Winston of Churchill - Jean Davies Okimoto

One Bear's Battle Against Global Warming
Illustrator: Jeremiah Trammell
Copyright: 2007
Rating: 4.5
For: Older kids
Endpapers: Lots of happy polar bears carrying signs: Wind Power, Walk, Ride Bikes, Make Less Garbage, Save Our Home, Recycle, Ice is Nice, Pass Up Gas, Solar Power, Turn off Stuff, Turn Down the Furnace, Brrrr is Best, Save Trees....
Green Earth Book Award

Winston, a great white polar bear of Churchill, Manitoba, Canada is concerned about global warming and the loss of ice in his home territory. He calls the bears together (even the teenager bears with spiked green fur, leather spike bracelets and tattoos) to give them all a copy of his book Why It's Getting Hotter. It gives a good explanation for older kids. They then decide to protest - with signs - when the tourist tundra buggy comes by the next day. So we meet a number of tourists and see what they see when they approach the polar bears.

At the end of the book, as a prologue, is an extra explanation about the plight of the polar bears and a bit about Winston Churchill, prime minister of England from 1940 to 1945, our Winston's namesake.

I like the illustrations a lot. The bears are bursting with personality.

An Artist's America - Michael Albert

For: All ages
Published: 2008
Rating : 5 YES! My kind of book...
48 pgs.
17.95
Endpapers: Med. Blue

Mosaic collagees from recycled consumer product boxes and labels - cereal, tea, cookies, popsicles, soup. Easy. Pop art. Very cool.

Told in the first person, Michael Albert tells about his artistic journey, detailing how he got to where he is now. He shows dozens of his works,explaining the whys and hows. Flags made from Coca-Cola and Frosted Flakes boxes, cutting and pasting a postcard of the Empire State Building. Slightly reaearranging pieces of a Frosted Flakes box; Cheerios and Trix, Captain Crunch and A to Z candy wrappers and even dollar bills! He then shows his "epic works" which are really creative, fascinating and time-consuming, including the Gettysburg Address, the Pledge of Allegiance, and a Mt. Rushmore made of Mr Clean, the Quaker Oats guy, Captain Crunch, and Colonel Sanders. He's even done a collage of the first 190 digits of Pi!

At the end of the book he shows his workshops with kids and simply tells how to do it yourself.

This book is a real winner. I want to see some of his originals! www.michaelalbert.com

The Librarian of Basra - Jeanette Winter

A True Story from Iraq
Published: 2005
Rating: 5
Endpapers: Aqua

"In the Koran, the first thing God said to Muhammed was 'Read' " (NYT 7/27/03, from the book's preface.

Just to open a Jeanette Winter book brings a simple joy to me. You see orderliness and color and terrific illustrations - framed boxes and no white. Really tugs at my anal heart.

Simply told, beautifully illustrated, here is another version of the bombing of the central library in Basra, Iraq. Ensconced in rich purples and yellows and blues, Winters' recognizable artwork accentuates the story beautifully. A great companion book to Alia's Mission.

Alia's Mission - Mark Alan Stamaty

Saving the Books of Iraq
Published: 2004
Rating: 5
Endpapers: red
Illustrations: Brown on cream

I'm still getting used to reading graphic novels - I realize I like the large, easy-to-read font in this one. And the illustrations show the magnitude of the job this brave woman took on. I really like Jeanette Winter's version, but I like the way Stamaty's version really makes the plight and the task overwhelmingly real.

Although Alia knows that war in Basra, Iraq is imminent, it's not until she arrives at her job as chief librarian at the Basra Centrl Library and sees armed soldiers (with an anti-aircraft weapon!) on the roof that she knows the library is in terrible danger. So, in a few fast-paced days, she and many helpers move over 30,000 books - by hand - before the library is destroyed. They're stored stacked everywhere in her own home and home of friends. Whatt a story!

The last page tells the history of other famous libraries in the middle east.

