Sniffle, Sniffle

Do you want to know the worst thing about going back to school? Having to stay home in the third week of school because you are already sick! We are both enjoying our first colds of the school year. So we will get back to you when we aren't spending all of our time watching movies, drinking Strawberry C Monster and taking naps.

Too bad they proved that Airborne doesn't work.

Covering our noses and mouths,
K and Z

I Choose to Read Whatever I Choose

The American Library Association is celebrating Banned Books Week this week. This is the 27th year of celebrating the freedom to read any book that is written. They have a list of the 10 Most Challenged Books of 2007:

1) “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2) The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

3) “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes
Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language

4) “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
Reasons: Religious Viewpoint

5) “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain
Reasons: Racism

6) “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language,

7) "TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

8) "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
Reasons: Sexually Explicit

9) “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris
Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

10) "The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

I haven't heard of six of these books but it seems that sexually explicit writing is particularly troublesome for those trying to keep books on the library shelves. I would argue though that it should be grouped in with the "Religious Viewpoint" complaint because I'm fairly sure that members of the religious demographic are the ones complaining about sex. And it's always surprising that Huck Finn is still being challenged after all this time. It is a relic of another era but necessary to understand another time. I'm glad that someone is out there defending my right to read it -- and any of these other books -- if I so choose.

Read what Sassymonkey wrote about banned books on BlogHer this past weekend.

Choosing to read and not judge what others read,
K

Looking for Levity in a Sad World

My family and friends experienced a very tragic loss this week. A young man who was only a month younger than my sister and who grew up side by side with her died in a car accident. It has been hard to believe that it happened. I used to babysit for this family when I was a teenager. I can picture this boy in my head when he was about five years old with his disheveled, white blond hair and always a little dirt on his face, quiet and thoughtful. To know that his life has ended at twenty-one is incredibly sad.

One side effect of coping with this tragedy is that I realized that very little of what I read is light-hearted or very happy. This last week, I couldn't stand to pick up a ghost story or a dreary Victorian novel. I didn't want to read about pain or loss or sadness or violence. The only series I have that are cheerful are the Thursday Next series and the Hitchhikers' Guide series. I read a little bit of YA fantasy fiction that is kind of neutral but not exactly happy.

So my request from my two readers is to recommend something that can help me escape a broken heart, if just for a few hours. I'm not a fan of romance but I will read just about anything else.

Attempting escape,
K

"Once upon a time, a little girl named Katerina-Elizabeth took an ocean liner to visit her grandmother in Scotland."

The best picture book we've gotten from the library in a while is The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster: A Tale of Picky Eating by A.W. Flaherty. This is a cute story about a girl who takes a transatlantic ocean liner trip by herself. Her parents scheduled her meals for her and she was put down for oatmeal every morning. She isn't a fan of oatmeal so she throws it overboard. A small worm happens to be where it lands and he eats it and loves it. He goes looking for more and follows the ship, growing as he eats more and more oatmeal. They eventually make it to Loch Ness and the worm becomes a monster and ends up staying there, cruising around and eating each morning as people chuck their oatmeal into the lake.

This is a silly story with fantastic dark illustrations by Scott Magoon. The worm is a little odd looking but the cool, creepy color scheme and the atmospheric ocean liner scenes are a pleasant change from some of the other primary color-based picture books.

Z is a fantastic eater (except for mashed potatoes and eggs ... who knows?!?) so we didn't need this book for the moral. We just needed it for the cool factor because who doesn't love the Loch Ness Monster?

Traveling the beautiful briny,
K and Z


Buy The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster: A Tale of Picky Eating on Amazon or find it at your local library.

"At Port Said another passenger boarded the Leviathan ... and Gustave Gauche's mood immediately improved."

