Category: Books

Books Read in October 2013

I’m thinking October 2013 will go down in the annals of reading history as an incredibly spectacular month.  Because it was this month that I discovered Gayle Forman. I not only devoured four of her books, (one of them twice) but also passed them along to five, yes five, people.  Plus, there was a new Rainbow Rowell book that was a fabulous fun read–that one was also passed along–and other good YA.  This includes one YA with, well, a lot of what we think those YA kids are up to all the time.  And I read some great picture books and a solid Book Club Book.  I read a lot this month.  And it was good.

Picture Books
Journey
Aaron Becker
Read for Librarian Book Group
Picture-only book of a girl with a red crayon who draws a door in her bedroom wall and escapes into another world.  She explores a forest, city, the air and encounters mildly troubling pirates, of a sort.  Beautiful, soft-focused landscapes.  I had some problem with some of the city pictures.  The close-up views didn’t seem to match the macro views.  People not as picky as me might not even notice.

A Big Guy Took My Ball
Mo Willems
Read for Librarian Book Group
Elephant Gerald and Piggy learn about relative size.  Funny interactions.

Locomotive
Brian Floca
Read for Librarian Book Group
Take a ride on one of the first steam engines to cross the country.  Pictures are quaint, in that comfortable Garth-Williams-Laura-Ingalls-Wilder style and the historical information is interesting, as are the workings of the machine.  I even found my self exclaiming aloud, “ah” at least once as some bit of knowledge was passed on to me.  I found the “verse” (if that’s what it was?) a bit distracting, but not overly so.  For what it’s worth, the Librarians reported it was a fabulous read-aloud.

Xander’s Panda Party
Author
Read for Librarian Book Group
The kind of rhyming prose that inspires glee in me, rather than a chugga-chugga-sing-song thing.  Very darling illustrations.  I felt for that Panda, man. I’ve thrown parties. I know how it goes.

Daisy Gets Lost
Chris Raschka
Read for Librarian Book Group
I wasn’t much of a fan of the blurry watercolor style, but laughed aloud at some points.

How to Train a Train
Jason Carter Eaton
Read for Librarian Book Group
Whimsical illustrations of how to choose and capture a train of one’s own.

J-Books
The Thing About Luck
Cynthia Kadohata
Read for Librarian Book Group
Summer is 12, was born in Kansas, still lives in Kansas, and travels the combine circuit with her Japanese grandparents and her brother.  Excellent characters, amusing throughout and quite educational, if one does not know the ways of the combine circuit.

YA Novels
Lola and the Boy Next Door
Stephanie Perkins
If you remember the friends we made in Perkins’s earlier book, Anna and the French Kiss, they appear as minor characters here, which I find fun.  Lola is a girl who likes to make an impression.  She likes clothing, movies and her rocker boyfriend.  She navigates her last year of high school as best she can, with the support of her best friend and her two dads.  Then the boy next door moves back next door after a hiatus and things go haywire.

Good adolescent uncertainty, fun urban setting, excellent descriptors of heartbreak.  I sometimes found the plot details a bit too convenient, but not overly distracting.

Just One Day
Gayle Forman
I could make some new shelves on Goodreads for this book.  How about these:
read in fewer than 12 hours
or
read everything by the author immediately afterward

Maybe it could go on a shelf called,
bought the book, bought the sequel IN HARDCOVER then checked two additional copies out of the library to lend out.

Or maybe
passed on to five people within a month

All of those descriptors would work.

Take the Before Sunrise concept, but set it in Paris with an 18- and 20-year-old.  That is plenty pleasant enough, but then Ms. Forman takes an amazing turn and the book becomes about identity and Shakespeare and how we make choices in our lives.  There’s great friendship stuff in here, and incredible characters and I just want you to set down what you are reading and pick up this book.  It’s that good.  Really.

Did I mention there was a sequel?

