True to the Code
Title: True to the Code
Author: Peter Devine
While reading Peter Devine’s new book True to the Code, I realized that this is not a book to read in one sitting. Instead, it should be divided up over time and each story discussed in a club or an ethics class along with that portion of history.
Devine has married ethics, history, and the over all culture of America into a book that defies category. Novel? Not really. Collection of short stories? Probably the most accurate, but still not quite how I’d like to label it. Philosophy? Yes, but easier to read.
So where do you put this in a bookstore? My easy solution… up front with the author.
Devine is most engaging when interacting with other readers. His lovely wife pours lemonade and serves cookies while he pleasantly gets to know those around him. It’s impossible not to feel like you get to know him a little back.
He has the air of being well traveled and well researched. He has a comfortable patriarch mentality to him splashed with a bit of edgy hippie. He is fun, endearing, knowledgeable, and a joy to have in a bookstore. Although I met the man at a very informal event, I imagine he could make a cozy guest speaker at a gathering similar to the ones Mensa is known for.
I plan to keep his book True to the Code on hand and place the stories as supplemental reading for the kiddo’s homeschool curriculum. After kiddo has read all the stories in chronological order of their place in history side by side her research, I’d like her to review them as a whole.
This is a great book to keep around for students… of both the traditional and world variety.
M.G. King: the new voice of young adult fantasy
Title: Fizz & Peppers
Author: M.G. King
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy/Adventure
“Sometimes great ideas are so genius and unlikely they fall from the heavens; but sometimes the best ones are simple, waiting to be found already in the palm of your hand.”
I don’t know if this idea fell from the heavens or was found in the palm of King’s hands, but Fizz & Peppers is utter genius. It’s quite possible we have the next J.K. Rowling on our hands, folks.
Meet Colin Colbeck and a girl named Pepper, arch enemies and ex-best friends. Also, meet Colin’s kid brother Sid… by the way, he has trolls living under his bed. There’s also a nutty but endearing grandmother to rescue, an entire world under suburbia and the nearby wood, thrums, hot peppers, and a game called knattlebones.
This book, written by a mom for and with her own middle-grade sons, is about two boys who are full of some of the most “brilliantly, beautiful idea[s] ever to be thought of in the history of the world” as they fight off trolls to rescue their kidnapped, sometimes senile grandmother from the bottom of the world.
What an imagination this family has! The family responsible for writing the book that is… After reading King’s dedication at the front of the book to her “what if?” family, immediately I wanted to be a fly on the wall at their house as they speculate the nature of the world. What minds! To come up with the idea that a little bit of fizz from a soda pop would wake up a sleeping troll from a stone-like state and send them romping the underground, free to steal from (and eat!) Peoplekins and wreak havoc on everything.
Not every author can make such a smooth transition between genres – picture book to young adult is a couple hundred page leap – but King has done an excellent job. Fizz & Peppers is just as wonderful as Librarian on the Roof, and I am excited to have an author to share with my daughter for her whole life, not just her babyhood.
The only draw back is that Fizz & Peppers is currently only available on e-book, and I am very old fashioned when it comes to books… I like them in my hands, I like to sniff their pages, I like the risk of a paper cut. Lucky me, King printed me a copy in a binder! (Yes, I am bragging to cyberspace, I have this book in a binder! And I feel special.)
Reminiscent of The Labyrinth (come on you ’80’s kids, I know you were fascinated with Jareth the Goblin King as much as I was) and Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Fizz & Peppers will captivate you and keep you wide-eyed from the first hint of a troll until the very last drop of ginger ale. It’s a fantastic adventure for all ages that I believe will stand the test of time.
***UPDATE*** Fizz & Peppers is now available in paperback!
The Wild Girls – A Review
Title: The Wild Girls
Author: Pat Murphy
Publisher: Speak (an imprint of Penguin Group)
Genre: Young Adult
Length: 288 pages
Dear Publishing Companies,
Allow me to tell you something you probably already know: Take a book, add a matte finish to it, trace some swirly-like-ivy lines about, and add a garden or forest scene – I will most likely take the book home on the spot.
At least that’s what happened with Pat Murphy’s The Wild Girls. And despite having an equally girly and gardeny looking book on my night stand (The Distant Hours
Even if the cover had not been so fabulous, the first line is:
“I met the Queen of the Foxes in 1972, when my family moved from Connecticut to California.”
How do you pass up a first line like that?
It’s a story about twelve year old girls for twelve year old girls, but at twenty-nine I was still dying to know all about the Queen of the Foxes and how interesting a girl would have to be to have the honor of meeting her.
