Saturday Review of Books: October 12, 2013

“I love walking into a bookstore. It’s like all my friends are sitting on shelves, waving their pages at me.” ~Tahereh Mafi

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Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

1. Becky (Twelfth Night/Shakespeare)
2. Becky (Caroline the Queen/Plaidy)
3. Becky (The Last Dragonslayer)
4. Becky (Divergent)
5. Becky (Great Tales from English History #2)
6. Becky (Five Picture Books)
7. Becky (Mistress Pat)
8. Becky (Faith of My Fathers)
9. Becky (Among the Gods)
10. Becky (Thoughts To Make Your Heart Sing)
11. Becky (Under A Blackberry Moon)
12. Alex in Leeds (Howards End is on the Landing)
13. Harvee @ Book Dilettante (The Case of the Love Commandos)
14. Reading World (Rose Under Fire)
15. Reading World (Marie Curie and Her Daughters)
16. Reading World (Private Life)
17. 5 books on my future reading list
18. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library)
19. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Magic Half)
20. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Armchair Cybils)
21. Barbara H. (Whom God Hath Joined)
22. Barbara H. (Evidence Not Seen)
23. Barbara H. (John Paton)
24. SuziQoregon @ Whimpulsive (Mortal Bonds)
25. SuziQoregon @ Whimpulsive (Runaways vol. 1: Pride & Joy)
26. Beth@Weavings (Daniel Plainway)
27. Glynn (My Bright Abyss)
28. Glynn (New Light for the Old Dark)
29. Glynn (the Ninety-Third Name for God)
30. the Ink Slinger (Good Omens)
31. Seth@Collateral Bloggage (Deadly Choices)
32. Janet (Pagan Christianity)
33. Girl Detective (The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Ship that Sank Twice)
34. Girl Detective (This Lullabye)
35. Girl Detective (Henry IV part 1)
36. Girl Detective (Henry IV part 2)
37. Girl Detective (Wicked)
38. Becky (Does Prayer Change Things)
39. Sally @ Classic Children’s Books (Corduroy)
40. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Murder by Syllabub)
41. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Return to Me)
42. Brenda (The Ambrose Beacon)
43. Sophie @ Paper Breathers (Jenny Pox)
44. Sophie @ Paper Breathers (The Weight of Souls)
45. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (The English German Girl)
46. Annie Kate (Mathematics: Is God Silent?)
47. Annie Kate (Bride for Keeps)

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Cybils 2013 Young Adult Speculative Fiction

Some possible nominees for the Cybils awards in the Young Adult Speculative Fiction (Fantasy and Science Fiction) category:

A Matter of Days by Amber Kizer, reviewed at Semicolon.

Failstate: Legends by John W. Otte.

Anomaly by Krista McGee. Reviewed by Becky at Operation Actually Read Bible.

Captives by Jill Williamson. Reviewed at Redeemed Reader.

Aquifer by Jonathan Friesen. Reviewed at Redeemed Reader.

Merlin’s Blade by Robert Treskillard. Reviewed at Redeemed Reader.

Merlin’s Shadow by Robert Treskillard.

Cybils 2013 Middle Grade Fiction

This Cybils category is for realistic ficion for ages 8-12, either historical or contemporary. Here are a few suggested titles if you’re looking for something to nominate, or for a reminder about something you’ve read and loved:

Andi Unexpected by Amanda Flower. Reviewed at Melissa’s Mochas, Mysteries and More.

Escape into the Night by Lois Walfrid Johnson.

A Surprise for Lily by Mary Ann Kinsinger and Suzanne Woods Fisher. Reviewed by Becky at Operation Actually Read Bible.

How to Make Friends and Monsters by Ron Bates. Reviewed by Becky at Operation Actually Read Bible.

Down the Rabbit Hole: The Diary of Pringle Rose by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. A Dear America diary. Reviewed at the Fourth Musketeer.

Back Before Dark by Tim Shoemaker. Reviewed at Book Him Danno!

The Girl from Felony Bay by J.E. Thompson. Reviewed at Jen Robinson’s Book Page.

The Hunt for the Well-Hidden Treasure by Bob Sheard and Timothy Taylor.

Itch: the Explosive Adventures of an Element Hunter by Simon Mayo. Reviewed at Redeemed Reader.

Chocolate-Covered Baloney (The Confession of April Grace) by K.D. McCrite.

Nominations for the Cybils close on October 15th. If you have a favorite, listed here or not, be sure you nominate it before the deadline.

Cybils 2013 Middle Grade Speculative Fiction

Here are a few ideas for nominees for the Cybils category, Middle Grade Speculative Fiction (Science Fiction and Fantasy):

The Spies of Gerander by Frances Watts. Book Two in the series, The Song of the Winns. I just read this sequel and liked it even better than I did the first in the series, Song of the Winns. The pace is picking up, and I’m starting to fall for the mice characters. In fact, it’s been a good year for talking mice characters.

