The Fault in Our Stars

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Katy K.

I’d avoided this book as being too sad, until S.M. put it on my desk and told me I had to listen to it. I did. It was worth it.

The Fault in our StarsThe Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Read by Kate Rudd
Before you read this book, make sure you have a good supply of hankies. You’ll need them for more than one reason – in the first part of the book, because Hazel, our narrator, is just so darn funny. She’s 16, and her death by what’s now mostly lung cancer has been delayed for a few years due to an experimental miracle drug. Mostly she deals with her impending mortality by watching bad TV with her parents and re-reading her favorite book, An Imperial Affliction by Peter van Houten. Hazel’s mother is convinced that she needs to get out and meet other kids. She takes Hazel to a “kids with cancer” support group that meets in a church basement, which the leader describes as “the literal heart of Jesus.” It’s usually a depressing experience, but one day, her friend Isaac-with-eye-cancer brings his friend, handsome Augustus Waters. Augustus is missing a leg due to his cancer, which is now in remission.

The basic plot is simple: two teens with cancer fall in love. But if it were either just a sob story or an Uplifting Tale, it wouldn’t be nearly so successful. Though Hazel converts Augustus to her love of An Imperial Affliction, there’s a lot of looking at the different ways that they deal with the knowledge that death is coming. Hazel cries foul on Maslow and his hierarchy of needs, saying that the idea that you only have energy to pay attention to self-actualization and beauty if your basic needs, such as health, are met, is false and insulting, making ill people seem less human than healthy people. (I found this particularly interesting as a person whose basic need for sleep has not been met for several years now – yet look, I go on reading and writing about it. Even as I place my need for more sleep above my child’s desire to do more activities.) It’s an intimate look at the pediatric cancer world, the kids who live there, and the humor and love it takes to bear the unbearable. Kate Rudd does an amazing job reading. It won this year’s Odyssey award (and was the only one among this year’s finalists I’d listened too.) The book feels like watching bubbles or the slanting golden sunshine on an autumn day.

The Fault in our Stars hit especially close to home for me. I haven’t lived in the pediatric cancer world, or even the adult cancer world (knock on wood.) But I have spent quite a bit of time at this point in the pediatric liver transplant world. This world of medicines and tubes, taking things one step at a time, overhearing the 6 am calls in the hallways from parents with horrible news that came in the night, and the sick kid perks. At my daughter’s hospital, I had to start asking them not to give us the free handmade blanket with every admission, because we had more than we could use at home already. The book cart came by with a free book (at least one for each patient and any siblings) every week; there were toys and games and gift baskets. Even though the book is written from Hazel’s perspective, I felt deep empathy with Hazel’s parents. And if Green hadn’t have managed that perfect balance of that wry humor and the serious subject, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.

Other John Green books I’ve read (just a few of the many):
Looking for Alaska (before I started reviewing, it looks like. But it was still good.)
An Abundance of Katherines

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A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Katy K.

I might have mentioned once or twice that Madeleine L’Engle is one of my all-time favorite authors, and I heard such good things about this from so many places that of course I had to try it.

A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time: the Graphic Novel by Hope Larson
It’s always dicey making a graphic novel adaptation of a well-loved book – really, if the author wanted the book to be a graphic novel, why wouldn’t she just have written it that way to begin with? But this is clearly a love letter from someone who loves A Wrinkle in Time just as much as me, expressing this in a graphic novel rather than, say, a book review or knitting, as I might. (Though I’m not sure what I’d knit as a Wrinkle homage piece.) Larson does not cut out any pieces of plot or characters, and even the dialogue was left intact. She keeps the famous opening lines, but mostly her artwork replaces the descriptions from the book. Her illustrations show incredible attention to all the details in the book, keeping them all straight better than my own head does while I’m reading. There were funny details, like the stairs drawn with an arrow pointing out the creaky step and a little knife flying out from Meg’s eyes, without saying in words that she’s looking daggers. There’s also Meg’s somewhat straggly short haircut, and the black eye that she gets in the first chapter. I had never thought about the bruise after her mother looks at it, just before Mrs Whatsit’s midnight arrival, but naturally, as the book happens over the course of just a couple of days, it wouldn’t have time to heal. Larson keeps this in mind, and shows Meg with that bruise all the way through. The pictures are lovingly drawn, and everything comes together beautifully to bring this beloved story to life visually. Of course, Wrinkle can stand on its own, but this is a well-done and enjoyable addition.

