  She--"
"We know, we know," said Kit.  The sisters had heard the Cherry du Haven bit of trivia a million times.  "Once upon a time there lived a famous slave who died and then came back as a ghost or whatever to grant wishes for all the good black children in town."  She tapped Fancy on the head with an imaginary wand.  "Bippety, boppety, boo!'" (p. 29)

"'Don't lose your head just because he was flirting with you.  Our dad killed his dad.  The only thing that boy could possibly want from you is revenge.'
Kit's giddiness drained away, and she was silent a long moment before she admitted,"That's what I'd want."
"Exactly!"
"But the rest of the world ain't like us, Fancy."
"You say that like it's a good thing.  At least we're honest about being the bad guys."
"Honest to who?  Nobody knows what we're really like.  Except Franken."
"Yeah, and he's tied up in our cellar, so I guess that's just as well, Kit." (p. 87)


Tasty Rating:  !!!

REVIEW: The Cupid War (Kinda like the TV Show Dead Like Me, but with Cupids instead of Reapers)

Carter, T.  (2011).  The Cupid War.  Woodbury, MN:  Flux


Appetizer:  Immediately after deciding *not* to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, Ricky Fallon slips and falls to his death anyway.

Figures.

Looking down at his broken and dead body, Fallon's soul is approached by an angel.  It would seem Fallon had some unfinished business.  He's to serve as a Cupid, fanning the flames of interest among potential love birds at a local high school, feasting on love (it looks like fudge), dealing with co-workers and battling Suicides or other dead souls with unfinished business who spread depression.

While first walking the halls of his assigned high school as an invisible cupid, Fallon encounters a familiar face from his own life, that of his former "friend," a girl named Susan who had systematically clung to him, separated him from his friends and girlfriend and driven Fallon to consider suicide on the top of that bridge.

As Fallon watches as Susan targets another boy, he begins to suspect that there's something strange about this girl, that she is somehow doing the same work as the Suicides.  The only person who can help Fallon is a girl named Trina, who, somehow, despite the fact that he now exists on a different plane, can still hear Fallon's voice.


I liked the concept of The Cupid War.  It is interesting; the idea of Cupids and Suicides battling for the souls of people to spread love or dispair.  The fact that love is actually a food that the cupids feast upon also has a lot of wonderful potential.

But I wasn't crazy about this book in execution.  The writing felt rough.  A lot of the action scenes were too quick or underdeveloped.  I didn't feel a lot of the tension that the author was trying to create.  I found myself writing "ugh" in the margins of quite a few pages that didn't impress me.  A lot of the plot "twists" were pretty apparent.  The narration also included a lot of telling as opposed to showing.  A lot of tensions were also underdeveloped.  Like Fallon's relationship with his mom.  It felt like an early draft that needed to be expanded and revised extensively.

But that's just my opinion.  What did you think?


Dinner Conversation:

"Ricky Fallon sat on the bridge railing, preparing to jump.  It seemed like the least painful way to die, while ensuring the best chance for success.
He also wanted to cause the least amount of trouble for the city; his father believed a jumper was involved every time there was a delay on the subway.  Fallon didn't want his dad to think he was inconsiderate.  At least, no more than he already did." (p. 1)

"However, as he sat on the edge looking down at the barely visible Don River below, Fallon changed his mind.  It wasn't because of a ray of light from Heaven, or an angel appearing to tell him there was a better way.  Instead, Fallon changed his mind due to a very simple realization.  On Monday morning at school, there would be shock.  By afternoon, however there would be jokes.  He called himself Fallon. The word "fall" was right there in the name.  Sure, it was pronounced differently, but he knew his classmates would make the connection." (p. 5).