Darkbeast Rebellion by Morgan Keyes. Reviewed at Charlotte’s Library.

The Quirks: Welcome to Normal by Erin Soderberg. Reviewed at Charlotte’s Library.

Cake: Love, Chickens and a Taste of Peculiar by Joyce Magnin, reviewed at Semicolon.

A Whole Lot of Lucky by Danette Haworth. Reviewed at Redeemed Reader.

Risked by Margaret Peterson Haddix. One of my favorite middle grade/YA authors.

Listening for Lucca by Suzanne LaFleur. Reviewed at A Garden Carried in the Pocket.

The Incredible Charlotte Sycamore by Kate Maddison. Reviewed at Charlotte’s Library.

There are lots more ideas/reminders in this post at Charlotte’s Library. And here’s yet another list from the lovely Charlotte. Surely, you have a favorite from one of these lists. If so, nominate before October 15th at the Cybils website.

Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool

What a delight! Navigating Early is just the kind of novel that the Newbery award-givers, who have already awarded Ms. Vanderpool’s first book, Moon Over Manifest, a Newbery Award, would love. And I loved it, too. Kids I’m not so sure about, but it might very well find its own audience.

As I was reading the book, I was first reminded of the movie Dead Poet’s Society. Navigating Early takes place in Maine in a boy’s prep school and in the woods nearby. Thirteen year old Jack Baker, having recently experienced the death of his mother, is a new student at the school since his father doesn’t know what else to do with him. There’s a quirky (math) teacher who tells the boys that math is a quest, just like the Arthurian knights’ quest for the Holy Grail.

Then, the focus changes to a boy that our narrator meets, “Early Auden, that strangest of boys.” Early is quite strange:

“He listened to Louis Armstrong on Mondays, Frank Sinatra on Wednesdays, Glenn Miller of Fridays, and Mozart on Sundays. Unless it was raining.
If it’s raining, it’s always Billie Holiday.
I had heard of Billie Holiday, the jazz and blues singer, but I’d never really listened to her sing. Her voice mixed with the music like molasses with warm butter.”

Even stranger, Early Auden is obsessed with the number pi, a number whose “decimal representation never ends and never settles into a permanent repeating pattern.” In Early’s odd and complicated mind, pi’s numerals embody shapes and textures and colors, and ultimately the numbers of pi tell a story, the story of a boy named Pi. The story of the boy Pi intertwines and meshes with the story of Jack Baker and of Early Auden, and somehow it all has to do with a Great Bear, a boat, pirates, an ancient woman, and a lost boy.

The theme of lostness and lost and found-ness is repeated throughout the story. Jack is lost without his mother. Early is lost without his brother who died in France in World War II. His brother, according to Early, is the one who is lost. Jack’s father is lost without his wife. The number pi is, according to a famous mathematician, losing digits.

“I really was adrift. No tether. No anchor. I saw a sudden burst of lightning, and my pulse quickened. There was something intoxicating about being completely alone and unaccounted for. I could travel to California or Kentucky or Kansas, and no one would even know I was gone until the following Sunday, when everyone would return to school. Of course, I didn’t really know how to go to those places. That was the nature of being lost. You had freedom to go anywhere, but you really didn’t know where anywhere was.”

Isn’t that true? We all have more freedom than ever before in history. We can go anywhere, do anything, but quite a few of us don’t know where anywhere is.

The book began to remind me of Don Quixote as I continued to read about these two lost boys and their quest in the woods of Maine. Early Auden is Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, following his quest, and sure of the righteousness of his cause. Jack is Sancho Panza, disbelieving but willing to come along and wanting to believe that Early has some special insight into finding the object of their quest. There’s even a girl (Dulcinea?), whom Early renames Pauline instead of her given name Ethel.

Then, I realized that Early and his alter-ego Pi were reliving the story of Odysseus. The boys encounter pirates, are rescued by a Great White Whale, are captured by an ancient enchantress, listen to a siren-song, journey through the catacombs, and eventually return home, after their long quest is ended.

I’m sure all of these echoes of famous stories, and probably some others that I didn’t pick up on, were intentional, and they made the story richer and more fun for me. I don’t know how many children would see the parallels, but they might enjoy the story for its surface meaning and its curious strangeness. Readers who have read and enjoyed the story of Odyseuss or those who like Gary Schmidt’s richly layered middle grade novels about boys and imagination, or perhaps fans of Alice in Wonderland or Don Quixote or of N.D. Wilson’s Leepike Ridge should definitely give Navigating Early a try. Navigating Early is also somewhat reminiscent of the adult novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer. Lots of echoes, and a credible entry into the Great Conversation. (Yes, I believe the best children’s literature is worth adult reading, too, and adds to the the Great Conversation just as much as or better than most “adult” books do.)