Just One Year
Gayle Forman
We’ve spent time with Allison in Just One Day, now let’s see what’s going on with Willem’s story.  Forman is in fine form, and it’s fun to see the story from Willem’s perspective and follow on his journey.  When I have both books back in my possession–they’ve been lent out for more reading–maybe I’ll comb through the books and set the story in chronological order, from a her-and-his perspective.

That’s all I probably need to say, because if you’ve read the first book, there is no way you can’t read this one.

Just One Day
Gayle Forman
I read it again.  Yes.

Fangirl
Rainbow Rowell
I read a lot of YA fiction in the years I was actually a YA (which in the book world means “teenager”, not Young Adult, which I place in the 18-24 category.)  Anyway, even with my copious amount of reading YA novels, by the time I left for college I can only recall reading two books set in a college setting.  One was a novel set at Smith that made me want to attend a women’s college. (Which I did.) The other was the story of a couple and the only other fact about that book I can recall was that the female protagonist did not live in the dorms because she had to take her cat with her to school and no cats were allowed in the dorms.  (I left my cat at home.)

The point is that, when I left for college, I had no idea what “college” was because no one wrote about what it was like to be in college.

Enter this book, which I would love to whisk back to 1993 and hand to myself.  Though I would be confused by many things in this book–Who is Harry Potter?  What is this fan fiction thing they speak of?–Rainbow Rowell captures the awkwardness of being a college freshman.

I loved this book, though I never really loved the Simon Snow (think Harry Potter and you’ve got the gist of Simon Snow) fan fiction.  I loved Cath’s awkwardness, the pain of separating from her twin sister, and the trouble managing a new environment.  This book is funny and tender and gets points for being set in Nebraska.

Catching Jordan
Miranda Kenneally
I’ve been reading A LOT of incredibly outstanding YA Fiction.  Which is very good, but can also be bad for the psyche.  How will I ever manage to write something as good as, well, pretty much every YA I read this month?  So it was wonderful to read this, which I found pretty awful.  I feel bad saying it so plainly, because I enjoyed seeing Kenneally at Wordstock.  And I want to read a few more of her books, because I sense they are better.  This was a great concept–girl high school football quarterback and her dreams–executed almost entirely with torturous declaratory dialogue.  It made me feel so much better about my own fumbling on the page.  This is not the review I would want to read as an author, but hey, what can I say?

If I stay
Gayle Forman
This is an incredibly moving book and you will do yourself a favor if you just pick it up and begin reading.  Don’t read what it’s about, just read.  Mind where you will be when you finish reading it, though.  I don’t recommend the Max Train.

Bonus Portland setting, if you are a fan of that.

Where She Went
Gayle Forman
Were you wanting more from If I Stay?  Here’s your second book.  As with the first, I recommend picking it up and reading.  Don’t read what it’s about. Just read.

The Infinite Moment of Us
Lauren Myriacle
Read for Librarian Book Group
Holy shit!  There is a lot of well-described sex in this book.  And I love it!  I’ve been frustrated with YA’s usual tactic of fading to black as things really get going, because I think well-written sex scenes are what teenagers need. Otherwise we are leaving them with either trashy romances or porn as their guiding stars.  And both of those are horrible guiding stars.  Myracle manages to capture a range of emotions: joy, exploration, confusion, worry, physical yearning.  There was even a horribly sexual relationship to compare and contrast with.  The book also comes with strong characters and also a goodly amount of tension that is not sexual.  Very well done.

(psst. the horrible Boston accent of a minor character was incredibly distracting.  The Boston accent is something that all writers–and actors,* for that matter–should stay away from.  We know what it sounds like.  We don’t need for your to try to get all Zora Neale Hurston on us with it.)

*natives are exempted.  I’m looking at you Damon, Affleck (Ben,) & Affleck (Casey.)

“Grownup” Books
The Secrets of Mary Bowser
Lois Lavine
Read for Kenton Book Group
Interesting historical fiction about a slave who was freed, sent North to Philadelphia to be educated and then slipped back South to be a spy during the Civil War.  Good details, and overall a solid book that goes on a bit too long.

