Happiness is...a good book. (Summer Reading edition #41)

The Grand Plan to Fix Everything
Author: Uma Krishnaswami
Illustrator: Abigail Halpin
Pages: 266
Age Range: 8+
Published: 2011
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Cover Score: ****
Overall Grade: ***
Rating: G

 


Dini loves watching Bollywood movies with her friend Maddie in Maryland.  The two girls know every song and every dance and Dini's even taught her friend a few of the Indian phrases she knows (and often asks her dad to help her translate the ones she doesn't!) They especially love Dolly Singh, the beautiful star of their favorite fillums (as they are called in Bombay.)

But when Dini's mom announces that she finally got her grant to work in a small medical clinic in a small village in India, Dini is crushed.  At least if she were going to be in Bombay she may have a chance to meet Dolly in person, but Swapnagiri doesn't even show up on any of Dini's maps. And leaving Maddie for two whole years, could things get any worse?

When Dini's family arrives in Swapnagiri a million adventures and coincidences await them. It's almost like one of Dolly's movies. There are monkeys and goats, noble postmen and a singing car, a strange girl who can imitate any sound she hears, curry puffs with chocolate and wait for it, yes, Dolly herself!

After suffering a broken heart she has sequestered herself in the same small community of guest cottages where Dini's family is staying. She's determined never to work again (much to the dismay of her agent and studio executives) and when Dini finds out she puts a plan into action to not only meet Dolly but to fix things up with her and her former flame so that all will be right with the world again.

Chaos and hilarity ensues along the lines of a screwball comedy with people turning up at exactly the right moment and the kids outsmarting the adults. It's far-fetched and predictable but also silly and enjoyable.  Kids will have a great time. There are only a few cultural references, the story revolving mostly around the characters, but there is a hint of insight into India primarily the film industry. A quick, cute read.

Happiness is...a good book. (Summer Reading edition #40)

Just Desserts
Author: Hallie Durand
Illustrator: Christine Davenier
Pages: 190
Age Range: 6+
Published: 2010
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Cover Score: **
Overall Grade: ****
Rating: G



In the spirit of Junie B., Clementine and Ramona comes a feisty new heroine with problems of her own and hilarious solutions that will have readers sympathizing and laughing out loud.

Donahue Penelope Schneider (nicknamed Dessert by her grandmother) is the oldest of four kids and her annoying siblings are ruining her life! Her little sister Charlie, in an effort to learn good manners, has ceased to do everything Dessert asks her to do. Wolfie decides to help out by cleaning Dessert's room with pink toothpaste and Kleenex. Mushy ruins Dessert's chances for dessert when he pulls the tablecloth and all its toppings onto the floor of their parent's restaurant. And that's just the beginning!

Inspired by her teacher's enthusiastic lessons regarding the Revolutionary War, Dessert decides to declare her own independence from younger siblings!  She creates a club and invites her classmates to join.  She makes membership stickers, collects dues, and promises to solve all of their annoying sibling problems. But things are a little harder than she anticipates.  Soon she has angry club participants (and their parents) demanding their dues back (which she'd spent on several coveted hot lunches). But Charlies surprises her by coming to the rescue and things work out after all.

Dessert has a great voice. I laughed right out loud at a few points. I was also impressed by the realistic adults Dessert interacts with. Her teacher is the kind that every child wishes she had, fun and enthusiastic and full of grand ideas. She's a great balance to the slightly overworked and frustrated parents who often fail to give Dessert the attention she wants simply because she is the oldest (ah, I can relate to that!) They are still great parents, just not perfect. It was also refreshing to read a modern-day story where there is more than one or two kids in the family.

There are some black and white sketch illustrations scattered throughout the text and even a few of Dessert's favorite dessert recipes included in the back. This is a great early reader chapter book perfect for kids who have graduated from the simple beginning readers but still need really small chapters and some pictures to keep them going. Fun stuff!

Happiness is...a good book. (Summer Reading edition #37)

Bird in A Box
Author: Andrea Davis Pinkney
Pages: 278
Age Range: 8+
Published: 2011
Genre: Historical Fiction
Cover Score: ***
Overall Grade: ****
Rating: PG (some violence)

Three kids find themselves brought together thanks to boxing champ Joe Louis. Hibernia, Willie and Otis each take turns narrating chapters of the text covering the year from June 1936 to June 1937.

