| Title: Farthing |
| Author: Jo Walton |
| Tags: librarybook, mystery, alternate-history, fiction, fantasy |
| Added: 8/30 /08 (62) |
| Comment: Very nice. It had elements of classic British police detective plus a lovely sense of English country houseparty, plus, of course, the plausible but gut-wrenching alternate history of the war with Hitler having been settled diplomatically in a Jew-hating world. I don’t think there were any surprises, but that’s appropriate to the genres: the pleasure is in the execution. |
| Title: Escapement |
| Author: Jay Lake |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, fantasy, steampunk |
| Added: 8/23 /08 (61) |
| Comment: This is a slow-starting book that borrows a bit from the Majipoor Chronicles (road trip writ large), picks up a few phrases from pop culture (hello “Firefly”), throws in some religious mumbo-jumbo, and rolls it all up in a steampunk vehicle. There’s no real plot resolution at the end: this is very clearly book #2 of some number that will actually tell the story. I’m not sure whether it’s motivated me to read book#1 or not. I suppose if I stumble on it and have nothing else pending, I might read it, but I don’t think I’m inclined to work any harder than that. |
| Title: The battle of the Labyrinth |
| Author: Rick Riordan |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, kidlit, fantasy, series, mythology |
| Added: 8/6/08 (60) |
| Comment: This series is really holding up to expectations, with fresh material and brisk pacing. All of the characters are pretty individualized and we continue to learn new things about the protagonist. We practically have kids coming to blows over who gets to check this out next. |
| Title: The disunited states of America |
| Author: Harry Turtledove |
| Tags: digital, fiction, alternatehistory, scifi |
| Added: 7/27/08 (59) |
| Comment: This writer comes up with decent ideas; it’s a shame he writes them so tediously. Can someone please teach him how kids speak? Not gonna be on my recommendations list. |
| Title: The explosionist |
| Author: Jenny Davidson |
| Tags: alternatehistory, librarybook, fantasy, kidlit, fiction |
| Added: /08 (58) |
| Comment: A very nice alternate-history work that gives widespread acceptance of mysticism a look in a Europe where Napoleon won. The writing portrays a good sense of the adolescent protagonist’s age in her impulsive behavior and mystification at the workings of adults. The end leaves room for a sequel, and if there is one, I will happily take it up. |
| Title: The outstretched shadow |
| Author: Mercedes Lackey; James Mallory |
| Tags: fiction, fantasy, kidlit, digital, series |
| Added: 7/27/08 (57) |
| Comment: Pretty standard fantasy fare: kid learns about magic powers while discovering he has epic task to save the world from the bad. It’s tediously overwritten and the 700+ pages would probably make a much nicer 200-page YA, especially if there were any plot tension other than the protagonist agonizing over things. Also, may I note with sorrow the demise of editing for grammar? I will not recommend this for library acquisition given our limited resources and the quantity of exceptional fantasy out there. |
| Title: Forest |
| Author: Edward Rutherford |
| Tags: fiction, history, librarybook |
| Added: (on hold–returned to the library for the use of another patron)/08 (56) |
| Comment: Why yes, I do enjoy these long, slow historicals. They’re nothing fancy, but the fact that I’ve been there probably makes them more endearing. It’s important to remember with his work that it’s the place that is the character; all of the people, often just barely filled in, are just setting for the evolution of the multigenerational story of the place. In that, his books are probably more honest than Follett’s big historicals (although Follett is less sweeping in scope) or even Mitchner’s. |
| Title: The double bind |
| Author: Christopher A Bohjalian |
| Tags: fiction, borrowed |
| Added: 7021 /08 (55) |
