Echoes from the Macabre: Selected Stories by Daphne du Maurier
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
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Monday, May 31, 2021
Review: Echoes from the Macabre: Selected Stories
Review: Lumberjanes: True Colors
Lumberjanes: True Colors by Lilah Sturges
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is part of my 365 Kids Books challenge. For an explanation see my review for 101 Amazing Facts about Australia You can see all the books on their own shelf.
Lumberjanes is a fabulous setup. Even very trite messages like "Be Yourself" feel fresh when it's not just one kid, but half the cast who have the issue, and also, totally goofy shit like giant quahogs with legs running around and zebracorns who do magic.
Library copy
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Review: The Thief
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
January 1, 2012
I enjoyed the medieval Greece-like setting, the stories of the gods, the elaborate heist, as well as the real politic of the international situation. A really good adventure story with characters that gradually are revealed to us. My only complaint was that it was pretty much devoid of female characters until the very end. I have high hopes for the rest of the series.
I forgot to mention that I haven't read better descriptions of someone learning to ride since The Horse and His Boy.
Library copy.
June 4, 2015
I will only add that in fact the rest of the series does include multiple female characters. And I loved this at least as much on the second reading as the first.
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Review: Olivia the Spy
Olivia the Spy by Ian Falconer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Now when I read an Olivia book, I keep an eye out for Edwin the cat.. This is not my favorite Olivia, she's not as brash, which is important to balance the relentless activity. Also, I am curious to see more of her interactions with her brothers.
Library copy
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Saturday, May 29, 2021
Review: The Dirty Cowboy
The Dirty Cowboy by Amy Timberlake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Challenged as "pornographic": a word the challengers apparently don't know the meaning of. Although the cowboy is nude for most of the story, Rex has artfully and amusingly managed to hide his genitalia and even his butt crack in every picture. There may have been man nipples, though. I'm not sure.
***
There's a cowboy in New Mexico who sets out to take his annual bath in the river. Trouble ensues, comically. The text seems slightly off: it's got a good voice to the tale, but it seems to broken up strangely, so that some pages are rather dense with text.
But nevermind! The cowboy looks a bit like Alfred E. Neuman when he's clean, the dog looks like a big bad wolf when he's at work, and there's lots of small critters and pests to discover in every spread. Fun to read aloud and get all twangy with. Lovely attention to location-accurate flora and fauna, much appreciated by the desert-fond among us.
Library copy.
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Review: Tree Ring Circus
Tree Ring Circus by Adam Rex
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Rex cracks us up. I love this crazy circus, as do the Offspring.
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Thursday, May 27, 2021
Review: Pumpkinheads
Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sorry I didn't manage to write anything at the time. I quite like it, despite my loathing for overalls.
Library copy
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Wednesday, May 26, 2021
Review: Claiming the Duchess
Claiming the Duchess by Sherry Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I started to feel bad that I couldn't remember this better after only a couple of months. Then I realized I was off by a year. So, not as obviously losing my mind. One unexpected way in which reading is good for memory.
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Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Sunday, May 23, 2021
Review: XO, OX: A Love Story
XO, OX: A Love Story by Adam Rex
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
This is part of my 365 Kids Books challenge. For a fuller explanation see my review for 101 Amazing Facts about Australia You can see all the books on their own shelf. The Reviewers seemed to run correctly last week, but didn't run this week at all, and the Readers list hasn't been fixed at all. I guess algorithm don't care. Looking at the beta pages, algorithm loves stars.
Ox writes a fan letter to supermodel Gazelle declaring his love for her. She sends back a form letter and a signed picture. He writes back again misconstruing her message. He continues to send her letters praising her many virtues and telling her why he loves her based. And when she specifically asks this stranger to stop writing to her, he doesn't.
So she falls in love with him?
WTF?
Alternatively, this is just a cute story about some watercolor animals falling in love.
Library copy
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Saturday, May 22, 2021
Review: Moonday
Moonday by Adam Rex
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is part of my 365 Kids Books challenge. For a fuller explanation see my review for 101 Amazing Facts about Australia You can see all the books on their own shelf. Yay, Reviewers list is fixed, as far as I can tell. Still waiting for the Readers list to be fixed, though.
Continuing my romp through just some of the fabulous Rex books.
***
8 August, 2019
Everyone has moon displays for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing and for the theme of this year's summer reading programs. So I picked it up again. Still love it.
Also I worked out that what I only very dimly remember is (probably) the landing, not the moonwalk. It was a big deal about the moon on TV in the afternoon is all I recall, and I am by no means confident that I really remember it, rather than having created a memory over the years. Everyone remembers where they were when they heard certain momentous news events, but comparisons of memories immediately after such events and a year or more later show that most of us are far off in our accounts, so I remain skeptical about my accuracy in every regard.
