Books I Read 2007
* favorite titles in BLUE
Little Kids
Cruise, Robin. Little Mama Forgets. Illustrated by Stacey Dressen-McQueen
Dearborn, Sabrina The Barefoot Book of Blessings Lovely, simple, traditional blessings from many cultures.
Foreman, Michael Mia's Story Lovely tale of Mia, who lives in a plywood/scrap village in the Andes and has a little dog and finds flowers in an alpine meadow.
Graham, Bob Dimity Dumpty: the story of Humpty's little sister Terrific, funny illustrations of the tiny tumbling egg family that travels with the circus (in their egg carton/circus wagon drawn by a chicken).
Hopkinson, Deborah. Sky Boys: How They Built the EmpireStateBuilding. Illustrated by James E. Ransome
Kimmel, Eric The Lady in the Blue Cloak: legends from the Texas missions
Lewin, Ted How Much? Visiting markets around the world Ted’s market sketchbook.
McClintock, Barbara. Adele & Simon
Myers, Walter Dean.Jazz. Illustrated by Christopher Myers
Newgarden, Mark Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug Wordless comic of expressive terrier following a bug around town.
Perret, Delphine The Big Bad Wolf and Me
Pinkney, Jerry. The Little Red Hen
Richardson, Justin And Tango Makes Three (2005)
Root, Phyllis Lucia and the Light A lovely folksy tale about a brave girl who skies up the dark mountain (accompanied by her helpful white cat, tucked into her hood) to rescue the sun from the stony trolls.
Schubert, Leda. Ballet of the Elephants. Illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker
Shea, Bob New Socks
Shulevitz, Uri. So Sleepy Story
Smith, Lane. John, Paul, George & Ben
Stockton, Frank & Sendak. The Griffin and the Minor Canon.
Wiesner, David. Flotsam
Winter, Jeanette. Mama: A True Story
Winter, Jonah Frida A picture book biography of Frida Kahlo, with wonderful, whimsical and strange folk-art-inspired illustrations by Ana Juan
Ziefert, Harriet Families Have Together
(“Clocks have tick. Kittens have lick. Fingers have click…”)
J Books
Babbitt, Natalie Jack Plank Tells Tales Perfectly nice, classroom-readable tales of a former pirate looking for a new career.
Bertholf, Bret The Long Gone Lonesome History of Country Music
Cleary, Brian How Much can a Bare Bear Bear?: what are homonyms and homophones? Very clever rhyming easy facts book illustrating the concepts: “A bee can be, a flea can flee, a Burro can burrow a hole; a horse can get hoarse from talking, of course. A ewe could take you for a stroll.”
Cleary, Brian Pitch and Throw, Grasp and Know: What is a Synonym? Another in this clever rhyming grammar and math basics series.
Ellabbad, Mohieddin The Illustrator's Notebook A scrapbook diary of this Egyptian illlustrator's musings.
Freedman, Russell The Adventures of Marco Polo jB-P778f
Goodman, Susan E. All in Just One Cookie
Helfer, Ralph The World's Greatest Elephant Poignant story of Modoc, an elephant from a German circus, and Bram, the boy who grew up with him, and their various misadventures (including shipwreck) and eventual reunion.
Holm, Jennifer Penny from Heaven Penny has two families: her dead dad’s enormous Italian family, and her mother and grandparents with whom she lives. Everybody loves her like crazy but they’re not telling her everything. (Takes place in 1953.) (2007 Newbery Honor book)
Kluger, Jeffrey Nacky Patcher and the Curse of the Dry-Land Boats When the teak components of a huge clipper ship magically appear in the town's mountain lake, former thief Nacky Patcher and an oddball cast of characters try to build it, to cast off the curse reputed to be on the town. Quite a distinctive flavor, if a bit measured in the telling.
Lauber, Patricia What You Never Knew About Beds, Bedrooms, & Pajamas
Lauber, Patricia Volcano: The Eruption and Healing of Mount St. Helens j551.21 L366v 1986 (Newbery Honor)
Lord, Cynthia Rules Excellent – told from POV of Catherine, 12, whose younger brother has autism. Centers around: family interactions (fun and frustrating); her developing friendship with Jason, a boy at PT who can’t speak but with whom she converses via word cards (and she draws him new ones); and the new girl next door who doesn’t live up to friend potential.