| Comment: There’s nothing quite like being promised suspense and a surprising plot twist at the end to make it obvious through the whole book just what that’s going to involve. Really, once that was spoiled (and you can’t get beyond the cover without being informed of this exciting prospect)the only real suspense was just when the author would spring that twist. *yawn* Oh, well enough written, I suppose, but the characters didn’t quite pop into life and I never actually cared about them. The author’s seei…more There’s nothing quite like being promised suspense and a surprising plot twist at the end to make it obvious through the whole book just what that’s going to involve. Really, once that was spoiled (and you can’t get beyond the cover without being informed of this exciting prospect)the only real suspense was just when the author would spring that twist. *yawn* Oh, well enough written, I suppose, but the characters didn’t quite pop into life and I never actually cared about them. The author’s seeing some action at our library (which is why the director pressed this one on me to read) but he won’t be seeing more from me, most likely. |
| Title: The host |
| Author: Stephenie Meyer |
| Tags: chicklit, fiction, librarybook, romance, scifi |
| Added: 7/2/08 (54) |
| Comment: A little stronger than Twilight, I think, but still with the impetuously, repeatedly stupid protagonist (a la bodice ripper convention). Also, editing down a hundred or two pages would have tightened up a lot of unnecessary, tiresome discourse. I like long books, but not when they have such a padded-out feel. The ending is easy to guess so there’s not much plot tension, but then, this isn’t a high-stakes scifi adventure; it’s a romance for dabblers over the edge of weird. As such, it’s pretty ni…more A little stronger than Twilight, I think, but still with the impetuously, repeatedly stupid protagonist (a la bodice ripper convention). Also, editing down a hundred or two pages would have tightened up a lot of unnecessary, tiresome discourse. I like long books, but not when they have such a padded-out feel. The ending is easy to guess so there’s not much plot tension, but then, this isn’t a high-stakes scifi adventure; it’s a romance for dabblers over the edge of weird. As such, it’s pretty nice chicklit with just a smidge of post-apocalypse. |
| Title: Twilight |
| Author: Stephenie Meyer |
| Tags: chicklit, fantasy, fiction, kidlit, librarybook, series |
| Added: 6/29/08 (53) |
| Comment: Aside from some frustration over how recklessly stupid the protagonist is, this was a pretty entertaining book. Characterization was solid, place was detailed, and there was enough action to keep the pages turning despite a slight overabundance of first-person agonizing. I am not really into the whole vampire thing, but am reading a couple we’re trying out at the library to see if there’s demand for them…and so I can talk them up to do so. |
| Title: City of ashes |
| Author: Cassandra Clare |
| Tags: : fantasy, fiction, friendship, kidlit, librarybook, series |
| Added: 6/16/08 (52) |
| Comment: It was obvious as soon as I picked this up that I didn’t want to try to let details I didn’t remember from the previous novel in this series, City of Bones, slide. So I backtracked and reread the first book, then this one. It’s simply great. Although it’s a teen book and just right so far as portraying hip kids, it also does the adults with a deft touch and the adventures are just beautifully wrought urban fantasy. In a way, this one feels a bit less complete than the first one, but I think that’s just because there have already been seeming plot reversals and you can just feel the next one coming as the relationships continue to shift and realign. |
| Title: The bronze pen |
| Author: Zilpha Keatley Snyder |
| Tags: librarybook, kidlit, fantasy, fiction |
| Added: 6/7/08 (51) |
| Comment: I like books that encourage kids to write, and this falls strongly into this category: a magic pen to be used “wisely and to good purpose” leads the protagonist on a series of adventures and friendship as she learns to use it in her writing. While I’d love to see the whole plot and characters fleshed out, the book is exactly the right length for the intended readers (young) without ever talking down to them. |
| Title: The fortunes of Indigo Skye |
| Author: Deb Caletti |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, chicklit |
| Added: 6/4/08 (50) |