Hibernia is the daughter of a single father preacher. Her mother left just after Hibernia was born to pursue her dream of singing. Hibernia has never known anything more about her but inherited her mother’s gift for song. She has a formal sort of relationship with her stern father, which progresses and improves as the story unfolds, and he allows Hibernia some freedom to practice her singing and begins to answer some of her questions about her mother.

Willie, though he’s not actually an orphan, has found his way to Mercy Orphanage. His father, Sampson, is a no-good drunk and after he’d beat Willie and burned his hands practically to stumps, his mother told him how to find the place and made him promise her he’d stay there safe until she could come get him.  He’s a boxer at heart but doesn’t know what he’ll do with his damaged hands and broken heart.

Otis recently lost both of his parents in a car accident. He finds that the easiest form of communication for him comes through the riddles his father used to tell him. Leila, one of the orphanage’s overseers, and the new boy Willie understand that and the two boys become fast friends. They push and support each other in the right places without really knowing that they’re doing it. They also tune into the small radio Otis inherited from his father to listen to the fights, following their favorite, The Brown Bomber, most closely. And later, when Hibernia’s church choir gives a performance at the orphanage, Otis is smitten and the three find their lives overlapping.

Each child is somehow swept up in the boxing contagion that gripped the nation during the Great Depression. The world needed something to cheer about and boxing somehow fit that need. The black community was doubly proud of their hometown boy becoming not only a national hero but eventually the world champion.

I really enjoyed this little book. I have to admit I went into it thinking it was about something else completely and was pleasantly surprised even after I realized it was primarily about boxing (a sport which I loathe and can find pretty much zero merit in.) The voices are well-done, each being unique and having just a flavor of dialect adding some authenticity without making the text hard to follow. The scene is set perfectly. The time period is clear and acts as a backdrop without heavy-handedly taking over the story. There’s a bit of harsh reality mixed in but it’s primarily a story about fighting when you’re down and persevering despite the odds. There’s hope and humor and a feeling of pride and optimism that easily balances out the darker moments.

There’s also an extensive author’s note at the back that gives a brief bio of Joe Louis and why he meant so much to the country and notes about the radio commentary found throughout the text (which is taken from actual broadcasts.) Other fact vs. fiction moments are discussed and there are brief biographical sketches of other famous people and places mentioned in the story (Ella Fitzgerald, The Savoy Ballroom, Max Schmeling etc.) to give some additional context for readers who may not be familiar with them. The author also explains how many of the stories were based on things that actually happened to members of her family.

This is a great little peek into the time period, full of heart.  Highly recommended!

Happiness is...a good book. (Summer Reading edition #35)

Trial By Journal
Author: Kate Kilise

Illustrator: M. Sarah Klise

Pages: 238
Age Range: 9+
Published: 2001
Genre: Juvenile Fiction/Epistolary Novel
Cover Score: **
Overall Grade: ****
Rating: G

Thanks to a newly instated law, any trial that concerns a child victim must have a child on the jury and 12 year old Lily Watson is the first lucky kid to serve. A classmate, Perry Keet, disappeared from his volunteer job at the local zoo and a reclusive co-worker, Bob White is on trial for Perry’s murder. When she finds out she’ll have to go to summer school to make up the time she’s missed (nearly 6 weeks) while doing her civic duty, she pleads to her teacher for the chance to do a report on her experiences instead.  Her teacher, Mr. Holmes, agrees and the book is a compilation of her journals as well as the journals and notes from other jurors, court sketches and evidence, newspaper articles, and more.

Mr. Rhett Tyle, the town’s wealthy tycoon and owner of practically everything is distraught over the horrible events that allegedly took place in his zoo and vows to do everything in his power to see justice done. But he’s also a bit distracted by the hoopla that begins when his female gorilla begins painting masterpieces in her cage. Suddenly the entire nation is focused on the tiny town of Tyleville and its talented primate. And when words start showing up in the paintings a Charlotte’s Web sort of madness takes over threatening to outshine the murder trial.

