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Aug 01, 1999
Aug 18, 1999
it was ok
It's just as scary for a Little Critter's mother to get lost in a noisy, bustling mall as it is for a Little Critter to do so, as we see in this ente It's just as scary for a Little Critter's mother to get lost in a noisy, bustling mall as it is for a Little Critter to do so, as we see in this entertaining and comforting collaboration by the esteemed writing team of Gina and Mercer Mayer. Strolling among hundreds of friendly strangers doesn't feel so frightening when you have a parent to guide you, but being stranded by yourself in that crowd can feel awfully lonesome. Just Lost! sees Little Critter through to the light at the other end of his harrowing ordeal, where he and his family happily emerge together. It also shows young readers the right things to do if they, themselves, ever end up lost.
Little Critter's mother has plenty to distract her when she, Little Critter, and his younger sister and brother visit the shopping mall. Little Critter intends on adhering to his mother's instructions to stay by her side, but a brief stop to tie his shoelaces by himself is enough to separate them, and now Little Critter has no idea what to do. Rather than be so overwhelmed by fear that he just sits and cries, he makes tracks to the sales clerk at a nearby toy shop. The friendly clerk knows what to do, getting hold of security so a guard can lead Little Critter to his office. A short time later our lost Little Critter is reunited with his worried family, after a mostly painless experience in which everyone involved did exactly what they were supposed to. Little Critter was even allowed to play with the merchandise at the toy shop as he waited for the security guard, and later on the guard let him wear his uniform hat and explore the items in the lost and found. Getting lost wasn't so bad, but I think Little Critter will be more careful in the future to stick with his parents when he's in a busy place. After all, "Mom just hates getting lost at the mall."
Mercer Mayer's Little Critter series is the real deal when you're talking legendary American picture books. The man never runs out of ideas, and all of them are done warmly and imaginatively. Just Lost! is vintage Mercer Mayer, and I recommend it. ...more
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not set
May 24, 2015
May 23, 2015
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012
it was ok
"There is no greater power on this earth than story."
—Will Fitzgerald, The Diviners, P. 407
A work the magnitude of The Diviners is no simple undert "There is no greater power on this earth than story."
—Will Fitzgerald, The Diviners, P. 407
A work the magnitude of The Diviners is no simple undertaking to complete. Five hundred seventy-eight pages of narrative is hard enough to write, but how much more difficult is the task when the story's setting is 1920s America, an era of extreme rabble-rousing and highly distinctive culture at every turn? The style and atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties is not easy to replicate for an author who didn't live through it. Bringing the taste, the smell, the vivid sensations of the decade back to life requires research performed on a monumental scale, with great pains taken to confirm and frame the tiniest details. To do it right demands an almost fanatical level of dedication, and Libba Bray appears to have cleared all these hurdles in creating The Diviners. The spice and scent of America in the era of Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, and F. Scott Fitzgerald has rarely been captured better than in this eerie tale of egomaniacal ambition from beyond the grave, the darkening storm clouds of the occult converging on the legendary metropolis of New York City in a tempest that could bring a permanent end to its parties and pleasure. This depth of quality in faithfully reproducing the 1920s is The Diviners' main strength, and makes the book well worth reading. Come inside, why don't you, and take a look around?
"But what was the point of living so quietly you made no noise at all?"
—The Diviners, P. 289
Seventeen-year-old Evie O'Neill is disgraced after her secret powers of psychic energy out a local high-school guy for putting a female peer in the family way. It doesn't matter that Evie's gossip was the truth, a truth gleaned by her supernatural ability to divine information about a person by holding an object belonging to them. Exasperated with their daughter's latest shenanigan and having no clue about its extrasensory origin, Evie's parents shuttle her off to stay with her bachelor uncle in the heart of the Big Apple, where Uncle Will maintains and curates a museum of paranormal history and memorabilia. Evie is elated at this chance to live the high life in New York, hobnobbing with fashionable friends in the city's most stylish venues. Leaving her parents behind in the doldrums of Zenith, Ohio to come to The City That Never Sleeps is every bit as thrilling as Evie expected...until the first grisly murder is committed by a serial psychotic with a fetish for the occult. As the local expert on such deviations, Uncle Will is brought in to consult, and from that point forward nothing will ever be the same for Evie.
"The line between faith and fanaticism is a constantly shifting one...When does belief become justification? When does right become rationale and crusade become crime?"
—Dr. Georg Poblocki, The Diviners, P. 211
Others in the city possess powers of divination similar to Evie's, but it will take time for them to come together as the body count rises, each victim ritualistically mutilated in a new stomach-turning way. Gotham's detectives are at a loss as to who could be committing the murders and why, and Uncle Will has little to go on besides a hunch that the killer is copycatting the notorious Naughty John Hobbes from fifty years earlier, a man charged and convicted of more than ten homicides before being hanged following a very public trial. But Evie has insight into the mind of the killer that no one else has: Her powers of divination when holding objects owned by the victims allow her to retroactively witness the moments leading up to the slayings and report on what she observes. The trouble is, Evie hasn't disclosed her power to anyone yet, except for occasional benign glimpses here or there at a swinging party or when she's downed too much liquor. Uncle Will's eighteen-year-old assistant at the museum, Jericho Jones, watches stoically as Evie starts unravelling bits and pieces of the murder mystery under cover of public anonymity, but he doesn't readily grasp how she's coming to so many correct deductions in regard to the killings. Sam Lloyd, small-time larcenist and trickster who makes Evie's acquaintance fresh off her arrival in New York, has his own set of secret paranormal gifts, and soon suspects there's more to Evie than meets the eye. Theta Knight, Memphis Campbell, Isaiah Campbell, Margaret Walker...they each own a piece of the paranormal pie, and are intricate parts of the story unfolding around them in the euphemistic Capital of the World. The judgment of a vengeful ghost is set to bring unimagined retribution upon a city enamored of its own decadence, wallowing in the thrills of debauchery and daring God to stop them. One man has the power to bring it all crashing down around them, to end the party forever and usher in the terror of pitiless judgment on an unsuspecting nation. Evie and the other young diviners of New York City are the only ones capable of aiding Uncle Will and the police to discern Naughty John's hellish plan before he casts his net and snares all of humanity in it. Can the diviners figure it out before the clock ticks down to zero?
"People will believe anything if it means they can go on with their lives and not have to think too hard about it."
—Terrence Malloy, The Diviners, P. 544
The Diviners is a story so deliciously complex, I scarcely can conceive of what it took to design and execute it. Yet despite the labor that had to go into writing this book, it's fresh, original, and entertaining, never dragging through nearly six hundred pages of text. We get action in the glamor and pizzaz of the big city, primary and secondary adventures galore, romantic connections that feel satisfying but aren't overly obvious from the start. There are mysteries within mysteries, invigorating philosophical and spiritual discussion, and the characters are mostly three-dimensional and unpredictable, as a real person would be. There's more than enough occult titillation here without glorifying its darkness, though the unexplained divinations of Evie, Memphis, Theta, Sam Lloyd, and the rest are shown in a relatively favorable light. They don't have a lot of say in what gifts they were born with, but caution is key when treading in paranormal arenas prowled by lunatic killers like Naughty John. Memphis's Aunt Octavia sums this up early in the book with a quick admonition against dabbling with dark forces: "Doesn't take much for the Devil to get inside, Memphis...You remember that." Evie has had too many brushes with evils manmade and emanating from the Other Side to take any of it lightly, but she knows that if her divining can stop Naughty John before he completes the ritual murders and commences the final phase of bringing the world to an end, then she has to intervene before more innocents are left bereaved and broken. "She knew what it was to wait for someone who would never come home. She knew that grief, like a scar, faded but never really went away." Evie is a long way from the slow pace and suburban security of Zenith, Ohio, but she'd never take back the decisions that led to her adventures in New York. Not even if it costs her life...which is well within the realm of possibility.
"Idealism is just an escape from reality. There is no utopia."
—Jericho Jones, The Diviners, P. 219
Have I ever read another book like The Diviners? No, I can't say I have. Libba Bray's densely corded yarn of early twentieth-century America is enormous in scope, and soars at times like the majestic bald eagle that is the symbol of our strong, independent homeland. I love the writing, filled with the sort of cozy detail that can make a novel's plot sing with imaginative tenor. I wasn't able to perfectly follow every twist and turn of the case as Evie and the police closed in on Naughty John, but I was happy with the tempo and feel of the narrative, the way the words hopped and danced like patrons of a thriving speakeasy of the era, and that was enough for me. The Diviners evokes the experience of life in New York of the Roaring Twenties while simultaneously establishing itself as a work modern to its 2012 release, and the combination works well. This book is going to have me mentally twenty-three-skidoo-ing for a while, jiving on hip speech patterns of the twenties and thinking a little bit like the Great Jay Gatsby himself, and that has to be a point in its favor. I hope The Diviners does the same for you, pal. ...more
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May 21, 2015
May 31, 2015
May 21, 2015
Oct 18, 1973
it was ok
It's hard to believe that Henry Huggins was once Beverly Cleary's marquee character, given the later explosion of popularity enjoyed by a character s It's hard to believe that Henry Huggins was once Beverly Cleary's marquee character, given the later explosion of popularity enjoyed by a character spun off from Henry's world, the legendary Ramona Quimby. When Henry and Beezus first saw the light of day in 1952, preteen Henry was star of the show, with Ramona popping up only now and then to add spice to the comfortable suburban setting of the story. It wouldn't be long before Ramona earned her own series of acclaimed books that would become a large part of the author's legacy, but for now, in reading Henry and Beezus, we can relax in an earlier era of Beverly Cleary's career, when Henry Huggins still ruled the roost. If any female author of the time understood boys, it was Beverly Cleary, as she demonstrates repeatedly in these pages. Pleasantly episodic by nature, the book tells of Henry's preoccupation with getting a bicycle of his own, so he doesn't have to sit on the sideline while bigger kids like Scooter McCarthy have all the fun. Henry's fixation on getting a bike isn't a passing fancy, but it's going to take a lot of trying if he wants to wind up with his shiny red favorite from the bike store as a trophy in his garage. But Henry won't give up on earning his chromatic mount, and luckily for him, his friend Beezus wants to help. Moneymaking schemes, legit job opportunities, one-in-a-million shots...they're all fair game to Henry if they bring him closer to the new bicycle he so desires. If only he can find a way to raise the $59.95 needed to purchase it.
Henry and Beezus is a hybrid short-story collection and linear novel, so many of its chapters present narratives and lessons that are primarily self-contained. The basics of supply and demand are laid out succinctly and comprehensively during the bubble gum escapade, when Henry finds forty-nine boxes of gum abandoned by the side of the street, each box holding hundreds of bubble gum balls. Piggybacking on his good fortune in finding the boxes by establishing a temporary retail operation among the kids at school sounds like a great way to earn funds for a bike, but the actual playing out of the scenario goes differently than Henry hoped. Supply and demand is a complicated business, and most of its principles appear in the bubble gum chapter. Henry tries to deliver newspapers, he arranges to attend a fire sale of bikes being auctioned off at the police station, he saves every cent that passes through his hands in hopes of buying even a secondhand bicycle if the chance would come, but the prize he desires manages to elude him most of the way. His plans always seem to derail before arriving at their final destination, and it looks as if Henry may never have the money to pay for his shiny new ride. Is a boy supposed to be without a bike for his entire childhood?
Henry's attempts to accrue the requisite cash for his bicycle are the thread that holds Henry and Beezus together, but it's his mini adventures with Beezus and Ramona and his other friends that lends the story memorability. At age four, still pre-kindergarten, Ramona's antics are some of the funniest parts of the book, even when they exasperate Henry and Beezus. Henry is an honest, dependable kid, not given to mischief (see Beverly Cleary's appealingly roguish Otis Spofford), whimsical spending, or forgetting the reason he's saving his funds when tempted to let the money burn a hole in his pocket. Most of the time Henry doesn't even mind hanging out with a girl, as long as she's one like Beezus, more interested in having fun like a typical boy than dabbling in the daintier asides of other girls their age. But their friendship is slowly changing, and Henry balks at spending too much time with Beezus. As they get older there's no telling how their relationship will be affected, but in Henry and Beezus she's still a loyal friend willing to help him in his quest to buy a bike, and there's little of greater satisfaction in this world than finally reaching such a momentous goal after trying so hard for so long to get there. With the wind ruffling his hair and breezing through the raccoon tail of his Daniel Boone hat, Henry Huggins won't ever forget the moment his determination paid off and he soared happily through his neighborhood for the first time on winged wheels. All the hard work and disappointment was worth the trouble, in the end.
Beverly Cleary is a dear favorite author of mine, and Henry and Beezus is for sure worth two and a half stars. The two-star rating that shows on here doesn't do justice to my enjoyment of the book. The kids in Henry and Beezus are remarkably realistic, their attitudes and thoughts as authentic as Beverly Cleary could have made them. She understands kids and how to write about them effectively, which is why many of her books have become classics of children's literature. I encourage you, reader, to have a good time with Henry and Beezus during this era of their youth, before the little sister became the main draw. Because once Ramona started kindergarten, life would never be the same! :-) ...more
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May 20, 2015
May 21, 2015
May 20, 2015
Jun 02, 2003
it was ok
We go back to 1967 for the first picture book of Mercer Mayer's illustrious career in kid lit, and it's a good first book. Using only black-and-white We go back to 1967 for the first picture book of Mercer Mayer's illustrious career in kid lit, and it's a good first book. Using only black-and-white drawings to tell the tale, with not a single word to obfuscate the narrative, Mercer Mayer relates the story of a boy and his dog on a mission to catch a frog one typical summer's day, and how they gain more than a temporarily captive amphibian out of the deal.
Boy and dog are eager to race into the pond pell-mell after they spot the perfect frog to catch lazing on a lily pad near the edge of the water. The two friends playfully stalk the frog, but it's in its element on the pond, and there's not much chance of boy and dog beating the frog at its own game. They put forth a strong effort to corral the mischievous amphibian, but enough is eventually enough when their best attempts fail to secure the prize. With anger and some sadness, the boy and his dog turn away and head home for a warm bath after getting soaked to the bone in the pond. The story, however, is not yet complete. A deft player of hard-to-get doesn't wish to remain out of reach forever, not if it means losing a pair of potential friends who have made the day a lot of fun. Even a scamp of a frog won't cling to its isolation when the day is through, and the boy and his dog who were so determined to catch that frog might find the target of their pursuit more willing to be apprehended than they realized. True friendship is a prize to be cherished all the more for the struggles gone through to attain it; the harder and longer the journey, the greater the reward of at last gaining that which was passionately sought. A boy, a dog, and a frog, at the start of an exciting new friendship. How sweet it is to finally get there.
Mercer Mayer's talent, which would make him a beloved star in the nighttime sky of children's literature, was already clearly evident in 1967 with the publication of A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog, a story to rival any of his later Little Critter books for their charm and subtle artistry. I'm quite fond of A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog, and could easily grow to love it. I hope it continues to be a favorite of young readers for years and years to come. ...more
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not set
May 18, 2015
May 18, 2015
it was ok
"Sometimes a story can open a world for you: you step into it and forget the real one that you live in."
—Return to Gone-Away, P. 118
Savor this book "Sometimes a story can open a world for you: you step into it and forget the real one that you live in."
—Return to Gone-Away, P. 118
Savor this book, I urge you, because there aren't many like it. For a Newbery Medalist, Elizabeth Enright has always had an unconventional writing style. The highlights of her books are often lengthy reminiscences by the characters, particularly older characters like Uncle Pindar and Aunt Minnehaha in Gone-Away Lake (a 1958 Newbery Honoree) and Return to Gone-Away. Their stories of life as it once was, a shadow fading from the earth we see today, bring vivid color to an era unfamiliar to current generations, most of whom view the days of long-ago as dull when compared with the here and now. But the stories spun by Elizabeth Enright's older characters demonstrate that life was no less intensely charged hundreds of years ago than it is today: passions burned just as brightly, ambitions soared every bit as high, relationships were as devastating and rewarding as they are now, and family ties called for no less pride and commitment. What sets Return to Gone-Away apart even from Elizabeth Enright's other respected junior novels is its essence as a celebration of yesterday's mysteries intersecting with the present, exemplified in the castle-like old mansion purchased and restored by Portia Blake's family throughout the book. Yes, eleven-year-old Portia, her seven-year-old brother Foster, and their parents are returning to the scene of last summer's adventures at Gone-Away Lake, where they now have ownership claim to the massive estate of long-dead heiress Mrs. Brace-Gideon. That means a whole summer spent at the Villa Caprice manor formerly lived in by the eccentric millionaire, a summer of adventure and exploration with their friends from the year before. As Portia's parents renovate the old mansion with the help of family and neighbors, Portia and her twelve-year-old cousin Julian will have the chance to search her cavernous new home for the wondrous heirlooms surely contained within, and their spirit of excitement at doing so is what drives Return to Gone-Away. The book is a merry toast to the secrets and treasures an old house can hold, waiting to be stumbled upon by new residents eager for adventure. What Portia and Julian find in the Villa Caprice will cast light on the lifestyle of a society lady who lived and died many years before either of Portia's parents were born, revealing whimsical, odd, and even unsettling aspects of her personality. It's all there to be unearthed in the spacious corridors of the Villa Caprice.
What part of returning to Gone-Away Lake most piques Portia's interest? Reuniting with Julian and his parents, or with original Gone-Away lifers Uncle Pin and Aunt Minnehaha? Is it seeing the Villa Caprice for the first time through the eyes of one who's going to live there, taking pride in envisioning what the musty place could be restored to? Reasons abound for Portia to be excited, and she doesn't intend to waste a moment of her summer at Gone-Away. The reunions with the area's residents are as satisfying as expected for readers of Gone-Away Lake, and it isn't long before almost everyone has joined in the task of reinvigorating the Villa Caprice for occupation by Portia's family. The manor is large enough for Portia, Foster, and their parents to each claim multiple bedrooms and still have space left over, and every room investigated turns up items worthy of a closer look. It's the attic especially, though, packed with old-fashioned novelties that didn't catch Mrs. Brace-Gideon's fancy, which sits filled with a stash of rare treasures, from furniture to jewelry to artwork. There might be enough of value up here to almost pay for the purchase of the Villa Caprice, and a financial windfall like that sounds mighty good to Portia's parents.
Like Gone-Away Lake, the sequel is no thrill ride. It's a quiet, musing narrative of times past, an appreciation of life in every generation and what made it special. The anecdotes related by the elders are where much of the action takes place, and routinely stretch on for pages. We can get so caught up in the dramas and developments of our present day that we neglect to remember we aren't the first or only generation to call this planet home. Only by immersing ourselves in the stories of previous generations can we gain proper perspective on the world before we were born, trusting succeeding generations to do the same with the stories we tell them, keeping our memories alive with wit and candor. As Portia and her family work hard to remake the Villa Caprice into a beautiful home, each of them is in a golden era of their lives, a time when most everyone they love is close by so they can see each other every day. The buying of the Villa Caprice will be a happy turning point for Portia always, its concealed treasures only the prelude to a fulfilled life surrounded by loved ones. It isn't the fancy old houses of Gone-Away that make the place special; it's the friendly, giving neighbors, who have settled by the shores of this dried-up lake with the desire to live a simple life in the playful embrace of rurality. It makes one desire, just a bit, to be part of that community, to grow up beside Portia, Julian, and Foster at Gone-Away and engage with them in their delightful escapades. It makes a book like Return to Gone-Away an entirely satisfying read.
"No matter how old a person gets, he's never old in spring!"