Another book from my spooky books for fall list is Boris Akunin's Murder on the Leviathan. This is the second book in the Erast Fandorin series that starts with The Winter Queen which I reviewed last month. This is the story of a mass murder and theft of Indian antiquities in France and the murderer's attempted escape on an England-to-India steamliner, the Leviathan. Fandorin is a passenger on the boat en route to his new diplomatic post in Japan -- after the tragedy that ended the last book. A French police commissioner by the name of Gauche takes passage on the boat and has all of his suspects assigned to one meal salon, including Fandorin. Fandorin is quickly discounted but the others are all under various states of suspicion as the reason for their presence in the salon is revealed and multiple murders follow.

This book is something of an homage to other mystery writers including Agatha Christie, Wilkie Collins and Arthur Conan Doyle. Wilkie Collins was the first author to write a single novel in multiple voices. This book also tells the story from multiple viewpoints, although oddly never Fandorin's view. Akunin also writes a scene where Fandorin uses his powers of deduction to identify other passengers on the ship in a very Sherlock Holmes-esque way.

Murder on the Leviathan is a fantastic book and is highly different from the first book in the series. Akunin is very good at writing in different styles and different voices. If you want to read one book in the series, this is a probably the best and a good stand-alone story.

Sailing the treacherous seas,
K


Buy Murder on the Leviathan on Amazon or find it at your local library.

Poirot, In Short Form

One of the things that is missing from most of the pages of Poirot novels is Poirot himself. The story unfolds without him until the point where he is invited in or happens upon the crime and then he works his effortless magic. The best thing about Poirot short stories is that there isn't time for that so he is present in the whole story. The book I read recently, Murder in the Mews, is a collection of four short stories. These have all been made into tv episodes by the BBC. In this book we have murder for inheritance, the theft of state secrets, a locked room murder and a love triangle murder.

The best story of the bunch is Triangle at Rhodes where a love triangle forms leaving jealous spouses and someone with murder on his or her mind. It has a nice little twist at the end that you can anticipate if you really pay attention and know where Poirot's sympathies lie. This book is a nice little short read and is great for a story before bedtime.

Using the little grey cells,
K


Buy Murder in the Mews on Amazon or find it at your local library.

Reading Something of Value

When I was a kid, one of my favorite sets of books were the ValueTales. I learned about Louis Pasteur and pasteurization, about Marie Curie and radium and Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. I liked reading about people who did real things whose influence I could still see in the world. Helen Keller was brave and hard-working. Benjamin Franklin was curious and inventive. Abraham Lincoln was honest and intelligent. And all of these people were once kids like me -- wanting to know more about their world and wanting to make a difference. A lot of the colorful, enticing non-fiction books for kids today seem to be about things rather than people - trucks and animals rather than Ghandi and Florence Nightingale.

Apparently, there are "New" ValueTales. I'm not sure what they changed -- it just says "revised art, and updated text" -- but I hope that they give the kids the same feelings of hope and empowerment that they gave me.

Feeling nostalgic,
K

"On a faraway plain stood five lonely statues."

Since Z went back to preschool this week, I stopped at the library by myself and picked up some books for both of us. One of the picture books I got for Z is Five Little Fiends by Sarah Dyer. I didn't look inside and I thought it would be a spooky story for Halloween-time but instead it's an appreciating the Earth story. The five fiends live in the five aforementioned statues and each one enjoys something different about their surroundings and one day they each capture the thing they admire most. But in removing that part of the environment, it loses its purpose and therefore its beauty. So the fiends replace everything and enjoy them as a whole again. So I'm not sure how fiendish they really are after all but this is a good little book with a good message.

Appreciating the whole,
K and Z


Buy Five Little Fiends on Amazon or find it at your local bookstore.

Music Is My Other Love

Here's another factoid about me. The only thing I love more than books is music. After high school I worked at a couple of different music stores and I was a band geek and a church choir singer when I was younger. I also had the mandatory piano lessons and I wish I had a piano again.