Saints

Gene Luen Yang
Read for Librarian Book Group
At book group, we were all in the same boat.  Saints had come in, but no Boxers.  So all of us pretty much agreed that we were clearly missing whatever Boxers provides.

I would love if all of human history was so ably translated into graphic novel form.  People would be a lot more interested in history.

Good book, though depressing.  I look forward to filling in the holes with Boxers.

Must. Have. Now.

Oh man, the book reviews don’t come until the end of the month, but boy howdy did I fall in love with Gayle Forman’s Just One Day.  When I saw Forman on the panel at Woodstock, the sequel to the book was mentioned as if it was available.  So you can imagine my horror when I looked on the library website and the sequel was not to be found, not even on order.  And then you can imagine my greater horror to realize that the book was not yet available in the bookstores.   Apparently, those on the panel at Wordstock had access to advance readers copies.  Curses!

Luckily, the availability date was a mere three days from the date I finished the first book.  But on that day the book was still in the Powell’s warehouse.  So I marched over and asked them how I could get the book from the warehouse to my own hands and the nice lady arranged for it to be transferred.  She even patiently listened to my story of woe:  finished first book/next book not out yet.  Apparently she hears that tale a lot.  How do I know this?  “I hear that a lot.” she told me.

So it was that a few days later I ran over to Powell’s at 9:00am and picked up my book.  And so it was I began reading the book during my lunch break.  And so it was I finished the book by the evening’s end.  And thus came to pass, that I lent the books out.  And thus came to pass that a lot of teachers at a certain school in which I work also became fans.

I hate this cover, by the way.  HATE IT.


But I do love that the book was so new it didn’t even have a chance to get an official Powell’s sticker on it and instead it has my name.

Books read in September 2013

Shoot. Here it is the end of October and I haven’t yet written book reviews for September.  Except Bluebird, which was so hideous I immediately wrote the review before time could smooth out the edges and I didn’t think it was so bad.  So these will be short reviews, which is too bad, because there were some good books this month.

Far, Far Away
Tom McNeal
Read for Librarian Book Group
A fairy tale set in Nebraska narrated by the ghost of Jacob Grimm.  Incredibly awesome.  A five-star book.  Until, unfortunately, it morphs into a grim Chelsea Cain-type thriller at the end.  I wasn’t so much a fan of that.  Still, worth the read.

Primates
Ottaviana &  Wicks
Read for Librarian Book Group
Graphic novel featuring three women who work with primates.  Interesting.

The Spectacular Now
Tim Tharp
I read this immediately after I saw the movie so the two melded a bit, for better or for worse.  Great main characters, interesting setting, a look what can happen when alcohol is more than a social lubricant. To me, the book ending was much more satisfying than the movie.

The True Blue Scouts of Sugarman Swamp
Kathi Appelt
Read for Librarian Book Group
“Ugh. Raccoons are characters?”  J-fiction is not my favorite and I never read books with animals as main characters so I wasn’t too thrilled to tackle this.  But guess what?  The book is great. The multiple character viewpoints (animal, human, mythic) are interesting.  The plot is gripping and multifaceted and it would make a great read aloud, especially if you like to do different voices.  Top notch.

One Came Home
Amy Timberlake
Read for Librarian Book Group
Horribly hideous title. Which is too bad, because this is an outstanding book.  It’s got a spunky main character, an interesting historical setting, good information about the passenger pigeon.  Plus it’s an adventure story,  road-book, and a mystery with the tiniest bit of romance sprinkled in.  Very well done.  If only someone had counseled Ms. Timberlake about her damn title.

Etiquette & Espionage
Gale Carriger
Read for Librarian Book Group
Fun Steampunk take on finishing school.  It’s more of a “finishing” school.  As in finishing people off.  The world was not fully developed, but it was entertaining.

