Fire by Kristin Cashore. Read by Xanthe Elbrick Fire is set a few decades before Graceling on the other side of the nearly impenetrable mountains. It was a little slow to pick up, as we start with the back story of the odious Lek, the villain in Graceling, then peaceful times with our new heroine at home. This side of the mountain, there are no Gracelings. Instead, there are monsters, especially beautiful, brightly colored and bloodthirsty animals and people, which can mesmerize victims with their beauty and call victims to them with their minds. Fire, so named for her vivid hair, is the last human monster. She tried to live below notice, making up for the life of her wild monster father, Canceril, who as adviser to the previous king, deliberately let the kingdom sink into chaos and lawlessness, now verging on civil war. Fire struggles with her feelings of mixed love and loathing for her now-deceased father. She lives near her adopted father, Brocker, a former commander, and his son Archer, her best friend and sometime lover. Fire can see into minds, though she tries not to, and as her story opens, she is accidentally shot by a strange man whose mind is filled with a strange fog and who is shot himself before he can be questioned. Still, somehow, the story is slowish, until at the request of the king, Fire journeys to King City to help with the questioning of an especially troublesome prisoner. She agrees, despite the king’s brother’s violent suspicion that she is only going to take over the king’s mind and continue her father’s work. Briggen, though only a few years her senior, is commander of the king’s armies and second in line for the throne. Now Fire finds herself wrestling with the moral limits of her powers, trying to keep from falling in love with someone who hates her, and enmeshed in trying to stop multiple plans to topple the kingdom, some more obvious than others. Once again, Cashore brings us vivid characters with real problems, both personal and political. Xanthe Elbrick does a fine job with the narration, though her male voices sounded a little fuzzy to me. Still, this is a wonderful story for reading and listening to, and I look forward to hearing more from Cashore. I hope she is able to continue either Katsa or Fire’s stories at some point, as neither one feels as if her story should be done.
Hikaru No Go by Yumi Hotta. Art by Takeshi Obata And now, for a change of pace, some manga. Hikaru is a fun-loving, not too serious middle school student. One day, he finds an old go board in his grandfather’s attic. It turns out to be haunted by the ghost of an old and really good go player, Sai, who then takes up residence in Hikaru’s consciousness. This is somehow not creepy, and we are also assured that Sai is male even though has long purple hair, earrings, and a delicate face. Anyway, prompted by Sai, Hikaru starts playing Go. He joins his school’s go team and goes to go salons. At first, he lets Sai tell him where to put the stones. Doing this, he attracts the attention of Akira Toya, the best player from the best middle school go team in town. But before Akira can track him down for another game, Hikaru decides that he wants to play for himself. Over the course of the series (17 books out in America so far), Akira and Hikaru, coached by Sai, climb higher and higher into the go world. Even though this has an improbable premise and is centered on a complicated game I don’t even try to understand, the characters are so well done that the story doesn’t feel silly. Hikaru and his friends are genuinely likeable characters, and the honorable rivalry between Hikaru and Akira Toya is compelling. It’s good story-telling, with large numbers of impossibly innocent-looking wide eyes and a few adorable girls in mini-skirted uniforms thrown in for good measure.
Men’s Knits by Erica Knight Knight, so she tells us, is a renowned clothing designer as well as a knitter. This book features a number of classically designed sweaters and some accessories, all photographed on multiple models of different ages and body shapes. That kind of thoughtfulness in design is exceedingly rare, and the really good quality yarn called for will also help make sweaters that will be loved and worn for decades. The designs were attractive enough that I wanted to rush out and start knitting my love sweaters, even though I know that he is not generally a sweater wearer. Perhaps I should knit him the giant (both in length and cable size) cabled scarf instead, at least in my imagination. 
Fairy Tale Knits by Alison Stewart-Guinee My loyal readers might guess that fairy tales and knitting are a perfect combination for me. Oh, yes. These are mostly clothes inspired by fairy tales, clothes that will work when your child just is a mermaid or a fairy or a knight or a pirate for weeks on end and will only wear appropriate clothes. Often, in knitting books, there will be a handful of patterns that I would really want to knit and most of them I wouldn’t. This book was for me the opposite – and those that I wouldn’t knit were mostly because I don’t feel a need to knit another baby blanket for the foreseeable future, and I don’t like color work. Those patterns were still attractive, though. Not only do the patterns look good, but they are thoughtfully made out of soft and washable yarn, mostly knit in one piece to reduce finishing and get the finished product on the child “before the next growth spurt”. LB wants me to knit him the chainmail of soft grey wool; my mother wants to knit Baby Godzilla the Snow Queen coat and muff; and I would both be happy to have a Robin Hood sweater for ourselves. I really hope that Baby Godzilla likes fairies when she’s a bit older, so I can knit her a flower fairy dress. And I think I should stop now. 
