Literary Knits

Posted on August 25, 2013 by Katy K.

Knitting based on favorite books? What could be more perfect? Well, maybe a slightly higher ration of fantasy to realism in the titles, but that’s just quibbling.

Literary KnitsLiterary Knits by Nikol Lohr.
This is another one I snagged of the new nonfiction shelf at the library. Sadly, due to forces outside my control, I haven’t been knitting much recently, and so I wasn’t really looking for a knitting book to fall in love with. But fall in love I did. All my friends at Knit Night loved it, too, even though no one felt like they needed more projects to think about doing. The book starts off with a great intro and technique section. Lohr wisely assumes that if you’re going for a pattern book over a basic learn-to-knit book, you already know the basics of knitting. She focuses on intermediate and advanced techniques to give knitting a more professional look or make things a little easier, like how to join smoothly to knit in the round and how to do needle-less cables. Her notions section had some nifty suggestions I’d never seen before, and this is the only knitting book I’ve ever seen have a section on useful knitting apps. She also assumes that you might not be knitting with the recommended yarn: has a solid section on yarn substitution at the beginning, and every yarn used has a close-up photo and a description to help you find a similar yarn.

And then, on to the patterns. Each pattern is based on a favorite book (mostly classics), with a paragraph of introduction on re-reading the book and why Lohr designed the garment she did for each book: cozy bed socks for Wuthering Heights, for example, because on re-reading, the heroines spend far more time recovering in bed than gallivanting about the moors. Here are some of my favorite patterns: the girly and practical variations on the same mitten for Meg and Jo March; the sleek Daisy cloche; the Emma shawl for Madame Bovary, with an arsenic atom diagrammed into the center; the Galadriel hooded dress (even if the thought of knitting an entire hooded dress makes me go cross-eyed), the Jane Eyre shawl, the Anne Shirley Puff-Sleeve Top; the intricately cabled John Thornton scarf; and the Sydney Carton Cowl based on a Tale of Two Cities, with Morse code messaged knitted in. For children, the Oskar pullover had a lovely classic look, while the Edmund Crown/Hat nicely reverses from looking like a crown to looking like a plain hat. The Lyra hood’s cozy ruff hides the tiny embroidered Pantalaimon in the lining, and the Eppie bonnet is just sweet. Really, this is everything a knitting pattern book should be.

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The Rithmatist

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Katy K.

The RithmatistThe Rithmatist. Rithmatist Book 1. by Brandon Sanderson. Illustrations by Ben McSweeney.
This book is described by the author as a “gearpunk fantasy” – meaning similar in spirit to steampunk, but a world where everything is operated by a combination of gears and magic. The United States is the United Isles, a large archipelago (I spent a long time reading the names of all the islands.) The magic, rithmatics, is based around geometric designs drawn in chalk with a strong dose of tactics – often things like circles, but also small two-dimensional chalk creatures that can crawl along the ground and attack other designs or even people. In the preface, we meet a young rithmatics student who is unexpectedly waging a losing solo battle against a horde of invading wild chalklings. But the main story is about Joel, the son of the deceased chalkmaker, who’s been given a scholarship to attend Armedius Academy, where both regular students and rithmatists study. He failed the childhood inception ceremony that would have labeled him a rithmatist, but spends his time sneaking into rithmatics lectures and practicing the designs. As the story opens, several things happen all at once: Joel’s favorite professor, the brilliant but absent-minded Professor Fitch, is defeated in a rithmatic duel by the new and arrogant Professor Nalizar, newly returned from the battles against the wild chalklings in over-run Nebrask. Joel forms a somewhat rocky friendship with Melody Muns, a rithmatics student who draws beautiful unicorns but terrible rithmatic diagrams, and who reminded me strongly of Eilonwy of Prydain. And more and more of the best rithmatics students disappear in the night, with only traces of blood and smudges chalk designs to show for it. Joel starts working officially with Professor Fitch on investigation-related research and unofficially with the federal inspector who comes to investigate the disappearances.