Winger
Andrew Smith
Read for Librarian Book Group
Very, very funny.  Best 14-year-old Junior in high school.  It captured well the wanting of adolescence.  My only problem was the cover, which featured a picture of a bloody nose on the front and a comic version of the same bloody nose on the back.  I had to put post-it notes on both sides.  Other than that, I was a fan.  Many people were not thrilled about the ending, but I was okay with it.

Bluebird

Bob Staake
Read for Librarian Book Group
Nope.  Not a fan.  I was charmed at first, by this picture-only picture book, though I found it a bit tough to follow the narrative on some pages.  But the library has it in the “Parenting” section of children’s books for a reason and that reason has to do with the ending.  Good for helping a child understand death, I guess, as long as your belief about death involves floating up into the clouds.

Books Read in August 2013

Vacation!  Much time to read!  Very exciting!  I even read three books that were not book club books.

Written in Stone
Roseanne Parry
Read for Librarian Book Group
I was a great fan of Island of the Blue Dolphins as a child (though I haven’t read it since) and this book left me in the same place.  It’s a well-crafted tale of a Native American girl living on the Olympic Peninsula in the 1920’s.  The story is moving and full of details and the author, who is not Native American, seems to have worked hard to respect the Native American culture.

The Rules for Hearts
Sara Ryan
I wanted  more from this book.  More of the brother, who remains a cipher throughout and then is suddenly explained in a few paragraphs in the final chapters.  More of the household relationships.  More of the play, even.  I did enjoy the various Portland locals very much.

Man of My Dreams
Curtis Sittenfeld
“Huh.  I seem to have missed reading one of Curtis Sittenfeld’s books” said I to myself as I perused a review of her new novel.  Being a fan of Prep and a rabid fan of American Wife, I put this book on hold at the library and soon had it in my possession.  And then, while I read it, I puzzled over whether I had actually read this book before.

It’s not listed in my Goodreads list, but that only goes back to 2008, so it’s possible that I did read it when it was first published in 2007.  The plot seemed incredibly familiar to me, so much so that I was distracted a bit while reading, stretching to see if anything felt familiar.

That said, I love how Sittenfeld’s character was fairly removed from her emotions, peering at them as if watching them over a fence, happening to someone else.  She was so careful, and so unnatural in her actions, I enjoyed her journey.

Chu’s Day
Neil Gaiman
Read for Librarian Book Group
I was left with a feeling of “eh” after reading this very short picture book.  But the librarians reported this is a great read aloud, with the sneeze repeatedly building and building and then stopping.  Until it doesn’t.

Take Me Out to the Yakyu
Aaron Meshon
Read for Librarian Book Group
The part of me that should have been a double entry accountant (whatever that is) LOVED this book.  On one page, we see the American version of baseball.  On the facing page, we see Japanese version of baseball.  Great bi-cultural little kid experience, great compare and contrast, great illustrations.

Attachments
Rainbow Rowell
Solid and clever romance with two characters who do not know each other.  Bonus newspaper newsroom setting for fans of the reporter genre.  Very funny conversations between two friends.  Excellent twists. Omaha, Nebraska setting. Great fun of the kind where I abandoned other projects just to keep reading.  After Eleanor and Park and this, I’m ready for whatever Rowell throws my way.

Monkey and Elephant Get Better
Read for Librarian Book Group
Pretty much what the title says, though Monkey and Elephant have very different ways of fighting off a cold.  Good three-chapter beginning reader.  The librarians really liked the clarity of the font.

The Zookeeper’s Wife
Diane Ackerman
Read for Book Group
This was packed full of sometimes a few too many details, but was quite fascinating. I learned a lot about the Polish resistance, of which I knew little, and I found it to be good enough that it was worth breaking my “no more Nazis” rule of book reading.

A Tangle of Knots
Lisa Graff
Read for Librarian Book Group
I did not love this juvenile chapter book that also came with recipes for various cakes.  I found there to be too many characters, many of whom were rather shadowy, so I was vaguely confused for the entire book.  However, many people really enjoyed the book’s quirky nature and you might too.  I did copy a few of the cake recipes to make.   Lime Pound Cake anyone?

