Home to Me - Lee Bennett Hopkins

POETRY
Poems Across America
Illustrator: Stephen Alcorn
For: Anyone (but written for kids)
Published:2002
Rating: 4/5
Endpapers: 12 illustrations (different ones on front and back) taken from the illustrations within the book.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIAN AND ELLA. I have five birthdays in the year that are of the utmost importance to me, and TWO fall on the same day, this day. So I've been looking through my poetry collection this morning for a good poem. I decided NOT on a birthday poem, but on one that reminds me of my family. This book is a short anthology of "place" poems. Included is one called "Rez Road" by Joseph Bruchac that would be a great accompaniement to The True Diary of a Part-time Indian (Alexie, just reviewed). Also included is a favorite, "My Desert Home" by Lillian M. Fisher. But the one that's speaking to me today is:

ON MY ISLAND
by Patricia Hubbell

I watch sleek seals on wave-wet rocks,
rowboats bobbing at weathered docks.

I hear the buoy's lonely bell,
I touch a chalky oyster shell.

All about me, pines grow tall.
All about me, seagulls call.

I dream of sunken ships, dim caves,
mermaids floating on sunlit waves,

then wake to silver everywhere --
fog drifting through my island air.

I long, sometimes, to go away,
and other times, just want to stay

on my island far at sea,
this island -- home to me.

September in Maine. Crisp autumn air. The greeness beginning to be touched by reds and yellows. Indian summer days...the best. Happy birthday, Brian. Happy Birthday, Ella.

Sweet Life - Catie Curtis

Released Sept. 2008
Compass Records

Mmmmm, love Catie Curtis. Love her voice, love her lyrics. She's written most of the songs on this album herself. Really upbeat, from the the singable refrain of "Happy, to the honky tonk sound of "Lovely" to the wonderful "The Princess and the Mermaid", which is a celebration of relationships and family.

I can remember sitting in my dorm room at Barnard, a zillion summers ago (well, maybe 10 or 12), listening over and over to "Grandmother's Name", which is on her "From Years to Hours" album. (I've got my grandmother's name but she don't remember who I am.)

Catie writes in the liner notes for this latest album, "When I was 15 years old and living in Saco, Maine, I wanted to play guitar but didn't have one. Lynne Ramsdell, stage manager at a local theater, gave me an old Yamaha saying, 'You can have this if you promise me you'll learn to play it.' She left Saco shortly after that and I never got the chance to thank her for changing my life. I'd like to thank her now." I've listened to Catie Curtis for years and years, and never realized that she's a Mainer. And now I can totally SEE "River Winding", another of my very favorites, from her "Catie Curtis" album. (River winding, throught this milltown, my hometown is dark by four.......through the darkness, sometimes cursed and sometimes blessed.)

A great songwriter with a beautiful voice, I'd sure love to see her perform live someday.

49. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie

Illustrator: Ellen Forney
For: Young Adults
Published: 2007
National Book Award
230 pgs.
Rating: 5/5
Finished Sept. 22, 2008

The first time I ever heard of Sherman Alexie was when I traveled cross-country in 2002 and stopped in a cool little bookshop on the southwestern coast of Washington, just before hitting Oregon. I'll have to try to figure out where that was. I purchased a really cool Alaskan painting in that little town. That's where I picked up Alexie's The Toughest Indian in the World, and I'd never heard of him before. In May, at the BEA convention, I heard him speak. I am now a fan.

This is Sherman Alexie's first YA book, and it's a doozy. It's autobiographical, seriously funny and incredibly sad. 14-year old Arnold "Junior" Spirit, born and raised on the Spokane Indian Reservation, just outside Spokane, Washington, decides to leave the rez school and attend the all-white school over 20 miles away in Reardan. He loves to read and he's very smart, and he knows this will be the only way to make something of himself. He becomes ostracized by the entire tribe other than his immediate family. However, he perserveres, transforming from the geeky Indian kid that everyone ignores to a well-liked basketball hero and smart student. During this year, many of the people he loves and admires die...his father's best friend, Eugene, who is always good to him, his grandmother, the smartest, kindest person he's ever know, and his older sister, who hid out in the basement of their house for years until she fled to Montana to get married and live in a trailer that looked like a TV dinner. His best friend, Rowdy, totally abandons him, his father is frequently drunk, he has little to eat and sometimes no way to get to school other than walk.

Junior is a budding cartoonist, and Ellen Forney's cartoons throughouot the book compliment the text well.

There are probably a hundred or more quotes that really hit me in this book. "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." "I wish I were magical, but I am really just a poor-ass reservation kid living with his poor-ass family on the poor-ass Spokane Indian Reservaton." "Like the coffin was settling down for a long, long nap, for a forever nap." And "Gordy gave me this book by a Russian dude named Tolstoy, who wrote: 'Happy famiies are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Well, I hate to argue with a Russian genius, but Tolstoy didn't know Indians. And he didn't know that all Indian families are unhappy for the same exact reasons: the fricking booze. Yep, so let me pour a drink for Tolstoy and let him think hard about the true definition of unhappy families."

