Show Us Some Comment Love

Hooray! It's Delurking Day (at least according to some people -- there doesn't actually seem to be anything official about it)! So while I'm out making myself seen on some blogs that I quietly read, use this chance to leave us a comment letting us know you're there.

I would love to get your name (or online alias), blog address (if you have one -- so that we can come visit you too!) and if you're feeling up to it, a book recommendation for K or Z based on what you know of us through the blog.

If a recommendation doesn't come to mind, just tell us some place in the world that you wish you were right now.  Although we can't complain too much about the unseasonably warm weather in Seattle, we're voting for this place ... Laie Point on Oahu, Hawaii.  (photo credit to my brother, B)

Happy commenting,
K and Z

LOTR Read-Along: The Hobbit Intro Post

I'm very excited to be participating in the Lord of the Rings Readalong over the next four months!  I believe that the last time I read the books was right before the first Peter Jackson film came out in 2001.  That was my second reading of the four books.  The first time was in college in the early 90s because T (my boyfriend at the time, now my husband) had a set of the books and I was curious.  Those, in fact, will be the books that I am reading again for a third time now!  Eva, the host this month of The Hobbit reading, asked for a picture of the version each of us is reading so here is mine ... a little blurry because I took it on the iPhone.

These appear to have been printed in 1986.  The edges are yellow (apparently on purpose as they are uniformly bright) and The Fellowship of the Rings is the only one that is a little worse for wear.  It probably spent time in T's backpack at some point.

Although I didn't read these books until college, I watched the old films many times as a kid -- the 1977 animated Hobbit and, less frequently, the 1978 Lord of the Rings movie.  Anyone who grew up in Southern California in the early 1980s couldn't have missed these since they were shown on many Saturday afternoons each year.

So, yeah ... I love Bilbo, am terribly creeped out by Gollum and love to imagine Smaug in all of his glittery splendor and I am definitely going to read this straight through -- probably in a week or two when I get some ARCs out of the way.  Are any of you participating or have you read these before?

Booking passage to Middle Earth,
K

Starred Saturdays: week of January 3

Are we all settled back in after the holiday break?  I'm glad to have everyone returning to their blogs because the reader was a bit sparse for a while there!

There is a television book club starting up in the U.K., non-imaginatively called The TV Book Club.  I wonder if this sort of show would ever even be considered in the U.S. on a national network.  Yeah, probably not. (via Jacket Copy)

The answer to my previous question is really in this example ... when we in the U.S. bother to put things other than unhealthy snack foods in vending machines, we might be able to manage a national book club.  (via Shelf Talk)


It's not too late to get in on the Lord of the Rings Read-along -- starting with The Hobbit this month and continuing through the trilogy over the next three months.  My starting post will probably go up tomorrow.


I loved last year's Top 100 Picture Books Poll (here are our Top Ten, eight of which made it to the list) at A Fuse #8 Production.  Now Betsy has started the Top 100 Children's Fictional Chapter Books Poll.  We're already working on our list!  Personal top ten lists are due in to her by January 31 and entries must be for chapter books appropriate for ages twelve and under.


It's CES (Consumer Entertainment something) Week in Las Vegas and the talk of the show are e-book readers -- being talked about here and here among other places.  I'm still waiting and hoping the Apple announcement later this month is for a media tablet because I'm not a big fan of single use devices.  If I'm going to get a gadget, I want it to be good for maybe books, music and movies.


Stereotyping People By Their Favorite Author? Funny!  My favorite?  "Richard Dawkins: People who have their significant other grab them under the table in order to shut them up whenever someone else at a dinner says something absolutely ridiculous and wrong."  (via Chronicle Books Blog)


If you have an iPhone and you like to go to book events, try out LibraryThing's new Local Books app.  I think it's only so-so at this point because a lot of indie bookstores haven't taken ownership of their locations yet and posted events.  But I think that the fact that the app exists now will get most of them onboard.  I expect this app to be awesome in about six months.  (article about it at Jacket Copy)


And my visual gift of the week, photographs of man-made lightning by Hiroshi Sugimoto!  The rest of his portfolio is stunning as well. (via io9)

S is for Saturday and sleeping in,
K

Poe Fridays: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

Welcome back to Poe Fridays. For this week's discussion we tackled Poe's longest story, the novella-length The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. You can read it here.

So, I have to say that this was a lot less painful than I was led to believe it would be. It got a bit silly toward the end and I skimmed a bit when he started getting too technical on cargo holds or bird rookeries but, overall, it was just an adventure story. Our main character is a young man who sets out to sea against the wishes of his family. The gist of the story is that he would have been better off staying at home. Just about any calamity that can befall one at sea, happens to our poor lad.

On a tangent, I was interested to read that one of the boy's ships chose to look for the Aurora Islands. I learned about them when I read Hippolyte's Island this past year -- the story of a man who travels alone to the islands, finds them and then returns home to write about his journey. I didn't know that they were an actual set of phantom islands.