Soft + Simple Knits for Little Ones by Heidi Boyd Here’s a slightly older book of quick-to-knit items for little ones (though most of the sweaters here are seamed). There are a lot of good-looking items in this book, too. A few use simple intarsia – I liked the giraffe sweater, but LB wants the fleece yarn sweater with sharks chasing each other around – one on the front, one on the back. I’m planning to start a dress for BG as soon as I finish my current project; my mother kindly supplied me with the wonderful Debbie Bliss Cashmerino as a Christmas present. It’s a darling dress, and the yarn is wonderful to work with. But this book has lots of fun and soft sweaters and hats, and a portable castle filled with king, queen, knight, jester and dragon finger puppets. 
Knitting Lingerie Style by Joan McGown-Michael Though the cover shows actual lingerie, most of the patterns in this book are inspired by lingerie but intended to be worn on the outside. There are lovely fitted tanks, corset-inspired vests, slinky skirts, sexy stockings, sweet cardigans. There were several things I could see myself wearing, as well as more I wish I had a place to wear. Her history of lingerie seemed off to me – crinolines were a product of the 19th century, not the 14th – but she is an actual lingerie designer, so her bras will work and fit like real purchased bras, which was impressive. More things for me to knit for myself, something that seems to happen much less than me knitting gifts for other people. 
Alphabeasties and Other Amazing Types by Sharon Werner and Sarah Forss One of my favorite books, How to Get Your Child to Love Reading talks about the abecedary as the perfect way to explore a concept. And this is a truly nifty concept book. The focus is on typefaces and the different moods they can express. For each letter of the alphabet, a beast beginning with that letter is made out of the letter, in a typeface that the designers feel suit the animal – a classic serif for the alligator, maybe, but a gothic for the bat. Smaller pictures in the margins use the letter in different ways, as for example, the pair of lowercase b’s as boots stomping through a puddle. This is one for children and adults to relish.
Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family by Ellyn Satter This is a companion book to Child of Mine, reviewed earlier. This time, though, the focus is on the whole family, starting with adults. Satter defines a family as anyone old enough to be feeding themselves, and begins with what she considers healthy eating habits for adults. She’s starting from the assumption that many adults don’t take time to feed themselves properly and includes a progression towards a positive relationship with food. Current society has a food culture often focused on the negative, and Satter believes that eating should be one of life’s greatest joys. So, start with set mealtimes and concentrating on enjoying your food – no eating while driving or watching TV or even (gulp!) reading. If you’re living with a family, make sure you’re eating together, even if it’s microwave dinners or chips and soda. Once you’re really noticing your food, you might get bored with junk food, so she includes a large recipe section including three-week menu plans. The recipes start with tuna noodle casserole mostly out of cans and progress towards beef stew – nothing really time-consuming to cook, but designed to ease people into cooking. Every week’s menu includes both two-night dishes that use differently food made earlier in the week as well as some vegetarian meals and a variety of meats. For everyone, kids and adults, put out good food and eat until you’re done, whether that’s more or less than you think you “should” be eating. She wants you to focus on your enjoyment and what your body tells you it needs, even if you then end up with a figure slightly larger than the current highly restrictive guidelines suggest. 
The Pepins and Their Problems by Polly Horvath. Read by Julie Halston. Mr. and Mrs. Pepin and their two children, Irving and Petunia, think they are ordinary enough people. Somehow, though, they and their very fine neighbor Mr. Bradshaw keep having problems. Why is their cow producing lemonade instead of milk? How will they get off the roof when the ladder has fallen down? What to do when the neighbor on the other side objects to Mr. Bradshaw’s being called a very fine neighbor? Most authors would let their characters muddle through these difficulties on their own, but not this one! She solicits her readers/listeners for advice on what the Pepins should do and includes responses from across the country. This is silliness the whole family will enjoy.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Read by the author. I’m guessing that most of my readers don’t need me to tell them to read Neil Gaiman. That, and this book winning both the Newbery and a Hugo… but there it is. I read it and it was cool and now I feel like writing about it. The tale of Nobody Owens, raised by ghosts in a graveyard after the murder of the rest of his family, is still too dark for me to share with Lightning Bolt. However, Gaiman handled the opening murder scene delicately enough that a slightly older child probably would be ok with it. I liked the way he used characters that experienced fantasy readers would probably recognize without ever using the standard label. For example, Bod’s guardian, Silas, who is neither quite alive nor dead, is seen only by dark, doesn’t eat the same kind of food as Bod, and has unusually strong powers of persuasion. I loved the way the stories of isolated incidents at various points of Bod’s childhood built up stealthily into a plot. I appreciated that Gaiman didn’t settle for the easy resolution to the story. And I was smitten by his narration. I have heard some authors read their books quite badly, others passably. Gaiman ranks up there with some of the best professional narrators I’ve heard. Neil Gaiman rocks. But then, we knew that already.
