365 Days of Books

SHOAH by Claude Lanzmann is the complete text of the film SHOAH. The text is the subtitles that give the emotion and information of the original speech but sometimes in a slightly different form than the original language so that the film would flow.

One of the strengths of the movie and book is the repetition of certain circumstances or instances from several different veiwpoints/people. The descriptions of the Treblinka gassings from the memories of Jewish "Death Patrol" workers, German officer, and village people are each slightly different but together they harshly illuminate the humanity, inhumanity, and process.

This book is an excellent companion to the movie and works best after one has seen the movie though viewing of the visuals is not necessary to feel the despair and hope.

This book was recommended to me by my parents and I recommend it to my adult sisters.

Truckers by Terry Pratchett (author of the discworld series) is book 1 in the Bromeliad Trilogy.

Masklin is the young leader of the small remnant of a community of nomes. Their ranks thinned by hunger, cold, weasels, and fox, Masklin hitches the group a ride on a truck so they can look for a better life. They end up in a department store which is the whole world to another mcuh larger group of nomes. The indoor nomes live in clans named after their departments: Haberdasheri, del Icatessan, Stationary.... Masklins small group has brought with them "The Thing" a treasured bit of something that has been handed down from generation to generation. When "The Thing" comes close to electricity it reveals itself to be a powerful computer which has been with the nomes since they landed on earth. "The Thing" also reveals that the store is about to be torn down. Can MAsklin convince the indoor nomes that everything is NOT under one roof and even if the people can be convinced where will they go and how will they get there?

As is usual for Terry Pratchett, puns abound. This is a light amusing story. I look forward to the next two books in the series.

I gave this book to a 9 year old girl but when she was still on chapter 2 she left the book on a couch for a few hours and her sister, 12, took it and read it and asked if we had the rest of the series. I recommended this book to two brothers ages 13 and 11 and to a 36 year old man who enjoys Terry Pratchett.

I hope I've finished with these! I checked the waiting piles of books and didn't see any more of them. I've asked my family to slip any unread Wendy Holden's straight into the bin without telling me.

Gossip Hound and Bad Heir Day by Wendy Holden.

No safe sex in either of these books. Loads of women without a brain in their heads and golddigging hearts. Read other people's reviews at Amazon Gossip Hound reviews and Bad Heir Day reviews.

I have only this to say about Bad Heir Day: It would have been a more satisfying story if Anna had written a version of The Nanny Diaries at the end instead of having her learn nothing at all from her stupidity and naivete.

Troll A love story by Johanna Sinisalo is a twisted folk tale.

Angel stops an act of bullying and rescues the victim who turns out to be a young troll. Though mythic, in this reality, Finnish trolls have been identified and classified by zoologists. Trolls are rare in the wild and almost never known in captivity. Angel keeps the troll and Johanna Sinisalo includes folktales and animal research as some of the resources that Angel taps to find how to feed and care for the troll.

The story is disturbing, to me, in its sexuality. The sexual tension in Angel clangs alarms to me not only in that the troll is an animal but that the troll is immature. As Angel uses the troll for an advertisement photo campaign he is working on a parallel develops between his relationship (urg) with the troll and the abusive relationship of the couple downstairs.

Betrayal, taming of animals, human nature or animal nature....

Angel's interaction with the troll leads him to view many people and relationships in different ways...seeing humanity where before he had glanced past with disdain.

National Endowment of the Arts report show that literary reading is declining. With "fewer than half of American adults now reading literature."

I'm doing my part!

In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien is a mystery and a political thriller. John Wade has just lost a bid for United States Senator. He lost in a landslide following the revelation that he was involved in scandal during the Vietnam War. John had hidden his involvement from his campaign manager, his wife Kathy, and even from himself.

John and Kathy retreat to an isolated cabin to pull themselves together. One night Kathy disappears. Did she get lost, get scared and run away, or did John kill her?

Interspersed with the current story are background clips from John and Kathy's early relationship and the devastation of Vietnam.

You can pretend a terrible thing didn't happen but it will still influence your life.

I'm not sure if John is basically a good guy who has been twisted by his attempts to distance himself from evil that he saw or if he is a monster who has deluded himself into thinking he was not responsible.

I recommended this book to a 50 year old man who likes political thrillers and to a 47 year old female FBI lawyer.

Forget what I said about safe sex in these books. Condoms don't appear until the later books, the early books include sex with all sorts of practical strangers with no thought to birth control or sexual disease.