That is NOT a Good Idea
Mo Willems
Read for Librarian Book Group
A picture book that might be a child’s first glimpse of what silent movie title cards looked like.  I call that a plus.  This is a funny story with a twist.

Silver Linings Playbook
Matthew Quick
It is rare for me to prefer a movie adaptation to the original book, but I did in this case.  Everything that makes the movie delightful is here in the book–and more!  But I found the book to drag a bit in places.  That said, the book was as funny as the movie and worth the read.

Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great
Bob Shea
Read for Librarian Book Group
Goat has a problem with Unicorn.  Just the existence of Unicorn brings Goat down.  Very bright colors and also rainbows.  Funny.

The Watermelon Seed
Greg Pizzoli
Read for Librarian Book Group
By the time book group came around I didn’t actually remember this book.  But it’s a fun little vignette and a good summertime read.

Gone Fishin
Wissinger/Cordell
Read for Librarian Book Group
A story of a boy going on a fishing trip with his father told in many different poem forms.  Includes information about the different poetry forms as well a poetry vocabulary.  Not only is it interesting from the poetry standpoint, it is fun from the storytelling point too.  It might make a fun read aloud.

September Girls
Bennett Madison
Read for Librarian Book Group
Boy spends summer on island populated with very attractive and unique girls.  Said girls have eyes for him, in a way that makes his older brother crazy.  Interesting exploration of sex and identity in a way that I think YA books usually shy away from. I wonder if male authors can get away with this more than female authors?

Midland Library

Across the street from Fabric Depot is the Midland Library.  I’m a bit ashamed that I’ve never visited, so today I crossed at the crosswalk–where there was a flashing yellow sign to stop all the cars on busy 122nd Ave.–and discovered that I had never noticed there were quotes on the outside of the building.
 
Each quote began with a marker and the author of the quote was identified with the key at the bottom.  Very good.
 
The official sign.
 
But really, I’m betting the marker for most people is the big clock, very visible from the street.
 
Inside it is light and beautiful.  This is also a very large library.  Outside of the Central Library, this may be the largest branch library I’ve visited in the Multnomah County System.
 
A very nice mural.
 
I think the only thing this library is missing is the exclamation point.
 

Books read in July 2013

Many books were read this month, but only six of any measurable length.  That librarian book club really pads the numbers with those picture books.

Read
Doll Bones
Holly Blade
Read for Librarian Book Group
Fun and creepy/scary.  Entirely unbelievable from an adult perspective, probably completely believable from a middle-school perspective. Also includes a good depiction of the time in adolescence when everyone is transitioning from child to teenager at different rates.  I liked this a lot, even if I did wonder if maybe I shouldn’t be reading it right before bed, due to worry about potential bad dreams.

The Good House
Ann Leary
I hadn’t read a “grown up” book for a bit and I think I might have expected a bit too much from this.  The characters were interesting and lively, but as the novel wore on the informal tone started to annoy me.  I think if I had been expecting the informal tone things would have been fine, but I got it in my head it was a more literary book.  This is a good read for people interested in alcoholics in denial, real estate agents, and people who live around Boston.

Maud
Harry Bruce
This biography of Lucy Maud Montgomery, best known as the author of the Anne of Green Gables series, has a crackling opening.  Harry Bruce knew not to bury that lead.  Well done Mr. Bruce.  However, after that, it settles into a rather standard biography which, inexplicably peters out when Montgomery gets married.  I was looking for information about how she lived with depression, and this book does not examine anything in that realm, which I found disappointing.

Shift
Jennifer Bradbury
Most distracting–and completely not the author’s fault–was that the main character had the same first and last name as my brother.  Granted, “Chris Collins” is a rather common name, but it was still strange to come across it on the page, picture my brother and then have to wrench myself back into the story.