With next week being our last Friday before Poe's birthday and therefore our last Poe Friday (although I will post a summary of everything I read on the following Friday), I am offering it as a free day -- choose whatever Poe poem or story you would like to read and write about. Maybe there was something that we have already read that you loved and want to re-read? Or have you just been following along and would like to choose one thing to read before this ends? Perhaps I've even skipped one of your favorite Poe writings and you want to remedy it now. Whatever the case, I would love to see some participation next Friday for our final celebration of this great author. And if you were wondering, I haven't decided yet what I'm going to read but I think it might be a re-read!

Choosing to stick to dry land,
K

New Release: The Swan Thieves

After loving The Historian a few years back, I couldn't wait for Elizabeth Kostova's next novel. Though it is about quite a different subject (Dracula versus Impressionist painters), I enjoyed The Swan Thieves as well. This is a novel with multiple narratives, one in the past and one in the present. While some other recent novels that used this technique have suffered from one weaker story, I felt that there was more of a balance of quality in this novel.

Andrew Marlow is a psychiatrist and amateur painter who has taken on a new patient as a favor to a friend. The man, semi-renowned painter Robert Oliver, was caught right as he was attacking an Impressionist canvas at the National Gallery of Art. Though Marlow's talent lies in getting people to talk, Oliver's decision to not speak a word foils his treatment. Instead, Marlow has to figure out for himself what events led up to Oliver's art-defiling outburst. Through interviews, research and a bit of luck, he not only reveals the demons haunting Robert Oliver but also solves a mystery from the past.

Told mainly through letters and interviews, I enjoyed the flow of this novel. I thought the story in the past was strong and touching. I haven't mentioned it in the summary because I think it is best experienced without any spoilers. All I will say is that it is the story of a female artist in late nineteenth century Paris. I thought the language and actions seemed authentic. I also thought the writing in the modern story was strong although some elements of the plot were not. It was hard to believe that a professional psychiatrist would realize that his actions were unhealthy and most likely unethical and yet continue with his choices. There was nothing he did that was terrible but I just found myself annoyed in a few places. Overall, though, I thought this was a good read but not as strong as The Historian. I will definitely be looking forward to Kostova's next novel and hoping that the wait is less than five years long this time!

Remembering to stop and stare at the canvases,
K


Support our site and buy The Swan Thieves on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received a review copy from the publisher.

Comics for Fun and Learning

A few weeks ago, Z and I went to the library and ended up with an early reader level comic book.  He loved it so much that I looked for more this last time we went and found that the first one is part of a great series called Toon Books. From their website --

We are thrilled to introduce our new collection of TOON Books from the Little Lit Library. TOON Books represent a whole new approach to books for emerging readers—a rethinking as radical as the first time Theodor Geisel put a hat on a cat.

TOON Books are the first high-quality comics designed for children ages four and up. Each book in the collection is just right for reading to the youngest child but perhaps more remarkable: this is the first collection ever designed to offer newly-emerging readers comics they can read themselves. Each TOON book has been vetted by educators to ensure that the language and the narratives will nurture young minds. Our books feature original stories and characters created by veteran children’s book authors, renowned cartoonists and new talents, all applying their extraordinary skills to fascinate young children with clearly told tales that will welcome them to the magic of reading.

At the K-1 level, we ended up with Jack and the Box by renowned artist Art Spiegelman.  Jack is a little bunny whose parents give him a box as a gift.  He's startled when a it turns out to be a jack-in-the-box.  This is no ordinary Jack, though ... it's Zack, a wacky, sproingy clown who takes things literally and likes to cause trouble.  It's a bit reminiscent of The Cat in the Hat except without the Cat's oblivious good nature.  Jack has to learn to watch what he says because Zack just might make the worst of it!  By the end, though, everything is okay and back to normal.

Z liked the art on this one but I'm not sure he really connected with the story.  We'll try it again another day!

From the Grade 1-2 set, we got Benny and Penny in Just Pretend by Geoffrey Hayes.  I saw this book last year when I volunteered in the school library but I never really read it.  Benny and Penny are mouse siblings -- Benny is the older brother and Penny the younger sister.  Benny is out having a fun day playing pretend pirates but Penny disrupts his game.  So Benny offers to play hide and seek with Penny but really takes off, leaving her alone for a long time.  Eventually, he feels guilty, goes and finds her and sees what value she brings when they play together.

Z liked this one but, since he is an only child, I don't think that he really understood why Benny was being mean to Penny.  This would be a fantastic choice for warring siblings though -- both the older and the younger.  There are lessons about playing together, not being a pest and not using mean words to each other.  The text is very simple in this one and the drawings are detailed and interesting on their own.