Ladybug Girl - Jacky Davis

Illustrator: David Soman
Published: 2008
Husband/wife team
Rating: 5
2008
Endpapers: Lulu dressed up in 8 different ways - sunflower, aviator, sleuth, fairy princess, artist, mermaid, lion and genie!

Lulu, an imaginative little girl who likes to dress up (red leotard and tutu, red boots, red wings with black dots) becomes distressed when her brother tells her she's too little to play baseball with him. She and her dog Bing find their own cool things to do. A fun story for imaginative little girls that has really cute illustrations.

Winter in White - Robert Sabuda

A Mini Pop-Up Treat
Published: 2007
Small, 4 X 6 size
Metallic aqua cover

When snowflakes sprinkle (3 silver-tipped flakes)
Welcoming winter (snowman)
A silent hush of snowy white (angel)
Making deep, dark forests bright (antlered reindeer)
Gliding through glistening chill (twirling skater)
Sliding down smooth frosty hills (sled & rider)
Blanketing trees with downy drifts (evergreen with metallic gold star & balls)
Bringing peaceful sounds of nature's gifts. (2 doves unwrapping a package)

This WAS a pop-up treat. It made me remember years ago, when I was an Ozette in Oz Children's Bookstore in Southwest Harbor, Maine, two women who came in one afternoon. They collected pop-up books...had a huge collection....and referred to a big notebook to see whether they could find any new books for their collection. They did. I'd forgotten that completely until I remembered, for some reason, when I was reading this book. Ahh, the human brain.

This book is quite a work of art. And I love the snazy verbs!

17. 3 Willows - Ann Brashares

The Sisterhood Grows
For: young YA
Published: 2009
320 pgs.
Rating: 3.5
Finished: Mar. 15, 2009

The subtitle is a little misleading. The "original" four girls of the sisterhood are referred to briefly in a couple of spots within the book, and Effie makes an appearance, but otherwise it's about three brand new girls who have been best friends since third grade. They live in Bethesda, Maryland. They've grown apart throughout eighth grade and now, the summer before high school, they have little to do with each other. All three are in different places during the summer and we hear their stories from their points-of-view. Brashares really gets into their heads and develops their characters well. She tells their stories in prose without using the device of letters and emails like she does in the Sisterhood books. A few paragraphs to a few pages for each girl, then it's on to another - but not in a disconcerting way. It flows well, and makes sense.

Jo, pretty and popular, is spending the summer at Rehoboth Beach with her mom. She's working hard to fit in with the cool crowd. Her brother, Finn, was killed two years before, and it's been particularly difficult for her mother - so much so that her parents have decided to separate. She feels almost estranged from her dad.....

Polly, thoughtful, helpful, feels unnoticed by everyone, including her tatooed and pierced artist mom. The only way she can think of to feel "seen" is to go to a modeling class for the summer. She's not modeling material - she's short, curvy, and needs orthodonture. Her mom spends all day, every day at her art studio, and by the end of the book Polly finds the reason for that....

Ama is a brainiac. She thinks mainly of getting into Princeton like her sister (even though that's four whole years away!!!) The library and grades are the biggest quests in her life. When she applies for a summer internship, instead of some sort of study and research in a higher institution, she is sent to hike through Yosemite for the summer. This is the last thing in the world that appeals to her. When she discovers she's the only black in her group, that she cannot have any hair products to tame her unruly hair, and that to pass she'll have to rapell down 350 feet.....

Each chapter is preceeded by a bit of information about willow trees. Roots and trees are twined throughout the book - one of the first things the girls did when they met was to plant three willow trees in the woods. This frames the story, and ends it, too.

The Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry

Editor: Bill Martin Jr.
Illustrators: Ashley Bryan, Aliki, Robert Quakenbush, Lois Ehlert, Stephen Kellogg, Chris Raschka, Henry Cole, Paul Meisel, Nancy Tafuri, Derek Anderson, Laura Logan
Published: 2008
Rating: 5
Endpapers: Bright Aqua
$21.00

The first two page spread is "Something Told the Wild Geese" by Rachel Field and illustrated by Ashley Bryan. You just can't beat that for your first eyefull!

