Matched by Ally Condie In the Society, problems have been smoothed away by careful application of statistical science. Everyone is told what to eat and wear and where to work. But everyone is pretty much happy, and guaranteed to live a healthy 80 years. As the story opens, 17-year-old Cassia is about to attend her Match banquet. Wearing a beautiful, borrowed dress, she will get to see the face of the boy the Society has chosen to be her best Match. Shockingly, rather than a stranger in some other town, her best friend and neighbor down the street, Xander, is chosen instead. She can hardly believe her good fortune. But then, when she gets home and looks on the data card she’s been given, she sees not only Xander’s picture, but the picture of Ky, another boy she knows. Even though an Official tells her it was a mistake, she can’t stop thinking about Ky, who came to her town from the Outer Provinces when they were children. At the same time, her beloved Grandfather is very close to his 80th birthday, when citizens of the Society die. At their last meeting, he gives her contraband poetry from Before, hidden in a legal antique Artifact. And now she is possessed of beautiful words that are too dangerous to keep. For the first time in her life, Cassia begins to doubt the perfection of the Society, both for her individually and as a whole. But how much will resistance cost those she loves? And how much her own are her thoughts and feelings after all? The ending leaves things open enough for a sequel.
This felt very reminiscent of the classic The Giver, with more of a focus on the emotions. It is interesting to read with plenty to think and talk about. And yet – I think what bothers me about this is that I can see our government headed for much more control of our lives in some areas, but not the ones suggested in this book. That would be another fun topic for discussion – compare dystopian novels like this, Uglies, The Hunger Games, The Giver, or Feed to see which seems the most possible future.
Brave New Knits by Julie TurjomanBrave New Knits is profiles of and patterns by knit bloggers, and in particular those whom the internet helped to knitting-designer success. Many of these are knitters I’ve heard of before, like Grumperina and Ysolda Teague, although I hadn’t read any of their blogs. The book is roughly divided into sections by pattern type – sweaters and accessories – but what makes this book really unique is the in-depth profiles of each of the bloggers. Where most books will give a paragraph at most to each designer, Turjoman includes a lengthy three to four page profile for each designer before the pattern. These invariably made me wish I were reading next to a computer, so I could look at their blog and Ravelry profiles. It also made for a disconnect the couple of times when the profile said that the designer was known for making garments top-down, say, and then the pattern included was knit flat in pieces. There were a lot of sweaters – quite lovely – ranging from quite complicated to simple – and socks, and non-sock projects with sock yarn. The patterns looked quite nice, though I read on Amazon that there are a lot of errata. All in all, I found the patterns nice, but what really interested me about this book was the designer-bloggers and their paths to making a life out of knitting.
Among Others by Jo Walton Our heroine – who doesn’t share her name with us until well into the book – is a Welsh teen who ran away from her mother and is now (now being 1979) being sent to English boarding school. Of course she doesn’t fit in; her leg was damaged in the accident that killed her twin sister, and she can’t participate in the all-important school sports. Although the school is out in the country, it’s less wild than the outskirts of town in Wales, and that means many fewer fairies, and the ones she can find won’t talk to her. But it’s after the great battle, she says, after the Scouring of the Shire. You don’t expect everyone to survive or for things to go smoothly. The world is still going on, and that means you succeeded. Mori spends her time reading, mostly lots and lots of science fiction. Eventually she joins a science fiction book club, her only real social outlet. Oh, how very close to her I have been! It’s a somewhat sneaky book – most of what happens in the present is pretty mundane, so that I thought at first that the story was going to be the slow and tiny revelations about the Big Battle of the past. Mori suffers through school, tries to figure out the social rules, tries to understand the father she met for the first time when she ran away from her mother. She visits her family in Wales – the people she loves who raised her in the face of her mother’s neglect and craziness. She thinks about love and sexuality, and she reads and thinks about what she reads, often comparing the magic in books to the magic that she has experienced herself. And then suddenly, she is in actual present danger and must rely on the knowledge she has gained from her reading. It was a plot twist that I was not expecting at all. I am left feeling that I ought to go back and re-read it. I was also torn between all the fabulous books that she read that I have also loved, many that I have heard of but not read (mostly sci-fi classics that were missing from my parents’ bookshelf), as well as a few authors that I have never heard of. I should read more science fiction! But I’m already behind on all the areas that I try to read already – aggh! I will also note that the cover of this book, while lovely, seemed to have very little to do with the contents and moreover, made it look like mainstream women’s fiction instead of fantasy that would be enjoyed by either gender. This fantasy is a love poem to science fiction and the power of reading, as well as a strong coming-of-age story featuring a most sympathetic protagonist. 