That said, Farm Fatale is a much better book. Where the books I previously reviewed were heavy on gossip and talentless people wasting time and energy keeping up with the Kidmans and Jaggers, Farm Fatale deals more with people and their real emotions and worries (even rock stars have real emotions!). Rosie, an illustrator, has talked her partner Mark into moving to the country. Ensconced in a charming cottage in Eight Mile Bottom she will do her work surrounded with beauty and peace while Mark will find plenty of material for his new column "Green-er Pastures". Real life is much harsher than their dreams.

Mark turns bitter and there is a handsome, lonely farmer down the road. Will Rosie transfer her affections to the farm?

Other people are moving to the country; there is a hermit rock star recovering from a devastating romance and a banker/actress couple trying to find their place as Lords of the Manor. Much hilarity, old girlfriends, and hideous house decorating take place.

I'm still not recommending them.

Law of Gravity is a political thriller. Philip Barkley was an up and coming lawyer who is now emotionally broken and whose carreer is sinking fast. He is assigned to investigate what appears to be a case of espionage within the staff of a Presidential hopeful. Philip's ex-wife is the candidates wife. Philip is not the pushover some people thought he would be; he will not rubberstamp findings which he considers premature or faulty.

With tenacity Philip researches the situation and finds clues to the real problem. Unfortunately, a chain of dead innocents makes the clues unusable.

I left this book at the pool on the bookshelf. Maybe someone will take it.

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-0060194413-5
 

My first ever e-book! I bought and downloaded this book and read it on my Palm Zire. It took longer to read than I expected for a 193 page book. Reading a few inches at a time is slow but I got better at keeping a steady scroll and was closer to a natural reading rythym by the end. I suppose that reading on a small screen would aid in concentration for reading texts of for people who are distracted by the surrounding words.

For Love of Mother-Not by Alan Dean Foster is the story of a young boy with mysterious background and talent. Flinx is "adopted" for a fee from what is essentially a government run slave auction. His Mother-Not, Mother Mastiff, isn't quite sure why she chose him - she wasn't even looking for a slave or companion. Flinx can sometimes read the emotions of people around him. Can he also influence them?

Two sets of people are looking for Flinx: the group that genetically engineered him as part of an experiment on furthering humanity and the Moral Enforcers who want to stop the experiments. Interesting conflict comes when it appears that the experimenters, who have kidnapped Mother Mastiff in order to use her to influence Flinx, are shown to have cared deeply for Flinx and had provided him with a loving childhood until their organization was disrupted by the law enforcers. At one point Flinx sees the law enforcers coming as rescuers only to be battered by the hate and revulsion that they feel for him. And, to make it even more confusing, the renegade group no longer seems to see Flinx as a person but as validation that their techniques can work for good; Flinx's life is soon secondary to proving their point.

I'd like to read the other Flinx books to see where Alan Dean Foster goes with the story. FLinx and Mother Mastiff are engaging characters.

Slaves of the Mastery is the 2nd in the Wind on Fire series by William Nicholson. I didn't like the first book in the series very much but I'm glad I found this book on sale at Vertigo bookstore. The flaws I saw in the earlier book were gone from this story.

Amaranth has been plundered and its people taken as slaves for the Mastery. The Hath family, except for Kestrel, are among the slaves. Kestrel follows them. Taking responsibility for our freedom and the sapping cost of giving up freedom for security are themes.

I recommended this to a 12 year old girl to whom I did not recommend the Wind Singer (though she read it anyway) and to a 14 year old boy. I think the set of three would make a nice addition to a middle school library.

Thinner Than Thou by Kit Reed is science fiction that transcends the perceived geekiness of science fiction. You don't have to have (or fake) knowledge of advanced mathematics or wormholes or fuel/weight ratios. You already have the information that you need: your own experience in our image conscious society. In the, just over the horizon, future of Thinner Than Thou body image is everything. Body manipulations are strip-mall available and perfection is expected. We aren't perfect and the resulting stress as people worry about how society veiws them and if their wrinkles will keep them from advancing fuels an underground of obese strippers and food eating contests. The obese and anorexic are shipped to rehab centers that are offshoots of the one huge religious health empire of Reverend Earl and the wealthy but overweight can sign themselves into his "spa" with guaranteed results.

