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

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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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The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Katy K.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente. Illustrated by Ana Juan

It’s over a year since our heroine September was last in Fairyland, as narrated in The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. It’s been a year of social isolation and anxious waiting for the Green Wind to come to take her back again. On her birthday, she finally finds a way back in – only to find that Fairyland has changed for the worse, and it’s all her fault. Her own shadow, the one she allowed to be cut off to save another child in the first book, has turned against Fairyland. Now, she leads other shadows from Fairyland Below as Halloween, the Hollow Queen of Fairyland Below. All sort of shadows are being stolen from the residents of Fairyland Above, and with it, their magic. September sets off to right things, heedless of the danger. In Fairyland Below, she meets the shadows of her old friends Ell the Wyverary and Saturday. The shadows are people in their own rights, normally forced to stay with their owners. On their own, the shadows are similar but with hidden and shown qualities reversed – the shadow of Ell is shy rather than bold and friendly, where the shadow of shy Saturday is much bolder. September travels with Ell and Saturday for some way, but they are not quite the same as their real selves, and she must eventually abandon them. The narrative is somewhat more unified than the last book, which felt very episodic, but September still meets lots of strange and interesting people with odd but set ideas – things like magical living Markets run by goblin Economics and quiet Physicks with the Night-Dodo Aubergine, who was quite a nice characters.

On the whole, the story feels darker and more serious than the first one. The whole story is told by a very intrusive narrator, about whom I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, having narrators with their own voices is a venerable tradition, and reminds me pleasantly of other such books, like the Chronicles of Narnia. On the other hand, this narrator is much more intrusive and possessed of very vocal and odd opinions. For example, a major theme of the book is that children are heartless – this was in the last book too – but that teens are just beginning to grow baby hearts. Perhaps Valente means something else by this, but it seems to me that what she means is that children are incapable of empathy. This is just patently false – even a toddler will try to cheer up a sad baby or parent. The narrator claims to be friends with the reader at the same time as blithely announcing that it is a sly narrator, and will therefore withhold significant plot details from us or September, so as to make things more interesting for us. This, frankly, is just irritating. Any narrator should have a better reason than that to withhold plot details. I find I can’t say, though, that I wish the narrator weren’t there, because that narrator is necessary for the feeling of the book. While my total reaction might be coming off as lukewarm, it’s not that it was a tepid book but rather that there were parts that I loved and parts that I was just less sure about. In any case, this is one that middle graders and those who like middle grade fantasy should enjoy.

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Shall I Knit You a Hat?

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Katy K.

Taking a break from knitting on my son’s Christmas present to write about this sweet Christmas picture book featuring knitting!

Shall I Knit You a Hat?Shall I Knit You a Hat? by Kate Klise. Illustrated by M. Sarah Klise.
When Mother Rabbit hears that a giant blizzard is expected for Christmas Eve, she knits Little Rabbit a hat to keep his long ears warm. He loves it so much that he asks if they can make hats for all their friends. They go out to the Market together, where all their friends are, and find sneaky ways to measure them all – the horse, the dog, the goose, the cat, the squirrel and the deer. Then they go home, where Little Rabbit takes the lead in designing the hats. He puts great effort into making hats just right for each friend, but of course, as Christmas is only a few days away, they can’t be all knit, and incorporate some household objects along with the knitting. Oh, the looks on the poor animals’ faces when they first see themselves in the mirror that Little Rabbit brings along with the gifts. Soon, however, it starts to snow, and all the animals realize how warm they are despite it and how perfectly suited the hats are to them. The bright acrylic illustrations make the story even cozier. This is a wonderful story of friendship and generosity, yarn and carrot cake for Christmas. It’s a little wordy for toddlers, but perfect for preschoolers through early elementary – both of my children are loving it this season.

Disclaimer: this book is one of the many books that my children were given when my daughter was in the hospital with her liver transplant two years ago. A hospital perk, as Hazel of The Fault in Our Stars would say. We were given autographed hardcovers of several picture books that the Klise sisters left for the hospital to give away to sick kids and their siblings after their visit.