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Assassin’s Curse

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Katy K.

Assassin's CurseAssassin’s Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke
The plot: Ananna of the Tanaru is a pirate captain’s daughter who always planned to captain her own ship one day. But her dreams are sent spinning when her parents betroth her to a captain’s son from another tribe. Her betrothed has no intention of ever letting her have her own ship, so naturally she runs away. Bad choice, as it turns out – her intended’s clan sends an assassin after her, with the message, “Marry him or die.” But when the assassin, Naji, catches up with her, she accidentally saves his life, triggering a curse that leaves them bound together and him required to protect her. They set off on a journey to break the curse, trying to dodge both of their numerous enemies. Naji uses his dark magic, and Ananna will have to learn to awaken hers if they are to have any hope of success.

The feeling: This is a romp of an adventure, with characters fully-drawn enough for us to care about them. There’s a hint of romance – it’s hard not be a bit smitten when a handsome-under-his-scars young assassin saves your life a few times – but so far, Naji doesn’t reciprocate the feelings and Ananna is a practical girl, not given to going moony over something she can’t have. (Assassin’s Curse is just the first in the series, though, so there’s time to build.) Instead, the book spends time building a tentative friendship between the two. That feels much more realistic for people who were, let’s remember, trying to kill each other at the beginning of the story. The plot has enough different strands going to be interesting without being overly complicated – no glossary of characters needed here yet. It is, however, a gloriously multicultural, full-color world, and Ananna describes herself as more full-figured than men generally find attractive. Sex is discussed in a general kind of way, and there is a body count, though definitely not a by-the-page or even by-the-chapter. There are (as previously stated) pirates, assassins, and magic, which makes this book just about perfect if you are in that kind of mood.

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Soulless, the Manga

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Katy K.

This is one that I found and bought for my library’s adult graphic novel collection.

soullessSoulless: the Manga by Gail Carriger. Art and adaptation by Rem.
I really enjoyed Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series (here’s my original review of Soulless. OK, maybe the middle missed a little of the playful sexuality between Alexia and Conall that was so enjoyable before and just after they got married – but overall, a delightfully strong steampunk series. It seems I’m not the only one to enjoy it, as it got picked for a manga-style adaptation. My verdict, having read the first two volumes: overall, very fun, if not flawless. REM chose to do one volume for each book of the series (all called Soulless, instead of having different titles, like the books.) Since each manga volume is shorter than the story it’s adapting, and pictures take more room than text in the first place, a lot of the story had to be cut. Basically, all the side plots. This is especially disappointing as one of our favorite characters, the cross-dressing inventor Madame LeFoux, doesn’t show up at all in the first volume. I spent a ridiculous amount of time studying Victorian fashion plates in high school, and so I noticed a few things in the mostly good fashions that struck me as odd – décolletage displayed in the morning and women who had definitely come out in society wearing their hair down in public. But, it’s a manga and alternate history, so perhaps some leeway should be given. I was also willing to give some leeway in the depiction of Conall, our werewolf hero, who just didn’t look large or mussed enough for me. That might be part of the manga style, though – he’s definitely bulkier than most manga men, who tend towards the reedy side, but I felt from his descriptions in the book that he should look imposingly large.

These quibbles aside, I really enjoyed the adaptation. It was wonderful to see Carriger’s steampunk world, with things like the flamboyant costume choices of Lord Akeldama and Alexia’s best friend. The genre-crossing spirit of the original came through loud and clear, despite being trimmed. I’d not recommend it without the novel, but for fans who can’t get enough and are waiting for Etiquette and Espionage, or for those who’d like a first taste before trying the original. It’s rated for older teens, and includes violence and strategically covered nudity.

