Smoke

Another book completed last night in the 48 Hour Book Challenge!  Yay!  I read four hours Friday night, and another five and a half hours last night, which brings me up to 9 1/2 hours total.  I am going to try to finish reading this morning so I can get some other stuff done.  Besides which I have gotten some stuff read out of my TBR pile, which is always exciting!  I was sent Smoke by Simon & Schuster around Banned Books Week.  I of course had to read Burned first, so I could find out how the story began.  I liked Smoke a lot - it covers a lot of territory in a surprising way.  At the end of Burned, Pattyn Von Stratten was looking for revenge after the death of her true love and her unborn baby.  This book picks up just after that book ends, with the death of her father and Pattyn's escape.  Pattyn kills her father when she finds him beating her sister Jackie after Jackie is raped.  This sounds overwhelming, and it is.  Pattyn and Jackie deal with the murder in very different ways - while Pattyn leaves, Jackie must stay with the rest of her family and cope with the consequences.  Both girls heal and find love again, but it is the journey that is more interesting.  Pattyn's journey includes a migrant worker community and horses, Jackie's journey includes a confident, smart boy who has two moms.  This will speak to many high schoolers, just as the first one did.  I'll be doing a longer blog post on both books later on.

The Crown of Columbus

I just finished The Crown of Columbus.  I had read it quite a few years ago (I'm sure more than 15 years ago!), and I couldn't remember more than that I had liked it a lot.  I am reading it this time as part of my ongoing quest to read all of Louise Erdrich's books.  I first started this project here, when I read Grandmother's Pigeon and then The Range Eternal.  Since then, I've been reading some of her adult novels in chronological order.  This time, I found The Crown of Columbus completely absorbing again.  I couldn't stop reading it and carrying it around.  The juxtaposition of voices in it was mesmerizing.  I liked Vivian's voice better than Roger's, but I suspect that was his personality at first too.  This is historical fiction, romance, and mystery all wrapped up in one, and it is an amazing story.  The ending is what I expected, and yet not.  I found myself caught up in the rhythms of the poetry and prose.  A great, great story, and so different from some of Erdrich's other work.

The Crown of Columbus.  Michael Dorris, Louise Erdrich.  Harper Perennial, 1991.

48 Hour Book Challenge Update

So here I am on day two.  So far, I read and reviewed four hours last night.  I am just (at 11am!) sitting down to more reading, which is interspersed with dropping Frances off at a birthday party and Gloria's soccer game.  Hoping to get another chunk of time in the afternoon.  My current read is The Crown of Columbus by Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris.  It's my second time through the book, and I am loving it just as much as I did the first time.  Hope everyone else participating is having as much fun as I am!!

To All the Boys I've Loved Before

I have been a huge Jenny Han fan since The Summer I Turned Pretty came out in 2009.  You shouldn't be surprised by that information, since I just reviewed Burn for Burn and Fire  with Fire here and I already said how excited I was to read Ashes for Ashes.  So I shrieked out loud when I walked out my front door one morning, and discovered a package from Simon & Schuster.  The padded envelope contained the ARC of To All the Boys I've Loved Before, along with a notebook and pen.  I love getting publishing swag, and the fact that it was Jenny Han swag just made it that much better.  I started reading right away (with the Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson duet stuck in my head, unfortunately).  I saved my review to post once the book was published.  Now the book is out so you can all run out and get it.  It is also a great choice to kick off my contribution for #weneeddiversebooks within the 48 Hour Book Challenge, so I am thrilled to be talking about it tonight.