You know what I do remember vividly and confidently from that same year? Dr Seuss books (One Fish, Two Fish and Fox in Socks), the apartment building fire somewhere close enough to walk to, two of my Christmas presents (a Snoopy-shaped pillow with my name on it and a little flying saucer toy with a purple alien inside), practicing writing my name on the floor of my mother's bedroom while listening to a taped letter-from-my-father-who-was-in-Viet-Nam [apparently my preschool teacher had taught me an incorrect spelling], some kind of Pop Tart-like breakfast food shaped like an elephant in chocolate (my favorite) or a lion in peanut butter (my brother's favorite), breaking a tooth on same, Space Food Sticks, and Tang.
Feel free to share what you remember from 1969, if you do, or from the year you were four, if you don't.
***
16 May, 2014
Now everyone is going to be wanting one! I love the idea of a small planatoid in my backyard. Sure, there are drawbacks, but apparently it's possible to get the gravity just right, so that one can walk around upside down like the Little Prince.
Gorgeous story with a clever kid.
Library copy
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Review: Chu's Day at the Beach
Chu's Day at the Beach by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Chu's Day at the Beach - Neil Gaiman, Adam Rex Chu's not like the other kids, so his day at the beach starts out as one might expect and then takes a turn toward the frivolously weird. Cool.library copy
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Review: Chu's First Day of School
Chu's First Day of School by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is part of my 365 Kids Books challenge. For a fuller explanation see my review for 101 Amazing Facts about Australia You can see all the books on their own shelf.
Yay, Reviewers list is fixed, as far as I can tell. Still waiting for the Readers list to be fixed, though.
Having just noted that I didn't write anything about Chu's Day the second time I read it, I see that I didn't write anything at all about Chu 2 Electric Big Achoo (I couldn't resist, really, I tried for like 2-3 seconds and that was it). There came a time when no longer having young children I wasn't up on picture books, nor was I really paying much attention to anyone else on the topic.
And what would I have said? I love Adam Rex! I love Neil Gaiman! Adorable!
August 17, 2016
September 27, 2014
Library copy
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Review: Chu's First Day of School
Chu's First Day of School by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
August 17, 2016
September 27, 2014
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Review: Chu's Day
Chu's Day by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I've been looking forward to this FOREVER, so when Adam Rex posted the picture I had to go ahead and create an entry for the book.
***
The other picture book I checked out last night. Tash read it immediately, because she has adored pandas for a decade and because it's NEIL GAIMAN and ADAM REX. And then, after supper, she and I read it together, and then we read it again when Veronica joined us.
The text is simple, straightforward, and minimal. It's a cute joke and their could be a million of them. But the art! Rex brings out the details of an animal-only world that delight and amuse. Tiny hats! The special library table for the elephant! The mother's veil! The saddle oxfords! Everything the eye catches is just another wonderful little joke or addition. Rex didn't just illustrate the story, he really fleshed it out and gave it depth, without words. One of the most successful children's book collaborations I've ever seen.
Yet another example of how people don't stop enjoying picture books when they become proficient readers, they just become embarrassed to be seen with them. By example I try to show them that a good books are for everyone.
Library copy.
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Review: Nothing Rhymes with Orange
Nothing Rhymes with Orange by Adam Rex
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I wasn't expecting that!
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Review: Frankenstein Takes the Cake
Frankenstein Takes the Cake by Adam Rex
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
We're all becoming Rex fans. Rex ran a contest on his blog for monster haiku and the Possum won a copy of this book signed to her, with a doodle illustrating her haiku. I think my kids are awesome, as is Adam Rex.
***
2008 November 2
Quality horror-film based comic poetry. The Headless Horseman's Blog is spot on, but it's all great. The Japanese rubber-suit-monster haiku were especially pleasing.
We all loved it.
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Review: Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich
Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Don't ignore he open books and newspapers
***
2 November, 2008
Still great. I had forgotten there was a Little Dracula in this one, but the PandaBat remembered.
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Friday, May 21, 2021
Review: The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life: How to Get More Books in Your Life and More Life from Your Books
The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life: How to Get More Books in Your Life and More Life from Your Books by Steve Leveen
My rating: 0 of 5 stars
I remember Leveen's visit to the prior Readerville. I've been thinking about him and this book since discovering Note:Books, which should appeal to his thinking about how we read.
It's good for all of us probably to spend a little time thinking about what we read, and why, and how. There are a million books telling you what to read, but few really explore the mechanical process of reading, and of learning from what we read.
What have I learned? Well, if I spent more time reflecting on what I had read, and fitting it into a context in my head, and making notes on it, I would certainly remember more than I do. But, most of my reading is for the pleasure of being sucked into a text and transported. When I'm really enjoying a book I'm not thinking of anything else, I'm just there in it. For me, then, I'm much more likely to have something to say in a review about the nonfiction, while the fiction boils down to "sucked me in", "really sucked me in", or "just barely helped the time pass and I wouldn't have bothered to finish if there had been anything else available to read".