Cybils 2013 Easy Readers and Early Chapter Books

I served on the judging panel for this Cybils category two years ago, and I was introduced to some wonderful books and authors for the 8 and under crowd. Here are a few 2013 nomination suggestions for this category:

Odd Duck by Cecil Castllucci. Friendship, weirdness, and ducks. NOMINATED as a Graphic Novel.

All About Ellie (The Critter Club) by Callie Barkley. What does it take to be a star? What does it take to be a friend?

Bowling Alley Bandit (Adventures of Arnie the Doughnut) by Laurie Keller. Talking pizza, break-dancing bowling pins, and a doughnut, Arnie the Doughnut Dog, who sings karaoke.

Squirrels on Skis by J. Hamilton Ray. Reviewed at Becky’s Book Reviews.

A Pet Named Sneaker by Joan Heilbroner. Reviewed at Becky’s Book Reviews.

Dig, Scoop, Ka-boom! Joan Kolub. Reviewed at Becky’s Book Reviews.

Mr. Putter and Tabby Drop the Ball by Cynthia Rylant. Reviewed at Becky’s Book Reviews.

Ten Things I Love About You by Daniel Kirk. Reviewed at Redeemed Reader.

White Fur Flying by Patricia MacLachlan. Reviewed at Redeemed Reader.

I may add more as I come across them. Go, read, nominate.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

Matthew Quick, author of Silver Linings Playbook, takes young adult readers into the mind a very disturbed, suicidal, homicidal eighteen year old. The author is talented, and the mind game he plays with his readers is expertly delivered. The question is: do you want to go inside the mind of a Dylan Klebold or an Eric Harris? What is the purpose?

The purpose here seems to be to get readers to understand and sympathize with the shooters, and I don’t necessarily disagree with that purpose, although I’m a little weary of the push toward instant understanding and forgiveness from everybody for all terrorists and killers everywhere. Forgiveness takes time, and it’s the job of the victim, not of the onlookers. Anyway, although I can sympathize with Leonard Peacock and abhor the tragedy that brings him to the point of committing murder and suicide, I can’t see that this novel gets us as a society any closer to a solution or resolution for the people who endure the aftermath of such crimes or for the perpetrators.

In contrast, I read Wally Lamb’s novel, The Hour I First Believed, about the Columbine massacre and its aftermath, about a month ago, and it quite impressed me. Although I can’t recommend it unreservedly, because of the (unnecessary) sexual content, I do think the novel had a lot to say about the ripple effect of all of our actions, especially evil, violent actions like those of Klebold and Harris. Lamb’s novel (for adults) is about the victims of the Columbine shooting, about how victims can become agents of evil themselves, and ultimately about redemption.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock, on the other hand, is NOT about redemption. The ending is ambiguous, to say the least, and although the reader is led to sympathize with the title character, the message of the novel is that no one can help Leonard, no one can really stop him from carrying out his murderous intentions. Maybe, just maybe he can stop himself, but if this is true, why doesn’t he stop before he starts? And if he is so ill that his thinking is warped beyond good and evil, then how does a night on the couch of his favorite teacher change him enough to get him to see reason?

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock is a bleak, bleak look at the mind of a disturbed killer, and the brief essay into self-salvation at the end of the story is not convincing. If Leonard were a real person, I would be quite worried that he might still be out there, plotting who-knows-what. As it is, I would not want this book to be reading material for any of the real “Leonard Peacocks” who might be out there; it would, I believe, affirm their disposition to violence and self-aggrandizement, rather than encouraging them to get help or ramp down the craziness. I’m not talking about book-banning; I’m just saying that Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock wouldn’t be on my recommended list for the suicidally or homicidally inclined–as if we know who those people are in the first place.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock is nominated for the Cybil Awards in the category of Young Adult Fiction.

Saturday Review of Books: October 5, 2013

“Read not to contradict and confute nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.” ~Sir Francis Bacon

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Welcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