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Listening for Madeline

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Katy K.

Madeleine L’Engle has been one of my top favorite authors ever since I was about 10, so of course I bought this for the library as soon as I heard about it. I’m hoping some other L’Engle fans at the library will find it soon.

Listening for MadelineListening for Madeleine by Leonard S. Marcus
Listening for Madeleine is a pointillist portrait of the Newbury Award-winning author. It starts off with a short biography by the editor, but is mostly composed of lots and lots of thoughts by individuals who knew her, gained from letters and interviews. They are divided up by how people knew her: from childhood, as a writer, matriarch, mentor, friend or icon. They include friends from childhood, editors and publishers, writers like T.A. Barron and Mary Pope Osborne, her daughter, granddaughters, and former son-in-law, and lots of people whom she was friends with or mentored over the years. Many people referred to an unflattering profile of L’Engle that was published in the New Yorker in 2004, which I hadn’t read, but which I was able to pull up on Gale’s Biography in Context without any difficulty. (“The Storyteller”, by Cynthia Zarin.) Family members acknowledged the frustration of living with a writer whose published version of their life together – the writer’s perspective, warts airbrushed out – became the version that readers everywhere believed was true; the fictional works inspired by family life felt more true to reality than those published as nonfiction. Outside the family, people were generally horrified that family members were willing to air as much dirty laundry as they did while L’Engle was still alive. But the fact that these discussions are in the book give me the comforting feeling that this isn’t a hagiography, even though most of the people contributing to the anthology cared about her. For all the painful things voiced by her relatives, they were still there caring for her in her increasingly dependent old age. Balancing that were the many, many tales of her writing from the publisher’s side and of her support for young and aspiring writers especially. Continue reading →

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Tiger’s Curse

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Katy K.

I post reviews of things I have something to say about, which mostly means sharing books that I enjoyed. Here, for a change, is a book that drove me crazy. This is a paranormal romance with an intriguing premise: a romance between an American teen and an Indian prince who’s been enchanted to be a white tiger for the last 300 years. Naturally, the story must also involve their quest to release Dhiren from the power of the evil wizard who enchanted him. However, the reality fell so far short of its promise that it wound up feeling like a parody of itself. I chose this one because it was recommended in a webinar on best YA audiobooks by the publisher. Lesson learned: do not trust the publisher.

Tiger's CurseTiger’s Curse. by Colleen Houck. Read by Annika Boras and Sanjiv Jhaveri.

Imagine you are a teen fresh out of high school, with two weeks of experience as an assistant helping the circus cat master take care of his tiger. Which is more shocking: that your habit of reading Shakespeare to the white, blue-eyed tiger gets you hired to be his sole caretaker for his travels back to India? Or that he turns out to be a handsome prince under a curse? Kelsey, our heroine, is only shocked at the second of these developments. And even more shocked when, after days of him sitting with her at twilight kissing her fingers and brushing your hair, he confesses that he is interested in her romantically. Once she’s accepted that he’s really a man and moves on to trying to rescue him, they must go on a pre-quest to find the prophecy that will tell them what to do to actually break the curse. Prophecies are tricky things in the first place – here, as is the danger, the prophecy serves as a plot outline for the rest of the book. Finding it the first place involves going through an ancient temple booby-trapped in classic Indiana Jones style. But since what’s being hidden is an encrypted prophecy that will only make sense to the two people it’s relevant to, this level of effort to protect it made no sense and brought to mind this scene from the movie Galaxy Quest

Continue reading →

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The Peculiar

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Katy K.

The Peculiar

This is a Cybils Award finalists in the middle grade science fiction/fantasy department, one of only two on this year’s that I’ve read. I feel like I read a fair amount of mg fantasy last year – but I have several more titles to add now!  This is also the book that came from the library with the last 30 pages missing – I had to take it back and wait for it to be reordered before I could finish it!  Worse yet, I wasn’t the first to check it out, so I pity the first few people to try to read it.

