Archive | January 2009

Books Read in January, 2009

Jan31

Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins. I had been saving the ARC I received of Secret Keeper for a treat and because I thought that a review closer to the time of publication would be more helpful to readers. In December I succumbed, and read it. (I’m counting it for January because I reviewed it in January, and it was published in January.) Such a powerful story! I so wanted everything to turn out just like the fairy tales, and yet I felt as I read that it couldn’t have beenwritten it any other way. It’s a story that bridges cultures and creates understanding and makes even WASPs like me feel a twinge of identification with the characters and their very human situations.

I Choose To Be Happy: A School Shooting Survivor’s Triumph Over Tragedy by Missy Jenkins with WIlliam Croyle. I received an ARC of this autobiography/memoir of a survivor of the 1997 Paducah, KY school shootings. It was readable, but not classic literature. There’s lots of psycho-babble, a deep and believable faith, and some good ideas on forgiveness.

Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Thomas Flexner. The first president, and the first biography in my American Presidents Project. Next up is David McCullough’s John Adams. Semicolon review of The Indispensable Man.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale. Semicolon review here.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. What fun! 2008 National Book Award FInalist. Cybils Young Adult Fiction FInalist. Frankie Landau-Banks is an intriguing and complicated character, and I enjoyed getting to know her. Semicolon review here.

A Curse Dark As Gold by Elizabeth Bunce. Rumplestiltskin for grown-ups. Pagan witchiness and magical realism. Cybils Fantasy and Science FIction Finalist. Recommended by Miss Erin. Semicolon review here.

The Explosionist by Jenny Davidson. Odd alternative history/science fiction/ghost story/espionage novel. Yeah, all that plus politics, seances, terrorism and murder, with a bit of schoolgirl romance. Cybils Fantasy and Science FIction Finalist. Semicolon review here.

Sweethearts by Sara Zarr. Another Cybils finalist, Brown Bear Daughter and I both thought it was just so-so. Not bad, but a little obsessive in its treatment of childhood friends who experience a traumatic event and then can’t forget one another or move on to other relationships. But the two, a teenage boy and a girl, insist that they are not in love with each other.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Wow! Fascinating, thrilling, and thought-provoking YA dystopian fiction. Semicolon review here.

Prodigals and Those Who Love Them by Ruth Bell Graham. Rather than a book by Mrs. Graham about prodigals, this is a compilation of poems, devotional thoughts, Biblical passages, stories, etc. about prodigals and those who love them. I sort of skimmed through and prayed for my own prodigal.

Home by Marilynne Robinson. Reading this sort-of-sequel to Gilead made me want to go back and re-read that book.

Heaven: Your Real Home by Joni Eareckson Tada. January selection for Semicolon Book Club.

Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher. Good historical fiction set in the Great Depression, with some language and disturbing elements. For older teens and adults. Semicolon review here.

Wake by Lisa McMann. Seventeen year old Janie gets sucked into other people’s dreams. I didn’t like it as much as Jen did.

Schuyler’s Monster by Robert Rummel-Hudson. Semicolon review here.

Paper Towns by John Green. Not my favorite of the three books I’ve read by Mr. Green. I’d suggest An Abundance of Katherines if you want to check out this writer. All three books (Looking for Alaska, Abundance, and this one) are funny, but only in Abundance did I find that I really liked the characters and believed in them.

The Juliet Club by Suzanne Harper. Fluff, teen romance with touches of Shakespeare.

Have You Found Her by Janice Erlbaum. Memoir of a difficult experience in counseling and mentoring a troubled teen. Semicolon review here

Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris. Mystery set in Saudi Arabia with Muslim detectives, a man and a woman, and lots of religious and sexual tension. Not explicit, but definitely culturally enlightening. Semicolon review here.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson. Fascinating stuff. I just finished this one, and the review will be forthcoming.

Holes by Louis Sachar. I just finished this 1999 Newbery Award winner last night. Quirky, weird, and fun are the best adjectives I can think of to describe it. However, be warned that there is some rather nasty violence for such an imaginative and seemingly fantastical story.

Twenty-one books read in January.

Favorite young adult books of the month: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins or The Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins.

Favorite adult fiction book: Home by Marilynne Robinson.