Thinner Than Thou follows two sets of characters: twins, their mother, and a boyfriend who are searching for an anorexic girl who was handed over to the Dedicated Sisters and a wealthy stockbroker who has signed into the spa. The roads that lead one person to obesity and one to anorexia are similar as are the bonds that bring them out of danger.

None of us are perfect but we don't usually pretend that we are. Reverend Earl has lead people to believe that not only is he perfect (because body is everything) but that he can make us perfect too. The truth is ugly.

A really well written and detailed book. Sometimes I can read a page of a book and glean the story but with this book I sometimes read a page twice to make sure that I had digested all the material.

I have recommended this book to several men and women in their 30-40's.

Talking To Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede is the fourth in the Enchanted Forest series.

Young Daystar is handed a sword and sent into the Enchanted Forest by his mother. IT must have something to do with the wizard who threatened them the day before, but what?

Daystar knows that the #1 rule is "Be Polite To Dragons", be polite to everyone but always to dragons. He meets a fire witch and a young dragon and with them and the magic sword he navigates the castle to find out how he fits into the world.

Lots of fun! Same recommendations as below.

Grump! All the helpful tools are gone from my "create post". No link insertion, no bold, no italics, no spellcheck!

Searching For Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede is second (of four) in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. The books can be read separately and even out of order because they have clear plots and nicely developed characters in each book; linking the books as a series just makes a more complete and fun read.

In all four books stereotypes are broken by showing that not all (fill in the blank) are like (fill in stereotype) therefore the generalization is false.

What made a huge burned hole in the Enchanted Forest and what did the Dragons have to do with it? King Mendanbar sets out to solve the mystery which is complicated by the advice and information the head Wizard gives him.

Lots of fun!

I would recommend this book to the following people I know: a 12 year old girl, a 9 year old girl, an 8 year old girl, a 3rd grade boy who loved Boots and the Seven Leaguers by Jane Yolen, and two teeachers of classes of 1-3rd graders.

This is more like it! The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald is a slim book that contains a world of real people living real lives. Florence Green has decided to open a bookshop in her small town. The people, the books, the systems of aide and support are all interwoven and detailed. This brave decision to change a staid life is countered by the whim of a wealthy person who wants her own way. Using power because it is possible and not for any deeper reason, Mrs. Gamart moralizes that she's working for the betterment of the community as she strips everything from Mrs. Green. She has stripped friendship, hope, home, and livlihood before she has accomplished her goal.

I would recommend this book to several women I know in their 20's to 40's, several men of the same age bracket, and to a teacher who runs an ESL school in an Asian country (the clarity of the writing as well as the detailed context make this book excellent for mid-level new English speakers.

It may be obvious that I didn't really enjoy "Simply Divine". So why did I read Azur Like It? Well, someone I trust gave me 5 or 6 of these books and said they were very funny and witty and sexy. I thought that maybe I had just started with the wrong one.

Azur Like It is better than Simply Divine but not by huge amounts. Lots of celebrity name dropping, an obvious plot, and a journalist heroine.

Maybe they can be seen as a form of Harlequin Romance: journalist, celebrity mentioning, light romances. There are sex scenes and they aren't too detailed but definitely satisfying for the heroine. Kudos to Wendy Holden for use of condoms!

Simply Divine is like a book version of Tattler or The National Enquirer. Gossip and name dropping stuck together with a fragile plot. This is absolute junk reading.

Jane is a journalist (and that is tarting up a frog and calling it a prince) for a fashion magazine. She parties, many women wearing tiny outfits are described, lifestyles of the rich and famous are emulated and mocked.

True love struggles through and all twists in the plot work out.

Recommend it? Sure, for people to stick in their beach bag.

Freedom's Ransom is the fourth in the Freedom series by Anne McCaffrey. Freedom's Landing, Freedom's Choice, and Freedom's Challenge are the other books in the series.

It's a complicated series with many different species of aliens (and humans) fighting and/or working together and not always species by species...some groups of one species may join forces against their own side. So the alliances are complicated, the personal relationships are complicated (small world, small groupings of persons, romance may not select the same pairing as mating to expand the genepool), and politics are complicated. In past books this colony has struggled to survive but now they are working to make a better life and to thrive as a trading group.

One of the strengths of McCaffreys writing is the dignity of her characters and the work that they (and she) put into respecting the different parts of different cultures. Yes, the Barevi are warriors and oppressors but their trade traditions are beautifully complicated and solidly built as are their social structure and educational heritage. Another strength, IMO, is that no entire people is "bad"; individual people are evil or greedy but there are some of those in every group of people.

