1, 2, 3 Sew

My friend, Ellen Baker, has been writing about and creating beautiful crafts and projects for children and adults on her blog The Long Thread for several years.  She recently became a contributor on another blog, Alpha Mom as well.  I’m not such a great crafter myself, but I love checking out what she comes up with as well as her links to other sites.  And I have definitely borrowed some of her ideas for hand made gifts, birthday celebrations, and simple holiday decorations.

Over the last year or two, Ellen has taken that blog thing to the next level and written a book.  It’s called 1, 2, 3 Sew: Build Your Skills With 33 Simple Projects, and it’s beautiful!  I have watched the progress of her book on The Long Thread and am very excited that it’s ready to go.  In fact, I have already purchased my copy and picked up an extra for Grammy (who actually can sew).  Check out the blog and the book trailer.  It’s wonderful.  And then go ahead a get your own copy of 1,2,3 Sew.  It’s pretty inspiring.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, you look like a monkey….

As Grammy recently quoted from someone else, “The days are long, but the years fly by.”   Well, another year has flown by for BGB’s fearless leader.  How better to begin the day’s celebration than with some books?  As much as I like the idea of birthdays and the excitement birthdays hold for most kids and many adults, I don’t have many actual birthday books in my collection.  So, here are the titles of some that I own, some that I’ve only read but do not have, and some that I want to run out a get right now.  Oh, and of course, the most fun books are picture books…

Happy Birthday to You by Dr. Seuss

Happy Birthday to You by Marianne Richmond

Happy Birthday, Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel

A Birthday For Cow by Jan Thomas

Happy Birthday Mad Libs (!!)

The Secret Birthday Message by Eric Carle (about a boy named TIM!)

Happy Birthday Moon by Frank Asch

Birthday Monsters by Sandra Boynton

And to Tim, Happy Birthday, Little Pookie!

My 2010 YA Favs

I do read adult books, I promise.  But I get so much enjoyment from the wonderfully rich young adult genre that I’ve decided to list those favorites.  At first I planned on sticking to the post-apocalyptic/sci-fi/fantasies (my true YA favs), but there was an almost normal one I had to throw in.  Here they are in no particular order:

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly: The almost normal one about a suicidal teen-aged girl who has suffered a family trauma,  finds herself whisked to Paris by her father so she can complete her high school thesis, and gets immersed in the diary of a young woman during the French Revolution.  Both classical and modern music are sited along the way, so be sure to turn up the volume on your favorite Radiohead, Smiths, or Ramones tunes as you read.

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld: The second in a steampunk trilogy that has a fact-based different take on the early part of World War I.  Think Darwin/enhanced/evolutionary creatures vs giant metal clankers (biological vs mechanical technology).  I can’t really explain it.

Ship Breaker by Paola Bacigalupi: Not really a post-apocalyptic tale, but it’s post-oil world might as well be.  Young Nailer has a job gutting washed up obsolete oil tankers for whatever he can get. Nailer finds his ticket off the beach and away from his abusive father when he and a friend rescue a rich swank from a shipwrecked clipper.

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins:  I could not put these books down!  An after-the-battle-the-world-is-a-completely-different-place-with-completely-different-rules tale of another teen-age girl taking her world by storm.

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater: I feel a little guilty loving this second installment of a trilogy about people that change into wolves during the winter, but it is beautifully written and I can’t wait until the next one.  Also infused with music and lyrics, I think you’ll need The Loft on your sirius/xm dial.

Go Get Your Book On!

Who knew there was a national push to take your child to a bookstore?  Well, the bookstores, apparently.  To quote Jenny Milchman, the head of this endeavor,

Bookstores hold a place in the hearts and times of our community. They are places to discover an author, a story, a life. Nothing affords the conversation and interaction among books and book lovers that a bookstore does.

So, this Saturday, grab your favorite kid(s) and hunker down at the spot you love most.

If you’re anywhere near Decatur Square (Georgia, of course), the Little Shop of Stories is the way to go. Plan to be there around 11 to celebrate Chanukah with some songs, dreidels, and a reading of Baxter, The Pig Who Wanted to Be Kosher by BGB favorite Laurel Snyder.  Pick up a holiday favorites guide, sign up for some super fun holiday events, and if you’re feeling groovy, buy a book!

If wonderful little bookstores are not your thing, head over to your local Borders.  This weekend Borders is offering a $15 gift card to the school of your choice through DonorsChoose.org if you purchase anything.

GET YOUR BOOK ON!

Scott Westerfeld!!!

Hey all you Atlanta based YA fans, it’s time!  Put on your corset, grab your  grandpa’s bi-plane flight goggles, his pocket watch, and maybe your ipad and head to the Little Shop of Stories in Decatur this Thursday night at 7 for the steampunk event of the season.  Not on board the steampunk train yet?  Wikipedia says:

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Specifically, steampunk involves an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century and often Victorian era Britain—that incorporates prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy. Works of steampunk often feature anachronistic technology or futuristic innovations as Victorians may have envisioned them; in other words, based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, art, etc. This technology may include such fictional machines as those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne or real technologies like the computer but developed earlier in an alternate history.