That said, I greatly enjoyed this examination of adolescent male friendship set in a cross country bike ride.  Aside from those good qualities, it also had a bit of a mystery to it.  All of these things made this an enjoyable page-turning quick read.

I see the Promised Land
Flowers/Chitrakar
Read for Librarian Book Group
I would not recommend this to elementary-aged children, nor middle school and I would be leery of recommending it to high school students because I think some parents would have a problem with the content.  I found the prose style distracting at first, but it grew on me as the book went on.  I found the artistic depiction of women throughout the book to be sexist and somewhat offensive.  Was it necessary to draw protruding nipples on all of the women including Rosa Parks?

Lottie Paris and the Best Place
Johnson/Fischer
Read for Librarian Book Group
Bright and fun and Lottie Paris and I agree that the best place is the library.

Barbed Wire Baseball
Moss/Shimizer
Read for Librarian Book Group
Great introduction to the forced relocation of Japanese Americans during World War II. It will probably be most interesting to children who are interested in baseball.  Illustrations were bright and I appreciated the inclusion of the photograph referred to in the text.

Nino Wrestles the World
Yuyi Morales
Read for Librarian Book Group
Incredibly fun.  A lot of good words here.

P.S. Be 11
Rita Williams Garcia
Read for Librarian Book Group
I started this not knowing this is the continuation of an earlier story.  Though I prefer to read things in order, I was pressed for time, so I read on and was glad I did.  I loved the depiction of Brooklyn in the late 1960s, also the 11-year-old viewpoint seemed very authentic and the letters from the main character’s mother were beautiful pieces in themselves.  There is a very solid sense of growth and growing up within these pages.  I’m not the biggest fan of J-chapter books, but this was a gem.

Black Dog
Levi Pinfold
Read for Librarian Book Group
So incredibly delightful I would buy it if I had more children in my life.  Good especially for the tiniest among us.  The illustrations were delightful and had many details to pour over.

Maggot Moon
Sally Gardner
Read for Librarian Book Group
I think the very short chapters (some not even a page) will be great for struggling readers.  The distopian setting was minimally described.  This was distracting for me, but might be fine for others.    I found that I had to do a lot of inferring because there were fewer words and I wonder if struggling readers would fine this frustrating.

Also, if you have the print copy of this book in your hands, be sure to check out the “flip book” quality of the illustrations.

Lessons from Madame Chic
Jennifer Scott
The author lived in Paris as an exchange student during college and she learned stuff from the mother of her host family.  She wrote a book to tell us about it.  There were some interesting lessons and observations.  Often, I found the fact that the author is in a different income bracket than I am to detract from her life lessons.  It’s great that she gets a mani/pedi every two weeks and also a regular massage, as well as seeing an esthetician etc. etc. etc.  However, my budget rarely has room for any of those things very often.  So after awhile I had to work not to think, “bully for you, Jennifer Scott.  Your husband actually had $600.00 to spend on pants.”  Still, I get her overall message and think it is a good one.  I’m glad she’s built a good life for herself and will incorporate some of her life lessons into my own life.

Books read in May and June 1990

In the back of one of my journals are reviews of books read by me, written by my 15 year-old self.  I was clearly vacillating between the “greatest books everyone should read” list and the YA section of the library.

Here’s one page:

5/12/90
Salem’s Lot Stephen King
If you like vampires read this.  This also has about 40 characters and I could never remember who was who.  It was also very long. It didn’t hold my attention well. [3 stars]

5/29/90
Too Young to Die Lurlene McDaniel
Everything’s going great for Melissa until she gets cancer. [4 stars]

Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe
This is possibly the worst piece of literature I have ever read. Harriet Beech Stowe writes as though she is talking to a two year old.  Bleech.  I couldn’t finish it. [1 star]

6/10/90
East of Eden. John Steinbeck
Good book. [4 stars] Too hard to give a summary on.  Too much happening.