A classic anthology of some of my favorite poems and poets, this incredible volume has 200+ great poems by leading children's poets AND illustrators from the very top of the field of children's literature. It inclues the illustrations of Ashley Bryan ( ! ! !) and an illustrator that I'm going to have to research a bit, she's new to me and I really enjoyed her work in this anthology, Laura Logan.

Then next 30% off coupon and I buy this!

16. Bones of Faerie - Janni Lee Simner

For: Gr. 5 and up
Published: 2009
248 easy pages
Rating: 3.5ish
Finished: Fri. night, Mar. 13, 2009

Well, this was an interesting book that was really difficult to rate. Will I feel differently about it tomorrow, or when I get a chance to talk with someone about it? Most probably. With shades of The Giver, magic, healers, faerie folk, apocolyptic overtones, cruel father and shapeshifting-to-wolf friend, it's a difficult book to describe and to rate.

Liza lives in post-war midwestern US, where you can not venture from your town because the world is a totally different place since the war. Branches and roots come up to strangle you. Nowhere is safe. Magic has turned up everywhere, and magic destroys. Magic is to be feared. So when Liza begins discovering that she has her own magic, she decides to leave her tiny community before they find out about it and kill her.

This begins her quest story, her quest for the truth about her mother, the truth about her magic, and the true meaning of trust and friendship.

Just Can't Get Into 'Em

There are always books that are difficult to get into, but if you hang on, they begin to pull you in eventually. But then there are those that just never do - pull you in, that is. And there are too many...WAY too many...books to be read to take the time to read a book that just doesn't do it for you.

Some books I've completed an entire, separate entry for, others follow.  But for the sake of remembering, a list follows

These I returned to the library unfinished, couldn't get into them at the moment, but I'd really like to try them again at a later date:

Nye, Naomi Shihab - The Turtle of Oman
Pinkney, Andrea Davis - The Red Pencil


BY AUTHOR

Antieau, Kim - Church of the Old Mermaids (no notes about why) Ad
Arsenault, Emily - Broken Teaglass (below) Ad
Berry, Steve - Venetial Betrayal, A Novel (below) Ad
Berry, Steve - The Columbus Affair (no notes about why) Ad
Black, Elizabeth - The Drowing House (below) Ad
Boyle, T. C. - When the Killing's Done (below) Ad
Bray, Libba - Beauty Queens (below) YA
Bray, Libba - The Diviners (no notes about why) YA
Caldwell, Ian & Dustin Thomasin - The Rule of Four (below) Ad
..........The Fifth Gospel, read over halfway.... Adult mystery from history
Chada, Sarwat - Devil's Kiss (below) YA
Colfer, Chris - Struck by Lightning; The Carson Phillips Journal (no notes about why) YA
Fay, Kim - Map of Lost Memories (below)
Frost, Helen - SALT  Story of Friendship in a Time of War (no notes about why) MidGrades
Frost, Mark - Alliance (#2 The Paladin Prophecy) YA
Groff, Lauren - Arcardia (below) Ad
Grove, S. E. - The Glass Sentence (Mapmakers Trilogy #1) YA
Hanagan, Katherine - True, (...sort of) (below) MidGrades
Hannah, Kristin - True Colors (below) Ad
Holmes, Sara Lewis - Operation Yes (below) MidGrades
Hopkins, Ellen - Triangle (no notes about why)
Horn,, T\Dara - Guide for the Perplexed, A Ad
Howe, Katherine - The House of Velvet and Glass (below) Ad
Johansen, Iris & Roy Johansen - Storm Cycle (below) Ad
Kearsley, Suzanne - The Winter Sea (below) Ad
Keller, Julia - A Killing in the Hills (no notes about why) Ad
Koontz, Dean - The Good Guy (below) Ad
Korman, Gordon - 39 Clues Bk 2: One False Note (below) Mid Grades
Lancet, Barry - Japantown Ad
Leigh, Melinda - Midnight Express Ad
Lenhard, Elizabeth - Chicks With Sticks; It's a Purl Thing (below) YA
Lippman, Laura - Charm City (below) Ad
Lowell, Elizabeth - Dangerous Refuge (no notes about why) Ad
McMahon, Jennifer - The Winter People (no notes about why) Ad
Meissner, Sue - White Picket Fences (below) Ad
Messner, Kate - Wake Up Missing (below) MidGrades? YA?
Morton, Kate - The Secret Keeper (no notes about why)
Mosse, Kate - Sepulchre Ad
Neville, Katherine - The Eight (below) Ad
Parkhurst, Carolyn - Lost and Found (below) Ad
Pavone, Chris - The Expats (below) Ad
Payne, Holly - The Virgin's Knot (below) Ad
Perry, Marta - Murder in Plain Sight (no notes about why) Ad
Picoult, Jodi - Between the Lines (below) Ad
Riggs, Ransom - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (below) Ad
Scott, Michael - The Thirteen Hallows (no notes about why) Ad
Segrave, Elizabeth - Memoria (no notes about why) Ad
Slaughter, Karin - Unseen (Will Trent #7) (no notes about why) Ad
Spencer-Fleming, Julia - Through the Evil Days Ad
Stead, Rebecca _ Liar and Spy (no notes about why) MidGr/YA?
Stickell, Lois - In the Territory of Lies (no notes about why) Ad
Stewart, Trenton Lee - The Mysterious Benedict Society (no notes about why) MidGrades
Stiefvetter, Maggie - The Raven Boys (no notes about why) YA
Wood, Monica - When We Were the Kennedys; A Memoir from Mexico, Maine (no notes about why) Ad

Operation Yes
Sara Lewis Holmes
Published: 2009
Middle Rdr.
1-3-10 (boy that 10 looks strange....)

I got to page 70 in this Cybil shortlist title, but it just didn't engage me. 6th graders on an Air Force base in NC, an artistic teacher who enjoys acting & drama - think I'll just go on to another title, since after 70 pages I wasn't looking forward to any more reading.....
Devil's Kiss
Sarwat Chadda
Published: 2009
YA

This is about contemporary "Knight's Templar", but the first 70 pages are full of vampires and mean ghosts and eerie legacies that just seem like everything the author could think of to throw down into a narrative. I have a pile to read, so have decided to abandon this. It's not the "real" Knight's Templar, which is what I was hoping for.....

The Virgin's Knot
Holly Payne
Published: 2002

The cover and title intrigued me. I started the book, got a bit in, put it aside. Then I found a cassette of it at Bookman's. I started to listen to it while knitting, starting from the beginning, so I'd remember everything. I went a lot farther, well into the second cassette, but again, put it aside. Not that it was uninteresting, just couldn't get into it. Maybe someday, as it wasn't awful....

The Eight
Katherine Neville
Previously published quite a few years ago.....

I had this sitting on my shelf in Maine for ages. I can still see it sitting there. I always wanted to read it, and now Katherine Neville has come out with a sequel. An acquaintance from school, Meme, who loves the same kinds of mysteries that I do, just finished it and lent it to me. I spent two weeks getting to page 107 (of 598! ! !) and it just didn't engage me at all. It flips back and forth between 1700's France and 1970 NYC, with a lot of chess talk thrown in - and I decided I couldn't care less. I moved on to Robert Crais, and it was a great decision!

Charm City
by Laura Lippman
Audio Book

I've heard of the Tess Monahan series, but I listened well into the second cd and found I didn't want to press the button to turn it on. I just was not taken at all with the protagonist. I'm not sure why.....so it was really easy to return it to the library!

