Library & Literary Miscellany

Faithful readers of this blog have likely been noticing a decline in posting frequency for some time. It’s been quite a year of transition for me, and while I’ve kept up my reading, my blogging has languished. Also, the period for which I’ve paid for my domain name and website space will lapse soon enough.

For these reasons, I’ve decided to let others from many of the excellent blogs I read carry on the blogging reviewing (see my Friends list on the right hand column for ideas for future RSS subscriptions). The reviews I do from now on I’ll be posting in my LibraryThing and/or Good Reads accounts.

All in all, blogging has been a great experience, and I’m heartened that the library and children’s literature communities are so well represented in the blogosphere. I love getting so many great reading suggestions from friends and colleagues, and I look forward to continuing to do so for many years to come. And on the subject of getting great reading suggestions, take some time to surf on over to the Cybils Awards site and view the 2008 finalists in the various categories such as Young Adult Fiction.

Have a Happy New Year everyone. May many great books get published, read, and blogged about!

Share This

Just a final update on the blog book challenges I undertook this year. I have to say that I’ve read many more books than I’ve reviewed, many of which were on my challenge list. So I thought I’d finish up with a “in-a-word-or-few-review” of books that are on my challenge list and that I’ve read but that didn’t have the opportunity (i.e., time) to give full reviews.

I’ve left spaces in between the different categories as they are displayed on my blog book challenges page:

The Shack by William P. Young: thought-provoking if you’re ready to keep an open mind
Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai: multicultural, moving
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski: tragic, loved the dogs

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang: speaks to finding identity, myth
Barefoot Gen Volume One: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima by Keiji Nakazawa: horrifying, poignant
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules: secrets, siblings, and the issues with having both

The Alchemist’s Daughter: A Novel by Katharine McMahon: innocence and experience, isolation and community
Jacob’s Ladder A Story of Virginia During the War by Donald McCaig: well-researched, diverse perspectives
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See: deep friendship, mistakes and redemption

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine: true beauty
Stardust by Neil Gaiman: love and magic

Bear Feels Sick by Karma Wilson: perfect sick read, catchy repeat refrain
Knuffle Bunny Too by Mo Willems: like the first, this too could happen to you, so real (and clever to boot)
Mr. Pusskins and Little Whiskers by Sam Lloyd: Mr. Pusskins is too grouchily adorable to be missed

Blackbringer by Laini Tailor: slow starter, but well worth following through to the end (what’s not to love about a heroine traveling with a band of talking crows?)

Extras by Scott Westerfeld: great ending to an awesome series (my despite wanting Tally to appear more)
Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock: quick read, particularly for those who enjoyed the first
Revolution is Not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine: poignant look into the culture of the Cultural Revolution and family bonds holding strong through good times and bad
Slam by Nick Hornby: challenges, choices, and vicissitudes of life
A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd: loss, scandal, and hope

So, there are just a few words about my challenge books. Most of them are worth a look, unless you’re already moving on to only books published in 2009 that is!

Share This

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor by Stephanie Barron (1997)

Jane Austen tackles 19th century English society and manners in her novels; Stephanie Barron’s Jane Austen tackles society, manners, and murder. In Barron’s Jane Austen mystery series, she attempts a daunting task—to mimic Jane Austen’s literary style with all its gentility, formality, elegance, satire, wit, and meandering. Jane Austen’s penetrating observation of those around her that is so apparent in her novels makes plausible the premise of her succeeding as an amateur sleuth.

In Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Barron realizes this premise. Jane Austen, the novel’s protagonist and intrepid narrator, applies her keen observational skills to investigating murder.

Jane’s prosaic visit to her friend Isobel’s mansion turns sinister.  Isobel’s homecoming party to establish herself as the new Countess of Scargrave turns sinister when her husband, the Earl of Scargrave, falls ill and dies suddenly of an enigmatic ailment. Shortly thereafter, Isobel receives an incriminating letter suggesting she was involved in a conspiracy with Fitzroy, her purported lover the Earl’s nephew and heir, to do away with the Earl. Isobel pleads with Jane to ferret out the true murderer. Jane’s investigation takes on increased urgency as Isobel and Fitzroy are whisked away to dwell in despair in the depths of Newgate prison.  Each day brings closer the House of Lords trial upon which a guilty verdict and a hanging will follow.

Purportedly the story has been pieced together from selections of Austen’s personal journal and letters to her sister Cassandra. Barron’s research into Austen’s life, letters, and fiction shines through clearly in her fiction mysteries as she incorporates true facts from Jane Austen’s life such as her nullifying Jane’s agreement to marry Harris Bigg-Wither and her close relationship with her sister Cassandra. Barron also includes quotes from Jane Austen’s novels as if suggesting their origin to be in Jane’s experiences at Scargrave manor.

