Bloodhound: Beka Cooper II

Author: Tamora Pierce
Rating:
Reading Level: 6th grade and up

Publisher: Random House
Edition: Galley, 2009



I really liked the first one and have been waiting for the second installment for a long long time. The second book still works. My initial quibble of not believing Beka able to write all of the stuff down in her journal still stands -- even with the explanation of ciphers and reports and how events are chopped down into several installments. Still seems a bit far-fetched. However, I guess if one believes in ghost-carrying pigeons and a young woman talking to street dust winds, one has to somewhat allow her to be able to write dialogs and descriptions in such minute details when recording her own exploits.

That's another thing: the pacing is a bit draggy at moments because it seems a bit too much of JUST Beka -- just her thoughts, just her experiences, and just her achievements. All the secondary characters (POUNCE, for example, who is absent for most of the story) take a real Secondary position here. Achoo the hound, although very important to the plot, is not satisfying as a strong supporting character because she is too much of a hound, no human traits at all. I love her, but she cannot replace Pounce whose wry humor adds so much to the flavor of the story.

Dale, as a secondary character at the beginning of the story, never got his chance to even remain in that position. By mid-book, he's already just a bit of thoughts in Beka's mind. This shows Beka's dedication to her work and how incredibly sensible she is, but I feel slightly let down by Dale's demotion. He definitely could have played a larger part in the story (either helping or hindering Beka's tasks) because he was positioned to do so from the get go (but peters out...)

Having Hanse explain all the rhymes and reasons seems a bit of an easy and very basic mystery device (for that is what this series is... Law and Order meets Tortall Fantasy.) I was hoping for huge surprises and unexpected villains and deeper plots.

Oh, I sound too critical, I do believe. Going to end by saying that I definitely enjoyed following Beka through the streets, watching her eat sea food, seeing her fight various villains -- above ground and underground. It's great to be back in the land of such cool magic. Am I now again eagerly waiting for the next book? You betcha!






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Ranger's Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan

Author: John Flannagan
Rating:
Reading Level: 4th to 6th grade

Pages: 249
Publisher: HarperCollins
Edition: Hardcover, 2006

I finally got around to read this first book in the ever-more popular series that my students have loved for the last few years. I know now why they like the stories and characters so much. The world is easy to understand -- since in this first book, the young people are "in schools." They are being trained in their various trades with cool skills like tracking, archery, sword play, and cooking. One of the main characters gets bullied and eventually those bullies get their just deserts! I can hear the cheering from the young readers! I will from now on describe the book (or the series) as Fantasy Spy Story, a blend of Alex Rider and Lord of the Rings. (Prob. a bit exaggerated but I think that will help interest the next reader!)

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The Bartimaeus Trilogy

Author: Jonathan Stroud

Reading Level: 6th grade and up

This is a guest blogger post. Josh is 16 years old and just finished the trilogy. (I feel remiss here -- since I neglected to recommend this series to him when he was in middle school!) He sent me a long email with his reviews of the three books and we subsequently exchanged a couple more emails, especially about the endings of this trilogy and the His Dark Materials trilogy. There are plot spoilers.



ABOUT The Amulet of Samarkand

Bartimaeus is hilarious. I simply love the djinn. Nathaniel is interesting to follow as well, a fun character with a couple flaws. There really isn't much to speak of in this book other than plot: it's fun, but Bartimaeus is the real winner of this one.

ABOUT The Golem's Eye

Here we see Nathaniel turn into the pompous, arrogant named John Mandrake. He falls into the very trap Bartimaeus told him to avoid: letting the corrupting influence of magicians twist him into something horrible. The things he does and says are unbelievable, and the effect is doubled by how he behaved in the 1st book. We get introduced to Kitty, who's a good person at heart, and then gets caught up in the whole Honorius affair. Mandrake shows his bastardness with his perpetual breaking of vows, many only hours or less after having made them. Bartimaeus is fun as ever: was sad about Queezle, that she got introduced and then snuffed out, but oh well. So goes the storyline.