—Return to Gone-Away, P. 81
Elizabeth Enright writes well, with the perceptiveness one expects from a Newbery Medal-winning author. Phrases occasionally glimmer out from the ordinary shale of the story like diamonds buried in the not-so-rough, such as the following description of fear experienced when the kids talk themselves into spending a night in an abandoned mansion: "(B)ut when there is terror, an instant seems pinned motionless on time." That's a good description of what it's like to go through an instant of panic, feeling like it stretches on much longer than it actually does. My final appraisal of Return to Gone-Away is that it works well as a low-key celebration of an old house's surprises, and should be entered into with expectation. Readers hungering for a psychological thriller will be left wanting, but Return to Gone-Away is a nice, solid story, and I would probably rate it two and a half stars. I believe I'll always fondly remember Gone-Away Lake and its homespun cast of characters.
Notes are private!
May 17, 2015
May 20, 2015
May 17, 2015
Mar 01, 2010
Mar 01, 2010
did not like it
Jason Shiga might be the most innovative thinker in gamebook history. His system of using tubes to branch out into many, many more storylines than an Jason Shiga might be the most innovative thinker in gamebook history. His system of using tubes to branch out into many, many more storylines than any other interactive book I've seen could have revolutionized the gamebook industry, were it not for the extreme complexity of its design. From the introductory note to Meanwhile: "Meanwhile began as a series of seven increasingly complex flowcharts. Because of asymmetries in the branching, a special notation had to be invented for the final three charts. Once the outline of the story was structured, a computer algorithm was written to determine the most efficient method to transfer it to book form. However, the problem proved to be NP-complete. With the use of a V-opt heuristic algorithm running for 12 hours on an SGI machine, the solution was finally cracked in spring of 2000. It was another six months before layouts were finished, again with the aide of homebrew computer algorithms. After a year of prep work, production began on the book, which was completed one year later." Holy cats. I suspect most authors on reasonably steady mental ground would be horrified at the prospect of replicating the ridiculously intricate work done by Jason Shiga to produce Meanwhile, so while the story is highly intriguing for its unique structure and style, I doubt its ability to revolutionize gamebook creation.
A trip to the ice cream shop leads you into a world of crazy after you choose the chocolate ice cream (a pick of vanilla brings a swift conclusion to your adventure). Making a pit stop at a stranger's house afterward to use his bathroom, you soon discover the man who let you in is no ordinary individual. Professor K is a scientist with more than a hundred patented inventions (or so he claims) to his name, and he offers to let you test his newest inventions: a time machine, a device that enables sharing of memories, and something called a killitron. Your choice could have you winding back and back and back again in perpetual circles, or end in a messy death for you and others, unless you can figure out how to flawlessly layer the sequence of events so all untenable damage you inflict can be neutralized by using the time machine.
Just don't take lightly the sensitive technology Professor K has placed at your disposal. Carelessness could usher in an apocalypse, or warp the narrative of your own or others' personal history. Professor K has deliberately concealed the access codes and secret signals that control the more dangerous features of his gadgets, but outsmarting him to take possession of them could be your only chance to save yourself. It feels like anything can happen in this story, and according to the book's cover, that's just about true. "Pick any path. 3,856 story possibilities", it says, leaving other interactive books quantum leaps behind.
Ultimately, it's hard to imagine an author not outwitting himself on at least a few points in a book as ambitious as Meanwhile, and that does appear to happen in these pages. I can't say it does for certain, because I may simply not be bright enough to make all the proper connections that would let every lightbulb in the string go on and illuminate it to full capacity. A grand, wonderful idea Meanwhile is, but it's too much for my brain's circuitry to handle. For the ingenious design of its decision-making system, however, I would give it one and a half stars, and I'd like to read more from Jason Shiga. For gamebook fans who relish a stiff cerebral challenge and won't get too frustrated by a lot of repetitive looping, Meanwhile could be exactly what you want. Give it a go, why don't you? ...more
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May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015
Sep 01, 2000
Sep 01, 2000
it was ok
Michigan Chillers is a fine series when it clicks just right. The author is capable of good writing, and when his imagination hones in on a promising Michigan Chillers is a fine series when it clicks just right. The author is capable of good writing, and when his imagination hones in on a promising idea and he executes it well, the stories have their appeal. All those factors come together nicely in Aliens Attack Alpena, arguably the best of the first four books in the series. Poltergeists of Petoskey is still likely my personal favorite of the four, but it's hard to beat the mix of surprising occurrences, suspenseful writing, and interesting, likable characters that form the backbone of Aliens Attack Alpena. Twelve-year-old Mark Blackburn feels like he has a lot to deal with when the school bully threatens to beat him up for a phantom indiscretion committed on the bus, but it's nothing compared to being one of only two people on planet Earth made privy to an imminent invasion by an extraterrestrial species capable of rendering the human race extinct. Can Mark and his friend Meghan neutralize the insidious invading aliens before the wave of infiltrators is too powerful to turn back?
Mark wouldn't have learned of the coming alien attack at all if it weren't for bully Greg Daniels chasing him off school grounds, boldly crowing his intent to squash Mark. Narrowly escaping Greg's punishing fists, Mark and Meghan stumble on a futuristic spaceship in a wooded clearing, and come face to face with a bona fide green creature from space, one armed with weaponry beyond anything attained by humanity. Luckily for Mark and Meghan, the alien (named Brothron) is on their side, in the midst of reconnoitering on behalf of an alien race to find a particular extraterrestrial menace and eliminate it before Earth's citizenry is endangered. The otherworldly enemy has been tracked to the depths of Lake Huron where it abuts Alpena, and Brothron needs Mark and Meghan's assistance in eradicating the hostile aliens before they grow large enough to threaten mankind.
It's a fast turnaround for Mark from fleeing his bully, but Earth is in the clutches of a far worse foe than Greg Daniels, and Mark is willing to answer the call of duty. Soaring high in the sky in Brothron's technologically advanced space vessel and plunging hundreds of feet below the dark, mysterious surface of Lake Huron, Mark and Meghan refuse to succumb to fear and abandon their world when its people need them most. The invading alien species, called the Globblings, is growing rapidly, and soon the danger they pose will be too great for Brothron to stop them. Can Mark and Meghan survive multiple attacks by lethally predatory Globblings long enough to launch a counteroffensive against the mothership in a final underwater confrontation...all while the fate of our planet hangs in the balance?
The author shows considerable skill in how he builds Aliens Attack Alpena, not falling into predictable story patterns. There are surprising twists in this book, whereas previous Michigan Chillers had few or none. Unexpected incidents of peril come into play with good timing and sometimes go in directions I didn't anticipate, and the suspense is a grade or two higher than in Johnathan Rand's earlier books. The unconventional grammar, spelling, and writing that marked previous Michigan Chillers is toned down a lot in Aliens Attack Alpena, as well. I also appreciate the return of the word search in the back of the book, and this time every word was there to be found, some requiring closer examination than others. I would almost consider awarding this book two and a half stars, even though there's a certain loose end that didn't get tied up which could have made the story more meaningful if it had been. I'm excited about future installments of the Michigan Chillers series; up next is Gargoyles of Gaylord, and I look forward to getting to know the girl Mark meets at the end of Aliens Attack Alpena and reading her story. For fans of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps or most any other series of scary stories for kids, I recommend trying Johnathan Rand's Michigan Chillers and American Chillers. They never fail to deliver a good time. ...more
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May 14, 2015
May 17, 2015
May 14, 2015
Mass Market Paperback
Oct 01, 1988
Aug 18, 1999
it was ok
Little Critter is a good kid, but a real one. He has strife with his parents, sister, and teachers like any boy his age, but usually comes through in Little Critter is a good kid, but a real one. He has strife with his parents, sister, and teachers like any boy his age, but usually comes through in the ways that really matter. In I Just Forgot, we see that Little Critter is hit or miss when it comes to chores and other aspects of his daily routine, but he loves his family, and wants to be a good boy. It just isn't always easy to be on one's best behavior.
There's no shortage of responsibilities for Little Critter around the house, even at his age. He remembers about half of what he's supposed to do: putting his breakfast dishes in the sink but neglecting to return the milk to the refrigerator, making it to the school bus on time but forgetting his lunch at home, or remembering to take a bath but not turning off the water after it's filled the tub. Little Critter accepts each of his mistakes differently, sometimes meekly but other times with minor backtalk, and his parents' reactions to his occasional forgetfulness vary in the same way. There's a lot to remember for a kid Little Critter's age, as he grows into taking responsibility for his actions. But he's getting there, and whether he remembers to complete the tasks he's assigned or not, he's happy to be part of a loving family that will always be there for him.
The mouse and spider both appear on almost every page of I Just Forgot, providing a sub-story for readers too young to pay attention to the text. They can look for the mouse and/or spider throughout the book, though the spider doesn't show up in a few pictures. Mercer Mayer is a personal favorite author of mine, and I Just forgot is one of his best offerings. I would give it two and a half stars and my fond recommendation. ...more
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not set
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015
Jan 31, 2001
Jan 31, 2001
it was ok
Just Say Please starts like an instructional book for kids to learn contemporary good manners, but ends up going for much more than that. Playfully h Just Say Please starts like an instructional book for kids to learn contemporary good manners, but ends up going for much more than that. Playfully humorous and with a fun plot, this is one in a long line of successful picture books by the team of Gina and Mercer Mayer.
After Little Critter's teacher declares that her class could use a little help developing their good manners, she wastes no time getting them involved in brainstorming ways they can all do better at treating others with respect. Some ideas are simple and painless to implement, such as saying "Sorry" or "Thank you" when the situation calls for it, or refraining from interrupting a person holding a conversation. Other manners suggested are less universally recognized, such as putting a napkin on one's lap before eating, or keeping one's elbows off the dinner table, and it's not a big deal when Little Critter or his family commit infractions in these areas. One of the funniest parts of Just Say Please is when Little Critter's napkin falls to the floor from his lap after he admonishes his sister that the napkin is "good manners." His sister responds, "You dropped your good manners." :-) Classic Mercer Mayer humor. While the overall effect of good manners is praised in Just Say Please, the story lets readers know that being polite doesn't mean everything will go our way. But it's always best to treat others well, and more often than not the positives from doing so will circle back and bless us in return. You could even wind up with a cool sticker to wear, and no little critter should be without one of those.
Mercer Mayer is money in the bank when it comes to writing and illustrating picture books that entertain and educate, and Just Say Please is as strong an effort as ever. Part of me wants to give it two and a half stars. Like everything by Mercer Mayer, I recommend it.
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not set
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015
Jun 01, 2001
it was ok
"Taking a bath can be a real job. But it always makes me feel warm and cozy."
—From Just Me in the Tub
Combining showing what not to do as well as w "Taking a bath can be a real job. But it always makes me feel warm and cozy."
—From Just Me in the Tub
Combining showing what not to do as well as what to do at bath time, Gina and Mercer Mayer let their famous and beloved Little Critter do the explaining of how to take a bath and what fun it can be.
A bath is primarily for getting clean, Little Critter knows, but there's more to it than that. A properly fun bath requires plenty of toys in the water, and maybe a ring of stuffed animals around the outside of the tub so they don't feel left out of the goings-on. Stuffed animals shouldn't get wet, but there's no reason they can't watch. Between serious bouts of washing hands, feet, face, and body, there's usually time for play, too, under and inside the bubbles (if you're lucky enough to have a bubble bath). The time spent cleaning yourself goes pretty quickly, and the cooling of the bathwater signals when it's time to get out and dry off. Little Critter makes sure not to forget to clean up after his bath, either...at least, not when his mother reminds him. All in all, taking a bath requires a bit of work, but it can be a good time.
Mercer Mayer has been a favorite author in countless households for generations; I know he's always been a favorite of my family's. Just Me in the Tub could be just the ticket for explaining to pre-readers the ins and outs of having a bath, with the bonus of learning it alongside our favorite Little Critter. I suspect this book will never cease being relevant. ...more
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not set
May 12, 2015
May 12, 2015
Sep 2000
Sep 01, 2000
it was ok
In what I consider easily the best of the first three Michigan Chillers, author Christopher Wright (aka Johnathan Rand) takes us to the sunset-ful ci In what I consider easily the best of the first three Michigan Chillers, author Christopher Wright (aka Johnathan Rand) takes us to the sunset-ful city of Petoskey, Michigan, where twelve-year-old twins Alex (a girl) and Adrian must win a battle of wits with the poltergeist who prowls their basement...or risk losing their mortal lives.
The old farmhouse in Petoskey is a huge estate, and not in the best of condition when Alex and Adrian's family moved into it. Concentrated renovations have produced wonders in the house, however, and it's shaping up to be a great place to live by the time the twins begin noticing the eerie goings-on. Footsteps sound up and down the stairs with no one in sight, cupboards open and slam closed by themselves, and glasses of ice water mysteriously appear on the kitchen counter with no one there to have poured them. Alex and Adrian are spooked, with no idea what's behind these incidents, but their fears take form when a pair of poltergeist siblings their own age show up to explain what's happening. Conversing with a couple of ghosts is far from what Alex and Adrian expected from their first months in the new house, but at least now they know the cause of all the spectral phenomena.
It turns out the farmhouse has a history of hauntings, and the young poltergeist twins (Catherine and Caleb) aren't the only haints hanging out here. Alex, Adrian, and their parents need to be cautious where they tread in the house, because a malevolently mischievous spirit eagerly waits to bring them to ruin if they intrude in its space. Now time is running out for Alex and Adrian to solve the conundrum of the multiple poltergeists and save their own lives from the careless harm inflicted by the denizens of the next world. If they can't settle the situation soon, their futures could be cut short at age twelve, their move to the farmhouse morphing into a nightmare from which they will never awaken. Is there a way to rescind the curse that threatens their existence and construct a peaceable conclusion for everyone before they reach an unfortunate end?
In my opinion, Poltergeists of Petoskey is a remarkable improvement on the previous two Michigan Chillers, and I enjoyed those, too. The writing and punctuation style is still jarringly nonstandard, but the narrative has a smoother feel, and the pace quickens favorably after the main climax, where there's business to take care of after the book's primary danger has been addressed. The conclusion of the story is genuinely heartfelt and not overdone in the slightest, delivering a memorable goodbye to these characters who have made a surprisingly deep home in our sentiments. From the book: "It was so strange—just yesterday morning, if you would have asked me if I believed in ghosts, I would have said 'no way'...but today, I considered two ghosts among my very best friends." Poltergeists of Petoskey is a positive indicator that the author continues to improve his storytelling even following significant commercial success, and I look forward to more of that storytelling in the fourth installment of the series, Aliens Attack Alpena, and beyond. I liked and recommended Johnathan Rand's Michigan Chillers before reading Poltergeists of Petoskey, and now I appreciate the series even more. I'm pleased to know that others feel the same way. ...more
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May 09, 2015
May 14, 2015
May 09, 2015
Feb 01, 2000
Feb 01, 2000
it was ok
Johnathan Rand introduces terror to Traverse City, Michigan, and aren't young readers of the city (or anywhere, really) glad for it. Continuing to ho Johnathan Rand introduces terror to Traverse City, Michigan, and aren't young readers of the city (or anywhere, really) glad for it. Continuing to hop around the map of Michigan while picking up the story thread where it left off at the end of Mayhem on Mackinac Island, we follow the misadventures of Sandy Johnson's friend Matt Sorenson as he unwittingly releases a herd of mischievous elves, a practical-joker snowman, and a gigantic snow monster on his hometown of Traverse City at Christmastime.
An early Christmas gift from his grandparents seems like a good turn that can't go wrong for Matt and his little sister Kimmy. Matt's present is a high-grade magic set, packaged with a dozen or so convincing illusions and a traditional hat, cape, and wand to lend ambience to the act. But when Matt starts waving the wand around without consulting the instruction manual first, trouble quickly swallows up Traverse City. Each careless wave of his wand has brought to life a character drawn by Matt on a poster in his room, which wouldn't be so calamitous had he not drawn an evil snow monster in addition to elves and a snowman. Now a wild-eyed beast is traipsing the town, smashing Christmas decorations and other private property. It's only a matter of time before the rampaging monster attracts major attention, and if it's traced to Matt, he'll be in bigger trouble than he can imagine.
His one chance? The magic wand he still tightly clutches. If it had the power to bring his drawings to life, maybe it also has what it takes to set everything back to normal before disaster strikes in irreversible fashion. But stalking the snow monster Matt created won't be easy, not while simultaneously trying to keep any neighbors from seeing the destruction his monster is causing to and around their houses. The elves and snowman shouldn't be too hard to send back where they came from, but it will take a lot of luck and determination if Matt has a prayer of winning his battle with the snow monster. Will Traverse City ever be the same again?
There are plenty of unanswered questions floating around at the end of Terror Stalks Traverse City. Why did Matt's grandparents give him a magic kit that works real magic? Did they know what it could do? How did they get their hands on it? Who made it work real magic in the first place, and what was their agenda? Surely Matt isn't the only kid to be given this particular magic set. Who arranged for sorcery to be put in the hands of unsuspecting kids, and what would be gained by it? These are just a few of the puzzlers that are never definitively answered in the story, but I don't mind too much. Peradventure the narrative addresses all these questions as satisfactorily as possible on page eighty-one: "Some things are just too weird to try and understand." Readers are used to getting an answer to every question they might ask, but it may be more realistic for a scary story to end with the characters remaining in the dark on some points. I can respect that. I love the reference on page seventy-nine to Yukon Cornelius and his battle with the Bumble snow monster from 1964's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer television Christmas special. The word search at the end of Terror Stalks Traverse City is a good touch, though the word "Matt" doesn't appear in it as it's supposed to. I would give this book one and a half stars, and while the break point for rounding up or down is very close, I tentatively decided to round up because the story is a fun diversion. I like Johnathan Rand's Michigan Chillers, and if you're willing to overlook a lot of eccentric punctuation, I believe you'll like them, too. Why not pick up Mayhem on Mackinac Island and give the series a shot? ...more
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May 09, 2015
May 09, 2015
May 09, 2015
Jul 15, 1987
it was ok
There's a brand-new family in Louie's life, but that isn't enough for him to fit in automatically with the other kids in his neighborhood. His new fa There's a brand-new family in Louie's life, but that isn't enough for him to fit in automatically with the other kids in his neighborhood. His new father, Barney, is a junk dealer, and Louie's peers aren't too impressed. So Barney concocts a way to use the antiques he collects to open the door to an arena of adventure for Louie and his potential friends, an arena whose only limits are the confines of the universe, too vast and voluminous for all the human minds in history put together to fathom. If Louie and the other kids are willing to see Barney's weatherworn wares as he sees them, each one a makeshift craft to be buoyed by the winds of imagination and piloted to distant realms, then maybe the collective energy of all their imagination working together can be the starting point for lasting friendship. Whether visiting the moon or stars or exploring mysteries of far-off galaxies, a creative mind can do wonders for a group of kids playing in a junkyard, and it can do the same for us, wherever we may be.
Ezra Jack Keats's artistic style is distinctive, and the marriage of illustrations and storytelling clearly demonstrates why he was honored with Caldecott recognition on numerous occasions. Regards to the Man in the Moon isn't his most resounding work (for my money, that would be Maggie and the Pirate), but it's a solid early introduction to the power of creativity in connecting us to one another in spite of our differences, joining hands over divides of culture, class, economic station, and race. Ezra Jack Keats was a pioneer of promoting unity through his picture books, and Regards to the Man in the Moon continues that legacy. I would give it at least one and a half stars. ...more
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not set
May 07, 2015
May 07, 2015
Apr 01, 2002
Mar 26, 2002
it was ok
An ailing feline with an unknown affliction is a big source of worry for any cat owner, and it's no different for young Andy when he brings his gray An ailing feline with an unknown affliction is a big source of worry for any cat owner, and it's no different for young Andy when he brings his gray cat Frank to the veterinarian after the animal spends an uncharacteristically motionless night in bed, its lack of responsiveness causing Andy to wonder from time to time if Frank were even breathing. As Andy, his mother, Aunt Cookie, and Andy's grandmother wait in the lobby of the vet's office for Frank's turn to be evaluated, Andy seeks peripheral solace in a retelling of his mother's own story of medical calamity, when she stumbled over an exposed tree root as a girl and broke her arm.