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor is but the first of Barron’s comedy of manners and a cozy mystery series; the ninth, Jane and the Barque of Frailties, was published in 2006.  For readers who enjoy period detail and mystery, Barron’s series should be an apt one to suggest they try.

Share This

Cupid by Julius Lester (2007)

“Love is madness!” or so proclaims the eponymous character Cupid. Cupid finds himself wanting to apologize to the humans for his ample use of arrows that cause feelings of “helplessness, with a loss of will and control, with a loss of self.”

Julius Lester’s Cupid is a story of love, of love lost, and of love regained. But it’s more than a story about love, it’s also part myth retelling and adaptation, part philosophical novel, part paean to storytelling, and part an examination of human nature and relationships (part by examining gods with human foibles).

Cupid’s story needs a Psyche–meaning soul or butterfly. Psyche is a mortal, but people often think her to be a goddess because she is even more beautiful than Venus. Venus, the goddess of love, does not take kindly to having her position as the most beautiful being in all of creation usurped by a mere mortal. Cupid, as Venus’ son, is asking for trouble when he is struck with his own medicine of inexorable love from the moment he spots Psyche. Cupid “was the god of love, but he had never been in love. Love had been a game to him, a game he controlled with his bows and arrows”.

Psyche’s beauty, Cupid’s puerile tendencies (he’s a bit of a mama’s boy), and Venus’ jealousy create the impetus for the myth; Lester fills in the details. He amplifies the basic plot with the inclusion of lesser Greek and Roman deities such as Oizys the goddess of pain and Favonius the West Wind; he fleshes out the story in many places where the original myth is silent. But mostly he retains the flavor of oral storytelling with his omniscient narrator.

Lester’s cheeky omniscient narrator reveals nuggets of relationship and philosophical sagacity throughout the story, but he never fully reveals himself (Lester writes: “The narrator’s voice is mine, and then again, it isn’t.”). Readers come to understand that the narrator and the story are not always in agreement as when the narrator notes “stories can be impatient” or “the story and I have been having an argument.”

Within the story, the narrator speaks on many topics, for example:

Marital advice: “…one of the biggest problems in a marriage is what you expect of the other and what the other expects of you. The closer each person’s expectations come to meeting and shaking hands with each other, the better the marriage is going to be.”Storytelling: “Sometimes when a story says a rose is a rose, it is a rose. But then, there are times when the story says a rose, and the rose is not only a rose, it is also something else.”

Love: “Love happened. Love came to show you that you could be more than you could ever imagine, because love forced you out of the narrows of yourself and thrust you into a vastness that stretched from one end of time to the other. Nothing mattered except being in the presence of love, the greatest beauty of all.”

Lester’s retelling is lighthearted and ends happily and provides a painless introduction to the traditional myth for reluctant readers (it’s a short book and a quick read). Other Cupid and Psyche retellings you may L-O-V-E:

Nice Shot, Cupid (Book 4 of the Myth-o-Mania series) by Kate McMullan (middle grade)

The Princess and the God by Doris Orgel (young adult)

Psyche in a Dress by Francesca Lia Block (young adult)

Til We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis (adult)

Shimmering Splendor by Roberta Gellis (adult)

Share This

Castle Waitingby Linda Medley (2006)

Castle Waiting opens with a Sleeping Beauty like motif where the princess is doomed by the outcast witch to death via spindle prick. The other witch alters the sentence to a mere 100 years of sleep and awakening by true love’s kiss. The castle waits and it comes to pass.

Shortly after her awakening, the princess leaves with the prince, and the remaining villagers are left with their mouths agape asking, “Okay…so what do we do now?” Medley’s imaginings about what does happen to the castle and the left-behind inhabitants after the princess takes off fill the rest of the book, Chapters 4-19. The answer: the castle becomes a refuge for all who come seeking respite–from those on the run from troubled pasts to those simply in need of a place to stay for a time. Daily life and events at the castle replete with eccentric characters become the story content.

Lady Jain, a pregnant woman on the run from an abusive husband, becomes one of the primary refuge seekers.  On her way to the castle, she encounters such characters as the three pigs, gypsies, and Bremen musicians.  Once she arrives at the castle, she has her baby and begins building her new life around the community there.