Favorite nonfiction: Have You Found Her by Janice Erlbaum.

Emerging theme for the month: Prodigals, finding lost people, and what to do with them once they’re found. Can anyone really turn another person’s life and path back to God? What can be done to help someone who’s lost other than pray?

It was good month for reading.

Books I Started But Didn’t Finish in January, 2009

Jan30

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta. I made it about 100 pages into this Lord of the Flies goes to an Australian boarding school novel before I finally realized that I couldn’t figure out what was going on nor did I care. The boarding school had adults, but apparently they were all out to lunch except for one named Hannah who disappeared about fifty pages in, and the kids were busily fighting some kind of gang wars but out in the countryside instead of the inner city. I think. It’s a YA Fiction Cybils finalist, and Becky says it’s worth the effort. And it won the Printz Award for Young Adult literature. Maybe it’ll do something for you, but not for me, not this time.

Audrey, Wait by Robin Benway. Another Cybils YA Fiction FInalist.I only made it about three pages into this one. By then I knew that Audrey had decided to break up with her rock star boyfriend, that Audrey and all her friends had foul mouths, and that Audrey and her (ex)boyfriend had been, as they say in polite society, “engaged in sexual activity.” I was fairly sure that before I read too many more pages Audrey was going to tell me all about said activity, and I really, really didn’t want to know. Little Willow recommends this book for “those who enjoyed Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.” Since I hated Nick and Norah, I’m satisfied that my decision to give up on Audrey sooner rather than later was the right one.

Lottery by Patricia Wood. Great premise: Perry, who knows he’s not retarded because his IQ number is 76, one point above the cut-off, wins the lottery and deals with his new-found luck. However, the beginning of the book features Perry’s Gram who uses the Lord’s name and his judgement (g–d—) as a combination punctuation mark/adjective/exclamation in almost every sentence she speaks. It was annoying, and fairly soon, I decided I just didn’t care to hear it anymore.

Europe Central by William T. Vollman. I think I missed something here because to me it read like a bad imitation of a Russian novel. Maybe I just got that impression because the part of the novel is set in Russia and features Lenin and his wife as fictional characters. I think the rest is set in Germany, during World War II. The style and plot are too choppy and unintelligible for me, but the blurb says it’s “a daring and mesmerizing perspective on human actions during wartime.”

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. This year was supposed to be the year that I “discovered” Neil Gaiman, after the rest of the world had already done so. Unfortunately, I tried this book twice. The first time I didn’t get past the first scene in which a teddy bear was murdered. The second time I read about half of the book, and although I can see the attraction, I realized that I was finding it tedious and boring. I’m glad the kid in book, Bod, escaped and found a home in the graveyard, but I didn’t really want to know what happened to him after that. Eventually, we all die and end up in the graveyard anyway. Cybils Fantasy/Science Fiction Finalist. And of course, after I wrote this blurb, it won the Newbery Award. Don’t mind me; you’ll probably love it.

The Cabinet of Wonders by Marie Rutkowski. Fantasy set in an alternate nineteenth century (?) Czechoslovakia with magic. I read about half of this one, too, so I did give it a chance. However, I just couldn’t get very interested. Cybils Fantasy/Science Fiction Finalist.

Foundling by D.M. Cornish. I may return to this fantasy, the first in a series. The second book in the series, Lamplighter, is another Cybils Fantasy/Science Fiction Finalist. Again, I couldn’t get interested after reading about 100 pages.

Heaven by Randy Alcorn. I will finish this one, but I found it to be a book to be savored in small bites rather than devoured whole.

I started and quit more books this month than I ever have before. Maybe I’m getting older and more discriminating, or picky, or even judgmental, if I want to get pejorative in my terminology and criticize myself for giving up.

“If you still don’t like a book after slogging through the first 50 pages, set it aside. If you’re more than 50 years old, subtract your age from 100 and only grant it that many pages.” —Nancy Pearl

I am over 50 now, so according to Ms. Pearl, I’m allowed.

7 Quick Takes Friday

Jan30

1

The Guardian has a list of Ten of the Best Butlers in Literature, and it doesn’t include Jeeves. Is that because he’s a valet, not a butler? According to Wikipedia:

Jeeves is a valet, not a butler. However, Bertie Wooster has lent out Jeeves as a butler on several occasions, and notes that “if the call comes, he can buttle with the best of them”.

