Children’s literature « Books Worth Reading

What I Read This Month: September 2009

September 30, 2009 at 12:56 pm | In Books, Monthly Reading | 2 Comments
Tags: Children's literature, Josephine Humphreys, Kim Stanley Robinson, Margaret Atwood, Science fiction, Ursula K Le Guin, Virginia Baker

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It was not such a productive month, reading-wise. I only finished two books, both of which were meh, and I abandoned two books as well. I am excited about the book I am currently reading: Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood. But that one will have to go in next month’s roundup.

The reason why I didn’t read much is that I spent so much time on Green Mars, the second in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy. Green Mars did not hold my attention nearly as well as Red Mars, the first book in the series. I tolerated the endless scenes of driving around on the Martian surface in Red Mars; in Green Mars, it was getting a little old. The book did get exciting during the Martian Revolution at the end, but I had to wade through like 600 pages just to get there.

I also read another one of Ursula K. Le Guin’s young adult books, Gifts. Having just finished A Wizard of Earthsea, I thought that Gifts, while well written and engaging, was a little too familiar to really grab my interest. A good book for young readers, surely, but not for jaded old me.

The books I abandoned were Nowhere Else on Earth by Josephine Humphreys and Jack Knife by Virginia Baker. The first is set during the Civil War in Lumberton, North Carolina, and is about the Lumbee Indians, but I just found it too confusing, with far too many characters, to engage me. The second is a suspense thriller time travel novel set during the Jack the Ripper years, but the jump-cut style of writing broke up the story way too much to hold me.

Roundup: 2 books read, 2 abandoned (click the titles for my full reading notes)

Green Mars, Gifts

Nowhere Else on Earth, Jack Knife (abandoned)

My rating scale:

1 star: Abandoned before finishing. Don’t waste your time.
2 stars: Poor. Avoid with extreme prejudice.
3 stars: Average. Read it, have a good time and move on. Or not.
4 stars: Great. Push it on your friends and family.
5 stars: Excellent. Keep it, treasure it, reread it.

Disclaimer: My ratings are very personal and may have little to do with the book’s artistic or commercial merit, or its place in the literary canon. Rather, the rating reflects how the story, characters and writing spoke to me and augmented my understanding of the world.

Worth Reading: The Graveyard Book

February 3, 2009 at 12:12 pm | In Books, Reviews | 4 Comments
Tags: Neil Gaiman, Fantasy, Children's literature, Newbery Medal

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2008 )

The Graveyard Book is a children’s book — probably most appropriate for readers in the 10-13 year-old range — which pays an homage to Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. A young boy’s family is murdered in the night by the mysterious man Jack, but the boy slips away to the nearby graveyard. The ghosts who reside in the graveyard agree to take the boy in and raise him, safe and hidden away from the world of people, while the undead figure Silas will act as his guardian. They christen the boy “Nobody,” or Bod for short. Each chapter of the book is episodic and pretty much self-contained, relating an incident in Bod’s childhood as he learns the ways of the dead. But everything he learns will serve him well when the Jacks finally hunt him down.

As it is a children’s book, The Graveyard Book may not be entirely satisfactory to adult readers. I myself would love to see another novel for adults featuring some of the same characters, such as Silas. But The Graveyard Book is wonderfully written and entirely absorbing nonetheless, a fantasy that will transport all readers to the hidden world Gaiman creates in the overgrown, forgotten graveyard where ghosts turn out to be quite ordinary people really (but watch out for the ghouls!). Ultimately, this is a universal story as well, a classic coming-of-age tale, with a bittersweet ending as Bod inevitably must leave his childhood behind. This is going in my son’s library, and I will enjoy reading it aloud to him when he is old enough.

The Graveyard Book – A Seasonal Book Review (austinist.com)
Afterthoughts: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (robaroundbooks.com)
‘The Graveyard Book’ Wins Newbery Medal (nytimes.com)

Monthly Reading: December 2008

December 29, 2008 at 12:15 pm | In Monthly Reading, Reviews | 4 Comments
Tags: Amitav Ghosh, Barbara Kingsolver, Children's literature, Food and cooking, Historical fiction, Horror, India, Memoir, Richard Matheson, Roald Dahl, Short stories, Yann Martel

: Cover of Sea of Poppies: A Novel

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh — Indian historical fiction

The Witches by Roald Dahl — children’s literature

The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios by Yann Martel — short stories

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver — food memoir

7 Steps to Midnight by Richard Matheson — horror

My rating scale:

1 star: Abandoned before finishing. Don’t waste your time.
2 stars: Poor. Avoid with extreme prejudice.
3 stars: Average. Read it, have a good time and move on. Or not.
4 stars: Great. Push it on your friends and family.
5 stars: Excellent. Keep it, treasure it, reread it.

