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Unraveling Family Secrets in The Inevitable Undoing of Zahara Douglass by Leslye PenelopeSeptember 16, 2026Katy K.-
© 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.
Housekeeping
I just went through the first two and a half years of my blog and added tags. So if you’re looking for a particular kind of book, it should be a little easier.
Stolen Magic
Remember when I wrote about A Kiss of Fate a while back and said it reminded me of a good book? This one is a really good book, and that’s saying a lot considering a premise that seemed pretty silly on the back cover.
Stolen Magic by M.J. Putney. Narrated by Simon Prebble. Simon Falconer (best friend to our hero from the previous book) is the magical law enforcer for the Guardians. When he tries to arrest the Lord Drayton, Drayton turns Simon into a unicorn. It’s a mythical beast even then, but Drayton wants to slay him by ritual magic so that he can take the horn to add to his personal power. Simon escapes, but is recaptured with the unwitting help of the ugly Mad Meggie, Drayton’s ward. They manage to escape again together, somewhat injured. When their blood mixes, Simon turns back into himself. Simon is able to find and release the spells on Meg, which kept her stupid, ugly, and unaware of her great magical power, which Drayton was drawing on to supplement his own meager strength. Naturally, this being a romance, they are powerfully attracted to each other. But Simon is still turning back into a unicorn pretty easily, and only Meg can turn him back – the going theory being it’s because she’s still a virgin. Also, Simon was only able to knot off, not cut, the energy cord tying Meg to Drayton, so she’s still in danger. The rest of the Guardian Council is finding Simon’s story about Drayton unconvincing, leaving him on the loose. He’s plotting shadowy evil things, still trying to get Meg and Simon back, and Meg thinks he has more energy slaves.
While the sexual tension stays high through the book, the plot and the subplot even have just as much. I admit that the references to the sweet purity and innocence of virginity make me a little itchy, especially coupled with “country girls think it’s natural, like the animals.” But the story kept me hooked, especially narrated by Simon Prebble’s slightly rough British accent. The romantic bones are better covered than in the last story, too, making this a good choice for those reading more for the magic than the romance.
Teach Your Own
Teach Your Own by John Holt & Pat Farenga This is the latest edition of one of the great classics of homeschooling, but it has valuable ideas for anyone with children, even if you send them to school. From extensive work with children and schools, Holt challenges the popular idea that children need to do work they don’t like to be educated, and that schools are the only places that know how to teach. Children will retain what they learn best when they explore what they are interested in most, and when they learn things because the knowledge is necessary in their social group – he gives the examples of Gypsy children who learn to play in the family band not by being taught but by being given an instrument and being put on stage with the rest of the family. Teaching to a test rewards those students who forget what they’ve learned only after the test. If you’re short on time and not planning on homeschooling, reading the preface, introduction and the chapter “Living with Children.” This has sections on the nature of children and moving beyond the popular “savages vs. precious innocents” dichotomy; parents tendency to add “okay?” to statements that are not choices; tantrums, and alternatives to gold stars. Other chapters cover reasons to take children out of school, quite good retorts to standard objections to homeschooling, dealing with learning disabilities, and how to begin homeschooling yourself. I’m still not convinced that kids will explore everything they need to know on their own if given guidance, but, sadly, his premise that what schools do best is to take kids’ joy out of learning seems spot-on.
If you are even vaguely concerned about putting your child in school but worried about your ability to teach your children, this is very empowering. If you are an educator yourself, you might also be interested in Holt’s previous two books How Children Learn and Why Children Fail. And, as even parents of regularly schooled children will have to help with homework, parts of this book will be valuable for any parent.
Rain Makes Applesauce
Rain Makes Applesauce by Julian Scheer. Illustrated by M. Bileck. Somehow this book stuck in my head from reading it when I was four or five – but it turns out that it was a Caldecott runner-up in ’64. Marvelously detailed pen-and-ink with watercolor drawings accompany the rhythmic hand-lettered text: “The stars are made of lemon juice” or some other “silly talk” with a repeated chorus of “and rain makes applesauce.” Every so often the response, “Oh you’re just talking silly talk” is thrown in. The big double-spread picture illustrates the silly talk, while a tiny inset on each page follows a boy and girl in the rain planting an apple tree, watching it grow, and finally making the apples into applesauce. “I know I’m talking silly, silly talk, but rain makes applesauce.” It’s as delightful now as it was over forty years ago.