Anyway, tonight I skipped reading and watched Screaming Masterpiece, a documentary about modern Icelandic music. I am a big fan of a few Icelandic bands -- Sigur Ros, Mum, Bjork, Amiina -- and I might be looking up a few others. There is some footage of Iceland in winter which is unbelievably beautiful. Recently I watched a movie about the band Sigur Ros and their footage was Iceland in spring and summer which is amazingly green and textured. My brother and sister-in-law and I have a goal to get to Iceland sometime soon, preferably when we can hear some amazing Icelandic music.

Singing in tongues,
K


Buy Screaming Masterpiece on Amazon or rent it on Netflix like I did.

Beginning the Spooky Season

I have taken my spooky book post to heart and am going to re-read as many of these books as I can this season. I started this week with Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories. These aren't stories by Roald Dahl but the top fourteen short stories that he thought were the spookiest ever written. Now, most people would read a few dozen well-known stories and choose a few for their anthology but Roald Dahl says that he read seven-hundred and forty-nine stories to find these good ones -- and they are fantastic!

The first that really got to me was Harry by Rosemary Timperley. This story has the uncertainty and menacing aspects of a good ghost story. A young adopted girl makes an imaginary friend but her mother is not so sure that the friend is all that made-up. Maybe having a young child right now makes this story scarier because nothing is worse than the fears you have for the safety of your children.

The next story that I loved was The Corner Shop by Cynthia Asquith. This is one of those ghost stories with a warm and fuzzy ending -- which happens to be my favorite kind. I have always liked benevolent ghosts. In this story a man enters a curio shop at two different times and is met by extremely different proprietors. Through the story you aren't entirely sure which is the ghostly scenario.

In the Tube by E.F. Benson focuses more on spiritualism and "ghosts versus astral projections" and that sort of thing. It's a very well-written story and it gives you the chills at the end.

One of the best in the book is A.M. Burrage's Playmates. It deals with how a non-believer comes to terms with the regular existence of harmless ghosts. The next one I liked a lot is by the same author and is called The Sweeper. This one is the exact opposite type of story in that it is about people who have no doubt as to the existence of a certain ghost and are sure of his ability to wreak vengeance. I would like to find out more about Burrage as I really enjoyed his stories.

All of the stories in the book are good and creepy and they are each so different from the other that it's a very interesting read. I strongly recommend this if you are looking for some good spooky reading.

Sleeping with a nightlight,
K


Buy Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories on Amazon or find it at your local library.

Seattle Days, Siberian Nights

I found a new favorite place to read today -- the pedicure chair at InSpa. Since Z went back to school this week, I get two and a half whole hours, three days a week to myself. I took my first day of it today to use a gift card at the spa for what will probably be my last pedicure of the season. I'm not into fashion but I am into having someone pamper me for 90 minutes! For those of you that follow OPI colors, I chose "Siberian Nights". The OPI website calls it "A wonderfully wintery shade of onyx" ... I call it "purply-black". I was reading a book of ghost stories that I'm hoping to finish tonight and review tomorrow. I even gave in at Starbucks today and got a pumpkin spice latte. I'm ready for fall, I guess!

My time at the school library on Monday was fun. The first graders are adorable. They seem so much older than my little preschooler. One girl came up to me with her book and I said "that looks like a good book" and she said "yes, it does! um ... can you tell me what it's called?" So cute! It was tiring to do all of the cleaning and straightening and shelving but the time with the kids was worth it. I'm glad that I will get to see these kids for the entire school year and watch them grow and learn.

Contemplating beginnnings and ends,
K

"It is with great relief and some reluctance that I begin these unauthorized and unofficial entries into the Log of the Museum of Man."

I have decided to start re-reading books from my own shelves for two reasons -- one, to save money for a while since I'm somewhat compulsive when it comes to buying new books and two, to clear off my shelves and make room for when I do give in to the compulsion. This book, Murder in the Museum of Man by Alfred Acorn, will leave space for something new.