The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann

Not so very long ago, the Faeries invaded the human world, and there was war.  The humans won, but as the faery stayed in the first place because they couldn’t get back, they now have an uneasy coexistence with iron and church bells used to constrain the faeries. Both sides despise the other and despise worst of all the changelings or peculiars, half-breed children.  (Were there ever truly loving inter-species relations, or only short seductions?  The story doesn’t address this.)  One of our heroes, Bartholomew, is just such a child.  He himself could pass for human, but his little sister Hettie has pointed ears and branches for hair.  Both of them stay hidden, as the hatred of peculiars is so deep that lynchings are common.  One day, watching from his attic window in a Bath slum, Bartholomew sees a sinister lady in plum velvet with a tiny, wicked face in the back of her head.  As he watches, she draws the little neighbor changeling with thistle hair out of his house, and disappears with him in a flurry of black feathers. When Bartholomew’s good intentions go awry, he knows that he and Hettie are in danger as well.   Meanwhile, in London, Mr Jelliby is a wealthy and idle member of the Privy Council, which includes some faery members.  His conscience is pricked, however, when he watches the faery Mr Lickerish redirect council interest away from the mysterious string of murdered changeling children.  As much as he fears trouble, he is drawn into investigating the murders himself.  There are some steampunk aspects to the book as well, with a setting that feels 19th-century and clockwork birds used to communicate, clockwork horses, and a dirigible.  This is dark fantasy with a whole lot of creepy mystery that kept me on the edge of my seat, and occasionally made me decide to save this for morning and pick something calmer for bedtime reading.  It’s definitely not a world I’d want to live in, but it’s beautifully drawn, with characters and setting having equal importance to the exciting plot.  I cared about both Bartholomew and Mr Jelliby.  I will note that even with the last 30 pages, it does not end conclusively, so those who like to wait until a series is complete to start reading will want to hold off for a bit.  There is a whole lot to like packed neatly and cleverly into this book, and I am very glad that it made it to the second round of Cybils considerations.

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2012 in Review

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Katy K.

Welcome to my first-ever annual retrospective post here at A Library Mama.Extra Yarn

I reviewed about 122 books in 2012. I moved from Livejournal/Dreamwidth to WordPress in the middle (taking my archives but not my comments with me), and as the LJ platform doesn’t let me see my stats, there’s very little point in trying to do anything with that. Instead, I have lists of my favorite books of the year. I’m way too indecisive to pick just one or two from a category. These are the ones I found myself thinking about when I woke up at night, wanting to tell my friends about, and pondering months later. Within each category, they are listed roughly in reverse chronological order.

Favorite Books of 2012
Picture Books – Sleep Like a Tiger, I Kissed the Baby, GoldilocksZita the Space Girl and the Three Dinosaurs, Laundry Day, An Undone Fairy Tale, Extra Yarn
Easy Readers – Penny and Her Song, Queen Ella’s Feet, Puff Flies
Early Chapter Book – The Secret Chicken Society
Youth Graphic Novels – Zita the Space Girl, Giants Beware
Teen Graphic Novels – Drama
Adult Graphic Novels – The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt, Saga, Habibi, Unterzakhn
Classics – The Odyssey, Around the World in 80 Days
Youth Fantasy – Seven Tales of Trinket, Starry River of the Sky, The Book of Three, The Cabinet of Wonders, The Book of Story Beginnings, Earwig and the Witch, The Unseen Guest, the False Prince, The Coming of the False PrinceDragon, Breadcrumbs
Teen Fantasy – Crown of Embers, Black Heart, Forever, Seraphina, Dust Girl, Bitterblue, Grave Mercy, Clockwork Angel, Book of a Thousand Days
Adult Fantasy – The Night Circus, The Curse of Chalion
Adult Nonfiction – Quiet; Geek Mom; Circular Knitting Workshop; Parents Need to Eat, Too; Reduced Shakespeare Company; How Eskimos Keep their Babies Warm; All the Money in the World
Adult Fiction – The Language of Flowers

Thoughts on the books…
When I first became an official Librarian, I made an effort to read broadly, or at least, more broadly than I otherwise would.  I kept in my head types of people who ask me for reading advice and would try to Geek Momread to their taste; I would stop reading series I was enjoying after the first book because I had enough to recommend the series to other people.