ABOUT Ptolemy's Gate

By far the most interesting, most powerful, most moving, most climactic of the three (well, for that last one I suppose there's a reason, being the end and all). We see Mandrake turn from arrogant into the marginally better (or worse, depending on your POV) "top magician". Bartimaeus evokes a lot of sympathy with his sorry state, and Kitty becomes my favorite character for the majority of the book.

And then Mandrake slowly crumbles, leaving a mature Nathaniel. He still has flaws, but then, so does everyone but Bartimaeus. As Kitty and Nathaniel work together, with each other (and slowly begin to admire each other: my guess is given a couple years, they'd end up as very good friends or more, provided Nathaniel doesn't relapse, which I don't think he would), it's my favorite part. To see Kitty put the same trust in Bartimaeus that Ptolemy did, showing greater understanding of him than perhaps even the Egyptian boy (though Ptolemy did not have someone's notes or previous history as guides, admittedly).

And then, when Nathaniel accepts Bartimaeus into his own body...this is where N/B takes over as my favorite character(s). The fact that, working together, they manage to destroy far more powerful spirits than they. The fact that, working together, they are the culmination of Ptolemy's hopes and dreams, the ultimate climax of Nathaniel and Bartimaeus' relationship, the fulfilling of the purpose of Kitty's visit to the Other Place...once they become both two souls and one, a single 2-part mind in a single body, I could not put it down even for work. I was breathless as they turned the staff on Nouda...

AM. Nathaniel hit by the Detonation. Coming from Barti's POV, it is even more effective. And then when Nathaniel realizes the seriousness of the wound, his acceptance of his fate and determination to do selfless good is such strong writing. The last meeting with Kitty, where N/B both know what has to be done, and the whole concealing it from K thing...I really felt it. Comparable, at least for me in my after-reading-state, to when Lyra and Will realize they must separate in Amber Spyglass.

True to form, he breaks his final promise, having finally made one beyond his power to keep. This was where I was sad that the "item" could never happen (Kitty's picking through the wreckage at the end made me think she was feeling the loss of a possible future, one containing more happiness, or at least more possibility, than her current one, a future with a united djinn/human in it).

I thought that writing N and B's end at the very end was the best move of the whole trilogy. We already know what happens: we know that the great evil is destroyed by the heroic death of N/B. Now we get to see the heart of darkness, the center of the inferno, as N/B march to their death. The connection between them in this scene is so powerful I thought they might actually survive. This isn't the usual master-servant relationship; this isn't even Ptolemy's relationship. Ptolemy was a trusting, kind, benevolent, freedom-giving master, yes, but he was a master, as evidenced by his final dismissal of Barti. N and B banter as friends, they speak as equals, as 2 halves of the whole. Nathaniel's character at the end here practically radiates goodness off the page. And then, the way he dismisses Bartimaeus, I feel, is from an equal to an equal. The delivery of the dismissal is not that of a master dismissing a slave, but of a friend releasing a friend.

My throat was seized up the whole final scene, but it was the 2nd-to-last paragraph, where the Staff breaks, that the tears almost fell (almost, because I usually manage to keep them in while reading, though I failed during Amber Spyglass several years ago). The simplicity of the writing there - "Nouda did this. Nathaniel finished the Dismissal. I went. The Staff broke." had so much raw POWER in the way it was written. Stroud simply couldn't have written that end any better (except maybe Nathaniel surviving: just as he turns good, he turns so good that he must make up for the magicians' sins and evildoing. He dies for a better world, and I do rather prefer when they get to actually see that world).