Lara Jean Song is a romantic at heart.  She is the middle sister - there is an older sister, Margot, and a younger sister, Kitty.  Their doctor father has raised them alone since their mother died when Lara Jean was ten.  The sisters are sometimes called "the Song girls" - their mother (who was Korean)'s last name was Song, and "we all have Song for our middle name, and we look more Song than Covey anyway, more Korean than white." (p. 9)  Margot grew up quickly when their mom died, and runs the household most of the time.  Their father is an OB/GYN, and is unpredictable in his schedule, so the girls rely on each other.  Lara Jean and Kitty are used to Margot caring for them and keeping their lives organized.  Now Margot is going abroad to Scotland for college, and Lara Jean already misses her tremendously.  On the other hand, she is also determined to show Margot how successfully the rest of the family can survive when she's gone.  Right before Margot leaves, she breaks up with her boyfriend, Josh.  Lara Jean has spent lots of time with Margot and Josh (he is their neighbor too).  While she doesn't understand why Margot broke up with Josh, she has kept  a secret for a long time.  Lara Jean has always been in love with Josh too.

Lara Jean has a ritual for ending her crushes on guys - she writes them one last letter.  "They're not love letters in the strictest sense of the word.  My letters are for when I don't want to be in love anymore.  They're for good-bye.  Because after I write my letter, I'm no longer consumed by my all-consuming love....If love is like a possession, maybe my letters are like my exorcisms.  My letters set me free.  Or at least they are supposed to." (unpaged)  She has kept these letters in a hatbox, and there are five of them, the latest one to Josh.  So in the first week of school, Lara Jean is shocked when one of the popular crowd, Peter Kavinsky, tells her he wants to talk to her.  He says a letter was mailed to his house.  She can't figure out how this might have happened, and Lara Jean is mortified.  Because if Peter got his, then Josh did too.  And that means he knows how she feels about him still.  Even though he has belonged to Margot all along.

When Josh tries to talk to Lara Jean about the letter, she panics.  She sees Peter (who has just broken up with his girlfriend Gen) in the hall, and runs up and kisses him, in an effort to convince Josh that she doesn't like him at all.  Afterwards, Pete and Lara Jean decide to fake a relationship to make both Gen and Josh jealous.  It seems to be working.  At the same time, Josh is trying to figure out where he fits, both at school and in the Covey family, without Margot there.  And he's considering Lara Jean with new eyes, now that he knows that she liked him too.

While this book is created with some of my favorites subjects in mind - school and romance, it also has a strong sense of family and sisterhood, something I relate to very much.  You know I see the sister relationship in Frances and Gloria these days.  I've also written here about my relationship with my own sister previously.  My relationship with my sister is one of the most important things in my life, and it is quite often the lens through which I see myself.

This is also true of Lara Jean.  She always sees herself in relation to Margot, and Margot is a typical oldest sister.  On top of that Margot feels very responsible for her sisters, and takes care of most things for Kitty and Lara Jean.  The first time Lara Jean drives after Margot leaves for Scotland, she admits that her directional skills are under-developedc: "I've never had to know how to get to the mall, because Margot always drove us there. But now I have to do better, because I'm responsible for driving Kitty around." (p.33)  That is a perfect middle sister quote if I've ever heard one.  At the beginning of the novel, Lara Jean is bookended by her two sisters.  I've described Margot, and Kitty is demanding, slightly devious, and a little spoiled. Kitty is cute, Margot is smart.  There is nothing about Lara Jean that makes her stand out from her sisters when Margot leaves.  She doesn't actually want to stand out - Lara Jean is perfectly content to be one of "the Song girls".

When Margot goes away to college, all three sisters are forced to rethink their relationships to each other, rethink the definitions they comfortably fell into in the past few years.  For instance, Lara Jean and Margot have always babied Kitty and taken care of her every need.  "After Mommy died, we all had to realign ourselves.  Everybody had new roles.  Margot and I were no longer locked in battle, because we both understood that Kitty was ours to take care of now." (p. 338-9)  But with Margot gone, Lara Jean begins teaching Kitty some of the chores she had done with Margot previously.  They had always just done them, and shielded Kitty from having to do any chores.  Kitty becomes more independent as Lara Jean begins doing more with Peter and his friends, and it is a good thing.

