guest review: Big Nate Strikes Again by Lincoln Peirce

I got this one in the mail from somewhere - a publicist? Shelf Awareness? Anyway, my nearly eight year old son read it and raved. My 10 year old daughter has now claimed it. Here's my son's review:

5/5 stars

This book is about a kid named Big Nate. Big Nate does not like this kid named Gina, but then he's stuck with her on an assignment and then they have a competition to see who will win. If there were stars that go up to five, then I would give this book a five. It's really funny and hysterical. It looks just like a comic book but it really is a regular book. You should read this book if you are somebody who likes books that are funny.

Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy by Carlos Eire

genre: memoir

I found this on the shelf at the thrift store. I picked it up because my new brother in law is Cuban, having left Cuba as a child. So when I saw Havana on the spine - I paid my eighty cents, hoping to satiate some of my new curiosity in all things Cuban.

Of course, Carlos lived in Cuba long before my brother in law. Carlos was a child who knew Cuba before Fidel, before the Revolution, which makes his story that much harder to read. He knew what he was loosing, having grown up in a very privileged family. We go back in time to his very earliest memories - birthday parties he attended, worshiping at mass with his parents, watching movies at the theater. When the Revolution made life in Cuba a nightmare, thousands of parents shipped their children to the States, planning to follow them as soon as possible. It just didn't work out that way. And so Carlos ends up in Miami without his parents, and that initial journey, that breathtaking leap, is just the beginning of his life as an immigrant, an exile.

Your heart cannot help but ache for this boy and what he lost. The writing is at times so exquisite, you feel like you are drowning in his memories. The sights and smells, the adventures that would delight and astonish a young boy. I feel like I KNOW that Cuba - the one that was full of life and culture, religion and a sense of Spanish grandeur, that then faded into a farce, a twisted promise of freedom that dealt out only shackles and rations.

There are painful things to read - even without the Revolution, there are parts of Carlos's life that were traumatic. And it read surprisingly slowly for me - for some reason I could only read it in smaller doses at a time, I can't put my finger on why, but it's what leans me to 4 stars instead of 5. I did love when he tied in his own experiences with typical Cuban culture and I really liked the history woven in, since I knew, apparently, absolutely nothing except its general location and the name Castro. Cuba was a COLONY? I had no idea (I should probably be embarrassed to admit that). I was surprised by how Christian it was, Jesus feels like a character in the book, Carlos discusses him so much (and for those who are sensitive to it, it's not always in the most respectful way).

The subtitle really does fit - it does feel like a book of confessions: mistakes he made, that his family members made, that his countrymen made and that frankly, the mistakes made by the Americans who greeted him once he got here. With poetic prose and a knack for creating an amazing scene in your head, he sorted through all that STUFF until he found himself at the other end. I'm not surprised it won the National Book Award back in 2003 - Waiting for Snow in Havana transports you and moves you.

book 6 of 8 for the Orbis Terrarum Challenge

National Book Fest 2010

cross posted on Littlest Bird

There is something about walking out onto the Mall in DC.

You could not count how many times I've been there, but it never gets old.

It's a rush of...belonging, Maybe? an awareness of the fact that you belong there just as much as any other American? Excitement? A crazy realization that yes, that IS the Washington Monument on one side and the Capital Building of our COUNTRY on the other.
And throw in a ginormous crowd of BOOK LOVE into that and you get one really happy me.

I found friends and a daughter to join me in the summertime heat.

We got our posters right off (phew, the most important thing to grab), but then it was a giant swagfest at the Pavilion of the States. Every state and territory has their own table - everyone giving away SOMETHING. An eraser shaped like cheese? Actual hardback books? Pencils, pens and more writing implements? TREATS? Seriously. Our giant C-SPAN red bags runneth over. I especially liked chatting it up with the people from those states, so fun and friendly. Mississippi may have been my best friend in the end, since they passed out those fans :)

Then we hit the Target Let's Read American Pavilion. That's where I got to write a huge postcard to my grandpa in Chicago and Target will mail it to him for FREE, postmarked Washington DC. Isn't that fun? Some postcards had pictures of the poster on the back, others had a madlib you could fill out :)
That's also where one of the highlights came to pass: I got photographed INTO the festival poster. Sorry, that is CLEV-ER. My favorite part is how Deb's got Long John Silver looking right over her shoulder. Also, Poe's Raven is ready to bite Sheely's hand :)

We went to the PBS kids pavilion where the swag was flowing - another bag and book!

One more tent - the Let's Read America part I tent where I was interviewed by some people from Scholastic (anyone who wanted to could go over to be interviewed on camera, it wasn't like they searched me out :). They're apparently celebrating their 90th anniversary and making some kind of video for their website. I was asked how reading has influenced my life and what book influenced me most. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, of course. Super fun that Sweet Kellie had videotaped the whole thing!

We tried to go in the book buying tent but I almost died of heat and sweat smell.

THEN we went and just planted ourselves in the Teens and Children tent.