I would recommend this to 14, 12, and 11 year old boys, and people who liked Pern but want something less dragony.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic novel telling about the authors childhood in revolutionary and war ridden Iran. There are both poignant personal stories and a gentle rendering of history so that a reader will not feel stupid for not knowing the history of the area but instead will feel gifted with the knowledge.

The day to day implications and terrors of the revolution and war shadow but do not overwhelm this small family. They are, to the sad end, a cohesive unit, a family of real everyday people.

I am struck again by the power of small acts of defiance.

I recommended this book to a 12 year old girl, a 14 year old girl who is very into revolution and graphic novels, several women in their 30-40's, and a 70 year old couple.

The Ragwitch by Garth Nix is the story of a child innocently releasing a great evil back into the world and being taken with that evil, as the vessel carrying that evil, into danger and violence.

It's a dark book.

Innocent Julia is followed by her brother Paul who is determined to save her. If he must save an entire world to do it, he will. Any foe of the ragwitch is Paul's ally. Julia has friends and helpers as well, people who fight against the Ragwitch from within...literally from within.

I've already read other of Garth Nix's work Abhorsen, Lirael, and Sabriel. I liked them better for plot and character reasons though I enjoyed the characters and landscapes in Ragwitch.

Hidden Talents by David Lubar is every outcast misfit person's daydream. We aren't really losers, bumblers, thieves, clumsy, or cheaters...we have "Hidden Talents". Sadly, in our general daydreams we don'tuse the knowledge of these talents to fit ourselves back into society. Instead we make ourselves heroes and wreck vengeance on our tormentors.

Hidden Talents manages to do all of those things.

I'd recommend this book to a 4th grade boy who feels like a misfit, a 12 year old girl who will read it in 90 minutes and be amused, and a 9 year old girl. I'd also recommend this book to the teacher of a 4th-6th grade classroom for the class library...I think the book is readable by 2nd and 3rd graders but I think the pre-middle school angst about not fitting in really surges in 4-6th grades.

I think I've finally caught up on logging all the books I read on vacation.

Zazoo is the story of a young girl in France. She is a Vietnam orphan adopted by a French soldier.

Zazoo lives with her father in a gatehouse on a canal in France. Zazoo is the only point of contact between the local village and her father. She and her father live a slow but satisfying life, deeply love one another, and write fabulous poetry. As her father receds more and more from life (alzheimers?) Zazoo becomes a young woman and starts reaching out to more people. She stumbles upon another side to her father, a darker side which haunts him but which also expands her vision of the person he is. Zazoo and a friend work to patch a friendship between Zazoo's father and a villager.

Major themes: No man is an island. Sometimes we do bad things for good reasons and sometimes bad things from anger/emotional loss. Continued obsession with the past can ruin your present and future. Love is a great healer.

I recommended this to a 15 year old girl and lent it to her and she hasn't given it back. She says she passed it on to some friends.

Tithe by Holly Black is billed as "A modern fairy tale" and was in the young adult section of the book store. I originally bought this book so that I could read it and then give as a gift to a 12 year old girl. I won't be passing this on to her just yet.

Tithe is a black story of the compact between 2 fairy houses and the lesser magical beings like pixies. Part of the great truce requires a sacrifice and in this year the decision has been made on a human sacrifice. Unknown to most fairies and the human, she is not a human but a changeling.

That part, the human sacrifice, does not bother me unduly and would be fine for my friend as would the Goth heroine. It is several other parts that caused me to withhold the book for a time: There are detailed descriptions of the debauchery (boy, does that sound prim) in the evil fairy camp, there is involvement of a human boy who is gay (that isn't a problem) and his treatment at the hands of sadistic and sexually sadistic fairies. The sexual sadism and the deep loathing and longing that the boy feels toward it were, in my opinion, too difficult for this particular 12 year old to handle.

I haven't actually recommended this book to anyone yet but I also didn't get rid of it.

The House of the Scorpion is set in a future where drug barons have their own country between Mexico and the United States. The House of the Scorpion follows Matt, the young clone of a drug lord, through his life. Clones are seen by society as less than human and have no rights but Matt's "father" sees Matt as himself and has Matt live with his family where Matt is treated as the heir. What is Matt's purpose and will he ever have a life off the the plantation? The homestead is a vast and beautiful place with crops tended by humans who are treated like animals...they are not clones so who are they?