We settle in alongside Andy as his mother recalls the events leading up to and proceeding from her broken arm, with occasional input from his aunt and grandmother. Medical offices can be austere, intimidating places, but the familiarity of his mother's story sets us all at ease a bit. It was many hours after she broke her arm that she understood anything was seriously wrong, and while the diagnosis of a break was jarring, the shock wore off eventually and the physical and psychological healing process could begin, just as it will for Frank when his problem is pinpointed and an effective treatment regimen started. Broken bones heal and so do sick cats, leaving a story to tell to remind us that the most intense of crises usually comes to a satisfactory conclusion, and more often than not we look back and have a hard time remembering why we were so upset. Andy's mother's simple story of brief childhood trauma shows Andy that even a medical emergency eventually becomes just another familiar part of the past, and lets him breathe easier about Frank's upcoming examination. It brings the family a little closer, too.
The Broken Cat has nice illustrations, but my favorite is on the back cover, the depiction of Andy's mother as a young girl reaching out of an old photograph to pet Andy's cat, whom Andy is holding in a modern photo. It's a sweet picture of what this story is about, the comfort gained by sharing our formative personal experiences from parent to child and back again. The heart of the narrative is captured in this illustration, and it's a good addendum to the story. I appreciate The Broken Cat, and like all of Newbery Medalist Lynne Rae Perkins's books, I recommend it. ...more
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not set
May 04, 2015
May 04, 2015
Aug 30, 2011
Aug 30, 2011
liked it
Jonathan Maberry's first Benny Imura novel was heralded as a fresh take on the zombie sub-genre of apocalyptic fiction. Rather than focusing on the h Jonathan Maberry's first Benny Imura novel was heralded as a fresh take on the zombie sub-genre of apocalyptic fiction. Rather than focusing on the horror of a zombie invasion and the blood and guts spilled by their rampaging attacks, Rot & Ruin brought attention to the humanity of the billions of zoms presumably roaming the face of the earth in search of a living person to chomp on. The walking dead of fifteen-year-old Benny's world didn't choose to live on as rotting corpses, shuffling aimlessly until a bite of live food crosses their paths. The zoms are just the unfortunate ones who died, either in the massive extinction event that set off this nightmare afterworld or in the years after. They show no cognition of their attacks on other innocent beings, and if they are in some way aware, it seems there's nothing they can do to control themselves. Through the words and actions of Benny's heroic older brother Tom, we learned in Rot & Ruin that slaying zombies is no glamorous adventure. Tom works as a bounty hunter because he and Benny need the money and it's honest labor, but when he finally brought Benny into the Ruin to show him up close what hunting zoms is like, Benny realized the work was horrific and haunting, and there was no pride to be had in quieting zoms, shutting off their last vestiges of consciousness. Zoms are frightening, deadly creatures, from whom one bite to a living creature equals certain death, but they aren't inhuman monsters; it's the conscienceless bounty hunters like Charlie Pink-Eye whose actions more closely fit the "monster" mold. Unlike zoms, Charlie and his gang were aware of the cruelty they perpetrated against human and zombie alike, before Benny Imura in a moment of adrenaline-fueled anger killed the sadistic juggernaut and sent him plummeting down a sheer mountainside at the end of Rot & Ruin. Though Benny started out a fawning fanatic of Charlie Pink-Eye's work, it's Tom's gentler philosophy of zombie control that is validated in Dust & Decay just as in the first book, and we get a glimpse of that philosophy before even opening the front cover. What's the tagline printed on the jacket of Dust & Decay? "Zombies were people, too." To an observer who hasn't read the Benny Imura novels, that sounds like a witticism, but readers of the series know it's not. It's a declaration of the humanity that still exists in the hideous, shrunken forms of zoms in all their putrescence, a transparent statement of why Tom Imura and other good bounty hunters insist on treating each zom they quiet with compassion and respect. As Tom says in Dust & Decay: "Every single zom, every man, woman and child, no matter how decayed or how frightening they are, no matter how dangerous they are—they were all once real people. They had names, and lives, and personalities, and families. They had dreams and goals. They had pasts and they thought they had futures, but something came and took that away from them." This is the creed of Rot & Ruin and Dust & Decay; if you're interested only in gratuitous splatter, you might want to look elsewhere, but if you're up for some food for thought with your zombie action, there may be nowhere better to find it than this series.
"No one is really who people think they are. It's unfair. When they give us nicknames and create a story for us, everyone expects us to be that person and to live up to that legend."
—The Greenman, Dust & Decay, P. 384
The demise of Charlie Pink-Eye was the final push that convinced Tom Imura to take Benny and his girlfriend Nix Riley and leave their hometown of Mountainside for good. The jet they saw headed east promised an intact modern society somewhere out there, and Tom could no longer ignore that his influence over the residents of Mountainside had accomplished little over the last ten years. He had tried to coax them out of their shell, persuade them to expand the fences fortifying their town against the zoms and reclaim ever-increasing portions of the Ruin for the living, but they seemed content to maintain the status quo, leaving the Ruin to the zoms who stalked it. Tom has had enough of being a veritable prisoner in a town uninterested in improving itself, and he's taking Benny and Nix to start a new life out east.
Tom, Benny, and Nix aren't the only ones making the trip, though. Wild girl Lilah is going, and her crazy warrior and survival skills are bound to come in handy. Benny's intellectual friend Chong is coming, too, despite his lack of training for life in the Ruin. Zoms aren't fleet of foot or capable of sneaking up on any reasonably fit physical specimen, but life out here doesn't leave much room for mistakes, and Chong quickly realizes he's sorely lacking in physical conditioning compared to the others. Even Benny and Nix are formidable combatants now, trained under Tom's watchful eye, and heaven help the enemy who crosses swords with them. But Chong isn't going along because of his friendship with Benny; Lilah is his concern, the one person he couldn't bear to have depart Mountainside forever without him. Lilah's life story is a tragedy of the highest order, and her social skills are appalling, so it's no surprise that she doesn't pick up on Chong's adoration of her, willing to follow wherever she goes even if it leads into the shark tank of the Ruin. He'd rather risk becoming food for two hundred million zoms nationwide than endure life without Lilah. Devoted as he is, however, Chong's ill-advised decision to join Tom's caravan causes more trouble the further they travel, until not a single member of the group believes he belongs with them. Chong's slip-ups are costing valuable time, stealth, and some serious injuries, but it's too late to turn back to Mountainside now. Chong's greatest asset is brainpower, but can he think of anything to rectify the predicament he helped create?
"No matter what choice you make, it doesn't define you. Not forever. People can make bad choices and change their minds and hearts and do good things later; just as people can make good choices and then turn around and walk a bad path. No choice we make lasts our whole life. If there's ever a choice you've made that you no longer agree with, you can make another choice."
—The Greenman, PP. 392-393
A handful of bad decisions splits the group up, and life in the Ruin becomes a potentially deadly trial without Tom to guide Benny and Nix's steps. They've spent their lives in the safe haven of Mountainside, but any error out here could be the end. What's more, disturbing findings made by Benny suggest that Charlie Pink-Eye may somehow have survived his plunge off the cliffside, and even if he isn't alive, a couple of new enemies around the area are just as dangerous and twisted as Charlie, and bent on revenge against the Imuras for killing the merciless bounty hunter. There's more going on here than meets the eye, and Benny knows he needs to get back to Tom and share his new information before those conspiring against them can tighten the noose. Tom has struck resounding blows for the rights of zombies in the past, destroying the diabolical Gametown run by Charlie Pink-Eye, which pitted teenagers against zoms for betting purposes, but he has so many people under his care now. He can't move nearly as fast or efficiently as he has in the past when running up against bounty hunter thugs, and it could cost him. It could cost all of them.
"You can't unring a bell."
—Dust & Decay, P. 13
After a decade without much positive change in Mountainside and its surrounding region, Tom's aim in leaving town is to start reclaiming the earth for humanity, but there's no escaping the reality that work remains to be done before he can track the jet with a clear conscience. Tom wrecked Gametown once and dispersed the evil local bounty hunters, but it didn't take them long to set up shop elsewhere, with a bigger and more horrifying Gametown than before. A few old nemeses must be dealt with before Tom and Benny can leave Mountainside permanently, but can their entire caravan survive the encounter? Or is at least one of them bound to die a nasty death when confronted with the true monsters of the Ruin, individuals willing to trespass across any boundary and take any life to further their own ends? Is inconsolable grief waiting for Benny Imura at the end of his story?
"We've all had our moments of weakness and failure. All of us. We've all suffered through dark nights of the soul."
—The Greenman, P. 393
As I mentioned in this review's lead paragraph, the humanity of the zoms is dealt with all through Dust & Decay, and produces some lasting moments of comprehension, prompting us to realize that life is even more precious than we acknowledge on a daily basis. When it's over, it's over: our story has been written and there's no adding to it, even as the world spins on and new generations walk where we once tread. Lots of people in real life fall into the patterns of zombies, trudging the same pathways repeatedly, with little awareness of why they do it and no plan for improving their lot in life. Our session on earth is tragically finite; why waste it lurching around like the undead, without any clear objective but to fill our bellies and continue staggering forward wherever our steps lead us? But it's not only the zoms whose situation is examined thoroughly in the five hundred nineteen pages of (hardcover) Dust & Decay. Lilah's thoughts and feelings are searched extensively, as well, and we find much to sift through and carefully consider that should influence the way we live. Lilah was on her own for years after her family's death, before Nix and Benny found her in Rot & Ruin. She was responsible for no one but herself, living off the land and honing the skills necessary to disable zoms that came after her. Now Lilah's existence is dramatically different, and she doesn't know how to feel about it. She has friends who won't take off without her, who need her skills but also value her as a person. She has Chong, who secretly confides his feelings for her on the road from Mountainside, only to have her sneer at them because she's too confused to understand what he really means. Lilah has been charged with helping Tom guard the lives of his closest friends and family, and it's a lot to cope with for a wild girl used to looking out for no one but herself. She has a lot to decide about her future in Dust & Decay, regarding the way she desires to comport herself and the lifestyle she's willing to embrace even if it makes her intensely uncomfortable at times. Lilah's odyssey has a great deal to teach us about ourselves if we read with an open heart, and the scenes where she reasons these issues out with a trusted companion are among the most riveting of the book.
"(N)othing is always there. Not courage, not joy, not hate or hope or anything else. We find courage, lose it, sometimes misplace it for years, and sometimes live in its grace for a while."
—The Greenman, P. 387
"It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get."
—René Descartes, quoted on P. 203 of Dust & Decay
Jonathan Maberry is one of the more quotable authors I've read, and the Benny Imura series routinely serves up lines that stand tall from the page as monuments to the story's merit. "We're each alone inside our heads, some more so than others", Tom says at one point, talking not just about Lilah, but Nix as well, who has had to deal with the death of her mother at Charlie Pink-Eye's hand. Her motives for this trip aren't totally clear, but she definitely has demons to conquer. Nix's fear and contempt for her mother's killer haven't ceased, not even with his death. Lilah's transformative conversation with her confidante results in pages of wonderful material, back-and-forth that at turns sizzles with emotional intensity and glows with quiet wisdom, including a discerning take on what happened after First Night, when billions of humans died on their feet and morphed into ravenous zombies. Lilah describes First Night as "When the world changed and everything went bad," but her conversation partner has a different view of it. "A lot of folks see it that way...but it was death that changed. People are still people. Some good, some bad. Death changed, and we don't know what death really means anymore. Maybe that was the point. Maybe this is an object lesson about the arrogance of our assumptions. Hard to say." This astute look at the world following First Night is free of rancor, bluster, or know-it-all-ism, a welcome antidote to the hubris of all who think they have a handle on the world because they're positive their beliefs about it are irrefutable. It rings true for us as well as for survivors of the zombie apocalypse, and offers more substantial content for thought than your average zombie paperback.
Every main character in Dust & Decay has growing to do or inner conflicts to address, including Tom Imura, the warrior held in mythical awe by the masses and respected by his enemies, even psychotic bounty hunters like Charlie Pink-Eye who hate him to their marrow. Tom is a student of the samurai way, a philosophy he's in the process of passing down to Benny almost like father to son, and the techniques of Eastern self-control keep Tom from disaster on more than one occasion. When he sets himself to engage in final combat with his deadliest adversary, the story describes his mindset as follows: "If there had been anyone there to see his face, they would have seen a man at peace with himself and the world. And if they were wise, they would know that such a man was the most dangerous of all opponents—one who fights to preserve love rather than perpetuate hatred." Yes, I do believe that is the warrior's most powerful weapon wherever and for whatever reason he battles: the preservation of love, the awareness that to lose love is to lose everything that matters, to be handed over to a fate worse than the blank monotony of death. To be able and willing to fight for the preservation of love is to have a source of motivation potent enough to deliver victory from the direst circumstances. Dust & Decay is about understanding what's at stake in the wars we wage and choosing to do what's right, what we know we should do even when it's excruciatingly hard. Tom Imura's life exemplifies that message without blemish, and someday perhaps Benny's will, too.
"(T)he world is always changing. Always. We can't give the next generation a set of guarantees. Best we can do is help them be smart enough and tough enough to deal with whatever comes. You know as well as I do that we're not going to be there forever for them."
—Sally Two-Knives, Dust & Decay, P. 262
Jonathan Maberry has built a terrific start to this series in its first two books. He isn't the thriftiest purveyor of the English language, but five hundred pages feels like a lot less when a skillful writer like Maberry is relating the story, and there aren't many authors capable of so effectively mixing strong, palpable emotion and the wisdom of a writer who knows life and can speak eloquently of it in the pages of a novel. There's a good chance I would give Dust & Decay three and a half stars. If you're interested in trying the Benny Imura series, by all means, start with Rot & Ruin and work your way forward. If every book of the series is as good as the first two, you're in for a treat, and I won't hesitate to recommend them. They're a special breed among the rank and file of young-adult literature, worth every penny of the purchase price.
Notes are private!
Apr 28, 2015
May 09, 2015
Apr 28, 2015
Aug 26, 2014
Aug 26, 2014
it was ok
How beautiful can a book about nothing be? Quite beautiful, as fans of Kevin Henkes, Ezra Jack Keats, or Margaret Wise Brown could tell you. Examinin How beautiful can a book about nothing be? Quite beautiful, as fans of Kevin Henkes, Ezra Jack Keats, or Margaret Wise Brown could tell you. Examining the stealthy dramas of a nothing day, noticing the little nonevents that add up to more than the nothing perceived by the un-attentive eye, can make for a rewarding story that teaches readers to look for breathtaking moments even where it appears that dullness reigns uncontested, because those moments are there. In truth, 2006 Newbery Medalist (for Criss Cross) Lynne Rae Perkins doesn't write about nothing. She simply observes so carefully what is going on around the characters in her books that it feels like she gets preoccupied with nonessentials, but that isn't truly the case. Lynne Rae Perkins tunes in better to the connectedness of people and their surroundings than any other author I've read, recognizing that the auburn leaf free-floating from a tree's uppermost branch to land at a character's feet is not just a meaningless detail of the larger story. That leaf had a genesis, too, as did the tree on which it grew, and there's no telling what it has seen, or the ways its life might have shared surprising coincidences with the lives of the people in the story. Not one gear in the clockwork of our universe is wholly disengaged, not important enough to be mentioned for its moment of passing interaction with those on whom the primary narrative focuses. As noted on the inside flap of Nuts to You, "What's the story? It depends on who you ask." Lynne Rae Perkins diligently searches out every story within the story, and because of it, her novels are uniquely detailed. She never fails to entertain, inspire, and get one thinking a little deeper about the world we inhabit.
The false "Wolf!" cry of young Jip the squirrel is what starts the trouble. His incessant chattering about phantom predators dulls everyone's natural reactions to the danger surrounding them, until a real threat, a sharp-taloned hawk, dive-bombs the squirrels' settlement and snatches one of their number, Jed. Fortunately for the pinioned squirrel, the attack didn't kill him, and he's able to use this element of surprise to escape the hawk's clutches before it can strike a lethal blow. But now Jed is lost far from home, realms away from the forest he shares with his friends and relatives, and the odds aren't good for an animal as small and scatterbrained as a squirrel to ever retrace its path back to where it started. Jed would give up and start anew with his new batch of squirrel friends, red squirrels instead of the gray variety he's accustomed to back home, but the thought that this isn't where he belongs won't stop bothering him. No oversized bird on the hunt should be able to alter the trajectory of his life so profoundly without at least an effort on Jed's part to reverse the effect. He must try to make it home.
"He tried to ignore the feather of longing that tickled his heart. But it kept tickling. Because he hadn't quite made up his mind to stay here."
—Nuts to You, P. 49
It didn't go unnoticed by Jed's friends TsTs and Chai that Jed was still alive and wriggling when he fell from the hawk's grip. While the rest of the squirrels pay hasty respects to their involuntarily airlifted friend and eagerly move on with their lives, TsTs persuades Chai to join her on a search for Jed. The unnatural spiderwebs (manmade electric power lines) cutting through the forest lead almost directly to where they saw Jed drop, so as long as he doesn't wander too far away, TsTs and Chai should be able to locate him. But who knows what enemies lurk in the dark foreign reaches of the forest?
As the separated woodland companions fight to find one another, ignoring the apathy of other squirrels who don't care enough to scour the realms of the forest for an abducted neighbor, an adversary more dangerous than a hawk appears within the limits of their wooded grove. Mankind has the tools, knowhow, and motivation to do severe damage to the homes of small forest creatures even without intending to, and the realization that trouble is on a collision course with their friends back home forces TsTs and Chai to choose one of two conflicting priorities. Do they have time to locate Jed before lumber-jacking devastation winds its way to their home? Or should they forsake their journey to find Jed and hurry to sound the alarm to the band of squirrels they left behind, knowing that getting a big group of squirrels to care about anything besides packing away extra nuts for the winter is a nearly hopeless endeavor? Animal and human need and mutual care come together in a big finale, where a cluster of squirrels who have witnessed the danger attempt to guide their friends and family to safety without their being aware of it. But will it be enough to save the day from the terrors of eminent domain?
Lynne Rae Perkins has a way of exquisitely drawing the magic out of the moment, however plain the moment might appear. Her eyes see deeper than most, and through her writing she creates an access point for us to join her in seeing the magic she sees. That simple magic is less visible in Nuts to You than Criss Cross, or even As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth, but the scope of the story is the same, and I appreciate it. There's a quote from page two hundred thirty-three of Nuts to You that I think insightfully captures the meaning of the book: "It was one of those moments where anything can happen. Something big or something small. Something kind or something harsh. It's so uncertain that the first one to speak can tip it one way or the other." In retrospect, so many pivotal junctures in our lives are like that, where our future forks to head in drastically different directions because of a single action or statement. Life is raw and formless and unsettling and hard to understand even in hindsight, so much so that it makes us intensely uncomfortable if we dwell on that truth for long. Lynne Rae Perkins, however, sees it as reason to celebrate, and her novels are usually vehicles for that celebration. By acknowledging the simple beauty of seminal moments big and small, earth-shattering and mundane, obvious and undetectable, we open our minds to the reality that any moment could be our defining one. Even this next moment, or the next, or the next. And there's no telling where we'll find ourselves on the other side of it. All we can do is resolve to try our best in the here and now, and maybe it will lead us to the opportunity to be the author of a happy ending of our own. I applaud Lynne Rae Perkins for this interesting, thoughtful novel, and look forward to reuniting someday in the pages of another of her books. Until then, since it seems the thing to say when speaking of this book, "Nut to you, my friend...Nuts to us all." ...more
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Apr 23, 2015
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"I knew how that felt, to love a story so much you didn't just want to read it, you wanted to feel it."