I’d read good things about this book on many blogs I love, including the Book Smugglers (they also have an interview with Sanderson.) Just recently, I recommended it to a retired colleague who came in looking for books. She asked me if it was bloody. I looked at the flap information, which does indeed make it sound bloody. It wasn’t. Yes, there are students disappearing – and I’m very sensitive to horrible things being done to innocent children in the name of making protagonists Do Something or Feel Something – but this didn’t set off any alarm bells. The disappearances are only mildly violent, and we only see part of the one in the prologue. This feels like it’s set in about the 1910s, and the book felt delightfully restrained and old-fashioned even as it stayed very exciting. Melody and Joel go out for ice cream together, and that’s the extent of the romantic side of the story. Melody felt a little shallow and maybe too reliant on orchestrating scenes to get her way, but Joel was a very engaging character. I really liked that he wasn’t a gifted rithmatist himself, and how he and Melody worked together to solve the mystery. The true identity of the villain was only partially clear to me, and there were some nicely unexpected plot twists. The world-building was fantastic, with its very original magic system and related religion, the geography, the educational system, even the barely-relevant government system featuring knight-senators. Since it’s exciting without being super-violent or sexual, it would work well for older middle grade students as well as the teens it’s being marketed to, and you already know that I’m recommending it to adult fantasy and steampunk readers. What are you waiting for? Go find a copy! And if you’ve read it already, let me know what you think!

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A Wizard of Earthsea

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Katy K.

A Wizard of EarthseaA Wizard of Earthsea. Earthsea Book 1. by Ursula K. Le Guin. Narrated by Rob Inglis.

My parents were big Le Guin fans, so I’d read this book and many others by her as a child, though I confess I never loved her as much as my father especially did. I was recently in need of a digital audiobook to listen to while washing dishes, and found that my love had bought it for our son. It is a classic, first published in 1968. It is the story of a poor boy, Ged, who finds out that he is a wizard. Given a choice between a slow apprenticeship to a great wizard and a faster tutelage at the school for wizards on a small island, he ends up choosing the school for wizards. But at one point, goaded by pride and the need to show himself as better than the rich apprentice wizards, he accidentally allows an evil passage into the world. The rest of the book narrates his journey towards maturity and his struggle to defeat the darkness before it uses him as a stepping stone to take over the world.

I remembered some of the central scenes of the book, but I know that this wasn’t a favorite, regularly reread series. I had issues with the book at the time. And wow, rereading, I have different issues. As a child, I was a very conservative Christian. I believed in the victory of light over dark and found Le Guin’s central, explicit message of the need for balance between light and dark uncomfortable. Now I find myself much more sympathetic to her ideas on balance. But the sexism – boy howdy! Not only are all the wizards male, all the people of power male, but there is only one sympathetic female character in the book, a naïve younger sister. There are, however, two or three witches, all unfavorably depicted. It’s explicit that women aren’t as powerful as men, that their magic is crafty and manipulative in a dishonorable kind of way – they’re just messing around with forces that they know they ought to be leaving alone. And Ged starts off an extremely arrogant young man, and I find I have very little patience for that.

And yet – Amy over at Rockin’ Librarian was asking me if I thought she shouldn’t read it based on the sexism. I can’t really say that. The language and the world-building are fantastic, all told in a rich, formal style that I think is very difficult to pull off successfully. Rob Inglis, narrating with a rich, older-sounding voice, read the story beautifully to capture this aspect of it. This is also one of the earliest, revolutionary examples of multicultural fantasy that I know of: there are only a few light-skinned people, all considered suspicious. Most of the people range from medium to dark brown, Ged and his best friend included. His best friend, a wise and caring soul, was my favorite character in the book. Also, I only read the original trilogy, not the books that were published in 1990 and 2001, and I know that Le Guin revisited the topic of sexism both in Tehanu (1990) and in published lectures on the topic. I still find books with troubling lack of agency in the female characters, but reading this just brings home to me how very far we’ve come since 1968. Did Le Guin herself really have such a poor opinion of women, or was she fitting in where she felt she needed to in order to sell her also-strange ideas on race and good vs. evil? I guess I could read the other books to find out. But what do you all think of Earthsea? Do you read it? Do you love it, hate it, or, like me, feel torn between the two?

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Picture Book Pile-Up

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Katy K.

Today is the 22nd KidLit Blog Hop! That reminds me that the kerfuffle last week put me behind on my hopping, but I’m going to try again this time. There’s a lot of fun books linked up already!

Kid Lit Blog Hop

We keep a large basket full of our current library picture books in our living room. These are the ones that we loved from the last month or so.

King Arthur's Very Great King Arthur’s Very Great Grandson by Kenneth Kraegel.
On his sixth birthday Henry Alfred Grummorson, a distant descendant of King Arthur, rides forth in search of battle and glory on his donkey, Knuckles. But each creature he meets offers him a non-violent competition: the dragon blows smoke rings, the Cyclops begins a staring competition, the Griffin plays chess, and so on. At the end of his journey, Henry still hasn’t used his sword – but he does have some new friends. Wavery ink and watercolor art gives this book an old-fashioned charm. My son would have obsessed over it during his four-year-old knight phase.