There are several more books about Little Rabbit, including

Why Do You Cry?
Imagine Harry
Little Rabbit and the Night Mare
Little Rabbit and the Meanest Mother on Earth
And newly published this year in a similar vein, Grammy Lamby and the Secret Handshake.

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Geek Mom

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Katy K.

It’s like early Christmas when I ask the librarians to buy something for me, and it shows up on the hold shelf for me. This was purchased by our lovely craft librarian.

Geek MomGeek Mom by Natania Barron, Kathy Ceceri, Corrina Lawson and Jenny Williams.
Geek Mom is a blog on Wired Magazine, related to the Geek Dad blog. Geek Dad the book came out a couple of years ago (my love got it for Father’s Day, and there are two others that we don’t have), and now there’s also a Geek Mom book. This, too, is full of projects and ideas for geeky parents, but written by the moms. It looks like I never reviewed it, and my memory is a bit hazy, the projects in that book looked awesome, but maybe requiring a bit more oomph in the supplies acquiring and time setting aside than we usually have. Geek Mom has more crafty, cooking and reading adventures than I remember from Geek Dad. There are still projects that involve electronics, explosions and computers, so don’t go thinking that being from moms makes the projects less cool in any way. There is the occasional fun sidebar, with topics like “10 Geeky Instruments We Wouldn’t Want to Live Without”. The first five were the accordion, ukulele, theremin, keytar, and Moog synthesizer. I will note that the lute made the list, but the harp did not. Their Imagination chapter includes making a secret lair, steampunk and superhero costume ideas, learning about history through comics, exploring fandom with kids, and roleplaying with kids including recommended roleplaying systems. Here my love opines that the Icons gaming system is much more kid-friendly than the Mouse Guard system they recommend, which is based on cute comic book mice but not especially simple. The Curiosity and Learning chapter includes lots of preschooler-friendly ideas, which can be tricky in books like these. It includes things like cartography, hosting a time travel party, topology, and linking classical and rock music. “Mothers and the Digital Revolution” covers a host of computer-related topics, including internet safety, screen time limits, website building, a history of computers (going back to when it was a job title!), and using tech for fitness. “Science at Home” has a lot of very fun projects, including self-propelled boats, a DIY lava lamp, a blob, making plasma in the microwave (only for use with microwaves you’re willing to risk losing) and much more. They use borax crystals to make a Cthulu rather than snowflakes. “Food Wizardry” includes directions for fixing a hobbit feast, catching wild yeast for sourdough bread, and a tetris cake and cephalopod cupcakes. Also, an essay on the pleasures of loose tea – yum. The sewing and crafting chapter includes felt monsters, a crocheted amigurumi, natural tie-dye, battery-operated LED sculptures, and electric component jewelry. (Didn’t you make jewelry out of the resistors in high school physics?)

That was a very long list, and at that, just a sampling of the many cool projects. They are clearly described, with cost, age, time, and difficulty given at the start of each. Most of the projects are in the $5 to $10 range, with some more expensive and some with ranges depending on how much you want to put into them. The projects start working from about age 3, and some would be interesting up through the teen years, but most are aimed at elementary school aged kids. Yes, there were a few projects that I wasn’t interested in myself, some advice I didn’t quite agree with, but not enough to outweigh the many good ideas. This is an approachable book chock full of appealing ideas for active families to have all sorts of geeky fun together.

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Goblin Secrets

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Katy K.

Steampunk fantasy for kids in an entirely fictional city – and it won this year’s National Book Award. I checked it out with a bunch of books before it won the award, and had forgotten I had it by the time the awards were announced.