The castle’s community is diverse–including Rackham, a stork-headed steward; Chess, an anthropomorphic horse; Henry, the grieving blacksmith; Sister Peace, the bearded nun; the antiquated ladies-in-waiting; a golden egg laying hen; and many a poltersprite (mischievous but friendly magical sprites that lurk throughout the castle and in many of the story’s frames). Medley’s medley of characters from familiar tales merge into a new telling of the day-to-day lives of a place of refuge.

As Lady Jain settles into castle life, she gets to know the other inhabitants through their actions and the stories they tell.  Sister Peace’s story, in particular, monopolizes most of the book’s latter chapters as she recounts her childhood in a small village, her life in the circus, and her stay at a nunnery of a bearded order before making her way to the castle.

This 456-page novel published by Fantagraphic Books contains two previously self-published Castle Waiting collections and some extra material.  For those who need constant action, Castle Waiting will not be the best choice.  But for those who enjoy storytelling and community, Castle Waiting has a lot to offer.

Medley employs flashbacks and stories-within-stories to build her character’s back stories. She brings together individuals with eccentricities and diverse pasts and shows how they fit together into a community with a bright future.  Castle Waiting brings magic and fairy tale to life while showcasing a community built on refuge, friendship, loyalty, and hope. Diamond Comics Bookshelf has produced a Castle Waiting lesson plan so that the book may be used in the classroom.

Share This

Montmorency On The Rocks by Eleanor Updale

Following his ignominious rise to the status of gentleman in the series’ first book (Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman (2004)), Montmorency also known as Scarper returns in Montmorency On the Rocks. Montmorency continues to fight against being consumed by Scarper’s proclivities. On a trip with his friend Lord George Fox-Selwyn, Montmorency begins taking a noxious drug. This drug brings Scarper out in full force in near obliteration of all that Montmorency has striven to become. After their return to London, Montmorency continues consuming the drug, or rather, letting the drug consume him: “The drug had long since ceased to bring him happiness, and yet he couldn’t help himself.”

Straits are so dire that Fox-Selwyn decides to help the man who can’t seem to help himself by removing Montmorency away from the prying eyes (and underground temptations) of London society. Fox-Selwyn takes Montmorency, along with his other friend Dr. Farcett, to Scotland.

After Dr. Farcett’s hubris and surgical error caused a patient’s death, he is facing his own demons. However, Dr. Farcett once saved Montmorency’s physical life, and now he is called upon to reach deep and recall his desire for helping make sick people well in order to help Montmorency overcome his substance abuse. In so doing, Dr. Farcett begins to face his past mistakes so that he might embrace his future.

Even as Dr. Farcett helps Montmorency detoxify, the three friends stumble upon another mystery on the island of Tarimond off the Scottish coast. Dr. Farcett’s skills are called upon to uncover why the babies on the island are dying within a few months of their birth. A parallel crisis calls for Montmorency to return to London and apply his  skills of camouflage and subterfuge to the task of finding the bomber that is loose in London. With this charge, Montmorency once again dons his Scarper persona in the heart of London–this time in the service of his country.

Unlike the first book that largely focuses on developing Montmorency’s complex identity, this second book expands to include not only Montmorency’s perspective but also the thoughts, actions, and complex personalities of Lord Fox-Selwyn and Dr. Farcett. Interestingly, Updale employs these three aristocratic characters to showcase the complexity of human nature, the harsher aspects of life for the impoverished, and the colossal inequities among social classes in Victorian England (a la Dickens).

Montmorency: On the Rocks is every bit as thrilling and as full of historical detail, adventure, and intrigue as the first book. Montmorency/Scarper ’s story continues in the third book of this series Montmorency and the Assassins (2006) and the fourth book Montmorency’s Revenge (2007).

Share This

Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman by Eleanor Updale (2004)

“But it is time for you to go. Your possessions will be returned to you downstairs. You have been given the chance of life, 493. I hope you will take the opportunity to make that life one of industry and law-abiding behavior.”

So says the warden to Prisoner 493–also known as Montmorency also known as Scarper. While languishing for three years in the bowels of a Victorian England prison, Montmorency vows to reinvent himself–multiple reinventions really–as a thief, a liar, and a gentleman.

Montmorency’s time in jail is the result of his having been caught as a thief. During his capture, he suffers grievous physical injuries. In fact, Montmorency’s injuries are so grave that an up-and-coming London doctor, Doctor Farcett, is permitted to perform experimental treatments on him.

The treatments save Montmorency’s life and begin to heal of his physical injuries but, simultaneously, they augment his emotional pain over life’s inequities. As a part of his treatments, Montmorency attends meetings of the Scientific Society where he is humiliated as a specimen under examination but also where he learns about the underground sewage system of London. The seeds of a plan for revenge against society’s upper classes begin to sprout.