MonstoreMonstore by Tara Lazar. Illustrated by James Burks.
“At the back of Frankensweet’s Candy Shoppe, under the last box of sour gum balls, there’s a trapdoor. Knock five times fast, hand over a bag of squirmy worms, and you can crawl inside…. THE MONSTORE.” Zack has a problem: his little sister Gracie is always getting into his room. The Monstore monsters are supposed to do whatever you tell them to, but his monsters don’t keep Gracie out. Now he has a new problem: his whole house is full of monsters. He tries to take them back, but “No returns. No exchanges. No exceptions.” This has bright art that looks like it could be from a digitally animated movie, with cute monsters hiding on every page. It took a couple tries for my three-year-old to get into it, but once she did, she cried when it was time to take it back.

Princess in TrainingPrincess in Training by Tammi Sauer. Pictures by Joe Berger.
Viola Louise Hassenfeffer wants her kingdom to be proud of her – but karate chops, diving in the moat and skateboarding don’t work. Will Camp Princess help? This delightful story (still sparkly on the cover) features a multicultural princess class a tomboy princess who (spoiler!) defeats the dragon on her own. The layout varies between more traditional picture-book style and large comic book-style panels with written-in sound effects.

Unicorn Thinks He's Pretty Great Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great by Bob Shea.
Goat thought he was pretty cool, until Unicorn came to town and started doing everything better. Goat tries a typical kid-style magic trick; Unicorn is really magic. Goat bakes a treat that almost comes out right; Unicorn can make it rain smiling rainbow cupcakes. Goat is sure they’ll be enemies… until it turns out that Unicorn envies Goat, too. It’s told in child-like drawings that capture the spirit perfectly.

Belinda the BallerinaBelinda the Ballerina by Amy Young.
This is an older one (2002) that’s just right for my little girl now. Belinda loves to dance and is very graceful but…. “Belinda had a big problem – two big problems: her left foot and her right foot.” No one will even let her audition because her feet are so big. This is a silly story about following your heart no matter what.

HiccupotamusThe Hiccupotamus by Aaron Zenz
A story told in extra-silly bouncy rhyme about a hippopotamus that can’t stop his hiccups. It features a full cast of brightly colored, round animals, whose bios at the end I enjoyed as much as the story.

Cinnamon BabyFinally, one I reviewed a couple of years ago that my daughter wanted daily for about five weeks this time: Cinnamon Baby by Nicola Winstanley.

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The Wake of the Lorelei Lee

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Katy K.

This is me plugging away at my series, and also me still being about five weeks behind on my reviewing. I finished this book, put in a request for the next two books in the series, finished the next book in another series, and am now on to the next Jacky Faber book.

The Wake of the Lorelei Lee. Bloody Jack Adventures Book 8. by L.A. Meyer. Narrated by Katherine Kellgren.
This entry in the long-running Jacky Faber series involves Jacky going to Australia. She had always dreamed of going to Bombay, Cathay, and Australia – but not as a convict sentenced to life in the penal colony. And certainly not on board the ship she paid for herself and lovingly outfitted before it was seized by the English crown. She’s on board with 200 other female convicts, and her beloved fiancé Jaimy, in despair at her loss, is himself similarly sentenced and sent on another ship. The resulting journey is full of the usual Jacky Faber hijinks. There are reunions with old friends, new friends made, historical figures charmed, lustful kisses exchanged, and torment from enemies endured. I will not dwell too much on these, since the real fun is in reading them. I pause to note, though, some of the unexpected historical accuracies: a Jewish female convict falls in love with and then marries a naval officer on board the penal ship, and the naval officer goes on to a position of power in Australia. I’d thought, reading the book, that such a difference in class and religion would surely have prevented a marriage – but the note at the end said that was lifted straight from the historical record. Jacky also meets the pirate queen Cheng Shih, one of the most powerful pirate queens in history.