Goblin Secrets Goblin Secrets by William Alexander.
Rownie doesn’t have much memory of time before he was one of Graba’s gang of children. Graba feels like a sister to Baba Yaga, with a house that moves around on its own around the city of Zombay, though the chicken legs are clockwork and on her rather than on the house. She has a flock of unwanted, hungry children, most of whom don’t even know their real names. Rownie’s own name, as the one girl with a real name, Vass, tells him, is just a diminutive of Rowan, his missing older brother. Rowan disappeared some months ago after taking part in a play, which it is illegal for humans to do. For masks are magic, and only goblins, who are Changed from being human, can count as not-human enough to perform plays. As our story opens, a wagon of goblins comes into town. So desperate is Rownie to see their play that he buys a ticket with Graba’s money. Then he is desperate enough to ask the actors about his brother. And then Rownie is in trouble. He acts on the stage, without being Changed – and the Guards, with terrifying gears in their eyes, are after him. He has stolen from Graba, and Graba is after him. In desperation, he turns to the goblins, who take him in and treat him kindly despite their alarming appearance. The goblins are also concerned about Rowan, whom they said was a fine actor.

The actors wear masks, and the masks have power, power to make people believe that the wearer is who the mask says they are, and also power to subtly change the world around them. As Rownie wears a mask to conceal himself, he feels the power of the fox running through him. And Rownie and Rowan’s safety is not the only issue – Graba and the Goblins both feel that floods are coming, that the river that runs through Zombay will soon overrun its banks and wipe out large portions of the city. The city itself is a character in the book, divided between the geometric streets where the wealthy live in their large, clean houses on the north side, and the teeming, tangled streets of South side, which Rownie knows inside out.

Though there are lots of steampunk elements, including clockwork horses that run on coal made from fish hearts, the city guards fitted with gears, and Graba’s mechanical chicken legs, these are not the focus. This is a story of a search for belonging, of the power of words and belief to change the world, and the importance of trust and care. Rownie’s story is definitely an adventure, but it’s one with heart, and it’s the humanity of it that makes it so magical, at a level that works for both kids and adults.

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The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Katy K.

Scrapbook of Frankie PrattThe Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston.

This is a novel told as a scrapbook, telling the story of Frankie Pratt in her own words. We follow her life for eight years, starting with her graduation from high school in 1920. Her Corona-typed captions narrate pages filled with vintage pictures, postcards, and some photos. Frankie really wants to be a writer, but is helping to support her widowed mother by working as a caretaker for an elderly neighbor. That neighbor’s son, more than a decade older than Frankie, is the shaky but handsome World War I veteran Jamie Pingee, towards on whom Frankie develops a crush. Soon, however, she’s sent to Vassar on scholarship. There she rooms with rich girl Allegra Wolf, and becomes her protégé, also befriending Allegra’s brother Oliver. As well as wanting to be a writer, Frankie is an avid reader, and one realizes afresh just how much was going on in the 20s as Frankie discusses the hot new writers of the day – so many of them still famous today. There’s even a life-changing conversation with the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay (Vassar 1917), whom Frankie meets through her work as the editor of Vassar’s literary magazine. Following graduation, Frankie spends two years in Greenwich Village and two in Paris, always trying to further her career. She’s in Paris when the Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in the world and witnesses Lindbergh’s landing there before she must return home to care for her mother. All through the book, Frankie shares her trials at romance, her various friendships and fallings-out with girlfriends, and notes on the fashions and momentous events happening around her.

This barebones plot outline doesn’t do much to convey how very well this all works together. This is a graphic novel really, though it doesn’t seem to have been sold as one. Usually, though, a graphic novel has an artist or team of artists who can work to provide a unified feel for the artwork, and show the characters and their surroundings to fill in for the physical descriptions you’d find in a prose novel. This book didn’t have that option. The words are few, and the story is told through vintage ephemera – meaning there’s some sense of style there just in the time period it was put out, but that Preston had an editor’s control rather than an artist’s. The author must have spent hundreds of hours combing through vintage pictures and postcards looking for just the right ones to tell the story, and the efforts paid off. Despite very limited text and the lack of control over the pictures, Frankie and her companions come through loud and clear as real people. The presentation makes this a good choice for people who wouldn’t normally go for graphic novels, as there’s neither the cartoon-like feeling of traditional comic artwork nor the difficulty of decoding traditional panels for those new to it. Fans of historical women’s fiction and/or paper crafts will fall in love.

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