I first read it about 10 years ago and I remembered really liking it. This time though, I was rather bored. The book was written by an ex-museum employee so I'm sure that there were a lot of caricatures that would be hilarious to museum-types but to me it just seemed like a lot of self-important, flat characters. The story starts with a missing university dean whose partial remains are found and appear to have been cannibalized by gourmets. Everyone in the museum is under suspicion and the story follows the account of the Recording Secretary -- along with a somewhat disturbing history of his love (or lack thereof) life. As I was reading I kept hoping for things to escalate a bit more but they never quite did to my satisfaction. This wasn't a bad book and apparently there is a sequel coming out in February 2009. Depending on the plot, I may go find it at the library.

Avoiding meat for a while,
K


Buy Murder in the Museum of Man on Amazon or find it at your local library.

A New Adventure

I am starting something new this week. Z goes back to school on Monday and I will be going as well. I am going to be volunteering in the elementary school library! I will be helping on one afternoon a week with a class of first grade students. The last library experience I had was when I was 15 and I spent a summer putting an entire junior high school card catalog onto a new-fangled computer system they were going to start using. I thought it was fun to see every book that was in the entire library. Yes, I am a raging nerd.

I'm sure this will be much more fun than months of data entry and I can't wait to meet the kids. If it goes well, I might actually do a second day each week with some second graders. This is a chance to get some experience hours if I decide to get my master's degree in library science but I think the best part is just teaching kids to love books!

I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow night.

Excited and a little nervous,
K

Back to School

We are busy getting ready to go back to preschool on Monday so here's a nice lazy picture post of the cutest kid back ever ...



The scholarly family,
K and Z

"Faint streaks of crimson glimmer here and there amidst the rich darkness of the Kentish woods."

The first book I decided to read for the 2nds Challenge was Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. The first book I read by her was Lady Audley's Secret, which I loved. It had an incredibly shocking twist and was a very dark story. This one had a much lighter tone but could have been called Aurora Floyd's Secret because it was the same sort of plot -- a wife's character is compromised by a secret in her past. But while Lady Audley's secret exposed her extremely negative character, Aurora Floyd's secret eventually gains her sympathy from her family and from the reader.

Mary Elizabeth Braddon was a Victorian novelist who was grouped with authors like Wilkie Collins as a "sensationalist". I really enjoy this genre and this book was a good example of it. Apparently Braddon wrote eighty-five books (!) so even though this is only her second book that I've read, I still have much more to explore.

Seconding the Victorian novel,
K


Buy Aurora Floyd on Amazon or find it at your local library.

Favorite Book Number Two: David Copperfield

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

I didn't set out for my first two books in this favorites list to both be by Charles Dickens but I happened to watch a David Copperfield Masterpiece Theatre this past weekend and it has put me in the mood to discuss this book. This was written when Dickens was in his 30s and is thought to be his most autobiographical. This book contains one of the most lovable Dickens characters in Mr. Micawber and arguably (not really - it's a given) the most repulsive one -- Uriah Heep. It is hard to write a summary of a Dickens book because he writes about dozens of characters so I will give you the briefest one possible.

David is a boy who, as he says, is born "a posthumous child" -- after the death of his father. He lives a happy childhood with his mother and their servant Peggotty. When he is still young, his mother remarries a Mr. Murdstone who turns out to be the prototypical evil stepfather. David is sent away to school for a brief time and while he is there, his mother dies. Murdstone recalls him home and tells him that he is now on his own and sends him to London to work in a factory. Eventually he runs away from this horrible life to try his luck with his aunt, Miss Betsey Trotwood. She decides to take guardianship of him and this time he goes to Canterbury to study and become a gentleman and a man of business. Many sad and unfortunate things happen to him and those he loves but he constantly moves forward. Through all of this and through the following years, he retains his innocence and good nature even while coming into contact with treacherous and vile people. On the other hand, he is also rewarded with true friends and true love.