Library Mascot Cage Match
Library Mascot Cage Match: an Unshelved Collection by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
Unshelved is a library comic strip, featuring the librarians of Mallville going about their daily work. My internet librarian likes to post strips at the bottom of our intranet page, but only one every couple of weeks. Now you, too, can get to know Buddy the Beaver who shelves books; Tamara, the idealistic vegetarian children’s librarian, Ned, the nudist libertarian patron, and our hero, Dewey, a 20-something slacker librarian who’d rather be reading comics than helping you. The humor and situations will be very familiar to librarians, but geeks and gamers and, well, anyone with a sense of humor will appreciate it as well. and I were both laughing out loud, and having trouble sharing the book. Even if you can’t find the book, you can still read the whole series online at http://www.unshelved.com/ , and even have the daily strip emailed to you.
The 4-Hour Workweek
I know, I know, another bestseller… this one recommended by my good friend M.
The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss Ferriss undertakes, quite ambitiously, to show how just about anyone can go, as he did, from making $40K a year to making $40K a month, with spending much, much less time working. Everyone I’ve told this to has thought that it’s a joke. It’s not. .Ferriss says that life is too short to spend our best years doing things we hate; that a comfortable retirement is an illusion in this day and age, and that living dreams now costs less than most people think. To get the ball rolling, Ferriss starts with “dreamlines”, breaking dreams down into realistic steps and figuring out how much they would really cost. He walks through making your work 80% more efficient (realizing that 80% of results typically come from 20% of our efforts, so focusing on that productive 20%), making it less stressful, outsourcing and delegating, and how to negotiate a distance working arrangement with your current job. All of these solutions make sense and would make work take less time with more satisfaction for most people with office jobs. Also, it frees up time for the final step. Every chapter includes exercises to get you on your way, starting with confidence-building and moving on to things directly related to the chapter. The most radical middle chunk helps you develop and market a product which will finance your “new rich” life. Once that is in place, you can either continue your traditional job with greatly reduced hours, or have the financial freedom to quit. But Ferriss doesn’t leave you rich and unoccupied. He talks about how to travel – really, live abroad – for less: where it’s safe and affordable, how to do it with children, suggestions for things to learn, how to build a social life once the work social life is taken away, and how to get used to living without feeling a need to run from one thing to the next.
It sounds wonderful. Do I think I can do it myself? Well, I’d have to want to give up my job, which I actually love. But – for my love, and for any number of people I know who either don’t like what they do, would like it much better if it took up much less of their time, or just need to get away, this book has some great ideas. The two key points are having enough chutzpah to try to do it in the first place, and coming up with the idea for your break-through product. Though he offers plenty of coaching for every step, it’s still not going to happen without some serious effort on your part. Try it anyway. Isn’t your life worth it?
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The 4-Hour Workweek
I know, I know, another bestseller… this one recommended by my good friend M.
The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss Ferriss undertakes, quite ambitiously, to show how just about anyone can go, as he did, from making $40K a year to making $40K a month, with spending much, much less time working. Everyone I’ve told this to has thought that it’s a joke. It’s not. .Ferriss says that life is too short to spend our best years doing things we hate; that a comfortable retirement is an illusion in this day and age, and that living dreams now costs less than most people think. To get the ball rolling, Ferriss starts with “dreamlines”, breaking dreams down into realistic steps and figuring out how much they would really cost. He walks through making your work 80% more efficient (realizing that 80% of results typically come from 20% of our efforts, so focusing on that productive 20%), making it less stressful, outsourcing and delegating, and how to negotiate a distance working arrangement with your current job. All of these solutions make sense and would make work take less time with more satisfaction for most people with office jobs. Also, it frees up time for the final step. Every chapter includes exercises to get you on your way, starting with confidence-building and moving on to things directly related to the chapter. The most radical middle chunk helps you develop and market a product which will finance your “new rich” life. Once that is in place, you can either continue your traditional job with greatly reduced hours, or have the financial freedom to quit. But Ferriss doesn’t leave you rich and unoccupied. He talks about how to travel – really, live abroad – for less: where it’s safe and affordable, how to do it with children, suggestions for things to learn, how to build a social life once the work social life is taken away, and how to get used to living without feeling a need to run from one thing to the next.
It sounds wonderful. Do I think I can do it myself? Well, I’d have to want to give up my job, which I actually love. But – for my love, and for any number of people I know who either don’t like what they do, would like it much better if it took up much less of their time, or just need to get away, this book has some great ideas. The two key points are having enough chutzpah to try to do it in the first place, and coming up with the idea for your break-through product. Though he offers plenty of coaching for every step, it’s still not going to happen without some serious effort on your part. Try it anyway. Isn’t your life worth it?
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