Wake Up and Smell the Planet

Wake Up and Smell the Planet: The Non-pompous, Non-preachy Grist Guide to Greening Your Day by Grist Magazine

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Who would have thought that reading about how to change your habits & save the planet could make you laugh out loud? The humor makes reality easier to digest, as do the short sections/chapters and grey "sidebars." (They're not really on the side.) Some of their suggestions will take some dedication to achieve, but others are so simple anyone could do them--and everyone should. Forgoing plastic water bottles is one example. Long live ceramic & stainless steel! The book also weighs the pros & cons of disposable & cloth diapers, microwave ovens, dishwashers, etc. I highly recommend this book as a companion to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (which I think everyone in America should read).


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Twilight

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I never thought I'd see the day when I would love a vampire novel. Frankly, I never thought I'd ever even read one, since I'm not a fan of scary things. But there was so much buzz over Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, and it's being made into a movie, so I felt like I really should read it and know what the teenagers were raving about. Plus it arrived on the Holds shelf right on time for my book group's books-that-have-been-made-into-movies theme this month.

I absolutely loved this book because, first of all, it's not scary (tense at the climax near the end, but not "scary"). It's actually a pretty funny story of a teenager, Bella, from Phoenix who moves to Forks, WA, to live with her dad and ends up falling in love with a vampire, Edward. Edward & his family live in Forks because it's hardly ever sunny there, so their skin doesn't glitter and give them away. The Cullen family are "good" vampires because they choose not to feed on humans.

I could keep talking about this book for a very long time, but I'd just end up giving too much away, so I'll merely encourage you all to read it for yourselves.

If you're recommending it for someone else, know that although Meyer depicts teenagers pretty accurately, she doesn't include swearing, and the closest she gets to including sex is some kissing & petting.


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Banned Books Week Video

Here's the latest Banned Books Week video from AL Focus. Be a rebel--read a banned book!

Harmonic Wealth

Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want by James Arthur Ray

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars

I give up. I simply cannot finish this book. He has a lot to say that I think is dead-on accurate, but he focuses WAY too much on financial wealth. It's only one of his "five pillars of harmonic wealth," and yet he devotes nearly half the book to talking about it.

I felt like he paid lip service to the philosophy that money can't buy happiness & that a lack of money or a mismanagement of money buys a lot of UNhappiness, but he lost me with the focus on becoming a multimillionaire. Particularly since he completely devalues formal education in the process (he doesn't have any form of college degree), saying that virtually no one will use what they learned in school anyway. (Hello?!! I use what I learned every day, even the things I never thought would be useful! I just don't use them in ways I would have expected when I was 20.)

I'm sorry--not everyone in this world can be (or wants to be) a millionaire. In fact, in order for people to hire folks to do all their menial tasks--you know, because they're on their way to becoming "bigger" and therefore richer people--SOMEONE has to work for a pittance. So his logic irritates the living daylights out of me. And admittedly I'm biased, but just because you're rich doesn't mean you provide more service to the world. I can think of a LOT of rich people who do far less to improve this world than a whole lot of less-well-paid folks: librarians, social workers, and teachers, for starters.

I could rant for hours on this book, but I'll spare you the rest. Bottom line: read something else instead. Try Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert or something by Thich Nhat Hanh, any of Barbara Kingsolver's nonfiction, or even You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. (I hear that one's good--haven't read it yet.)


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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm actually tempted to add this to my "biography" shelf (or "autobiography" to be strictly accurate) as well as my "ya fiction" shelf because this story is so close to how Sherman Alexie described his own life when I heard him speak a few years ago at the PLA conference in Seattle. It's a funny, poignant book about a Spokane Indian teenager who decides to buck the odds and go to school 22 miles away in a small town full of white folks. He faces all kinds of obstacles and culture shock as he adjusts to his new school and deals with his own people viewing him as a traitor for aspiring to overcome crushing poverty and personal loss and do something with his life.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, even though I think Alexie is funnier in person. If you're recommending this book to kids, keep in mind that it's written from the perspective of a 14-year-old boy, so there are some references to masturbation & breasts, etc.


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Thump, Quack, Moo: A whacky adventure

Thump, Quack, Moo: A Whacky Adventure by Doreen Cronin

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Funny!!