Things don’t quite add up. Bob White is a sad and peculiar character but nothing backs up the idea that he could be a murderer. The other jurors (a quirky and motley crew in their own rights) are divided in their thoughts about the facts and testimonies and there are several gaping holes and curious incidents that keep everyone guessing. Lily is the only one in a position to unravel the mystery thanks to her past interactions with Perry and her willingness to step outside the lines a bit. She also comes to accept herself and make some unlikely new friends in the process.

There are allusions to other books and stories, puns and plays on words galore (check out a few of these names for a start; Ed U. Caytor, Ken Airy, Maggie Pie) and subtle clues throughout that an astute reader could pick up on to help them piece together the mystery. There are a few technicalities (the minority clause, obvious conflicts of interest like the gossip columnist who is serving on the jury but is allowed to continue writing his column even in the sequestration) but there are some actual insights into the workings of the judicial system. It’s silly and entertaining and clever. A great read.

The author and illustrator are sisters and have collaborated on several other books, most of them in the same vein (silly epistolary novels rather than straight narrative fiction) and all thoroughly entertaining.  My favorites are the Regarding The… series.

Epistolary novels, those composed of letters or journal entries usually (though more modern books have used text messages and emails, movie scripts, TV show transcripts, faxes, newspaper articles, ticket stubs, memos and more) have always been one of my favorite kinds of books to read. I could wax rhapsodic over them for pages and pages but I’ll spare you all. But if you haven’t read any I cannot urge you enough to do so. If you prefer an adult book to a juvenile one there are a few exceptional examples you could try. A few of my favorites are The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, These is My Words, 84 Charring Cross Road, and A Woman of Independent Means. Do you enjoy reading books that fall outside the typical fiction/non-fiction format? Any you could recommend? I’d love to hear from you!

Happiness is...a good book. (Summer Reading edition #33)

Junonia
Author: Kevin Henkes 
Pages: 176
Age Range: 9+
Published: 2011 
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
Cover Score: ****
Overall Grade: ***
Rating: G

Alice Rice is on her way to Scallop, the small cottage by the Florida seaside that her parents rent every year to escape the harsh winters of home. This year is special; Alice will be celebrating her 10th birthday, double digits, the last birthday she can count using her fingers. And she knows it's going to be the year she finds a junonia, a rare spotted sea shell.

But when they finally arrive at the cottage Alice is disappointed to find that her neighbor Helen Blair is snowed in in New York, the Wishmeier's kids were too busy with school to make it this year and her mother's friend Kate (whom Alice calls Aunt Kate) is bringing her new boyfriend and his 6 year old daughter along. Alice's own family is small, just her mother and father, no grandparents or aunts or uncles or cousins and she looks forward to her adopted extended family visits in Florida. Now nothing will be the same.

She spends most of her days hunting for shells, watching birds, hoping to see dolphins and trying to entertain 6 year old Mallory. Mallory's mother abandoned her to move to France and Mallory hasn't adjusted well. She's moody and sullen and loud and a know it all and just plain too little. There are some misunderstandings and hurt feelings along the way but as Alice learns to see things from others’ points of view and to make occasional sacrifices she comes to understand how lucky she is and learns to feel empathy for the other girl. Ten is a lot closer to being a grown up and Alice is definitely maturing and well on her way.

This was a quiet, pleasant little book. Nothing overly dramatic or unique, nothing that stood out or wowed me but I found myself drawn into the simplicity of it, wishing I was with Alice on the beach; searching for seashells, watching the waves roll in and the dolphins frolic in the foam. There are images and labels of the various shells talked about in the book on the front spread which was a nice addition. I found myself referring it to now and again as I read. (I've never given much thought to the fact that seashells come in varying shapes and sizes, each with their own name.) Also the small illustrations in deep blue heading each chapter echo the waters of the ocean that set such a lovely backdrop for the story.  Hand this to a child struggling with jealousy issues or having a hard time dealing with change.

Kevin Henkes is a jack-of-all-trades sort of character in the children's publishing world. He writes and illustrates picture books, writes juvenile fiction such as this and even has a YA title or two to his credit. I haven't loved his full-on fiction as much as I adore his picture books but the man is definitely talented.  If you're not familiar with his work, check out a few of my favorites:

Yes!! A book about Peeps! (though they  aren't technically called that in the story)

Have you read any Kevin Henkes books?  Which are your favorites?