1. Carol – Year of the Russian Novel
2. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Cybils post)
3. Carol in Oregon (Reading Lucy Maud Montgomery, Part 2)
4. Becky (When Calls The Heart, Janette Oke)
5. Becky (Amazing Grace)
6. Becky (The Strength of His Hand)
7. Becky (Loving Will Shakespeare)
8. Becky (The Wild Queen)
9. Becky (Sylvester, Georgette Heyer)
10. Becky (North of Nowhere)
11. Becky (Great Tales from English History)
12. Becky (6 2013 Early Readers, 1 Early Chapter Book)
13. Becky (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)
14. Guiltless Reading (I Am Venus by Bárbara Mujica)
15. Guiltless Reading (Sticky Icky Booger Bugs by Sherry Frith ( Giveaway!))
16. SuziQoregon @ Whimpulsive (Lord of the Silent)
17. Helene (The Practice of the Presence of God)
18. Hope (Island Magic by Elizabeth Goudge)
19. Colleen@Books in the City (Painted Hands)
20. jama (Grandma’s Chocolate)
21. Thoughts of Joy (Stranger in the Room)
22. Thoughts of Joy (How the Light Gets In)
23. SmallWorld Reads (Autobiography of Us)
24. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Ruth: Mother of Kings)
25. Beckie @ ByTheBook (A Christmas Gift for Rose)
26. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Rain Song)
27. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Shine: How to Walk The Talk)
28. Anna (Curse of the Thirteenth Fey, & Neverwhere)
29. Anna (Weighting the Merits of Mainstream Fiction in a Classical Education)
30. Nicole (author interview with Joseph Bruchac)
31. Sophie @ Paper Breathers (Shiver)
32. Harvee@ Book Dilettante (The Shogun’s Daughter)
33. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (Happy Birthday, Mr. Darcy)

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Outcasts United by Warren St. John

Outcasts United: The Story of a Refugee Soccer Team That Changed a Town, adapted for young people by Warren St. John.

Great story. Luma Mufleh, a Jordanian-born, U.S. educated soccer coach, takes on a group of misfit immigrant boys from half a dozen different, mostly war-torn, countries and makes them into a soccer team—actually three soccer teams the Under Thirteens, the Under Fifteens, and the Under Seventeens. Collectively, they’re known as the Fugees.

It’s a feel-good sports story. I can see it being made into a movie. But I wish I had read the adult version. This YA adaptation felt “holey”, as if there were missing motivations and explanations that would have made the story more understandable. Maybe it was just a true story about real people, and maybe some of the inconsistencies and questions that were raised in my mind were just a result of real life being inconsistent and not as conveniently close-looped as fiction. But since I knew that the author had abridged the adult book of the same title, I kept wondering what was left out.

There’s lots of play-by-play soccer commentary on the Fugees’ critical games. I skimmed over those parts to get to the final score, but soccer fans would enjoy the details.

Here’s a 2007 NY Times article by Mr. St. John that gives the basic outlines of the Fugees and their story. The book mostly focuses on the 2006-2007 soccer season for the Fugees, the tension between the town of Clarkston, Georgia and the influx of refugees, and the coach, Luma and her dedication to the refugee boys she coaches.

From the Fugees Family website:

“The team that Coach Luma established in 2004 has grown to four teams, a tutoring program, an academy, an academic camp, and more. The Fugees Family is the only organization in Georgia that provides programming specifically for refugee boys. By tapping into soccer, the most popular sport in the world, the Fugees Family undertakes its mission to level the playing field and give our kids the same chance at being successful as everyone else’s.”

I would suggest the adult version of the book for adults and young adults who really want to know all of the background on the team and the refugee “problem” in Clarkston. The YA adaptation is for soccer fans who maybe are reluctant readers or want an easier, quick-to-read version of the story.

Gettysburg by Iain Cameron Martin

Gettysburg: The True Account of Two Young Heroes in the Greatest Battle of the Civil War by Iain Cameron Martin.

I wanted to like this book, and it had a lot going for it: lots of good, well-placed photographs, an absorbing subject, apt quotations from numerous primary sources, a good flow to the story, for the most part, thorough attention to details without getting bogged down.

However, take this sentence . . . please:

“Ewell reconsidered his options and ordered Johnson to take Culp’s Hill with his division when they arrived but was only to advance if the hill remained unoccupied by the enemy—a discretionary order.”

Ouch. There were several awkward sentences and grammatical constructions, and I began to wonder if the book actually had an editor–or a proofreader. The publisher, Sky Pony Press, is not one I’ve ever encountered, but I looked at their website and they seem like a decent small publisher/imprint. The design and layout and most of the text are all quite above average. So it was even more jarring to read sentences like the one above or come across paragraphs with mixed verb tenses.

In addition, the book was unsuitably titled since it didn’t really focus on the “two young heroes,” Daniel Skelly and Tillie Pierce. The two eyewitnesses to the battle are quoted, and their stores are told. But the book includes so much more from so many more witnesses. The subtitle is not a good reflection of the scope of the book.

It’s sad because I became fascinated with the battle of Gettysburg in a bittersweet sort of way long ago when I read Killer Angels and then all over again when I saw the movie Gettysburg. Is there anything more tragic, and just sadder, than Pickett’s doomed charge? There can hardly be too many books about Gettysburg, but the subject shouldn’t be marred by infelicitous prose and bad syntax.