Sherman Alexie is now an extremely successful author, husband, and father of two. A success story. Big lump in the throat. Real big lump. Real.

Impressive.

A Kitten Tale - Eric Rohmann

For: Very young kids
Published: 2008
Rating: 4,5/5
Read: September 13, 2008
Endpapers: Happy yellow
THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING!!

If I were not reading picture books that have gotten starred reviews, anticipating the Caldecott Award in January, I would never have picked this book up. It was a pleasant surprise, but I guess it shouldn't have been.

Simple, simple, simple -- but wonderful. Three of four kittens were dreading the arrival of snow - afraid of the unknown. But the fourth kitten could't wait. Through summer rains and falling autumn leaves they wait, three dreading, one anticipating. And then, one winter morning, they awaken to snow.....and we see a wonderful, two-page wordless illustration of three of the kittens, paws to the window glass, watching the snow come down. I'd love to frame that illustration. They go outside to join the already frolicking fourth kitten, finding their months of dread have been for no reason at all.

Thick black-lined framed illustrations, with the major items outlined in the same black, the color is added using watercolors.

Simple repetition. Simple story. Simple paintings. Simply lovely.

My Adult Book Group

The first time we gathered was in September, 2003, and strong friendships have been made and/or strengthened. I look forward to the second Monday of the month wtih great anticipation. We met last Monday at Connie's (my wonderful friend-whose-roots-are-also-in-Maine, yeeha) and came up with our list for this year:

10/20/08: When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris
11/10/08: Little Brother, Cory Doctorow
12/1/08: any Sherman Alexie title
1/12/09: Snow, Orhan Pamuk
2/9/09: People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
3/9/09: Maus I & II, Art Spigelman (or chose your won graphic novel)
4/6/09: any John McPhee title
5/11/09: Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortensen & David Oliver Relin

Only a few non-fictions, I breathe a sigh of relief and look forward to these monthly meetings. We should really come out with a name for ourselves.

Promised Land - Dar Williams

Released Sept. 2008
Razor & Tie

I can vividly remember the first time I heard Dar Williams. Steve and I were in Portland on a Sunday, and we went into Borders to the music department. I'm not sure we even had a Borders in Bangor yet. I put the bulky earphones on and listened to some of the sample tracks on "The Honesy Room". "Alleluia" blew me away. It's still one of my favorite songs by any artist.I bought the cd, even though we couldn't really afford such frivolities as music we weren't even sure we would like. Seems like a century ago.

I now own all Dar William's cds, have seen her perform (in Petersborough, NH, another vivid memory), and am so enjoying this newest release, her first studio album in three years or so. Each song in the liner notes is on a two-page spread that is illustrated by interesting contemporary artwork.

Every song that Dar sings makes me think. I really like "Troubled Times:" Maybe one day soon/It will all come out/How you dream about each other sometimes/With the memory of/How you once gave up/But you made it though the troubled times.
And Buzzer ... I'd love to know the story behind this song.

It's exciting to have some new Dar songs to learn, to hum, to sing, and to enjoy.

A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever - Marla Frazee

For: Kids-Not TOO young
Published: 2008
Rating: 5/5
Read: Sept. 13, 2008
Endpapers: Photographs of the two boys at camp all week
2009 Caldecott Honor ! ! !

Friends James and Eamon spend a week of their summer vacation with Eamon's very cool (in my opinion) grandparents, Bill and Pam. Each day Bill drives them to a nature day camp. Throughout the week they play, create, pretend, build, learn, enjoy the grandparents, and listen to Bill's yearning to go to Antarctica. There's a great ending to the story, too. The boys have seemingly been ignorning Bill's hints about Antarctica, but as a surprise for him, on the last night they build a recreation of Antarctica for him to enjoy.

The best illustration in the book - the boys, laying across sleeping bags on huge air mattresses, completely surrounded by stuffed animals and toys. I'd love to have this on my wall. It just makes you grin. But the cover...well...I think it looks too comic-booky and a book IS judged by its cover. I think I wish it were different.

Written in UPPER case text-lettering by the author. All is based on the author's family and a true week - at least that's what I'm led to think.....

Great book.

President Pennybaker - Kate Feiffer

Illustrator: Diane Goode
For: Kids
Published: 2008
Rating: OK 2.5/5
Read: Sept. 13, 2008
Endpapers: Azure

Luke Pennybaker feels that life is unfair. So he decides to run for president. He chooses his dog, Lily, as the vice presidential candidate, gains support, and begins to campaign. Gaining popularity, he and Lily win the election. After he moves into the White House he is far too busy being president to do any opf the things he'd likes. Once again, it isn't fair! So he resigns and Lily takes over as president.