I love the Jacky series for the straight-up quasi-historical adventure. That is, the setting is historical, but Jacky herself has a deliberately modern feel. I dropped a less-satisfying audio book for this one: Katherine Kellgren is quite possibly my favorite narrator of all time, and this series really showcases the breadth of her range. The characters, all with different voices and accents, the range of emotion, even her ability to sing all the tunes, and sing them in different voices depending on who’s singing in the book – these amaze me every time. I don’t have enough child-free car time right now to make it through these quickly, and they are exciting enough that I feel a need to listen to something more restful in between the entries. Still, for any fan of adventure looking for a good audio book series (or just to find out why audio book fans love them so), I’d heartily recommend this series.

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Dark Triumph

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Katy K.

Dark TriumphDark Triumph. His Fair Assassin Book 2. by Robin LaFevers.

In the first book of this series, we met Ismae, a novice at the convent of St. Mortain, the patron saint of death, whose nuns are naturally assassins. In that book, Ismae found love while thwarting (at least temporarily) devious plots against the ruling Duchess, Anne of Brittany. In this book, we learn the story of Ismae’s friend and fellow novice Sybella, who seemed slightly insane in the first book and who was sent out on a mission even before Ismae. Sybella may know she’s on a mission, but since the mission involves returning to her abusive legal father, the powerful d’Albert, her cover is good even if her actions are still closely watched. D’Albert has buried six wives and is now one of the many men betrothed to the Duchess and determined to follow through. Sybella witnesses the mighty Beast of Waroch being struck down as the Duchess’s forces attack d’Albert’s stronghold directly. Soon she discovers that he has survived and is being held prisoner. Her struggle to rescue him and take him back to the Duchess turns out to be redemptive for both of them.

The first book in this series had a lot more politics; Sybella and the Beast are much less involved with the whole web and more focused on one mission at a time. There is more of a look at the various roles society puts people into, as a significant amount of time is spent with the pair recruiting the assistance of the despised charcoal-burners or charbonnerie for the Duchess. But while Ismae had a hard enough backstory, Sybella’s is downright nightmarish. Not only did she watch her father kill multiple wives, but she has abusive older brothers, and beloved younger sisters who can be used as hostages. The Beast seems to have survived a life not much better with somewhat less mental scarring, but he is dedicated to St. Camulos, as are all children born of battle-fueled rape. Their journey to overcome their pasts to find a place of trust is just beautiful. In the first book, I was bothered by the focus on romance in a story about nuns, but this time I was expecting it. It’s explicit that chastity is not among the vows of St. Mortain’s nuns, but Sybella and Ismae both have growing doubts about how the convent is run and the role of the Abbess in particular. This plot line looks like it will come even more to the fore in the last book in the trilogy. The Beast seems to hold some ideas that were potentially anachronistic, which I was perfectly willing to accept in the name of a more balanced relationship for modern teens to read about. (I’d say it’s best for high school and up, due to the dark subject matter.) Otherwise, this is a book that pays beautifully close attention to historical accuracy. That, combined with strong characters and the exciting, multi-stranded plot, made for a story I got sucked right into. And yes, I’ll definitely be looking for the sequel.

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Cinnamon and Gunpowder

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Katy K.

A tale of pirates told by a chef? How could I resist?

Cinnamon and GunpowderCinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown.
Owen Wedgewood was chef to the head of the Pendleton Company, which seems to be a fictional relative of the East India Shipping Company. When the famous pirate Hannah Mabbot arrives to kill Wedgewood’s employer, she pauses to eat some of the dinner he’d cooked and decides to take him with her. She offers the straight-laced Wedgewood a bargain: cook her a full dinner every Sunday and be spared. Initially horrified by her lawlessness and determined to try to escape, he gradually comes to appreciate Mabbot’s iron determination to bring down the opium trade, so ruinous for both addicts and for those forced to grow it. Wedgewood is a philosophical cook, waxing poetical about the powers of civilization and wheat to create bread and the meanings of different tastes. Brown seems to have a good background in old-fashioned cooking, as he describes Wedgewood’s efforts to create what he considers a modern, functional kitchen on board ship, including his difficulties with the stove, creating a yeast starter from scratch, using a cannonball as a rolling pin, his joy over making sauerkraut and his delightful first experiments with miso. In between the fabulous meals, there are many piratical adventures, including attacks on prisons, sea chases, and fights in seedy port taverns.

