Under the Jolly Roger by L.A. Meyer. Read by Katherine Kellgren Several years ago, I read the first book in this series, Bloody Jack, a rip-roaring tale of adventure on the high seas, as Mary “Jacky” Faber, street orphan, disguises herself as a boy so as to make an honest living as a ship’s boy. I read it in print at the time, which was fun. Now my love and I are rediscovering the series on audiobook. I think that someday soon I will have to write Katherine Kellgren a fan letter, because she is such an amazing reader. The books are full of people and accents from all over, from Jacky’s Cockney to Irish to Jamaican and American, which Kellgren brings beautifully to life. There are also a number of folk songs, and Kellgren not only has a fine voice for singing them, but also manages to make the different character’s singing voices different. This series is winning her all the major audio book awards, and rightly so, but I also loved her work on the Enola Holmes series, where Enola putting on a Cockney accent still sounds different from Jacky in this one.
Under the Jolly Roger is the third book in the series. Jacky has made her way back to England in search of her beloved Jaimy, from whom she was parted for all of the second book. She has only just found him again, disguised as a boy again, when she is caught by a press gang. This time, the ship (Wolverine) is captained by a lecherous man who refuses to let her go even when she reveals her female nature. Events move quickly, if increasingly improbably, as Jacky works her way from Midshipman (a rank she earned in the first book) up to Lieutenant in the Navy, then captures her own ship and gains a letter of marque so that she can operate as a privateer. We do not care about the improbability, though, any more than we care about the improbability of Indiana Jones, because this is about adventure, pure and simple. Well, with some music and romance thrown in, too, because even though Jacky is broken-hearted about Jaimy in this book and vows to live single, she always has a very hard time resisting a pretty boy, and there are several on the Wolverine. This is a great sea-faring romp for teens and up. It will be good in print, too, but listen to the audio if you possibly can.
The Giant and the Beanstalk by Diane Stanley Otto is a gentle giant who, most improperly, chooses a sweet little hen for his pet instead of a fierce dragon. When Jack steals it, Otto chases him down the beanstalk to get his pet back. Jack’s mother is shocked at her son’s behavior, and sends the giant into town to find him. “Just look for Jack,” she says. Poor Otto has a hard time – not only do his looks put people off, but there are an amazing number of Jacks out there, jumping over candlesticks, falling down hills, and so on. This is delightful not only for turning the story around, but also as a puzzle to recognize the nursery rhymes for children, identified in the back, and the recognizably close imitations of medieval art for adults.
Dogzilla by Dav Pilkey Really, the title says it all, but for the sake of my own memory, I’ll write this down. Since LB is still interested in giant monsters, my love found this book. It’s made to look like an old-style monster movie, but with the innocent residents of Mouseopolis needing to defeat the terrible giant Dogzilla. It’s a fun mixture of photography and painting, just right for little monsters to enjoy.
The Princess and the Bear by Mette Ivie Harrison Here’s one I grabbed randomly off the teen new book shelf, rather than finding through reviews or from being previously familiar with the author. It turns out to be a second book, and so is somewhat mistitled to match better with the first book, The Princess and the Hound. Really, this book is about a hound (who was for a while in the previous book turned into a princess, and who becomes human partway through this book) and a bear, who really used to be a prince. If you got all that, I think that The Prince and the Hound would have been a more accurate title. They have been companions for a long time, living peacefully in the forest, and the chapters alternate perspectives between these two characters. As the story opens, the hound meets a cat-man who is spreading magical and literal death in the forest – unmagic. The hound and the bear reluctantly decide that the only way to stop this is to visit the Wild Man in the mountains, who first turned the prince into a bear a couple centuries previously. The bear who was a prince has a bear come to realize how terrible he was at being human, so that he is ashamed and even more reluctant when the Wild Man says that the only way to stop the problem is to go back in time to when he was prince and try to undo some of the harm that he did. The premise does not come off quite as convoluted as it sounds, though there is a bit of set-up. Anyway, the hound and Chala, when she is a woman, reflect a lot on the various natures of humans and animals, how they are alike and how different. The Bear/Prince, on the other hand, thinks about the nature of magic, gifts, and power. If the ending felt a little sudden and tidy to me, it’s still both exciting and thoughtful. Animal lovers especially will enjoy this tale of animals, humans and magic.
Lucia and the Light by Phyllis Root. Illustrated by Mary Granpre Root (Big Mama Makes the World) and Granpre (illustrator of the Harry Potter series) bring us the story of Lucia. Lucia lives with her mother and baby brother on the side of a mountain in the far north. Long ago, there were tales of trolls up in the mountain, but no one is really sure they believe these any more. It’s an ordinary cold winter, until one day, the sun doesn’t come back. The cow’s milk dries up, the baby won’t stop crying, and they are running out of food. Lucia decides to climb to the top of the mountain to see if she can find the sun. Together with her milk-white cat, Lucia battles cold, dark, and yes, trolls, to bring back the sun. It’s a fine new story for Lucia with luminous pictures, perfect for the dark of winter.
Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. Read by Stephen Fry, Judi Dench, and a whole host of others. This is a recording of Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner. It is delightfully narrated by a nearly full cast of talented British actors with varying accents. The only voice actor I was unsure of was the one playing Christopher Robin, clearly an actual child, whose inflections seemed a bit wooden at times. Aside from that, once again, hearing an old favorite aloud like this reminds one of just how delightful the words really are. This version has the added pleasure of having had music composed for Pooh’s many hums. The words are read with the music played on piano underneath, so that while it’s not sung, you can hear how it’s meant to sound. This is a wonderful version to share with a favorite child, or to reacquaint yourself with the wonders of Pooh.
Ash by Malinda Lo It’s fairy tale time! Here is Cinderella re-envisioned both more modern and more magical. It’s set on the edge of Woods, and there are rumors of Faeries in the wood. The modern Philosophers discourage belief in them, but the old Greenwitches still do. Our heroine Aisling’s mother was once apprentice to the local Greenwitch, but Aisling’s education in magic is limited to the fairy tales her mother tells her. (A note for those not familiar with Gaelic: Aisling is pronounced ASH-ling, so that Ash is a natural nickname.) Then her mother dies, and Aisling is grief-stricken. She takes to spending all her time on her mother’s grave, much to the concern of her father and the local Greenwitch. They’re afraid she’ll attract the Fairies, but she is too young and too absorbed in her grief to care. He remarries, probably hoping that new sisters and a new mother will help. And then he dies, debt-ridden, and the new stepmother, never overly kind, takes out her disappointment and anger on Ash. They move closer to the capital, hoping for a rich husband for the oldest stepsister, and Ash is forced to take the place of the household servants to repay her father’s debt. But all this time, Ash has been sneaking to the Woods whenever she can, occasionally meeting with a handsome but eerie Fairy lord. In spite of the new Philosophers, the Hunt, led by the King’s Huntress, is an ancient tradition still kept, and the town where Ash now lives is the starting point for the Hunt. Gradually, during her occasional escapes into the forest, Ash comes to know the young Huntress, Kaisa, who teaches her to track and ride. Increasingly, Ash is pulled between the inhuman and powerful attraction to her fairy lord and the complete escape from the human world that he promises and her attraction to the Huntress. 
Fiber Gathering by Joanne Seiff For those who feel passionate about their fiber crafts, there are fiber festivals, all over the country, where the people who use fiber – especially animal fiber – meet with the people who produce it and the tools to work with it. Some are enormous, with people traveling from all over the world to attend them. And some are mostly regional festivals, limiting vendor attendance to locals to provide a show of truly local color. Author Seiff provides descriptions and drool-worthy photographs of eleven fiber festivals from around the country, with sheep and llamas, hand-dyed roving and yarn, and booths of lamb-based food. Each festival is followed by a couple of projects related to the specialty of the gathering just discussed. They are not just knitting projects either – they are projects to knit, crochet, dye, hook, or spin, including very basic spinning, how to clean a raw fleece, and how to help at a sheep-shearing. I’ve never been to the Michigan festival, although it is profiled in this book. I was terribly amused to see the author describe Michigan as a state where August is cool enough that we’re already thinking about woolly sweaters. Not in this part, for sure, but perhaps in Allegan County, where the festival takes place, it’s not quite so sticky. This is a beautiful book, sure to inspire fiber-lovers to seek out their own nearest festival, or perhaps even travel farther abroad.
Zorro by Isabel Allende. Read by Blair Brown.
More recently, based in large part on the Allende novel, but drawing on other Zorro retellings as well, comes the comic book version. (This is what first attracted my love to the Allende.) Allende’s basic story is there, somewhat simplified, but where Allende tells the story strictly in chronological order, the comic book series intercuts the stories of Diego’s early years with the adventures of the grown Zorro. This, together with the painted artwork, makes the comic feel more exciting than the book. The book is narrated by a character we meet halfway through and are not sure is the narrator until the end, while the graphic novel is clearly narrated by Bernardo from the very beginning. I wouldn’t want to miss either of them – but if you have to pick for yourself, the Allende version will give you a more nuanced, literary version, while the Wagner will go straight for the swashbuckling adventure.
The Busy Family’s Guide to Estate Planning by Attorney Liza Weiman Hanks Usually I read for entertainment, but sometimes there is a need for straight-up information, in which case, clear and concise are the watchwords. I read often about how few people actually have wills, and the topic is mentioned often among friends as something that they mean to get around to soon, but it just seems overwhelming. This book from the popular legal publishing house Nolo is just the ticket. It helpfully goes over the issues that you should consider when doing your estate planning. It’s a ten-chapter book, each chapter on a specific topic meant to be completed in a month – no assumptions that busy parents will be able to get everything together in a week. By the end of ten months, then, you should have a complete estate plan. It starts with choosing guardians, and the actual will is completed by chapter 4. Subsequent chapters deal with living trust considerations, life insurance, bank accounts, whether or not you need a living trust and keeping things up to date. All of this is meant to make sure your kids are taken care of and your friends and relatives don’t have to stress to get things done or figure out what you wanted. It includes a CD-ROM which will generate the legal documents outlined, so you can either draw them up yourself or be prepared when you go to talk with an attorney.
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