365 Days of Books

Alphabet of Thorn tells a complex story that boils down to a basic question of parental love.

Nepenthe is an orphan who has been brought up in the royal library and whose talent and job is deciphering mysterious alphabets. As the story begins, she is working on a book written completely in clusters of small fish, each with its own meaning. A book comes to Nepenthe which she is meant to pass on to the master librarians; instead she keeps the book and tries to figure out the complicated alphabet of brambles and thorns. The book seems to reveal a set of stories about a long ago king and his mage but strange things are happening around Nepenthe.

(shrug) I felt like I should like this book and story more than I did and I'm not sure why I didn't fall into the story. Some books are like that.

This slim
volume contains the three stories Passager, Hobby, and Merlin about a young abandoned boy who become the wizard mage Merlin. An admittedly vocacious reader who is 9 years old read this book in two days and it took me 2-3 hours of sitting around and waiting time.

Jane Yolen does her usual wonderful job of story telling. The characters are real, the dirt and thorns have an impact, and the stories flow into each other. The mysteries of Merlin are not revealed but the impact of those mysteries on his daily life are explored.

Two thumbs up. Several third graders swarmed over this book and they were fighting over it when I left. It was equally appealing to boys and girls. I also recommend Boots and the Seven Leaguers by Jane Yolen. I think I read it before I started this blog but it is a great book which generated a lot of excitement in a 1-3rd grade classroom among both boys and girls.

Contrary to the title, Maurice belongs more to the rodents than they do to him. This clan of rats lived on the landfill behind a school for wizards and somehow they have achieved speech and higher thought. Maurice came by his speech and thought patterns second hand; he ate a speaking rat.

Wovin into a twisted "Pied Piper" the rats develop written language and struggle with ideas about souls, the afterlife, leadership, ethics, and morals. At what point do they put aside their rat nature in certain circumstances and what must they do to remain rats? or cat? Malicia, a seemingly silly village girl, turns out to have an important point: sometimes life is like fairy tales.

Laurie Halse Anderson, author of
Fever 1793 also wrote Speak and Catalyst both beautiful, strong books about stresses (rape and academic success) that affect many teens. I recommend them to mature 6-12th graders.

Fever 1793 is about the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793. Mattie Cook lives with her mother and grandfather above the coffeehouse they own. Her life is ordered around the coffeehouse and the chores there but her mother plans for Mattie to marry well and wants her to behave in womanly demure ways. When people start dying from fevers the government first denies that there is any malaise and then all control falls off as the fevers spread throughout all the neighbourhoods of the city. Mattie's mother falls ill and send her out of the city but along the way Mattie and her grandfather fall ill, she with fever and he with a heart ailment. Mattie survives but her struggle to pull her family back together and to survive is fierce. Along the way MAttie starts to see beyond herself and to seek the things she values for other people.

Facing The Lion is a slim volume of 123 pages and is easily read in an evening. Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton grew up in a Maasai tribe in northern Kenya. He was chosen as his family's token child to attend school. His tenacity, intelligence, and spirit brought him contact with Daniel Arap Moi and opportunities for further education. In Facing the Lion, he tells some wonderful stories of his childhood and time as a student in America which give us a glimpse of how life in a Maasai nomadic group works and what is both difficult and wonderful about that life.

This would be an excellent addition to any elementary or middle school library.

Wicked is the story of Elphaba, the so called Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. Elphaba is not the ogre that we have heard her to be and she is not really upset that Dorothy has landed on and killed her sister. The true story is a much more complicated recipe of unfaithful parents, aquaphobia, political intrigue, and magic. The book languishes in places but Elphaba's sincere attempts to make things right and her passionate nature are appealing. Everyone in this book is flawed, human if you wish, and it may take some of the glitter off Glinda but really she is more likable for it.

Sometimes I get stuck because I don't get drawn into the story and so I pick the book up, read a few pages, and then put it down; I don't care about the characters because I haven't gotten to know them. Sometimes I get stuck in the middle where even after I know the characters I don't care about them or the plot is squoshing in some sloggy place and not moving and I get bored and put the book down. Sometimes I pick these books up again and become drawn into the story, sometimes I whip through loving every page and sometimes I slog through although I rarely truely abandon a book (though I did abandon
American Psycho. My friend thinks life is to short for finishing so-so books but I'm more lenient.

All this to say that I've been bogged down in not one but three books at the same time. I can bend enough to allow that some of the sticking may come from my congestion but really there are just three difficult books. One has a lovely story but I get bogged down in the literary criticism that is part of the whole; I do plan to finish and blog this book but the other two are teetering on the edge of expulsion. As a remedy and enticement, I have ordered three new books and I can't wait to start reading them.

The Singer of All Songs is the first in The Chanters of Tremaris trilogy by Kate Constable.

The world of Tremaris used to live in harmony but now the divistions are deep and dangerous. Several groups have built obstacles to keep themselves separate and safe. Calwyn is part of Antaris, Antaris is kept safe and separate by a magical wall of ice. The sisters of Antaris chant the wall solid several times a year, calling on the power of the goddess. They trade with outsiders who are escorted in and out several times a year but otherwise do not interact with outsiders. Calwyn has always wondered about "outside" perhaps because her mother had left Antaris and returned to die. One day as Calwyn chants her section of the wall she find an injured man. As she moves to help him he performs a chant which shocks Calwyn; she has never seen a man do magic!

A dangerous wizard is tracking the man, Darrow, and when the wizard penetrates Antaris, Darrow and Calwyn flee to the outside world. There Calwyn joins Darrow and a collection of friends and new met cohorts to try to fight the man who seeks to rule the world by mastering all the magical powers of the various peoples. Friendship and respect for individuals struggle against greed and the ease of giving up.

Anita Lobel is a well known author and illustrator. No Pretty Pictures is her story of being a Jewish child in Poland during World War 2.

Anita's father went into hiding first, leaving his family to keep them safe. Her mother used false papers to pass as non-Jewish and later sent Anita and her younger brother into hiding with their Nanny. Nanny pretended than Anita and her disguised brother were Nanny's two young daughters and they moved from place to place seeking anonymity. Anita and her brother were captured by Nazis and sent to Plaszow and then to Auschwitz. At the end of the war Anita and her brother were rescued and sent to Sweden where they recovered from Tuberculosis in a sanitorium and then were reunited with both their parents.

I read this book and then discussed it with a 12 year old who had also read it. Our minds were caught by totally different things.

As a parent I saw the adult Lobel's actions as attempts to keep their family alive even if they were separated. I could see the logic in separation giving some of them a chance even if one was caught. I found Anita's emotional separation from her parents to be most distressing. They survived as human beings but not as a family with solid parent/child relationships. Anita felt abandoned by her parents, especially her mother who came and saw them periodically. Anita came to look to her Nanny for the protection and stability that one usually finds in parents. This dependence was hampered by Nanny's dislike of Jews (in general) and outbursts of frustration and fear linked to trying to save two children. As the war went on, Anita stopped trusting Nanny and gave up expecting to be saved but could not let herself release the thought of trusting Nanny because it was her last thread of hope. Anita took on parts of Nanny's Roman Catholic faith; her Jewish faith was such a small and powerless part of her life and her main remembrance was her first and only pre-war participation in a Seder. Nanny and then the Lutheran nurses at the sanitorium gave Anita other places to look for god and angels to hope for protection from.

A heart rending look at the subtle devastation done by war and concentration camps.