To be honest, I could make time to do a better book log than this, but the weather is absolutely beautiful and I'd much rather be doing anything other than sitting at my computer writing. This last month has been full of fun adventures (visiting family, white water canoeing, two out-of-town weddings) and many exciting projects (fixing and painting furniture, cooking new foods, gardening, harvesting, and preserving the produce, and of course knitting). This month has also brought its share of misfortune, and I'm only now getting over the worst case of poison ivy that I've had in a couple years.
All that said, I'm not going to write full reviews for the books I read this month. I'll just list the books with a few comments, and if any of you are curious to know more about the books, just ask me and I'll be happy to go into more detail.
The Mysterious Benedict Society
by Trenton Lee Stewart
I stumbled across this book on the Indiana Digital Media site, a website that is affiliated with several Indiana libraries and allows library patrons to check out and download audio books for free. I've become a big fan of this site, largely because I can peruse the titles at my convenience, read online reviews before I check it out, and not worry about Annie's yells disturbing other library patrons.
Anyway, this book is excellent. It reminds me a little of The Westing Game
, in that it is a mystery involving some very vivid and disparate characters. I also thought of The View from Saturday
, since it is about a group of four highly intelligent yet differently gifted pre-adolescent children. And it even reminded me, just a little, of The Blood-and-Thunder Adventure on Hurricane Peak, with its wheelchair-bound villain and its outlandish setting. Having compared it to those fantastic classics of children's literature (and if you haven't read any of those, I recommend them all), you know this book is in good company. In fact, it is my firm opinion that this book deserves a Newberry Award, even though it is too late, since it was published in 2008. To say more might take away some of your delight in reading it, so let me just say that this is the best new children's book that I've read this year.
Overall rating: 5/5 stars
Belle
by Cameron Dokey
Last month I wrote about how much I love the retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley, Beauty
. After I re-read that, I ran across another version and thought I'd see how another author treated my favorite fairy tale. Let's just say I wasn't impressed. I know that part of the reason I disliked it was the poor quality binding (I felt like I was reading a dime-store romance, even though the words themselves were chaste enough). Binding aside, however, I genuinely felt apathy for the storytelling. It felt like the author was trying to flesh out the original story by adding lots of details and dialogue, yet she never found an authentic voice with which to tell her story. Belle and her sisters, for example, sound like modern day high schoolers acting in a poorly-scripted play. The beast, similarly, has little gravitas or appeal which would motivate Belle to leave her father and mother and cleave to him. It left me feeling as empty as a made-for-tv tween romance. If I were you, I wouldn't waste any time reading this book.
Overall rating: 2.5/5 stars
The Phantom Tollbooth
by Norton Juster
This is one of my favorite books from childhood that I re-read this month. Collin had never read The Phantom Tollbooth, so we read it together on our road trip to Wisconsin. Reading it with the eyes of an adult, I still appreciated its wit and cleverness, but was dismayed at the worldview it propounds. Basically, this is like Pilgrim's Progress
for humanists. It lines up perfectly with the religion of this age, with education and enlightenment being the answer to all our problems. There is quite a bit of good mixed in it, as it teaches us to keenly observe the world with fresh eyes, to learn all we can from what we observe, to exercise our brains, and to beware of vices like jumping to conclusions and wasting time. It is excellently written, and has superb line illustrations throughout. Just be careful to use that awakened brain of yours and read this book with discernment.
Overall rating: 4/5 stars
Overall rating: 5/5 stars
Here is another childhood book that I re-read as an adult. It is, of course, the story of a young English boy named Omri and his adventures with a magical cupboard which can bring plastic figures to life. Many reviews criticize this book for being "racist" or at best insensitive and inaccurate in their portrayal of Little Brave, the American Indian figurine. I didn't find Little Brave to be the offspring of a racist imagination any more than their portrayal of the American cowboy as a stupid, foul-mouthed crybaby was prejudiced against Caucasian Americans. Rather, all the characters (and caricatures) which emerged from the magical cupboard seemed to me ones which would naturally flow from the imagination of a little British boy in the 1980s who has learned his American history solely from watching western movies. It says more about the myth of cowboys and Indians than about their actual culture and history. As a book, it's somewhat imaginative and interesting, but nothing too out of the ordinary.
Collin and I read this together in several marathon sessions, since once we started we were hooked. I'd read it before, and seen the play as well, but it was Collin's first time and I was so excited to see what he thought about the conclusion almost as if it were my first time reading it.
This is Agatha Christie's most famous and popular mystery. In fact, according to "Publications International" And Then There Were None
is the 7th best-selling book of all time. It is truly one of the best-crafted puzzle-type mysteries ever written, with an ingenious if unlikely plot. What it does lack is character development beyond the stereotypes and, especially, a good moral. In the end you can feel clever if you solved the mystery, be satisfied with a brilliant conclusion, and yet still feel empty because that solution lacks a sufficient statement of truth. It is right in pointing out that the law cannot and does not prosecute many instances of murder, moral or actual, but barely touches the reasons why it is wrong to play God and take the execution of justice into one's own hands.
By the way, the 1945 film version of this book (with the alternate ending written by Agatha Christie for the original stage production) is now in the public domain and available for online viewing, both legally and free. We haven't finished it yet, but so far it's been a very fun movie.
All that said, I'm not going to write full reviews for the books I read this month. I'll just list the books with a few comments, and if any of you are curious to know more about the books, just ask me and I'll be happy to go into more detail.