Happiness is...a good book. (Summer Reading edition #31)

Just to be sure we're all on the same page and no one got stuck back in the past, today is Wednesday. Honest! Glad you could make it!  :)

Small as an Elephant
Author: Jennifer Richard Jacobson
Pages: 275
Age Range: 8+
Published: 2011
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Cover Score: ****
Overall Grade: **
Rating: PG

Young Jack awakes one morning to find himself abandoned in a campsite in Acadia National Park.  His mother is manic depressive and has been known to disappear for days at a time but it’s always happened when Jack has been home, in familiar surroundings, with a routine to stick to and food to eat. He sticks around for a while hoping she’ll show up but eventually realizes he’s going to have to fend for himself. 

Slowly he makes his way down the coast heading in the general direction of Massachusetts and home. He resorts to stealing food and provisions on several occasions though he has a strong conscience and has to fight himself each time he does it. He also happens upon a few kind souls who take pity on him and mostly fall for his stories about being home schooled or his mother having a headache or whatever it takes to get people to let him go on his way.

He finally decides he has to make the journey to see Lydia, the only live elephant in Maine, before he can go home. He’s been fascinated by elephants since seeing one at a circus with his mother when he was 3 or 4. It was an argument about Lydia that was the turning point in the trip and he thinks if he can just see her she can somehow make things right again.  He does finally get to her and things do work out but not in the way he had imagined.

I’d heard some good things about this but I must say I was sorely disappointed. I felt sorry for poor little Jack and could understand why he felt like he couldn’t trust any adults but I got frustrated that his logic never took over and let him ask for help. (I realize he’s only like 10 and there’s not a lot of logic there to begin with but for some reason it just irritated me rather than making me care for Jack’s character. Or maybe I’m just in a cold-hearted mood today!)

The best parts were the bits of information and quotes about elephants that headed each chapter and the closing chapter where Lydia and Jack interact. Elephants are truly remarkable animals. I would have loved for Jack's mother to have abandoned him at the elephant enclosure and then seen the boy and beast make a journey together illustrating some of the ideas about their loyalty, compassion and ingenuity.  Here are just a few:

It is known that one elephant who was rather slow in learning his tricks and had been punished severely by his master’s beating, was discovered later that night, alone in his tent, practicing those tricks. –Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book III(pg. 206)

A forest elephant that had torn his trunk while freeing himself from a trap was in too much pain to feed himself. So he walked right up to an African savanna elephant in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve and put his trunk in the other elephant’s mouth. The African elephant understood: he immediately ripped up an acacia tree and fed it to his new acquaintance.(pg. 73)

Interesting, eh? I think the two bonding and adventuring together would have made a much more powerful (and yes, I realize far less realistic or believable) story.  Maybe I’ll write it!  But I’d love to hear from others who may have read this.  Argue with me and tell me why it’s great.

** I can’t believe it! We're down to the final 10 reviews of the summer reading extravaganza. (I decided to go with 42 in all to make it a complete 6 weeks’ worth of posts. My brain wanted things to come out a little more evenly than they did when I stopped with the 40 it would have been if I stopped when our library program ends.) Don't forget to check back to see what's in store for the finale. And look for a wrap-up post chronicling everything I read (and didn't) during my experiment.  Thanks for reading!

Happiness is...a good book. (Summer Reading edition #18 & #19)

There are two reviews today as promised.  I will also give you a few random thoughts about my excursion to Harry Potter last night but I'll put them at the end in case you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to be swayed by my opinions!

The Timekeeper’s Moon
Author: Joni Sensel
Pages: 340
Age Range: 10+
Published: 2010
Genre: Juvenile Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Cover Score: ***
Overall Grade: ****
Rating: PG

This is a sequel to The Farwalker's Quest which I highly recommend reading. This review may contain spoilers for that book, just FYI.

Ariel Farwalker is being tormented by the moon. Her nights are filled with sleepwalking and night terrors and taunting voices calling her to begin another journey but she fears it as she's never feared anything before in her short 14 years on earth. Her sojourn at Tree-Singer's Abbey with Zeke is at an end but she has no idea where she is to go.  Trusting only the pull of her feet and the urgency of the voices of the moon, trees and rocks she and Scarl Finder (her protector and guardian) set off to follow the uninterpretable map and fix whatever it is that is wrong.