We listened to the second half of Jane Smiley's talk - she was fantastic. Apparently, she is a big deal. I need to read something of hers - I'm thinking A Thousand Acres (since that's the one that won the Pulitzer).

Then, the woman I came for - Rebecca Stead. She wrote When You Reach Me (which I loved and which won the Newberry this year). She was gracious and unassuming, personable and like the amazing girl next door.She talked about her process of claiming the writer inside her (she took a writing class from Frank McCourt, for Pete's sakes, and yet never had the guts once to stand up and read her writing outloud in his class). She talked about how much of When You Read Me is autobiographical - her single mom WAS actually a contestant on $20,000 pyramid and she lived in a New York City neighborhood that had a laughing man on the corner. I could've listened to her for another hour. BUT. She had to stop and we were too hot to stay any more. We found a stranger to document the moment before we left (by the way, while she was talking, there was not a seat anywhere in the house - or even any standing room in the shade :)
And there you have it. A GREAT day. People I would have like to have listened to: Katherine Patterson, Suzanne Collins, Margarita Engle, M.T. Anderson, Mem Fox, Rosemary Wells, Judith Viorst, Jonathan Safran Foer, Michele Norris and Ken Follett. I did see Isabel Allende (she is absolutely as gorgeous sitting in a golf cart as she is on the flap of her books). Ah, next year, maybe, I'll do more sitting and listening :)

a bookshop explore: Politics and Prose in Washington DC

I'm a sucker for bookstores.

If you know me, you know this.

I'm so lucky to have bookie friends. When Kellie and I figured out that neither of us had ever been inside the rightfully famous Politics and Prose independent bookstore on Connecticut Ave, we made a plan to visit. If you haven't checked out their website, you should, and learn about its history. I'd driven by it dozens of times on my way to the National Zoo and always yearned to spend some time there.

We found a parking spot in the back and went in through the cafe entrance.

To celebrate the occasion, we indulged in a pain au chocolat and a hot chocolate - complete with heart shaped swirly cream. SWOON and DELISH.

I just really enjoyed holding that magnificently huge mug :)

And then, to explore. And explore and explore and explore. First, the sale section where both Kellie and I scored a copy of The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British, which I've been pining after for some time. A darling worker saw me interested in the full price copy and she told me about the cheaper one in the basement. What a girl. I also found a copy of Brideshead Revisited, a sweet-looking trade paperback for a steal.

In the children's room, we had a glorious time. We laughed side-splitting laughs at a new picture book we found called It's a Book by Lane Smith (THANKS Julia for the recommend!). Hysterical, as is the book I ended up buying for Xavier for his birthday called John Paul George and Ben by Lane Smith (a crazy funny story about the childhoods of some of our Revolutionary Heroes)!! I just realized RIGHT NOW that they are by the same author. Apparently, Lane Smith is a comedic genius because both Kellie and I laughed so hard at these two books that when we finally checked out, the nice women behind the counter told us that she was glad we'd had such a fun time :)

Of course, we did not stop there. We explored the fiction and nonfiction, travel and music. We looked at the Around the World in 92 books map.When my husband called and I looked at my phone, I realized we'd been browsing for TWO HOURS. Time flies :)

After paying we went down the road to Marvelous Market and had an alfresco sandwich lunch, watching the Connecticut traffic pass by and talking about any and all things.

After the long, here is the short: GO HERE. IT IS AWESOME. SUPPORT INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORES. I want to go back sometime and hear an author speak - they've got an amazing calendar of really famous people. Highly recommend it for the staff, the selection, and the love of books that simply oozes from the shelves.

To record the occasion, we tried some self-portraits.

I call this one: the two headed monster:

I call this one: book lovers and the bookstore parking lot pavement:

and finally: a friendly stranger helps out (aka the back door)

Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay

genre: adult fiction/historical fiction

The elderly Nina Revskaya has jewels to auction, a life's worth of beauty and baubles that came as the result of her role as a prima ballerina in Russia and all over Europe. Drew's job is to make these jewels as attractive to the public as possible and this means knowing the history, Nina's history - which she staunchly refuses to hand over. Drew isn't the only one interested in Nina's Russian life, however. Grigori, a professor of Russian languages, has his own reasons to believe that the story of one jewel in particular will lead him to the answers to years of questions.

This book hit the spot for me, in many ways. First. I love books that juxtapose two time periods. In this case, we have present-day Boston and post WWII Moscow. Second. I love being immersed into unfamiliar worlds. In Russian Winter, we learn about the lives of ballerinas in a famous Muscovite Ballet Corp, trying to navigate the terrifying reality of Stalin's regime and at the same time, we're experiencing the high stakes research and presentation of jewelery auctions at a high class auction house. Third. This book is full of emotions - jealousy, betrayal, new love, old love, fear, guilt and regret. The passage between the two times made it very hard to put this book down, I think Kalotay did a fine job of bridging that distance between present and past. It was like unraveling a mystery from the beginning and the end at the same time.