—A Snicker of Magic, P. 76
Debut novelists ha "I knew how that felt, to love a story so much you didn't just want to read it, you wanted to feel it."
—A Snicker of Magic, P. 76
Debut novelists have a history of doing well in the Newbery awards, but I nonetheless was surprised by the Newbery hype generated by A Snicker of Magic in the year it first hit the press. Natalie Lloyd is a gifted artist with words, using them like a painter smearing rainbows of acrylic across his or her canvas, and this mastery of words must have had a deep impact on Newbery enthusiasts. A Snicker of Magic could have won the 2015 Newbery Medal (or an Honor) and I wouldn't have been taken aback at all, after hearing so many early positives about this unique juvenile novel. The characters are playful and unusual, lighthearted even when dealing with heavy subjects of pain and loss. It's hard to help being drawn to Jonah Pickett, who lights up the page like a sweet smile on a young one's face. The story pieces together logically and has a strong payoff at the end, playing smartly off the action to that point and satisfyingly tying together several mystery threads at once. But above all, the language is what redeems this book as a worthwhile contemporary tale, infused with the same measure of magic alluded to in its title. Natalie Lloyd loves words, as most writers do, but she revels in them differently, like an ebullient child flouncing through waist-high snow on a day when weather forces cancellation of school. The passionate honesty of A Snicker of Magic comes through in the colorful, indefatigable wording of the narrative, and so does the storyteller's wisdom, driving home the ultimate point of everything that goes on in these pages which make us better for having read them. All this flows from the clearwater brook of bubbling enthusiasm for language, a celebration of light and sound reflected from the pure water's surface. It's a celebration every reader who can get their hands on a copy of A Snicker of Magic is invited to, and I hope they continue to accept Natalie Lloyd's invitation. Few will regret having done so.
"Forgetting people you love is impossible. It's like forgetting how to breathe."
—Felicity Pickle, A Snicker of Magic, P. 209
When Felicity, her sister Frannie Jo, and their mother first enter the town where their mother grew up, Felicity knows better than to expect a longterm stay. Her mother hasn't settled in one place for long since before Felicity was born, and her itchy feet worsened when Felicity's father up and left the family years ago, unable to adapt to a nomadic lifestyle. Felicity wants to put down roots and get to know her neighbors without having to worry about when her mother will want to pick up and leave again; Felicity has never had any close friends, and though she tries not to burden her mother with guilt by talking about it, she's tired of globetrotting. Starting over in a new place again and again is a romantic notion, but so is settling down in a nice hometown and making friends, and Felicity wishes she could get a taste of that sweetness instead of the same travel, travel, and more travel, in perpetuity.
"Some words have a taste, and lonely is one of them. It doesn't matter if you're eating apples or chicken fingers or peanut butter cookies—once you see lonely, everything tastes like sand."
—A Snicker of Magic, PP. 28-29
"Fear always finds you no matter what...And it growls louder and grows bigger, the longer you run away from it."
—A Snicker of Magic, P. 268
Midnight Gulch is unlike any other town in which Felicity and her family have lived. On the way there, her mother spun dreamy yarns of the old town containing a leftover morsel of enchantment from the old days, when magic unquestionably ruled this part of the forest and everyone living there was happy. Midnight Gulch has a sad history, a dividing point where magic went one direction and the townsfolk decided to head the other, and the town hasn't been the same since. But despite what the current generation of Gulchers mourn as long-gone magic, Felicity sees the remnants of it everywhere: in the larger than life personalities that fill Midnight Gulch; in the anonymous kindness of the Beedle, who gives a helping hand to anyone and everyone without requesting anything in return; in the ice cream shop where her mother lands a job, a store that manufactures flavors of ice cream that can't be found outside of Midnight Gulch. These ice creams bear traces of magic, particularly Blackberry Sunrise, whose mix of melancholy flavors transform into vivid memories in the brains of those who indulge in its smooth blend of taste and texture. Like every good thing in Midnight Gulch, Blackberry Sunrise has a secret behind its invention, and finding it out is part of the fun awaiting Felicity as she introduces herself to the town.
"Everything you touch, everything you smell, everything you taste, every picture you see—all of that has the potential to call up a sad memory. You can't choose what comes up first. But you can choose to replace it with something good. I choose to think on the good parts."
—Felicity's mother, A Snicker of Magic, P. 265
"Sometimes you don't need words to feel better; you just need the nearness of your dog. Or your best friend."
—A Snicker of Magic, P. 173
It's Jonah Pickett, he of the greenest eye and blondest (well, not quite blondest) hair who makes Midnight Gulch a worthwhile settling place for Felicity. If not for Jonah, it would be just another stop on her mother's endless tour, and when her mother found reason to skip town again in hopes of a better landing place, Felicity would have gone along without complaint, wondering if their train would ever arrive at its terminus. Jonah extends Felicity his friendship forthwith, without having to prove she's worth the offer. And with Jonah to guide her, Felicity starts learning the long, rich history of Midnight Gulch, marked with mountainous highs and shady vales that combine into a picture of a place once possessed of transformative magic. If Jonah, himself, isn't magic, then Felicity doesn't know what is, but there's a broader magic that could still belong to everyone in town if it hadn't been squandered years ago, and Felicity believes she can help set things right. But is a quest for centuries-old reconciliation sufficient to make Felicity's mother linger in Midnight Gulch awhile?
"Time fades every picture, no matter how bright it is to start."
—A Snicker of Magic, P. 143
All around Felicity, memories seem key in mending fences and healing old wounds, but Felicity isn't ready to indulge in her own carton of Blackberry Sunrise ice cream to conjure up the recollections that hurt her most. Her family hasn't been whole since the day her father hugged her one last time and walked away for good, not deeming his two young daughters valuable enough to keep him home. Lots of people in Midnight Gulch trudge through an everyday sludge of mourning and regret, the wintry ash of missed opportunity dragging down their steps as they try to keep moving forward, but maybe it's as a unified community that they can recapture the magic of yesteryear and address their issues, not pretending everything is okay when it's not, but accepting that they each have a lot of sorrow as well as much to be thankful for, and the tender embrace of lovely memories can provide comfort enough to tolerate the memories that sting. If Felicity can figure out what needs to be done for Midnight Gulch to again overflow with magic, perhaps everyone's worries will grow a little bit smaller. It's up to a lonesome girl and her good-hearted friend to solve a mystery that has puzzled generations and discover what they all need to be happy. Hey, in a place like Midnight Gulch, anything is possible.
"I never wanted to forget all the ways we were connected that day: By our shadows and sunlight. By pounding hearts and a starry maybe.
By the nearly silent flutter of our broken wings."
—A Snicker of Magic, P. 131
"Home isn't just a house or a city or a place; home is what happens when you're brave enough to love people."
—A Snicker of Magic, P. 302
I had a difficult time deciding what rating A Snicker of Magic deserves. It wasn't hard to know I wanted to give it two and a half stars, but the line for rounding up or down is so fine, it could easily go either way. I chose to round up because the story resolves so well, and the book's wisdom is several notches above average. Here's an example, lifted from Felicity's inner monologue as she reflects on what she's gained in Midnight Gulch after spending her life up to now as a road-weary wanderer: "Lonely had followed me around for so long. That word was always perched somewhere close, always staring down at me, waiting to pounce out my joy. But I hadn't seen lonely near me in a while. And I hadn't seen it near the people I loved, either." When loneliness has been your partner for a lifetime, a mocker who never wearies of reminding you what you don't have that everyone else seems to own in abundance, you don't want it to come back after you've found someone to help chase it away. Probably my favorite line from A Snicker of Magic is about the boy who chased loneliness out of Felicity's life, an exhilarating description she gives of her friendship to Jonah when her mother asks if she has a crush on him. "Not a crush...More like an inflate. He makes me feel the opposite of crushed. He makes my heart feel like a balloon, like it's going to blow up and fly right out of my chest." Oh, how wondrous a picture of their one-of-a-kind friendship. I read this and thought, "Yes! That's exactly the feeling a close friend gives, the opposite of feeling crushed." Calling it an "inflate" beautifully renders the nuances of what it's like to have an intimate friend, one who breathes the breath of life into you and reverses the damage from having been crushed in the past. Yes, an inflate is the kind of relationship I love to have. We could all use them in our lives now and again.
"Fear seems like all the world when it takes hold of me; it's all I dream about, think about, and see. But it was love taking hold of me right then. And love is the whole universe—so wide I can't even see the edges of it.
Love is wild and wonderful.
Love is blue skies and stardust."
—A Snicker of Magic, P. 275
"I can very often tell how much a person loves another person by the way they say their name. I think that's one of the best feelings in the world, when you know your name is safe in another person's mouth. When you know they'll never shout it out like a cuss word, but say it or whisper it like a once-upon-a-time."
—A Snicker of Magic, P. 86
A big part of the hope in A Snicker of Magic is seeing that people like Jonah Pickett do exist, willing to reach out and establish friendship with shy peers who aren't convinced they have what it takes to earn friends. It can be a scary task, and fear of rejection is its own form of paralysis. But Jonah seeks Felicity before anyone else gives her a second glance, engendering hope that friends like him are out there in the real world. There's at least a snicker of magic in the air wherever you go, near or far or out of this world entirely, and that magic shows itself best in the kind words and hearts of friends who love you at your best, worst, and every stage in between. A Snicker of Magic is a winsome tribute to words, wishes, and any other form of magic that creates joy in life, and I had quite a time with it. Won't you give it a whirl, too?
"It's so weird how life is so full of people moving around—people coming and going, people passing by each other all day long. You never know which person's going to steal your heart. You never know which place is going to settle your soul. All you can do is look. And hope. And believe."
—A Snicker of Magic, PP. 306-307
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"(T)his could be the big inning of a wonderful friendship."
—Tesla's Attic, P. 203
This is a hard one to critique objectively. Having read dozens of "(T)his could be the big inning of a wonderful friendship."
—Tesla's Attic, P. 203
This is a hard one to critique objectively. Having read dozens of Neal Shusterman's captivating, otherworldly young-adult novels and nothing from Eric Elfman, the temptation is to attribute everything wonderful in the story to Shusterman, and any clumsy turns of phrase to his less accomplished co-author. It's natural after consistently getting mind-blowing literary experiences from a particular writer to bet one's money on him coming through again, and view an additional party to the novel as a potential third wheel. But I don't believe that would be fair to what Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman committed to try in Tesla's Attic. Without clear designation of who was responsible for writing what, readers are asked to take the two authors as one, to view the narrative they created as the work of two minds melded together to make something that, in theory, neither author could have done on his own. Could Neal Shusterman have crafted a better kickstart to the Accelerati trilogy without Eric Elfman? In sooth, I can't say the thought didn't cross my mind often. Working as they did on Google Docs, rewriting and editing each other's content live while they were producing it, I have to assume there were moments of frustration for both authors. When you're used to getting on a roll and unspooling dozens of pages of good copy at a clip, catching creative fire and settling into the perfect voice, mood, and tempo for your story, having to defer to the vision of another writer could feel extremely stymying. So, left on his own to search the corners of his famous Storyman brain, could Neal Shusterman have come up with a better version of Tesla's Attic? Maybe, but I've determined to give our co-authors the benefit of the doubt and classify that question as moot. What the two of them made together is a thing of rare literary beauty, an intriguing, perceptive, and emotionally volatile work that honors the name of both its creators. The Accelerati trilogy has gotten off to a fantastic start, and Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman are responsible for it. I look forward to what is to come.
"(B)ut a second can split in a million different directions..."
—Tesla's Attic, P. 26
The most devastating seismic shifts in fourteen-year-old Nick Slate's life happen before he discovers the attic full of camouflaged treasures in the old house his family inherits in Colorado. When fire pounced on their old house like a rapacious thief in the night, the blaze claimed more than most of their personal belongings and Nick's father's baseball memorabilia from his small-time career as a Tampa Bay Devil Ray in Major League Baseball. Nick sprinted to safety from the timbers collapsing around him, but his mother fell victim to the conspiratorial flames, unable to escape before incinerated wood tumbled in and buried her. Nick, his nine-year-old brother Danny, and their father are without their mother and wife now, left with the imperative to start a fresh life for themselves in a new town and school, in the house where Nick's Great-aunt Greta passed her days.
"On theory, they had moved here to start a fresh, shining new life. But even the most promising theories can be impossible to prove."
—Tesla's Attic, P. 3
After Nick is veritably attacked by the spring-loaded toaster lying in wait up the attic stairs and sent to the hospital with a sizable head gash, the spectacular nature of the attic's wares soon makes itself apparent. Everything up in that attic, now converted to be Nick's bedroom, has a nearly supernatural purpose. The recording machine captures not what is spoken, but the thoughts of whoever's doing the talking; the pull-string device finishes anyone's sentences with unsettlingly sagacious remarks, even portents of the future. The wet cell battery reanimates the dead for short periods, and the baseball glove claimed by Danny exacts gravitational pull on baseballs flying within any reasonable vicinity...and also on more dangerous objects, objects on a cosmic scale. The attic is packed with science-fiction curiosities that could each be worth a massive fortune, and they've fallen into Nick's possession.
At least, they had fallen into his possession. A fateful garage sale transfers ownership of most of the items to residents of the surrounding neighborhood and town, leaving little to no trail to where the bizarre inventions may have been taken. All Nick knows is that the few technologies he's recovered so far are powerful enough to blow the earth to oblivion if the wrong individuals get their hands on them, and Nick bears the onus for selling most everything away before checking to see what the antiques could do. As the new kid in town with no history in Colorado, Nick could have a lonesome struggle on his hands, without even a mother to lean on for support, but this isn't the case. Petula Grabowski-Jones, the school's oddball who coyly manipulates scenarios to get close to Nick right away, knows something about an invention or two that escaped Nick's ownership in the garage sale, and is willing to shed light on the matter if Nick agrees to cooperate with her other demands. Popular cheerleader and socialite Caitlin Westfield is in this as deep as Nick, having bought the old-fashioned recorder at the garage sale, confounded as to what she should do with the dangerous device. She fears its potential not only to reveal her hidden thoughts to anyone who listens to it, but to herself, as well, tearing down the false fronts she's erected in order to live a happy life. This machine could blow her carefully ordered façade to smithereens. There are other eighth-graders who made purchases at Nick's garage sale, too, some eager to lend their assistance in retrieving the disseminated wares, and others vehemently disagreeable to giving up the treasure they wield, but Nick needs all their help if he's to track down every artifact he sold and return them to his attic.
"When faced with the end of all things, it was much easier to nibble at it than take it in large, indigestible bites."
—Tesla's Attic, P. 223
As Nick investigates the history of his great-aunt's house and why it might contain objects of scientific advancement far beyond anything achieved in today's world, he learns he isn't the only one interested in rounding up the inventions. A sinister man and his assistants, clad in fine pearlescent attire, shadow Nick's every move, and make it clear they want what he had stored in his attic. The Accelerati is a secret organization of enormous influence, and Nick doesn't want to think what they would do with the items he unwittingly spread around town. The inventions appear to trace back to the creative mind of Nicola Tesla, who, rumor has it, lived with Nick's Great-aunt Greta briefly, and may have stored some of what he was working on in her house. Could any human other than the legendary Tesla have concocted the articles of freakish genius Nick has seen? Nick's family could be in grave danger from his powerful new enemies, but if all the recipients of Tesla's inventions aren't cautious with the inventions they hold, it could be more than Nick's family in peril. Tesla's innovations are potent enough to place the entire globe in the path of destruction, with no way to save itself from being mowed down by a freight train of kineticism the earth hasn't a prayer of withstanding. Has Tesla's ingenuity brought about the end of life as we know it?
"When you know the future...you can either let that future happen to you, or be the one to create it."
—Ms. Planck, Tesla's Attic, P. 238
"I have no doubt that, one way or another, you'll fill the empty spaces left behind."
—Ms. Planck, P. 77
Tesla's Attic has more than most other books do to take up space in the minds of discriminating readers. If you're interested in zany characters, enjoy the sections featuring Petula, who is...different. You won't meet many girls like her in eighth grade, but what would this story be without her? Her mind operates on an alternative frequency from the majority of her peers. Ms. Planck is a unique lunch server, doing her job according to her own set of rules and offering more than just victuals to students in which she sees promise. Tesla's Attic would be a different book if she didn't work at Nick's school. But what really got me about Tesla's Attic is the emotional sequences that bring home the haunting depth of the loss Nick and his family suffered when his mother died. The part with Nick's brother, Danny, and the baseball glove, right after Danny discovers what it can do, is severely poignant, as deep and cutting as the furrow of a meteorite running aground on the grassy surface of planet earth. There are hurts that one would readily spend the rest of one's life wishing on falling stars to erase if there were any chance of it doing the trick. I won't forget that scene with Danny, not ever. It almost makes me consider giving Tesla's Attic three and a half stars. True to Neal Shusterman's transcendent style, this book is a diverse wealth of positives, commendable attributes to be recognized in every area. If there's an author who can do justice to the surreal mindscape of Nicola Tesla, it's Neal Shusterman, who has proven he can work as well with another writer as he does on his own.
"I know this sounds weird...but it's like we're all a part of this machine. The things we've done—the things we still have to do—they're all connected."
—Tesla's Attic, P. 244
What else is there to say about Tesla's Attic? Plenty. I can appreciate the mix of fascination and revulsion with which Caitlin regards the old recording machine when it dawns on her that it faithfully records the thoughts of those who speak into it. Caitlin daily walks a tightrope of truth and lies, wobbling on it now and then but knowing that to fall would be unthinkable. Her lies are as intimate of acquaintances as any friend Caitlin remembers having. The following line perfectly describes Caitlin's feelings toward the recording machine: "To a girl like Caitlin, whose heart was wrapped in so many layers of disguise that she never knew exactly what she really felt, this machine was either her salvation, or her ruin." A few dozen pages later, when crisis has hit Caitlin and Nick tries to help her cope with it, he thinks of an analogy so masterful, so hard-hitting and true, it could only come from a writer like Neal Shusterman or an eighth-grader who doesn't know he isn't supposed to be this wise. Nick: "What happened to you is kind of like a fire, in a way. I saw this thing once on T.V. They said wildfires have to happen every so often. Brush gets too thick, trees get too dense. You have a hot day and whoosh! But the heathy trees survive. In fact, there are some seeds that won't even grow until they burn first." He continues: "So have you lost some friends today? Maybe, but they weren't real friends. They were just brush. And the ones who stick by you, the ones who get it? They're the healthy trees." This line of thought is a marvel, a revolution of personal philosophy that many, many people desperately need, but won't ever encounter exactly as Nick put it if they aren't readers. It's paradigm-shifting paragraphs like this that make reading more than entertainment; it's a life-changing activity that feeds the soul even as it electrifies the senses, and Neal Shusterman is one of the best writers in both respects. Nick's wildfire analogy is something I will carry with me always, a shield against a world that now and then decides to launch an offensive. The shield may not guard me from the onslaught completely, but could deflect the critical mass of the attack, and that might be enough. I hope others will also recall Nick's words to help defend themselves.
"No outcome is certain, even when it seems so. Fates can change with the swing of a bat, or the flip of a switch, or the closing of a circuit.
It all came down to how far you dared to go to accomplish what the world thinks can't be done."