That seems like a very poor summary of the book because much of the value of it is in the well-written and diverse characters: Peggotty and her father Mr. Peggotty, Em'ly and Ham (Peggotty's cousins), Steerforth (David's school friend), Betsey Trotwood and her simple-minded friend Mr. Dick, the Micawber family that David lives with while he works in the factory in London, Mr. Wickfield and his daughter Agnes who David lives with when his aunt sends him to study, and finally the repulsive Uriah Heep. Each of these characters has something to add to the story which is why David, in starting the book, uses the words that he does -- that he may or may not be the hero of his own story.

This book is often overlooked because of the simple title and the prejudice against Dickens but it is really a fantastic story. If you aren't sure about it, I suggest that you watch the fantastic miniseries. It has Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) as the young David Copperfield and other stars of British cinema including Bob Hoskins, Maggie Smith and Ian McKellen.

Worshipping at the altar of Dickens,
K


Buy David Copperfield on Amazon or find it at your local library.

Early Readers of the Week

The early readers that we picked up from the library last week have something in common. They are both by fantastic all-in-one writer/illustrators.

First we have Barkley by Syd Hoff. This is the story of a circus dog that starts to get too old to do all of the tricks with the other dogs. He leaves the circus to see if he can fit in somewhere else and he thinks he has found the place in a yard full of kids. But the kids have other ideas when they see him perform some tricks and they decide that he still belongs at the circus. When he gets back, he finds that even if he is too old to peform, he's not too old to be useful. He can teach the young puppies all of the tricks he knows. The thing about some of these older books (this one was written in 1975) is that they tend to be stronger and perhaps more esoteric in their moral message. This one is that your knowledge will always be useful to someone else. Maybe this book is supposed to inspire the thought in children that they should make use of the knowledge of their elders. I don't think Z got that at 4 years old. He just likes dogs and the circus.

Then we got Richard Scarry's Watch Your Step, Mr. Rabbit! This one is much more straight-forward. Mr. Rabbit is reading his paper while walking down the street and he steps into wet cement and gets stuck. All of the other animals work together to get him unstuck and yet he still goes off on his way with his nose back in the newspaper. This story strangely ends with Mr. Rabbit nearing the edge of a pier while wearing the residue of his previous mishap -- cement shoes. Not such an uplifting moral in this one -- more of a mob moral. Strange. Z really liked the basic text in this one though. It's a very easy reader with a good rhythm.

Fans of the pictures and the words,
K and Z


Buy Barkley and Watch Your Step, Mr. Rabbit! on Amazon or find them at your local bookstore.

A Fantastic New Children's Book Award

Kelly at Big A little a linked to an article in the Telegraph about a new children's book award -- the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. On the panel of judges are Roald Dahl's granddaughter, some children's authors and, most importantly, a comedian! The purpose of the award is to recognize those books that typically get overlooked when prizes go to books with what are considered "more serious" topics.

I think the best line from the article is "humour is one of the best ways to make children into readers." This is absolutely true. I remember cracking up as a kid when the BFG started farting but I can be sure that most adults would not have considered The BFG an award winning book. In fact, this article says that Roald Dahl never won an award that was decided by adults. Nothing could be more tragic for the king of children's humor.

Appreciating the funny,
K and Z

When a Re-read Disappoints

Have you ever gone back and re-read a book that you remembered loving (or at least liking a lot) only to find that you strongly dislike it the second time? I had that happen recently with a book. I guess my mindset has changed over the years and I found the characters much more self-absorbed and annoying and much less romantic than I did years ago. And then, when the climax of the book came (which I had forgotten), I thought that the revelation was annoying and stupid.

I wonder if it would happen the other way too ... maybe something I really didn't like before, I would enjoy reading now. The problem is, of course, that I disliked it so why would I pick it up again.

Just rambling,
K

"The year 1866 was marked by a strange event, an unexplained and inexplicable occurrence that doubtless no one has yet forgotten."