For this steampunk occasion, Scott Westerfeld will be reading from and discussing his new book Behemoth, the second in the Leviathan trilogy that re-writes World War 1 as (among other things) a battle between the DNA inspired “Darwinist” creatures of Great Britain and the technological “clanker” powers of Austro-Hungary.  Check out what Cory Doctorow on boingboing has to say.

I read and loved Leviathan when it came out, until I figured out it was part of a trilogy and wasn’t going to end for awhile.  Having gobbled up lots of Scott Westerfeld’s series, I should have known.  I should have also realized that some tales need lots of space to be told properly, and this is one of them.  Luckily, Westerfeld is one of those masterful story tellers that I can’t get enough of.  In fact, if steampunk doesn’t sound like your thing, other Westerfeld favorites include the Uglies series as well as the stand-alone So Yesterday.

I’m just beginning Behemoth and will not be finished in time for the reading, but that’s ok.  I just can’t wait so see what this guy looks like and what he has to say.

Want more steampunk?  Check out this cake.  While there, search for the beautiful photographs of an entire steampunk themed wedding (thanks, Kathleen!).

My plan for the DBF

I always have such big plans of seeing all my favorite authors chat about their books during this festival, and it rarely works out.  Last year I had a list of 5-6 authors to check out on Saturday and ended up staying home with my sick child.  Mr. BGB was able to attend and spent most of his time drinking with his book-writing/loving  pals at Twains or the Brick Store.  This year will be different!  Now I have two kids and a pale ale loving husband to thwart me, but I will not allow it.  Here’s my plan:

Saturday.  Wake up early.  Run.  Wait ’til everyone else wakes up.  Feed them.  Put the littlest one back to sleep.  Miss the Llama, Llama Red Pajama author at 10:00.  Fret.  Feed them again.  Catch Marta to the Square in time to watch the genius that is Todd Moye discuss Freedom Flyers for about 5 minutes before the screaming baby and squirming 6 year old require us to leave.  Race over to hear David Levithan and Terra McVoy tell their wonderful teenage novel tales.  Get kicked out for reasons mentioned above.    Elbow someone out of my way to watch Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie story-tell about how to avoid only telling the single story.  Get kicked out.  Find those authors teaching us the Method Behind The Magic: How to Create a Fantastical World (I LOVE that stuff).  Get kicked out.  Find Tim.  Give Tim the small children.  Explain the need to potty alone, and never return.  Get a good seat in the Ridley Pearson room, ALL BY MYSELF.  Drop an F bomb because I’m also supposed to be in the Diana Gabaldon room listening to her talk about magnificent thrusting Scots in kilts.  Find Tim and pretend I was lost.

Sunday.  Repeat.  This time I will miss The Ladybug Girl parade, although missing something even later in the morning only makes me grumpier.  We might be able to catch The Emily Windsnap author; I do have a 6 year old daughter, after all.  2:30 and it’s potty time again so I can catch Lev Grossman without getting kicked out.  Then Brian Jordan (like that will happen) at 3, Ingrid Law (loved Savvy) at 4, and the Hardest Working Author At The Book Festival/One Woman Powerhouse Laurel Snyder at 4:30.

OK.  That’s my plan.  What’s yours?

Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show

Don’t you love when you’re just minding your own business and a wonderful book falls in your lap?  That’s what happened with Venetia Kelly’s Traveling Show by Frank Delaney.  What a story!  In fact, every character has a tale to tell, and through our narrator Ben,  the author enables each of these big, colorful characters to tell a little something.

Ben MacCarthy is a “man of mature years” telling the story of himself at eighteen when his quiet life on his family’s farm in Ireland was changed dramatically and completely by the remarkable Venetia Kelly.  Ben has a reason for telling this story: it isn’t over, and he’s “telling it now to try to secure it’s ending.”  I had forgotten this statement on page 4 by the book’s tearful end, but it perfectly exemplifies the author’s ability to draw the reader in by dropping little hints, digressions, and short sub-stories about the characters, and especially about the theater, politics, and the spirit of the people of Ireland in the early 1930s.

It takes about 70 distracting but enjoyable pages before Ben has introduced everyone and set the stage for what he calls the Catastrophe and it’s aftermath.  I don’t want to say what the catastrophe is, but it involves Ben’s loving and dependable father doing something completely out of character, Ben’s shattered mother, Venetia’s own dramatic and conniving mother, the violent and boisterous tactics of Venetia’s grandfather, a couple players, acrobats and a ventriloquist’s dummy, two adoptive parents,  the mystical Venetia herself, and of course, our hero, Ben.

VKTS is almost presented like a play, with Ben on an Homeric journey complete with a black-clad guide,  Shakespearean references, lots of foreshadowing and even the mysterious appearance of a shrew.  Delaney’s powerful descriptions and “lyrical prose” are utterly captivating.  Early on the mature Ben asks:

Is there an ideal age at which momentous events should happen to us?