My love, on whom I pressed this, said that he had to decide that Wedgewood was an unreliable narrator when it came to describing nautical things, as there were just too many times when he used the right words just a little bit wrong, such as when he described the ship as “running against the wind.” That last was the only example that I’d noticed myself (ships run with the wind – the laborious process of tacking to go against the wind is not running), but my love is a sailor by avocation and has pored over his books of the old sailing ships. People like myself more casually interested in the sea will probably not be bothered by this. My love, once having dealt with this difficulty, was able to enjoy the story, while I was able to jump into it from the start. Even though Mabbott’s ideas are decidedly more modern than 18th century, Wedgewood’s struggles to reconcile his new world with his beliefs felt perfectly appropriate to his time. While it might seem like an odd combination, I have so many friends who love both food and pirates that I am confident in recommending this to a broad circle of my acquaintance. (Need I say that the subject matter best suits it to adults and perhaps older teens?)

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Blucy

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Katy K.

Thank you to everyone for your kind wishes! My little bunny got home from the hospital a couple of hours ago, and and I expect that she is hopping around like mad now that she can move around more freely.

I won Blucy in a giveaway from Julie at When I Grow Up, I Wanna Write a Kids Book. (Check out the book blast giveaway of Blucy there through September 20, so head over there to win your own copy!) Julia was kind enough to send me an ARC so I could review it before the official pub date last week, which unfortunately didn’t happen because of my bunny being in the hospital. She made it home earlier today,

BlucyBlucy by Julia Dweck. Blucy is the story of a strong-willed blue cat and her young owner’s struggles to keep her out of trouble. Blucy isn’t just blue herself – she’s crazy about blue. It takes her owner Mandy some time to figure out what her blue cat will eat – certainly not regular brown cat food – and in the meantime, Blucy gets herself into all kinds of trouble involving blue things. This silly story is told in bouncy, well-executed rhymes that my three-year-old loved. The juicy pastel illustrations take this over the edge and make it into a book that I was happy to read to her several times in a row. It’s a light tale that’s perfect for young cat-lovers, with an understated message on the power of patience and persistence in solving problems: Mandy never punishes Blucy, but once she’s able to meet her needs, the behavior problems go away. That’s a reminder that’s as helpful for parents as it is for young pet owners.

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Hospital Time

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Katy K.

just a quick note to say that this blog is on hiatus while my little bunny is in the hospital.  She should be ok, it’s just that having a liver transplant means that things that would be a few days at home for a regular kid mean a few more days in the hospital for her.  But trying to keep her from pulling out her IV keeps me a little too busy to be doing book reviews, even if my to-be-reviewed list was already scarily long.  I hope to be back soon, and hope you have good books to read in the meantime! 

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Scratch9

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Katy K.

This is another artist that we discovered at Kids Read Comics. By “we” in this case, I mean my love and my son, who brought this home several years ago and have read it several times over. They were shocked when I said that I’d never actually read it, and placed this conspicuously on top of my stack of library books waiting to be read.

Scratch9Scratch9. Vol 1: The Pet Project. by Rob M. Worley. Illustrated by Jason T. Kruse and Mike Kunkel.

The cute and fluffy cat Scratch loves his owner, young Penelope, but dreams of being a free, wild cat, and so runs away when she tries to put a collar on him. Almost immediately, he is captured by one of those pound collectors so ubiquitous in children’s stories, and then sold to C.R.U.E.L. Laboratories. In the cages there, Scratch meets a scrappy little dog, a crazy squirrel, and a rooster, all of them claiming to be strong loners. But then Dr. Schrodinger, the evil scientist in charge, straps Scratch down and runs his experimental equipment on him. This unleashes Scratch’s other 8 lives, giving him the ability to call them into physical form to help him in times of need. They range from a saber-tooth tiger through a cyborg-like future cat, and Scratch will need help from all of them to rescue his new friends and to find Penelope before the evil scientist brings his nefarious plans to fruition. Meanwhile, Penelope is doing everything she can to find Scratch, with no notion that doing so could put both of them in even more danger.

This series was nominated for an Eisner award and named the Best Children’s Comic of 2010 by School Library Journal. It combines quite a few familiar elements into a fresh and fun story. While the fast-paced action is appealing to boys, Penelope’s presence, the cute cats, and the overarching message of the importance of friendship and teamwork make sure that adventure-loving girls won’t feel shut out. (Those looking for a quiet character drama can look elsewhere, but that’s really just fine.) It’s exciting without ever getting too scary or too violent for elementary-aged kids.

Sadly, it looks like this first volume is no longer generally available – it’s selling used for an outrageous price on Amazon.com. It is available from a few libraries, so you might be able to get it via ILL if your library doesn’t have it. But it looks like they’re doing new floppy comics starting in September in preparation for a new graphic novel, so you can keep an eye out for that at your local comic book shop.

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