The Rule of Four
by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason
Published: 2005

I bought the book when it first came out, read about 50 pages, and put it aside. Recently I borrowed the book from the library and have listened to at least three discs. Nope. I'm gonna give up on it.

Venetian Betrayal, A Novel
by Steve Berry
Published: December, 2007

I very much enjoyed the first Cotton Malone book, The Templar Legacy, then tried listening to another, where he gets together with his wife to find his missing son and all they do is bicker, bicker, bicker. Couldn't take it. So I tried this one, and it's hard to listen to: one, because I don't care for the reader, Scott Brick, and two, it skips around like crazy and is difficult to keep track of by just listening and not being able to flip back through the pages. Not worth it. It's going back to the library.

39 Clues Book 2: One False Note
by Gordon Korman
Okay, I read half of The 39 Clues Book 2, One False Note. Nobody trusts anybody. I don't like a single character. I've made the big decision to not read this series. Why spend all that time when I just don't like it?



White Picket Fences
by Susan Meissner
I got about halfway through White Picket Fences, a Novel (Susan Meissner), and have decided to put it aside, too. The premise of the book really attracted me - a Holocaust connection to an "average" contemporary American family, and a mystery related to the 16 year old son, who happens to be a pretty decent filmmaker. A niece who's father has disappeared somewhere in Poland. And a Tucson connection. It was sooooo slow, though. So why bother?

Chicks With Sticks, It's a Purl Thing
by Elizabeth Lenhard.
Got to page 100 in this one, but found myself making choices to wash the dishes instead of reading -- that should have clued me in immediately that I had to pick up another book instead. Every book is not going to pull in every reader, right?

The Good Guy
by Dean Koontz
I listened to the first 2 1/2 discs on my way from Maine to Massachusetts.  I really like the premise....that a young man having a drink at his friend's bar is given an enevelope with ten thousand dollars and the picture of a woman.  He realizes he is being mistaken for a hit man.  But soon he has the woman by his side and the real killer after him.  Not bad.  BUT, the narrative goes back and forth between the good guy and the bad guy....who's a really sadistic, violent man.  I'm just not in the mood to get into this guys head, it depressed me and I decided I have too many books to read to spend a week or more of driving time listening to this.  Yay, me, finally a decisive decision!

True (...sort of)
Katherine Hannigan
2011
Delly is a little girl that constantly gets in trouble and doesn't understand why.  She makes up long complicated combinations of words (there's a three-page glossary at the back of the book).  Short chapters. Just didn't do it for me, couldn't get into it.  Perhaps I have too many other books that really interest me sitting on the table, calling my name.....

Beauty Queens
Libba Bray
2011
A plane full of Miss Teen Dream beauty pageanteers crashes on a deserrt island.  There are 12 survivors.  This is a satire....and it's gotten wonderful reviews.....it's probably wonderful......but after three chapters I just couldn't go on.  There's too many others out there that I REALLY want to read.....

The Winter Sea
Susanna Kearsley
2010

I've started this twice.  Got to p. 48 the first time, then had to return it to the library.  Got it again.  It's taken me a week to get to p. 92.  Chapters flip from current time to historical times, set in Scotland.  Love that part of it.  The contemporary setting is just going too slowly!

When the Killing's Done
T. C. Boyle
2011

I listened to the first three cds - at least four hours.  It's gorgeous, beautiful writing, but the story drags.  Incredible description - but too much of it for me.  The first hour and a half was about a sinking boat, the second about and environmentalist's speech, the third about an animal rights activist's mischief.  The setting, the Channel Islands off southern  California's coast is great -- just waaaaay toooooo dragged out.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Ransom Riggs
2011

Everyone's been talking about this book, and I've seen the cover everywhere.  So I waited on the reserve list.  I've tried and tried to get into it - I'mm all the way up to pg. 119, but it's due at the library and I don't want to read it, so I'm going to return it.  Maybe the story's about to get good, but it sure hasn't grabbed me - even a bit - so far.