"'Every soul has karma,' Bud told him.  "It's the stuff your soul has to work through, the things you do to become a better person.  Some people work off their karma by the time they die, and there's a place for them that you'd think of as Heaven.  Then there's the rest, the people like you, who didn't use their lives the way they should.  If you didn't work it off in your life, you have to work it off now."
"Nobody told me that was the deal!" Fallon said.  "If I'd known that....'" (p. 13)

"...You, pretty boy, are gonna be a Cupid."
..."A Cupid?" Fallon asked.  "You mean...?"
"That's right," Bud replied.  "You're going to make people fall in love."
"Oh," Fallon said.  When it came to afterlife assignments, this wasn't what he'd been expecting." (pp. 14-15).

"Fallon looked at the brick of Love in his hands and thought about all that had been said and written about love throughout the ages.  All the sonnets, poems, and greeting cards, and all the boy-band songs.  Love, he'd heard, was the answer.  God is love, the spiritualists said.  Love made the world go' round, love is the most powerful force in the universe.
Fallon wondered if all those things would have been said if the speakers knew that love was a bunch of big chunks of red fudge." (p. 25)

"'People with severe depressive disorders are the victims of Suicides.  Strong people struggle to hang on, to fight back with drugs and therapy.  Weak ones, however..."
"Jump?" Fallon said quietly.
"Yes," Caleb replied.
Fallon stopped walking.  "Is that what happened to me?" he asked.  "Is that why I wanted to kill myself?'" (p. 42)

"Here, in the afterlife, he had a chance to start over and do something truly great.  He had it in his power to bring happiness to the world.  All he had to do was learn how.
He also had the chance to fight off the forces that had led to his death.  He could literally save lives.  If he stopped only one more Suicide, the world would be the better for it.
What in the world could be better than that?" (p. 66)


Tasty Rating:  !!

#Readathon Mini-Challenge: Mad Lib

The end of the readathon is near, and it's time to check if your brain is still working  can identify different parts of speech with a Mad Lib.

(For those of you who haven't completed a mad lib before, I'm going to ask you to choose words from the text(s) you're reading and sub them into a short script.)

Using whatever book you're currently reading (or several of the ones you've read through the loooong night), assemble the following:

1.  A noun from page one of the text you are reading.
2.  An adjective to describe the cover of your book.
3.  Your name or the name of a character.
4.  A verb found on page 23 of your book (or the nearest page with text on it).
5.  A noun from the title or the "About the Author" section of the book.
6.  A verb ending in -ing from approximately page 76 (or the nearest page with text on it).
7. and 8.  Two adjectives from the opening paragraph of a chapter or article from anywhere in the text.
9.  Another verb found at the bottom of page 100 (or the nearest page with text on it).
10.  The longest time period it has ever taken you to read a book.

Don't look ahead to see the text you'll be using these words in until you're ready to let the hilariousness unfold.

.
.
.

Ready?

Now, copy and paste the text below and sub your selected words into their appropriately numbered blanks.  Leave the completed text in the comments section of this post or leave the url to a post at your own blog.  Be sure to let us know which books or texts you pulled your words from.

And remember, humor is always appreciated.


This ____(1)____ is ____(2)____!  ____(3)____  has never ____(4)____ so much.




The ____(5)____ I'm currently ____(6)____ is ____(7)____ and ____(8)____.




When this is over, I will ____(9)____ for ____(10)____.


The winner will be chosen at random and our good friends at Dewey will provide a prize.

This challenge will run until the end of the readathon and a prize will be awarded through the Dewey Prize Pool.

Happy libbing and reading!

Update:  We have a winner!  Using random.org, the winner is Shayna Gier.  You can see her madlib here.

Congrats!

Thanks to everyone who participated.  You created some hilarious mad libs!

Happy reading!

Happy #Readathon! Updates One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven

Let the fun begin!


I'll admit, I've gotten a bit of a late start to the morning.  But in my defense, I'll be hosting a mini-challenge for hour 23...AKA 5 AM tomorrow.  (So, stop by then...or around then.)

I'm excited for a day of reading.  I could use the fun!

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Southeastern Louisiana

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
 I'm hoping to start Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler.  It's been on the top of my To Be Read Mountain for weeks.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
 COFFEE!!!!!!!