As he grapples with his growing responsibility after the catastrophe he states “it’s so difficult for an only child to be his real age.”  With so much to handle he almost pleads:

My parents treated me as almost an equal.  And I looked mature quite early…inside me, however, at that moment, I was no older than twelve.

Ben decidedly handles the situation with much more aplomb than the typical 18 year old, but he does wreak some of his own havoc along the way.  After the Catastrophe and it’s aftermath, and with the sound advice of those two aforementioned “adoptive parents”, Ben continues his soul searching and becomes first, a spalpeen – a type of Irish migrant farmer, and then a seanchai, roaming the countryside telling and collecting stories.

Then began the rest of my life.  Then began the slow, slow acceptance.  Then began the shaping of a life that took  so long to shape.  It would lead me to places in my soul that I never knew existed.  It would lead me to landscapes barer and colder than that of the moon.  It would lead me to make an interpretation of this calamity, an interpretation that turned into a life…….And it would lead me to embrace the most powerful emotion in the world.  That, you say, would be love, wouldn’t it?  No.  The most powerful emotion in the world is hope.  I should know.

When the story ended and I realized exactly why it had been written, I was left wanting to ask the lead characters a few questions of my own.  Then, I felt satisfied that I had read a really good tale, told by a fabulous seanchai.

3 Random Books and the Beltane

Somehow I managed to read 3 completely different books included in very different genres that had major turning points in relation to the same crazy spring/summer ritual called Beltane.  It revolves around  May Day, or May first, for all you non-Wiccan out there.  I read these books so long ago, that I’ll be brief.

The first book I got a hold of was a gift I would have never come across but fit in well with my love of weirdo fantasy.  The Age of Misrule:World’s End by Mark Chadburn is described as a “Pedal to the floor, high octane fantasy thriller that pitches magic and wonder into a pop culture mash-up of the modern world…One part Lord of the Rings, one part illuminatus!, one part Arthurian romance, one part Harry Potter – 100% original!”  I think that description is pretty accurate, but I can’t say I enjoyed the book as much as whoever made that statement.

World’s End is the first part of a trilogy that follows 5 unlikely heroes throughout England as they are chased by all kinds of crazy creatures bent on their destruction before they can find a handful of age-old mystic objects used to hopefully save, you guessed it, man-kind (as we know it, which isn’t so great if you ask any of the heroes) by Beltane.

Not knowing much about Celtic mythology, I should have at least guessed there would be connections made between all the new-agey energy vortex points of today, the Fiery Network of Earth Magic that travels through ancient lands and crosses various points including the greater Stone Henge area, Loch Ness, and a couple famous Arthurian castles and legendary villages, and the battle between some really inhuman gods that can’t be completely qualified as good or evil but are fighting over the right to wander our lands which they lost oh-so-long-ago.  Or maybe I couldn’t have guessed that.  Anyway, it was a fun vacation book with some mediocre dialogue, a couple of interesting drug trips, some random sex stuff, and a mostly unpredictable ending.

I decided to leave the fantasy arena to head down young adult lane for my next book.   The Splendor Falls, by Rosemary Clement-Moore, seemed like just the thing.  Sylvie, a 17 year old prima ballerina, is injured beyond ever being able to dance again and finds herself lost from her Manhattan based world of travel and sophistication and catapulted to, of all places, Alabama.

Her deceased father is from an old family there and still has a cousin restoring the family manse with the hope of turning it into a bed and breakfast.  I figured there would be a love triangle between Sylvie and a couple good ole country boys, some back-stabbing-by-a-new-best-friend drama, and a large dose of critical soul searching, but guess what!  Somewhere in Alabama exists a line of the aforementioned Fiery Network of Earth Magic!   And there is a circle of teenagers who meet secretly and do secret things!  And the Beltane is approaching! And our ballerina is seeing ghosts, reading the diary of the young girl who died mysteriously long ago, and finding some exceptional powers of her own!  There is a love triangle, but a Handsome Scotsman is involved.  He is a geologist and is studying the rock formations which may be the same as those rocks used to build STONE HENGE!

I couldn’t resist all the above exclamation points, but I really did like this book.  I had no idea where it was going and then was very curious to see how things would be resolved once it got there.  Sylvie progresses from being a “poor me” victim with a sharp tongue to a stronger, more internally confident individual.  Some characters were much better developed than others, and there was a little eye-rolling at how things wrapped themselves up in the end, but I think the link to that Fiery Network made this book a lot more enjoyable than a typical teenage romance novel.

The third book on my magical mystical tour is one I put off as long as I could.  I can hardly believe I’m admitting it, but I finally jumped into the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldan.  Yes, there are now 7 thousand paged books in this unfinished series, and yes, it does qualify as a romance novel – I wish I could find the exact quote that includes a phrase something like “You will make me your master…”  thrust, thrust, but, well, it was kind of fun, in a sugar addiction sort of way.

In self defense, I argue that this book falls in the historical fiction category, as I have learned much about 17th century Scottish clan life as well as a little bit about Scottish/English clashes surrounding the False King (True King – I don’t know, maybe I can’t really tell much about that part).  It also touches on my beloved fantasy genre since the main character, Claire, travels back in time after scurrying around some Stone Henge-esque rocks on top of a grassy hill DURING BELTANE!