| Comment: Good, solid chicklit: ordinary waitress living ordinary life is gifted $2.5 million and has to adjust to wealth. Well-executed and endearing. |
| Title: The death of Jayson Porter |
| Author: Jaime Adoff |
| Tags: librarybook, kidlit |
| Added: /08 (49) |
| Comment: When a book begins with the suicide of its 16-year-old protagonist, you know it’s gonna be powerful. And it is. Son of an abusive white alcoholic prostitute and a black drug addict, he didn’t have a whole lot easy in store for him. In fact, that railing and the fatal drop on the other side were the sweet reward that kept him going a lot of days. Written in a spare, profane, witty, absolutely spot-on kidspeak prose, this book dumps you into his head…and his troubles, touching along the way on why when you’re bigger than her do you still let your mom beat the daylights out of you and why you have to leave when she starts getting it on with her pathetic boyfriend while you’re still in the room. There’s nothing in this book that doesn’t ring true, and a lot that is tragically sad. Wonderfully wrought, but clearly not for the younger or protected-from-harsh-life reader. |
| Title: Blonde faith |
| Author: Walter Mosley |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, mystery, series |
| Added: 5/31/08 (48) |
| Comment: Not only is this an excellent noirish mystery, but it’s told by a black man just a couple years post-Watts riot and superbly reflects his constant awareness of his place in the societies around him. The plot could sit comfortably in any late-20th-century time, but the Vietnam era references anchor it without being so heavy-handed that it’s a story about that time. |
| Title: Case histories : a novel |
| Author: Kate Atkinson |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction |
| Added: 5/28/08 (47) |
| Comment: I’m usually not terribly into the angsty modern-life-is-meaningless books, but the characterization in this one was well-done and the various plot threads neatly interwove without seeming heavy-handed. |
| Title: Without warning : Ellen’s story 1914-1918 |
| Author: Dennis Hamley |
| Tags: librarybook, kidlit, history, fiction |
| Added: 5/26/08 (46) |
| Comment: I felt more disappointed in this book than it maybe deserves, perhaps because the cover makes it sound as though much of the action takes place at the front when in fact most of the book deals with her growing up until she leaves, and then her time at the front is pretty skimpily-described. I also wanted her to grow into a little more self-awareness, such that her ongoing employment woes might cause her to reflect on her behavior rather than simply bemoaning things happening to her afterwards. Despite this, it was a tidy little book portraying the world at home in England as the war changed things, an adolescent-based version of Anne Perry’s WWI novels involving adults. |
| Title: Shark Island |
| Author: Joan Druett |
| Tags: librarybook, mystery, history, marine, series |
| Added: 5/23/08 (45) |
| Comment: This is the second in the series and for whatever reason, the plot of this one was easier to unravel. I do like the mix of character development and nautical portrayal although they are really not action books for the most part. |
| Title: Igraine the brave |
| Author: Cornelia Caroline Funke |
| Tags: librarybook,fiction, kidlit, fantasy |
| Added: 5/22/08 (44) |
| Comment: Fantasy in the strong/spunky girl school, well-rendered as Funke’s always are. For a younger reader than some of her longer works like Inkheart, even though stylistically, they’re much the same. |
| Title: A watery grave |
| Author: Joan Druett |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, history, mystery, marine, series |
| Added: 5/19/08 (43) |
| Comment: This is the first of the series I began with episode three of, and it’s helpful to get the backstory. Also, it’s pretty good as historical nauticalia, even if a little of the Holmesian sort of mystery where everything is solved via observation and later analytical discussion. |
| Title: Water for elephants |
| Author: Sara Gruen |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction |
| Added: 5/15/08 (42) |
| Comment: Saw this on so many book buzz lists that I had to try it. Well, it’s not bad, nicely written and all that, but if this is exciting, then that’s a sad commentary on the rest of what’s available in current fiction. |