The shelves/tags idea is one I hadn't thought much about before. These days I frequently find someone asking me for books on a given subject, or for a specific reader, or other, somewhat narrow criteria. I'm using tags more and more, just to enable me to answer those questions. When the Possum needs to read something science fiction, and I like being able to make title suggestions in the YA/MG area that I loved.
It'll be interesting to see what sort of information I want to keep about books in another ten or forty years. Not a book I expected would go in the category of "it changed my life", although I suppose that is one of the delights of reading. That's all I expected it to be, cute maybe but nothing important. Leveen starts by offering up good advice on keeping lists and dealing with recommendations, suggestions helpful to readers who haven���t discovered the Ville, but old hat here.
But it���s the second chapter that really grabbed me, Seizing More From Your Reading. Here Leveen starts by offering a variety of useful study tips, and I started taking notes, thinking ahead to the days when the Paragons would need same. Before too long though, I was reflecting on how little I retain from the reading I do. Zooming through a couple of hundred books a year, I find myself unable to remember anything about most of them. Consulting my ���bookograpy��� (Leveen���s word) I can easily make a list of my best reads, because I am wise enough to mark them as I enter them. Although this past year I had so many great books to list, I ended up having to look at Amazon descriptions just to group them meaningfully. To say why they were so good was utterly beyond me. Even the occasional blurbs in my journal were unhelpful to restore memory. Thankfully, Leveen was able to tell me why I wasn���t remembering them, and how to remedy that problem.
Already I���m reading in a different way. As an English Lit major I retained enough of the text to write papers and answer exam questions, and out of college and into book reviewing I used post-it flags to highlight important text and took notes. For some reason, once I stopped reading professionally, I also stopped reading attentively. The loss has been felt. How many times since joining the ���Ville have I refrained from posting or even reading discussion on a specific book because I had no comments to make other than ���loved it��� or ���hated it���. Like most folks hereabouts, I���ve been grateful to other posters who not only recommended titles, but were also able to give me a reason for reading it. And still my posts remained content-less.
So, this is my new leaf. Henceforth, when asked ���So, are you reading anything great these days?��� I hope to be able to respond with a meaningful answer. Leveen���s book was great to me, for pointing me to an Emerson quote: ���There is creative reading as well as creative writing.��� Now I���m making notes, flagging quotes, and perhaps most importantly, I���m taking breaks during my reading to reflect on what I���ve learned and what it means to me. There will be books I���ll have less to say about. Fiction, for the most part, I read for escapism, not to learn. But at then end of the year I���d like to be able to make a rational statement on why I enjoyed, for example, all the Mallory series. Now all I can remember is that I did.
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Review: Once Upon an Ordinary School Day
Once Upon an Ordinary School Day by Colin McNaughton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is part of my 365 Kids Books challenge. For a fuller explanation see my review for 101 Amazing Facts about Australia You can see all the books on their own shelf.
Good news, everyone. GoodReads managed to correct one of the lists! I am truly delighted to be back on the Reviewers list among so many people who provide such a useful and entertaining range of reviews from serious literary criticism to casual one liners to whimsical projects.
Now, about fixing the Readers list.
I loved this book. The notes I jotted down as I read this comprise rather more words than the book itself. The short version is the Kitamura's art brings vibrancy and color and delight that reflects and underlines the point of the text. Plus Kitamura puts a cat in each painting. The first two-page spread is so bland and so ordinary, showing the student's morning routine: in the background behind him in the hall you can see his bedroom, where he's still in bed, and the bathroom, where he's brushing his teeth, and peeing, and taking a bath, and the dining room where he's eating breakfast and the kitchen where he's kissing his mother goodbye. It's as if you're seeing every moment of every ordinary day at once, because it's always the same.
And then a new teacher brings magic into their lives and everything is different.
Library copy
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Thursday, May 20, 2021
Wednesday, May 19, 2021
Monday, May 17, 2021
Sunday, May 16, 2021
Review: Skunkdog
Skunkdog by Emily Jenkins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
As a person with an extremely limited sense of smell, I dearly loved this. I don't think I've ever read a book before about an animal who couldn't smell.
Library copy.
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Review: Tiger and Badger
Tiger and Badger by Emily Jenkins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
library copy
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Review: A Greyhound, a Groundhog
A Greyhound, a Groundhog by Emily Jenkins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Loved the water color art and the feeling of motion Appelhans brought to the illustrations. What can I say? I'd been meaning to read it because I like Jenkins' work consistently, but to spot it on Groundhog Day? It was meant to be. And so pretty and frenetic.
Library copy
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