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
I'm an uber-nerd who teaches literature and writing courses.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I think this is my fourth...or fifth-ish? readathon.  This isn't something I'll do differently, necessarily.  This is something I learned from other participants that really helps:  Break-up your reading and read some quick reads (like picturebooks or graphic novels) early on to help you feel a sense of accomplishment and encouragement.


Cups of coffee:  0  :(
Pages read:  0  


Time for caffeine and reading!!!!!!  :)

UPDATE TWO!

Okay, so, it's still been a bit of a slow start to the readathon.  I had to do pesky things that get in the way of reading, like eating and washing my face.

But, I'm not track now.  I finished re-reading Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate, a novel in verse that I assigned to my literature class.

Next, I'll work on tackling Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves and The Cupid War by Timothy Carter.  Both are books I started reading last week while in Boston for the Popular Culture Conference.

Plus, I'll also be hosting a mini-challenge during hour eight and nine.  Be sure to stop by for that!



Cups of coffee: 1
Pages read:  75

UPDATE THREE!

Turns out, running a mini-challenge is a little distracting when it comes to reading.  But in a very good way.  I'm enjoying reading through the participants' found poems.  It'll be *very* difficult to choose just one winner.

I'm also started to hunger for food as well as my books.  I'm currently preparing a pasta for lunch.  I'm listening to the audio book of Cassandra Clare's City of Glass as I do.  Very enjoyable.



Cups of coffee: 1  (still nursing that first cup and regularly reheating it)
Pages read:  120  (still not as many as I would like that this hour) and a lot of wonderful found poems!

UPDATE FOUR!

Well, I've been fed, enjoyed a kitty resting upon my arms while I struggled to type some reviews of the books I've been reading and I have *finally* done a bit more reading.

I went through a graphic novel called Hybrid Bastards.  I'd loved the comic series when it came out five or six years ago (but I couldn't get ahold of all of them).  So, I was super excited when a graphic novel collection of the series came out.  Hybrid Bastards imagines that the goddess Hera and the god Hypnos put a spell on Zeus so that for one night, he fell in love with inanimate objects, birthing the hybrid bastards whose mothers were things like a car, apple tree, homeless man, etc.

Eighteen years later, the bastards start to assemble and form a plan to take revenge upon their absent father.

I love the concept and story...but I found the art to be difficult to follow.

I'm currently thinking of ways that it could be included in a revision of my dissertation.

Back to the reading!  (Although, I have to admit, I predict a nap may be in my future.)

Cups of coffee: 2 
Pages read:  252

UPDATE FIVE!

Mid-event survey:

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired?
I've been a little sleepy, but the coffee is kicking-in.  Mostly, I've started to feel the need to move and have missed the sounds that human make.  What's the word?  Oh, yeah, talking.

2) What have you finished reading?
I finished Home of the Brave, The Cupid War and Hybrid Bastards.

3) What is your favorite read so far?
Well, I've read Home of the Brave before and have enjoyed it each time.  Hybrid Bastards was fun.  And it was exciting to finally know how the story ended.

4) What about your favorite snacks?
Same as at the start:  Coffee.  Though, I may have to break out some ice cream pretty soon.

5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love!
Each blog I've visited has been great!  It's been nice to see an international showing as well as a lot of people who read young adult and children's books.


Cups of coffee: 2 
Pages read:  335

UPDATE SIX

During the last few hours, I got distracted and did some work on some reviews for the blog.  Then I got even more distracted and starting moving some books around.  I think I needed the physical activity.  But, I was still listening to the audiobook of City of Glass.  Reading was done!  Although, I have no idea how to add that to my page count.

Now, I'm going to transition and read in bed with the hope of falling asleep.

Don't worry though, this isn't the last you'll be seeing of me.  I'll be back to host another mini-challenge for hours 23 and 24.

See you then!

Happy reading to all 

and to all a good night!

Cups of coffee: 2.5 
Pages read:  368

UPDATE SEVEN

Aaaaaand, I'm back.

Last hour!  Yay!

As I was waiting for the responses to the mad lib challenge to come in, I filled-out the end of the Readathon meme:

• Which hour was most daunting for you?