| Title: All tomorrow’s parties |
| Author: William Gibson |
| Tags: scifi, digitalcopy |
| Added: 5/14/08 (41) |
| Comment: Ah, nothing like some good dystopian cyberpunk to cleanse the palate after that froth of a Nora Roberts. Good ol’ Gibson, with his inventive but grubby futures so expertly rendered. |
| Title: Creation in death |
| Author: J D Robb (Nora Roberts) |
| Tags: librarybook, mystery, scifi |
| Added: 5/12/08 (40) |
| Comment: Works of a romance book-machine don’t usually never entice me, but I was suckered in when a library patron mentioned that this was a mystery series set decades in the future. Yeah, it’s as bad as I’d feared. The futuristic stuff is just enhanced and poorly-explained date devices plus a little unexplained recent-past history, but it’s your basic bodice-ripper mystery cast forward instead of back, with all of the depth of social portrayal that implies–namely, none. So, no suprise here. But, uck, I feel so dirty. See my other current choice for remedy. |
| Title: Complicity |
| Author: Iain Banks |
| Tags: fiction, mystery |
| Added: /08 (39) |
| Comment: I’d read some of his scifi, but this was the first of his mysteries I’d read. It’s competent, even if the writing is a little show-offy. The gonzo journalist is appropriately berserk and yet spineless in the clinch; the nominal bad guy is much less well-characterised. |
| Title: Hold tight |
| Author: Harlan Coben |
| Tags: librarybook, mystery |
| Added: 5/5/08 (38) |
| Comment: Coben’s recent books have been kind of the antithesis to cosies, stories of fairly typical urban life that has gone amuck in only smallish ways that have huge and disastrous consequences. He is also growing increasingly adept at charting life using such commonplaces as email and cellphones, twisting them into his plot devices. In this one, the issue of holding tightly to children runs up against just how far a parent can or should go to monitor and control. |
| Title: The book of the dead |
| Author: Douglas J Preston; Lincoln Child |
| Tags: fiction, mystery, series |
| Added: 5/2/08 (37) |
| Comment: Junk paperback read while traveling and not bad, but the lack of the earlier books in the series made it difficult to follow the characters’ relationships. |
| Title: A northern light |
| Author: Jennifer Donnelly |
| Tags: librarybook, kidlit, fiction, mystery |
| Added: 4/27/08 (36) |
| Comment: Definitely a book for the YA/adults, not so much for the sophistication of its content but for those who will be squeamish of casual language and mention of sex (although the only explicit sexual activities are offensive to the protagonist and hardly described in other than that offended response). Still, it’s a lovely and endearingly well-wrought book in the coming-of-age style that perfectly captures a rural setting and the choices, good and poor, the protagonist and other characters around her make. I’d definitely like to read more of this author’s work. |
| Title: Buckingham Palace gardens |
| Author: Anne Perry |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, mystery, history |
| Added: 4/23/08 (35) |
| Comment: I’ve really enjoyed her other books in this series of Victorian mysteries set in London. But this one, while it deals with a most intriguing murder that has very high political and personal (for the protagonists) stakes because of royal involvement, is written in a dull, wordy manner that robs all but the final chapter or two of any excitement. It’s a disappointing departure from her normal capable work. |
| Title: Stowaway |
| Author: Karen Hesse; Robert Andrew Parker |
| Tags: librarybook, kidlit, fiction, history, marine |
| Added: 4/13/08 (34) |
| Comment: Oh, this was superb. Taking off from a few mentions in the records of Cook’s first expedition, the author spins a highly authentic and well-rendered tale of a stowaway on board Endeavor, who becomes a member of the crew. The story is told through his journal entries, and the tone is exactly right: terse and naive, authentic in history and marine lore without being obfuscated or rendered difficult to read by the style. Although the text is sparse, it unleashes a powerful effect upon the imagination. I can’t wait to recommend this to some of our library patrons. |