(Luke would like to see an orange White House.) So an unnecessary double page spread is thrown in: "To show his support, the current president bought 40 gallons of orange paint and started to paint the Whie House. When he ran out of paint, he bought 40 more gallons and 40 more and then 40 more. By now the White House was painted orange." O.....kay. ? . ?

Cute story, but not great. Lots of ridiculous promises that he could never fulfill - reality for adults, but confusing for kids? Perhaps I'm thinking about some of the compaign promises I hear from my Student Government hopefuls?

The House in the Night - Susan Marie Swanson

Illustrator: Beth Krommes
For: Very young kids
Pub: 2008
Rating: Lovely/ 4
Read: Sept. 14, 2008
Endpapers: The same bright yellow which are the only illustration color other than black and white
2009 Caldecott WINNER ! ! !

This is a lovely bedtime book!

Black and white scratchboard, accented with a bright yellow...gorgeous.

The House in the Night is one of those cumulative books in the House that Jack Built vein. Here is the key to the house./ In the house burns a light./ In that light rests a bed./ On that bed rests a book....and onward, out throught the starry darkness to the moon ... and back, to find the child asleep in the bed. MmmmmmHmmmmm.

Old Bear - Kevin Henkes

For: Very young kids
Published: 2008
Rating: 4.5/5
Read: Sept. 13, 2008
Endpapers: Brown on brown leaves in the front and purple on lilac flowers in the back.

Thick lines frame each illustrations, which sit on pages of creamy ivory.

As an old brown bear hibernates in the winter, he dreams of his childhood in spring, summer, fall, and then winter. Each of his dreams are drawn in different color schemes. The winter dream is done mostly in blues with sparkling colors surrounding the sun in the sky. It's really pretty. And when Old Bear awakens from his sleep, he walks out of his cave into the scene from his spring dream, now real.

Born to Read - Judy Sierra

Illustrator: Marc Brown
For: Kids
Published: 2008
Rating: 4/5
Read: Sept. 13, 2008
Endpapers: Black textured letters with a few colored ones thrown in.

"Readers can do anything."

Beautifully drawn edge-to-edge happy, happy illustrations with words running across the pictures, just the way I like it. And not just words - couplets!

Baby Sam loves to read . Recognizable books like Pat the Bunny, Cat in the Hat, Hungry Caterpillar, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Through the years he finds numerous ways that reading comes in handy. He reads his way through life until the day he saves the town from a plundering giant by introducing him to books and returning him to his mommy giantess. And what will Sam do when he grows up? "Readers can go anyplace!"

48. The Last Coyote - Michael Connelly

AUDIO Read by Dick Hill (++)
For: Adults
Book Pub: 1995
Audio Pub: 1995 Brilliance Audio
13 hrs.
528 pgs.
Rating: 5/5
Finished: Sept. 15, 2008

Boy, I love Michael Connelly's plots and characters. You really get inside Harry Bosch's mind a little in this installment. It was sit-in-the-car-and -listen-until-you're-late good. I'm almost sorry it was over!

Harry Bosch is on temporary suspension from the LAPD because he threw Harvey Pounds, his lieutenant and boss, into a window head first. He WAS a snide, stupid son-of-a-gun. Part of the telling of this story comes as he sits and talks to his appointed police psychiatrist, a thoughtful, compassionate Hispanic woman named Carmen Hinojos. During his forced hiatus, he decides to look into the 1961 murder of his mother, an LA prostitute named Marjorie Lowe. Clues take him to a past DA Arno Conklin, Conklin's largest backer, Martel, a pimp named Johnny Fox, two homicide cops that had been on the case....and to Florida and Las Vegas. Also causing a dilemma is the ruination of his hillside home from earthquakes. Bosch just can't win. And even at the end of the book, Harry is contemplating leaving the police force as penance for getting at least one innocent person killed. Oh - and it looks like he might have even fallen in love!

Harry Bosch loses a little of his tougher-than-nails exterior in this novel. Hill's reading includes Harry's attitude and trepidation and heartbreak. Wow, he was good. And so was the storytelling. This guy has to be my all-time favorite mystery writer. I can't wait to read Trunk Music, Connelly's next Bosch creation.

MOVIE: The House Bunny

Rating: Extremely silly
Viewed: Sept. 14, 2008
Foothills Mall
Rotten Tomato Rating: 40 (Splat)
My Rating: A bit less (25?)
EW: C+ cag: C
People Rating: 2/4
Genre: Comedy
PG-13 (1 hr. 37 min.)
Director: Fred Wolf

It wasn't an hour and 37 minutes of misery, as I half expected. The lead, Anna Faris savid us from that. She did a wonderful job, She carried the whole movie, I think. I went knowing it would be stupid, stereotypical, etc, and I wasn't wrong in that respect. But I was entertained, often chuckling out-loud.

