Archive for November, 2006
Monday, November 27th, 2006
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Kathleen Tyau |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
|
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
|
| Genre: | fiction, historical |
| Year of publication: | 2000 |
The Chinese-Hawaiian narrator tells, in her own (sometimes-pidgin) words, what it was like to come of age as an Oriental, but not Japanese, in Hawaii in the days just before and after Pearl Harbor. Eye opening. |
-- Emily Berk |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Makai |
Posted in Conceptual: for grown ups, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, History, Reading level: Grown up | Comments Closed
Saturday, November 18th, 2006
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Diana Wynne Jones |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2005 |
Either Diana Wynne Jones must have had a truly rocky relationship with her uncle, and found that her mother did not protect her from him, or else she's just got a thing against uncles. In any case, evil uncles are major drivers of plots in Jones' intriguing set of worlds, as Conrad Tesdinic, the 12 yr. old narrator of this book, learns. Conrad's uncle is every bit as evil in his own ways as Christopher Chant's (who becomes the Chrestomanci in Diana Wynne Jones' universe) was to him.
A 16 yr. old Christopher Chant and his future wife, Millie, play supporting roles in this, the eventful, but not frenetic story of how Conrad avoids the terrible fate his uncle attempts to foist upon him and instead finds himself a mentor. |
My now-11 year old and I really enjoy our glimpses into Diana Wynne Jones' multiple alternative universes, in which the outcomes of historical events led to the preeminence of technology in some universes and the preeminence of magic in others.
Although Conrad's Fate stands well on its own, we recommend that readers enter this interesting and complicated universe by reading at least A Charmed Life and then The Lives of Christopher Chant before reading this one. |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 6: Conrad's Fate |
Posted in Conceptual: 8 and up, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 8 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Friday, November 3rd, 2006
| |
| Tell friends about this blog entry |
|
| Author: | Sharyn McCrumb |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction, historical |
| Year of publication: | 2002 |
The book is actually the history of a song, rather than a story about a person who catches songs. And/or it's the story of how a song gets caught. |
In telling the tale of the song, McCrumb helps us learn the history of a special region of Appalachia -- the beautiful, remote, hilly part that straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee.
We learn, in "their own voices", of the boy who was stolen from his home island in Scotland and so brought the song to the New World, of his hard life during the Revolutionary War, and of his journey to Appalachia. The song then leads us into the mind of a Confederate soldier in the Civil War, which in this part of the country, literally pitched neighbor against neighbor, few of whom cared all that much for the Northern OR Southern cause. Because the song continuously eludes capture by the songcatchers, we then follow its course through family of a young girl in the early twentieth century and then into the mind of another soldier in World War II and then into the later twentieth century.
In each historical period, the song's lyric "When she/he came home, she was a-change-ed, oh" proves true both for those who go to war and for those to whom the war comes home.
Highly recommended for advanced young readers.
Note: The violence, suffering, and death caused by wars are described in short, sharp, riveting, but horrifying bursts that punctuate many of the stories told by the song's custodians.
-- Emily |
| Similar books |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Songcatcher, The |
Posted in Biography, Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 8 and up | Comments Closed