I'd discuss the last paragraph but I need breakfast. Barti's final words in the trilogy, starting with "typical master", given that Nathaniel was anything but, either give the paragraph a tone of affection or a tone of disgust. Choice of the reader, so I chose affection :)

*** (Another email discussing the endings of Amber Spyglass and Ptolemy's Gate is omitted.) ***

Amber Spyglass had a Tough ending...but I think that, for me, Ptolemy's Gate takes the cake. To see what Nathaniel becomes by the end of the trilogy...in book 1 he was bumbling but likable, in book 2 I nearly burned the pages with him, in book 3 first couple parts I was a little put out with him (especially given his treatment of Barti), in last 150ish pages I thought, "This is what he should have become from book 1." The opposition of him + Barti and him from the previous books was so pronounced, and the tentative friendship springing up between him and K...it all made his death doubly sad and twice as noble.

Still tugs at the hearstrings, reading it. It's his Redemption, and yet he goes so much farther than he "needed" to, to redeem himself. For once, a magician of the old generation does what people of such power are supposed to do (at least in our society): use it for the people, sacrifice himself for the commoners.

FAIRROSA:

I cannot really honestly say which one affected me more at the moment of reading -- but I do think that Lyra and Will's final parting has a much stronger lingering effect. I read that scene, what, 8 - 9 years ago and I can still feel the sorrow now; whereas I do recall Nathaniel's final sacrifice (and you described it so well below) and how much I sobbed over it, it does not give my heart a blow whenever I think of it.

JOSH:

It's something about the way the two are written, I think. Something about them makes Bartimaeus stronger than HDM for me. I can't place it...my first guess would be that in Barti, the whole experience comes from 1st person, and their unity is such a 180 from everything before it, but I'm not sure if that's it.

Maybe it's the fact that N/B was 4 days ago, and L/W was 4 years ago...but there's no way to either prove or disprove that.

Argh.

Given the time difference between reading the two (not too much for an adult, but for me it's my entire emotional maturation to date), I don't think I can honestly say either one. L/W affected me more, but I hadn't read many books before then in which the heroes either die or must sacrifice something HUGE to win. I'm more used to it by now, and being a fan of happy endings, anything with such sacrifice will .

Watchmen

Author: Alan Moore, illus. by Dave Gibbons
Rating:
Reading Level: YA, Adult

Publisher: DC Comic
Edition: Paperback, 1987

It took me a long time to finish this seemingly slim volume. I took in every word, every image, and every reference as slowly as I could manage. Not that the story is too complex, but its form does demand some attention and appreciation: the interwoven stories of the masked vigilantes and the embedded graphic novel of the Black Freighter (or the Pirate story as my students refer to it) and the various texts of the story-within-the story by one of the side characters and all the other para-"documents."

I enjoyed all the double-descriptors: words and phrases that convey the meaning for one scene but also aptly describe the situations of another scene. Moore employed this technique through out the novel -- it did not get tired for me, just amusing.

The final two "chapters," however, seem to rely too much on Adrian's explanation of his whole back story and his reasons behind all the plans and schemes, slowing down the momentum and diminishing the thrilling mystery part of the whole tale. I wish Moore had figured out a more active and exciting way for the exposing of Adrian and his plot.

I also must say that I think the filmmakers did a fantastic job translating the novel into the movie. The only real gripe I have is in the odd casting of Adrian's role -- instead of an athletic superhero, the actor seems fragile and without the kind of commanding presence that this role demands. The movie ends differently from the book -- having gotten rid of the entire side story of the vanishing artists, novelists, and scientists with their creation of the "alien being" that devastates half of New York City -- but by putting the blame on Dr. Manhattan, the film has added another layer of emotional burden onto a major character and I have to applaud that particular line of changes. And, may I say that I absolutely ADORE Rorschach in the movie -- his scenes are most memorable and the actor's skillful portrayal of this tragic hero is impeccable!

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The Graveyard Book, again

Just want to clarify my own post: Just because The Graveyard Book might have NOT had been widely read by children around the country/world, does not mean that it is not a wonderful Children's Book. It is. It will take mind, heart, and soul of each child reader to truly appreciate this book, though.

