Review: Sirens and Sea Monsters: Book Three of Tales From the Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne

genre: children's literature

In this installment, Odysses has to fight some nasty creatures in the Sea of Monsters: six headed dragons and crazy whirlpool monsters. The poor guy seriously has a rough go of it, it feels as though the gods just have got it in for him, stranded on an island full of animals they are NOT allowed to eat. Odysseus is truly a tragic guy but he tries to be a good leader, which I like. I am still appreciating Osborne's ability to make it accessible and yet still stay very close to the original story. My son is still a giant fan of this series, I think they are preparing him well to enjoy the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series in a couple years.

Review: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

genre: young adult
Book 2 in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series

There is nothing like a good series. Really, how often is the second book truly as good as the first? In this case, I was so pleased. We follow Percy and his trusty side-kicks (including one new and very...monsterous relative) as he tries to put a stop to whatever is weakening Camp-Half Blood. I love love love how much of Greek mythology is woven into this story. I am currently also reading a retelling of The Odyssey to my 7 year old son and I am absolutely amazed at how much of the plot of The Odyssey Riordan has managed to include in this book without ever making it seem forced. The 9 year olds of today will someday encounter Homer in an ancient studies college course and so much will seem familiar :)

The writing is swift, the plot has moments of predictability but no so much that it was bothersome (this IS an age-old story in many ways, after all) and good against evil is always a good fight to watch. I appreciated the zinger of an ending (despite the fact that my DARLING daughter had already spilled the beans, curse her!) I'm looking forward to book three.

Classics Challenge 2010

Is this really the third year I am playing this game? I love it! Always a good way to stretch my reading in a new direction :)

April 1 - October 31st 2010
I am doing "The Entree"

Since I already made a list for the fun going on over at 5 Minutes for Books, I'll just be using that again minus one that I just finished reading. I'll just hold off until April 1 to get started :)

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
The African Queen by C.S. Forester
Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
The Pearl by John Steinbeck

review: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

genre: young adult(?) holocaust fiction

Bruno lived a comfortable and happy life in Berlin for nine years, until suddenly he has to up and move...somewhere. Somewhere for his father's new job, somewhere not really pleasant at all. And despite all his questions, Bruno has a hard time figuring out why anyone would WANT to be there, and especially why anyone would want to be on the other side of that fence, where everyone wears striped pajamas all day. Then one day, while out exploring, he happens upon another boy, from that other side, and thus a most unlikely friendship begins.

I have such mixed feelings about this book, strangely - and I know that most reviews I've read have been by people who thoroughly love it, so that surprised me. I appreciate that it's meant to be an allegory, to try and get us to think about how if the differences we place on ourselves were suddenly wiped away, how much we would all have in common. The high points: I thought the pacing of the story was good - I read it in a day, I was interested enough and it was well written enough. Having a daughter at the age of Bruno, I did feel like he got Bruno's personality pretty spot on, his curiosity and the way he tried to reason things out for himself, all that was good. And it was an interesting experiment, to see the Holocaust from an "innocent" point of view.

BUT. I think my problem stems from the fact that I have just read too much about concentration camps to let myself fully suspend my disbelief. It was so clearly one specific concentration camp that the story was set in and I just could not believe that such a scenario would have happened, as incredible and beautiful as it is. Clearly, this problem would not bother all readers, but take it for what it is. I was also constantly bogged down by the fact that Bruno seemed to not understand many things that were said to him in German - he didn't know what a Jew was? or what Fuhrer means? In Germany at that time? Knowing, very intimately, a 9 year old myself, I just couldn't believe that either. And the ending left me feeling like I'd been dropped on my head. For this reader, it wasn't as satisfying to me as I'd hoped it would be.

Review: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

genre: fiction

It's hard to know what to say about this book that hasn't already been said. I kept hearing that I'd either love it or hate it and I was truly interested in how it would shake down for me, never having read it when I was younger.

I ended up falling more in the "loved it" camp. But here is why, I think: my dear friend LOVED this book as a teen. LOVED it. And I think as I read, I kept imagining her as a teen reading it - her and countless other teens finding in Holden Caulfield the same dissatisfaction with the world, that same frustration with the phoniness of the people they interacted with. Despite the fact that I felt like he was full of bull some of the time, I believed that he wanted to NOT be full of bull. He wanted to feel like an adult, wanted to NOT have that phoniness that annoyed him so much in others, even though it's clear that he wasn't completely successful.

