Archive for the ‘Fiction’ Category
Tuesday, June 12th, 2007
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| Author: | Georgia Byng |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 5 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2003 |
"Why don't they make books like THIS one into movies?," my 12 year old exclaimed. I was listening to this book on tape and dear daughter, who had read the book a few years earlier, was lured into listening.
Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism like Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure, which we read a while back, narrates the story of Molly Moon, an orphan, and her best friend Rocky. |
Unlike Harry Potter, Nathaniel, and many of Diana Wynne Jones' fictional heroes and heroines (all of whom we enjoy reading about), Molly does not inherit her gift, but instead studies and works hard to master it pretty much on her own.
In this first book in the Molly Moon series, a celebration of independence and librarians, Molly learns to be a very powerful hypnotist. Although at some points in the book, she uses her powers "for the dark side", she eventually reflects on the ethics of her actions and comes up with creative solutions that make amends for the problems she caused.
Highly recommended for children and for lovers of books.
-- Emily Berk |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism |
Posted in Animals, Broadway musicals, Conceptual: age 5 and up, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 8 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
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| Author: | Janna Levin |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
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| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
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| Genre: | Fiction, biography |
| Year of publication: | 2006 |
What must it be like to be so intelligent that you can't trust anyone enough to believe him or her? So confident that you are right and that everyone else is wrong that you ignore the woman who loves you when she tells you that you must eat (and assures you that the food is really, truly not poisoned)? What must it be like to know that you are moral, that you have saved civilization, but to be convicted of immorality and forced to deny your true self?
Janna Levin (our madman who is not at all mad) worms us inside the minds of Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing and forces us to look out into the world through their eyes. When we hear Gödel's story, we may be tempted to think that paranoid insanity is part of terrific genius. But then what are we to think of Alan Turing (yes, he clearly was on the autistic spectrum, but he was not crazy and not harmful to himself or to others), who only wanted to solve very hard problems and love the occasional man and was forced to ingest hormones that destroyed his body and his self-respect? |
A very sad, but important book. A reminder that we must, must, must help our gifted children find communities in which brilliant minds are nurtured and supported and cherished for their idiosyncrasies. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, A |
Posted in Biography, Computers in society, Conceptual: for grown ups, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Fiction, Gifted, History, Math, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: Grown up | Comments Closed
Saturday, March 31st, 2007
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| Author: | Neil Gaiman |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | For grown-ups
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| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | For grown-ups
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| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2005 |
Fairy tale for us grumps about two sons of Anansi, the Spider God. |
The upbeat moral: We all have all we need inside us. We just need to know that to be able to find it.
-- Emily Berk |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Anansi Boys, The |
Posted in Conceptual: for grown ups, Culture, Dealing with bullies, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: Sophisticated reader | Comments Closed
Saturday, March 31st, 2007
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| Author: | Robert Heinlein |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Sophisticated readers |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Sophisticated readers |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1961 |
Winner of the 1962 Hugo Award. Story of a human child, raised by Martians on Mars, who comes to Earth and starts a sexual revolution.
I guess it was revolutionary for its time. But re-reading it 40+ years after its release, it strikes me as as preachy as anything by Asimov, with an attitude toward women that holds over from the fifties, and as sexually innocent (not) as The Harrad Experiment. |
Of course, The Harrad Experiment was written more than 10 years later, so that is some proof that Stranger may have been ground-breaking....
Some have suggested that Valentine, the Martian-human Stranger is a metaphor for an Asperger-spectrum gifted learner, who groks nearly everything he studies better and faster than any other human, but who also lacks social skills and an understanding of how humans are expected to behave. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Stranger in a Strange Land |
Posted in Conceptual: highly sophisticated, Culture, Death is a central theme, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: Sophisticated reader, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Sunday, March 18th, 2007
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| Author: | Nancy Farmer |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1996 |
Gentle tale of a young giraffe who is stolen away from her home and marshals a multi-species group of friends to help her find her way home.
As in other Nancy Farmer stories, many of the bad guys in this tale are space aliens. |
An excellent choice for sensitive young readers. |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Warm Place, The |
Posted in Animals, Conceptual: 8 and up, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Reading level: age 8 and up | Comments Closed
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007
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| Author: | Zilpha Keatly Snyder |
| Illustrator: | Alton Raible |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 8 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction, history |
| Year of publication: | 1965 |
Gentle but involving story about young girl whose family has lost its farm, but not its love, principles, or dignity, in California in the Great Depression. One of the notable and wonderful things about this novel is that most of the adults, and most of the children, consistently act in honorable and thoughtful ways. The plot is driven principally by the harsh circumstances of the times. |
Details are provided about the life of the itinerant farm workers at an apricot farm. No doubt there were some landowners who were less kind to their workers. Even so, life was clearly not easy for many children or adults in those years. |
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If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Velvet Room, The |
Posted in Conceptual: 8 and up, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, History, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 8 and up | Comments Closed
Sunday, March 11th, 2007
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Wonderful piece about the author of the book Wicked
My now-12 yr. old has loved the musical since she first saw it when she was around 9. But we (her parents and older sister) have suggested that she not read the book until she is older, although we agree that the book is much more wonderful than the musical.