Shelf Discovery by Lizzie Skurnik Here we have a book of beautifully witty book reports on the books that women my age read in their teen years. Somehow, Skurnik manages both to find depths in books that a) the average teenager probably didn’t notice and b) when old enough to appreciate said depths, one might not see a reason to go back to all those trashy-looking teen paperbacks. And yet, here they are – so many of the books I read as a teen: The Moon by Night and Harriet the Spy, Jacob Have I Loved and Clan of the Cave Bear. There are also chapters devoted to the books that I looked at and never read – the whole realistic teen fiction oeuvre of Judy Blume, the Lois Duncan and V.C. Andrews thrillers. I still don’t read books just to be scared. But still, Skurnik writes so enthusiastically about all of these books that I found myself reading numerous bits aloud. Madeleine L’Engle has a “vision of Christianity that an atheist devotee of the Flying Spaghetti Monster would find it hard to object to.” The sex scenes in this particular V.C. Andrews book are not really steamy enough, but still provide welcome relief between the scenes where the characters hit each other with back story like brickbats. Why has teen literature lost sight of the parents who truly deserve to die? Oh, yes, and some more well-known writers of chick lit contribute some book reports as well – Laura Lippmann, Meg Cabot, and others. But it’s mostly Skurnik, and she is delightful on her own. Go on, now. Get the book. Read a book report. I dare you to stop at just one. Me, I have some teen books to read.
Child of Mine by Ellyn Satter This fabulous book covers feeding children from infancy through preschool. Satter has been counseling families with food issues for nearly 30 years now, and the book is full of references to other studies, so this is an authoritative book. If you’ve found yourself engaging in any of the following behaviors with your child, then this book or its sequel, Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family, would be excellent choices: Making separate meals for your child; bribing your child to eat; avoiding eating out of the house; battling with your child to finish rejected food or to eat less. She sets goals for preschoolers such as being able to try new foods, rejecting foods politely, stopping when they are full, and being able to eat out of the house. Feeding and mealtimes should focus on enjoyment for parents and children and on children learning to eat the food of their family and culture. 
Wildfire by Sarah Micklem Micklem’s first book, -
Join 888 other subscribers
- Follow alibrarymama on WordPress.com
-
Recent Posts
- Unraveling Family Secrets in The Inevitable Undoing of Zahara Douglass by Leslye Penelope
- Cozy Fantasy: The Tea Princess Chronicles by Casey Blair
- 8 Sapphic Graphics for Teens
- Author Interview with Julie Abe on the Magic Library of Waterfall Way
- 4 Fantasy Series Starters for Kids: An Encantadora’s Guide to Monstros & Magic, The Genie Game, The Last Ember, and The Magic Library of Waterfall Way
Archives
Tags
- #OwnVoices
- Adult Nonfiction
- adventure
- African-American
- Armchair Cybils
- Asian-American
- audiobooks
- award winners
- bibliography
- book-review
- book reviews
- books
- contemporary fantasy
- cooking
- Cybils
- diversity
- dragons
- fairy tales
- Fantasy
- fiction
- ghosts
- graphic novels
- historical fantasy
- historical fiction
- humor
- knitting
- Latino/a
- Latinx
- LGBTQ
- Middle Grade
- mr. fp
- multiculturalism
- Mystery
- mythology
- parenting
- picture books
- pirates
- reading
- Romance
- science fiction
- steampunk
- teen
- teen fantasy
- teen fiction
- teen science fiction
- Top Ten Tuesday
- youth fantasy
- youth fiction
- youth graphic novels
- youth science fiction
-
Top Posts
-
© Katy Kramp and alibrarymama.com, 2004-2024. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Katy Kramp and alibrarymama.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
alibrarymama 