| Title: Airman |
| Author: Eoin Colfer |
| Tags: librarybook, kidlit, fiction, alternatehistory, |
| Added: 4/8/08 (33) |
| Comment: Better than the Artemis Fowl series, but this author continues to have good ideas and then underperform as a writer. As with AF, he tells us the kid is supersmart and then has the kid be clueless and make dumb choices. I wish he’d set the characters loose to simply act rather than tell us about them. The plot itself is great and this would be a superb book if it weren’t so stiff. |
| Title: An incomplete revenge : a Maisie Dobbs novel |
| Author: Jacqueline Winspear |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, historical, wwII, mystery, series |
| Added: 4/3/08 (32) |
| Comment: This series is continuing more satisfyingly than the one below; each book gets better in terms of exploring the character’s particular skills and practice while still providing a satisfactory mystery and advancing the series plot overall. Nice. |
| Title: The final warning : a Maximum Ride novel |
| Author: James Patterson |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, scifi, series, familes, environment, kidlit |
| Added: 3/29/08 (31) |
| Comment: This thinly-veiled environmental treatise is characterised by undigested lumps of research dropped into minimal storyline or character development. While the story was amusing and had promise in the first few volumes of the series, each new installment has offered less and less until this one, which reads like it was assembled by a program from research database fields, not a writer. There’s nothing wrong with the characters or the message, but this simply isn’t a novel; it’s the very worst sort of cut-and-paste and it’s the perfect example of contentless contract-writing by a big name franchise. |
| Title: The wild girls |
| Author: Pat Murphy |
| Tags: librarybook, kidlit, writing, parents, fiction |
| Added: 3/29/08 (30) |
| Comment: You could look at this as just a book about a couple of girls who take a writing class. But it’s also about the Wild Girls who live in the woods, one of whom is Queen of the Foxes and the other who has a princess for a mother. And when the Wild Girls start to take hold in the stuttering family relationships around them, things aren’t ever quite the same again. Especially with the stilt-walking and face-painting and all. |
| Title: Standard hero behavior |
| Author: John David Anderson |
| Tags: librarybook, fantasy, fiction, kidlit |
| Added: 2/26/08 (29) |
| Comment: Starts off like a sort of alternative fairy tale and goes in some places you may not expect while looking at what it really takes to be a hero. |
| Title: The night tourist |
| Author: Katherine Marsh |
| Tags: fantasy, fiction, kidlit, librarybook, mythology |
| Added: /08 (28) |
| Comment: The Orpheus story told beneath New York City, with great detail and plot tension. There’s no attempt at misdirection–the mythological foundations are clear from the beginning. But it’s a lively treatment, with the ghosts of the dead frolicking through the city every night and a corrupt old city cop the handler of Cerebus. |
| Title: Parvana’s journey |
| Author: Deborah Ellis |
| Tags: librarybook, history, politics, religion, kidlit, fiction, women |
| Added: 3/16/08 (27) |
| Comment: This one is better than the first in the series. It draws you further into the protagonist’s character and has more clearly-defined other characters. The story is more vividly-told and varied, as well. |
| Title: The Breadwinner |
| Author: Deborah Ellis |
| Tags: librarybook, history, politics, religion, kidlit, fiction, women |
| Added: 3/15/08 (26) |
| Comment: This was competently told but didn’t move me as much as it might. I think the story was good but the characterization was stated rather than imbued in the characters, and it just didn’t have the colored detail that would have really made it come alive. This may damage how appealing it is to kids, as it reads more like fictionalized history than a compelling novel in its own right. I was interested in the story but not especially hanging on the outcome for those particular characters. |
| Title: Howl’s moving castle |