Finally, the one that started it all for us (and happens to be at the Grade 2-3 level) is Otto's Orange Day by Frank Cammuso & Jay Lynch.  Z loves this one!  Otto's favorite color is orange (as is Z's).  He colors things orange, sings songs about orange and plays with orange toys.  One day, he gets a package from a distant aunt and inside is a small lamp.  Otto rubs the lamp and out comes the genie -- offering only one wish to Otto.  He thinks about wishing for something orange but goes one better -- wishing that everything could be orange!  At first he loves it but then he realizes that not everything is better when it's orange and even the color loses some of its lustre when everything else is the same.

Z thought this was a hilarious idea!  I wonder if he had thought about everything being orange before this.  This one is a bit longer and is broken into three small "chapters" but since it's a comic, it's really not too taxing for younger kids.  The artwork is amazing in this one and I have a feeling that it's going to be a fight to take it back to the library.  I may end up having to buy Z a copy of his own!

I honestly did not ever consider getting Z to read comics but these have great stories just like most picture books and I think they do a great job of keeping his attention with the multiple scenes per page.  We aren't going to go to an all comic reading plan but we can definitely put them into the rotation!

Enjoying pictures that are worth at least a few words,
K and Z


Support our site and buy Jack and the Box, Benny and Penny: Just Pretend and Otto's Orange Day on Amazon or find them at your local library. We borrowed all of these from the library.

New Release: The Magicians

I have had this book sitting on the table waiting for review for a month. I can see what Lev Grossman was trying to accomplish with The Magicians but I think that the book is mis-marketed. I also think that this novel was lacking one important thing -- a sense of magic.

Quentin is a high school senior, on his way to an alumni interview for college. When he arrives to find the interviewer dead and a mysterious paramedic hands him an envelope, there is no going back to a normal life. He chases a piece of paper down an alley and somehow ends up on the grounds of Brakebills College, a college of magic. As Quentin tries to learn spells and find what his magical strengths are, he also has to grow as a person and decide which parts of his youth to abandon and which to preserve.

I'm not sure exactly what to say about this book. I went into it hoping for something magical and ran into a depressing world of wasted talent and disappointment. I kept reading because I wanted to know what happened but then wished I could take it back at the end and not know. This was billed as an "adult Harry Potter" but there was none of the joy or hope that were present in that series. There was no battle of good and evil -- just the descent into mediocrity of a group of students with incredible potential. It also incorporates a large amount of a Narnia-like lore but in a bleak and terrifying way. The only adult thing about this book is the liberal sprinkling of profanity, liquor, drugs and sex. The characters themselves are immature and selfish.

I finished my reading of this book with a profound sense of sadness -- both for the characters in the book and because I didn't find what I was looking for. I read in an interview that Grossman wants to make this into a trilogy and I really couldn't say if I would read two more books set in this world or not. This book comes out in paperback in April.

Thinking that magic and joy are possible for all ages,
K


Support our site and buy The Magicians on Amazon or find it at your local library. We bought our own copy.

New Release: The Dark Matter Directive

Some books have an optimal place and time for reading them. I can tell you that this new release, The Dark Matter Directive by D. Charles Wilson, should not be read while you are sitting alone in your car in a dark airport waiting lot on a rainy night. Though I was slightly traumatized by this bad choice, I couldn't close the book. The story is compelling and this is a good YA horror story.

I'm going to use the Amazon product description here because this is a complicated book that I'm having trouble summarizing!

When fourteen-year-old Eric Jessing wakes up one morning and finds the bathroom mirror has turned an endless black, he's clued in that things are about to get very interesting. A string of frightening and unexplainable occurrences follow that lead their dad, Matt, to feel his sons need protecting. After he ushers them out of the house, he calls a local psychic hoping for a sympathetic ear and a way to stop what seems like psychic phenomena. Unfortunately, what Matt learns is that his kids were born with a special gift: the ability to draw in and deflect dark spiritual energy like a pair of paranormal lightning rods. Worse, a particularly nasty entity called `The Red Horseman' has noticed, and sets out to absorb their ability. Directed to a renowned physicist and bookseller named Harker Jeffries, the boys learn that a secret society of children like themselves exist all over the world and have been at war with each other for thousands of years.

This book was originally intended to be the epitome of adult horror but then the author decided to take out the strong violence and reformulate it into a YA horror story. It is certainly successful as that with a real life or death situation for these brothers. One problem I had with the book though is that there were too many plot threads, too many directions, that were thin and could have been more fully developed. Some parts left me wanting a longer book but, honestly, this was about the length limit that I could stomach. I don't mind aliens and creatures and all sorts of other science-fiction darkness but I always have a problem when it comes to true evil. Yet this had enough of a mix of science and the supernatural for me to give it a chance and mostly enjoy it. Next time though I'm going to save a book like this for a sunny, summer day!

Moving back into the light,
K


Support our site and buy The Dark Matter Directive on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received our copy from a publicist.