2

the-james-challenge1
I saw this idea at Beyond Homemaking’s Seven Quick Takes, and it looks like such a great mind-sharpener and spiritual boost. Only two problems: I already have 12 (huge) projects for the year, and If I do this memorization project, I want to memorize something else, not James. Maybe Philippians, as Sara mentions in her post.

3

Speaking of projects, Friday Quick Takes would be a good time to check in on my projects and update you and myself on how I’m doing.
Bible Reading Project: I have been reading II Samuel 1-8 all month, but not every day. I’ve decided that I don’t like David very much right now. His sons turned out rotten, and I don’t need that kind of discouraging example in my life right now.
February: I Thessalonians. Maybe I should take it as my memorization project.

4

For my Newbery Project, I was trying to read the Newbery winners and honor books in order from 1923 when the award was first given until now. I haven’t picked up on that yet, but I am reading Holes by Louis Sachar, the winner of the 1999 Newbery Medal. So far, I can say it’s fantastically weird, but I think I kind of like it.

5

For Operation Clean House I was supposed to clean out the dressing area and closet in January. I got the dressing area, but the closet is untouched. Maybe this afternoon and tomorrow.

6

LOSTBooksbutton
For my LOST Reading Project, I signed up for the LOST Books Challenge and chose some books to read. Now I just need to get reading.

7

For my US Presidents Reading Project, I read Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Thomas Flexner (Semicolon review here). In February, I’m going to start on John Adams by David McCullough, which happens to be the Semicolon Book Club selection for March.
US Presidents Reading Project home page.

Thanks for dropping by. See you next week for more project updates and random book and homeschool thoughts. Right now, I’ve got to get on that closet.

Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris

Jan29

Finding Nouf is one of ten winners of the 2009 Alex Awards for “adult books that will appeal to teen readers.” I read it a week or two ago before the award list came out, and I must say that I was impressed, although I didn’t think of it as an adult book or a young adult book. It’s shelved with the adult mysteries in my library.

Finding Nouf, although written in a genre, detective stories, that’s know for its plot-driven novels, is all about setting first, and then characterization. The plot is serviceable, but not what kept me reading. In fact, I had to look back at the book just now to remind myself whodunnit. The story is set in Saudi Arabia, where a Palestinian orphan, Nayir, and a young professional, Katya Hijazi, team up to solve the disappearance and murder of a rich Saudi sixteen year old, Nouf. Nouf happens to be the sister of Miss Hijazi’s fiance and Nayir’s friend, Othman Shrawi. And even though Nayir is uncomfortable with the mere presence of Katya Hijazi, a single woman, in the same room with men, and sometimes unveiled, he realizes that the tow of them need to work together if they are going to navigate the rules, written and unwritten, of Saudi culture and society and find out what really happened to Nouf.

The relationships of men and women in such a legalistic, religion-drenched society are complicated and awkward. Modernity is an influence, as is tradition, and both fight against the exigencies of just getting things done, like a murder investigation or even a simple meal. It was fascinating to read about how naive and ignorant Nayir was in the area of relating to women, and yet I wondered if men in our “open and free” American society understand women any better than Nayir does.

Zoe Ferraris, by the way, lived in Saudi Arabia with her Saudi-Palestinian husband just after the first Gulf War, although she is now divorced and lives in San Francisco.

LA TImes article about the book: “Now there is “Finding Nouf,” the fictional outcome of San Franciscan Zoë Ferraris’ habitation in Saudi Arabia for several years after the first Gulf War. Even if that information had been left off the jacket flap, it would be readily apparent; only a writer with experience both as a part of and apart from Saudi culture could have crafted such a novel.”

At Talifoon by Zoe Ferraris (a short, but revealing, article about Ms. Ferraris’s life in Saudi Arabia): “Just after the first Gulf War, I moved to Jeddah with my husband. I didn’t realize at the time that I hadn’t married Essam, I had married his mother and the women of his family. The minute I arrived, they became my world.”

