Look! Another Cybil! Airman is the book I was least interested in reading from that category. It turned out to be a pretty darn good book. No way it could beat out most of the books in its category but I can see this one being a favorite among the kids it was written for.
Good, solid hero. Bad guys who were just bad enough to hate. A princess who wasn’t stupid. And just enough adventure to keep a kid reading and reading and reading.
I have a love/hate thing with Gregory Maguire.
Loved Confessions of an Ugly Step Sister
Loved Wicked
Hated Mirror Mirror
Did not love Son of a Witch
Bored by Lost
Based on the above, you might be a little bit surprised that I plucked A Lion Among Men off of the large print shelf. I was a little surprised, myself.
After the horrendous book Son of a Witch turned out to be, why would I want to ruin the memory of Wicked further with what would probably be another horrendous muddle up of The Wicked Years.
Well guess what. A Lion Among Men… fabulous. I did not want to put it down. Loved it. And because I loved it, it was worth it to read the hated Son of a Witch (without it, Lion Among Men would not have made sense.)
Yackle, Nor, The Dwarf – they all come together in The Cowardly Lion’s story. Nice. Very nicely written.
Lamplighter is a Cybil. We first got it on audio but after a few minutes gave up on it – we realized that without reading book one, we were completely clueless about what was happening. There are a lot of made up words that make absolutely no sense on audio.
So, I grabbed the first book (Monster Blood Tattoo) and read it awhile back. It was good. Prince J liked it too. TW didn’t read it then, but I grabbed it again and she read it earlier this week.
I knew what was “different” about Rossamund in book one. But TW and Prince J seem unaware.
Book two, Lamplighter… it all comes out. Well not all of it, but there are clues and clues all the way through, leading up to Rossamund (and others) figuring it out. (I’m trying to avoid spoilers here folks – sorry!)
Anyway, the only problem with book two is that book three appears to have not been published yet. And I really want to know what the heck is going to happen NOW.
Of the four Cybils I read yesterday, there was only one that was a yawn. Fabulous Fishes, a nonfiction picture book, was just a wee bit boring – especially when you look at the other books in the category. It’s not a bad book, nice photos, nice rhymes but that’s just not enough in this category. I’m not a Nic Bishop fan but even his Frogs book was better. His photos just rock. I wouldn’t have chosen it to win the category but I do understand why others would have selected it.
Moving into middle grade fiction, I loved Shooting the Moon. Maybe it’s the military brat in me. Or the mom of military brats. But I just loved the book. If pushed, I’d say this was my favorite in that category.
Last, Sweethearts, from the YA fiction category. Another good book. A problem book that is just a little different from other problem books. A teen girl who recreates herself, never feels quite right in her new skin and then has to face the past. Really nicely written without a clear, clean, happy ending.
When someone from the BlogHer Book Club group mentioned The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, I looked it up on Amazon. The title was appealing and the cover even more so. I didn’t reserve it, just kept it in my head. About a week later, I happened to see it on the large print shelf so I grabbed it.
TW’s mom read it first and didn’t really like it but she said she thought we would like it.
TW read it and enjoyed it but didn’t really talk about it.
I read it and loved it.
I loved all of the characters. I loved the story. Loved the quilt (even though I figured out the quilt thing long before Truly did.)
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I almost didn’t read The Little Stranger. I was going to boycott Sarah Waters’ latest book because I’d heard it didn’t have a lesbian theme or lesbian characters.
Hah.
It may not have had overt lesbian themes or characters but if Caroline wasn’t a lesbian… well, I think she probably was.
The Little Stranger was a good read, ten times better than Affinity. A good bit better than The Night Watch. It’s no Tipping the Velvet or Fingersmith but it’s pretty darn good.
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When I saw The London Eye Mystery on the Cybils list, I knew it would be good but I didn’t expect it to be quite this good. Even after reading the reviews and seeing it win. I just didn’t expect this.
Actually, I didn’t know what to expect.
I had no idea “Ted” had been diagnosed with a “syndrome” or that it would be a book about a kid who it appears has Asperger’s. It was a brilliant book, with brilliant characters… even if I knew almost immediately where Salim was.
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Milk was a total impulse pick from the new nonfiction arrivals at the library. I saw it placed on top of the nonfiction shelves as we made our way to the check out counter and grabbed it.
TW made fun of me.
Because I do not like milk. Except in my quad grande nonfat caramel macchiato.
She’s right. I don’t. But, I thought it might be interesting to read. It was. It also made me glad that I do not like milk. Also glad that I have not bought into the organic milk fad. I would like to try water buffalo milk, though. (By the way, the recipes and the “milk chemistry experiments” were really interesting. The book was worth picking up, just to read through those.)
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I thought I’d finished with the picture books category but apparently not – I’ve still got some non-fiction books to go through and that’s good because the two I read yesterday are fantastic.
First, Wangari’s Trees of Peace – excellent drawings, simple story of a complex problem without overly frightening young children when speaking about the violence against Wangari.
Next, a book I will have to buy – several times over. My children are huge Wanda Gag fans. OK scratch that, they are huge Millions of Cats fans. The three older ones can probably tell the story word for word with just a wee bit of prompting. The three younger ones, probably can’t but have definitely heard “Hundreds of cats. Thousands of Cats. Millions and billions and trillions of cats.” over and over again.
Loved Wanda Gag: The Girl Who Lived to Draw. Loved the story, loved the art.
I’ve read quite a few Miss Julia books and enjoyed them, but it’s been awhile… are they all so filled with patriarchy? And maybe I just forgot?
Because this one just about drove me nuts. I will admit laughing all the way through it while it drove me nuts.
I don’t think I can read another Miss Julia book. This one just pushed me over the edge.
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