From the author of Click, Clack, Moo comes a tale of Farmer Brown enlisting the help of his animals in preparing his corn maze. Each animal has to be bribed (hammers for the chickens, paint for the cows, and special-order organic feed for the duck) to help, but eventually all are on board. The results, however, are not quite Farmer Brown had in mind, but kids (and adults) will love them. Watch for the subtle humor of the mice and their meteorology correspondence course. :)

Suitable for a preschool/kindergarten storytime; lends itself to audience participation with the repeated noises ("Cluck Whack! Moo Thwack! Thump Quack.")


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Mattland

Mattland by Hazel Hutchins

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

What a sweet story! It's the tale of a boy who has just moved to a new neighborhood--one with lots of mud and nowhere to play/nothing to play with. A stick dragged through the mud creates Snake River...connected with a puddle makes Turtle Lake...and soon Mattland is born.

As the story progresses and the bits of rock and garbage on the lot are transformed into buildings and landmarks, the brown tones of the watercolor illustrations evolve into the colors of an imaginative landscape. Likewise, Matt's solitude flows into friendships as other children sidle closer to see what he's doing and join in the effort to save Mattland when rainwater threatens to wash everything away.

This would be a great book to read to your children. I think it could also work for a storytime for kids circa kindergarten age or preschoolers with longer attention spans. Not TOO many words on the page, but they're not in huge print and don't rhyme. :)


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American Born Chinese

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

I did it! I finally read an entire graphic novel! And I'm still alive to tell about it. :)

My friend's 12-year-old daughter recommended it to me, so I figured it had to be pretty good. She knows the whole manga thing confuses me, so she picked a GN that was more like a comic strip with varying sizes of panels--easy enough for me to follow.

This book has three storylines that trade off, and I couldn't figure out whether there was supposed to be one unifying story until almost the very end, but it wasn't hard to track each thread, even when I couldn't see how they would connect. 1) A tale of the Chinese Monkey King, 2) a tale of a lone Chinese American boy making friends with a Chinese boy, and 2) a tale of an American teenager who is embarrassed by his uber-stereotypical Chinese cousin coming to visit. I enjoyed the humor of each, and I was surprised to see a slight religious theme subtly interwoven into the whole--a blend of Eastern and Western.

I also appreciated how fast it was to read. Only 1 1/2 lunch hours required!

Overall, I'd say it's a great GN for teenagers. There are some raging teenage hormones in the story, so I probably wouldn't recommend it to all elementary school kids. And I think I'd actually give it 3 1/2 stars. Were I a big GN fan in general, it would probably get 4 stars. :)


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Return to Summerhouse

Return to Summerhouse by Jude Deveraux

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Okay, so I admit, I'm a sucker for time travel stories. Love them. Can't get enough of them. There is so much "scope for the imagination" (to quote Anne of Green Gables) in time travel.

In Return to Summerhouse, Amy is more or less coerced into going to Maine to stay with two other women--total strangers--as a form of therapy to help her deal with her recent miscarriage. The two women, Faith and Zoe, come to the summerhouse with their own traumas to heal. Where the story really gets good is when Amy starts dreaming about a Lord Hawthorne in the eighteenth century...and wakes up bruised or wet, according to what happened in her dream. The women begin to open up to each other and tell their personal stories, and Amy convinces the other two to come with her to Madame Zoya's cottage and travel back in time to "put destiny back on track."

I loved this book also for believing in fidelity and for championing organic gardening of heirloom varieties (and botanical variety in general).

If you're recommending it to someone else, you should know that there are quite a few sexual references but no explicit scenes.


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Home Before Dark

Home Before Dark by Susan Wiggs

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

I would actually give this book 3 1/2 stars if I could. Susan Wiggs usually writes romances, and that's what I expected when I put Home Before Dark on hold. But although there are definitely romantic themes in this book, it's really more a story about two sisters and the complicated bonds of love that tie families together.

The premise of the book is that Jessie, the free-wheeling photographer, comes home to her sister's house in Texas to see her family one last time. Sixteen years ago she gave away her baby daughter to her sister Luz, and now Lila is just as rebellious as Jessie. Sixteen years ago, Luz gave up her own promising photography career to get married and raise not only Lila but also three boys born over the next few years.

What kind of lies do we tell ourselves or our loved ones in the name of protecting them? At what cost?

I'd say more, but I don't want to give anything away. :)


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