My own wild girl, running, after we read in the park and took a boat ride, but before we had our picnic in the grass.
Joan meets Sarah in the woods behind an old orchard and immediately takes to her even though Sarah is malicious and contemplating throwing rocks at her. She can hit a kid dead on from about thirty feet away, too. Soon the girls are fast friends with woodsy aliases Newt and Fox, telling and writing stories together as they each escape their lives in the comfort and enchanting beauty of the woods and its wildlife.
In the spirit of Bridge to Terabithia (without the inevitable water works), The Secret Garden (without the invalid), and a dash of How to Buy a Love of Reading (or writing), The Wild Girls is a great coming of age story for girls harboring an inner Josephine March (Little Women).
I loved it. I read a lot of it to kiddo outside and she loved it as it served for a great book to welcome spring. I can’t wait to read it again when she is older and see what she thinks of it then.
In the mean time, I’m looking for more Pat Murphy titles, reading Kate Morton, and writing a novel.
Oh Heavenly Days
My post today is supposed to be an update of last night’s book club meeting at Half Price Books in Humble. We discussed Geraldine Brooks’ March, Alcott’s Little Women, Bronson Alcott, Fruitlands, and more. Gigi’s Cupcakes in The Woodlands donated a half dozen cupcakes (which are more like really rich mounds of awesomeness than your typical idea of a cupcake) and mid way through the discussion and a bit of double vanilla icing melting in my mouth, all my very southern self could think was “Oh My Heavenly Days.” The I-literally-feel-like-I-am-in-heaven version of that line, not the rolling of the eyes sarcastic version… you fellow southerners know the very huge difference.
The discussion was awesome. I am quite enjoying this little once a month activity. I love how prepared my gentleman patron comes, with several books and research in tow. I love yacking aimlessly on end about our likes and dislikes and anything about the book that has moved us that much. Add in free cupcakes from GiGi’s and I feel as though we have created a true little slice of heaven tucked away in the corner of Half Price Books.
As far as the discussion of March was concerned, one thing that was agreed upon was the difficulty in reconciling the characters Brook created with the characters we all know and love from Little Women. How did such a hot-headed Marmee become such a controlled and beautifully calm version we read in Alcott’s original work? Things that Brooks clearly well researched don’t mesh with the feel we have for the same history growing up in the States. One thing that stuck out in our minds, as a group, is whether Marmee would have actually gone and stayed under the same roof with the character Grace. What do you think? It’s not too late to join the discussion, leave your thoughts in a comment or come to the meeting next month.
We also agreed on a memorable quote that made an appearance quite early in the novel:
“For to know a man’s library is, in some measure, to know his mind. And this mind was noble in its reach, wide in its interests, discerning in its tastes.” – pg. 18-19
Of course a group of bibliophiles would enjoy that one, of course.
I am still reading Eden’s Outcasts, a book about Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May. I believe I expressed this opinion last night, so I shall re-hash it here, and will probably say it again when I provide an official review of the biography… Bronson Alcott was a weird dude.
Louisa May Alcott’s father was a true transcendentalist, and with that come some shocking beliefs to someone raised as I was. To have your sole guide to life be your own conscious is rather difficult when your conscious moves you to establish a commune with other transcendentalists. Fruitlands became a commune of many differing beliefs and activities that never seemed to find a happy balance. You have one member running the place naked with another member refusing to farm, another with children, and others anti-children. The only common belief system to educate and be separate from the world. In Bronson Alcott’s attempt to create a heavenly utopia he created a hot mess, which upon seeing it I would exclaim in sarcasm now: Oh My Heavenly Days.
I am amazed that Louisa May Alcott came out mostly well adjusted. I am not, however, surprised that the story of Little Women in a happy little world to lose yourself. Little Women functions as a biography of the best versions of her family brought to life in fiction, all the strange and unhappy parts discarded probably for the sake of sanity.
That brings me back to Geraldine Brooks’ March. March is a much darker, sinister, true to life version of the tale of Little Women and Mr. and Mrs. March. It is a grown ups history. I think what is most difficult is reconciling the fictional tale of Little Women with the very real feeling war novel of March. There are some details here and there that ring false, but for the most part it is graphically realistic of some pieces of the Civil War. It captures the darker sides of human nature that Little Women does not address, things that coming from an abolitionist’s family Louisa might have been very familiar.
What do you think?
Magic Tree House Adventures – Knights!
The Kingfisher Atlas of the Medieval World
(… Castles! And Medieval Times!)
