Review: Fool

“Warning: This is a bawdy tale. Herein you will find gratuitous shagging, murder, spanking, maiming, treason, and heretofore unexplored heights of vulgarity and profanity, as well as non-traditional grammar, split infinitives, and the odd wank. If that sort of thing bothers you, then gentle reader pass by, for we endeavor only to entertain, not to offend. That said, if that’s the sort of thing you think you might enjoy, then you have happened upon the perfect story!”

Fool by Christopher Moore is King Lear from the Fool’s point of view. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but readers should heed the warning above that the book opens with. It is a true homage to Shakespeare—full of blood and guts and betrayal and horrible people.

The title character, named Pocket, is sometimes horrible and almost always deceitful. But two things redeemed him: he was always concerned for his apprentice, a “natural” (someone born with some physical or mental incapacity); and the people he was manipulating were, without a doubt, far more evil than he.

I haven’t read King Lear in about ten years, and I think if it had been fresher in my mind when I read Fool, I would have enjoyed it just a tiny bit more. But I think anyone who is semi-familiar with Shakespeare can appreciate this book. It was terribly funny—even the footnotes were funny. But also tragic and ghastly.

Childhood Favorites: The Magician's Nephew

A few Christmases back, my father-in-law gave me one of the best gifts of my life—a beautifully illustrated copy of all the Chronicles of Narnia. I can’t wait for my daughter to be old enough to sit on my lap and look at the pictures as I read the stories aloud to her. In fact, I found no reason to wait.

About a month ago, I started reading The Magician’s Nephew aloud to her as she played around me. Her attention span currently lasts about ten seconds (she’s not quite one year old), but she did occasionally sit on my lap and look at the pages. Sometimes she played long enough that we got a whole chapter read, sometimes I only read a paragraph, but we finished reading it yesterday.

There is no need to say that I loved it—my childhood copies of the Chronicles of Narnia are in tatters. But even though she’s too young to understand it yet, I enjoyed reading the words out loud to my daughter and talking with her about what was happening in the book. Well written books are always enhanced by being read aloud—and I love having a child to read to so I don’t feel silly reading out loud to myself.

Today we’ll begin reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I hope that these books turn into fond childhood memories for her, just as they are for me.

Newbery Review: Tales from Silver Lands

The 1925 Newbery Award Winner, Tales from Silver Lands by Charles J. Finger, is a collection of folktales that Finger collected during his travels in South America.

Though the tales are almost always strange, I enjoyed this book because I like reading the stories that different cultures tell in order to explain their world. This book was also nice because each chapter is a story that stands alone, so it was easy to put down and then come back to later--even while reading other books (still chipping away at Smokey the Cowhorse...).

My favorite tale was "El Enano." An old woman takes in what she thinks is a baby, but is really an evil monster who demands to be fed more and more food, until the entire village is spending all day gathering and cooking food to keep him at bay. Animals play a prominent role in many of these tales, and in "El Enano" a fox helps the old woman and the village outsmart the monster.

Not every young reader would enjoy this book today, but I do recommend it for children and adults who enjoy learning about other cultures and people--with a little bit of the fantastical thrown in.

Only one book left.

Review: Hattie Big Sky

"My bounce-around life had taught me that dreams were dangerous things--they look solid in your mind, but you just try to reach for them. It's like gathering clouds."

I read Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson because my mother recommended it. I love reading other people's favorite books--it always gives me new insight into who they are. I know why my mother liked this book--she's always loved books about people being resourceful and making a living off of the land.

I loved this book too. I read it quickly and enjoyed following Hattie as she learns to live alone in eastern Montana, attempting to prove up on the homestead her uncle left her. At the same time, Hattie and her neighbors are profoundly changed by World War I though it's being fought far away in another country.

The best evidence of me recommending this book to others is that I'm going to look up the author, Kirby Larson, and see if she has written anything else. Hattie Big Sky won the Newbery Honor in 2007, and is one of those great YA books that is easy for adults to read without even realizing that it's YA.