Yes, there is more cussing in this book than maybe in any book I've ever read. Yes, he has a prostitute in his hotel room once. Yes, he smokes and drinks and wanders New York City and is everything you never want your own son to be...mostly. He's also sorta thoughtful. And he also looks for things that are beautiful and hopeful and nice. And sometimes he would slam me with a thought that was so fabulous, like: "Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that's impossible, but it's too bad anyway." I think it boiled down to the fact that I was able to swim through his choices and his aimlessness and his foul mouth and I could see that underneath there was a really intelligent, caring human being who just didn't want to put on some smiley face about something when he didn't feel like it. And as teens, weren't MOST of us like that? Crusty and crabby on the outside but still, on the inside, yearning to just find something real to hold on to, remembering that there used to be lots of things that made us feel happy? And in those (really rare) moments when he was happy, I want to just grab him and hug him, although probably he would think that's just me being phony.

review: The Land of the Dead - Tales From the Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne

genre: children's literature/myth
Tales From the Odyssey Book Two

In this second installment of the Odyssey, Odysseus has just been blown far away from home, where he'd nearly arrived for a minute there. What a shame he angered that Cyclops and got on the bad side of the Gods! In this book, we meet Circe, that crazy enchantress who turns soldiers into pigs, we travel to the land of the dead to get some not-really-helpful advice and we also meet more than one group of cannibals. Very sad - but incredibly entertaining to my 7 year old son. He begs to be read this book every night. Good thing Odysseus won't be arriving home any time soon and we can read more of his adventures!

Review: She's So Dead to Us by Kieran Scott

genre: young adult
source: publisher

Ally's life was perfect: a tight group of friends, a house in the posh part of town and virtually everything she wanted - until her Dad made a bad investment that tanked the savings of all her friend's parents. Not good, so not good that they had to leave their house until they got on their feet again - without Ally's dad. And now, she's moved back to Orchard Hill - but not to the posh part of town she'd always known. Suddenly an outsider in the place she new best, Ally has a lot to learn about life and what true friendships are really made of. Oh, and love, too, of course. That new boy Jake is perfect for her - except that he's friends with her OLD friends, and how can THAT possibly work?

It's an interesting premise and I think played out well, especially if you like a "Little Princess" type plot. Ally is sympathetic but not perfect and Jake is the same. I think it's probably the perfect book for this modern high school genre - all kinds of backstabbing, cussing, hooking up and relationship salvaging. I found some of the circumstances in the book to be right on par with the horrors that I remember from my own high school experience, dances where you go with one person and really want to be with someone else, that sort of thing. My problem is that I did not know that it's the first in a trilogy, so when it just ended, my "what the?" was not just in my head. I wish the publisher had written somewhere on my advance readers copy that this was the beginning of a series so I would have seen it coming. If you enjoy these kinds of books, you'll probably enjoy this one too, just be aware that more is coming.

Review: Bunker 10 by J. A. Henderson

genre: young adult

The Pinewood Military Instillation is going to blow up. We know that, because it happens in the first chapter - and then, the story takes us back in time to discover how we got to that point. And while Pinewood is full of soldiers and contractors, obviously, it is also the home of 7 genius-type children, and the book is told from their point of view.

I cannot decide whether I liked this or not.

I liked the mind-bending nature of it, to a certain point, in a Maxtrix-y, Ender's Game-y sort of way. But sometimes, it was almost TOO much. In my mind I was saying, "blah blah blah" sometimes because it felt kind of...made up. Maybe I just couldn't suspend my disbelief enough for certain parts because other times, I really was interested and engaged. It was much more about plot than character - maybe that was the problem. I didn't know these genius kids well enough to believe they could do the things they could do. Also one of the characters was so completely caricatured I couldn't take him seriously at all.

At any rate, I think some people could really enjoy this, especially those who enjoy science fiction or military type books written for young adults. It is an intense thriller with a "kid power" message (somewhat gory, for a young adult book). It just wasn't 100% for me.

book 8 for the 2010 Young Adult Challenge

Review: Angel and Apostle by Deborah Noyes

genre: historical fiction
source: publicist

In Angel and Apostle we find two things: first, the story of the Scarlet Letter from a different point of view, that of Pearl, the fruit of Scarlet's "sin." Second, Noyes takes the story further, fleshing out the sketched end of the book and introducing us to Pearl's life as an adult.

Pearl is reckless. She is stubborn and impish and not quite of this world. Seeing the Scarlet Letter through her eyes is a strange thing, she seems less purposefully naughty in this tale than in the original - her eyes are for her beloved blind friend and the trees, the mosses and animals. She is, somewhat understandably, a bit of an unloved wanderer - she craves attention but doesn't always like it when she gets it. Her journey from the New World to the Old doesn't solve all of her and her mother's problems, but the dichotomy of the two places is always there in Pearl's heart as she grows up and tries to sort through her heart and make a place for herself.