Today we read up on everything Knights and Castles
“A Feudal System has four parts! From top to bottom it goes: King, Barons, Knights and Serfs!” Sadly, I’ve already forgotten the tune to which we were singing/chanting this bit of information, maybe one day it will come to me again, or maybe we’ll find a new tune. Either way, munchkin was climbing in and out of the laundry basket this morning singing, “King! Baron! Knight! Serf!” so I win.
It was at this point that I decided: in addition to reading through this pairing and prepping kiddo’s future education (when she’s old enough to tackle these projects properly with crafts, writing assignments, and vocabulary tests), I’m going to blog our prepping routines… separate from the Weekly Low Down on Kids Books installments. I know I will find it handy for when we repeat this reading exercise in a few years, but maybe someone else can find it handy now.
I can’t wait to take the kiddo to Medieval Times. I’ve always enjoyed the place and once she is old enough to go, I think it would be a great way to end an educational adventure. As she’s only two and today’s reading was somewhat (though not completely) impromptu, I took her to the closet thing to a castle we have readily available.
The Spring Community Playground, part of Liberty Park looks like a giant, wooden castle to me. It has several keeps, a palisade, horses to ride, and all sorts of castle/fortress styled fixtures. According to the park’s website:
This playground was built by the Spring community for the betterment of the Spring community ultimately for the enjoyment by our children with community donations and community volunteer labor. It was built in 5 DAYS from January 29th to February 2nd 2003 with over 900 community volunteers. A large majority of the volunteers were parents, grandparents and friends of students from Hirsch, Smith and Jenkins Elementary Schools. We also had volunteers from Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Kingwood, Conroe, Laredo, and Mexico.
Obviously, there’s a huge difference between this and an actual castle! But it’s fun to walk the park and read the engraved pieces of wood that tell who donated what. I want the kiddo to grow up with a strong sense of community… our neighborhood is our manor, and all that.
When she’s older, we’ll be able to spread the study over the course of a week and add more books and activities. For instance, on day two we could read The Time Warp Trio
This unit would also be a great opportunity to spend the week going through one Sir Cumference book a day for the start of math lessons.
For lunch, I’ll take the opportunity to serve “feast foods.” I found an entire web page dedicated to recipes of the day, and I love to eat to match our educational themes. Plus, I want my daughter to know her way around the kitchen before she goes off to college, unlike me. So as she gets older, we’ll be making all our meals in the kitchen together – themed or not.
I would definitely try to work in her first horseback lesson during this week if she hadn’t started them already, after all knights, caballeros, Ritters, and chevaliers, are all just soldiers on horseback, as the MTH Research Guide will tell you.
Click image to visit a lapbooking tutorial website.
For the most part, though, we will spend our days reading, making lap books, journaling what we’ve learned, playing dress up, and gearing all our artistic energy at the topic. Homeschool Mom and Blogger of My 2 Small Boys has images of her kids’ notebooks on Knights and Castles here: http://my2smallboys.blogspot.com/2012/01/middle-ages-knights-and-castles.html.
When the weekend roles around, if the study lands in the summer, perhaps we will go to the beach and build sandcastles; If in the fall, maybe we’ll head out to the Texas Ren Fest.
Knights and Castles Library List
Saint George and the Dragon (a great precursor to have on hand for Spenser’s The Faerie Queen, we’ve already read it quite a few times)
Castle Diary by Richard Platt
The Knight at Dawn by Mary Pope Osborne
Knight by Christopher Gravett
Knight ~ A Noble Guide for Young Squires
100 Things You Should Know About Knights and Castles by Jane Walker
If You Lived in the Days of Knights by Ann McGovern
Castle: Medieval Days and Knights by Kyle Olmon
Knights in Shining Armo by Gail Gibbons
Knights and Castles by Seymour Simon
The Usborne Book of Castles by Lesley Sims and Jane Chisolm
What If You Met a Knight? By Jan Adkins
Imagine You’re a Knight by Meg Clibbon
Take Care, Good Knight by Shelley Moore Thomas
The Knight and the Dragon by Tomie DePaola
In the Castle by Anna Milbourne
The Castle That Jack Built by Lesley Sims
The Tournament by Heather Amery
Some more ideas: http://www.angelfire.com/dc/childsplay/castleunit.htm
Weekly Low Down on Kids Books – Dinosaurs!