Hours 22-23...when I woke up and just wanted to go back to sleep.

• Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?

I'm on team graphic novel for keeping readers awake and motivated.  I read Hybrid Bastards for this readathon, but it might not appeal to everyone.

• Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

More cheerleaders!

• What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?

I liked being able to record which books I had finished on the Dewey website.

• How many books did you read?

I finished three books that I had been reading, but I made progress in five or six.

• What were the names of the books you read?

Home of the Brave, Hybrid Bastards, The Cupid War, Writing the Life Poetic, Chopsticks and Slice of Cherry.

• Which book did you enjoy most?

Hope of the Brave by Katherine Applegate.

• Which did you enjoy least?

The Cupid War.  Ugh.

• If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?

Make more comments.  During the last couple of readathons I've felt neglected.

• How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?

100%.  I love hosting mini-challenges!



Cups of coffee: 2.5 
Pages read:  472

Readathon Mini-Challenge: Find a Poem!

Find a Poem!


Based on whatever reading you're currently enjoying, jot down some favorite phrases and words and create a found poem.  You are welcome to change tenses, add or drop words and mix up the order of the words or phrases.


When ready, type your poem into the comments box of this post (or post a link to an outside site if you prefer to share your poem on your blog or in another medium).


Let us know which book or text your found poem originated from.


This challenge will run for two hours (or until the bells chime, signaling the start of hour nine of the Readathon).


A winner (who will receive a $10 giftcard from an online bookstore retailer of his/her choice) will be selected based on content and how the poem sounds.


Humor is always welcome! 


Happy reading and poem finding!




UPDATE:  This mini-challenge has now closed.  The winner of the $10 gift card is Sam.  You can see her found poem here.


Sam, send me an email at s.j.kessel.writes (at) gmail (dot) com and I'll be sure to arrange the book store of your choice sends you your prize.


Thanks to everyone who participated!  It was a lot of fun reading your poems!!!!!  It was very difficult to choose just one winner (but alas, I lack the funds to allow for you all to win a prize).

REVIEW: Daughter of Smoke & Bone

Taylor, L.  (2011).  Daughter of Smoke & Bone.  New York:  Little, Brown and Company.

418 pages.



Appetizer:  Karou is not like the other girls who live and go to her art school in Prague.  Her ultramarine hair is its natural color since she wished it that way.  She's had some tattoos for as long as she can remember.  She lives alone in her beautiful flat.  And when summoned by a bat-bird creature, she does errands all around the world for the demons who have watched over her for as long as she can remember.

Karou travels from place to place through a network of doors that always open into her guardian, Brimstone's, store where he sells wishes for extracted teeth.  Karou's biggest fear is that, someday, when she knocks, nobody in the magical realm of the demons will answer and she will be stranded in a strange city, penniless.

When Karou begins to notice handprints burned onto some of the entryways that the demons use, she discovers that the angels may be planning a strike against them.  And Karou will be stuck in the middle with one angel in particular fixated on her.

I had heard rave reviews of Daughter of Smoke & Bone as well as Laini Taylor's other book, Lips Touch.  I had been meaning to get around to reading both of them for a while now.  And I'm glad I finally did!

Taylor's writing is beautiful.  I mean it.  This is an author who knows how to use words to affect emotion in her readers.  Arguably, there were sections of Daughter of Smoke and Bone that fascinated me less than the rest, but Taylor's prose were beautiful enough to keep me reading and engaged.

From it's first few pages, Daughter of Smoke and Bone drew me in with Taylor's accessible and beautiful prose style and Karou's emotional turmoil with her ex-boyfriend.  Taylor does an amazing job of describing the setting and setting up a tone that was haunting and dark, but that also had a touch of humor.

Read it.  Or else....