The Mysterious Benedict Society
by Trenton Lee Stewart
I stumbled across this book on the Indiana Digital Media site, a website that is affiliated with several Indiana libraries and allows library patrons to check out and download audio books for free. I've become a big fan of this site, largely because I can peruse the titles at my convenience, read online reviews before I check it out, and not worry about Annie's yells disturbing other library patrons.
Anyway, this book is excellent. It reminds me a little of The Westing Game
, in that it is a mystery involving some very vivid and disparate characters. I also thought of The View from Saturday, since it is about a group of four highly intelligent yet differently gifted pre-adolescent children. And it even reminded me, just a little, of The Blood-and-Thunder Adventure on Hurricane Peak, with its wheelchair-bound villain and its outlandish setting. Having compared it to those fantastic classics of children's literature (and if you haven't read any of those, I recommend them all), you know this book is in good company. In fact, it is my firm opinion that this book deserves a Newberry Award, even though it is too late, since it was published in 2008. To say more might take away some of your delight in reading it, so let me just say that this is the best new children's book that I've read this year.Overall rating: 5/5 stars
Belle
by Cameron Dokey
. After I re-read that, I ran across another version and thought I'd see how another author treated my favorite fairy tale. Let's just say I wasn't impressed. I know that part of the reason I disliked it was the poor quality binding (I felt like I was reading a dime-store romance, even though the words themselves were chaste enough). Binding aside, however, I genuinely felt apathy for the storytelling. It felt like the author was trying to flesh out the original story by adding lots of details and dialogue, yet she never found an authentic voice with which to tell her story. Belle and her sisters, for example, sound like modern day high schoolers acting in a poorly-scripted play. The beast, similarly, has little gravitas or appeal which would motivate Belle to leave her father and mother and cleave to him. It left me feeling as empty as a made-for-tv tween romance. If I were you, I wouldn't waste any time reading this book.Overall rating: 2.5/5 stars
The Phantom Tollbooth
by Norton Juster
This is one of my favorite books from childhood that I re-read this month. Collin had never read The Phantom Tollbooth, so we read it together on our road trip to Wisconsin. Reading it with the eyes of an adult, I still appreciated its wit and cleverness, but was dismayed at the worldview it propounds. Basically, this is like Pilgrim's Progress
for humanists. It lines up perfectly with the religion of this age, with education and enlightenment being the answer to all our problems. There is quite a bit of good mixed in it, as it teaches us to keenly observe the world with fresh eyes, to learn all we can from what we observe, to exercise our brains, and to beware of vices like jumping to conclusions and wasting time. It is excellently written, and has superb line illustrations throughout. Just be careful to use that awakened brain of yours and read this book with discernment.Overall rating: 4/5 stars
by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
You know how sometimes you'll get a book recommendation from someone you trust, yet you put it off for a long time only to discover that it is one of the best books you've ever read and wonder why you didn't read it sooner? This was that book for me. Mom suggested that I try it about a year and a half ago, but I only got around to it this month. And it was fantastic! This was one of the best written contemporary books I've even read, and definitely the best since I read The Help
in January.
in January.The book is a (fictional) collection of letters written back and forth between a young author, the members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and a few other friends. Primarily it is the story of how residents of the British channel island of Guernsey survived the Nazi occupation in WWII, and specifically how books helped them get through it. It's a fascinating, heartwrending, and sweet book, with a delightful collection of characters. Even the nasty correspondents write in such a way as to make the reader smile.
Overall rating: 5/5 stars
by Lynn Reid Banks
Here is another childhood book that I re-read as an adult. It is, of course, the story of a young English boy named Omri and his adventures with a magical cupboard which can bring plastic figures to life. Many reviews criticize this book for being "racist" or at best insensitive and inaccurate in their portrayal of Little Brave, the American Indian figurine. I didn't find Little Brave to be the offspring of a racist imagination any more than their portrayal of the American cowboy as a stupid, foul-mouthed crybaby was prejudiced against Caucasian Americans. Rather, all the characters (and caricatures) which emerged from the magical cupboard seemed to me ones which would naturally flow from the imagination of a little British boy in the 1980s who has learned his American history solely from watching western movies. It says more about the myth of cowboys and Indians than about their actual culture and history. As a book, it's somewhat imaginative and interesting, but nothing too out of the ordinary.Overall rating: 3/5
by Agatha Christie
Collin and I read this together in several marathon sessions, since once we started we were hooked. I'd read it before, and seen the play as well, but it was Collin's first time and I was so excited to see what he thought about the conclusion almost as if it were my first time reading it.
This is Agatha Christie's most famous and popular mystery. In fact, according to "Publications International" And Then There Were None
is the 7th best-selling book of all time. It is truly one of the best-crafted puzzle-type mysteries ever written, with an ingenious if unlikely plot. What it does lack is character development beyond the stereotypes and, especially, a good moral. In the end you can feel clever if you solved the mystery, be satisfied with a brilliant conclusion, and yet still feel empty because that solution lacks a sufficient statement of truth. It is right in pointing out that the law cannot and does not prosecute many instances of murder, moral or actual, but barely touches the reasons why it is wrong to play God and take the execution of justice into one's own hands.By the way, the 1945 film version of this book (with the alternate ending written by Agatha Christie for the original stage production) is now in the public domain and available for online viewing, both legally and free. We haven't finished it yet, but so far it's been a very fun movie.
Overall rating: 4.5/5
1 comments:
Mrs. Glass said...
I have always loved the Phantom Tollbooth! :) Thanks for the reviews! I'll definitely be adding the Guernsey Literary book to my list.