I wanted to love 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas. I have never read Jules Verne but I've watched enough movies based on his books to last a dozen late nights. Fun fact about me: I'm a 1950's sci-fi movie junkie. I love the various views of future and alternate worlds and the cheezy special effects. Can you believe how disappointed I was then to find out that Jules Verne is a bland and methodical writer? He obviously did extensive research -- reading field guides and naturalists' notes -- and then he regurgitated it all into a 400 page book. What I thought would be a quick, entertaining read turned out to be a two week trudge through listings of fish species and depths in each ocean around the world. If I hadn't studied marine biology, I would have been completely lost during most of the book. Even the parts that should have been exciting -- being trapped under a glacier, sailing through boiling seas, being attacked by a pod of giant squid -- were written with the same level of excitement as the descriptions of the meals on board the Nautilus.

I will probably try one more Jules Verne book -- preferably something that is less scientific. Perhaps I will try Around the World in 80 Days. I'll let you know how that turns out! Does anyone else read Jules Verne?

Feeling washed out,
K


Buy 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas on Amazon or find it at your local library.

Nobel Prize for Literature Recipients

I have never given much thought to the Nobel Prize for Literature. For example, I hadn't really thought about the fact that it is given to an author -- rather than to a specific book. It is a very powerful prize in its ability to acknowledge an entire body of work. This year's prize will be awarded in October. Here is a list of the previous 104 recipients of this award. There are many whose names I have never heard which means I have a lot of research to do. If you follow the link to the list, there are biographies and bibliographies. It's never too late to be well-read!

Bold are authors I have read:

2007 - Doris Lessing
2006 - Orhan Pamuk
2005 - Harold Pinter
2004 - Elfriede Jelinek
2003 - J. M. Coetzee
2002 - Imre Kertész
2001 - V. S. Naipaul
2000 - Gao Xingjian
1999 - Günter Grass
1998 - José Saramago (on my nightstand)
1997 - Dario Fo
1996 - Wislawa Szymborska
1995 - Seamus Heaney
1994 - Kenzaburo Oe
1993 - Toni Morrison
1992 - Derek Walcott
1991 - Nadine Gordimer
1990 - Octavio Paz
1989 - Camilo José Cela
1988 - Naguib Mahfouz
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1986 - Wole Soyinka
1985 - Claude Simon
1984 - Jaroslav Seifert
1983 - William Golding
1982 - Gabriel García Márquez
1981 - Elias Canetti
1980 - Czeslaw Milosz
1979 - Odysseus Elytis
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1977 - Vicente Aleixandre
1976 - Saul Bellow
1975 - Eugenio Montale
1974 - Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson
1973 - Patrick White
1972 - Heinrich Böll
1971 - Pablo Neruda
1970 - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
1969 - Samuel Beckett
1968 - Yasunari Kawabata
1967 - Miguel Angel Asturias
1966 - Shmuel Agnon, Nelly Sachs
1965 - Mikhail Sholokhov
1964 - Jean-Paul Sartre
1963 - Giorgos Seferis
1962 - John Steinbeck
1961 - Ivo Andric
1960 - Saint-John Perse
1959 - Salvatore Quasimodo
1958 - Boris Pasternak (also on my nightstand)
1957 - Albert Camus
1956 - Juan Ramón Jiménez
1955 - Halldór Laxness
1954 - Ernest Hemingway
1953 - Winston Churchill
1952 - François Mauriac
1951 - Pär Lagerkvist
1950 - Bertrand Russell
1949 - William Faulkner
1948 - T.S. Eliot
1947 - André Gide
1946 - Hermann Hesse
1945 - Gabriela Mistral
1944 - Johannes V. Jensen
1939 - Frans Eemil Sillanpää
1938 - Pearl Buck
1937 - Roger Martin du Gard
1936 - Eugene O'Neill
1934 - Luigi Pirandello
1933 - Ivan Bunin
1932 - John Galsworthy
1931 - Erik Axel Karlfeldt
1930 - Sinclair Lewis
1929 - Thomas Mann
1928 - Sigrid Undset
1927 - Henri Bergson
1926 - Grazia Deledda
1925 - George Bernard Shaw
1924 - Wladyslaw Reymont
1923 - William Butler Yeats
1922 - Jacinto Benavente
1921 - Anatole France
1920 - Knut Hamsun
1919 - Carl Spitteler
1917 - Karl Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan
1916 - Verner von Heidenstam
1915 - Romain Rolland
1913 - Rabindranath Tagore
1912 - Gerhart Hauptmann
1911 - Maurice Maeterlinck
1910 - Paul Heyse
1909 - Selma Lagerlöf
1908 - Rudolf Eucken
1907 - Rudyard Kipling
1906 - Giosuè Carducci
1905 - Henryk Sienkiewicz
1904 - Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray
1903 - Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
1902 - Theodor Mommsen
1901 - Sully Prudhomme