—Tesla's Attic, P. 245
The inventions Nick stumbles upon in his Great-aunt Greta's attic shouldn't be taken lightly; when they are taken lightly, it leads to dire consequences, even tragic loss of life. This is a big part of the story's suspense, suspense that unfolds with laudable skill, timing, and unpredictability. Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman know how to lead us to an inevitable conclusion with no concrete idea what's going to happen next or how we're going to arrive there, and it's exciting. Nick and his eighth-grade peers don't always take the magnitude of Tesla's inventions seriously enough, but they know they've gotten themselves into something big, something deserving of more respect than they routinely give. We see this even when they deem it necessary to tinker with powers beyond their ken, as seen by Nick's answer to a question Caitlin asks late in the book. "Shouldn't it bother us?...Messing with life and death and things we don't fully understand?" "'If we fully understood them,' said Nick, 'What would be the point of messing with them?'" That may have been Tesla's attitude about life, and it's definitely Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman's modus operandi. They delve into lots of scientific speculation in Tesla's Attic, constructing a plausible alternative life story for the genius scientist that might not flawlessly mesh with the accepted narrative of his life, but whose literary effect can't be denied. Like Robert Lawson's Ben and Me decades earlier, which humorously provided Benjamin Franklin a murine associate to jumpstart his best scientific notions, Tesla's Attic credits Nicola Tesla with an uncommon wellspring of brilliance, surpassing even what we know to be true of him, bringing tribute to one of our greatest thinkers with a novel that can sit proudly beside most of Neal Shusterman's other work. Keep "Messing with life and death and things we don't fully understand", Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman. I feel I speak on behalf of most of your readers when I say we are better for it.
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Apr 06, 2015
Apr 12, 2015
Apr 06, 2015
Jun 1991
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"In matters where I have no cognizance
I hold my tongue."
—Creon, Oedipus Rex, P. 21
A book like Oedipus Rex, perhaps most famed of all extant Ancie "In matters where I have no cognizance
I hold my tongue."
—Creon, Oedipus Rex, P. 21
A book like Oedipus Rex, perhaps most famed of all extant Ancient Greek plays, brings to the forefront questions about the legitimacy of translation. It takes long, hard work to learn more than one language well enough to translate even a casual conversation, but how about when the most important literary voice of a long-gone civilization rides on the accuracy of the translation, where a lax equivalent here and there could give generations of readers the wrong idea about the greatness of one of the most celebrated authors in history? Then consider the difficulty of translating one modern tongue to another, multiple that difficulty exponentially, and you might be close to comprehending the monumental task set before an ambitious scholar of Ancient Greek like Sir George Young. Even English from just a few hundred years ago is difficult for today's speakers of the same language to understand. Words and word forms are liquid entities, conforming to whatever container they're scooped up in next, and over the centuries there is bound to be a cognitive gap in how they are acceptably used. Yet Sir George Young accepted the challenge of translating the great literary work Oedipus Rex for English speakers, constructing a window for the masses to observe the work of arguably the finest playwright produced by the culture that invented modern theater. Would that I knew enough of classical Greek to confirm Sir George Young's translation as sufficiently faithful to the original text, but I will have to trust the scholarly soundness of this intellectual giant who decoded Oedipus Rex, and enjoy the manuscript in unwavering faith that Sophocles speaks again in these pages. It is a rare and remarkable thrill, one I do not take lightly.
The basic story of Oedipus Rex is common knowledge, though minus absolutely crucial details all around. Oedipus: savior, champion, and wealthy king of Thebes, is the perfect picture of a blessed man. If any mere mortal has curried favor with Zeus and the fickle Fates, surely that man is Oedipus, who has ascended to take the throne of Thebes and rule with favor from one and all. But when Oedipus starts examining too closely the death of the former regent of Thebes, vowing that whoever killed the man should be brought to justice, the answers that come back to him are increasingly troubling. After hesitating to divulge what he knows, warning Oedipus that the truth is better left undiscovered, blind profit Tiresias accuses Oedipus of slaying his own predecessor, but mutters other accusations that would be far more devastating if they proved true.
"For time alone shews a man's honesty,
But in one day you may discern his guilt."
—Creon, P. 22
As Oedipus searches for witnesses who can bring to light the full story behind the previous king's death, the life of Oedipus and his queen, Jocasta, distorts into a nightmarish world of irreversible horrors. Oedipus did unknowingly kill the man who proceeded him as ruler, and that man was his father. As an infant, Oedipus was disowned and banished far from his parents' presence after an oracle warned that the baby would one day kill his father, but it was the attempt at thwarting the curse, in the end, that brought it to pass as foretold. When adult Oedipus claimed the throne of Thebes, and the city-state's queen to be his lovely bride, neither he nor Jocasta knew he was marrying the woman who gave birth to him. Sons and daughters of their royal union, normally the pride of any kingdom ancient or modern, are revealed to be products of unrealized incest, the scorn of society's most ingrained taboo.
"For why was I to see,
When to descry
No sight on earth could have a charm for me?"
—Oedipus, Oedipus Rex, P. 47
When the inconsolable queen takes her own life, Oedipus's grief increases beyond the elasticity of the human frame to hold. In his crazed state of mourning the beautiful life and family he thought were his, Oedipus turns to horrific mutilation to end the intolerable stream of reality that accosts his senses. Maimed beyond possibility of ever again leading a normal life, Oedipus seeks the cruel anonymity of exile, where he can live out the days of his accursed existence with no party to his shame. Oedipus's empire has crumbled, and he can't see a point in trying to set any of it back upright. All he cherished is destroyed beyond reclamation. Only death can free him from his carnal bondage, the bondage he created by mutilating himself. A man who has seen too much of a senselessly perverse, broken world would just as soon never see again, and Oedipus doesn't have to worry about that. The fall of the greatest man in Thebes is utter. Like the most notorious fallen heroes, Oedipus walks alone.
"Watch therefore and regard that supreme day;
And of no mortal say
"That man is happy," till
Vexed by no grievous ill
He pass Life's goal."
—Oedipus Rex, P. 54
Oedipus Rex explores themes of life-altering tragedy, tragedy so profound it can never be undone, and puts us in front row seats to watch the carnage to its end. As Robert Cormier would do for his own young readers a couple thousand years later, Sophocles delivers the jarring account of a family's descent into violent madness, and it does get rather violent in Oedipus Rex. Oedipus's passionate, deranged response to the death of his wife and mother is bone-chilling, and forces us to wonder how badly we might spiral if confronted with the rap sheet of catastrophes progressively revealed to Oedipus in this book. His calamity feels disquietingly real, and that's why Oedipus Rex retains its power over us after thousands of years, meriting translation into every language that studies the classic literature of the Greeks. Not every good story ends with the possibility of things getting better. A tragedy with no escape hatch can resonate just as deeply as one with an inbuilt message of hope, because it shows what really can happen if you aren't careful (or even if you are) in life. It's an unforgettable reminder not to take the days of blessing for granted, because one never knows when they might end. May those who read these words never suffer like Oedipus.
Because Oedipus Rex is a play, it's mostly dialogue, with few descriptive phrases to help readers see the overwhelming intensity of the characters' upset or effectively immerse us in the Ancient Theban setting. For this reason, the book requires a lot of dramatic imagination on the reader's part, and probably has more impact presented in its original medium, as an onstage production. Oedipus Rex is a master work of ancient literature, and its message is no less relevant today than it was in the fifth century B.C., or will be a thousand years from now. Cultures change, but the range of human emotion does not, and I believe Oedipus Rex will be enlightening people about it for a long time to come. I'm honored to count myself among its alumni. ...more
Notes are private!
Apr 05, 2015
Apr 06, 2015
Apr 05, 2015
Mass Market Paperback
Feb 01, 2000
Feb 01, 2000
it was ok
I don't think I've read any other series like Johnathan Rand's Michigan Chillers and American Chillers. I'm not surprised the books' best route to pu I don't think I've read any other series like Johnathan Rand's Michigan Chillers and American Chillers. I'm not surprised the books' best route to publication was for Christopher Wright (a.k.a. Johnathan Rand) to take the risk and self-publish. The author had no formal writing education past high school, and it shows in the way the books are written. Thriftiness with words is not a big priority, nor is standard grammar or punctuation. Plot logistics aren't always perfectly tight, and mysteries of the story often remain unexplained through the end. Uncompromisingly disciplined writers might be driven nuts by Mayhem on Mackinac Island; the key to enjoying it is to set aside most of one's conceptions as to how a professional-quality juvenile novel should read, and plunge headfirst into the narrative, which is entertaining enough if one can get past the irregular form it takes. There's an exciting story to be had in Mayhem on Mackinac Island if one gives it a chance, and I can see why widespread demand among kids for more Michigan Chillers was the rising tide that set the franchise afloat.
Twelve-year-old Sandy Johnson and her eleven-year-old brother Tim are looking forward to fun times when they arrive in Mackinac Island, Michigan for their annual summer vacation. But after spotting the same wizard-like man they briefly saw last year up in the limbs of a gnarled old tree, they follow the man this time...right into a world of major trouble. When Sandy and Tim get their bearings after a terrifying initial encounter, Mackinac Island has changed dramatically. In place of the familiar landmarks are craggy cliffs, deep, dark forests, and a towering mountain formed into the shape of a skull. This strange new land—"Mayhem Island", the locals call it— is wild and untamed, containing dangerous creatures that hunt Sandy and her brother as prey for their next meal, forcing them to run for their lives to survive from one minute to the next. They sure aren't on Mackinac Island anymore.
"I don't know if you've ever had the feeling that you were all alone, on your own, but let me tell you, it is NOT fun."
—Mayhem on Mackinac Island, P. 40
Luckily for our sibling heroes, there are beings on Mayhem Island sympathetic to their plight. These allies defend Sandy and Tim against the island's predators, while filling them in on the troubled history of the land and what can be done to reverse the curse on it and get Sandy and Tim back where they belong before their parents notice their absence. These helpful denizens of Mayhem Island approach the two earthlings in the time-honored tradition of Lewis Carroll's Alice Adventures in Wonderland, taking their own absurd existence seriously and casually turning topsy-turvy much of what the kids see as universal reality. But the quest Sandy and Tim have to go on to give themselves a chance at returning home is no laughing matter, and their survival will be tested to the extreme by a series of trials no one has ever passed. Time is running out for our dual protagonists to save Mayhem Island before the bad guys take over completely, and if that happens, Sandy and Tim will never see their parents again. Their own fate, as well as that of an entire dimension, rests in their hands.
"There comes a time when you stop worrying about being late for supper and just worry about the problem at hand."
—Mayhem on Mackinac Island, P. 43
I'm undecided on what to rate this book. The story has definite entertainment merits despite some internal inconsistencies and unresolved storylines, so I'm torn over rounding my one-and-a-half stars up or down. I'll have to think on that more, and reserve the right to change my decision. Prospective readers of the American Chillers series should know this isn't the last time they'll meet Sandy Johnson, but I won't say any more than that. Michigan Chillers isn't as smooth a finished product as R.L. Stine's insanely popular Goosebumps, and its plot twists won't seize you in a vice grip like that other series on occasion could, but there's plenty here to entertain readers searching for lighthearted adventure. I would love to read all the Michigan Chillers and American Chillers, and if you take that as an endorsement of the series on my part, well...I won't mind.
Notes are private!
Apr 04, 2015
Apr 05, 2015
Apr 04, 2015
Apr 01, 1971
Jan 28, 1991
liked it
If you're looking for a holiday story from a Newbery author, you'll have by far the most luck finding Christmas ones. Easter is pretty far down the l If you're looking for a holiday story from a Newbery author, you'll have by far the most luck finding Christmas ones. Easter is pretty far down the list; in fact, you might not find anything specifically related to Easter by a Newbery author unless you know to seek out 1971's The Easter Cat by 1955 Newbery Medalist Meindert DeJong. The final Newbery total tallied by Meindert DeJong in his career was an almost unprecedented five—four Honors and one Medal winner—and his writing makes it easy to see why he was so often recognized as one of the best in American children's literature. Unlike the majority of his contemporaries, Meindert DeJong doesn't shy from using suspense as a story's main seasoning, masterfully crafting his main characters' situations to build and maintain that suspense. In The Easter Cat, the tension is predicated on young Millicent's circumstance of knowing she can never have the cat she desires. Millicent loves little kittens and longs to care for them, but her mother has a hair-trigger allergy to anything feline, and can't abide a cat in her vicinity. Even when Millicent tries to circumvent this depressing situation by stealing away to an abandoned warehouse to feed and play with the stray cats who hang out there, her mother catches wind of it and orders Millicent never to return to the isolated building. Vagrants and mischief makers could be on the prowl, and it isn't safe for a girl Millicent's age to wander off by herself. So Millicent morosely continues her cat-less existence, with little hope of change.
Until, that is, one wee Easter morning, when a fracas between some cats outside the house awakens Millicent. When she goes downstairs to look around, excited to think what surprises Easter morning will bring, a little ball of blue fur nuzzles up to Millicent. It's a kitten, azure of both eye and fur, and it takes an immediate shine to the only young girl of the house. Millicent marvels at how crafty her grown brothers, Dave and Carl, had to be to sneak the new cat into her Easter basket last night without her catching on to what they were doing. Somehow they even restrained the kitten from meowing, so she wouldn't hear it before morning! What wonderful, clever brothers she has, to obtain a cat that won't trigger her mother's allergies, and what a gracious mother she has to consent to Millicent's keeping the animal!
It doesn't take long for Millicent to realize the kitten she dubs "Blue Angel" is no Easter gift; in fact, her mother and brothers must not be aware it is in the house at all. The basement window Millicent left unlocked earlier after handing a jumprope through to the girl from next-door...it would have been an inviting sight, indeed, for a baby cat seeking refuge from a larger, meaner feline. Blue Angel isn't her cat at all. As soon as her mother wakes and discovers this walking, purring collection of allergens sojourning under her roof, she's sure to order it removed without delay. After living with waning hope for so long that she would ever have a cat of her own, Millicent, for a few blissful minutes, had believed Blue Angel was her little miracle. The infant kitten, too soft and small to defend itself against the hardened alley cats of the area, could never navigate the big, bad world without Millicent's help. The dream of sharing her home and love with this gorgeous blue creature had nestled so comfortably, so warmly in her heart, but that dream is evaporating with the morning dew, and there isn't anything Millicent can do to slow its demise. As soon as her family starts their day, it's just a matter of time before Blue Angel is found and sent away. Unless...
What about the secret passage Millicent uncovered yesterday, within the planter and under the old phonograph on the front porch? The skinny, dark passageway led under the floorboards and past a dividing partition to an uncompleted under-area of the house Millicent had never seen. Maybe her family has no idea it exists. As Millicent weighs her options, desperate to keep Blue Angel from being wrested away, her brand-new cat's loud meows threaten to bring the whole house awake before Millicent can take action. Now there's definitely no safe place to tarry and come up with a better solution. It's the secret passage under the porch or nothing, and letting Blue Angel be torn from her arms and given away can't be an option. If there's a chance in a million of keeping her kitten then Millicent is going to take it, but asking for even those long odds may be a stretch. Life is rough when you're the sole kid in a house of grownups who can't understand the way you think and what is most important to you. But miracles happen, especially at Easter, and the joy Blue Angel's advent brings has to soften the adults' hearts at least a little. Can Millicent get her mother and brothers to see that she needs her cat even more than the cat needs her?
Like Meindert DeJong's The House of Sixty Fathers, The Easter Cat is notable for its high suspense compared to most novels for this age group, particularly from the era that produced it. This isn't a typical easygoing narrative that won't threaten the reader's comfort zone; it gets intense, as the author skillfully funnels the events of the story to create strong empathy for Millicent's conundrum. How would we feel if we waited most of our lives to invest our loving, caring energy in one smaller then ourselves, doubting the chance would ever come; then in a single beautiful, exciting night our wish were granted, only to be snatched away with the unveiling of morning light? This is the consequence Millicent faces if she's caught with Blue Angel, but is running away and not seeing her family again any kind of alternative? There's a reason Millicent's brother gave her the nickname "Millidollar". It sounds like a backhanded compliment when it's explained, that a "Millicent is only one thousandth of a cent and I am easily worth one thousandth of a dollar", but don't backhanded compliments from a brother usually express more than their surface measure? Methinks Millicent would miss her brothers something awful if she went on the lam with Blue Angel, and her mother even more.
The most meaningful sections of The Easter Cat come when Millicent finds a listening ear to relate her story to, someone ready to hear why it's so crucial that she own a cat in spite of the problems it would cause her family. Millicent explains her devotedness to kittens: "I've always loved them, I guess. It—it's because they're strays and they're lost. They're little! I guess that's it—they're so little to be lost... I can't help it, I get all sort of soft inside when I see them... I pick them up, and I shouldn't, because then I can't seem to put them down again—they're lost and starved, and they don't belong to anybody, and they need somebody." I know what you mean, Millicent. I've felt exactly the same way. I think the majority of people have at one time or another, be it toward cats or some other form of helpless creature you know needs you. How does one walk away from being needed by a lovable creature? Millicent's family has never understood her compassion for cats, until the discerning individual she pours her heart out to is able to distill her feelings into a cocktail her mother and brothers can ingest. "Have you ever thought...how it must be to be a youngest child in a family of nothing but grown-ups? In the whole household there's nothing littler than you, nothing needs you. Then there is a handy alley where there are sometimes lost cats that need you." Millicent's siblings are distraught over her Easter morning disappearance, and that makes the speaker's next point hit home all the harder: "Forgive me... but I want to slam it home to you right now, before you're over your scare—as you will be, the moment I produce Millicent. Right now let's look at it, for once, from her side. How would you feel if I suddenly produced her, but told you, 'Here she is—but you can't keep her'? Yet that's what you asked of her every time she found a kitten to love in her aloneness..." These are powerful sentiments, and though we don't encounter them until near the end, I believe they're the foundation upon which The Easter Cat is steadily constructed. Were it not for the sections I've quoted in this paragraph, I wouldn't have rounded my two-and-a-half star rating up to three. But because they are part of the story, The Easter Cat is a novel I won't have difficulty remembering. It will always be a part of me.
Meindert DeJong is in a class by himself, his works having garnered way more awards than most kids' authors. I love when Maurice Sendak illustrates for DeJong, but DeJong works quite well by himself or with other illustrators, such as Lillian Hoban, who drew the pictures for this book. The Easter Cat is by no means Meindert DeJong's legacy (that distinction primarily goes to The Wheel on the School and Hurry Home, Candy), but it's a sound, valuable juvenile novel that insightfully handles familiar subjects. I liked it a lot, and have no qualms about recommending it. If the ever-elusive Easter story from a Newbery author is what you're after, let The Easter Cat be your go-to reading experience. I think you'll be happy with the choice. ...more
Notes are private!
Apr 02, 2015
Apr 04, 2015
Apr 02, 2015
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014
did not like it
What a colorful childhood the great Henri Matisse had, shades of light, energy, and the vibrancy of motion all around him beneath the overcast French What a colorful childhood the great Henri Matisse had, shades of light, energy, and the vibrancy of motion all around him beneath the overcast French skies of Bohain. The backdrop may have been insipid, but little Henri's mother saw to it that her son didn't grow up immersed only in lifeless grays, by hand-painting dishes and hanging ornamental carpets to make their home reflect an attitude of joy in life. It's no wonder, then, that when Matisse grew up and into his grand talents as a painter, much of his artwork recreated the pieces his mother surrounded him with in his youth. The joie de vivre of French personality flowed with gusto from the tip of his brush as he paid loving tribute to all he had learned from her. No mother could have felt more proud.
Judging by the "Illustrator's Note" at the end of this book, Hadley Hooper didn't cut any corners preparing herself to re-enliven the artistic style of Henri Matisse, and it shows in the quality of the finished product. The dreariness of Matisse's village is easy to feel in the story's first drawing, but so is the cozy comfort of life in a small town, especially when one has a parent devoted to keeping things interesting. We're presented with charming pictures of young Henri helping his mother by mixing her paint, carefully hanging her decorative dinnerware on the wall, and standing surrounded by rich crimson color in the room covered, walls and ceiling, with rouge carpet. Hadley Hooper's renderings of the pigeons that Henri assists his mother in keeping show them to be as pleasantly iridescent as the book's title indicates. Illustrations of grownup Matisse painting in the same frame as the smiling kid version of himself create a satisfying impression of approval for his future artwork, and the recognition they are to the woman who most influenced him. There can be little doubt that Henri Matisse adored his mother throughout his life.