Here are the posts on my blog that were getting the most reads this month:

Finally, here’s a little link love for other bloggers reviewing favorites of mine:

The Time Traveler’s Wife (The Book Lady’s Blog)
The Road (A Novel Menagerie)
Anansi Boys (Things Mean a Lot)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Rhapsodyinbook’s Weblog)
Sea of Poppies (Book Club Classics)
The Catcher in the Rye (Zawan’s Blog)
Never Let Me Go (Tuesday in Silhouette)
The Blind Assassin (Things Mean a Lot)

Wow, y’all have been reading some good books!

Read Your Child a Banned Book

September 30, 2008 at 8:28 am | In Books, Reading Lists | 2 Comments
Tags: Banned books, Children's literature, Maurice Sendak, Philip Pullman

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It’s Banned Books Week, and I am pleased to discover that my 6-month-old son already has at least one banned book in his library that we have read to him several times. The book is In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak, one of my childhood favorites that I bought for Sean before he was born. It is a delightfully nonsensical story about a little boy’s dream of bakers making cake during the night, and the only reason I can think of that it has been banned is that the dreaming little boy is naked for part of the story.

Let’s celebrate Banned Books Week by reading our children — or children you know — a book that has been subject to censorship. Your choice will depend on the ages of your audience, of course, but here are some suggestions:

In the Night Kitchen, Maurice Sendak
And Tango Makes Three, Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
A Light in the Attic, Shel Silverstein
Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
The Witches or James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
The Giver, Lois Lowry
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle

Here is Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass and other books for older readers, on censorship.

Monthly Reading: May 2008

June 1, 2008 at 11:14 am | In Monthly Reading, Reviews | Leave a Comment
Tags: Jane Smiley, Joe R Lansdale, Susanna Clarke, Children's literature, Antoine de Saint Exupery, Mainstream

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The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery — Children’s literature

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley — Mainstream fiction

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke — abandoned

The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale — abandoned

My rating scale:

1 star: Abandoned before finishing. Don’t waste your time.
2 stars: Poor. Avoid with extreme prejudice.
3 stars: Average. Read it, have a good time and move on. Or not.
4 stars: Great. Push it on your friends and family.
5 stars: Excellent. Keep it, treasure it, reread it.

Monthly Reading: January 2007

February 1, 2007 at 8:37 am | In Monthly Reading, Reviews | Leave a Comment
Tags: Children's literature, David Brin, Environmentalism, JRR Tolkien, Science fiction

Book cover via Amazon

Earth by David Brin — environmental science fiction

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien — children’s literature

My rating scale:

1 star: Abandoned before finishing. Don’t waste your time.
2 stars: Poor. Avoid with extreme prejudice.
3 stars: Average. Read it, have a good time and move on. Or not.
4 stars: Great. Push it on your friends and family.
5 stars: Excellent. Keep it, treasure it, reread it.

Old Favorite: The Hobbit

January 14, 2007 at 10:22 am | In Books, Reviews | 5 Comments
Tags: Children's literature, Fantasy, Hobbit, JRR Tolkien, Middle-earth

Book cover via Amazon

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (1937)

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

My first experience with this short prologue to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings epic was having it read aloud to me by my father, chapter by chapter, at bedtime every night. We always remember fondly the books we loved as children, but unlike many of them, The Hobbit withstands the test of growing up. Neither as long or as politically complex as LotR, The Hobbit is still a gripping adventure story filled with trolls, orcs, elves, giant spiders, battles and near escapes. Illustrated by Tolkien himself with detailed maps, it is a wonderful introduction to the world of Middle-Earth, to the fascinating characters of Bilbo, Gandalf and Gollum, and to the timeless realm of fantasy and adventure that we all need to continue to visit, even when we are no longer children.

You might have heard that the film adaptation of The Hobbit is under way. But why not read the book first?