Children’s Literature

Percy Jackson Redux

Children's Literature /

Remember when I blogged about how much we enjoyed listening to Percy Jackson – The Lightning Thief? Well something cool happened on my clubmom blog. I posted a list of books we’d read last year, then I noticed quite a few people were coming to my blog looking for lesson plans for The Lightning Thief so I blogged some ideas and some links and guess who stopped by and commented. Nope, not Percy Jackson. Not Rick Riordan, either. Better. Rick Riordan’s WIFE. Everybody knows women are better, anyway, right?


Well she stopped by and she commented and it totally made my day. Go see! If you haven’t read The Lightning Thief, you should. It really was good.

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Valiant

2006, Children's Literature, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Valiant, by Holly Black, was not nearly as good as Tithe. It tried but it just didn’t succeed – until the last few chapters. Those did make it worth reading.

As TW said, it felt like I’d read it before. The storyline was a little tired – bad thing happens to a girl, she runs off to NYC and finds some troubling people who take her in. Drugs (granted, these are faerie drugs) and crime and in the end, happily ever after.

I liked Val. I liked the Troll. I even liked Luis and Dave and Lolli and Ruth. The story was just a little tired. It’s a young adult novel though, so maybe 13 year olds haven’t already read a zillion of these stories? Maybe they don’t notice the same tired storyline? Maybe they simply see a modern faerie tale?

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Here Be Dragons

2006, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites /

We listened to Book 2 of the Muddle Earth series, Here Be Dragons, on the way down to Miami and we enjoyed it very much. Some of the kids had listened to it or parts of it before but they all enjoyed it again (well except RJ, who listened to her mp3 player as usual).

Muddle Earth is fun – dragons and warrior heroes, flying wardrobes and wizards, evil in the form of Dr Cuddles. Great family fun, particularly on audio.

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The Wright 3

9 Comments / 2006, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Mystery /

Robiehouse
We really enjoyed listening to Chasing Vermeer so I was very much looking forward to listening to The Wright 3. I am a Wright fan, TW is not so much, so that was an added bonus for me and not so much for her. We listened to it on the way to Lakeland on Friday and then on the way home on Sunday and finished it up today on the drives to and from work. It was good. Lots of fun and full of math and coincidences and art and mystery.

I would love to live in the Robie… as a kid I always preferred the Fallingwater house but now I think the Robie would be more interesting. It would probably drive me nuts before the first dust bunnies settled under the bed though.

Oh and speaking of coincidences… I didn’t realize Florida Southern was in Lakeland or that there were Wright buildings there… was it a coincidence or was there some hidden meaning… we didn’t find a talisman or a copy of The Invisible Man so probably just a coincidence…

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Tithe

2006, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale was a nice little young adult DARK fantasy novel. A pixie changling, black knights, some faery queens, kelpies and just about any other fae being you can think of are included here. Completely fun and probably a little scarey at times for young readers just venturing into DARK fantasy faerie worlds. Oh and there’s some gay boy stuff tossed in for good measure, too. Pay attention the DARK descriptive I keep using. It is dark. This is not a light-hearted aren’t the faeries cute sort of tale. There’s a line about how the sunset looks like slit wrists in the bathtub, a pretty dumb but interesting line and an example of the type of “shock” writing in here.

This isn’t a series but there is another by the same author called Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie. I guess I’ll try and reserve that at the library too.

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Books for Girls

2 Comments / Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Reading Lists /

The New York Times has this interesting list of books for "girls" to read.  I really hate gendered reading lists like this but that’s a blog for another day.  Looking at the list, I think I’ve read four.  All four were very good. 

Interesting to see Luna on the list – I wonder if it makes the list of books for boys to read, ha! 

Flipped, also very good.  I think Michelle read this before we did.  Maybe right after we brought her home for school.  Or maybe it was Chris’s ex g/f who recommended it?  I don’t know, I just know we’ve all read it and we enjoyed it quite a bit.

The Earth, My Butt and Other Big Round Things was good but not something I’d recommend off the top of my head. 

Speak was a tough read, I’m surprised it’s got the 14 and up label.  I thought parents were more conservative than I am…

Oh wait, I’ve read 5 – Tiger Eyes, sort of boring actually.  I think I’ve outgrown Judy Blume or something.  Which now that I think about it, is really very sad.  I sound like my mother!  Ack!

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Email Murders

2006, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Mystery /

I spend a lot of time searching for audio books for children and young adults. Prince J prefers to listen to books rather than read them and E just plain likes them. RJ use to complain about E’s book listening when they shared a room but she quickly began to complain that she didn’t have a CD player on which to listen to audio books! (We’ve solved that, after letting her stew over it for awhile and reminding her of how often she complained about E’s audio books.)

The Email Murders was one such audio book picked up at the library a few weeks ago. I didn’t know anything about it or about P.C. Hawke mysteries. I just knew the author Paul Zindel and figured it was worth a shot.

I put the first cd into the cd player in the car a couple of weeks ago and we all started listening as we drove to church. And then we never pushed play on the cd player again. Forgot all about it. Til yesterday on the drive home from Atlanta when I discovered the iRiver had not charged fully and we were out of power.

I pushed play and the Email Murders began. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great either, though. I probably won’t bother tracking down any other P.C. Hawke mysteries and I probably won’t send it upstairs for the kids to listen to either. I don’t think they’ll like it much. Not “kid like” enough for them. And not adult either. Sort of an adult mystery trying too hard to be for kids. Something gets lost in all of the trying.

I was glad the book was still in the car yesterday, though. It was a nice way to spend a few hours of the drive home.

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Sky Pirates

2006, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

The fifth book in The Edge Chronicles Series was better than the last couple have been. Possibly because Twig, hero of book one, is back – granted he’s and old dude now but he’s still back.

And while more Banderbears are killed in this book than in any others, I wasn’t quite as troubled as I have been in the other books. RJ bought the 6th book a few months ago so I don’t have to wait til my library list gets short before reading it. Which is good, because Rook returns in this one, as does Vox, and I think I’ll enjoy it.

Care to guess about the Banderbear death count in the next one? I’m guessing at least one but probably 2 will die. Sigh.

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The Lightning Thief

2005, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

TW, Michelle and I really enjoyed listening to The Lightning Thief on the way to Charleston and back again this weekend. Michelle seemed highly disappointed when it was over. She’ll be glad to hear the next book in the series is coming soon – though April seems a long time to wait, at least it’s not like waiting for the next HP book.

Percy Jackson is a troubled 12 year old who finally discovers just WHY he’s troubled – he’s a half-God, son of …. I won’t tell you whose son he is because that would ruin a good part of the book for you. Imagine being half mortal and half God… and having monsters sniffing around after you to try and kill you for being half-God. Troublin, troubling, troubling!

A quest, lots of monsters, lots of Greek mythology presented in a fun way.

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