McNish, Cliff The Silver Child Compellingly creepy beginning shows several regular children abruptly changing into... something elses. Maintains the credible otherness flavor, as the special children (having become giants, insectivores, empaths, etc.) find each other one by one in a rubbishy wasteland outside of town. Has that "Book One" feeling (of the Silver Sequence) - things are just beginning.
Morris, Gerald The Quest of the Fair Unknown When his mother dies, Beaufils leaves their hut in the forest and ventures into the world, where he is intrigued by the foibles of people, quests with Galahad, Gawain and a woman named Ellyn, and eventually discovers his father’s identity and his own quest. (Fair Unknown = both his nickname (Le Beau Desconu) and his quest.)
Selznick, Brian The Invention of Hugo Cabret “When twelve-year-old Hugo, an orphan living and repairing clocks within the walls of a Paris train station in 1931, meets a mysterious toyseller and his goddaughter, his undercover life and his biggest secret are jeopardized.”
Sidman, Joyce This Is Just to Say: poems of apology and forgiveness Each poem written by a member of Mrs. Merz's 6th grade class is answered by the person apologized to (sometimes in absentia).
Stewart, Trenton Lee The Mysterious Benedict Society After passing a series of peculiar tests advertised in the paper, four apparently orphaned and certainly gifted children are selected for Mr. Benedict's secret mission, which requires them to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where a creepy madman is intent on taking over the world by broadcasting messages of unrest into people's minds via TV. Tone: Measured and just a bit old-fashioned, but funny and odd.
Williams, Marcia Chaucer's Canterbury Tales Several of Chaucer's most colorful tales re-told in a comic strippish format. Very good.
YA Books
Alexie, Sherman The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Anderson Twisted
Brashares, Ann Forever In Blue: the Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood Brashares really knows girls and young women, and describes their crises of confidence, intense friendship, magical thinking, and experiments with love and sex perfectly.
Burgess, Melvin Sara's Face A freaky offering from Burgess. Sara covets fame at any price, but despite being beautiful, hates her own body to the point of injuring it. She gets taken into the household of a super-famous reclusive rock star who has pushed plastic surgery farther than it's ever gone before, including implanting a dog's muzzle on his face, but now his face is ruined and he wears a mask. Why does he want Sara, who looks strangely like his young self, and should she agree to plastic surgery by his in-house doctor?
Cameron Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You
Carey, Mike Re-Gifters
Castellucci & Rugg The P.L.A.I.N. Janes ygn - Jane's familiy moves from Metro City after she's injured by a sidewalk bomb. She finds suburbia stultifying but starts doing guerrilla art with a group of other "misfits," all named Jane.
Clement-Moore, Rosemary Prom Dates from Hell
Corrigan, Eireann Ordinary Ghosts Absorbing tale of a modern Holden Caulfield whose mother recently died of cancer, whose brother helped her get the pills for the overdose and has since disappeared, whose father is cold and distant, and who sneaks onto the gracious prep school campus at night to explore buildings with a master key, plan a prank, and hang out with the girl who, mysteriously, works late at night in the pottery studio.
De Mari, Silvana The Last Dragon Peculiar, translated from the Italian flavor. The last elf, Yorsh, falls in with some humans and ends up raising the last dragon and helping to save some orphans and ragtag people from an oppressive, feudal-style dictatorship.
Farmer, Nancy The Land of the Silver Apples sequel to The Sea of Trolls. Good adventure story, lots of early Christianity meets Norse religion meets Old religion.
Going, K.L. The Garden of Eve - so disappointing! Flimsy, overly-metaphorical story of a girl and boy who cope with the deaths (respectively) of their mother and twin by entering a mysterious garden grown from a special seed in a withered apple orchard.
Hemphill, Stephanie Your Own, Sylvia (read half) - biography of Sylvia Plath, fascinatingly told in poems with footnotes.