An interview with Zoe Ferraris: “The biggest revelation I had in Saudi Arabia was learning that men were just as frustrated by gender segregation as women were. My ex-husband’s best friend tried for years to find a wife. It surprised me to realize something that should have been obvious: if you’re not allowed to speak to the opposite sex, how do you meet a mate?”

I found this book on the recommendation of Sam Sattler at Book Chase. Thanks, Sam.

LOST Rehash: Jughead

Jan29

First, you should read J. Wood on last week’s double episode.

For four seasons we’ve watched the narrative jump from the island time to flashbacks and flashforwards, and we’ve had to piece together events in order to make sense of the storyline and locate ourselves in relation to that storyline. This is just what the island characters are forced to do now; piece together out-of-order events to make sense of them, and locate themselves in relation to those events. In this way, the experiences of the watchers and the watched converge through the narrative.”

Yeah, and then some. The whole time travel thing is messing with my mind. Computer Guru Son said something that helped: each character is on his on timeline/road, and when those timelines intersect may be one time for one character and another for someone else. For instance, Locke meets WIdmore in 2007 (?three years after the crash) when Locke is time-travelling back to the past. But Widmore should remember, in 2007, meeting Locke and Faraday and Sawyer and Juliette on the island when WIdmore was just a youth. (I still don’t understand why Desmond forgets, until his nightmare, that he already met Faraday.) Locke remembers all the times he has met Richard Alpert, as a boy in California, on the island, but in the 1954(?) time travel event, Alpert had not yet met Locke. In fact, Locke wasn’t even born yet. It’s still very confusing for me, and it helps to write it out like that. I am sometimes a bear of very little brain.

In his piece on last week’s episodes, Mr. Wood also talks about what he calls, after another author, Paul RIcoeur, “cosmological time (time that’s measured; minutes, hours, days) and phenomenological time (time as experienced; past, present, future).” I’m assuming that these terms are the same as Madeleine L’Engle’s chronos and kairos. L’Engle defines chronos as ordinary clock time and kairos as God’s time, in which notions of past and present are irrelevant. In kairos it is possible to arrive at a place and time in a sort of circular route before you ever left it. I wonder if Jack and the rest of the Oceanic Six will return to the island in 2007 or before they left in 2004, perhaps taking advantage of what Wood calls a wormhole or what L’Engle names her book, a wrinkle in time.

Oh, and did you notice that Faraday’s abandoned girlfriend is “unstuck in time”, too? And we still don’t know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. Is Widmore an evil exploiter, or is he the benefactor of a sick and helpless victim of Faraday’s dangerous experiments? Or both? If Ben is fighting Widmore, is he a good guy? Who is Abadon and for whom is he working? Is Faraday bad because he abandoned the girl in the bed (Theresa Spencer), or is he good because he’s trying to save the island and Charlotte? But can Faraday be good if he’s working for Widmore?

Awwww, Penny and Desmond have a baby! And Penny’s loyal to the end, even when it looks as if Desmond is headed back to the Island. Can Penny go there, even if she wants to? And they named the baby Charlie. Awwww.

No books or literary references in tonight’s episode that I caught, but next week’s episode is called The Little Prince.

“Men occupy very little space on Earth. If the two billion inhabitants of the globe were to stand close together, as they might for some public event, they would easily fit into a city block that was twenty miles long and twenty miles wide. You could crowd all humanity onto the smallest Pacific islet.
Grown-ups, of course, won’t believe you.”
Le petit prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry first published The Little Prince in 1943, only a year before his Lockheed P-38 vanished over the Mediterranean during a reconnaissance mission.

Go to the LOST Books Challenge blog to leave a link to your thoughts on this episode of LOST.

Have You Found Her by Janice Erlbaum

Jan28

“While all of the incidents in Have You Found Her are true, certain dialogue has been reconstructed, and some of the names and personal characteristics of the individuals involved have been changed. Any resulting resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.”

So, Have You Found Her is Janice Erlbaum’s memoir of volunteering at the homeless shelter where she was once an inmate or a client or whatever it’s called these days. And while at the shelter, Janice meets Samantha, a troubled homeless junkie with a charismatic personality and surprising talents that amaze Janice and the rest of the therapeutic community that builds itself around Samantha to try to help her overcome her horrible past of abuse and addiction.