I won’t say much more about Outlander, other than that I had to force myself to read other sugar books so I could suppress my urge to run out and buy the next in the series.  Now that time has passed, I can smile at the memory, and I know I’m capable of steering clear of book 2 until life demands nothing more or me than sitting in my jammies for hours on end with absolutely no interruptions.

So, interested in that Fiery Network?  You pick the genre, there it is.  Have at it.

Rosie and Skate

Did you ever wonder what happens to all the people who live in a touristy beach town after the summer season is long over?  It turns out they have lives, just like the rest of us.  Rosie and Skate, a couple of teen-aged sisters living near the boardwalk on the Jersey shore, happen to have things a little more complicated than most.  Throughout Beth Ann Bauman’s first YA novel, Rosie and Skate take turns narrating with distinctly different voices what each of their lives is like during the fall and winter of their father’s imprisonment for his actions while on an alcoholic binge.

High school was a pretty long time ago for me, but I think I can remember it being difficult enough without having to attend weekly Alateen meetings, visit my dad in jail, wonder what my mother was like before she died, deal with a distant cousin as my guardian in a dilapidated Victorian house, and re-earn the big cash my dad stole from my sock drawer in order to replenish his whiskey stash.  Throw that in with the typical high school shenanigans like first kisses, minimum wage earning  jobs, college boyfriends, parties, beer, and a little homework,  and the reader wonders how Rosie and Skate manage to survive their high school years with the humor, intelligence, and eventual confidence and independence that you’d hope your daughters would have if you ever ran amuck as a parent.

I would say this is a great book for young teenagers to check out if it weren’t for the sex and drinking (I have a daughter and I’m a HUGE prude in that regard).  It’s probably a better book for moms to read; maybe we’ll feel a bit better about things if we believe after years of brainwashing and strong foundation- building that our children will be ok and “figure things out”, despite the sex and drinking.  I enjoyed reading Rosie and Skate,  I genuinely liked the characters, and I empathized and cheered for them as I watched them deal with some atypical teenage issues and still grow into pretty likable individuals. If you have a teen that picks up this book, please send a comment.   I am, as always, curious to know what those crazy kids out there think about books like this.

Notes From The Dog

A couple of times this summer I took a break from my usual teenage weirdo fantasy books and tried out some regular teenage/younger adult books.  The sweetest one (and the one that made me cry the most) was Gary Paulsen’s new book, Notes From The Dog.

The only other Paulsen book I’ve read is Hatchet, an amazing adventure tale about a boy who survives a plane crash and is stuck alone in the Canadian woods with nothing but a hatchet.  So I was surprised to see that a) this guy has written about a million books, and b) Notes is not an adventure book at all.  It’s more of a coming-of-age/believe-in-yourself/take-a-chance-on-friends/open-your-heart-to-new-things sort of book that you can read in an afternoon.

Paulsen’s writing is so easy that I think every one of his stories would be a joy to read.  This one hooked me completely on the second page when Finn, the 14 year old hibernating hero of the book, describes the differences between his friends.  Not by who they are in general, but by who they are to him.   He has a best friend, an oldest friend, and a funnest friend, but he has only one true friend.

It’s because he’s the only person I know who doesn’t make me feel like he’s drifted off in his head when I’m talking.  Anyone who listens to everything you have to say, even the bad stuff and the boring things that don’t interest them, is a true friend.  He’s always been the only person who’s easy for me to talk to.

Finn has big plans to spend his summer avoiding people by hiding in his house reading books.  He actually has a quota of how many people he will speak to over the next two months.  Finn can’t seem to figure real people out anyway, as they just make him uncomfortable.  His theory is that “it’s a good idea to avoid discussing anything in social situations.  A better idea is to avoid social situations in general.”

All goes according to plan until he meets Johanna, a mid-twenties college student going through chemotherapy, who moves in next door.  Before the summer ends, Johanna weaves Finn, his dog, his friend Matthew, his grandpa, and his all-but-absent father into her family and social web to such a degree that Finn can no longer imagine how he lived a life without her.  Or why he would have ever had an “under a dozen people communications quota” to begin with.

I’ve just re-read the end of this book and I’m as teary eyed as when I read it the first time.  It’s pretty obvious that Finn no longer has Johanna as part of his life, but there are plenty of life changing things that were left with him.  Not the least are 5 of the best written personal little notes that were mysteriously delivered to Finn over the summer by his dog.