I'm thinking of the three kinds of fiction reading that we do as readers (and maybe especially young readers?). (I just made these up, so bear with me.) (And I realize that they can also be the three kinds of writings/books -- so not just dependent on the readers, but the authors as well.)

The first kind is the visceral reading: that we read quickly, just gobbling down the words very easily, like wolfing down a thick slice of chocolate cake. We pay little attention to the word choices, to the deliberate rhythm of each sentence, or other "literary details" but what's going to happen next to the one or two main characters we care about. Some books/stories are created to elicit purely such visceral reactions. And many many readers, young or old, take great pleasure in reading such books, without having to stop and contemplate.

The second is the cerebral reading: that we read closely, conscious of all the craftsmanship mastered by the author -- the voice, the tone, the vocabulary, the ways characters are constructed, the beat of each sentence, etc. etc., to the point that we analyze and marvel as we read without emotionally affected by the work. This kind of reading is often found when people feel the need or responsibility when they "KNEW" before they started reading a book that it is supposed to be a very well written piece of literature, and they want to make sure that they have such and such title under their belt for discussion with others.

The third is the soulful reading: that we are greatly involved with the emotions, the settings, the plot and the world of the story, while at the same time, our souls take flight with the artistic achievements of such skillful telling! Our experiences as humans are enriched with such a reading.

I see The Graveyard Book as belonging to the 3rd kind of writing -- it has the potential to both delight and enrich any reader's life. I see Pullman's His Dark Materials and White's Charlotte's Web as two other prime examples.

Graveyard Book and the Newbery

Ok. I am SUPERBLY excited about The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, won the Newbery. But, I'd have to point out to all those who have been writing/thinking along the line of, "finally, a Newbery winner that has been very popular with kids -- see it's been on the New York Times Bestselling List for children, like, forever" that if you REALLY look into who have been reading The Graveyard Book (and see who the 15,865 Neil twitter followers, who attend his Graveyard Book reading events and bought the book then, and who have written to him on his blog about this book,) you can EASILY find that the book has been a lot more popular with his adult fans. The New York City Graveyard Book reading event that I attended had about 500 people in the audience and only about 10 (or fewer) of them were children.

My husband read the book aloud, and loved every moment of it, to our 10-year-old daughter who really enjoyed listening to this intriguing and beautifully crafted story. And some of my students have read it and thoroughly enjoyed it as well. But, that is not to say that The Graveyard Book has been extremely popular with children (at least, not like the trendy but not as delicately crafted Twilight Saga, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Warriors series, Princess Diaries, or Cirque du Freak series - and dozens of others)

The Graveyard Book won the Newbery because it contains linguistic nuances, humor, dramatic tension, vivid and memorable characters, and unique world building -- and because these qualities are recognized and awarded by the 2009 Newbery Committee members.

It seems to me insulting all around to imply that 1. the Newbery Committee members did not examine the work for its literary and artistic achievements, but simply went with a "bestseller" and 2. Neil Gaiman did not win the award for his fine literary craftsmanship but for being a popular kid author -- which, he has really not been and we don't know what the future brings.

Like I said, being a HUGE fan of Gaiman's and The Graveyard Book, I am tickled all colors of the rainbow to see that the book got the recognition it deserves, but, please, folks, do not jump to conclusions!

Moribito, House in the Night, Graveyard Book, Oh My... in the BEST POSSIBLE SENSE!!!!

(a very small portion of the people waiting in line to get into the ballroom)

This is the step-by-step report from Denver Convention Center, at the Midwinter Conference of the American Library Association. We got here around 7:15 in the morning. The door opened around 7:30. There were about 800 people or 1000 waiting to storm in. We were a civilized crowd though, so we "strolled" in and only slightly rushed to the seats.

The Press Conference started by showing a celebration video for 40 years of Coretta Scott King Awards. Short video, very touching.