Newbery Review: Gay-Neck

"No beast of prey can kill his victim without frightening him first. ... an animal's fear kills it before its enemy gives it the final blow."

Well, I finished reading Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon by Dhan Gopal Mukerji. Besides the fact that I've always struggled with animal-centric stories, I bet you can guess why I put off reading this Newbery Winner for so long. Gay-Neck is translated from an Indian word. Another translation would be "iridescent throat."

The title bird is a carrier pigeon. We hear his story from the point of view of his trainer in India, and occasionally, from Gay-Neck himself. At one point Gay-Neck is a carrier pigeon in World War I.

This book wasn't all bad. It was interesting and informative at times, there was action and adventure both on the battle front and in the jungle, and it had the theme of courage threaded throughout it. But I'm afraid that the title alone would deter any young reader today.

Only two more to go! Smoky the Cowhorse, I'll conquer you yet!

Newbery Review: Waterless Mountain

I was skeptical of Waterless Mountain, the 1932 Newbery Award Winner by Laura Adams Armer. It's the story of a young Navaho (sic) boy written by a white woman. The publishers must have known there would be skeptics like me because there was a foreword written by some guy who saw the author interact with the Navaho people and testified that he'd never seen any white person so accepted into their culture.

Being a white person myself, I certainly can't tell you how accurate her portrayal of the people and the young boy (whose connection to the world around him and to his culture leads him to become a medicine man) is. But I did like that most of the book was simply written from the Navaho boy's point of view. There were only a few times when a white person appeared on the scene and we were shown how the different races reacted to each other.

Most of the book followed Younger Brother (the Navaho mothers did not speak the names they gave to their children because they believed a person's name had a lot of power and it would be diminished by speaking it too often)--his connection to the landscape, to his family, to his ancestors, and to the stories of his people.

I enjoyed the stories and didn't mind the book as a whole. I can say that I definitely would not have enjoyed or appreciated this book as a youth though. Some of its target audience might still like it today, but I wasn't into nature-centric books back then.

Review: Two More Shannon Hale Books

I recently finished reading the last of the Books of Bayern, Forest Born. I was pleasantly surprised, and I even think it was my favorite in the series. Besides the fantastical story of another land, it was a touching book about a girl who is so unsure of who she is that she imitates those around her, and thus completely loses herself--before finding herself again in the end, of course.

(My one complaint is that there is only this lame new cover, not the beautiful covers that go so well together that many of her earlier books have. For example, I love the one below.)

And so, I picked up Princess Academy again. I started at the beginning instead of trying to jump partway through to where I had left off twice before. Which is a much better strategy for revisiting an abandoned book (unless it's Moby Dick or anything by Dostoevsky--if you keep starting over, you'll never finish).

Once I pushed through the beginning and got over the title, I enjoyed it as I knew I likely would. I think I appreciated this book more after reading the Books of Bayern--the connection to the landscape was a lot more meaningful.

I honestly can't think of a better title, I just know that the one it has turned me off to it for a long time.

The book ended just as a I wanted it to--just as Shannon Hale always does. My literary, English graduate side fights against those happy endings that tie up so neatly. But my girly side (which is in there somewhere) loves Shannon Hale's endings. So she's right on target for her audience--which my English graduate side can appreciate as well.

For the Grammar Geeks

Are you a grammar geek? Check this out.

Books I've Read Over and Over

It's hard for me to choose just three from this week's Book List question of which three books I've read over and over. So I cut out those that I read over and over as a child and chose three that I read at least once a year as an adult.

1. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
The story draws me in, and the language makes me keep coming back for more.


2. Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard
This slender book takes place over three days--November 18, 19, and 20. And I try to read it every year on those dates.



3. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
This is a cross over of books I've read over and over both as a child and as an adult. I can't quite explain why I come back to it over and over. It's familiar and comforting and fantastic every time I read it.



What three books do you read over and over?