Lucky Girl

I’m not a huge fan of memoirs, especially after reading some of those agonizing tell-alls that make the reader feel guilty just for complaining about traffic, but I have come across a couple great ones lately.  Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield and Shut Up, I’m Talking by Gregory Levey come to mind as wonderful examples.  I’ve just finished another one, Lucky Girl by Mei-Ling Hopgood, that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Mei-Ling grew up in the mid-west as the adopted daughter of the Hopgoods, a couple of loving teachers who also adopted two younger sons from Korea.  She knows that she came from Taiwan via a nun at St. Marys Hospital because her birth parents couldn’t care for her, but she’s never been curious to find out more.  When one small inquiry goes amuck, Mei-Ling finds herself being called, emailed, faxed, and begged to return to Taiwan to meet her family.  Eventually she finds herself excited about meeting this giant family and agrees to the trip.  After getting off the plane in Taiwan, she meets both birth parents, her 5 older sisters, one older (actually adopted) brother, and several aunts, uncles, and extended family members.

Having always considered herself a lucky girl, lucky to have been adopted by parents who gave her everything she could ever want, lucky to leave a country where, traditionally, girls were not valued, and lucky to have been given away by poor parents who could not care for her, Mei-Ling soon finds that much of what she had assumed about her Taiwanese family was incorrect.  She and her parents and sisters embrace each other and try to spend time getting to know each other, but secrets begin to leak.

Over the span of a decade, through various trips to several continents, Mei-Ling investigates her Chinese history and culture.  She admits to some and confronts other Chinese stereotypes, eats tons of food, gets completely frustrated at the inability to communicate well with her birth parents, discovers and reunites with another adopted sister in Switzerland, and eventually comes to realize that her birth parents’ reasoning for giving her and her sister away had absolutely nothing to do with sacrificing a child so she may have a better life and everything to do with a father not wanting to waste any more effort on girls when he may one day have to provide for a perfect, healthy son.

The Wangs eventually overcome their poverty and enter the middle class managing to educate their daughters and send most of them to college.  The parents are genuinely overjoyed to find their lost daughters, to the point of making generous contributions for plane fares and gold wedding jewelry.  But these actions cannot cover up what haunts their past and what disturbs their present.  As Mei-Ling comes to the end of her story she is freelance writing in Argentina with a husband and child of her own.  She is happy to have found her sisters and loves them.   She tries to understand the decisions her parents made in the times and culture in which they were made.  She tries not to judge.  She even tries to forgive.

As quoted by Kathleen Flinn on the cover of the book , Lucky Girl is “A compelling, honest, and very human tale about self-identity and the complex concept of family.”  I agree.  This is a well told story you should pick up if you enjoy memoirs that explore a wide range of emotions without being emotionally manipulative.

The Reformed Vampire Support Group

After watching me struggle through half a dozen normal adult novels, only to see me complete 2 (maybe 3), Tim finally got me the perfect book.  And yes, it’s another irresistible teenage vampire story.   I was so excited I actually raced through a book, whose title I can’t even remember,  about a 75 year old woman who tragically loses the love of her life and has to deal with the memories of their life together and her future without him.  AAGH!

The Reformed Vampire Support Group is the first Catherine Jenks book that I’ve gotten my hands on, but she’s pretty well known in the youngster crowd for her previous titles Evil Genius and Genius Squad.   I kind of wish I started with the other books so I wouldn’t appear obsessed with vampires, but, well, this is the one that showed up…

After renaming herself and all members of The Reformed Vampire Support Group in order to protect their identities, 15 year old Nina, who hasn’t aged since 1973, decides to write her memoir.   For the past 30 years she’s been writing a fantasy series about the glamorous life of a crime stopping vampire named Zadia Bloodstone.  She admits she’s no Stephanie Meyer and that her books don’t make much money, but after the murder of a real vampire and the subsequent events, Nina figures it’s time to come clean.

In real life, vampires are pretty pathetic, especially the reformed ones.  They live off of guinea pigs, are extremely weak, are sick and in pain all the time, and can do nothing but watch tv and play on their computers.  Other than Nina’s mom and the sympathetic Catholic priest who leads their weekly support group, there is no contact with “other” humans.  So when a few of them try to track down this vampire slayer, they are all surprised to find the amount of  courage, the sense of duty and moral obligation, the willingness to get involved, and the actual energy and excitement to do something that they possess after all.  What follows is a late night mad cap adventure from Sydney to the country and back again that traces Nina’s journey from an angry, useless, sick, self loathing adolescent (hmmm) to a confident, self actualized adult, who just happens to have a disease.  And she can live with that.

If you’re looking for a fun, well written, sort of unpredictable break from all the grown up books you think you’re supposed to read, pick this one up.  I don’t think you’ll regret it.

It’s Coraline, Not Caroline

How could I enjoy The Graveyard by Neil Gaiman as much as I did and not pick up a copy of his Coraline?  In case you haven’t seen the movie previews (or the movie at this point), Coraline is a nightmarish fairy tale about a curious young girl living in an old house somewhere in the English countryside. 

After getting to know the neighbors, interrupting her busy parents, and spending a couple weeks exploring the house and grounds, Coraline unlocks the door to the next flat and follows the passageway to another house exactly like her own…almost.  She finds all the same furniture, some toys and books that move like they’re alive, and her other mother and father who claim to love her very much.   With the bravery and confidence we can only hope our own children possess but would never have to test, Coraline spends the rest of the story trying to find her real parents and get back to her real home.