I read Magic Tree House #1: Dinosaurs Before Dark
We had to stop a few times to draw a rhinoceros onto our ‘R’ page, check out whales and their sizes in relation to dinosaurs in our encyclopedia, and to correct behavior as she climbed in my living room window sill that is about three and half feet off the ground. We even had a brief whistling lesson after reading how the wind was whistling around the tree house. Overall, she enjoyed it, so we moved onto the Research Guide
Mary Pope Osborne and her husband Will Osborne joined forces and started writing nonfiction companion books to the fictional Magic Tree House adventures. When I first discovered this, I started purchasing them in pairs, vowing to use them as fun assignments while home schooling. I’d like for kiddo to grow up in the habit of reading a nonfiction title that somehow relates to every fiction title that she devours, expanding both her facts and her imagination. What better way than to start with research guides to her first chapter books?
Why am I reading these to her so early? Frankly, it’s quite hilarious to watch a two year old run circles in your living room chanting, “Fossils! Minerals! Dinosaurs!” at the top of her lungs, while her dog (who happens to be the biggest one we own) lays in the center rolling his eyes.
Chapter three of the research guide Dinosaurs talks about iguanas and how Gideon Mantell though the dinosaur teeth he and his wife found were giant iguana teeth. Of course, we had to stop to re-read I Wanna Iguana
All in all, we had a good ‘school day’ this morning, something we have been working on being more diligent about now that kiddo is two and it has actually managed to get too cold to venture out as much.
March
Title: March
Author: Geraldine Brooks
Publisher: Penguin Books
Length: 280 pages
When I first selected March for the HPB Humble Book Club, I wasn’t fully aware of what I was getting myself into. I knew two things: it had been on my TBR for quite sometime and it had been quite popular with private book clubs in the area. By the cover and Geraldine Brooks reputation, I assumed it was some kind of historical fiction and that it was most likely to be something I considered good. I had not yet discovered that it was the story of Mr.March while off at war and Marmee. I did not realize I’d be reading back story on characters I’ve loved my whole life.
Geraldine Brooks’ writing is impeccable, amazing. It should be, she won a Pulitzer for this incredible book. I love the story.
I was ten when Susan Sarandon appeared in Little Women. It was not the first version of the movie I saw, nor the last; but as I watched the movie and re-read Little Women for the first time she became and still remains my favorite Marmee.
The problem is, I had an image of these wonderful people in my mind, an image I held onto for years and years. From the first time I read the book to the last time I re-read the book, through every movie adaptation, Marmee and Mr. March, though less present than the other characters, were pillars of perfect parenting, virtue, and strength. Brooks doesn’t take that away exactly, but she makes them so human it’s a bit disconcerting.
It’s like the first time you see pictures of your own parents at parties when they were young, before you were around. Or, the moment you come home at the proper time after prom to discover they are nowhere to be found and when you call them they are at some event you were unaware of, laughing and joking. In those moments you think, ‘Wow, they have a life.’ Marmee and Mr. March weren’t exactly having a party, most of the book is about the devastation of slavery and the civil war. Still, that moment you read about Marmee and Mr. March making passionate love in the woods before they were married, a tryst that resulted in Meg, you think: ‘No! I didn’t want to know that about them!’
At the same time, there’s something magical about the way Brooks has managed to weave a new tale from and into an old one. To take a small little quote about the girls missing their father who was so far away where the fighting was and turn it into a very distinct and unique piece of work, to read the telegram insisting Mrs. March go to her ill husband and have a whole life story revealed, it’s simply breath-taking and a bit of genius. It is all very excellent. It just isn’t what I had imagined for them myself.
Granted, many say Brooks based the story off of Louisa May Alcott’s own family life, as Alcott had written Little Women with the same background in mind. With that said, it stands to reason that Brooks book probably honors the author and her own imagination well.
Still, I go back to my eight year old self (the first time I read Little Women) every time I re-read the book. The magic of books is that they may always take you back to a moment, a bit of time in your life where your mindset was a certain way, the feeling you had the first time you read those lines… like a song that gives you chills decades after it has made you cry. Geraldine Brooks’ March, though beautiful and epic, doesn’t fit with my eight year old Little Women reading self. There’s a disenchantment there.
The book is a dichotomy that flusters me to my core. To love a book so much and to be equally indignant about it is frustrating.
I plan to read Eden’s Outcasts
There will be a meeting to discuss March at Half Price Books in Humble at 7:30 pm. Join us!
January 5th, 2013
Book Signing with C. David Cannon
Local Author C. David Cannon will sell and sign his book, The Prominence League at the Humble Half Price Books. This is a story of suspense about genetically-enhanced super athletes for the Prominence Baseball League and two youth who dare to question their leaders.
A Dubious Review
I get offers to review e-books all the time, it is the most efficient and affordable way for an author to get their work out there. However, I do not own an e-reader just yet. So as per my Review Policy, I found a guest blogger to read and review the book for me.