While the love story was beautifully predictable, there were some twists that I totally got wrong and I always find myself more endeared to a book when the author really does surprise me. I know very little about Russia behind the Iron Curtain and Nina's early life certainly shows the confusion, the disbelief, the strong desire for things to just be FINE and the despair when one realizes that there is no fine. There is only Stalin and his will, people disappearing in the night and the heart-wrenching feeling that maybe you or someone you love will be next.

It's not perfect - sometimes I wanted to be back in the other time period or vice versa and occasionally Nina is a frustrating character but in the end, once I understood her a little better, I loved it. A great love story/historical story/mystery.

Scrambled Eggs at Midnight by Brad Barkley and Heather Hepler

genre: young adult

Sigh. This was such a good one. So perfectly romantic and quirky.

Cal and her mom follow Renaissance Faires - you know the ones, with the jousting and the booths selling swords and the wenches. For years Cal's life has to fit into a carboard box that can moved at the whims of her mother and it's really starting to wear on her. When they arrive in Asheville, it seems like it will be just like any other summer - until she meets Eliot. Eliot, the son of a preaching fat-camp director. Eliot who is passionate and intelligent and whose stability is exactly what Cal's been searching for without knowing it.

And they fall in love.

And it's wonderful.

There are other characters - intricate and changing, making Cal and Eliot a part of their lives. I loved the verbal interplays, the Romeo and Juliet-esqeness of the plot and their honest conversation about "going all the way." I fell for their "meant to be-ness" hook, line and sinker. I can see how some people would maybe find it hokey, but up against the emotional baggage and the parental disconnectedness, their love was just right for me.

book 25 for the 2010 Young Adult Challenge (I finished!!)

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read

genre: non-fiction

When you know from the beginning of a book that a plane full of young Rugby players crash lands in the snowy Andes mountains, and yet somehow some of those boys survive for weeks and weeks - you know it's not going to be a pretty story. And it's not. It's survival at its grittiest core, what do we humans really need to stay alive? Their story is told in an incredibly straightforward, almost newspaper-story type narrative. There's no real emotion. There's no flowery speech. It's just as true of a retelling as you can get under the circumstances and if I'm going to read non-fiction, that's exactly how I like it.

What they go through on that mountain is so grueling: the terror, the fear, the frustration, the pain and hunger and the bone biting cold. And yet what's interesting is their faith throughout, their actual, real belief that they will be saved despite the deck being stacked against them. They get creative and turn the carcass of the plane into a shelter, they go on expeditions to find out where they are and look for help, they make their own blankets and sleeping bags and perform emergency medical procedures on each other. They eat everything that could possibly be eaten until there is nothing left but the bodies of their comrades that are frozen out in the snow. In order to stay alive, those are eaten too. It does make one squeamish, to read the grisly details of their meals and I keep asking myself if I could do it. Would I do whatever it took to be with my children again?

Regardless of what I would do, this story did make for some very interesting reading. I could NOT for the life of me keep all the foreign names of those boys and their parents straight, though. It drove me loco. I finally gave up and by the end I knew who maybe five of them really were, but honestly, it didn't matter that much. The author did his best.

No, this story is not for the faint of heart and sometimes, of course, people let their weaknesses get the better of them. But I found this incredible sense of triumph. Human beings are absolutely astonishing creatures and it's amazing how deep that survival instinct can burn.

Review: Guardians of Ga'Hoole: The Capture by Kathryn Lasky

genre: children's/middle grade

A long while ago, when I first heard about the Guardians of Ga'Hoole series, I thought I could never feel interested enough in owls to want to read an entire fiction book about them.

Then we saw the preview for the new movie coming out and I found the first book (of fifteen) at the thrift store. I decided to take a chance and read it out loud to my seven and a half year old son. I was astonished, first of all, by how into it HE was, but near the middle, by how much I was into it myself! Our main character is Soren, a barn owlet. His early nest life is peaceful and safe with his parents up in a tree, lulled to sleep with stories of the legendary Guardians of G'Hoole. Then one day, he finds himself on the ground. Without warning, he is snatched away and taken to a terrible place where where no questions are asked or answered - and an owls life is only as good as the work he will do. The choices Soren makes and the friends he meets there will eventually lead him to find within himself the strength to do whatever he dreams.

This book, surprisingly, captured my heart in the end. Soren is a tender character, loving and a good friend - but yet, with a steely determination and a sense of fairness. There are some pretty serious themes in this book - and not just a little violence. Soren's newly orphaned state is harsh and his world is one of brain-washing and battle claws and an owl who doesn't follow the rules can get his feathers torn out, or worse. But I loved how he navigated it all, how he never gave up hope.

I should mention that we didn't actually read ALL of it together. Some of it was by his bedside, nearly 45 minutes of it was in bliss on a shady bench in my neighborhood, but he DID wake up early yesterday (can you say 5am?) and finished it without me. THAT'S the hold it had over my boy and he is now well into the second book, already having spoiled major plot twists for me, bless his heart. I don't think I'll read any more of them, but I am certainly glad I got to know Soren and his gang so that as my boy reads along, I'll know where he's coming from. And now, the book is already in the hands of his 10 year old sister.