— Emily
\”Before seeing the Broadway musical “Wicked†for the 25th time, Gregory Maguire, who wrote the novel “Wicked,†was in the lobby of the Gershwin Theater last month persuading people not to read it. Granted, the people were 9, 10 and 13, and Maguire was telling their respective mothers that the book could be “a destination read for freshman year in college.†But when he saw the girls’ hangdog faces, he conceded that, if their mothers read it first and approved, they might try it at 16 instead. …\”
Mr. Wicked by ALEX WITCHEL
Posted in Biography, Broadway musicals, Child-raising, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Culture, Death is a central theme, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, History, Reading level: Sophisticated reader, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Saturday, March 10th, 2007
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| Author: | Diane Duane |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1985 |
My daughter and I read A Wizard Abroad first (the fourth book in the So You Want To Be A Wizard series), and then we read So You Want To Be A Wizard, the first book in the series.
Both stress the responsibilities and hazards of having great power. Both climax in a to-the-death battle between Good and Evil. And So You Want ..., much to the dismay of my daughter, proclaims the theme that self-sacrifice to the death is deemed a worthy and necessary outcome in certain extenuating circumstances. And that it might happen to a friend of yours. Perhaps because you need them to make that sacrifice. This is not a theme that my daughter much likes.
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Which is why, as a project, I am suggesting that my daughter spend time looking for Christian symbolism in the novels she reads, even fluffy ones like this one.
Deep Wizardry, the second book in the series, picks and chooses from the themes and plots of the others in the series. Duane is wonderful at describing young teenagers accidentally taking on more than they can really handle and then -- handling it. She's also very good at describing parents of gifted kids who really want to trust their children but have a hard time understanding what those children are capable of or what drives them. Duane's descriptions of the world and senses of whales in Deep Wizardry make it well worth reading. My daughter and I loved getting to know Kit and Nita, the young wizards, and Nita's younger sister Dairine, as well as Nita's earnest and striving parents and the advisor wizards and their interesting and talented familiars (a parrot and a dog).
But, by the end of the bloody and demoralizing battle at the end of Deep Wizardry, we decided to take a break, concerned that other books in the series prove to be more of the same. I understand there are seven books in total in the series.
Our recommendation: Read Deep Wizardry first. Then, read A Wizard Abroad if you are interested in Celtic myth and atmosphere, or read So You Want To Be A Wizard if you feel you need the gory details of how Nita and Kit over-promised.
-- Emily Berk |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Deep Wizardry |
Posted in Animals, Conceptual: age 12 and up, Death is a central theme, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 8 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
Friday, March 9th, 2007
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| Author: | Diane Duane |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 8 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 1983 |
My younger daughter and I have been lucky in that we have often failed to start at the beginning of a series, and when we have, it has often worked out well for us.
We read A Wizard Abroad a while back, enjoyed it, and were advised to start at the beginning of the series. If we had started at the beginning of the series -- hmm -- well, we might not have continued.
Like A Wizard Abroad, So You Want To Be A Wizard stresses the responsibilities and hazards of having great power. And like Abroad, it climaxes in a to-the-death battle between Good and Evil. Unlike Abroad, but not unlike the third book in the series Deep Wizardry, and much to the consternation of my daughter, self-sacrifice to the death is deemed a worthy and necessary outcome in certain extenuating circumstances.
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As a project, I am suggesting that my daughter spend time looking for Christian symbolism in the novels she reads, even fluffy ones like this one.
I think, perhaps, she felt that this one was too fluffy to merit the death and destruction. But she/we did decide to go on to read Deep Wizardry, the next book in the series.
-- Emily Berk |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: So You Want to Be a Wizard |
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Dealing with bullies, Death is a central theme, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Gifted, Parenting gifted children, Reading level: age 8 and up, Science Fiction | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
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| Author: | Mary Hoffman |
| Reading Level (Conceptual): | Children 12 and up |
| Reading Level (Vocabulary): | Children 12 and up |
| Genre: | fiction |
| Year of publication: | 2002 |
City of Masks is about a teenaged girl named Arianna who lives in 16th century Talia, who wants nothing more than to be a mandolier, and a boy named Lucian, who lives in 21st century England, and has an incurable case of cancer.
As Lucian suffers, his dad gives him a beautiful notebook from what seems to be very early Italy. When he fell asleep one night holding the notebook in his hand, he finds himself in 16th century Italy (Talia).
There he meets Arianna, and learns that how he got there was by what the experts call stravagation (which is how he was transferred from his world to this new one). So quite suddenly he is thrown into living two lives, one as a sick kid in modern England during the day, and the other as a perfectly healthy young man in Talia.
I recommend this exciting, kind of mysterious book for people who like fantasy and books that you don't want to put down.
City of Stars is an amazing book, the first in a series of 3. It is so wonderful for many reasons, one of which is that this book surprises you, (in a good way). While you're reading it's hard to guess what is going to happen, until it does, or nearly until it does.
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Also, I liked reading this book because there were many characters that you got to know, but not too many to be overwhelmed. Each character has his or her own personality and feelings. After reading this book I went on to read the other two books in this series right away.
--Fizzy, age 12 |
If you found this review helpful and/or interesting, consider supporting our book habit: Buy this book!: Stravaganza: City of Masks |
Posted in Conceptual: age 12 and up, Death is a central theme, Dragons and/or mythological beasts, Fairy tales, Female protagonist, Fiction, Reading level: age 12 and up, Science Fiction | Comments Closed