Gaiman claims in an author’s note at the back of the book that he began writing this story for his 5 year old daughter and finished it when she was 15 and his younger daughter turned 6.  He wanted something refreshingly creepy with a girl as a heroine.  I think he got it.

He says, “It was a story, I learned when people began to read it, that children experienced as an adventure, but which gives adults nightmares.  It’s the strangest book I’ve written, it took the longest time to write, and it’s the book I’m proudest of.”

It is a pretty scary story.  Though I never doubted Coraline would triumph in the end, Gaiman never let me relax along the way.  He played on every single childhood fear imagined by every single child.  Even from the start there were the simple fears – neighbors mispronouncing her name (Caroline) and ignoring her quiet corrections.  Besides being terrible cooks, Coraline’s parents have no time to talk or play with her, always having too much work to do.  It would rain for days at a time. 

Then the escalation: a locked door in the fancy room that Coraline’s mother unlocks to a brick wall one moment, but creaks open on it’s own in the middle of the night.  There are the dark shadows of scurrying rodents, the heavy mist surrounding the house, and the prediction of “terrible danger” by the old ladies next door.  When Coraline finally opens the door to find the bricks replaced by a long, dark passage  and follows it to reveal her “other” house and her “other” mother and father, the reader is fairly panicked.

Coraline, however, is an explorer and merely finds this interesting.  In this other house, the food is delicious, everyone has time to talk and play, the animals can speak, and the neighbors remember her name.  As perfect as all of this sounds (with one weird exception I won’t mention), Coraline knows this isn’t her home, says goodbye to her other parents, and returns through the passageway to find her real parents gone.  Gone.

The only thing she can do is head back to the other house and find them.   Along the way, Coraline defines what it means to be brave, “..doing something when (you’re) really scared” , reassures herself: ” I will be brave, thought Coraline. No, I am brave.”,  and stands up to the other parents: “You don’t frighten me,” said Coraline, although they did frighten her very much.”  Her greatest strength shows when she says to her “other mother,” no matter what spectacular promises were made:  ”I have no plans to love you.  No matter what.  You can’t make me love you.”

Later, Coraline confronts another childhood fear.  One of the neighbors reminds her:

Nothing’s changed.  You’ll go home.  You’ll be bored.  You’ll be ignored.  No one will listen to you, really listen to you.  You’re too clever for them to understand.  They don’t even get your name right.

The neighbor begs her to stay and describes a world with everything a child could ever dream of.  Coraline states what most parents hope their kids understand but know they will never admit:

I don’t want whatever I want.  Nobody does.  Not really.  What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted?  Just like that, and it didn’t mean anything.  What thena

By the end of this story, Coraline has faced her darkest fears and falls asleep with the windows open and a song in her dream.  I still think it’s a bad idea to let your typical second or third grader read this story alone, but maybe the way the story unfolds warrants a reading together.  Maybe all of these fears out in the open and up for discussion could end up being more reassuring to children than upsetting.

Let me know what you think.

Inkheart

I’ve taken a break from my YA books and even some adult books (really!) to investigate Cornelia Funke’s  Inkheart  trilogy – a member of the 9-12 year old juvie category.   Inkheart, the first book in the series, is now a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, and has been on my list for awhile.  I figured I’d knock it out now so I can complain about how “they” wrecked the movie when I eventually see it as an Amazon Download.  The third grade class I loaned my copy to returned it after a couple chapters once they discovered a whole new book has been written based on the movie, so I can’t imagine the movie knocking my socks off.  

Inkheart is a story about booklovers, young and old.  Meggie, the 12 year old protagonist, can’t keep her hands off of books or her head out of them; her aunt has built a fortress out of rare and valuable books, preferring them to people; and her father, a bookbinder, can’t read a story aloud without the book’s characters coming to life, literally.   Some of the characters in Inkheart spend the entire story trying to return to their own lives within the book they’ve been “read out of”, and all the villains spend their time tormenting the rest of them having no interest in returning to their own stories within the same book. 

Each chapter begins with a quote from other books or fairy tales, including The Wind in the Willows, Fahrenheit 451, The Princess Bride, and Arabian Nights, and references are made to other great stories along the way.  Even Tinker Bell makes an appearance, and the characters who’ve been “read out” can’t decide if she’s from their world or this one.

Funke’s rich imagination has created some memorable characters, even if the naivety of both the good guys and the bad guys becomes somewhat annoying. As I read, I often wondered if even my third graders would have hollered out about some of the dumber plans these characters hatched. Regardless, the book was still pretty fun.  The title page acknowledges it’s translation from the German, which was news to me, so I wondered if the book would be impaired in any way.  Even now, it’s hard for me to decide if the translation was an issue, or if that’s just the way books are written for the younger crowd.  Either way, it was enjoyable, and after a couple adult reads, I will check out the rest of the trilogy.

The Graveyard Book

That Neil Gaiman sure can tell a tale, especially for the YA crowd.  Long ago I read and enjoyed his Anansi Boys, which is geared toward adults, but this was way more fun.