Over the past couple of years, though, I’ve started to head back the other direction.  Anybody who wants to find a thriller can look at the bestseller list, and I will do better at getting people excited about reading books if I’m talking about the ones I’m really excited about. Following blogs like Charlotte’s Library, I realized (pardon me if this revelation is less than earth-shattering) that reading books that someone else might enjoy but that I only kind of did was taking away precious reading time from me reading the books that I actually want to read.  I felt obliged to read books for grown-ups because I’m officially an adult librarian, even if I’m the librarian that everyone at my library knows to turn to if someone wants a youth or teen fantasy.  I was surprised to see how many adult Starry River of the Skynon-fiction books I enjoyed, particularly in comparison to straight-up adult fiction.  These things bump around in my head with my baby stats, the problem of how to describe my reading tastes (probably much easier for anyone but me), and the question of whether I should try to specialize this blog more or just keep on reviewing anything I feel strongly enough about to have thoughts to share.  If you, Dear Reader, have any thoughts on these matters, I would love to hear them.

…and why I’ve been absent so long
I write these posts in between patrons at the library desks.  Lately, there have been either lots of patrons or patrons wanting help with downloading books to their e-readers or help finding a book they’d like in a genre that they haven’t liked before.  And my three-year-old’s new bedtime strategy is to sneak out bed to turn on the light and read books, multiple times if we try to stop her and until our bedtime if we don’t.  While flattering in the “we always wanted our kids to be readers” way, the net result is less sleep all around.  And less sleep plus more patrons leaves me struggling to hold on to a coherent thought, let alone find the time to type it up.  As my pile of books to be read grows ever longer and the list of books waiting to be reviewed longer yet, I really hope something gets better on this front soon. There are so many exciting books to be read!

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Quiet

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Katy K.

Here is one recommended by both my boss, Holly (here’s her review), and her friend Mary (who together run Awful Library Books.)

QuietQuiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain.
We live in a world where extroverts are idealized and the most common advice given to parents of introverts is to look for ways to help their children be more outgoing. Cain argues convincingly that introverts have their own strengths that shouldn’t be ignored, even in situations where extroverts are traditionally considered better for the job. She gives her own early career as an example, citing a time when she was working as a trial lawyer on a high-stakes negotiation. She wouldn’t normally have been put in that position, but rather than pretending to be aggressive, she was quiet, considerate, and paid careful attention to the needs of both parties, resulting in a solution that worked better for everyone and won her acclaim from both sides. In the first section, Cain covers topics such as the shift in the early 20th century from valuing character and quiet virtue to valuing personality and popularity. She talks about the myths that charismatic, extroverted people make better leaders and that group work leads to greater creativity. Next, Cain looks at the biology behind introversion and how introverts can overcome their privacy-seeking tendencies to be inspiring public speakers and leaders. There are also dangers to extroversion, and Cain argues that part of the reason for the Wall Street crash was the risk-seeking behavior that often goes along with the extroversion that Wall Street so highly rewards. She looks at relationships and work for introverts, dealing with extroverts, and when it’s helpful for introverts to act more extroverted than they really are. Finally, Cain talks about how to cultivate introverted children and give them both the tools they need to survive in a world that rewards extroverts and the confidence to use the skills and strengths that come with introversion, both for the home and school.

For myself, this has me wondering all over again where I fall on the scale and what I can do to Support My Full Potential, etc. Cain introduces the term “ambivert”, and while I know I was very introverted in grade school, from college and beyond, I’ve tested just on the margins of either side of the introvert/extrovert line. I think I’ve tended to appreciate the extroversion more, and reading this book is good to give me more confidence in devoting time to introverted desires.

As a mother, I think we do pretty well with giving our son both time with friends and time alone to concentrate on his own projects. I really want to discuss some of the ideas with my son’s teacher, not because I think my son is particularly introverted, but just because Cain has very helpful ideas on balancing group and individual work in the classroom, the importance of everyone learning how to focus on their own, and how to make group work and class speaking more educational and less pure terror for introverts. Wherever you fall on the scale, if you’re interested in how people work, this is a fascinating book.