Vimanarama by Grant Morrison and Philip Bond This is a short and wacky adventure story loaned to my love from our friend 
Return of the Dapper Men by Jim McCann and Janet Lee Once upon a time there was a world where time stopped, and all that was left were children and machines. The machines lived above ground and the children below, with only one robot girl and one human boy daring to risk friendship across that divide. Then one day, a whole host of dapper men – very dapper men, in white pin-striped suits with green umbrellas – falls from the sky. Only one of them talks, and he only talks to Ayden and Zoe. At this point, I was expecting something along the lines of the Grey Gentlemen from Michael Ende’s Momo – quite decidedly evil. But this turns out not to be the case at all, and it is only like Momo, and The Little Prince in that inside of a story for children is a message probably best captured by adults on how to appreciate life. The story is beautifully told, but the artwork really shines. It’s done in an Art Nouveau style, but with the figures in watercolor and ink cut out and pasted on pre-treated boards. I bought this for the adult collection at the library, but I think now it would do just as well in the children’s section, though it probably has too much of the air of the innocence of childhood to appeal to teens. I could be wrong, though. That art might pull just about anyone in. Go look at it, and see if you don’t think so.
The Floating Islands by Rachel Neumeier Two cousins meeting each other for the first time prove more important to each other and to the future of their kingdom than either of them could realize in this classical-feeling fantasy. Trei has come to the Floating Islands following the death of his family in a volcano explosion that buried his entire city. The uncle with whom he was staying refuses to take him in, because of the cost of paying to register him as a full citizen of the Empire. Instead, he sends Trei to his maternal uncle in the Floating Islands. The Islands truly float in midair, held aloft by the magic of air dragons invisible to most. On his journey there, he first sees the kajuraihi, the winged men who historically defended the Floating Islands (reassuringly using ordinary magic to make their wings work). Trei is instantly sky-mad, wanting more than anything to become kajurai himself, and his kindly uncle makes it possible for him to attend the next audition. His cousin, Araene, chafes at the restrictions placed on upper class Island girls, who are not supposed to leave their houses without escort nor aspire to anything but marriage. Though Trei quickly senses her frustration and is deeply sympathetic, he doesn’t guess that she disguises herself as a boy to attend lectures on the culinary arts at the University. Even more than skill at cooking, Araene is found by the Hidden School of mages, where a mage tells her that she has magecraft rising in her and should join the school. But of course, he doesn’t know that Araene is a girl. The magic is one of the coolest aspects of the book. Araene tastes her magic – coriander, ginger, cumin, pushing and pulling the flavors around to create the flavor profile that feels right. Trei’s kajurai magic allows him to see the translucent dragons in the sky, as well as air currents, wind, and the temperature of the air. Trei and Araene both find their abilities tested, and Trei his identity, as the islands come under attack from the Empire in which Trei was born. This was a book that I read as quickly as I could and then felt the pain when it ended.
The Clockwork Three by Matthew J. Kirby Sometime around the turn of the last century, in an east coast town something like Boston, three children meet. Giuseppe is a street busker, sold by his uncle to a cruel padrone who takes his earnings and doesn’t feed him if he doesn’t make enough. Frederick is a clockmaker’s apprentice, rescued from the harsh orphanage factory. Hannah is a maid at the hotel where her father was a stonemason before his stroke. All have desperate hopes – Giuseppe to return to Italy and find his sister and brother, Frederick to make a clockwork automaton and become a full journeyman, and Hannah for her father to get well enough to work so that she no longer has to support the family. There is a mysterious and wealthy fortune-teller, Madame Pomeroy, rumored to travel with a tiger, who employs Hannah when she is almost fired. There is a search for treasure left by a wealthy former resident of the hotel, and just a hint of magic. Soon, the three children realize that only by working together can they solve their problems. There were a few moments where the intended easy meshing of clockwork plot pieces seemed a little contrived, but all in all, this is a lovely and engrossing effort. 