Patricia MacLachlan's writing style is suited well to a picture-book biography of a painter. Her words always have a ring of poetry, and nicely compliment the beauty of the illustrations in The Iridescence of Birds. For such little space given to elaborate on Henri Matisse's life, Patricia MacLachlan did a decent job, though a denser story might have allowed the narrative to take on more meaning. Patricia MacLachlan has never written a bad book in her life, and she certainly didn't make The Iridescence of Birds her first. I enjoyed it, and would give the book one and a half stars. An emerging artistic talent (Hadley Hooper) and a legend of children's literature (MacLachlan, of course) acquit themselves equitably by it. ...more
Notes are private!
not set
Apr 02, 2015
Apr 01, 2015
Mar 29, 2012
Mar 20, 2012
it was ok
Celebration time! I love Lincoln Peirce's Big Nate novels, and have since the start. The deepening field of "novel-in-cartoons" literature should mak Celebration time! I love Lincoln Peirce's Big Nate novels, and have since the start. The deepening field of "novel-in-cartoons" literature should make any fan of comic strips happy, and I say the Big Nate novels are as good through the first four as Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and getting better with each installment. As much as I enjoyed Big Nate: In a Class by Himself and Big Nate Strikes Again, Big Nate on a Roll was a notable improvement, and Big Nate Goes for Broke again moves up a notch or two in quality. The storylines mean more than before, and the characters learn and grow to a greater extent than in the first two volumes. Lincoln Peirce is a fine cartoonist, but he can really write, too, and Big Nate Goes for Broke proves that.
A new student club sprouts up every few seconds around P.S. 38 Middle School, or so it seems. In Nate's eyes most of the clubs are dull, girly, or weird, but his club, the Doodlers, is a welcome refuge to anyone who would rather daydream than do schoolwork. At after-school meetings of the Doodlers, cartooning is encouraged, and teachers can't stop the kids from having fun drawing to their hearts' content. When the Doodlers get a glimpse of the advanced artwork of students from the C.I.C cartooning club at rival Jefferson Middle School, however, they aren't happy continuing on the way they've been going. If they are to raise their game to match the artistic endeavors of the Jefferson kids, the Doodlers need to get a makeover, and per Mr. Rosa's suggestion, it starts by recruiting a deeper pool of artists to fill the club.
"Making lousy stuff sound good is one of those things ALL grown-ups do."
—Big Nate Goes for Broke, P. 121
When Nate is assigned the responsibility of asking drama maven Dee Dee Holloway to become a Doodler, it opens the door to quite an adventure, starting with a fateful school dance that puts the Doodlers on an unavoidable collision course with their wealthy counterparts at Jefferson. One bruised and one broken bone later, Nate and the other P.S. 38 kids have had their fill of unrelenting Jefferson Middle School supremacy, and resolve they have to do something to pull victory from an encounter with them, even if it's only in a contest of minor importance. The trouble is, hard as he thinks, Nate can't come up with any competition the kids from his school would have a prayer of winning. The Jeffersonites are too fast, too strong, too big, too smart, too well-trained, and have ready monetary resources at their disposal the likes of which students from Nate's school can only dream.
"Everyone can be beaten! Everyone has an Achilles' Heel!"
—Big Nate Goes for Broke, P. 112
Dee Dee insists every giant can be brought to its knees, even the super-kids of Jefferson Middle School, and she looks to Nate to figure out a way to press his strengths to decisive competitive advantage versus the entitled Jefferson students. Nate is a good artist and comedian, churning out comic strips that make teachers and kids laugh out loud, but the artists at Jefferson are at least as talented as he. What do Nate and his fellow Doodlers possess that can't be found in abundance at the middle school across town? If Nate can attack this puzzle laterally and creatively, he just might come up with the perfect contest in which to challenge his rivals. But will he deliver a victory for his school under pressure when they need it most?
Lincoln Peirce is an intelligent, funny writer who knows kid lit. I love the reference in Big Nate Goes for Broke to John D. Fitzgerald's Great Brain series of the 1960s and '70s, when Nate says, "I'll give it the Great Brain treatment!" after Dee Dee challenges him to find a way to defeat Jefferson. "Have you ever read the Great Brain books? They're awesome." I totally agree with Nate on that score. The Great Brain books are some of the best I've ever read, and like Nate, Tom Fitzgerald's (a.k.a. the Great Brain) technique of cogitating on an idea overnight to arrive at a workable solution is a method I have borrowed countless times. It made me smile to see it mentioned in Big Nate Goes for Broke. Lincoln Peirce understands kids, artistic and competitive ambition, and the rewards of friendship and of engineering legitimate victory over an ostensibly invulnerable rival after repeatedly running into the brick wall of their dominance, and this book is a party which honors all of that. Good characters and stories, relationships that bend, change, and strengthen realistically between the covers of a single book: it's all here, and makes for an excellent read.
I met Lincoln Peirce on his national Big Nate Goes for Broke tour in 2012, and he was as entertaining and individually engaging as I wanted him to be, an ideal ambassador for juvenile literature. I came early enough to the signing event that Lincoln Peirce offered to autograph my book before the festivities started. My copy of Big Nate Goes for Broke is signed, "To Josiah, with best wishes— Lincoln Peirce". I will always treasure it, of course. I believe I would give this book two and a half stars, not just two, and I'm excited to have more Big Nate novels to read; the series is an equally welcome treat for reluctant newcomers to reading and seasoned literates who love a book full of laughs and the antics of a protagonist as uncurbable and unpredictable as Nathaniel Jaden Wright. I hope his adventures never end.
Notes are private!
Mar 30, 2015
Apr 02, 2015
Mar 30, 2015
May 01, 1987
it was ok
"There is a joy...in creating surprising insight into a character. The characters in my books become, for me, good friends, extended family members, "There is a joy...in creating surprising insight into a character. The characters in my books become, for me, good friends, extended family members, or the brothers and sisters I never had. Books affect lives, especially children's lives, because children have a genuine belief in the truth of stories, the ultimate gift for the writer. It's a shared gift—from writer to reader and back again."
—Patricia MacLachlan
"You know what?" Willa had said to her father. "If you put all the letters of the alphabet in a box, there is every story ever written. Every story possible."
—Unclaimed Treasures, P. 18
Life is pedestrian for twelve-year-old Willa Pinkerton; as least, that's how she sees it. Her father is a college writing professor, the father of the boy next door (Horace Morris) is a talented artist, and the rest of the gaps fill in naturally with a quirky cast of characters most girls don't grow up influenced by, but these parts of her life are all too familiar for Willa to regard as extraordinary. Her mother is safely through the majority of her current pregnancy without significant health concern, but the anticipation of accepting a new sibling into the world doesn't feel extraordinary to Willa. Babies are born every day, every minute, just as frequently as people cross paths with a special someone and decide they've fallen in love. But the tempests of romantic entanglement feel far more interesting to Willa than the common experience of expecting a baby, though both are born of love. Willa is looking for a reason to throw herself head over heels into the feeling of first love, and she soon finds it in the dashing figure of her newest neighbor, Matthew, an artist. Matthew's son, Horace, meets Willa and her twin brother Nicky first, but it's Matthew who grabs Willa's fancy. His wife is off elsewhere seeking her fortune, a phrase never precisely elaborated on, leaving Willa to indulge her infatuation with Matthew more seriously, but also to observe the absence of a mother and see what it can do to a family when a parent puts doing something "extraordinary" above the needs of their child and spouse. Will this alter Willa's vision of what it means to be more than ordinary?
Willa's heart quickens when Matthew invites her to sit for a few weeks for a portrait that needs finishing, a picture he started to draw of Winnie, his wife, but now needs another model to complete. Willa fantasizes of the languid rapture of true love as written about in the stories that spill from the desk in her father's study, tales of young men and women with stars in their eyes as they satiate their innermost desires in mutual embrace. Her father's college students have such a way with words, Willa thinks. She lingers on what it would be like for Matthew to gaze dreamily into her eyes, telling her she means the world and more to him, and for her to eloquently return his adoration. As the portrait nears completion, Willa longs to confess to Matthew that she sees him as much more than the father of a friend, but is he capable of returning her feelings when his wife is still out there? Willa continues to be frustrated with her inability to draw a clear line between the ordinary and extraordinary in life so she can pursue the latter, but her stint as Matthew's model will clear up some of those questions, and point her in the direction of answers to the rest. Love, kindness, and sacrifice are of nobler purpose than Willa ever understood in her starstruck fantasies. A girl on the periphery of another family's life can have a longterm impact on their ability to move forward after a season of struggle, but only if she learns when to step in and when, hurt as it might, to step aside. It may be Willa's most eccentric neighbor, Old Pepper, who best defines the difference between the norm and the super-norm: "Maybe...the answer is that ordinary and extraordinary are the same thing. Morning light? The smell of grass? Who you are and what you think and how you live?" When one ceases trying to build a perfect life in favor of piecing together a simple, satisfying existence from the broken bits and pieces the world has left unclaimed, it can turn out to be an extraordinary life after all. Unclaimed treasures are apt to be the best kind, dusty jewels that need only a loving buff and polish to restore their natural luster. Then they're no longer unclaimed, and neither is the one who found them. How could Willa have guessed that nothing more than that is necessary to be extraordinary?
"Things are seldom as they seem. You must do better than just look."
—Unclaimed Treasures, P. 43
One of my favorite parts of the book is Willa's mother's explanation of why it wasn't hard for her to give up a potential dancing career after Willa and Nicky were born. That ambition mattered a great deal to their mother before, but once she cradled her baby son and daughter in her arms, everything but her love for them faded into the background. She didn't sacrifice her dancing because she didn't think she could succeed, or because she'd lost interest or didn't believe she was worthy of pursuing an interest that was only about herself. She gave up dancing despite the fact that it was worth excelling at, and she was worth the investment. A sacrifice without value is no sacrifice at all, but relinquishing her professional aspirations to take care of her children cost Willa's mother something dear. There was just never any question in her mind that they were worth letting go of her dancing career, and much, much more. May we all have someone (or two) in our lives for whom we would unblinkingly sacrifice our shot at being extraordinary.
I've read books by Patricia MacLachlan that touched me more than Unclaimed Treasures, but it's a nice story, and I appreciate it. The tone of the narrative is pleasant and gentle, and the characters are warm and wise, even (perhaps especially) the young ones. Unclaimed Treasures isn't likely to ever be as well-known as Sarah, Plain and Tall or All the Places to Love, but it will have its fans. You might become one of them if you give it a read.
Notes are private!
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 30, 2015
Mar 27, 2015
Jun 01, 1985
it was ok
A good spy story never outlives its appeal, and that's what we have here: a pretty good gamebook of the spy sub-genre, penned by an author as familia A good spy story never outlives its appeal, and that's what we have here: a pretty good gamebook of the spy sub-genre, penned by an author as familiar with the interactive format as almost anyone. You are a top government operative of the Special Security Agency, fresh off a case that took all your celebrated powers to solve, when an urgent message from Washington, D.C. interrupts your mandated vacation. The newest threat to world security is dire, and could manifest itself on multiple levels simultaneously. Classified experimentation into the science of creating an immortal human has turned a relatively ordinary man named Dimitrius into a walking atom bomb, but his explosiveness is just the start of the perils Dimitrius's status as a free man poses to the world. Preliminary intelligence reports indicate Dimitrius may also have the ability to travel through time, and go invisible to the naked eye at will. Firsthand accounts from SSA agents and independent security personnel unlucky enough to encounter Dimitrius strongly suggest the atomic man's shadow is as lethal in close quarters as his body could be to thousands of civilians if he detonates, and you have been assigned to corral him. Your instructions are clear: You are to apprehend Dimitrius or persuade him to come with you for questioning by the United States government before any number of international unsavories get their hands on him. The Chinese mafia, criminals of the Paris underworld, Mexican gangsters, and Russian spies all want to capture Dimitrius so they can find out what makes him tick (almost literally), and it's up to you to ride above the clamor and take him into protective custody before another government can. If Dimitrius falls into the possession of a nation hostile to U.S. interests, it could be game over for the land that you love. More than any mission you've undertaken previously, you must come through now.
There are several options as to how and where you should go undercover, and these initial choices will mostly define your adventure. Elect to pose as a sophisticated, wealthy art dealer in Paris and you'll rub elbows with the upper crust of French culture; that is, if you manage to rendezvous with your SSA contact in the city before Parisian underworlders slit your throat. You know Dimitrius has been tied to a dozen or more major art thefts since the alert about him was issued, but even if you can spring a trap for the world's most wanted man without causing him to blow up, do you have any realistic chance of getting him to comply with your orders? Maybe you do, if you're clever enough to counteract his biological strengths and turn them into weaknesses. Racing through quaint cafés and other hot spots of Paris nightlife with enemy agents on your tail, ducking into dark wine cellars and outrunning your pursuers through the city's elaborate sewer system as the threat of a bullet in the back looms large, are some of the most atmospheric, memorable action scenes of this book, and Paris is the place to find them. You could also choose to peddle art in Mexico City, where a hijacked plane and further terror at 20,000 feet are only the gateway to thrilling adventure in the wilds as you face off against man and beast. Dimitrius could be anywhere on earth since he supposedly travels through time, so don't despair that if you choose to go undercover in the wrong city your opportunity to catch him will be forfeited. There's a chance to fulfill your mission wherever you go, though sometimes it's an absurdly small chance.
Instead of pretending to be an art dealer, you can set up shop as a slick professional gambler in Hong Kong or Rio de Janeiro, and either location promises intrigue for as long as you can survive to keep getting in and out of scrapes with international baddies. Dimitrius has been traced to illegal betting operations around the globe, presumably because his time travel capability lets him see the result of any contest and then travel back and wager on it prior to the fact, and Hong Kong and Brazil have been figured to be the most likely points of contact. Dimitrius may be a fugitive from practically every jurisdiction on the planet, but you don't know much about the man, and you won't find out anything until you can talk to him yourself. Is he a villain at heart, or an innocent bystander who fell victim to a science project gone wrong? If you can reason with Dimitrius and convince him his best bet to stay alive and not risk causing devastating harm to the world is to come with you and see if the U.S. government can help him, your improbable mission could turn out positively after all. But can you rescue yourself and your homeland from Dimitrius before time runs out and the human bomb explodes?
The Deadly Shadow is one of the hardest Choose Your Own Adventure books to successfully complete, offering only a few endings that could reasonably be deemed positive, and most of them only partially. You will be blown to molten smithereens more often than you'll find a path to triumph, and that can feel stymying when you've proceeded through the narrative in cautious, thoughtful fashion. When you're dealing with the underworld you have to make snap judgments about trusting people you've just met, and the most well-trained agent can't read a stranger accurately every time. If you survive your adventure, then trust me, you reached a good ending, even if it isn't everything you wished. There are some exciting bad endings, too, such as when you stumble upon the vacated pathway of a colony of army ants who have already alarmingly demonstrated the extent of the damage they can inflict. Let's just say, some death endings are more gruesome than others. There are a couple of silly endings, too, that can be a tad confusing, but on the whole, The Deadly Shadow is a fun book that revels well in its own atmosphere, and I enjoyed the reading experience. I would take it off the shelf and plunge back into with a friend anytime. ...more
Notes are private!
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 26, 2015
Mar 25, 2015
Mass Market Paperback
Jun 01, 2014
Jun 12, 2014
liked it
I heard a lot about Lisa Graff before reading Absolutely Almost, my first experience with her writing. Every year, her books were at least on the per I heard a lot about Lisa Graff before reading Absolutely Almost, my first experience with her writing. Every year, her books were at least on the periphery of predictive discussion for the Newbery awards, if not considered leading candidates to take one of the prizes. Lisa Graff's middle-grade novels were spoken of as spiritual siblings to the releases of respected storytellers such as Rebecca Stead, Natalie Lloyd, and Linda Urban, each an author whose books were practically guaranteed to generate Newbery buzz in whatever year they appeared. This "Newbery Halo" was what drew me to try my first Lisa Graff novel: the possibility of getting to know a Newbery Medal winner's work before she earned the life-changing distinction, growing along with her book by book as she developed her style and substance into such high-quality material that eventually the Newbery committee would take notice and bestow upon it the most prestigious yearly honor in American children's literature. I wanted to see if Lisa Graff could write as resonantly as the accomplished contemporaries to whom she had been favorably compared, and the enthusiastically recommended Absolutely Almost seemed as good a place to start as any. I can't speak to all the author's work, but as far as this book is concerned, the hype, in my opinion, was justified.
Since authors tend to be more intelligent than the mean, they gravitate to writing about precocious characters who prove themselves extraordinary in some way. Brilliant tacticians and debaters, be they brazenly resistant to getting pushed around or just quietly snarky about it behind the enemy's back. Genius wunderkinds who could change the world with their massive intellect, in the mold of Orson Scott Card's Ender Wiggin. Thoughtful, philosophical youngsters who have honestly, earnestly come upon more wisdom than most adults, and at a remarkably early age. But Lisa Graff doesn't follow this frequent literary type in creating Albie, a fifth-grader who is not most people's idea of a genius. Albie doesn't measurably excel in anything, so most authors might be afraid that telling a story from his perspective would be dull; however, one's lack of exceptionalism doesn't mean he or she isn't a good human being, a caring individual whose story can touch our hearts and propel us in positive directions of our own, and I think that is Lisa Graff's intent in Absolutely Almost. She subtly acknowledges this with the book's opening line, in the words of Albie's Grandpa Park: "Not everybody can be the rock at the top of the rock pile...There have to be some rocks at the bottom, to support those at the top." Not everybody can be a miracle kid, and Albie is a fine example of a below-average character with a riveting story. No matter how readers measure up to their own peers, they're bound to learn something important about life from Albie if they enter his story with an open heart and mind.
"I don't know why I'm always screwing up at everything, even when I try so hard, all the time, not to. I'd do better if I could, I really would. But I don't know how.
There are a lot of things I don't know."
—Absolutely Almost, P. 125
Math, science, reading, spelling, any subject one can think of: if it's taught in school, it's a weakness for Albie. Numbers don't properly click in his brain as they do for other students, and letters and words on a page refuse to align easily into sentences. He's never much liked reading, and no amount of studying seems to get him up to even fifty percent on spelling tests. Now that he's nearing middle school and academic standards are becoming more serious, Albie finds himself on the outside looking in at the private academy his parents paid a great deal of money for years to have him attend. His best friend Erlan hasn't been dropped from the school, though, which means their upcoming fifth-grade year will separate them during school days, and that isn't good news even if Albie does live right down the hall from Erlan.
With the hiring of a new nanny to watch Albie after school—an art student named Calista—things are definitely changing in and around Albie's home, and his new public school is front and center among them. There are potential friends waiting around if Albie looks hard enough, but there are enemies, too, and Albie doesn't have to search at all to find them. Calista's involvement is paramount to his ability to separate the relational wheat from the chaff, and she soon proves to be a lot more invested than most hired help. Calista is determined to be a friend and caregiver to the downtrodden boy, opening up the world as he's never seen it and giving Albie opportunity to do the same for her by introducing her to the hidden beauty in her new home of New York City. Picking up right away on Albie's struggles with elementary-school academia, and sensing that his parents' frustration over it trickles down to Albie, who wonders why he can't turn in more impressive marks on his school projects, Calista designs brand-new study methods for Albie, and is happily willing to celebrate what small signs of progress she sees. When Albie's mother scorns his amusement over the antics of Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants, preferring he dig into more sophisticated youth literature like 1944 Newbery Medal winner Johnny Tremain, Calista secretly encourages him to continue reading the books he likes, even if it's technically against his mother's wishes. If Albie is excited about reading for the first time in his life, why squash it by grousing about the books that court his attention? (Side note: Esther Forbes's Johnny Tremain isn't portrayed in glowing fashion in Absolutely Almost, but I loved it. It was one of the better books I've ever read.)