Their past comes back to haunt them in startling ways (a horse abandoned on an earlier quest shows up one evening grazing next to their camp, a dress made by Ariel's mother and shredded into bandanges appears like new in her pack, scars long-since healed begin again to bleed and ache as if new) and Ariel's intuition isn't always as true as it has been. They add some travelers to their little band from distant villages which changes the dynamics in ways they never could have imagined. Love and jealousies, distrust and fear creep in and threaten the quest and possibly the world's future.

There are additional hints to the way the world was before the blindness fell; a community that lives inside a large dam and feeds off the 'lectrick' that most people no longer remember except in story, the ruins of a large satellite dish that has become the stuff of nightmares--a malicious giant with an all-seeing eye, the stories of Noah and even the movie Groundhog Day that have become skewed into vaguely recognizable legends and tales of warning. Old-fashioned magic and forgotten science blend this new world into a not-quite-dystopian, not-quite-high-fantasy mish mosh that is at once new and familiar.

Sensel has a lovely way of writing. She's not overtly lyrical or flowery but her prose flows trippingly along like a happy stream carrying you away with it.  Her storytelling is equally lovely. She spins a fine adventure not as powerful as say Rowling, but with an ease and a charm all her own. Reading her stories is an extremely pleasant experience (which may sound lame but I mean that in the most complimentary sense...there is no struggling here at all and while there is tension and drama within the story and you feel realistically caught up in it, it still remains gently rolling and natural rather than abrupt or choppy without exaggerated cliff hangers and overused exclamation marks and seemingly impossible repetitions of death and mayhem-though it contains plenty of both!)

I thoroughly enjoyed this story though I confess I didn't find myself as intrigued by this one as I did the first. Definitely worth a read though. I can see this acting as a mild precursor for those not quite ready to experience the dark, intense violence of The Maze Runner and The Hunger Games. 

 

Room

Author: Emma Donoghue
Pages: 321
Age Range: Adult
Published: 2010
Genre: Fiction
Cover Score: ***
Overall Grade: ****
Rating: PG-13

I’m not quite sure how to talk about this without giving too much away so I’ll try to be vague.
 

Five-year-old Jack's entire world consists of’ 'Room’, the souped-up shed where he and his mother are held captive by sadistic Old Nick who abducted Ma when she was nineteen. The two have a meager subsistence relying on Nick's “kindness” (he provides them with the bare necessities and an occasional 'Sunday Treat' like the balloons they blow up one at a time, using each one for an entire month before blowing up another one) and Ma's inventiveness. She's fiercely protective of the boy hiding him in Wardrobe whenever Nick comes for a visit and taking extreme care that he gets enough exercise and learns to read, do math and so forth. But he has no idea that an outside world exists. The channels on TV show various "planets" where he learns about animals and people but believes he, Ma and Nick are the only inhabitants of his own planet and everything else is the product of someone's imagination or only part of some other distant planet.

It’s all told from his point of view and you see his innocent and naïve perspective of his limited existence.  Everything is important to him. Every inanimate object seems to have a personality and is his close personal friend; the snake made from egg shells that he keeps under the bed, Rug (everything is called by its title as if it were its proper name) where the blood spot still shows from when he was born and TV where Dora and his other friends live.

Your heart aches for the mother while you marvel at her resilience. She faces the continual abusive visits from Nick yet keeps a relatively consistent and stable environment for her young son. She begins to get restless and speaks more and more of the world outside causing great confusion for Jack who just can’t grasp the concept that things exist outside of the confines of his small existence. It's fascinating and heartbreaking to realize what they've both gone through and that the hardest part is yet to come. I can’t say much else without giving anything away so go read it!

Despite the dark and disturbing circumstances the book itself is surprisingly light (not in a happy-go-lucky sort of way, just in a non-overly depressing one.) I’m not sure that I can quite say I liked it, that seems the wrong term to use but I was fascinated by the psychological and social implications of everything. It gave me a lot to think about and made me look at my own life in a different light. I’m good at complaining but I found it hard to do anything but be grateful for what I have while I was reading this. Highly recommended!

******* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2---possible spoiler alert!******

So, I'm working under the assumption that you've read the books so I'm not going to give you any background information.  If you haven't read the books, why the heck are you wasting your time reading this? Get thee to a library or a bookstore and start reading. Now!