The Graveyard Book begins with the brutal murder of a toddler’s entire family by a member of the secret Convocation, the toddler’s oblivious escape out the front door and up the hill into the neighborhood graveyard, and the boy’s subsequent adoption by a couple of three hundred year old ghosts, the guardianship by a mysterious un-living/un-dead guy able to come and go from the graveyard (a kid’s gotta eat), and the eventual acceptance / protection of the “Freedom Of The Graveyard” granted by the graveyard’s most colorful inhabitants.

Growing up with the Freedom Of The Graveyard enables Nobody, Bod for short, to hang out with the dead and, throughout his youth,  learn all the best dead tricks: Fading, Sliding, Dreamwalking, and soon enough, Haunting, Chilling, and Fear.  We watch him befriend, lose, and re-friend (should be a word) a living girl who thinks he’s imaginary.  He mistakenly journeys through the ghoul-gate with a couple of crazy ghouls (including Victor Hugo, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the 33rd president of the United States),  develops a crush on a witch buried on the other side of the tracks, and finds an extremely well hidden and truly haunted tomb.  For a short time, Bod tries his hand at school with, you know, living children, and  eventually, (I hope this isn’t a spoiler) he finds his true name.

The Graveyard Book has so many fun little adventures, sparks of subtle humor, times of gripping suspense, glimpses into true darkness, and acts of courage and intelligence that I raced through it way too quickly.  Throughout the tale we know the killer is out there seeking to end Bod’s life before he does what he is destined to do, but we never actually discover what that destiny is.   Bod turned out to be a really great kid, ready to take on the world, so I’m really hoping that he will.  And that we’ll hear more about those worldly adventures in a “part 2″ sometime soon.

Eon

I think I’ve mentioned my love of young adult fantasy books a couple of times, so I’ve decided to post on one…you know, all New Years resolution-style, and all.

Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman is the latest teenager-with-a-dragon story that has come my way, and I loved it.  What could be better than a fictional ancient Asian culture based on spiritual, astrological dragons that commune with chosen humans who have trained from the age of 12 to become the Dragoneyes that will control the forces of nature and aid the emperor and his court in maintaining peace throughout the empire?

Well, our heroine, Eon, is really Eona, a crippled 16 year old girl pretending to be a boy, the Imperial court is guarded by eunuchs (that just cracks me up), people are being poisoned left and right,  a missing spirit dragon shows up after 500 years, there’s an evil plot to take over the empire, and everyone sword fights.  Gotta love a good sword fight.

Goodman throws in themes of accepting differences, the blind acceptance of what may or may not be true or right, and some plain old good vs evil.  I do wonder if this sort of book actually appeals to the young crowd for which it’s written, but I had fun with it.  Eon(a) is a smart, strong, scrappy girl who is occassionally misled, but eventually finds her way – which I’ll hopefully follow into part 2 soon.

Added Bonus: We have a copy to give away.  If you’re interested in checking out a great YA fantasy novel with extra girl power, leave a comment. We’ll pick a random winner at the end of the week and hook you up.

YA and Other Favorites of 2008

Well, I tried to keep up with my books this year, but I think some got lost in the shuffle. It appears that around 2/3 of my reading  list were in the young adult/teen genre, so I’m going list my top five of those. The problem with that, though, is that four of my top five titles are actually members of a series or a complete series.  So, here they are:

• Twilight series (Books 1-4) by Stephanie Meyers
• Brisingr (book 3 in the Eragon series) by Christopher Paolini
• Uglies, Pretties, and Specials (books 1-3 of 4) by Scott Westerfeld
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
• Peter and the Starcatchers series by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

I just can’t get enough of teenage vampire romance, talking dragons, futuristic perfection, techno teens, and, well, pixie dust. There are a bunch of fantastic books getting kind of stuck in and eventually overlooked in the young adult category (by adults, anyway) that I would love to read.  I read some grown up books, too. Here are my top 3:

• The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt
• The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
• Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield

Tim, do you think I’ll be able to make it back to the harsh reality of Consumption after my latest scrappy-girl-meets-dragon book? Does anyone have a spare copy of People of the Book?

Other BGB Year-end Lists:

• Tim’s Favorites of 2008
• Tim’s Favorite Children’s Illustrated Books ‘08-ish
• Shaft’s Best of 2008
• Nicole’s 2008 Best Reads

BGB’s Brush with Fame

Today my parents returned from a 3 week cruise that took them to all sorts of spectacular places. When my dad mentioned how amazing it was that about this time yesterday they were touring the Vatican, I could only respond that about this time yesterday I was talking with Barbara Walters. Really. Here’s how it happened:

Barbara at the press conference

Last Friday Wordsmiths‘ Russ contacts BGB’s Tim and informs him that we (BGB) have been invited to participate in a “closed door press conference” with Barbara Walters before her appearance at Agnes Scott College to read from her much publicized memoir, Audition, the following Monday. Obviously, Tim would attend this cozy little gathering, ask tons of original and insightful questions, and blog about his up close and personal conversation with BW with the wit, zest, and zeal we’ve come to expect from his posts.