Even from Scotland, Margot has been protecting her sisters.  She doesn't want them to know how unsure she is in her new environment, how lost and homesick she feels.  When Margot arrives home for Christmas break, Lara Jean realizes how much things have changed: "Is this how people lose touch?  I didn't think that could happen with sisters.  Maybe with other people, but never with us.  Before Margot left, I knew what she was thinking without having to ask; I knew everything about her.  Not anymore." (p. 294)  This really resonated with me.  I, too, went away to college, although not as far.  But I know how it feels to see the change in your family from the outside and not be able to find your comfortable place in your family again when you return.  You've changed.  They've changed.  Margot finally says to Lara Jean "'But then I left, and it's like you didn't need me as much as I thought.'  Her voice breaks. 'You were fine without me.'" (p. 344)  I have been in Margot's shoes and I know how she feels.  But what I hadn't considered was Lara Jean's perspective as the younger sister.  Lara Jean retorts "'Only because you taught me everything!'" (p. 344)  It is a watershed moment for the girls as they see their relationship anew.

I haven't talked much about the romance at the heart of this book, which is unusual for me.  But I will say this - I did love the romance here.  I was surprised at how much I rooted for Lara Jean and wanted her to realize the potential of what she might have as her relationships change.  She's never seen herself outside of her sisters before, and she has something to offer.  To me, this book is so much more about the sisters and how they change, but it is a fun look at romance too.

These sisters can weather anything together, and I love their friendship.  It was a great moment in my life when my sister and I became friends besides being sisters, and the Song girls need each other's friendship even more than they realize.  Jenny Han has scored another winner.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before.  Jenny Han.  Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2014.

ARC sent to me by the publisher for review

48 Hour Book Challenge!

Hello!  I am so excited to report that I will be participating in the 48 Hour Book Challenge again this year.   It's the 9th year this challenge has been going on, but I only participated for the first time last year, and I loved doing it!

If you are interested in this challenge, more information is available here.

Don't get me wrong, with the girls and their schedule and prepping for a trip, I won't be reading the entire 48 hours.  But I will do my best to read and review as much as I can this weekend.  I am shooting to read somewhere between 12-24 hours over my 48 hours (approximately 6pm MT time Friday through 6pm MT time Sunday).  We'll see if I make it!  

This year the focus of the 48 Hour Book Challenge is #weneeddiversebooks - this is something that has been much discussed in the past few weeks.  I do have a couple of diverse books on my plate for this weekend, including my next blog post, so I can make that commitment.  I will be posting brief reviews as I complete books, so check back to hear to see how I am doing! 

Benny and Penny in Lights Out!

So if you are a regular reader of my blog (or even an occasional reader!), you know that I have two young girls - Frances, who just turned 7, and Gloria, who is 5 1/2.  I've talked before about their names here and how those aren't the names my girls were born with, just the names that I use on the blog so as not to identify them.  There are a lot of similarities between the Frances and Gloria Russell Hoban created and my girls.  They have similar personalities - my Frances can be way too  trusting, like in A Bargain for Frances; my Gloria likes to play with her sister, but on her own terms, like Gloria in Best Friends for Frances.  But lately I've seen a tendency towards sibling behavior like that of Benny and Penny in Benny and Penny in Lights Out!

This is the fourth book in the Benny and Penny series of easy-to-read comics from TOON Books.  From the very first panel, it is clearly bedtime.  Benny is peering at the moon outside the window.  Penny is trying to keep them on track with their bedtime routine.  Benny continues with his antics - "haunting" Penny with a flashlight, burping, basically acting up in that way that only children who should really be asleep do.  Then Benny realizes that he left his pirate hat...gulp! outside.  In the dark playhouse.  It is only his sister's bravery and their teamwork that rescues the needed pirate hat.

One of the parts of the Benny and Penny series that appeals most to me is the sibling relationship.  Benny and Penny aren't perfect and they don't always get along.  There is tons of sibling squabbling.  Penny announces imperiously "It's time to brush our teeth." (p. 6)  And Benny promptly ignores her mandate, like most siblings would.  He tells her he is busy.  Then Benny cooks up a plan to scare Penny when she's brushing her teeth.  He turns off the light and uses a flashlight to try and scare Penny with threats of the Boogey Mouse.  It's all very familiar to those of us with more than one child - our constant refereeing of fights over a blanket, an inch of floor space, a perceived fight.  And the also constant picking at each other - just like Benny does in this book.  He's really only teasing Penny with his prank about the Boogey Mouse.  But siblings can get under each other's skin unlike anyone I've ever seen.