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Picture Book Catch-Up

Posted on December 26, 2012 by Katy K.

Here’s a quartet of library picture books that we recently enjoyed.

Pirate PrincessPirate Princess by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen. Illustrated by Jill McElmurry.
A princess who scorns fancy clothes longs to be a pirate in his rhyming tale: “Princess Bea was not the kind/ Of princess you’d expect/….And especially she couldn’t face/ A life wed to some prince.” One day, she takes a stroll down to the harbor and finds a pirate ship docked there! Sure her dreams are about to come true, Bea and her little dog walk right onto the ship and ask for work. Though she’s given a chance, when she turns out to be horrifically bad at deck-swabbing, cooking, and being a look-out, she is sentenced to walk the plank. Can she find a real pirate skill in time to save her life? There is a lot to like in this book, from the purple-haired Captain Jack and his diverse crew, which seems to be evenly split male to female. I’d guess the artwork to be crayon outlines with watercolor fill, and they are quite appealing, as is Princess Bea. My only reservation is that Princess Bea’s pirate skill turns out to be finding treasure – and since she starts out with a bulky jewel-encrusted gold crown, I wasn’t sure why she’d need to be a pirate to get treasure. That being said, pictures books featuring pirate princesses are in relatively short supply, and both my eight-year-old boy and three-year-old daughter enjoyed this one.

Robot Zombie Frankenstein!Robot Zombie Frankenstein! by Annette Simon
Here is a silly cumulative story featuring two robots, both made out of neon-bright, simple shapes. More and more shapes keep being added to the robots as they dress themselves up: they start as robots and end up as Robot zombie Frankenstein pirate superhero-in-disguise outer space invader CHEFs!… with pie. The cumulative nature and big type made it one that my beginning reader was eager to read himself, always a plus. For added DIY fun, the shapes used are printed by themselves in the endpapers, labeled as shapes in the front and robot parts in the back.

The Three Ninja PigsThe Three Ninja Pigs by Corey Rosen Schwartz. Illustrated by Dan Santat.
Thanks to Kate Coombs at Book Aunt for her initial recommendation on this one. In this variation of the Three Little Pigs, each of the three pigs, tired of being bullied by the Big Bad Wolf, decides to take up martial arts at the new Dojo in town. Each one picks a different technique – aikido, jujitsu, and karate. The strong acrylic paintings show them practicing at a school filled with other animals – a panda, turtle, monkey, musk ox, goat and crane, all somewhat reminiscent of Kung Fu Panda. However, much as they have varying levels of patience for house building, so too do the pigs have various levels of patience with studying martial arts. The two younger pigs give up quickly and are just as quickly defeated by the Big Bad Wolf, but big sister pig sticks with it until she gets her black belt, and victory is hers. This is fun for young martial arts enthusiasts, with an underlying message on the value of practice and dedication.

Sleep Like a TigerSleep Like a Tiger by Mary Logue. Illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski.
“Once there was a little girl who didn’t want to go to sleep, even though the sun had gone away.” The story walks through the evening as the little girl’s parents tell her that of course she doesn’t have to sleep if she’s not tired, but she does have to put on her pajamas, wash her face and so on. As she gets ready, the girl and her parents talk about sleeping animals from their own pets to a variety of wild animals – if they are sleeping now, how they sleep, and if they are nocturnal, when they do sleep. Finally, the girl is curled up asleep in her bed, hugging her toy tiger and dreaming of a tiger with a doll. The peaceful words combine with fabulous collage-style pictures, which combine the real and the imagined and repeat fantastical element – buntings, trains, wheels on moving creatures, gold crowns on living things – creating a magical world out of the ordinary events. This is a bedtime book to be enjoyed over and over again.

I hope you are enjoying the holidays! Coming soon – the books we gave for the holidays, and reflections on my favorite books of 2012.

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