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I’m on a Cybils Roll!

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Non-Fiction /

Four more children’s books from the Cybils list and I can just barely see the light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, I think the end of the tunnel will appear sometime in January of 2012. Behind schedule – but I’ll get there. Eventually.

Non-fiction first, since there are three of them:

First, Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down wasn’t quite as good as I’d hoped.

Next, Bones: Skeletons and How They Work. I liked it more than I thought I did. Some to scale images of bones of different creatures. Other smaller scale images of bones. Lots of different animals (and fish and birds and reptiles) represented here. Nice contrast between the bones and the background colors.

And, Dinosaur Mountain was fabulous. I’ve read a lot of dinosaur books in my time, for all ages, and this is one of the best. It was the narrative that did it. Forget the gold rush, think about the BONE rush. You’ve got Americans excited by the first dinosaur display, you’ve got Andrew Carnegie with an empty dinosaur room telling you to go find something big and here’s the money to do it… how do you find that big something? And just when you’re about to give up hope, you find it… but winter is coming and you’re in Utah. Gah. Imagine living in a tent next to the bones of a brontosaurus all winter long and not being able to get in there and dig those fossils out? Fabulous story. Loved it.

From the children’s fiction list, Shark vs Train. For some reason the two little boys reminded me of my nephews. Well really they reminded me of one nephew. That kid should have been twins, heck on wheels… heh. So two boys are playing. One has a shark, one has a train – who will win! Depends on the competition, now, doesn’t it? Cute book. Not my thing but I’m guessing there are a lot of kids who would get into this who would win type of game.

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Three More Cybils – Children’s Poetry

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Poetry /

And with these three, I finish up the Poetry category from the 2010 Cybils Shortlist.

Sharing the Seasons was a nice enough book of poetry. It seems like there’s a new seasonal poetry book every year, doesn’t it? This one is pretty much just like those. Some poetry that you’ve seen in other places plus some new poems. The illustrations are nice. I didn’t love the book or hate it. It was nice.

Next, a book I really liked. It reminded me a wee bit of another book from the short list that I didn’t like… (Ubiquitous). You might remember that I didn’t like that one because I didn’t like the poetry. I liked the science-y descriptions but the poetry bored me. Dark Emperor of the Night was similar in that it had a page of poetry and then it had factual discussions that were related to each of the poems. The poetry was excellent. The discussions, equally excellent. The kicker was the artwork. I kept running my fingers over the images – Rick Allen’s prints were amazing. I would buy one of his prints, it doesn’t matter of what, and hang it on my wall. Beautiful work. Beautiful choice for this book.

Finishing it up, Switching on the Moon. Very nice book of bedtime poetry. I even liked how it was sorted into sections and I liked the poems chosen to end/start each section. Nicely done. No complaints about this one.

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The Quest of the Warrior Sheep

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction /

KitCat was the first person I saw talking about The Quest of the Warrior Sheep. The minute I finished reading her post, I reserved the first book. Who cares that I’m behind – I have to read that book!  A few weeks later, Sassymonkey talked about the Warrior Sheep and I gazed longingly at my library book cart where the book has been sitting for ages. I thought I’d never get around to reading it!

But I did, last night.

Super fast read. Amusing, because sheep mysteries always are, aren’t they?

Sheep in a tube.

Sheep on a plane.

Sheep on a train.

How damn amusing is that?

And, oddly enough – I didn’t see that bad guy coming!

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The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Feminism, Non-Fiction, Women /

A couple of months ago, I was flipping through Michelle’s Bitch magazine and you won’t be surprised to hear that there were several book reviews that caught my eye. The book I had to reserve right then was The Blue Tattoo. The cover, with a picture of Olive Oatman is fabulous. And, since captivity stories have never been my thing, I didn’t know anything about Olive – the Oatman massacre only barely registered as being one of those covered wagons traveling west things gone very, very wrong.

I’m glad I read this. It was super interesting – I just Olive had told us more and had been able to tell us more of her story, without being influenced by men (and society?)  Fascinating. I cannot imagine what that would have been like – not just the massacre or even living with the Mohave for five years, but the re-entry. That… that might have been worse than all of it put together.