But there is something equally redeeming about siblings and the way they can put aside their fighting when needed.  Benny realizes that the pirate hat he can't fall asleep without is still in the playhouse out in the backyard.  He sneaks out the window, and when it takes longer than Penny thinks it should, she is out the window after him.  She's scared, though Penny keeps reminding herself that "The Boogey Mouse is not really real.  It's just a story!" (p. 17)  Ultimately, even though he drives her crazy, Penny is there to support and lend a hand.  When she finally makes it to the playhouse, Benny is too scared to go in.  It takes both of them together to rescue the pirate hat.

Another thing I enjoy about this story is the "just-right" sized adventure.  There isn't anything really fancy about this adventure.  To a parent's eye, there isn't even anything dangerous about their trip out to the dark backyard.  But seen through the eyes of the two young mice, the story becomes perilous indeed.  The two mice are on their own - no parents in sight as the story progresses.  They feel real responsibility for what they must do to rescue Benny's hat.  They are at that age where they want to solve the problem themselves, without parental involvement.  And Benny and Penny take satisfaction from having saved the hat on their own.  It's only after Benny has  fallen asleep that Penny asks their mother for her help, but only with reading a story.


And that brings me to one of the best themes of this story - reading and storytelling.  It combines the best of Penny and Benny.  Both children like to read and tell stories, but of course their stories are very different.  Penny loves fairy tales - they combine princesses with a sense of storytelling structure that appeals to Penny, with her love of routine.  Benny, on the other hand, retells stories with drama, action and adventure.  Those stories appeal to his daydreaming, adventurous side.  He throws in some whimsy when he tells a story about a dinosaur that lives at the circus.  The two children have a shared love of reading and story.  They fight about story too.  Penny primly gets under the covers and informs Benny that she is trying to read.  He chimes in "You can't read." She says "Yes, I can." (p. 10)  You can hear this fight going on for an eternity, but thankfully Benny burps loudly and breaks it up.  Both mice can "read", but the stories they are "reading" really comes out of their imagination.  Hayes very naturally shows the connection between adventures, imagination and literacy.  Everyone loves the idea of a good story, and through reading, Benny and Penny have created their own adventure story.

As you know, TOON Books is one of my favorite publishers because of their innovative approach to literacy through comics.  On their website they have an online CarTOON maker which Gloria loved using.  It's a lot of creative fun.  Benny and Penny in Lights Out! is a Level Two comic, designed for readers in grades 1-2.  One of the descriptions of Level Two books in the back of this particular book says that Level Two books include "a story arc with few characters in a small world".  This is a perfect description of Benny and Penny.  It's intimate: Benny and Penny never go more than a few steps from their window, yet it seems a long, long way away.

Benny and Penny in Lights Out! Geoffrey Hayes.  TOON Books, 2012.

sent by the publisher for review

The Dyerville Tales

I have been waiting to share this book with you for a long time.  I read it almost three months ago - I was lucky enough to win a copy in a Walden Pond Press giveaway (side note: Walden Pond Press is a super-cool publisher with lots of other great books too!).  But I don't like to blog about books that I love until you are able to read them too - it doesn't feel fair to tempt you like that!  So now The Dyerville Tales has been out for a few weeks, and I'm ready to talk about it!

You might recognize the author's name from Juniper Berry, which I loved, here in this post.  I was surprised at how much I loved Juniper Berry and again at how much I loved The Dyerville Tales.  Both of Kozlowsky's books have a mood in common - one of building uncertainty and fear.  They also both look at the mysteries of the adult world with a steely, clear-eyed gaze.  Very few adults escape these books whole.  The building tension, combined with the look at how adults compromise themselves, is one of the things I love best about Kozlowsky.  But his books can also keep me up at night, worrying about what might happen next.