6/12/90
Angel Dust Blues. Todd Strausser.
I like this guy.  He makes things seem so real.  About a rich kid who becomes a drug dealer.  And who gets caught. [4 stars]

Books read in June, 2013

There are a lot of picture books (6) padding out this list.  It was a great month for picture books–thank you librarian book group–and a big slog of a month for YA fiction.  Three of four YA books I found hard to get through.  But the one I liked is a damn fine example of YA literature.

Read
Tiger in my Soup
Kashmira Sheth & Jeffery Ebbeler
Read for Librarian Book Club
Great story for anyone with siblings. The illustrations are wonderful.

My Father’s Arms are a Boat
Sein Erik Lunde & I.M. Torseter
Read for Librarian Book Club
I loved the art in this; it was stark and beautiful.  The story was sparse and not the usual American picture-book fare. Probably because it’s not American.

The Museum
Susan Verge & Peter H. Reynolds
Read for Librarian Book Club
Very fun.

The Steadfast Tin Soldier
Cythia Ryalnt & Corace
Read for Librarian Book Club
I’ve always been disturbed by this story and this time was no different.

Ash Wednesday
Ethan Hawke
So the problem of being a recognizable actor who has also written a novel is that it’s hard to seperate the screen persona/actor from the main character, especially if the main character occupies the same general demographic as the author.  With Hawke’s first novel, I never successfully separated the two people actor/author and main character, which detracted from my enjoyment of said novel.  In this novel, I spent the first portion picturing Jimmy as Ethan Hawke, but eventually was able to discard this and wrap myself in the story.  Having said all that, I loved the “voice” in this story. It was hard-driving  and descriptive, took no prisoners and just kept rolling along until the end came.

The Summer Prince
Alaya Dawn Johnson
Read for Librarian Book Club
There were a lot of things of interest in this book: futuristic setting; matriarchal society; strange ritual; love affair; art; drama; social commentary.  But somehow, it didn’t hold together for me and I had trouble finishing it.  I think the problem stemmed from the fact I never had a really good picture of the setting. How did that pyramid city work, anyway?  Also, the ritual, which is the crux of the book, was explained in such vague and piecemeal ways it took a long time for me to understand it.  I found “the Aunties” to also be confusing.  There were a lot of them and it was hard to distinguish one from the other, plus they went by different names depending on who they were talking to.  The overall effect for me was a gem of a story glimpsed here and there through muddled execution.

The Different Girl
Gordon Dahlquist
Read for Librarian Book Club
This was one of those books to delight over, rip through and recommend.  It has an astounding opening chapter and the masterful storytelling kept dropping things here and there like breadcrumbs, pulling me along.  The prose was also quite pretty too, sparse and affecting.  Very well done.

A Long Way Away
Frank Viva
Read for Librarian Book Club
When I was little, my mother gave me a small book I could read to the end, flip over and then the last page of the book became the beginning of a new story.  It was delightful, and I’m pretty sure I still have that book kicking around somewhere.  Given my past with forward/backward reading, you won’t be surprised to find that I loved this picture book which can be read from front to back, or back to front.  There’s a lot to look at, making repeated readings necessary.

The Lucy Variations
Sara Zarr
Read for Librarian Book Club
Things I liked:  It was a window into the world of child piano prodigies and it’s been a long time since I’ve read a book with a main character who was very wealthy, which made for a nice change of pace.  Things I didn’t like:  as the novel wore on, I found it hard to care about anything happening and I felt the main dramatic device came too late and too abruptly in the story.

Flora and the Flamingo
Molly Idle
Read for Librarian Book Club
No words and pure delight.

The Whole Stupid Way We Are
N. Griffin
Read for Librarian Book Club
I didn’t like this book, though in discussing it with the book group I was reminded about some rather charming elements of the book that had gotten lost in my annoyance.  So there are good things and the overall feeling by the members in the group was that it was very, very good.

I was initially put off by the huge amount of profanity spoken by the main characters.  However, at about the same time I was reading this book, I also began reading my journals from late junior high and observed that the swearing level in the book was pretty much spot-on.  I had forgotten how much we swore at that time.