Montmorency resolves to create dual identities—he will enter London’s underground as Scarper, a sewer navigator who uses the routes to accomplish his thefts and to pave the way for the success of his above-ground persona, Montmorency. Using the goods he attains as Scarper, Montmorency lives the life of a refined gentleman and, in so doing, he defies the seemingly insurmountable Victorian class divisions of his day.

Updale fills her story with secret identities, complex characters, period details, scatological references, daring deeds, narrow escapes, and more vice than virtue. Social and economic disparities drive much of the action–while wealthy gentlemen spend the days at their club, the poorer classes spend the days doing what it takes (legal or no) to survive. Montmorency’s dual identities begin to foster identity confusion, and Montmorency/Scarper finds himself facing choices as to which version of himself he wants to control of his life–the thief, the liar, or the gentleman.

As a work for young adults, Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman is unusual as its characters are not young adults (the same holds true for the subsequent works in the series), and its main character is more antihero than hero. Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman harkens back to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in which one man confronts some unpleasant facts about the conflicting parts of his nature. More modern offerings that contain elements of history, mystery, adventure, and crime in historical England can be found in works by authors such as Chris Priestley, Iain Lawrence, Avi (Traitors Gate), and Paul Bajoria (Printer’s Devil). Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman is the first book in the series starring Montmorency.

Share This

Rhett Butler’s Peopleby Donald McCaig (2007)

Rhett Butler’s People, the fully authorized prequel/sequel, to Gone with the Wind gives us the story from Rhett Butler’s perspective. McCaig invents the backstory that shapes Rhett–the family black sheep and Southern “almost-but-not-quite” gentleman. Readers get the inside look at how and why Rhett starts, stops, and starts giving a damn. The story also provides justifications for the details that mar Rhett’s character in the original (for example, Rhett’s purported illegitimate son, his arrest for killing a black man, his Klan involvement).

Rhett Butler’s People narrates not just the story of Rhett and Scarlet but also the stories of others whose lives are connected with Rhett’s life. His beloved sister Rosemary, his illegitimate son in New Orleans Tazewell Watling, his free black friend Tunis Bonneau, his schoolmate turned rogue and war hero Andrew Ravanel, and others get expanded space to tell their own stories in McCaig’s novel.

Rhett Butler’s People also covers a wider time frame than Gone With the Wind. We are privy to Rhett’s childhood on a rice plantation before the war begins, his experiences as a blockade runner and soldier during the war, and his life in the Reconstruction Era after the war. All this leads up to choices that he and Scarlett are faced with regarding helping to reconstruct not only their beloved South and also with whether or not to bother reconstructing their relationship.

Overall, reading Rhett Butler’s People provides an entertaining and informative look into the Civil War Era, although, compared with Gone with the Wind, it does give short shrift to the Rhett and Scarlett saga. Still, those who enjoy US historical fiction may find it well worth taking a second look at a long ago damned love story with its added look into the war.

For other modern works that have taken alternative looks at old classics try March by Geraldine Brooks (Little Women) and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (Jane Eyre). For another alternative look at Gone with the Wind, try The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall.

Share This

Death Note, Volume 1by Tsugumi Ohba (Author) and Takeshi Obata (Illustrator)

In Death Note, light and dark become confused. Bored-out-of-his-mind Japanese teenager Light Yagami loses his apathy upon picking up the Death Note notebook. The Death Note was dropped into the human world by the equally bored shinigami death god named Ryuk. Ryuk wanted to see what a human would do with the power of the Death Note–the power being the ability to kill any human whose name is written within its pages (see Volume 1 itself for a complete list of rules and regulations for how this is done).

With the power wielded through the Death Note, Light decides to take justice into his own hands and rid the world of evil criminal-by-criminal. As Light sees it, he is “ridding the world of evil and creating a utopia…” over which he will rule. Light has little remorse for those he kills, and he continues to increase his death toll. It’s not long before the authorities become suspicious about the mysterious increase in deaths among the criminal ilk, and Light’s movement of the world toward purported utopia becomes increasingly nefarious as he goes to great lengths to avoid being identified and captured.

The tension rises further still when the authorities hire the renowned-for-his-deeds, anonymous-by-appearance detective “L” to catch the killer of criminals. Light and L begin a battle with each as the other’s nemesis. Each one plans, observes, and re-evaluates next steps based on the actions of the other. Neither one wants to be identified first as being identified would have disastrous repercussions for both of them.