Shelley is a favored playboy bunny living in the Playboy Mansion with all its amenities. The morning after her over-the-top 27th birthday party, she is asked to leave because of her age. She is now homeless, jobless, and clueless. She sees a sorority house on an unknown campus and realizes it's a mini Playboy Mansion. She then becomes the house mother to the freak and geek sorority, Zeta, which has seven members and is about to be kicked off campus because they can never get anyone to pledge them. Enter Shelley. Makeovers and crazy parties later...voila!

Shelley meets Oliver, a pleasant young man (Collin Hanks). who works at a nursing home. Their awkward relationship and Shelley's uncertainty in dealing with someone who is oblivious to her sexy come-ons were my favorite parts of the movie. I also love the way Shalley changes her voice when saying people's names whenever she's learning to remember them. She throws this in throughout the movie, adding more chuckles.

I was alarmed when the girls became clones of the opposing sorority.....but after the realization, didn't quite return enough from that state.

What dismayed me the most? I guess it's the way that several of the seven "freaks" were portrayed. I loved the pierced, aghast _________(I'm horrible at remembering names), but the change in her was horrendous. I think the farm girl from Idaho could have been an absolute riot, but when she went up to the guys at the pool table, her talk with them was really stupid and, if it had had different subject matter, could have been great. There was so much stereotyping that it was nauseating. Come on, the world is not entirely filled with such stereotypical guys. And the opposing sorority! ? ! Oh well. That's entertainment. The movie's sure making money and I went to see it, myself, right?

Stella, Unleashed - Linda Ashman

POETRY
Notes from the Doghouse
Illustrator: Paul Meisel
For: Kids of all ages
Pub: 2008
Rating: 5 ***A New Favorite
Read (and purchased!): Sept. 13, 2008
Endpapers: Full double-page illustration of a hole in a garden with a bone sticking out! A

I stumbled upon this in the kid's poetry section at Barnes and Noble last night - it must be new - and I read it twice. I wish I knew some little kids with a dog, because the poems are wonderful. They're full of clever rhyme and great rhythm, from Stella the dog's point-of-view. 29 poems like "Don't Blame Me," "Hollywood Dog," "Dispatch from the Front Lawns" and :

WATER!

I swim in the ocean,
no matter how rough.
In rivers and lakes --
I can't get enough!

When I see a pool,
I dive like a sub.
I LOVE the water --
but not in the tub.

THE (almost) PERFECT HOST

I welcome guests with friendliness
(unlike the snooty cat).
Trouble is, I greet so well,
I sometimes knock them flat.

Colorful, edge-to-edge illustrations are delightful, truly enhancing the poetry. My favorite picture book so far this year! ! !

I found an interesting review and interview with the author at http://wildrosereader.blogspot.com/2008/04/stella-unleashed-poetry-book-review.html

Linda Ashman's website includes teacher lesson plan ideas! http://www.lindaashman.com/work2.htm

A Taste of Colored Water - Matt Faulkner

Perfect for: Kids, Particularly Older Ones
Pub: 2008
Rating: Loved it
Read: Sept. 13, 2008
Endpapers: Both different - the front is an illustration of entering Eden and the back is an illustration of leaving Eden (quite impressive) A+

"Daddy, what color does a person have to be to get a taste of colored water?" Jelly questions at the end of this book.

Welcome to the "Heart of Dixie" in the early 60s. Jelly and LuLu have never been to the "big city" before, but after they hear from Abbey Finch that there's a fountain there with "colored" water, they know they have to go see for themselves. They do. They find it, up on the hill by City Hall with a big sign over it proclaiming COLORED WATER. Meanwhile, as we can see from the illustrations, there's lots goin' on in town. Protesters are marching and singing "We Shall Overcome." Policemen and firemen face off with the marchers as newsmen take photos. Lulu and Jelly watch from the bubbler, where they get nothing but clear water. No lovely fruity-tasting greens or pinks or yellows. And then the fire hoses are turned on and people are knocked over by its force!

Whenever I open a picture book and see illustrated endpapers I already know I'm going to like the book. This was a good one. There are no explanations in the text, just the story. Wonderful vocabulary, a southerny drawl that helps establish the setting, and illustrations that complete enhance the storytelling, becoming part of the story itself. I really want to read this to my middle-schoolers to get their reaction.

I also personally enjoyed Matt Faulkner's AFTERWORD which ends: "It's my wish that we take strength from the courageous ones who came before us and learn to question oppression, racism, segregation - all forms of intolerance - and begin to promote compassion for all."