Matt has some allies in the household: his nanny/mother who is the family cook, one of his "father's" bodygaurds, and his young cousin whom he loves.

What does it mean to be a human being and what does it mean to be a genetically engineered or cloned person?

What can a few people do against great evil? And how did that evil get so great in the first place?

I recommended this book to a 12 year old girl who had read Nancy Farmer's book The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm. This is not a book to be read in a vacuum; discussion about drug enforcement and cloning and genetic engineering as it applies to human beings and their rights should be part of the experience. I would recommend this book to a Jr. High teacher, a high school librarian, and a college teacher who teaches a Modern Ethics class.

Another book that addresses some of the same questions but from a different perspective is Star Split by Kathryn Lasky. Star Split brings up different thoughts and arguments about cloning and genetic enhancement and what they could mean to the future of human beings. I haven't read this book this year.

Dead to the World is part of a series about Southern Vampires. This is a near future where vampires have come out of the closet and are explained by viruses and werepeople and others are becoming more familiar to the general world. Sookie Stackhouse is our heroine, she can read minds but is otherwise a small town bar waitress. People from town think she is weird and most avoid personal relationships with her. Several books back, Sookie was pulled into the society of vampires and she has "dated" a few, and a wereman.

The story makes more sense if you have read the previous books in the series and I recommend them. The character "Bubba" is a hilarious touch.

If you liked "Interview with a Vampire" but thought the rest of Anne Rice's series were too serious and pedantic, then you might like this book. Note: there are sex scenes.

I recommended this series to women in their 20-40's who like vampire stories and puns.

Ok, I read the rest of the sequence. Earlier this Summer I read the first book Over Sea, Under Stone and I didn't care much for it (see the review below). However, I bought the box set as a gift and read the whole thing before giving it away (it's allright, the giftee and I have an understanding about books - she reads everything she buys for me before she wraps it as well).

I must admit that the series improves.

The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree history, time travel, Welsh tales, and the classic struggle of good and evil into a set of progressively engrossing incidents. I still don't care for the Drew children and I think they are the least developed of all the characters.

The box set says that these are "Teen Fantasy" but the giftee (now 12) and her younger sister (9) both understood and enjoyed the series.

Blood Sport and Hot Money by Dick Francis. There are a couple of reasons that I reread Dick Francis' books every year: 1)they are a fun, light read 2)I like the characters and interesting information 3)At some point every year I run out of new books to read and there is this shelf of mysteries just waiting for me. Luckily for you and me, my friend Colleen gifted me with two shopping bags full of books last Saturday so that I can now let the Dick Francis books trickle along instead of reading 1-2 a day.

Have I mentioned that I must read every day or I feel unsettled?

Hot Money is about wealth management and extended family management (sometimes they intersect). There is intersting information about the buying and selling of gold. Blood Sport is about the kind of depression that frags a person down until a vacation alone starts looking like an easy time to suicide and how adrenaline and the development of personal relationships can help to loosen the death grip of the depression. This is one of Dick Francis' darker books and (sigh) one of his more dated books because of the greater use of colour, fashion, and interior decoration detail.

The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold is part of the Miles Vorkosigan series. Miles looks like a mutant, a dreaded problem on Barrayar; he is not a mutant but he looks like one and his deformities are quite real. His weak bones have barred him from the armed forces but there must be something he can do. Miles' quick wits and openness to risk (as well as his luck) bring him into and out of many situations which then leave him with the appearance of treason.

Lois McMaster Bujold's books are always wonderful. Not only are her characters multidimensional, flawed and heroic, and her plots counter-intuitive is a way that allows for even a great fan to wonder how things will continue but her conflicts are character driven and there are always layers to the thinking. Issues are often brought up, fully in the stories!, that are shown from different societal backgrounds...evenly. Neat tight black-white ethical conclusions are not part of this series.

I try to make Lois McMaster Bujold books last but I usually end up sitting up late into the night devouring "just one more chapter".

I would recommend this book to teenage scifi and fantasy readers - it is neither too hard science nor too soft. I think that readers of any age who enjoy Orson Scott Card and Anne McAffrey will enjoy this series.

Knockdown is about power and how some people use intimidation keep it. Straight is about how we can learn about and be surprised by the people we love even after they are dead...and it made me think about what the appearance of good is and likewise the impact of absence of goodness on a person. I really liked all the gadgets in Straight!