Dinner Conversation:

"Walking to school over the snow-muffled cobbles, Karou had no sinister premonitions about the day.  It seemed like just another Monday, innocent but for its essential Mondayness, not to mention its Januaryness.  It was cold, and it was dark--in the dead of winter the sun didn't rise until eight--but it was also lovely.  The falling snow and the early hour conspired to paint Prague ghostly, like a tintype photograph, all silver and haze."  (p. 1)

"It wasn't like in the storybooks.  No witches lurked at crossroads disguised as crones, waiting to reward travelers who shared their bread.  Genies didn't burst from lamps, and talking fish didn't bargain for their lives.  In all the world, there was only one place humans could get wishes:  Brimstone's shop.  And there was only one currency he accepted.  IT wasn't gold, or riddles, or kindness, or any other fairy-tale nonsense, and no, it wasn't souls, either.  It was weirder than any of that.
It was teeth." (p. 33)

"Sometimes, maybe most of the time, she forgot to see Brimstone.  He was so familiar that when she looked at him she saw not a beast but the creature, who for reasons unknown, had raised her from a baby, and not without tenderness.  But he could still strike her speechless at times, such as when he used that tone of voice.  It slithered like a hiss to the core of her consciousness and opened her eyes to the full, fearsome truth of him.
Brimstone was a monster.
If he and Issa, Twiga, and Yasri were to stray from the shop, that's what humans would call them:  monsters.  Demons, maybe, or devils.  They called themselves chimaera."  (p. 38-39).

"She had been innocent once, a little girl playing with feathers on the floor of a devil's lair.  She wasn't innocent now, but she didn't know what to do about it.  This was her life:  magic and shame and secrets and teeth and a deep, nagging hollow at the center of herself where something was most certainly missing." (p. 45)

"In general, Karou managed to keep her two lives in balance.  On the one hand,she was a seventeen-year-old art student in Prague; on the other, errand girl to an inhuman creature who was the closest thing she had to family.  For the most part, she'd found that there was time enough in a week for both lives.  If not every week, at least most.
This did not turn out to be one of those weeks." (p. 60)


Tasty Rating:  !!!!!

REVIEW: Foiled

Yolen, J.  (2010).  Foiled.  New York:  First Second.

160 pages.


Appetizer:  Aliera Carstairs fences.  No that's an understatement.  She is a champion fencer, someone who has fought at Nationals, beaten fencers older and stronger than her.  She knows how to defend herself and her heart.

Yet, she's invisible at school.  Aliera watches as a new boy, Avery Castle, arrives at school, she watches as he holds the attention of every girl.  When they are paired as lab partners, Aliera must struggle to guard her heart.

Sooooo, lots of people talked-up Foiled, describing it as amazing and wonderful.  It could have been all of they hype, but I was left disappointed within the first few pages.  For a graphic novel, I thought Aliera spent waaaaaaaay too much time talking at the reader.  I wanted more focus on the visual and to get lost in the story.  That never happened with Foil.

On top of that, I strongly disliked Avery as a love interest.  Certainly, he's not supposed to be perfect.  But it was something about this panel that made him completely unredeemable in my mind:

Yep, something about object raping a dead animal for his own amusement makes a man unappealing.

*vague spoiler*, when the fantasy elements emerged, my response was essentially, "What the hell?"  I would have been content with metaphors.  There was very little foreshadowing of the magic and the way that it emerges--when Aliera puts on her fencing mask--an act she's done hundreds of times before in the storydidn't work for me as revealing the magical elements of the world.  *end vague spoiler*

This book just didn't work for me.

What are your thoughts?


Dinner Conversation:

Tasty Rating:  !!

Audiobook Review: Feed (This book is still unit!)

Anderson, M.T.  (2002).  Feed.  Cambridge, MA:  Candlewick Press.

300 pages (5 hours, 1 minute audio book)


Appetizer:  Titus and his friends went to the moon for a good time and while it was kind of fun since he met a girl named Violet, it wound up sucking because some of their feeds were hacked.  But after that, Titus's life isn't quite the same, a fact he has trouble dealing with.

The feed is--essentially--an internet connection in most people's heads, complete with advertising, chats and viruses.  Through Titus's voice, M.T. Anderson reveals a possible future in which skin legions are becoming cool, the English language is diminishing, schools are run by companies and consumerism is a requirement.  Although only written in 2002, some of Anderson's predictions feel as though they are only several years or decades away from becoming realities.