| Author: Diana Wynne Jones |
| Tags: libraraybook, fantasy, kidlit |
| Added: 3/13/08 (25) |
| Comment: I’m familiar with Miyazaki’s anime of this title, which is delightful, but this was the first I’d read the book and although it’s different from the anime, it’s also a real treasure. Sophie’s cluelessness plays very well, the characters are strongly individual, and the settings vivid. While it’s nominally a kids’ book, it certainly doesn’t talk down to anyone. |
| Title: Kitty knits : projects for cats and their people |
| Author: Donna Druchunas |
| Tags: borrowed, knit, nonfiction |
| Added: 3/4/08 (23) |
| Comment: Cute book and has a few cat-themed projects that are amusing. It has a wide variety of patterns, from very simple to fairly demanding (lace, colorwork). I particularly liked the pink sweater on the cover. |
| Title: Austenland : a novel |
| Author: Shannon Hale |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, chicklit |
| Added: 3/5/08 (22) |
| Comment: Cute little bonbon of a book about a Jane Austen theme park. |
| Title: Thunderstruck |
| Author: Erik Larson |
| Tags: nonfiction, science, history |
| Added: 2/28/08 (21) |
| Comment: Although the subject matter, the story of Marconi working up the science of wireless, isn’t startling or necessarily something I’d go out of my way to read about, the lively treatment and combination of the story with that of a famous murder of the time really makes this much more of a page-turner than the average nonfiction or historical work. Nice work. Also, interesting, now that the writing has carried me through something I otherwise mightn’t have picked up. |
| Title: The boy in the striped pajamas : a fable |
| Author: John Boyne |
| Tags: librarybook, kidlit, history, fiction |
| Added: 2/25/08 (20) |
| Comment: This holocaust story is rated for kids, but I don’t know if the archly unclueful protagonist would really appeal to kids or whether this is in fact an adult’s book writ small. To me, it smacks of 40s- and 50s-era scifi short stories with their omitful misdirection and oh gee slam conclusions. I don’t think it was bad, but I wasn’t enraptured. |
| Title: The Maggie Murphy |
| Author: John Joseph Ryan |
| Tags: librarybook, alaska, fishing, marine, nonfiction |
| Added: 2/24/08 (19) |
| Comment: Dated but vivid picture of a couple of kids building a wannabe fishing boat in Tacoma and fishing a summer in the Inside Passage. |
| Title: My Own Kind of Freedom |
| Author: Steven Brust |
| Tags: fiction, scifi, fanfic, download |
| Added: 2/21/08 (18) |
| Comment: A little bit of online frivolity to provide relief/pacing for Mayflower, which I’m still slowly working through. |
| Title: The Titan’s curse |
| Author: Rick Riordan |
| Tags: librarybook, series, fantasy, mythology |
| Added: 2/15/08 (17) |
| Comment: Yep, good series and I’m looking forward to the fourth. This is all one story, and so they really do need to be read in sequence. |
| Title: The sea of monsters |
| Author: Rick Riordan |
| Tags: librarybook, series, fantasy, mythology |
| Added: 2/14/08 (16) |
| Comment: The series about a demigod with ADHD continues to hold interest as the plot rolls on. Not complex, but amusing and fast-paced. Does contain *gasp* two major errors in nautical terminology, though. |
| Title: A hobby of murder |
| Author: E X Ferrars |
| Tags: mystery, fiction |
| Added: 2/13/08 (15) |
| Comment: A not especially great classic English country house murder mystery, picked up while working on Mayflower, below. |
| Title: Abhorsen |
| Author: Garth Nix |
| Tags: librarybook, fantasy, series |
| Added: 2/6/08 (14) |
| Comment: |
| Title: Lirael, daughter of the Clayr |
| Author: Garth Nix |
| Tags: librarybook, fantasy, series |
| Added: 2/5/08 (13) |
| Comment: I read Sabriel, the first of this series, quite some time ago and have wanted to continue it. This is a remarkably novel fantasy world, with unusual magic and a fully-realized geopolitical history. Although it’s marketed as kidlit, there is no reason to consider it solely such. |
| Title: Conrad’s fate |
| Author: Diana Wynne Jones |
| Tags: librarybook, kidlit, fantasy, series |
| Added: 2/5/08 (12) |