Okay, so I loved what they did with the first part of the movie. The slow pace and lack of action while hunting the horcruxes added to the characters' frustrations and feelings of helplessness. They stuck very closely to the book and built everything so beautifully in preparation for this final installment, I was really excited to see what they were going to do with it.

And they let it all fall flat. 

All the details were there. I had no problem with the story line and what they chose to show and leave out but the pacing was way off. I felt as if we were running a marathon, fighting right alongside the Order of the Phoenix with nary a chance to catch our breaths. There was no time given to process all the information we were given and feel the emotional impact of what was going on.

I cry at the drop of a hat. I sobbed  when Dobby died in the book and confess there were tears running down my cheeks when it happened in the movie.  I sobbed again when Fred, Lupin and Tonks were killed, when Percy swallowed his pride and rejoined the family, when the truth about Snape was revealed and several other places throughout the book. Such powerfully emotional scenes of sacrifice and redemption should have been tear-jerkers on the big screen but were brushed over so quickly you didn't have time to feel much of anything when they took place.

It was a good movie but I think they missed the mark and lost the opportunity to make it a truly great movie. Maybe I just had really, really high expectations and will feel differently after a second viewing but I was disappointed. I liked it, but so wanted to love it. I suppose I'll just have to go back and read the book again.

I found a quote online today (it came through Pinterest without a source so I have no idea where it originated, sorry!) that sums up my feelings exactly.

“When I’m 80 years old and sitting in my rocking chair, I’ll be reading Harry Potter. And my family will say to me, “After all this time?” And I will say, “Always.” 

- Alan Rickman

Perfection from Severus Snape himself. I can't think of a way to improve upon it, so I'll just say again...go forth and read!

Happiness is...a good book. (Summer Reading edition #10)

Kat, Incorrigible
Author: Stephanie Burgis
Pages: 295
Age Range: Juvenile
Published: 2011
Genre: Historical Fiction/Fantasy
Cover Score: ****
Overall Grade: ****
Rating: PG

“I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed as a boy, and set off to save my family from impending ruin.” And so begins the tale of Katherine Ann Stephenson, third daughter (there’s also one brother in the mix) of a preacher and an evil stepmother living in Yorkshire, England in 1803. She’s a tomboy who can’t get the hang of anything requiring manners or propriety much to the chagrin of her sisters and stepmother who are doing all they can to maintain a semblance of decorum and repair their family’s reputation in order to secure suitable marriages for the girls. (Their mother, who died when Kat was born, was found to be a witch and their older brother Charles was kicked out of Oxford for gambling and carousing.)

Her sister Angeline has found their mother’s magic books and has been doing a bit of spell casting on her own including an unfortunate love spell on one of her father’s students.  Elissa, the oldest, is content to be the tragic Gothic heroine portrayed in her favorite novels.  She’s hoping to somehow be able to sacrifice herself for the good of the family and her wish is granted when her stepmother arranges for her to meet the wealthy but stodgy Sir Neville (though the rumor is he murdered his first wife!)

Kat wants nothing more than for things to go back to the way they were when her sisters were young enough to still be her friends and were less concerned with boys and dances and weddings and propriety. In an effort to recapture some of that past and perhaps get to know the mother she never knew, she ventures into the locked cabinet that holds all her mother’s magical possessions. When she finds a small golden compact that begins to glow and sends Kat to a grand hallway she’s never seen before she has no idea that her life is about to change forever. She discovers that her mother was part of an ancient Order that protects and governs the use of magic and has even been known to dispose of common witches who practice the lesser magic of witchcraft.  Somehow Sir Neville is involved and Kat realizes that it’s up to her to save both of her sisters from their fates.

In the true spirit of Jane Austen there are the requisite house parties and balls, plenty of high manners that cause misunderstandings between lovers, nosy old ladies and even a bit of adventure involving a highwayman. It sometimes loses the Regency feel in the dialogue but for the most part seemed true to form. (And some of the word choices are marvelous...I mean how can you not love the word 'incorrigible'?) It’s quite the charming little story with an unexpected magical twist and a strong and spunky heroine. Girls will be enchanted and want more (good thing it's the first in a series) and adults will enjoy it almost as much! I think this would make a great mother/daughter book club read possibly paired with a viewing of one of the movie adaptations depending on the girls’ ages. Great comparisons and discussions about the genre and time period are waiting to happen!