I'm so glad that this is not dubbed "The Academy Awards" of youth media any more. Just the "premiere" awards event.

We watched the slideshow of ALEX Awards. 10 titles of adult books for teens.

Schneider Awards were announced then. I'm really pleased that Waiting for Normal and Piano Starts Here both received the awards. (Although I think the dyslexia does not quite feature prominently in Waiting for Normal.) Lily is reading it right now.

Coretta Scott King Award

Kadir Nelson's illustration We Are the the Ship only received an Honor award for illustration. We were slightly surprised but I am very happy that Floyd Cooper's illustrations for The Blacker the Berry won the Award for illustrations!!! It is SO great.

But Nelson's writing for We Are the Ship, that is SOOO excellent, won him the CSK's author award! This one is amazing. Read it. Really READ IT!

I'm so happy for Hope Anita Smith's CSK honor of Keeping the Night Watch! And can't wait to read her new poetry collection featuring her own artwork, Mother (I think that is the title.)

Of course, all the others are wonderful titles as well.

The CSK committee did a splendid job!!!

YALSA

Odyssey -- FIVE honor recepients! The winner is: Absolutey True Diary of an American Indian. Narrated by Sherman Alexie himself. It must be a superb recording. I can't wait to listen to it.

Edwards Award for Life Time Achievement in YA Literature goes to Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak and many other excellent titles.

The William C. Morris Award -- a new one for new voice in YA Lit.
This one has a short list of five, published widely a while ago.
The winner is A Curse Dark as Gold. I can't wait to read this and the other three I have not read. (Already read Graceling)

Printz Award

4 Honor Books

The winner is Jellicoe Road -- I have not even heard of this. An Australian import. Nina Lindsay totally endorsed this one. So, another to-read for me.

ALSC

Pura Belpre Award

... was announced bilingually.
Three honor books for illustration.
The winner is desrvingly Yuyi Morales for Just in Case.

Three honor books for author
The winner is The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom" by Margarita Engle. Another one that I missed this year. I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS!!!

Arbuthnot Lecture Award is given to KT Horning!!!! My long time friend and mentor who taught me everything about serving on the ALSC Award Committees. I am so excited and thrilled and so inspired.

Batchelder

Honors go to Garmann's Summer and Tiger Moon. I absolutely adore Garmann's Summer. Need to read, Tiger Moon.

The Winner is MORIBITO!!!!! Yeah Arthur and Cheryl for their introducing this outstanding book and series to the American children!!

Sibert Award

Two Sibert Honors

Bodies from the Ice and What to Do About Alice. Two excellent books.

We Are the Ship by Nelson got this one, too!!! My friend Carol Philips chaired the committee.

Wilder goes to Ashley Bryan!!! And he's coming to Dalton for a pre-planned celebration of his new book next Tuesday. WOW.

Carnegie Medal goes to the video "March On! the Day My Brother Martin Changed The World".

Geisel Award

4 Honors: Chicken Said Cluck, One Boy, Stinky, Wolfsnail
Winner is: Are Your Ready to Play Outside by Mo Willems (An Elephant and Piggy book) OF COURSE!

Caldecott Award

Three honors: A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, How I Learned Geography, A River of Words. I FEEL SO vindicated! I LOVE ALL THREE.

Winner goes to The House in the Night -- I ABSOLUTELY ADORE THIS ONE, as well. So glad that they all will make the Notables List without my having to spend votes on them.

Newbery Award

4 Honors: The Underneath, The Surrender Tree, Savvy, After Tupac and D Foster

And the winner is Neil Gaiman for THE GRAVEYARD BOOK.

I am hyperventilating..... OMG!! This has been my hope for the this award all year long and I am SOOO grateful, yes, grateful, to the Newbery Committee for choosing this title. OMG OMG again.

This has been the most amazing year and Press Conference (after my own year on the Newbery, of course) with most wonderful selections.