The audiobook was a fun read.  The ads that are sprinkled throughout the novel are brought to life with actual jingles and all of the comments made from the President sound vaguely George W. Bush-like (dating the book a little).

This week my students had the choice between reading Feed and Brave New World.  As I was re-reading Feed though, I thought of an even better book pair:  Feed and A Walk to Remember.  No, seriously.  The different ways that the protagonists deal with the declining health of their girlfriends is fascinating.

When we discussed the book, my students didn't seem to enjoy Feed as much as I thought they would.  But it became apparent from our discussion why they were resisting the text:  It was scary.  Aspects of the scary dystopian future were a little too familiar.

Frankly, that just makes me even more impressed with Anderson's Feed.


Dinner Conversation:

"We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck." (p. 3)

"I guess if I'm honest?  Then I was hoping to meet someone on the moon. Maybe part of it was the loneliness of the craters, but I was feeling like it was maybe time to hook up with someone again, because it had been a couple of months." (p. 5)

"Link and I were chatting about the girl, like I was going, She is meg youch, and he was going, What the hell's she wearing?, and I was going, Wool.  it's wool.  Like from an animal, and then Calista did her own chat to us, which was, If you want to hear about an animal, what about two guys staring with their mouths wide open so they look completely Cro-Magnon?"  (p. 21)

"She was on the moon all alone.  Here it was, spring break, and she was on the moon, where there was all this meg action, and she was there without friends.  She said she just walked through the crowds and watched, and she saw all these great things that way.  She said she was there to observe."  (p. 28)

"She took me up to a huge window.  We stood in front of it.  Outside the window, there had been a garden, like, I guess you could call it a courtyard or terrarium?  But a long time ago the glass ceiling over the terrarium had cracked, and so everything was dead, and there was moon dust all over everything out there.  Everything was gray.
Also, something was leaking air and heat out in the garden, lots of waste air, and the air was rocketing off into space through the hole, so all of the dead vines in the garden were standing straight up, slapping back and forth, pulled toward the crack in the ceiling where we could see the stars.
"Whoa," I said.
"Isn't it beautiful?"
"It's like...," I said.  "It's like a squid in love with the sky."
She was only looking at me, which was nice.  I hadn't felt anything like that for a long time.
She rubbed my head, and she went, "You're the only one of them that uses metaphor."
She was staring at me, and I was staring at her, and I moved toward her, and we kissed.  The vines beat against each other out in the gray, dead garden, they were all writing against the spine of the Milky Way on its edge, and for the first time, I felt her spine, too, each knuckle of it, with my fingers, while the air leaked and the plants whacked each other near the silent stars." (pp. 62-63)


Tasty Rating:  !!!!!

REVIEW: Where Things Come Back

Whaley, J.C.  (2011).  Where Things Come Back.  New York:  Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

228 pages.


Appetizer:  My first thought when first hearing of this book:  "Why isn't it called Where Things Return?  Why?!"  Why use two words when you could use one?

My first thought after hearing that this book won both the 2012 Morris Award for debut authors and the Printz Award for young adult literature:  "I must read this NOW.  Wordy titles work!"

My first thought after learning that the author, John Corey Whaley, is a Louisiana teacher:  "Yay!  I can't wait to show my students."

My first thought after reading the book:  "Meh.  Alas, alack, oh dear.  I wanted to enjoy it more."

Where Things Come Back is the story of seventeen-year-old Cullen Witter, whose cousin recently died and who has a crush on the tragic Ada Taylor (her previous boyfriends have a tendency to die....).  Cullen's brother has gone missing.  There's no evidence or reason for Gabriel's disappearance and the grief is hurting every member of Cullen's family.  On top of that, Cullen is stuck in Lily, Arkansas just like all of his other friends, and knows he will never leave until he knows what has happened to his brother.  As Cullen searches for a way to bring Gabriel back, the town of Lily searches for the elusive Lazarus Woodpecker which has been seen for the first time in sixty years.