| Comment: One of the Chrestomanci series, this is the story of a young man entering service as a valet while dealing with multiple realities and mysteries of family history. It’s amusing but ultimately unfulfilling due to plot letdown and the stereotypical Clueless Protagonist Who Is the Last Person to Figure It Out. |
| Title: The only life that mattered : the short and merry lives of Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Calico Jack Rackam |
| Author: James L Nelson |
| Tags: borrowed, historical, fiction, marine |
| Added: 2/3/08 (11) |
| Comment: Gets props for its marine authenticity, and what are we to do for that now that Brian’s dead? I found it less marine, though, and more focused on the characters, which are presented in a more-favorable light than I think wholly realistic. Nonetheless, it’s a entertaining book with a mild but nice flavor of the Caribbean. |
| Title: World without end |
| Author: Ken Follett |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, history |
| Added: 1/27/08 (10) |
| Comment: This follows on his previous monumental historical, Pillars of the earth, and picks up the same cathedral town in England two centuries later. Not remarkable writing, but adequate workmanship and a pleasant read for a relatively obscure period. Also, long. |
| Title: Mayflower : a story of courage, community, and war |
| Author: Nathaniel Philbrick |
| Tags: nonfiction, history |
| Added: 1/24- ?/?/08 (9) |
| Comment: Solid but not frisky reading; this one will take me awhile. |
| Title: A dirty job |
| Author: Christopher Moore |
| Tags: fiction, fantasy |
| Added: 1/23/08 (8) |
| Comment: Very silly book, smartass writer–good comic relief after finally finishing up The worst hard time (which was begun last fall). |
| Title: The second chair |
| Author: John T Lescroart |
| Tags: librarybook, mystery, fiction, legal |
| Added: 1/16/08 (7) |
| Comment: Good helping of ethical angst in an otherwise ordinary legal. |
| Title: Watchman |
| Author: Ian Rankin |
| Tags: librarybook, mystery, fiction, spy |
| Added: 1/14/08 (6) |
| Comment: Not very good: the writing is immature even though the concept is fine. I think he’s gotten better since. |
| Title: Percy Jackson & the Olympians : book 1, the lightning thief |
| Author: Rick Riordan |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, fantasy, greek myths, adhd, dyslexia, kidlit |
| Added: 1/11/08 (5) |
| Comment: Oh, this is excellent. ADHD, dyslexia and a demi-god: what a protagonist. Plus, spunky first voice, neither so hip it’ll be dated next year nor so adult that kids won’t be completely sucked in. We definitely need to get the rest of this series in our collection (and kids have been asking for it, which is the best possible recommendation). |
| Title: Deadly shoals |
| Author: Joan Druett |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, mystery, historical, marine |
| Added: 1/10/08 (4) |
| Comment: I enjoyed her nonfiction last year and that promise is paid off in her fiction as well. Not an O’Brian by any stretch, but well characterized and good nautical. I’m thinking we need to get the previous three in the series. |
| Title: Opening Atlantis |
| Author: Harry Turtledove |
| Tags: librarybook, fantasy, fiction, alternate history |
| Added: 1/7/08 (3) |
| Comment: Kind of morose and unenthusiastic novel, in which the author seems wearied by all of the characters and plots. Some of them have quite a bit of promise, the plot could provide a better ecological payoff than the one that (I certainly hope) is coming in future volumes, and the marine scenes could have had a lot more detail. It’s as though this is the outline for a good book; now I’m waiting for someone to come fill it in so can be fun. |
| Title: The phoenix unchained |
| Author: Mercedes Lackey; James Mallory |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction, fantasy |
| Added: 1/5/08 (2) |
| Comment: Capable if not novel fantasy about the trials of teaching yourself magic under terrific historical pressure, plus the old surprise-you’re-magic plot. |
| Title: The uncommon reader |
| Author: Alan Bennett |
| Tags: librarybook, fiction |
| Added: 1/1/08 (1) |
| Comment: An amusing little piece for bibliophiles/library fans about the Queen of England discovering reading. |
| Booklist 2007 |