And just a quick shout out to the cover designer and illustrator (Jessica Handelman and Annette Marnat respectively.) I am absolutely a person who judges a book by its cover and would have picked this one up for the image alone. It's a delightful piece that wraps around to the back and begs you to take a peek inside.  The colors are rich and feminine and playful. The style is mildly reminiscent of Mary Blair. Just lovely!

Speaking of the great period pieces…which are your favorites? Are you an Austen fan? Or is there another Regency era writer you prefer? Do you go in for any of the modern-day adaptations or fan fiction? What about the movies? I must admit I often enjoy the movies more than the books (blasphemy, I know!) but I have read most of Austen. I’ve not read any of Elizabeth Gaskell’s books but have spent many an hour swooning over the BBC’s mini-series adaptations of them. I’ve also heard really good things about Georgette Heyer. Anyone else I should add to the list?

Well, here’s to another great read.  Thanks for indulging my random goal setting! Only 30 or so more to go! :) 

Happiness is...a good book. (Summer Reading edition #7)

Happy Sunday! Here's round two for today.  Hope you are all enjoying the lovely long weekend.

Cinderella Smith
Author: Stephanie Barden

Illustrator: Diane Goode
Pages: 148
Age Range: 7+
Published: 2011
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Cover Score: ****
Overall Grade: ****
Rating: G

Josephine-Katherine Smith, otherwise known as Cinderella due to her penchant for constantly losing her shoes, is preparing to embark on a new school year full of new adventures. Her neighbor, Charlie Prince, is in the same class and luckily so are all her old friends.  But maybe it isn’t so lucky after all.  The girls seem to have grown up overnight and left Cinderella behind.  Cinderella finds herself being mocked for not having her ears pierced (her mother insists she’s not old enough) and for holding her father’s hand as they walk to school (it’s tradition!) And a kerfuffle in class regarding her name sends them all over the edge.

With hurt feelings, Cinderella ventures into the cafeteria to find that the last seat at the table is now being saved for the new girl, Erin. But Erin surprises them all by choosing to sit with Cinderella. She’s convinced that Cinderella will be able to help her with her problem; the new step-sisters she will acquire when her mom gets married in a few months. She hasn’t met them yet but she’s sure they will be wicked and she doesn't know what to do about it. Cinderella confesses she doesn’t know anything about step-sisters but she is good at giving advice and will do everything she can to help.

The girls become fast friends and help each other navigate all the crazy changes in their lives including the upcoming wedding, Halloween costume craziness, and the mystery of Cinderella’s lost red tap shoe which she needs in order to secure her place as the Pumpkin Blossom Fairy in the autumn dance recital.

Cinderella is a charming character, not quite as spunky or trouble prone as Clementine or Ramona but along the same lines. She’s got a great realistic voice and is constantly throwing out catchy phrases and sighing “Alas” in an exasperated way. And Goode’s black-and-white sketches sprinkled throughout add to the light, comical tone. This is a fun early reader perfect for girls who are just reaching that ‘catty/mean-girl’ stage, reminding them to stay true to themselves and accept everyone quirks and all (it makes life much more interesting and pleasant for all involved!)  

I think I would have loved this when I was a kid.  I devoured all of the Ramona books and then branched into the Baby-sitters Club and such.  I was not a fantasy reader when I was little. I had no patience for magic, much preferring the dramas of 'reality' to the vast and grand battles between good and evil. As an adult I will read just about anything but my return to children's literature was sparked by all of the great fairy tale re-tellings and fantasies out there. (I even wrote my master's paper on the importance of fantasy literature!) So, my childhood tastes did not necessarily foreshadow those of my adulthood. I'm even glad Harry Potter didn't arrive on the scene until I was an adult because I honestly don't think I would have enjoyed them at all. So, I pose to you, dear readers, a series of questions.  What were some of your favorite books as a child? Were any of them instrumental in shaping your future reading choices? What books have you read as an adult that you wish you could go back in time to put in the hands of your younger (child/teen) self? I'd love to hear from you!