True Colors
Kristin Hannah
2009

I listened to two of the 12 unabridged cds.  It reminded me tremendously of The Weird Sister,s which I read recently, and I really disliked two of the characters, hated the decisions they made, and found myself constantly rolling my eyes.  So I decided...what the heck.  You don't have to finish this!  Both Laura and Heather enjoy this author a lot, but she's not for me.....at least that's what this book told me.

Arcadia
Lauren Groff
2012

I got to page 49 (out of 289).  It had great reviews, but I found it boring.  Bit, a young boy, lives with his withdrawn mother, Hannah, and his father, Abe, at a commune.  The leader, a guy named Handy, has a band that keeps the monies coming in.

The Expats
Chris Pavone
2012, Crown Pub, NY

I read to page 131 out of 327 pages, then had to return it to the library because there was a waiting list for it.  I didn't mind returning it, it wasn't grabbing me at all, not in the slightest, didn't like any of the characters.  However, I've downloaded it onto my phone just in case I ever get tempted to finish it.....

Between the Lines
Jodi Picoult & Samantha Van Leer
2012 Recorded Books

Three points-of-view, the teenaged girl reading the fairy tale, Oliver, the protagonist of the fairy tale, and the fairy tale itself.  I'm just not a fair tale person.  I listened to 3 of the 7 cds and gave it up.  There were different readers, too, but I decided I just wasn't into it.

Broken Teaglass
Emily Arsenault
2009, Delacorte Press

I read 151 out of 370 pgs.  They were B-O-R-I-N-G.  I really wanted to like it.  Bill Webb, and his coworker Mona, find enticing references in dictionary citations at the dictionary company where they work in New England.  Good quote:  "How did a guy like me end up in a place like this?"

The House of Velvet and Glass
Katherine Howe
2012, Hyperion Books

I enjoyed The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, Howe's previous book.  But none of the major points of this book interested me - the Titani, 1915 Boston society, or seances.  The first disc seemed to go on and on and on....in reality it was over an hour, but seemed like three or four.  Too many books in the pile -  even the reader's voice bugged me -  it was too little-girly.

Lost and Found
Carolyn Parkhurst
2006, Hachette Audio
read by Blair Brown

Well, I listened well into the 4th tape (out of 8).  It was entertaining, but not enthralling and I have a lot I never seemed to be in the mood.  It was a take off of  the TV show The Amazing Race, which I don't enjoy at all, so I decided to go on to another book

Storm Cycle
Iris Johansen & Roy Johansen
2009, St. Martin's Press

In the middle of the third disc I decided that I really ddidn't like the protagonist - at all- and was groaning or rolling my eyes at all her responses to life.  I would turn it off and drive along in silence before I realized that I didn't want to waste my time reading (listening) any further.

The Drowning House
Elizabeth Black
2013, Random House

Another book that I just couldn't get into.  I read the first few chapters, put it aside, then began again.  At the same point in the second reading, I decided to go on to another book in my huge pile that was beckoning.

Wake Up Missing
Kate Messner
2013

Okay, read about 60 pages.  It was slow, didn't pull me in.  I let it be for about week and could barely remember what had happened after the first chapter, so skimmed it before starting again, and decided I didn't want to.  Maybe another time?

Through the Evil Days
(Rev. Clare Ferguson & Russ VanAlstyne #8
2013

I guess I should have read these in order, but the first books in the series were totally unavailable (or extinct) in audio, so I jumped into #8. I made it through almost the first two cds. Too many bigoted church people. Too much talk about church and church-related "stuff." And one of the most unlikable protagonists I've encountered in a while (Russ). Totally negative, pissed about his new wife's pregnancy, temper easily triggered. I spent a 35-minute ride without even turning it on - that's when I decided I didn't like it and didn't want to listen to another word. (In those 50 pages, it seemed the mystery was barely even mentioned!)