Expanding my world view,
K

"Little Otter wakes in his safe, snug den, ready to play in an utterly otterly way."

This week at the library we picked up the picture book Utterly Otterly Day by Mary Casanova. This is a simple story about a little otter who thinks he is old enough to hang out by himself for the day. When danger finds him, his parents and sister are there to help him and he realizes that getting older doesn't mean that you need to leave your family behind. This is a nice message and the book has some good prose although I sometimes found it to be uneven which threw me off my reading rhythm.

I thought that the illustrations by Ard Hoyt were a little off in some places (like the little otter on the cover). He has a cute little body but his head is ginormous and his massive Cheshire mouth creeps me out a bit. I thought that the adult otters were drawn much better and the backgrounds are quite beautiful.

This book was just published and was a good little find. I recommend it for your little one that might be heading off for school this week. They will find it comforting to know that your family is always there for you. Z still has a couple of weeks before he goes back to school so I will remind him that it's fun to be a big kid off at school but also good to be mommy and daddy's little boy back home.

Keeping together,
K and Z


Buy Utterly Otterly Day on Amazon or find it at your local library.

31 Books for Fall Spooks

I made this list of 31 books from my own collection that I think are befitting the spooky season that is autumn. Fall has already made an appearance here in the Pacific Northwest as we've had the hints of a chill in the air and plenty of rain. Halloween is a favorite time of year in our house and these books are some of my favorites. I don't expect anyone to read a book a day in October but feel free to use this list to find some good horror, mystery and suspense reads.

1. Murder on the Leviathan – Boris Akunin
2. Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
3. The Pale Blue Eye – Louis Bayard
4. Lady Audley's Secret – Mary Elizabeth Braddon
5. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
6. The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories – Tim Burton
7. And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie
8. Hallowe'en Party (Hercule Poirot) – Agatha Christie
9. The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories – Susanna Clarke
10. The Haunted Hotel – Wilkie Collins
11. The Book of Lost Things – John Connolly
12. The Meaning of Night: A Confession – Michael Cox
13. Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories – Roald Dahl
14. Best Ghost Stories – Charles Dickens
15. The Stolen Child – Keith Donohue
16. The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova
17. The Phantom of the Opera – Gaston Leroux
18. The Dream Stealer – Gregory Maguire
19. Lost: A Novel – Gregory Maguire
20. The Lighthouse at the End of the World – Stephen Marlowe
21. The Dante Club – Matthew Pearl
22. The Portrait – Iain Pears
23. The Raven and Other Stories – Edgar Allan Poe
24. Vincent Price: A Daughter's Biography – Victoria Price
25. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
26. The Thirteenth Tale – Diane Setterfield
27. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
28. Into the Mummy's Tomb – John Richard Stephens, editor
29. Dracula – Bram Stoker
30. Brat Farrar – Josephine Tey
31. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

If you choose any of these books to read this season, come back to this post and let me know what you thought of them!

Boo!
K