Hoffman, Mary The Falconer’s Knot: a story of friars, flirtation and foul play A lively mystery set in 1316 Italy. 16-year-old noble Silvano da Montacuto, framed of murdering the husband of his crush, is sent to a Franciscan friary for sanctuary. Chiara, a commoner, was dispatched by her brother to its sister convent of the Poor Clares. Who knew the two teens, whiling away their time grinding color for painters in nearby Assisi, would get caught up in a mysterious morass of monastic murders?
Jones, D W The Game “Sent to a boisterous family gathering in Ireland by her overly strict grandmother, orphaned Hayley feels out of place until her unruly cousins include her in a special game involving travel through the mythosphere, the place where all the world's stories can be found, and where some secrets of her past are revealed.” Her aunts turn out to be the Pleiades and the Hesperides…
Jones, D W Witch Week Still a marvel of plotting and characterization, and totally fun.
Klages, Ellen The Green Glass Sea Comprehensively realized picture of life on The Hill, as the secret Los Alamos scientists’ colony during WWII was known. The story of two girls, Dewey and Suze.
Knox, Elizabeth Dreamquake Fantastic sequel to Dreamhunter. Dreamhunters “catch” dreams in the mysterious, unchanging Place and perform them for patrons of dream theaters. Politician Cas Doran seems to be in cahoots with some unscrupulous dreamhunters, using powerful dreams to sedate people with contentment and influence their votes and opinions. How can he be stopped, and what is the Place?
Lat Kampung Boy story of Mat, a Muslim boy growing up in rural Malaysia in the 1950’s: fishing, rubber plantation, tin mines, circumcision, religious school, mischief-making, family…
Levine, Gail Carson Fairest An interesting twist on the Snow White story, involving a kingdom where the people are passionate about singing and a very insecure young queen. Good.
Lockhart, E. Dramarama Sarah renames herself Sadye and she and her best friend Demi leave Ohio and head to drama summer institute. Demi – black, gay, flamboyant, talented—finds his first real home, but Sadye struggles and finds not so much a community as herself. (Lockhart suggests, but never shouts, that Sadye’s talents lie in directing; I’d be interested to read a sequel.) Good.
Luddy, Karen Spelldown “In 1969, the town of Red Clover, South Carolina, led by an enthusiastic new Latin teacher, supports thirteen-year-old Karlene as she wins her school spelling bee and strives to qualify for the National Bee, despite family problems and a growing desire for romance.”
McKinley, Robin Dragonhaven Excellent!
Meyer, Stephanie Twilight Limping, deeply irritating vampire/romance story. His lips twitched about 8500 times, and his eyes were often cold, and he treats her like an idiot and for some reason she likes that. Absolutely skip this and read Sunshine or War for the Oaks or The Blue Sword instead.
Miéville, China Un Lun Dun
Murdock, Catherine Dairy Queen Excellent! A fantastic voice. D.J.’s father broke his hip so now she’s basically running the dairy farm. Meanwhile she works on making up her flunked English class, training snotty Brian for football season, and decides to try out for the H.S. football team herself.
Peck, Richard Here Lies the Librarian Peewee idolizes Jake and wants to be an auto mechanic just like him. But they’re dirt-poor and in 1914 paved roads haven’t made it to their little Indiana town yet. Their luck turns when some strong-minded Indianapolis library school students adopt their town’s tiny library and befriend them.
Pratchett, Terry The Wee Free Men
Reeve, Philip The Hungry City Chronicles: #2 Predator's Gold
Reeve, Philip The Hungry City Chronicles: #3 Infernal Devices
Resau Red Glass
Ryan, Sara The Rules for Hearts
Sharenow My Mother the Cheerleader
Thompson, Kate The New Policeman “Irish teenager JJ Liddy discovers that time is leaking from his world into Tir na nOg, the land of the fairies, and when he attempts to stop the leak he finds out a lot about his family history, the music that he loves, and a crime his great-grandfather may or may not have committed.”
Wilce, YsabeauFlora Segunda : being the magickal mishaps of a girl of spirit, her glass-gazing sidekick, two ominous butlers (one blue), a house with eleven thousand rooms, and a red dog Excellent!