Map of Lost Memories
Kim Fay
     Ok, ok, I just don't care!  Don't like the main characters, the se Asia steeing doesen't thrill me, nor does the 1920s time period.  I've listened to over 1/3 of the bvook, but I'm not going to finish.  Don't wanna.  Big sigh.....

How to Live Forever - Colin Thompson

For: Kids
Published: 1995
Rating: 4 (oh, the illustrations!)
Read: Mar. 7, 2009 Borders
Endpapers: Creamy yellow
$16.99

Gone with the Wine. The Ice Man Cometh. The Merchant of Guiness. A Tale of Two Sitars. Lady Chatterly's Pullover. Warhol and Peace. A Prune with a View. These are some of the books on the shelves of a library with one thousand rooms - and a copy of every book ever written. At night, when the library is closed, the shelves come to life. Families live in the books, they become homes with lights and windows and doors,. Shelves are joined together to create cities. And in a cookery book entitled Quinces lives Peter and his dog Brian.

Peter discovers that the book How to Live Forever has disappeared. He and Brian hunt for it night after night until, after a couple of years, they do find it. And a lesson is learned.

The story seems a bit rushed, but the illustrations are a joy to behold. Books and tiny little details fill the pages. In a bit of browsing on the internet, it looks like the book may have had some sort of publishing in Australia where the story seems different. It speaks of a grandfather. The story I read even mentions a serious sister when introducing Peter's family, but no mention of her is ever heard again. So the story certainly could have been stronger. But oh, those illustrations - - - -an amazingly illustrated book.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf - B. G Hennessy

Illustrator: Boris Kulikov
For: Kids
Published: 2006
Rating: Fun
Read: January, 2009
Endpapers: Different parts of the whimsical sheep in rought circles, bugs & butterflies...

This is the standard Boy Who Cried Wolf story with the added benefit of really great illustrations - and font! It's called "Uncle Stinky" font. I always like the special touch of a snazzy font.

Okay, this boy is really bored tending the sheep on the hillside (you can see the village in the distance). He tries to enlist the sheep to play with him, but all they really want to do is chew on grass, although they go along with him a bit. I love his dirty bare feet, the fly that keeps landing on his nose, the attitude of the sheep that you can SEE in the illustrations. He loves it when he cries "wolf" and the whole town comes running. A friend stays to hang out with him for the rest of the day. So he tries it again. And when a wolf really does come skulking, of course, the townsfolk ignore him. At the very end, after the wolf is gone, the boy goes looking for the sheep and they're all clinging togethr in the top of a tree. Really fun stuff.

I read it aloud to my fifth graders during our Aesop unit, showing them who you can take a bare-bones fable and simply by adding detailed illustrations, you have a great read. It's all in the details! ! ! !

The Wolf Who Cried Boy - Bob Hartman

Illustrated by Tim Raglin
Published: 2002
For: kids
Rating: Cute
Read: Jan, 2009 with Aesop unit/5th grade
Endpapers: Counted cross-stitch in light blue on cream

Little Wolf hated what his mother prepared for dinner each day - sloppy does, lamburgers, chocolate moose, three-pig salad. He longed for BOY chops, baked BOY-tato, BOYS-n-berry pie. So in a take on the classic Aesop's Fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, he pretends to see a boy and his parents hunt and hunt in the woods for him, just to please their son. Twice. But when he does see a boy - lots of boys- a whole scout troop of boys - his parents have had it and ignore him.

Okay, the story is a fractured fairy tale (well, actually it's a fractured FABLE), which is fun, but it's the illustrations here that are delightful. The expressions on the wolves' faces are super, the details are great fun. Mr. Raglin uses a needlwork motif on the cover, endpapers, and title page, and I'm not sure why, since it doesn't relate to the story in any way, but I really like it.

This is a wonderful model for kids to see how you can take a simple fable, add embellishments, details, color...and voila, you have a great story.