Every-other-chapter is devoted to sharing the story of Benton Sage, a missionary who works in Ethiopia and then his roommate after Benton returned to the U.S. to attend college.  These seemingly unrelated stories eventually come together in striking ways.  (Although, these chapters never really won me over.  I found the narration to be too telling.)

Throughout the novel, there are paragraphs which begin "When one..." to describe the way Cullen reacts to things.  At first I found this subject change from the first person to be very off-putting, but I have to admit, it grew on me.  I also liked the way that Cullen invented book title names throughout the narrative.  It reminded me a lot of the novel King Dork and the attention its protagonist paid to creating band names and album covers.

Nonetheless, Where Things Come Back never really captured my imagination or interest.  I never desired to pick it up and read it.  However, when I did bring myself to read the book, it was the type of narrative where it was easy to just keep reading.  (To get through as opposed to enjoy)  I can appreciate and respect what Whaley has written.  He pushes away from the way many YA narratives are told.  But I never really connected with Cullen, his friends or the story.


Dinner Conversation:

"I was seventeen years old when I saw my first dead body.  It wasn't my cousin Olso's.  It was a woman who looked to have been around fifty or at least in her late forties.  She didn't have any visible bullet holes or scratches, cuts, or bruises, so I assumed that she had just died of some disease or something; her body barely hidden by the thin white sheet as it awaited its placement in the lockers.  The second dead body I ever saw was my cousin Oslo's.  I recognized his dirty brown shoes immediately as the woman wearing the bright white coat grasped the metallic handle and yanked hard to slide the body out from the silvery wall."  (p. 1)

"Being seventeen and bored in a small town, I like to pretend sometimes that I'm a pessimist.  This is the way it is and nothing can sway me from that.  Life sucks most of the time.  Everything is bullshit.  High school sucks.  You go to school, work for fifty years, then you die.  Only I can't seem to keep that up for too long before my natural urge to idealize goes into effect.  I can't seem to be a pessimist long enough to overlook the possibility of things being overwhelmingly good."  (p. 5)

"You see, Ada Taylor had a grim history.  As a sophomore in high school, when I was just a freshman, Ada was dating this ass-hat by the name of Conner Bolton.  Conner was a senior and made it his personal mission to make every freshman in the school terrified to be caught walking alone or near the bathrooms, lockers, or trash cans.  But alas, he died before Christmas break in a car accident.  Ada was the only other passenger.  She walked away without a scratch.  Then, the next year, Ada was dating this okay guy who I used to play G.I. Joes with on the floor of my mom's hair salon.  His name was Aaron Lancaster.  He didn't even make it to Thanksgiving before he up and drowned int he White River during a thunderstorm.  His dad found his empty fishing boat.  A search party found his body four days later.  I heard it looked like he had been microwaved.
After that, it almost seemed like a ridiculous thing to date Ada Taylor, or even go near her.  But that didn't matter much to the young men of Lily, even me.  The unspoken philosophy of all those in love with Ada was something like this:  If I have to die to get that, then death it is."  (pp. 6-7)

"When Benton Sage found out that he would be going on a mission for his church that year, he was overwhelmed with excitement and panic.  His stomach felt a sort of queasy rumble as he stood with his sisters and Reverend Hughes, and watched as the entire church circled around them, clasped hands, and began to pray.  Ethiopia, he thought, would be the first place he could truly exert his faith.  It was his fear of travel, of leaving his comfortable life in Atlanta, of floating mysteriously thirty thousand feet in the air, that made eighteen-year-old Benton feel as if he would collapse onto the church's soft, green carpet as he heard the choir begin to chant amens and hallelujahs behind him."  (p. 16)

"'Did you hear about that bird?' Lucas asked me, still staring toward the house.
Lucas was one of the smartest and strangest people I knew, and so I wasn't very surprised by his choice of topic.
"What bird?" I asked.
"There's this woodpecker that's been extinct for, like, sixty hears.  Only, this guy from Oregon or something was down here and he thinks he saw one."
"In Lily?"
"Right outside of town.  I think he was canoeing down the river and saw it fly by or something.
"Weird."  (pp. 29-30)