The Dyerville Tales begins with Vince Elgin.  He lives in an orphanage, because his mother died in a house fire when he was ten years old.  Vince believes that his father escaped the fire, somehow, and is still alive.  He believes this because while Vince's mother died in the hospital room next to his, after getting Vince and herself out of the house.  Vince knows that "the authorities never discovered a single trace of him in the ashes of their home.  No bones, no teeth, not even the gold ring Vince had been promised.  And for Vince, this changed everything.  This was where he found his hope." (p. 11)

Vince isn't sure exactly why there was a fire, nor is he really sure about the events leading up to the fire.  He remembers how scared his parents were the night before but has lots of questions about what actually happened.  But the younger children in the orphanage love to hear most of the tale of Vince's arrival at the orphanage, and so he retells it (and relives it) over and over again.  It is full of magic to the other children, because it has parents in it, parents who care about Vince's safety, who want to protect him from the evil that surrounds them.

When Vince goes to the orphanage, after his mother's death and his father's disappearance it's because the only relative he has left is his grandfather.  His grandfather was believed to be crazy and was living in a nursing home.  When this story begins, it is with a package that arrives from Dyerville, the town where his grandfather lived, addressed to Vince.  In the package, a letter informs Vince that his grandfather has passed away, and that the funeral will be in a week.  Enclosed in the package is a book - a collection of tales his grandfather told in his nursing home, much as Vince has told stories in the orphanage.  Vince knows he must get to the funeral.  After all, it is his father's father.  And if Vince has any chance of seeing his own father again, it will be there, at the funeral.

The director of the orphanage tells Vince that there is no possible way he can go to the funeral - the orphanage doesn't have the money or the resources to get him to Dyerville, which is a long way from the town where the orphanage is located.  Vince is determined, though.  He escapes from the orphanage with the help of a friend, Anthony.  "Vince heard the commotion but told himself not to look back.  He had to concentrate on climbing.  He thought of what would be waiting for him at the end of this journey.  In Dyerville he would find his father.  A new life would be waiting; all he had to do was make it to the other side of the gate.  Suddenly it didn't seem so impossible." (p. 52)  And he makes it.  It's just one little step in what could be a very long journey.  But as he clears the fence around the orphanage, "somewhere deep within his mind there was now a spark glowing.  It was small, but it wanted to grow." (p. 53) I don't want to ruin the suspense of the well-plotted story.  You just need to pick it up.

But here's what I will talk about.  This book isn't just about stories and telling them (although clearly that is a major focus, considering what I've already told you about Vince and his grandfather).  It feels just like a fairy tale set in real life.  After all, there are not one but two epic journeys written about here.  Each time Vince opens his grandfather's book, there is a picture that helps add to the drama of Vincent's journey.  Both stories have fairy tale elements in them - things that are almost too incredible to be true.  And yet they are.  There are also some elements of reality that are fairy tale scary, too.  Here is one of those moments: "Her breath was colder than the wind.  With her lips touching his skin, and in a childish voice, she began to sing: 'Oh, I have the moon in me.  And everything beyond.  I am a black hole, you see.  And I'll eat me some vagabond.'" (p. 144)  Just writing that quote totally out of context made the hair on my arms stand up!

There are, of course, lots of parallels between both journeys -both Vince and his grandfather are 12 when their journeys start.  When the director of the orphanage brings Vince the package, she asks Vince "' You were named after him.  Am I right?'  Vince nodded.  'My parents said I looked just like him too.  Almost identical.  I don't know.  I didn't see it.'" (p. 24)  Both boys are on their own, trying to solve a mystery of their own lives.  And of course, when the book begins, they are both stranded in places (the orphanage or the nursing home) without any family connection.  There are so many magical things that happen in this book to tie the two together, over and over.

I was truly spellbound by this book, as you should be by any true fairy tale.  It has adventure, magic and leaves you questioning  Please pick it up - you'll dive right in.

The Dyerville Tales.  M.P. Kozlowsky.  Walden Pond Press, 2014.

I won this ARC in a giveaway, without expectation of a review.