Zarr, Sara Story of a Girl “I was 13 when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy’s Buick… Tommy was 17… I’m not even sure I liked him.” Deanna’s dad has barely spoken to her in the 3 years since and she’s stuck with the role of “school slut” because Tommy told everyone. Her brother got his girlfriend knocked up, and her dad’s been out of work since he was laid off. Can this dysfunctional family get over its past? Very convincing story of the complex emotions, sexuality and social dynamics of middle & high school. Zarr's exploration of the school slut's identity from the inside is humanizing/demythologizing of a deadly, high-stakes high school stereotype. The voices of Deanna, her father and brother, and Tommy ring absolutely true, as does the flavor of bleak high-school-ness.
Adult Books
Abbott, Karen Sin in the Second City: madams, ministers, playboys and the battle for America's soul Following the history of brothels in Chicago at the turn of the last century, explores mores and morals and the particular story of the classiest, most notorious brothel of them all, the Everleigh Club, run by two charismatic sisters with a mysterious past.
Abu-Jaber, Diana Crescent
Bull, Emma Territory From the LJ review: "In 1881, the Arizona town of Tombstone, rich in minerals for the taking, becomes a magnet for men and women possessing special gifts or hungry for more power than they already have. To this region of natural magic come Wyatt Earp, a master of sorcery; Doc Holliday, whose power belongs to those who can take it; Chow Lung, a Chinese doctor with his own strange abilities; Mildred Benjamin, a writer of Western adventure and a true visionary; and Jesse Fox, a man with a talent for taming horses, among other gifts."
Clarke, Susanna The Ladies of Grace Adieu
Cohan, Tony On Mexican Time A bit cool and over-carefully crafted for my taste, but fun to catch even a careful glimpse of familiar Mexican moments: the rooftop dogs, the jicama in cups, the street festivals.
Darnton The Darwin Conspiracy Pretty good. Parallel stories: one of Darwin’s travels and the interpersonal politics on the Beagle, one of a modern-day researcher tracking info about why Darwin became such a hypochondriac and why he took so long to publish (hint: because he felt so guilty… and why was that…?)
Dunant, Sarah The Birth of Venus
Frank, Judith Crybaby Butch
Glass, Ira (ed.) The New Kings of Nonfiction - really absorbing essays. I was especially intrigued by: "Six Degrees of Lois Weisberg" by Malcolm Gladwell about those people who seem to know everyone, and how crucial they are to the fabric of community; "Among the Thugs" by Bill Buford about British football fan/hooligans; "Host" by David Foster Wallace about the business and internal logic of right-wing talk radio; "Losing the War" by Lee Sandlin about WWII & how the memory of war fizzles out & the intricacies of strategy & luck (clarified WWII events for me for perhaps the first time); and Dan Savage's "My Republican Journey" about trying to change the anti-gay Repubs from within. "Tales of the Tyrant" by Mark Bowden about Saddam Hussein was also illuminating.
Gruen, Sara Water for Elephants Distraught after his parents’ sudden death, Jacob, a young vet, hops a train that turns out to belong to the Benzini Brothers circus, a dark, rough world of charismatic psychopaths, smart animals, and a beautiful woman in pink spangles. Totally absorbing account of life “on the show” during the early Great Depression. Stressful b/c of the evil mania and casual cruelty of the ringmaster and the head of the menagerie. Told as memories of elderly Jacob, now in his 90’s.
Lethem, Jonathan Motherless Brooklyn (1999)
Lewis, Michael The Blind Side Totally fascinating. Two stories: one about the development of the passing game in football, leading to quarterback sacks, usually by the pass rusher, leading to the increasing importance of the left tackle who guards the QB’s blind side. The other is the unlikely story of Michael Oher, a huge and athletically talented black kid (and a natural left tackle, even though he didn’t know it) who grew up destitute in the Memphis ghettos and through a weird series of events was essentially adopted by a rich white family.
Lynch, Scott The Lies of Locke Lamora Very good picaresque novel of a talented young orphan thief running elaborate scams in a Venice-like city dense with political intrigue on both sides of the law. Heads up: plenty of vengeance-driven violence.
Walls, Jeannette The Glass Castle Riveting memoir of four kids growing up drifting around the country with their nonconformist parents, who encouraged their talents and independence but also neglected them woefully in pursuit of painting and pleasure (Rose Mary) and drink (Rex). Not an easy childhood.
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