Death Note is a dark and horrifying tale with a main character named Light but lacking itself much light and hope. As for the graphic part of the graphic novel, Ryuk the shinigami’s wide and threatening black mouth and sharp teeth cause chills to run down the spine. Light’s detached, methodical murdering is equally chilling. If the first volume is any indication, themes of the series are going to be morality versus immorality, justice versus injustice, utopia versus dystopia, hero versus monster, good versus evil, courage versus cowardice, and life versus death. Light is an anti-hero that readers will hold their breath for as they wait for him to be caught and then feel conflicted emotions if and when he is.

Death Note is part of the Shonen Jump Advance line, and the series is given a T+ rating (meaning for older teens). For readers who enjoy manga and ethics questions, this may be a series to point them to.

Share This

Children Of The Lamp: The Akhenaten Adventure (Children Of The Lamp) by P.B. Kerr (2004)

In P.B. Kerr’s first book of his Children of the Lamp series, having wisdom teeth pulled out means more than a bit of discomfort, a large dental bill, and the possibility of developing dry socket. For twelve-year old twins Philippa and John Gaunt, having their wisdom teeth pulled means something else entirely.

As twins with loving (and wealthy) parents, they’ve always considered themselves to be pretty lucky. Once their wisdom teeth have been removed, they discover their good fortune goes far beyond luck and stems from who and what they are. They are Children of the Lamp; they are djinn (not genie, mind you, djinn as the term genie is prosaic and repugnant to djinn). With their wisdom teeth gone, it is time for their fallow djinn powers to begin burgeoning.

The twins’ parents (mother-djinn; father-standard order human) have hidden their “djinn” nature from them in attempts to help them lead normal lives. The twins, however, are not content to be ordinary and jump at the chance to go visit their Uncle Nimrod and have him explain some of the mysterious things that have been happening to them.

From their Uncle Nimrod, they discover that there are actually multiple tribes of djinn–not all of them are bestowers of good fortune and caretakers of humankind. Instead the djinn have split into the good (the Marid, the Jinn, and the Jann) and the evil (the Ifrit, the Shaitan, and the Ghul). As descendants of the Marid tribe, Philippa and John are on the good side, and they soon find themselves embroiled in the battle to defeat the evil djinn in their plan to discover the lost tomb of the evil djinn Akhenaten and to release him along with the seventy other djinn he had bound into his service (and you probably always thought he was just another pharaoh…). Whomever releases these seventy djinn will have the power to command them and thus disrupt the careful homeostasis of good and bad luck that the good djinn attempt to maintain.

Children of the Lamp: The Akhenaten Adventure chronicles the twins discovery of their djinn identity and their growing understanding of the responsibility that comes with power. Due to the relationship among djinn, heat, smoke, fire, and the like, smoking plays a larger role in this book than is typical in children’s literature. Still, the story contains more than exposition, smoke and fire, and good versus evil battle, Kerr also makes room for humor, particularly in the development of his secondary characters. Mr. Rakshasas an older, wiser, agoraphobic djinn who has spent many a year trapped inside a bottle frequently inserts cryptic (but fitting in-context if you pause to think on them long enough) interjections into the conversations. For example:

“The cat is his own best advisor, right enough”

“There’s many a time a man’s mouth broke his own nose.”

“To be sure, it is a shame to try to make a goat’s beard out of a fine stallion’s tail”

Overall, Kerr has created a fully developed fantastic world that exists alongside reality as we know it (a la series such as Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, So You Want to Be a Wizard, the Bartimaeus Trilogy, etc.). Detail-by-detail he has laid the groundwork for creating more stories centering around the historical battle between the good and evil djinn. Some readers may relish the detail and the fully-created djinn history, while others may long for less exposition and more action.

The Akhenaten Adventure is Kerr’s first work for children, and the series may pick up in pace now that the world has been developed. It’s a fun work for younger readers who want to delve into a fictional extrapolation about the lives of genies, errr, I mean djinn. It’s also been rumored to be coming soon in movie form.

Uncle Nimrod also passes on some sage commentary on humans and wishes:

“…it’s usually best that they [humans] get the thing themselves. Through their own hard work. That way, they tend to appreciate it more when they get it…Equally, there are many occasions when they just don’t think their wish through. When they don’t consider the full implications of actually having their dearest wish come true.”

“They [wishes] can be unpredictable…When you play around with the future, there is a random, unexpected, even unpleasant aspect to what you’re doing.”

And if you emjoy the first book, you’ll be happy to know that there are more books in the Children of the Lamp Series:

Blue Djinn of Babylon (Children of the Lamp Book 2)

Cobra King Of Kathmandu (Children Of The Lamp Book 3)

Day Of The Djinn Warriors (Children Of The Lamp Book 4)

You can also check out P.B. Kerr’s official website.

Share This