Magyk by Angie Sage This is LB’s current favorite series – alas, poor Magic Tree House! Magyk is the first book in the Septimus Heap series, which immediately makes the listener (or reader) somewhat suspicious, as Septimus Heap, the seventh son of a seventh son, dies in the introduction. His father is Silas Heap, an Ordinary Wizard in the castle, and as Septimus is born, the Queen and the ExtraOrdinary Wizard are both assassinated. As Silas is wandering in the woods looking for the herbs that the midwife has said that his wife Sarah needs to help with the childbirth, he finds a baby, wrapped in a blanket under a tree. And as the midwife rushes away with their Septimus, Silas and Sarah adopt the new baby, Jenna, and raise her as their own. All this (much simplified on my part), from the introduction. Fast forward ten years, to Jenna’s tenth birthday. The current ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Marcia Overstrand, as well as the kindly ghost of the former ExtraOrdinary Wizard, come to tell Jenna that she is in fact the Princess. Her hiding place has been discovered (helped by her being a violet-eyed, dark-eyed girl in a house full of green-eyed blonds.) The Supreme Custodian, who arranged for Jenna’s mother to be dispatched, is sending the Hunter for Jenna. Now, Jenna, next-oldest Nicko, father Silas, Marcia Overstrand, and a refugee from the Young Army, Boy 412, along with the Heap family dog, are on the run. Will Jenna escape? And who is Boy 412? 
100 Easy-to-Grow Native Plants for American Gardens in Temperate Zones by Lorraine Johnson So here is the truth: Intellectually, I am all about planting native plants in my garden. The benefits include plants that are easy to care for and that attract native birds and butterflies, among others. The difficulty is that no one is sending glossy catalogs of beautiful native plants complete with garden kits and expert-designed garden plans to my door. Even though the end result would certainly be easier to care for, tracking down the native plants in the first place is difficult, involving either a trip to the crowded Farmer’s Market half an hour away or a drive to a nursery over an hour away. Then there is the difficulty of me, not really a good gardener but just someone who wants some pretty flowers by her house, coming up with a design that won’t make the neighbors think we just didn’t get around to weeding. While finding the plants might still be somewhat difficult, this book steps in to fill a large part of the gap. It has entries with beautiful full-color pictures for the 100 plants mentioned, most of them flowers but some grasses. Entries include cheerful and friendly discussion of the merits and drawbacks of each plant. Each includes not only the best growing environment, but also plants that it looks good with and related plants. There are also full-page photos of native gardens in different styles, from wild to more traditional. I was thrilled by the indices (I may never get to use that phrase again!), which presented lists of plants for different environments – eastern woodland, prairie, and northwest, among others – and each plant in the list shown with a full-color thumbnail, so you don’t have to flip back to the main entry to see what it looks like. This should make planning that easy-care yet beautiful garden so much easier.
The Iron Duke by Meljean BrooksThis is going further into my exploration of the steampunk genre. Once again, we are in quasi-Victorian England. However, no Queen Victoria, but a young king. England (and the rest of Europe) was, some time ago, taken over by the Mongol Horde, who used radio-controlled nanoagents to control the population. England is now free, however, due to the actions of former pirate and now Duke Rhys Trahaern. In the present time, the nanoagents are necessary for survival, as they clean the pollutants from the lungs in the heavily coal-operated country. Society is now divided into “buggers” and “bounders” – those with nanoagents and those who fled during the occupation and returned afterwards, sans nanoagents. Once again, my explanation might make it seem as if there is no action, but anything but. Our heroine, Detective Inspector Mina Wentworth, is in a somewhat precarious position as the daughter of nobility, but obviously born of a Horde-induced Frenzy, and thus subject to open hostility in the streets. As the story opens, she is called away from a ball to investigate a frozen body that has landed seemingly from nowhere on the front steps of Duke Trahaern. There is of course instant attraction followed quite some time later by Hawt Sex and novel description of steampunk-style personal pleasure devices. There is action and adventure involving chasing down airships and escaping from zombies. There is political intrigue and some reflection on how mores and the roles of women would be changed by generations growing up under the Horde Occupation. It is a darker steampunk world than usual – certainly lacking the lightheartedness of Soulless – but still absorbing, with enough action to satisfy those frustrated by pure romance and enough romance for those looking for that. 
alibrarymama 