I felt like this book was a (too) long, (too) slow build to a climax that was then a brief flash and it was gone.  Aside from that problem, the author also threw in a confusing sentence or two in the last few moments of the book that left me wondering just what happened with one of the characters. This annoyed me too.

Boise Public Library!

There are three things of absolutely no real value that I carry around in my wallet because I can’t bear to let them go.*  This is one of them: my Boise Public Library card I had for the majority of my growing up.
 
It even has the sticker from when I paid $2.00 so I could rent movies from the library.  Also, if you haven’t already noticed, the Boise Public Library is not just a library but a Library!  The library deserves an exclamation point, man, and it got one.  You can read about how it happened here.
 
Book return.  Still looks the same.
 
As you can see, the library cards have changed and now you get a choice.
 
Walking in, I just stood for a bit, taking it all in.  This used to be the YA section.  I read a lot of the YA books.
 
I always loved this painting and was happy to see it in a prominent place.
 
This dragon has been sitting in the children’s section for as long as I can remember.  I can also remember not being able to reach the top shelf.
 
The story time area, which looks exactly the same.
 
On the mural, you can open some of the books and read them.  So very fun when you are five.
 
This corner used to be a separate room where I did a summer reading class.
 
The library has always displayed quilts from the Boise Basin Quilter’s Guild.
 
Here’s today’s summer reading program.
 
They still have an amazing media section.  The last time I was a regular user, they still had some albums, but had mostly moved to CDs.
 
The adult fiction stacks.  Where I found the book Eddie and the Cruisers as well as so many other good reads.
 
Um.  Typo.
 
Still the same!  I love this light fixture.
 
I read the details of the adult summer reading and it is much better than Multnomah County’s Adult Summer Reading program.  Ahem!
 
In High School, I loved to hide in these carrels and do my homework. I pretended I was in college.
 
This is the exact same signage! It has not changed in decades.
 
One thing that has changed.  There are fewer stacks and more banks of computers.
 
The view from up top.
 
Table Rock and the “B.”
I remember being surprised to learn that not everyone grew up in a place with a large white initial overlooking the town.  I was in college when this revelation occurred.  I had to explain to the guy what I was talking about, he had no idea.
 
The upstairs research area where I would sometimes get magazines from the 50s and just glory in every aspect: the size of them, the advertisements, the length of the articles.
 
I needed Internet access and the nice librarian issued me an Internet-only library card, good for one year.  Thanks Boise Public Library!
 
How is it that they have the exact same signage?  I just can’t get over this.
 
At the checkout station is this map of the city.  Once per year you had to verify your address by finding it on the map.
 
The inside book drops.
 
Taking advantage of the free wi-fi and the shade on the side of the building.

*The wallet itself kind of falls into that category. It’s still the exact same chain wallet I bought in 1992. 

Books read in May, 2013

Only four books, two of them picture and two of them YA?  What happened?  Oh wait, the television series Friday Night Lights happened.

Read
A love story starring my dead best friend
Emily Horner
I grabbed this book just for the title and found a great YA story bravely taking on issues of death, sexuality, friendship, musical theater and bicycling.  The main character reminded me a lot of a friend I knew in high school, which probably helped.  Great read.

The Lighting Dreamer
Margarita Engle
Read for librarian book group
The story of nineteenth century Cuban poet Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda told through poems.  Avellaneda was an interesting person, rejecting a lot of conventions of her times, so that made for interesting reading.  I liked the poems in that they were short and accessible, but didn’t find them particularly moving.  Overall, okay.

Grumbles from the Forest
Jane Yolan
Read for librarian book group
Fun concept: two different perspectives of familiar fairy tales in poetry form.  Great illustrations.  So-so poetry.

Hoop Genius
Coy, Morse
Read for librarian book group
The story of how basketball was invented.  I loved the illustrations which reminded me of 1930s Soviet Union propaganda posters (but in a freer style).