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The Twelfth Enchantment

2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

It took me days and days and days to read The Twelfth Enchantment, which is weird since it’s written by the author of The Coffee Trader and Conspiracy of Paper (both books I really enjoyed.)  I was just too busy and too exhausted to read more than a couple of chapters each night – until last night when I was 100 pages from finishing and just couldn’t put it down until I found out how Lucy managed in the end.  (That’s how I would normally have read this book, had it been a more normal week. This is a great book to read straight through…)

(Oh – one other weird thing might have kept me from being able to read this book quickly… I’m reading another paranormal type of book on my iPhone while waiting in the car for kid pick up or waiting for a phone meeting to start… and we’re listening to a paranormal type of book on audio while we’re driving. The three sometimes blended together and I found myself mixing up monsters or supporting characters and having to stop and think about which book I was actually reading, lol. I don’t recommend reading three paranormal books at the same darn time.)

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Crunch

2011, Audiobooks, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites /

We’ve been listening to Crunch, in the car, for weeks – and it’s been a lot of fun. It’s also made both of us wish we had bicycles. We might just have to get a couple for Christmas. (Not that we can ride them at Christmas. Gah! But at least we’ll be prepared when the gas stops flowing…)

There was one tiny little problem with Crunch – the kids were too good. Even when they were fighting with each other (which was rare) they were just too perfect.

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Happyface

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Comics & Graphic Novels, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

A couple weeks ago, Elly asked me to reserve a book called Happyface… so I did. She read it and then she bugged me non-stop to finish whatever I was reading so I could read Happyface… so I did.

It’s a combination graphic novel/novel. It’s a bit about bullying. A bit about a dysfunctional family. It’s about alcoholism. Dating. Family relationships. Reinventing yourself only to find you’re still who you were, sort of, before the reinvention – because you haven’t dealt with who you were before the reinvention.

It’s a wee bit sad. It’s also funny in the right places. And thought-provoking in others, particularly if you’re a teenager who’s on the outside looking in. Or maybe on the inside wondering how to get out.  This could be a Cybils shortlister, I think.

I’m impressed that Elly liked this book so much.  Now I have to figure out when I can sit down and discuss it with her. We might have to video chat or something in order to have that conversation before I forget what the book was about. Heh.

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Journal Junkies Workshop

1 Comment / 2011, Books in Bed, Favorites, Non-Fiction /

My library’s new website (which really isn’t that new) has this little feature when I first log in that shows “recently reviewed books” in a little flippy slideshow thing. I cannot tell you how many books I’ve reserved just because I saw the cover flip by after I’ve logged in.

Journal Junkies Workshop is one of those books.

I’ve read a lot of books about journaling, altered bookmaking etc… and this is actually one of the best. It’s interesting. There’s a nice intro about Dan Elden and visual journalists that really puts you in the mood to play with your own journal. The information about different supplies you might use and techniques you might use with those supplies was also excellent.

I’ve been putting off my altered book project for YEARS (literally) and I swore I would do something before this month ended. I’m ready now. I even have some ideas about what I might do on a few pages.

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Two Cybils – One I Loved, One — Not So Much

2011, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Fiction, Young Adult /

First, Some Girls Are… Yes, I know. Some Girls Are… a lot of girls are. And some books make reading about some girls a painful, painful experience. It’s not that the book was badly written – it wasn’t. It’s not that it was a bad topic – it wasn’t. It was just a trouble book blown to smithereens by trouble. I kept picturing mean girls reading this book and victims of mean girls reading this book and none of the pictures popping into my head were good ones.

I do not think I can read another Courtney Summers book – so I hope she doesn’t make the Cybils shortlist again. I just… can’t do it. There’s no pay off for me when it’s over.

Now a book that I did love – Ninth Ward. That was a painful book, too. But not painful the way Some Girls Are was painful. It hurt to listen to Lenesha and Mama Yaya all the while knowing what was going to happen to them in the Ninth Ward. That helpless feeling… I remember that feeling. And I loved Lanesha and Mama Yaya and Tashon and even Spot.

When Mama Yaya said “how can it be mandatory when I don’t have a way to go…” yea, that right there… painful.

But the story was beautifully told. The characters wonderfully written. The hope… The universe shines with love….

My goodness I loved this book.

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