Lavois is an intelligent, honest gal that I’ve know most my life. She’s an intuitive reader, a good friends, and happens to own the device needed to help sort through pending e-book review requests.
I hope to feature more of her reviews and guest articles in the future.
Title: A Dubious Artifact
Author: Gerald J. Kubicki
Publisher: Self-published/ Indie
Format: E-book
Let me begin by letting you know that I am not an experienced reviewer of books. In fact, this is my first. I’ve always been a voracious reader, even to the point of having to avoid reading certain books during certain times in my life, knowing that the book would consume all of my attention and free time. I had recently allowed myself to really start diving into reading full time again when my wonderful friend Anakalia offered me the opportunity to review a book for her. The book she sent me was A Dubious Artifact by Gerald J. Kubicki, the sixth novel in his Colton Banyon mystery/adventure series.
I think it’s also incumbent upon me to let you know that I have not read the first five novels published by Kubicki. I began with the sixth. I feel that it’s important for me to let you know this because I believe I may have connected better with the novel had I been involved in the rest of Banyon’s adventures. I initially wanted to chalk this up to weak character development but after thinking about it, I realized that these characters had been involved in five previous adventures together. Kubicki probably assumes that his readers would have started with book one and routinely references past adventures and past characters with only minimal explanation in A Dubious Artifact. For this reason it may serve you to start from the beginning. The first in the series, A Dubious Mission, can be found on Amazon by following the title link.
I must admit, had difficultly staying engaged while reading A Dubious Artifact and I believe that this can be remedied in large part by another round of editing. Kubicki’s story had some true potential, and at times I could feel myself slipping into the story, forgetting that I was reading a book, but then a spelling error, misused word or clumsily written sentence would yank me back into the reality of my reading chair. This was somewhat frustrating for me, not only because I so badly wanted to get into the novel, but because these were completely avoidable issues. Eventually, I had to set the book aside because I couldn’t get past this. It may be a good time for Kubicki to take stock of his entire series and come out with a newly revised second edition. While I had some difficulties with the novel this time around, I did get to know the characters enough that I can genuinely say I would give them another go in a revised edition.
Anakalian Whims 
Guest Post by Joey Pinkney
January 25, 2013 at 6:49 pm (Guest Blogger, Reviews) (1960's, books, fiction, historical fiction, Joey Pinkney, novel, racism, reviews, social commentary, Southern Strife, Valerie Stocking)
I’ve been peeking in on Joey Pinkney’s blog for awhile now. It’s a book blog too. We’ve been playing follow-tag on Twitter for ages… you know we follow each other, for whatever reason someone un-follows someone, and then a while later says “Oh Hey, That Person Looks Neat,” and then we’re back to following each other again… I’m sure you’ve played it with a few people too.
So this time I said something about it. The guy is super cool about being pleasantly called out on this game we’ve been playing… a game I only noticed because his profile picture is unmistakable and I genuinely enjoy his posts.
After a little chat, he agreed to guest blog for me. Yay! I love having guest bloggers and doing interviews. It makes me feel like Oprah. Meet Joey:
Southern Strife Book Review by Joey Pinkney
Title: Southern Strife
Author: Valerie Stocking
“Southern Strife: A Novel of Racial Tension in the 1960s” is Valerie Stocking’s sophomore effort. The notion of “sophomore slump” does not apply. This novel is a powerful portrayal of America’s not-so-distant history in dealing with the false concept of this country being a melting pot.
“Southern Strife” is refreshingly offensive. I say that because Valerie Stocking sculpted the characters in a realistic manner and not in a way that would fit in a neat, little box. Stocking’s portrayal of racism within the pages of “Southern Strife” is like an honest parent’s portrayal of Christmas. (“Honey, there is no Santa Claus. I bought you those presents under the Christmas tree…”)
The author uses Willets Point as a microcosm of the effects of racism on both black and white people in 1960s America with twelve-year-old Joy Bradford uncomfortably stuck in the middle. With her scotch-loving aunt being one of Willets Point’s key socialites and her narcissistic mother seeking the affections of her divorce lawyer who is also the leader of the local Ku Klux Klan chapter, Joy’s experience with racism is more than casual.
“Southern Strife” is much, much more than a story about racism. There are many points and counterpoints cleverly woven into the fabric of this novel. Coming in at a healthy 435 pages, “Southern Strife” is not a short read. There were a few lulls in the plot here and there, but that is to be expected in a book of this length. The author makes great use of non-linear storytelling. As the time periods ebb and flow, situations become more clear yet more complicated.
Read More.
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