Blah, blah, recommend blah,blah...mysteries and horses.

Dead Cert, Nerve, Slay Ride, Smokescreen, and Rat Race are all by Dick Francis. Again, these are mysteries involving the horse industry, generally in Great Britain. Dead Cert is about fixing races by bribing jockeys...and killing jockeys who won't cooperate. Nerve features an up and coming jockey who seems to have lost his courage and disaster seems to be affecting a lot of jockeys recently...hmmmm. Slay Ride is built around issues of racecourse security and takes place mostly in Norway. Smokescreen is peripherally about racehorses in South Africa but features a movie star rather than a jockey and is really about the endurance of men with some info on diamond mines thrown in. Rat Race is based at an airplane taxi service that carries jockeys and trainers to races; is it attempted murder and will someone die the next time?

As you can see, I like Dick Francis. I own all his fiction and read it once a year of so. My whole family likes Dick Francis; we all collect his books and my father buys extra paperback copies to hand out in airports and train stations. The books are light and easy to read, a couple of hours each.

Proof, Flying Finish, Banker, and For Kicks by Dick Francis cover the horse industry and (in order of title) wine and whiskey, air transport, investment banking, and doping investigation. Doping in its many forms and findings is actually center to both Banker and For Kicks. Dick Francis often uses sadistic villains but his heroes are engaging and end their fights quite battered unlike some heroes who seem untouchable.

I know that these books show their age, though not as much as some of his books, being copyrighted in 1965, 1966, and 1985 but I think the stories are strong enough to hold up. I just don't try to picture the characters *exactly* as they are described.

I recommend these books to mystery lovers and horse enthusiasts.

The Wind Singer by William Nicholson is first in the Wind on Fire trilogy. It is my first time reading this author so I didn't buy the second book in the series...yet.

I know this book won the Nestle Smarties™ Prize, and I LOVE Smarties™ but I thought it was a bit wordy. Some ideas/information like the use of gobbeldygook swear words and the colour stratification of the society were stated over and over and over. The book seemed written for older children but the redundancy spoke of a younger or less smart audience.

The Hath family does not strive for continuing excellence and this is a stumbling block in their city. The people of Aramanth pledge to always do better than before; it is the national pledge. Kestrel and Bowman, twins, to not try harder and challenge the system to do any worse to them than bump them to the back of the class. The whole family rebels, even the baby pees on authority's leg. While Kestrel is running from the strange, energy sucking "old children" she meets the emporer who pleads with her to save the city/state and gifts her with a map to the Voice of the Windsinger. Kestrel, Bowman, and their tagalong friend Mumpo head off to find a way to defeat the terrible Zars though they know nothing about them. The trios journeys and struggles include run-ins with several groups which adhere to rigid sets of thinking - anyone who is not us is the enemy - and the trio uses inclusionary practices and logic to find their way through trouble. The Zars are a conglomeration (think the Borg) of minds put to one joyous yet hideous purpose.

I would recommend this book to a 14 year old boy who likes made-up swear books but can read the violence and state mandated single-mindedness of "The Wind Singer" without losing sight of the message the author seeks to send.

Wise Child, Juniper, and Colman are a trilogy by Monica Furlong. Set in a time of early christianity in the (now) British Isles and Cornwall these books are well-told tales of magic, ethics, politics, and religion. Identifying our gifts and utilizing them for good is one of the main ideas throughout all three books. Strong attention is given to actions being more of a identifier of good than beauty and hard work being a better way than shortcuts.

Wise Child, the first book, is about a young girl who needs care and the magic working healer, Juniper, who takes her in and brings her from spoiled to hard working though love and care. Juniper tells the story of Junipoe's journey from princess to medecine woman. Colman tells of Wise Child and Junipers return to Cornwall and their fight to free the Prince from his evil aunt and uncle.

I would recommend this book to the following people I know: A 12 year old girl wo likes fantasy, a 14 year old girl who likes celtic based stories, and a teacher of 4-6th grade for his class library. I also recommend it to a 45 year old woman who had read Wise Child and Juniper but didn't know that Colman had come out.

It's not that I haven't been reading but that I've lacked access to the computer. We went off for a vacation and were guaranteed that we would have wireless DSL access. Bwahahahaha! no WiFi and they wanted to charge us horrendous rates for dial-up so I read without blogging. Now, of course, I'm way behind and have to start listing without stopping reading. I can't and won't stop reading!