The story continues as Sam travels through treatment center, hospital, psych ward, hospital again, halfway house, and detox getting ever sicker even as she tries to kick her addiction and regain her health. Janice becomes more and more committed to her unofficial ward and makes promises: “I am going to be in your life from now on.” “You can call me anytime.” “One year sober, and I’ll take you to Disneyland.” And finally, because Sam’s family is completely dysfunctional and unavailable, “I’ll be your legal guardian if you’ll sign the papers.”

At that point the story takes an unexpected turn, and as an empathetic reader, I was confronted with some very difficult questions. How far does commitment take you? If you love someone, is it forever? Really? What if the person you love rejects your love? What if he or she isn’t the same person you thought she was? What if the person you committed to love is much sicker than you thought? What if you don’t know how to love someone without enabling the very behaviors that are making her ill?

I thought this story was fascinating and disturbing. And if you’ve ever met or known someone like Sam, someone who preys on the co-dependency of people who need to give, you’ll find it a gripping memoir of “one woman’s quest to save a girl’s life—and the hard truths she learns about herself along the way.”

I really want to say something more about this book, but this last part enters into spoiler territory. So if you haven’t read the book and you intend to do so, stop reading now. I knew how this story would end about halfway through the book, or maybe even sooner. I think that’s because a) the author foreshadows the ending in some of her statements about Samantha early in the book and b) I’ve lived with a compulsive liar. No Munchausen’s syndrome, but definitely I know what it is like to deal with someone who tells stories to dramatize and enlarge themselves and to gain attention. It is tempting to think that if we just hang on hard enough and love strongly enough, we can “fix” someone else, that my love is the key to another person’s recovery and health. But it’s not true. I can pray, and I believe that God uses those prayers somehow to reach into the life of the one I’m praying for. But only God through Christ and the person himself in cooperation can change a person who is mentally ill and/or spiritually emaciated.

I needed to remind myself of that tonight, and thanks to reading this book and writing this review, I just did.

Economic Stimulus: Throw That Money

Jan28

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: “We won the election. We wrote the bill.” “We” is Democrats, and boy, have they written a bill! We’re going to be paying the bill for a long, long time (825 billion dollars in the House version). Money does not grow on trees, nor can it be magicked up out of thin air. But remember that all this spending/borrowing from the future is supposed to create jobs and stimulate the economy:

Amtrak $1 billion (I thought Amtrak went out of business ten years ago!)

Child care subsidies $2 billion (Do I get some of this money since I care for my children. Bet not.)

National Endowment for the Arts $50 million

Global warming research $400 million (Haven’t we researched this to death? And isn’t the politically correct term “climate change” since we’re not sure anymore whether we’re warming or cooling?)

Carbon-capture demonstration projects $2.4 billion (Carbon-who, and why am I paying for it?)

More digital TV conversion coupons $650 million (Why, oh why, am I paying for you to get a TV converter box? And where are the jobs? Jobs for TV converter box manufacturers?)

Renewable energy funding $8 billion (If it’s not profitable now, it won’t be profitable after they’ve gone through the eight billion dollars.)

Mass transit $6 billion (“If you build it, they will come” has not proven to be true in the past. Why should it start to be true now?)

Modernizing Federal buildings $7 billion (The jobs will only last until the money runs out.)

And it’s not going to create jobs or keep you from losing yours.
Heritage Foundation: “It is worth remembering that the New Deal of the 1930s substantially and permanently increased the scope of the federal government as Congress and the President attempted to spend their way out of the Depression. After the stock market collapse in 1929, the Hoover Administration increased federal spending by 47 percent over the following three years. As a result, federal spending increased from 3.4 percent of GDP in 1930 to 6.9 percent in 1932 and reached 9.8 percent by 1940. That same year– 10 years into the Great Depression–America’s unemployment rate stood at 14.6 percent.”

Read more at
Wall Street Journal: A 40-Year WIsh List

US News and World Report: 10 Reasons to Whack Obama’s Stimulus Plan

Heritage Foundation: Infrastructure Spending Won’t Boost the Economy

I don’t usually write about politics and economics because I don’t know enough about economics in particular to argue intelligently. However, this disaster is obvious to even my limited knowledge of economics: if you’re broke, you can’t spend your way out of debt. And if you keep spending, the piper must eventually be paid —with interest.