"I wondered who made up the rules about what was lame and what wasn't, and who was cool and who was a loser. If somebody told me what the rules were, I'd be fine."
—Absolutely Almost, P. 32
"The worst thing that happens is always the one thing you thought would never, ever happen."
—Absolutely Almost, P. 236
Other changes are ready to appear in Albie's fifth-grade session. Erlan's family is the subject of a new reality T.V. series, as the family has two sets of triplets, and who wouldn't want a window into that life? Attending different schools was bound to come between Albie and Erlan to some degree, but the requirements of the reality series further reduce their time together. Albie's math scores being as unimpressive in the new school as his last, he's invited to join Math Club, an easier class that runs concurrent to the standard one to help failing students better grasp the subject. But as Albie navigates the surprises of a new school and rising expectations as he advances in the public education system, his parents demand more of him academically, too, and Albie doesn't know what to think when he sees his mother quietly hoping he's diagnosed with dyslexia after the school raises the possibility. Albie has never hoped to have a disease, but if his mother wants him to be diagnosed with it so she can have an explanation why he perpetually lags behind the other kids, then shouldn't he wish for the same? As pressure increases to do better in school, and Calista routinely goes beyond the call of duty to assist Albie in bringing up his grades, a school bully turns up the heat on Albie and the few friends he's made, not letting the "outcasts" forget they're nobody in the halls of P.S. 183. If Albie wouldn't have already been miserable without being bullied, this tips the balance, and no one who isn't privy to the bullying can see why Albie is so sad. He's known for a long time that he isn't a bright bulb, but why do others want to mock him for it? Albie doesn't get much more support from his own father, who repeatedly dismisses his son's concerted academic efforts as insufficient, not up to the standards of the family and Albie's upbringing. The year could hardly be going worse for Albie...or so he thinks. When circumstances do worsen for Albie, and the proximity of his most indefatigable supporter in these trying times is jeopardized, can he find a way to persevere against the tide of opposition that relentlessly drags him down, telling him he isn't good enough for what he desires in life? Can a below-average boy cut from the fabric of basic kindness and respect for himself and others be successful in a landscape designed to reward only the exceptional?
"You can't get where you're going without being where you've been."
—Absolutely Almost, P. 84
Absolutely Almost speaks to all of us who feel less than adequate in the eyes of those whose opinions matter to us. We hear speeches inspiring us to strive harder, go faster, aspire to greatness, and we wonder if we can ever meet those expectations, especially (and yes, I included that word in this review just for Albie! :-) in areas where we normally underperform. Our own hopes and dreams are at least as buoyant as those of family and friends for us, but pack on the weight of their criticism and deprecation over setbacks, and it can be too much for us to ever lift off the ground. As we read this book and observe dozens of situations where Albie is clueless to what's coming next when it's obvious to us, we see that his parents are often no more perceptive to the effect their disapproval has on Albie. Tell him he's not allowed to read his favorite books, and is it any surprise that he gives up on reading? Command him to ace his spelling test under penalty of paternal denunciation when his best score ever is forty percent, and how can you not expect him to conclude he's a disappointment after notching an all-time personal best of sixty percent? A lot of misunderstanding and underestimation of Albie's true character goes on in Absolutely Almost, and I can't even say he's a wonderful, noble individual, golden-hearted where it counts, where most can't or won't see. Albie's un-extraordinary nature extends to his personality, but he's likable—even lovable—for what he is. You don't have to be Albie's mother or father to love him. Above all the language and mathematics he has to learn to be a passable student, it's the truth of his own lovability and self-worth that Albie must assimilate. For him, this is of the ultimate priority, so when he at last seems to grasp it, the moment is poignant and highly rewarding: "I know, at least I think I do, maybe, sometimes, definitely, what I'm worth. I know what I'm worth. I absolutely almost do. There are a lot of things I know."
Albie learns more—and more consistently—from Calista than anyone, but he has great moments with most other important characters, too: Mr. Clifton, Betsy, Erlan, Hugo (the owner of the bodega), and his own father and mother. I believe it's Albie's short, meaningful encounters with his mother that prove most emotionally affecting, like when she admits she isn't at all sure she always does the right thing for him: "'I do the best I can,' she told me. She said each word real slow. 'At being your mother. I don't always know how, but...I try.'" No matter how confounded she is by Albie's lack of responsiveness to education, she never fails on the nights she's home to put him to bed and remind him of all the good she sees in him, regardless of what anyone else thinks. "You are caring and thoughtful and good", she tells her son, night after night. With that unshakable affirmation ringing in his ears as he falls asleep, is it any wonder Albie turns out to be exactly what his mother claims? Caring and thoughtful and good? Living those traits will take you a long way, even if you're never as smart as the next guy. No matter the detours and pitfalls ahead, I would bet on Albie to end up okay.
"You couldn't get where you were going without knowing where you'd been.
And you couldn't be anywhere at all without having been almost there for a while."
—Absolutely Almost, P. 286
Absolutely Almost wouldn't have been my pick for the 2015 Newbery Medal, but I wouldn't have complained had the committee selected it. Lisa Graff writes with respectable honesty, not needing to clean up every one of the story's messes for it to be a satisfying, hopeful read. I can understand comparisons to Linda Urban, who has a similar way of methodically, intentionally crafting human imperfection to be beautiful, reinforcing for readers that a good life never requires perfection: only a little bit of hope, determination, and hard work, bonded by love. Love is the ingredient that holds the recipe together, and it does the same for this book. Donuts were never more appealing than when they spawned their own superhero. Literary protagonists were never more accessible than when Albie entered their endless pantheon. Kudos to Lisa Graff on all the readers who will be touched by this story, now and forevermore.
Notes are private!
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 23, 2015
Oct 14, 2014
Oct 14, 2014
really liked it
How does a dystology differ from a trilogy? Unwind is the only officially termed dystology I know, so it's a small sample size from which to make def How does a dystology differ from a trilogy? Unwind is the only officially termed dystology I know, so it's a small sample size from which to make definitive judgments. Neal Shusterman's globally renowned dystopian series contains four books instead of three, of course, but the contrasts don't end there between the Unwind dystology and most young-adult science fiction trilogies. The whole series is notably superior to most of its competition, highlighted by book number one—which I consider easily the best of the four—and rounded out in memorable fashion with its sensitively rendered conclusion, UnDivided. Neal Shusterman hasn't spared any individual from the legitimate possibility of death to make this final Unwind book a transformative event, patiently gathering all the loose threads and tying them up by the end in a way every reader can appreciate. This may be a final goodbye to these characters we've invested our longterm emotional energy in, betting on them to outwit, outmaneuver, and maybe even tear down the strongholds of Proactive Citizenry and the Juvenile Authority, but it's a goodbye skillfully and soulfully written, as only Neal Shusterman can be counted on to produce every time.
Connor, Risa, and Grace haven't been idle since Proactive Citizenry's men stormed their safe house and hauled Cam Comprix away to answer to Roberta for his unauthorized flight from the confining comforts into which he was reborn. Connor and his two remaining companions made their way back to Sonia Rheinschild's antique shop at the end of UnSouled, where Connor's escape from the Juvenile Authority had originally gained legs as he and Risa were shipped off to Admiral Dunfee's Graveyard. After the revelation in UnSouled that Sonia's husband had invented technology capable of putting a permanent end to unwinding, a 3-D organ printer that sits unheralded in the dusty antique shop, Connor knows this could be the opening necessary to have a shot at bringing down the unwinding hierarchy. The problem is, no one but Sonia and them knows about the printer, and the wealthy proponents of the unwinding industry would do anything to shut down alternative sources of functioning donor organs. Sonia's printer will have to be unveiled to the public in precisely the right way if it's to survive the inevitable attempts to squelch it, but how can they ensure that proper introduction when none of them has business or marketing experience, and the first public hint of the printer's existence will give the Juvenile Authority a bead on Connor's location?
It's Déjà vu for Connor and Risa as they bide their time in Sonia's basement with dozens of other AWOL Unwinds, but Cam Comprix can't even remember certain parts of his past anymore, much less relive them. The nanites Roberta ordered him injected with have accomplished their purpose, ridding his synapses of the electrical circuit required to form cogent thoughts about Risa, the girl he loved. Cam can't recall her name or her face, can't conjure up anything more than the feeling that this girl was everything that mattered to him, and his default allegiance to Roberta and Proactive Citizenry was nothing compared to how he felt for her. Racking his brain does nothing to recover the circuit and allow his brain access to its memories of Risa, but he knows they're there, locked away in the attic of his own gray matter with no key to retrieve them. When Cam chose to sacrifice his freedom to give Risa a chance to elude Roberta, how could he have guessed Roberta was capable of imprisoning not only his rewound body, but also his thoughts?
Meanwhile, Una Jacali and Lev conspire on the safe grounds of the Arápache Reservation to bring to justice the parts pirates who captured Wil Tashi'ne, Una's beloved, and sold him for his unwound limbs, one of which lives on in Cam's impassioned guitar-playing hands. Una won't let the transgressions of Wil's murderers go, and she's determined to see them suffer for the anguish they brought on her and the Tashi'ne family. Carefully orchestrating a snare to use the pirates' greed against them, Lev quietly moves off the Arápache Reservation to the seediest area of the city, where the hunt for justice commences. But Lev won't be satisfied catching two offenders who have been minor cogs in the engine of the international black-market unwinding trade. He dreams at night of chasing his spirit animal, the kinkajou, through the trees, fleeing danger as he swings from one branch to the next until he reaches the trees' edge and has only the big, white moon hanging in the sky before him. Lev subconsciously and consciously desires to bring down the moon, the biggest entity in his vision. Our lunar satellite is too large for any human to remotely affect, but he senses that nothing short of the moon will ever be enough for him. How could a boy so brave and so foolish challenge the presiding powers of an organization like the Juvenile Authority and win? How could he fixate on bringing down the moon without losing himself to his own impossible fantasy?
Obsessively tracking all these players (except Cam) are former Juvey-cop Jasper Nelson and his exasperating sidekick, Argent Skinner, whose blood boils as hot as Nelson's to take Connor down after what he did to escape him near the start of UnSouled. Nelson can hardly stand Argent on a good day, but he lets him tag along because Argent owns a piece of information no one else knows, no matter how well connected: the code of Grace Skinner's tracking chip, which could lead Nelson to Connor. Argent knows he has leverage over Nelson, and won't talk unless he gets a sweet deal in return, so Nelson capitulates to keeping him around for the short term. Their imminent rendezvous with notorious unwind parts dealer Divan Umarov is sure to be when Nelson requires Argent to fill him in on what he knows of Grace's whereabouts, but what will happen to Argent after that? Will Nelson be willing to forgive Argent's intransigent self-survival tactics once he gets what he wants?
"We must always be careful of the actions we take, for there are always unintended consequences. Sometimes they are serendipitous, other times they are appalling, but those consequences are always there. We must tread lightly in this world...until we are sure of foot."
—Divan Umarov, UnDivided, P. 109
Society has tacitly acquiesced to the unwinding of so-called "feral" teenagers for a long time now, but a pivotal election cycle is only months away in UnDivided, and not every unwinding measure on the ballot is ensured of receiving the public support needed to be passed into law. Unwinding against parental consent in cases of repeat juvenile offenders, the unwinding of consenting adults or imprisoned convicts, unwinding as a biologically thrifty alternative to euthanasia...all these propositions are on the ballot, but staunch support for unwinding has begun to waver since the start of Connor's public odyssey as the famed Akron AWOL, and the subsequent atrocities discovered in the aftermath of the clapper attacks at the Happy Jack Harvest Camp. Social discomfort about unwinding has been encouraged along by the clandestine radio broadcasts of Hayden, former right-hand-man of Connor at the Graveyard and current thorn in the side of Mason Starkey, that most notorious of AWOL Unwinds. Starkey's vigilante empire of hundreds of Storked AWOLs is growing exponentially with the hidden backing of wealthy clapper supporters, and his position as leader seems safer than ever. Starkey wants to change the world just as Lev does, but has far fewer compunctions as to how he'll go about it. Hayden and a handful of other high-level assistants want to stop Starkey before he unintentionally boosts the popularity of the Juvenile Authority any further, and they may have thought of a way to do so before he commits a heinousness no radio program will be able to ease from the minds of voters. Can Mason Michael Starkey turn things around before his voice has to be permanently silenced, or is he destined for a sad, bitter ending? The decisions made in UnDivided will determine all of that.
I won't go beyond this point in talking about the plot, because so much of it is tied into the surprises Neal Shusterman has in store for his loyal readers, but to me, the most powerful parts of UnDivided surround the sad scenario of Cam Comprix, locked away by Roberta in the ivory tower of his own mind. Cam's brain cells have betrayed him at the forceful persuasion of the elixir that wiped away all trace of Risa. Cam has been profoundly alone every day since his rewinding, when he awoke to a disjointed mess of a life and had to try and fit the broken pieces together with no idea how to placate the tormented utterances of his soul, a soul many in the world refuse to acknowledge. Is Cam a real human being, or a gruesome collection of dead parts reanimated by medical science like Victor Frankenstein's monster? No one has a definitive answer to that: not Cam, not Risa, not Roberta, not Neal Shusterman, but the preponderance of what the Unwind dystology says about Cam leaves little doubt that the narrative believes he is fully human, regardless of the philosophical and religious conundrums his existence raises. When Cam is forced to forget the only girl he ever loved during his tortured span of consciousness, the tragedy is shocking. How many novels are there where the hero can endure any hardship as long as he remembers who he is deep inside and is able to draw on the support of the one he loves? Cam has neither refuge against his painful existence, just a lot of time spent with Roberta and her minions from Proactive Citizenry, who don't care about him as anything but an organizational commodity. Cam is alone and there's no solution to his Risa dilemma, no going back to what he once had, the single comfort in which he could place his hope and convince himself life could be good after all, that a broken kid rewound from the living matter of dozens of others could lead some semblance of a normal life and even someday be loved. Roberta has pillaged from Cam what no one has any business taking, and now there's no regaining that which he treasured above the rest of the world and all it contained. Or...is there?
Neal Shusterman is at his poignant best with the writing he unspools in UnDivided. Some of the lines hit me like a punch in the stomach, leaving me temporarily breathless, and others made me think long and hard on a variety of topics. In the early going, when Connor and Risa are stuck in Sonia's basement with a herd of younger unwinding candidates, we see Connor's take on how proactive an AWOL teen should be in responding to the ills of society. Connor is one of the only basement boarders who favors watching the news on television, discomforting as it can be. "When you're a prisoner of society, you shouldn't play at escape. At least until you can really escape it." When you're on the outside looking in at true freedom and no one but you and those in your predicament care to speak up and attempt to sway momentum toward one day creating a tenable world for you, escapism only distracts your band of brothers from using its voice to change a broken system. The persecuted can't afford to indulge in escapism until the veil on their respectable existence has lifted. Who will fight for us if we aren't willing to confront the issues that make people uncomfortable? Hayden has similar social ideas, ridiculing the notion that passive resistance could work to better the plight of Unwinds. "Passive resistance only works if the truck's not willing to run you over—and this truck is." Peaceful protest has its place and can be utilized to remarkable effect, but one has to recognize when the opponent is beyond listening to reason, and adjust one's tactics accordingly. In the case of unwinding, the time for just talking has passed, even if persuasive words must play a key role in any motion to derail the unwinding industry.
Elina Tashi'ne has seen more than her share of heartache in a world gone morally haywire, but her spirit has not become devoid of kindness, sympathy, or wisdom, which she does her best to use in positively directing Lev and his rage against the unwinding machine. "You are only one boy, with one voice...If you keep trying to be a choir, you'll lose that voice, and then who will hear you?" Such beauty there is in Elina's advice. Lev's words have more weight than those of most former AWOLs, but his quest to unravel unwinding on his own is unrealistic, and he shouldn't despair when the impact of his voice, forceful though it is, can't be amplified to reach and convince every ear on the planet. The noblest of tithes turned clapper can't derail a train as big, fast, and loaded with big-ticket freight as unwinding. No one can by themselves. As the narrative observes a little later, "Far too many people think they can get away with anything if they're protected by anonymous masses." Why else would ordinary, decent humans turn their backs on the grotesque realities of unwinding for so long, allowing wayward teenagers to legally be torn to pieces? Every voice of apathy to the horrors of unwinding is complicit in its profit and propagation, but most of those voices haven't considered the noise they would make if they spoke out in unison against the practice. As one passage of UnDivided puts it: "In a population of hundreds of millions, such a small number of people is a mere drop in the bucket...but enough drops can make any bucket overflow." For the future of our nation and world, I hope that never ceases to be the case.
The residual impact of Cam's unprecedented rewinding procedure is delved into more deeply in UnWholly and UnSouled, but it has its moments in UnDivided, and shapes the story to be much more emotionally potent than if Cam were absent. When Connor asks Cam how he fills "the space" inside him, the ugly, awful, undeniable void hovering within as a result of being unwound and rewound as Cam has been, Cam answers him sincerely: "Bit by bit," he says, "and not alone." I guess that's how each of us fill the emptinesses in our lives that no one else understands, the dark places the hands of loved ones never reach, no matter how intimately they've probed our soul. Is there bound to always be voids like that inside us, or can one who loves and understands us closely enough get in even there, sharing our soul as if we were truly one being? I don't positively know the answer to that, but I feel that degree of closeness must be possible. In my heart, I know it is. And then, even our most discordant rewound bits won't be alone. But in the end, it's Cam's heartrending forced disconnect from Risa that provides this book with its power, the purity of how he still loves her despite not being able to think of her name or imagine what she looks like. "'You are the reason for everything I did,' he tells her... 'But now I need a new reason.'" "But I can still remember what it felt like...to love you." My head reels even now, just typing those words, which resound like nothing else in UnDivided. I'll never get over how they made me feel.
"We all need a moratorium on misery now and then."
—Sonia Rheinschild, UnDivided, P. 145
UnDivided is a superb ending for any young-adult series, even one written by the one and only Neal Shusterman, master of fiction for young readers. This book had an enormous task before it—maybe an impossible one— if the goal was equaling the all-time greatness of the first volume, Unwind, but it gave as valiant an effort to live up to the original story as could have been reasonably hoped. I thought hard over if I should round my three-and-a-half star rating down to three or up to four, and elected to round it up, primarily because of Cam's involvement in the story. That's what I'll remember most about UnDivided. Answers abound to questions asked in previous books of the series, but perhaps the most satisfying is a realization we should have come to long ago, regarding Connor's motives in kidnapping Lev and using him as a human shield against the Juvey-cops near the beginning of Unwind: "He might have grabbed Lev out of desperation, but he held on to him out of compassion, although he really didn't know it at the time." Despite the resistance Lev put up to Connor's abducting him, headed silently and garbed in white like a lamb to the slaughter, Connor couldn't let a thirteen-year-old kid be led to his death, not if it was in his power to stop it. That tells you something about how and why Connor could live to be the AWOL who mounted a serious challenge to unwinding, and models the reaction required on a grander scale if the inhumanity of the system is to ever be upended. In conclusion, I believe the Unwind dystology might be the best four-book young-adult series in American history, and I count myself immeasurably lucky to have been a part of it, even meeting Neal Shusterman on multiple occasions while he was in the process of writing UnWholly, UnSouled, and UnDivided. The series is a one-in-a-million artistic achievement, and I am certain its influence will continue on forevermore. Goodbye, Risa, Connor, Cam, and Lev. You shall never be forgotten.
Notes are private!
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 23, 2015
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 10, 2015
Mar 10, 2015
did not like it
I received my copy of There Was an Old Martian Who Swallowed the Moon free through the Goodreads First Reads program.
Riffs on this folk song have be I received my copy of There Was an Old Martian Who Swallowed the Moon free through the Goodreads First Reads program.