"It was one of those moments when you're waiting on someone to say something important or funny or just do anything to break you away from the sad thoughts that overwhelm your mind.  Thoughts like never having enough money to move away or not getting into college.  Thoughts like having to come back to take care of a sick parent and getting stuck here all over again.  That's what happened in Lily.  People dreamed.  People left.  And they all came back.  It was like Arkansas's version of a black hole; nothing could escape it." (p. 35)

"It was three hours later and after calling everyone we knew and driving around town twice that we decided to call the police.  It was a Thursday when my brother, the Left Hand of God, disappeared.  It was on this same Thursday that John Barling appeared on national television to talk about the Lazarus woodpecker and how it had come back from the dead." (p. 55)

"Here's the problem with a fifteen-year-old boy going missing:  No one thinks he has been taken.  Especially Gabriel, who looked to be my age.  Everyone in town, though they didn't say it, was thinking the same thing:  Gabriel Witter has finally run away from his family.  That, or he went hiking through the woods and either got lost or got eaten by a bear.  Here's what I knew:  My brother was taken from me.  He did not run away, because he wouldn't.  He couldn't.  He would never.  And he'd never gotten lost in his life."  (pp. 58-59)


Tasty Rating:  !!

The 2011 Cybiles Award: My perspective on Frost

Appetizer:  The last of the Cybils realistic young adult novels that I'll be featuring is Frost.  The novel is the story of

Opening Line:  "Before I lived there, before any of this happened, I imagined Frost House as a sanctuary.  It crouches on the northern edge of Barcroft Academy in a tangle of lilac and evergreen bushes, shadowed by oaks and sugar maples.  Hidden enough that I didn't even know it existed until junior year, when I chased a field hockey ball through the underbrush into its backyard.  I assumed the white-clapboard cottage was a faculty member's house.  Most Barcroft dorms are three-story brick buildings' this was a weathered old Victorian, small and squat, with a wraparound porch and a mansard roof hugging the second floor.  The kind of place a family would life.  The first time I saw it, I could almost hear a whispered call mingling with the soft rattle of leaves:  Come inside, come inside...  (p. 3)


My Thoughts of the Nominee:  Frost a wonderful haunting novel.  Baer does a wonderful job of bringing the house and setting to life and of slowly revealing Leena to be an unreliable narrator.

I did have some trouble engaging with Frost though.  I wasn't too crazy about Leena, Celeste or any of the other characters.

The one aspect I really loved were the descriptions of Frost House.  It really came alive...and became the coolest character in the book.

The 2011 Cybils Awards: My perspective on the nominee Everybody Sees the Ants

Appetizer:  As a freshman, Lucky Linderman took a vow to stop smiling.  Since the age of seven, he has been bullied.  His tormentor, a boy named Nader, has always gotten away with his pranks, bullying and threats.

The one person who seems to help Lucky is his grandfather.  A prisoner of war in Vietnam who visits with Lucky in his dreams.

When Nader's bullying grows worse, Lucky's mom uproots them both for a vacation and Lucky finds himself guided by his uncle and maybe even facing a romance.


Opening Quotation:

"All I did was ask a stupid question.
Six months ago I was assigned the standard second-semester freshman social studies project at Freddy High:  Create a survey, evaluate data, graph data, express conclusion in a two-hundred-word paper.  This was an easy A.  I thought up my question and printed out 120 copies.
The question was:  If you were going to commit suicide, what method would you choose? (p. 3)


My Thoughts:  I really liked that Everybody Sees the Ants took on the issue of bullying.  I also liked that it would lend itself to discussing the Vietnam War.

A.S. King's writing was clear.  She created a great voice for Lucky.

However, the magical realism of Lucky's conversations with his grandfather did not work for me at all.

Nonetheless, check this one out!  I was glad the Cybils Award gave me an excuse to pick it up.