Homeschool Ideas: Spice and Sauce

Jan27

I’m collecting ideas that I want to try to spice up our homeschooling. Cause I’m turning into a boring, grouchy mom-taxi.

The Copy Can from Robin’s Egg Blue. A coffee can full of ideas for copywork sounds like a fun way to practice handwriting.

Think! A Program Designed to Encourage Kids to Think Outside of the Box is a blog where the owner posts a weekly project to encourage kids to think. For instance this week’s idea is: “Place a deck (or more) of cards on the table. Tell your student to build a city. No other instructions.”

The blog Handbook of Nature Study provides a weekly nature study challenge or project. I’d like to see us participate in these projects, too.

Mom’s Marbles has “new ideas every day . . . so mom won’t lose her marbles.” I like this one, too, although it seems more geared toward preschoolers, and I have no more preschoolers anymore. (Boo-hoo!)

I’m going to try to have us participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count, February 13-16, 2009.

Melissa Wiley describes her Parts of Speech car game.

My kids enjoy card games: Set, Alligator, War, and others. Maybe we should play a few more of those.

Do you have any great ideas to spice up my homeschool while we’re all in the doldrums of January (soon February)?

Printz Report (Also Late)

Jan27

Now I know I’m a curmudgeon, or there’s something missing in my critical analysis faculty, or something. Again I am in complete disagreement with both the Printz committee and the Cybils panelists, and I don’t understand what it is that I don’t get.

The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. It is named for a Topeka, Kansas school librarian who was a long-time active member of the Young Adult Library Services Association. The award is sponsored by Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association. The winner of the 2009 Michael Printz Award: Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.

I read this book. Well, again, I read half of it. Brown Bear Daughter read a few chapters. We (independently) came to the same conclusion: HUH?

We didn’t understand what was going on, whether the teens in the book were supposed to be for real or not, why they were marking out territory and having what seemed like gang wars, and where all the adults were. My unmediated reaction before I found out about the Printz: “I made it about 100 pages into this Lord of the Flies goes to an Australian boarding school novel before I finally realized that I couldn’t figure out what was going on nor did I care. The boarding school had adults, but apparently they were all out to lunch except for one named Hannah who disappeared about fifty pages in, and the kids were busily fighting some kind of gang wars but out in the countryside instead of the inner city.”

As for honor books, I really liked The Disreputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks by E. Lockhart. Semicolon review here. (Can I redeem my tarnished credentials with that one?)

The other honor books I haven’t read:
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II, The Kingdom on the Waves, by M.T. Anderson, published by Candlewick Press.
Nation, by Terry Pratchett, published by HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers.
Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan, published by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Dare I try them? And Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games didn’t win anything? What a disappointment.

Newbery Newsflash (Late)

Jan27

As most of the kidlit world already knows, Neil Gaiman’s novel The Graveyard Book won the Newbery Award, announced yesterday. Who am I to disagree with both the Newbery committee and the Cybils panelists? I will only say that I started it once and made it through the first two pages, determined to give it another try and made it about halfway through, and then gave up. Not that it was difficult or “too dark” or even uninteresting exactly. I just didn’t care what happened to Bod or to his already dead guardians and substitute parents. If I’d known it was going to win the Newbery, I would have forced myself to finish.

Newbery Honor Books:

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, illustrated by David Small (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing) Yes! This book is the one I thought should get the Newbery. I didn’t lose interest in it ever, and I didn’t have to force myself to continue reading it. Also the two guinea pigs that I tried it out on (Brown Bear Daughter and Bee-girl) liked it, too.

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom by Margarita Engle (Henry Holt & Company) It sounds like the token “literary” pick, but maybe it’s great. I haven’t read it.

Savvy by Ingrid Law (Dial Books for Young Readers, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group in partnership with Walden Media, LLC. Read it. I thought it was fun, but not a classic.

After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Books for Young Readers) I haven’t read this one either.

I think I’m a curmudgeon. This year is supposed to be the year that I “discover” Neil Gaiman. But I’m going to discover some other book that’s not set in a graveyard.