Except that our fearless leader had to jet off to our Nation’s capitol to accept a very prestigious science award, leaving me the job of representing BGB and the entire blogging world as one of 5 or 6 people sitting in the front row below a raised platform on which BW answered whatever questions we felt like asking. Like, “Beach Boys or Beatles?”, “What was the last nightclub you visited?”, and the perfect opener, “Is this your first visit to Atlanta?”

Let me explain. This is not my thing. When face to face with fame and fortune, I prefer to hide over there and keep my mouth shut. I knew BW had written a memoir, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t on my to read list when this came up. I do not watch much television, so I’ve missed all the action on The View (not to mention the Oprah appearance), and I pretty much grew up turning the channel or leaving the room during the 60-minute celebrity interviews that typically brought everyone to tears.

But I wasn’t going to miss this.

It turns out that yes, Barbara has been to Atlanta on a long ago tour of CNN with Ted Turner, who asked her about “that cute little girl, Jane Fonda.” She thinks Atlanta is beautiful and can’t wait to get a pork sandwich for the plane ride home. Mara from 92.9 wriggled out of her that she chooses the Beatles over the Beach Boys, that Elton John is a good friend (“oh, is he in town right now?”), and that if she had a nightclub she would name it Oui, Oui.

The AJC guy had Barbara explain that she had planned on writing this memoir more about her family, but her publishers insisted she include “politics, murder, and intrigue”. No one present asked about any of that extra marital intrigue, but we did find out she developed empathy for celebrities by watching her father handle all the action in his Vegas night club.

I can’t remember the question that was asked, but BW then shared how she felt she was a “dismal failure” as a co-anchor when she went on to do those interview specials (which were written in her contract) that she became even more famous for. The ratings indicated that no one wanted to hear about her interview with the Shah of Iran (name-dropper), but everyone wanted to see those celebs.

When asked about the book writing process, B explained she had old interviews to watch and lots of help putting things into historical perspective. She was dismissive to the idea that she paved the way for women saying, “It’s not like I was waving a flag”, and she very eloquently answered my question (yes! I spoke!) about the advice she would give to working mothers raising daughters. Without missing a beat she said it comes down to having Balance, for men and women. She admits to the sacrifices and struggles, successes and failures, and wants all to know there should be Balance.

Soon after my question the publicist ended the interview, a few photos were allowed, and Barbara went on her way. I immediately gushed to Wordsmiths’ Alice that I actually spoke up, called to debrief Tim, and completed my end of the balancing act by picking up my hive-ridden child from the nice friends who were watching her and rushing off to the nearest urgent care center.

More BGB Favorites of 2007

So many books, such a short attention span… Here are the books I couldn’t put down this year, despite my inability to sit in one place for long. Gotta love that young adult fiction category.

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
• The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Honorable mention to:

• What is the What by Dave Eggers
• The World to Come by Dara Horn
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Chabon’s Who Dunnit

There has been lots of BGB fuss about Michael Chabon’s new book, including an Atlanta reading recap and a stalker-ish You Tube production. After a pretty slow start (I read 2 other books before getting past page 80), The Yiddish Policemen’s Union turned out to be a page turner that had me cram-reading the last 75 pages in the bathroom of our Gulfport, Mississippi hotel room at 2 am.

In case you haven’t heard, the YPU takes place in Sitka, Alaska, the home of millions of Jews after WWII because, to simplify things, there was no where else for them to go. Sixty years have passed and the “yids” (quoting the book here) are facing being kicked out of their homes, businesses, world, once again. In the middle of all this, there is the murder of a chess playing junkie and the ensuing unauthorized police investigation by a depressed, alcoholic Jewish detective and his half-Tlingit (Alaskan Indian), half-Jewish cousin/partner.

I’ve read most, not all, of Chabon’s books and have never had this hard of a time diving in. Anyone who has read the opening pages of Kavalier and Clay, and been immediately captivated, knows what I mean. Without completely dissing college basketball (which I’ll admit I know nothing about), I felt like the first hundred pages were a big, televised championship game (that I was recently fortunate enough to attend). Anytime a player did something purposeful, say, got to the end of the court, passed to someone else, and maybe even got a shot in, there would be a time out, a foul, or a commercial lasting long enough to completely distract me. Similarly, Chabon spends so much time describing in minute detail the Sitka backdrop, the personality traits of each character, and the histories of the different Jewish factions between each line of character dialog that I would forget who said what in the first place. It was very difficult for a twitchy reader like myself to stay focused for long.

That said, what a cool story! Chabon said in his Atlanta reading that he developed this story line after finding a 1950s Yiddish language phrase book and imagining a place where one would need these phrases to find a bathroom or a train. The result was a beautifully interwoven book which includes a completely detailed fictional city (Sitka exists, but not as described in the YPU), the ever present theme of faithful and faithless Jews being persecuted and homeless while awaiting the arrival of the Messiah, and the back story of the lives of the extended family members and acquaintances of each of our detectives – all combined with a classic who-dunnit and why. I think I might have figured out part of the who done it before I was supposed to, but I couldn’t wait ’til the end to find out the why…and eventually the what.