15. The Lace Reader - Brunonia Barry

AUDIO read by Alyssa Bresnahan (she was great)
For: Adults
Book Pub: 2008
Audio: 10 discs/11.5 hours
400 pgs.
Rating: 4.5
Finished: Mar. 5, 2009
"You have to go back to go forward."

Now this was one interesting story. Confusing. Fascinating. Great setting. You knew there'd be a surprise at the end. There was. I think it was this author's first, which is quite commendable. I did not rate this a 5 because it was a little too depressing, overall, I felt I needed to knock off a half point for that.

There are five parts in this book, and much of it is told in the first person by the protagonist, Towner Whitney. She has returned home from California after 15 years to look into the disappearance of her beloved Aunt, Eva. Eva lives in an old mansion on the shore in the center of Salem, Massachusetts, where she runs a tearoom, keeps a huge garden, speaks in proverbs, and swims most every day, even at 85. Oh yes, she reads lace, telling fortunes to all who ask. Towner is fifth generation "reader", and her sensitivity - along with abuse, force her at age 17 into a mental hospital for drug and shock treatment. She left everything behind for fifteen years, but now comes home and has to confront it all. Witches and covens, Calvinists and modern day Puritans, boating and islands, lace-making and abuse shelters, even red-hat ladies and references to 17th century Salem witches careen through this story at a break-neck pace. There's old love and new love, cops and drunks, tourists and townies. It's a good story, all twisting and turning and keeping you on your toes, wondering what's true and what's not. You know a lot is not true, because Towner begins her tale telling us that she is a liar, that she very rarely tells the truth.

I went on to Brunonia Barry's website, and she says that this is written as a hero's journey for women, which is different than a male's hero journey. Many women are need to help this journey happen.

"Every gift has a price. Every piece of lace has a secret." This read was fascinating and thought-provoking. I knitted like crazy as I listened, sneezed, and blew my nose.

14. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain

Published: 1884
Rating: Well....I'm glad I finally read it, but it's not on the top of my favorites list...
Read: With 8th grade class, Jan/Feb, 2009
Audio by Recorded Books
Reader: Norman Dietz
10 discs, 11.75 hours

This is not the cover of the book I read. Can't find it anywhere, but I did discover there are literally hundreds of different editions of this book.

Bildungstroman (coming of age), slavery, racism, prejudice, superstition, morality, honesty, voice, humor - all have a huge part in the story.

Set on the Mississippi River in 1840, twenty years before the Civil War, Huck Finn gets tired of being "civilized" by the kindly woman who has taken him in. He escapes from his drunken no-good father and sets off, with a runaway slave named Jim, down the river about 1200 miles. Together they have one adventure after another. That's the basic plot. But....

There are two things that a reader has to get past. First, the dialogue, especially Jim's, is really difficult to understand. I had the kids read it aloud to themselves. They finally got the hang of Huck's speech, but never fully got 'hold of Jim's. It was easier when I found an unabridged CD and we listened, although the speaker seemed to be an older man and that made it a bit disconcerting.

And secondly, the word nigger. Hundreds and hundreds of times. I really tried to put it out of my mind, but there it was, constantly. Eighth graders are still pretty impressionable. I hope they didn't get desensitized to the word. It makes me shudder. So I got past the first, but not the second. And I hope I never do.

We had some pretty decent conversations. I know a lot of the kids skimmed, some didn't read at all, some read the Cliff Notes from cover to cover...more than once. A couple actually read the entire book. But I feel I spent two months on a book that they - at least this particular group of kids - should have waited a couple more years before reading. Not my call. Not my call at all.

I purchased this Disney movie, sight unseen, hoping that it would help some of the kids that were having difficulty understand the story a little better. It's not a very good movie. There WAS a lot of conversation flying around the classroom about the many, many departures the movie made from the book - they picked up a lot that surprised me. They loved that Elijah Wood (aka the Lord of the Rings guy) played Huck and that Hagrid played either the Duke or the King. But we only watched bits and pieces and I won't use it if I have to teach this book again.

All in all, a very unrewarding personal and professional read.