Having recently read the Scarlet Letter, I feel qualified to say that this prose is about as close to Hawthorne's as it's possible to get: descriptive, eloquent and Noyes captured the period just right. The people, their decisions and fears flowed true to the Scarlet Letter. And, for better or for worse, I felt that same strange feeling like sometimes I was watching the story through frosted glass - as if I wasn't quite getting all that seemed to be taking place because of nuances of language. Truthfully, while the second half kept me engaged and I was eager to read it, I didn't love it. Maybe it's the writing style, but I never felt close to Pearl, I always felt as if she was holding me, and herself, at arm's length and I had a hard time understanding the choices she made. While the later plot in the book mirror's Hawthorne's nicely, it also felt a bit obvious, although an interesting twist from what we assume from the Scarlet Letter. Maybe I wanted more for Pearl? Maybe the theme of adultery is just not something I love to read about? Maybe she just landed in the Old World at the wrong time? Maybe she was just born under a cruel star, I don't know - but I did appreciate that in the end, she took charge of herself and her decisions, acknowledging that knowing the truth is one of the most important things.

review: The One-Eyed Giant - Tales From the Odyssey by Mary Pope Osborne

genre: children's literature

What a FIND! This series of books is a retelling of that age old tale, The Odyssey. The text is swiftly paced but with a lot of detail and Osborne assumes that kids who will read it can handle it's...harshness? Yes, soldiers get eaten by the Cyclops. Yes, they gouge the Cyclop's eye out with a stake. My 7 year old adored this chapter book - the chapters are just the right length (I read aloud 2-3 chapters per evening) and although I would've thought it would be illustrated, it isn't. But it was okay, it's descriptive and explanatory and I really appreciated the pronunciation guide in the back. I also appreciate that she's written something so accessable for kids, to give them in introduction to this famous story.

I'll definitely be reading the rest of these, even for myself, since the Cyclops and the Sirens are about all I remember from my high school English class.

review: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

genre: middle-grade fiction

Okay, okay. I get it now. I now see why people love Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

It's not just that it's a fast-paced story. It's not just that you're learning all about the Greek Gods in a really accessible way. It's not just that you drop into an alternate reality where the Gods are among us and things aren't really what they seem. For me, it was Percy. I love a character who has something huge and special to learn about himself (a la Harry Potter).

Percy Jackson has been seeing "weird" things his whole life, but on a field trip during the 6th grade, things go a bit over the top and suddenly he begins questioning his sanity. His crazy teacher, Mrs. Dodd's? Those knitting ladies on the side of the road? For a while, he has more answers than questions, until even his mother recognizes that it is time for Percy to learn the truth.

The truth that's been kept from Percy will change his life and put him in the face of dangers he's only read about in mythology books. And we're lucky enough to be along for the ride.

It's great middle-grade fiction, engaging and while sometimes it felt a bit cheesy to me, my 9 year old daughter that I read it aloud to, ate all that cheese right up, which I guess is just how it should be. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

Review: The Declaration by Gemma Malley

genre: ya dystopian

If a pill was made that could make our bodies live forever, how long do you think it would take for our earth's resources to run out? In The Declaration, such a pill WAS created - and in order to ensure that life on earth could continue without upsetting that delicate balance, new laws had to be in place in order to stop people from having children. You want a child? You have to opt-out of eternal life yourself. If you don't opt-out? Your child is a Surplus. A sin. A stain. A black-hole of resource-use that will not be tolerated.

Anna is a Surplus.

She is raised in a Surplus Hall with other surpluses, training to become valuable to society by eventually working as a housekeeper or menial worker. She has been told her entire life that she should hate her parents for flaunting the declaration and letting her be born. She knows about the Catchers, whose job it is to do whatever it takes to find Surpluses and either put them in a Surplus Hall or dispose of them. She's been trained well, she knows her place, she doesn't ask for a thing.

But then Peter arrives, speaking about forbidden things, and everything changes.

The Declaration is a real page-turner, a fantastic "what-if" of a book that is terrifying in its plausibility. Anna is real and conflicted, faced with a world that has stomped her into pieces, and buried deep is such a fierce longing to be loved. I think this book would make for a fantastic discussion, so many ethical issues at play. The "bad guys" in this book are mainly one-dimensional, but the one we get to know the most ended up being much deeper than I'd thought. I've just requested the sequel from my library, I can't wait to see what happens next.

book 7 for the 2010 YA challenge