Riffs on this folk song have been turned into picture books way more times than I know, but most aren't quite like There Was an Old Martian Who Swallowed the Moon. While Jennifer Ward's playful lyrics are of the same professional caliber as other versions of the song, Steve Gray's artwork is unexpectedly soaring and splendid, notable for its rich colors, ambitious scope, and eye-pleasing level of detail. Wherever the old Martian zooms in our solar system, gobbling up space debris and heavenly bodies indiscriminately, he does so in front of the awesome backdrop of deep space, and Steve Gray doesn't let us forget that. It's an effective counterbalance to the silly nature of the song, as the Martian's meals grow larger and more improbable until finally he sets his sights on swallowing the centerpiece of our planetary system. Is a Martian who seems capable of downing anything ready to take on the Sun?
This original re-imagining of the There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly song is fun, but I think it's the illustrations that make the book, and they are the primary reason I would up my rating to one and a half stars. There Was an Old Martian Who Swallowed the Moon could have been a legitimate candidate for the Randolph Caldecott Medal, honoring the best in American picture-book literature every year. Steve Gray is an artist to watch, and I'm sure I'm not the only one impressed by his contributions to this book. There Was an Old Martian Who Swallowed the Moon is a light, entertaining song/story, and young readers will have a good time with it. ...more
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not set
Mar 17, 2015
Mar 17, 2015
Oct 22, 2013
Oct 22, 2013
really liked it
This is it. The end of one of the most popular young-adult trilogies in American history, the series that launched a collegiate Chicagoan named Veron This is it. The end of one of the most popular young-adult trilogies in American history, the series that launched a collegiate Chicagoan named Veronica Roth to stardom on the same level as Suzanne Collins and Rick Riordan, Stephenie Meyer and J.K. Rowling (okay, maybe no one else has ascended to her plateau of popularity). By imagining a future Windy City in which humanity's quest for identity has gone wrong, splitting us into five distinct factions with no going back and forth between after the decision is made in our late teens which faction we want to join, Veronica Roth unlocked a door she couldn't have known what lay beyond. The commonality of human feeling behind that door can be seen in the immediate and frenzied response to the first book of the trilogy, Divergent, as fans fresh off their stake in the Hunger Games saga sought a new literary challenge in which to engage. Readers couldn't get enough of Divergent; stores were hardly able to keep it stocked, and the same was true for libraries, no matter how many copies they ordered. The story set a torch to the online reading community, prompting bloggers and recreational reviewers to write impassioned pieces regarding their feelings toward the book, mostly raves about the novel's conceptual originality and addictive pacing, as well as its sophisticated philosophical content and emotional empathy. A writing star was born in Divergent, and that star continued to flame hotter and brighter with the advent of the second book, Insurgent, which by now fans had been waiting a year for and attacked in droves. When the time came for Divergent to be adapted to the silver screen, and the trilogy's third book, Allegiant, hit bookshops around the globe, the legend of Tris Prior and Veronica Roth had long ago been firmly established, a beacon of unsurpassed brightness over the seascape of literature for young readers, a standard of artistic and commercial excellence not often equaled. I felt confident Allegiant would be a fine novel, judging by the quality of Divergent and Insurgent; those first two books held a flame to my feet and forced me to stay on the move, both through the text and in regard to my own presets and beliefs. The best of young-adult lit is usually as much a test for the reader as anything endured by the characters, a trip through the furnace where the leaping flames set fire to anything we carry with us that isn't real, isn't defensible, can't stand up under the scrutiny of an author willing to challenge his or her readers. Divergent and Insurgent qualify easily as first-rate young-adult fare when held to that standard, profoundly challenging on intellectual, emotional, moral, and pragmatic levels. What I didn't anticipate is that even as Insurgent bettered the first book, Allegiant would take a still-larger leap forward, in my opinion, and easily become the greatest installment of the trilogy. For the first time I remember since Neal Shusterman's Everfound capped his illustrious Skinjacker series, the concluding volume of a trilogy was the book that defined its greatness; to me, Allegiant will always be the most memorable part of the Divergent odyssey, what allowed it to rise from status as a typically strong young-adult dystopian offering to the threshold of all-time legacy, deserving of placement on the shelf beside other legendary works of the genre. Veronica Roth has come through magnificently in the series' swan song, and readers will never be the same. Divergent has changed our lives.
"Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here?
I want to be.
I can.
I believe it."
—Allegiant, P. 476
If you thought the danger of life under the faction system had ebbed at the end of Insurgent, you'd only be partly right. Tris's crazy sacrifices and fearless behavior helped strike the death knell against the covert fascism of Jeanine Matthews and her Erudite faithful, commandeering other factions with mind-altering serum and turning their people into unwitting soldiers to clear the path for Erudite supremacy. The corrupt Erudite hierarchy wasn't counting on the continued lucidity of Tris under influence of the serum, whose Divergence appeared to make her immune to Jeanine Matthews's surreptitious physiological attack. The bigwigs at Erudite have been defeated, the faction dismantled and destroyed, but the other four factions (Dauntless, Abnegation, Amity, and Candor) have also been deconstructed. A new leader has emerged to guide Chicago in its period of upheaval, a new face promising an end to the totalitarianism of the past. Evelyn Johnson, Tobias's mother, has banded together enough supporters to have final say in the remodeled city, rendering taboo any allegiance to the familiar framework of faction-based society.
"That is how it feels. Like everything between us is twisted together, friendship and love and family, so I can't tell the difference between any of them."
—Allegiant, P. 412
Tobias hasn't much more affection for his cold, calculating mother than for his father, Marcus, whose physical abuse of wife and child mounted for years to form Tobias into a ruthless, bitterly angry individual. Evelyn sees no good in Tris's growing relationship with her son and intends to end it before they become any more attached, but before she can leverage Tris and Tobias apart, they escape with a professionally organized band of rebels known as the Allegiant, a group resistant to Evelyn's coronation as the city's unofficial regent. The Allegiant pride themselves on their adherence to the original intention of the experiment of faction-based Chicago, as exposed in Edith Prior's video near the end of Insurgent. The city didn't align into five factions by accident, or because of a serendipitous suggestion; the plan was for Chicago to model a probationary societal system to deal with experiments gone wrong in the past, a tragic mar on human genetics resulting from cocksure scientists believing they could perfect the imperfectible. Trying to improve on natural genetics landed the field of science in a world of trouble, as damaged DNA codes created havoc in their observed micro-societies.
"Take a person's memories, and you change who they are."
—Allegiant, P. 100
The Allegiant have allied themselves with the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, an organization outside of Chicago committed to undoing the harm wrought by damaged gene sequences. The factions were a byproduct of damaged genes all along, the Bureau claims, as affected individuals within society found it impossible to practice multiple virtues at the same time. The genetically damaged couldn't seem to be purely honest without giving up their sensitivity to the feelings of others, couldn't exhibit bravery without sacrificing empathy, couldn't better themselves through knowledge without adopting an incorrigibly haughty attitude. The Bureau has considered "resetting" the memories of the whole city of Chicago for a while, pulling the plug on the faction experiment and trying something new before it got out of hand, but now seems the best time to do it. While the city is in flux during its transition of political power, the Bureau could sneak in and inject a few people with their contagious serum, and the memory reset would rapidly spread to everyone.
"But when you have to choose between two bad options, you pick the one that saves the people you love and believe in most. You just do."
—Allegiant, P. 388
Tris made plenty of enemies in her days as a revolutionary in Divergent and Insurgent, and every one of them lives in Chicago, but erasing the memories of an entire city is an atrocity she can't condone. Her family and its history is there, including her pre-Dauntless roots as an ordinary girl in the Abnegation sector. Her family had happy years together before she chose Dauntless and her brother Caleb made his own fateful choice to belong to Erudite, and having those memories wiped clean from everyone's mind but hers is unimaginable to Tris. The lives and hearts of any city converge in its memories, sweet and bitter, old and new, of a public or highly personal nature. When Tris is forced to decide whether to go along with the Bureau's plan to make the city forget its history in the interest of removing Evelyn from leadership, Tris will have other crucial decisions to make. The ominous single sentence on the book's cover, "One choice will define you", becomes the critical rule of play as Tris decides what she's willing to sacrifice to end the Bureau's threat. What determines if a man deserves to live or die, if his crimes be worthy of the ultimate punishment or if the redemptive power of self-sacrifice can save even a would-be killer? One choice for Tris will determine the future of Chicago, both near and long-term, and alter the world of Divergent forever. There's no going back from the choice that undoes you.
"There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater.
But sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life."
—Allegiant, P. 509
Like Divergent, Allegiant asks us to take a hard look at the faction system to understand why it's no good for people to elevate their natural strengths above their weaknesses, focusing on those strengths to the exclusion of improving their areas of lesser aptitude. What good is it to possess the bravery of a Dauntless if you haven't the intelligence of an Erudite to know when and how to best use it, or the selflessness of Abnegation to shape your bravery into valiant defense of those who need your protection? How do your intellectual virtues as an Erudite improve yourself or the world if you don't have the kindness of Amity to ply your mental capacity on behalf of others, or the honesty of Candor to acknowledge you don't know everything, forcing you to don the all-important garment of humility? Humans need to be balanced givers and takers to be healthy and productive. We're imperfect people who aren't likely to ever master all five of the factions' values, but by doing what we can to grab a little of each and increase what we bring to the table, we deepen the pool of humanity's resources and make the world a better place to live for everyone, today and in the future. Growing in every virtue, shoring up our weaknesses to try and develop as an all-around worthwhile person, is part of what makes us human.
"And I know, without being told, that's what love does, when it's right—it makes you more than you were, more than you thought you could be."
—Allegiant, P. 414
Beyond the philosophical merits of Allegiant, the story hits hardest with its pure emotional power, as we watch Tris locked in her third all-out battle against the maniacal reach of tyranny. It's an endless war she wages, pushing back against despots who disguise their evil beneath rationales of laboring to correct "genetic damage", believing themselves to be intervening on behalf of a population that can't possibly know what's good for them. Every hero's battle to resist the dark side of humanity is a ceaseless one, struggling with the forces of evil that conspire to swallow the noble. Even the greatest hero doesn't have forever to daringly ward off adversaries before the odds catch up with him or her at last. A hero is still a human being, clothed in the vulnerable garb of skin and bone, one day to fall before an opponent, defeated if not vanquished. The idea that glowing skin and luminescent eyes could pale to the uniform gray of cremated ashes seems impossible to those who loved any hero; that such a vibrant soul could grow so small is almost inconceivable. But the war moves forward even after we have kissed our heroes a final goodbye and surrendered them to the soil from which they came, our enemy of grief as formidable as ever their foes were for them on the battlefield. We may not believe we have the strength to win another day without our hero, but the next day dawns nonetheless, flooded ever after with a horizon of tomorrows as far as the eye can see, and it's up to us to greet the conflict anew. It is an endless war we wage, and though we may dutifully take up arms to to renew our place in it, our heroes will never be forgotten.
"I suppose a fire that burns that bright is not meant to last."
—Allegiant, P. 492
"I belong to the people I love, and they belong to me—they, and the love and loyalty I give them, form my identity far more than any word or group ever could."
—Allegiant, P. 455
There are many memorable lines I could specially cite from Allegiant, but I'll only take out a few of them to examine here. The three books of the trilogy have numerous examples of characters astutely attacking the validity of factional methodology, but I particularly like Christina's rebuttal to Candor: "Being honest doesn't mean you say whatever you want, whenever you want. It means that what you choose to say is true." Christina's statement is well-considered and expresses my feelings, too, about the careless insensitivity of Candor. When a Candor responds, "A lie of omission is still a lie", we can think that over for ourselves and come up with our own refutation. There are things a person should know, and has every right not to have withheld by others, but that doesn't mean we need to speak every stray thought that passes through our minds, especially if it's hurtful or unnecessary. There is a difference between public and private thoughts, and Candor have a hard time accepting that. Being a truthful and kind person requires the use of one's brain to discern when a thought should and should not be voiced. Caleb Prior was more villain than protagonist in Insurgent, and shows signs of his reprehensible nature in Allegiant, but it's his reminder of something his and Tris's mother told him that gets Tris thinking on the subject of forgiveness, and is her first step toward the choice that will transform everything: "You know what Mom told me once?...She said that everyone has some evil inside them, and the first step to loving anyone is to recognize the same evil in ourselves, so we're able to forgive them." Abnegation is as ponderously flawed as any of the five factions, but here we see a bit of its quiet strength, for what else but the selflessness of a mother could ingrain that wise truth of forgiveness in the mind of such an intellectually obstinate son? There's so much Caleb doesn't get about why his actions have been wrong, but he understands forgiveness at least partially, and that's because of his mother. When Tris is engaged in conversation with the head of the Bureau, she marvels at how such an ostensibly civilized man could be behind the Bureau's extreme solution to the problem of uprisings in Chicago, not caring that wiping out the people's memories would be like robbing them of the lives they've led. How could such a dictator seem so friendly and normal? But as Tris observes: "I wonder if this is how it is with all evil men, that to someone, they look just like good men, talk like good men, are just as likable as good men." After all, aren't the most dastardly of leaders still only human?
"Or maybe forgiveness is just the continual pushing aside of bitter memories, until time dulls the hurt and the anger, and the wrong is forgotten."
—Allegiant, P. 446
Tris and Tobias have been through emergency after emergency since they found each other; therefore, much of what they have learned about being in a relationship has been on the fly. They haven't had the opportunity to work through their issues until now, and they have plenty of them to confront because of what happened in Insurgent. But as the two of them turn an important corner after their relationship teeters on the brink of dissolution, Tris has the following realization: "I used to think that when people fell in love, they just landed where they landed, and they had no choice in the matter afterward. And maybe that's true of beginnings, but it's not true of this, now. I fell in love with him. But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me." It's this understanding that shows a relationship might have staying power. What could seriously threaten the bond if all transgressions can eventually be forgiven, because it's love that matters most? Later, when one main character is grappling with guilt over a situation gone tragically awry, another character has this to say: "It happened. It was awful. You aren't perfect. That's all there is." And then: "Don't confuse your grief with guilt." That last sentence is what finally allows the main character to understand the toxic mix of feelings assailing him. Oh, how he and I both needed to be told that right then. Tris and Tobias have some extraordinary scenes of interaction in Allegiant, including when Tris convinces him at long last that he isn't genetically damaged in any way that matters. "It's what you deserve to hear...That you're whole, that you're worth loving, that you're the best person I've ever known." A few paragraphs later: "I forget that he is another person; instead it feels like he is another part of me, just as essential as a heart or an eye or an arm." Then there's this affirmation of their relationship, which Tris has known all along even if it took her a while to recognize it: "I was so afraid that we would just keep colliding over and over again if we stayed together, and that eventually the impact would break me. But now I know I am like the blade and he is like the whetstone— I am too strong to break so easily, and I become better, sharper every time I touch him." That's one of many lovely, timelessly quotable passages found all through the book, and they make Tris and Tobias more than just another popular YA couple.
"Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can't escape that damage.
But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other."
—Allegiant, P. 526
As capstone to a mainstream literary trilogy, Allegiant more than pulls its weight. The story is an enormously powerful one, with deeper and longer-lasting emotion than even most excellent concluding volumes of a trilogy. Veronica Roth is more than a wildly commercially successful writer; she's a wise and resounding storyteller, capable of more greatness than I thought. Allegiant is one of my favorite books, a foray into emotional territory fraught with land mines that threaten to blow the reader sky high. But trust Veronica Roth to guide you through it. Trust her to lead you out on the other end of the minefield healthy, whole, and grateful for the characters you met and relationships you cherished, regardless of how some of them ended. I love Allegiant; I would definitely give it four and a half stars, and I know its impact on me will remain all the days of my life. This book means a lot to me, and I hope it means the same to you. ...more
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Mar 11, 2015
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 11, 2015
Oct 07, 2014
Oct 07, 2014
it was ok
What better way to extend the influence of 2013 Newbery Medal winner The One and Only Ivan than adapting it for the picture-book set, allowing even y What better way to extend the influence of 2013 Newbery Medal winner The One and Only Ivan than adapting it for the picture-book set, allowing even younger readers and pre-readers to appreciate the story of a majestic silverback gorilla and his three-decade odyssey back to the natural world? Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla serves precisely this purpose, and author Katherine Applegate gives a performance comparable to her earlier novel. If anyone is familiar with Ivan's life story and knows how to elicit emotional response to it from readers, it's Katherine Applegate, who proves again that people are no less concerned over the fate of captive animals than they were in the twilight of Ivan's career as a shopping mall sideshow, when kids and grownups alike rallied to press mall ownership to return the prized silverback where he belonged.
"In leafy calm, in gentle arms, a gorilla's life began." With these tender, lyrical opening lines, reminiscent of The One and Only Ivan's understated dramatic style, we're transported to the dark heart of Africa, where baby Ivan is born into his family apart from the threat of human abduction. The grace of safety doesn't last long, however. Ivan and a little gorilla sister, later given the name Burma, are captured by poachers, crated up, and shipped to the urban U.S., as far from their native environment as an earthbound carrier could remove them. Ivan is a stout young creature, curious, friendly, and as strong as a healthy gorilla should be, but his sister Burma dies shortly after arriving on the mainland, victim of human greed for the souvenir dollars she might bring. Ivan grows up as part of a human family for a few years, almost like a human child, but when he ripens into adolescence his gorilla strength becomes a concern. He is sent to be confined in a see-through exhibit at a local mall, isolated from the African landscape he was born in, never to interact like normal with other gorillas in the wild.
For twenty-seven years Ivan roams his cage at the mall, delighting customers who flock to observe a silverback gorilla in the prime of life. Over time, though, people's attitudes change, the way everything tends to change. As the general populace grows more educated to the plight of animals like Ivan, plucked from their habitat and exported to foreign locales to be gawked at by strangers, people's amusement over the confined gorilla gradually turns to indignation and outrage. It isn't right to keep a glorious silverback specimen cooped up in a cage forever, no matter what entertainment value his presence offers. Eventually, the people's voice is heard; Ivan is crated up and sent off again, just as in his infancy, but this time he is brought to a setting much friendlier to his social and biological needs. For the first time in the better part of three decades, the show-stopping silverback is free to live away from prying eyes, never again to worry about performing for a public, adoring though they may have been. Ivan's life is his own now, to frolic and play and make the social connections he hasn't known since little Burma passed away. "In leafy calm, in gentle arms, a gorilla's life began again."
It's no surprise when a Newbery author writes a good book, and Katherine Applegate has done so in Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla. The way she circles the end of the story back to its opening lines is beautiful, a touching tribute to one special gorilla and to all of us who seek freedom but are denied it far too long. The "About Ivan" addendum is a valuable piece of the narrative, though I sort of wish Katherine Applegate had told about the enormous outpouring of love and remembrance for Ivan from all over the country after he died at age fifty in 2012, or made the story more personal by mentioning her own visit to see Ivan in the final days of his life. Ivan didn't come out to be viewed by the public that day, so Katherine Applegate never saw him in person, but in hindsight she was happy it turned out that way. Ivan went many years not having any choice whether to be seen by the crowds, so his decision not to come out when Katherine Applegate went to visit him in his new wildlife home was an example of him exercising his freedom in a way he never could while caged at the mall. When considered in that context, she realized, his refusal to be seen by her was an entirely fitting epilogue to his story. I listened intently as she told us about these things at an author event in 2013 to promote The One and Only Ivan, and her in-person telling was more emotionally affecting than what we find in either book. I also should mention in this review G. Brian Karas's illustrations for Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla, which are soft and subtle, well-suited to the text. Ultimately, The One and Only Ivan uses its length to tell a deeper, more rewarding version of Ivan's tale, but this picture-book adaptation is a worthwhile work of literature in its own right, and I would give it two and a half stars. No one who loved The One and Only Ivan should miss this book.
Notes are private!
not set
Mar 09, 2015
Mar 08, 2015
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