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‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

MockingbirdBy: Harper Lee
Year: 1960
Genre: Fiction

Find this book on Amazon.com

Sometimes you read a book when you’re younger and it’s one of the best books ever. You spend several (okay, several several) years telling people that it is one of the best books of all time. Then you decide to read the book again. What? How could that book you loved not really be that good?

“To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee is not that book.

After so many years, this book is better than I remember. “To Kill a Mockingbird” takes place over several years in the South during the early 1930s. The story is told from the point-of-view of Scout, the daughter of the town lawyer. We follow Scout through the first day of school, summers playing with her brother Jem and neighbor Dil, town relations, a rabid dog, trying to get a view of mysterious neighbor “Boo” and, of course, racism.

The turning point in this book is just over half-way through the novel. Scout’s father, Atticus Finch (who she refers to by his first name, not “dad” or “father”), has been selected as the public defender of a young black man accused of raping a poor white woman. This is a sensational trial and Atticus defends the young man to the best of his ability. Lee is very good at making sure we see the entire story through Scout’s eyes. When Scout is asked to leave the courtroom during the trial, readers never know what happened during that time. It’s refreshing to read a first-person novel that is truly first person, not first person with the all-knowing-story-filler additions.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” is really divided into three sections: Life before the trial, life during the trial and life after the trial. Things are so much different in town before and after the trial and we witness Scout’s changing understanding of the world through this event. She is forced to grow up in ways that aren’t always explained to her.

According to my internet searching on this book, Harper Lee wrote the character of Atticus loosely based on her own father. As an adult reading this story, I realize this book is a love letter to Lee’s father. The rape trial is the center (and turning point) of the story, but it doesn’t come until well after the halfway-mark of the novel. Prior to that, Lee shares with us a series of seemingly-unrelated events in Scout’s life. I now realize those stories are not unrelated or unimportant. They are instead creating an image of Atticus Finch as an honorable and honest lawyer who happens to be a single father of two very intelligent children. We need to know what kind of person Atticus is before he is assigned the rape case and we need to know what kind of person he is as he and his children live in the aftermath of the verdict. Atticus Finch is truly a hero.

This book is part of my summer reading list (here). Fifty years after it’s publication, “To Kill a Mockingbird” is still on the challenged book list of local libraries today. Why? According to the American Library Association, this book is challenged because of language and racism. Of course it has racism … that’s what this book is about. It is a difficult book to read and not one that I will probably hand to my 10-year-old daughters. But I hope my ninth-grade-son reads it (sooner rather than later). We should be made uncomfortable by aspects of this country’s history. And we should be asked to consider how much different things really are now.

Since getting my library card, I’ve been very stingy on how I spend my money on books. This is one that I will be purchasing and one that I will not be waiting so many years between readings.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars (Excuse me, but why are you still reading this and not getting this book right now?)

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‘The Devil’s Arithmetic’

Monday, February 15th, 2010

By: Jane Yolen
Year: 1988
Genre: Teen

Find this book at Amazon.com

One day, I was looking at my daughter’s spelling list. The words were difficult so I asked my sweet little fourth grader about the list. It turns out, the words were from the book she is reading in school; a book called “The Devil’s Arithmetic.” With a name like that, I had to find out more.

Hannah (the main character, not my daughter), is a 12-year-old girl who is unwillingly going to her grandparent’s house for the Passover seder meal. It’s not cool and she doesn’t like these rituals that don’t really mean anything to her. She doesn’t like remembering things she doesn’t know. Hannah especially doesn’t like spending time with her grandfather. You see, when she was little, she used a pen to write numbers on her arm like the numbers her grandfather has on his. She thought it was something he’d like. Instead, he got angry and started yelling at her in Yiddish. No one has ever explained to Hannah what these numbers were for and why he was angry.

At the seder meal, Hannah is selected to open the door for the prophet Elijah. When she opens the door, Hannah expects to see the apartment across the hall. Instead, she finds herself transported to Poland during World War II. As a member of the Jewish community, Hannah is on her way to a wedding in another village when the villagers encounter the Nazis. All of the villagers are taken, via a terrible four-day train trip, to a concentration camp where Hannah eventually learns what the numbers mean and what her grandfather lived through.

Even though this book is for younger readers than I am, I couldn’t put it down. I read this book in one day last week and STILL find myself thinking about it. Yolen tells a moving story for younger readers (reviews I’ve read had all ages from late-elementary through high school having to read this book for school assignments) but I’m pretty sure adult readers would be moved as well. Yolen doesn’t pull any punches. The camps are not rainbows and butterflies. Children die. They are shamed and beaten. The fear is palpable and Hannah must try to survive. An especially difficult task since she paid attention in school and knows what is going to happen in the camps and to the Jewish prisoners.

This is a moving story and it is well written. Of course there are a lot of movies and literature—both fiction and non-fiction—around experiences from the Holocaust. This book doesn’t share a new story about Jewish experiences in concentration camps. But it is so well written and so well written for children and teens, that you can’t help but feel the horror and fear as Hannah experiences it. To me, that is the mark of an exceptional book. This book is a must-read  and I’m trying to convince my other daughter to read this as well (We’ll see, so far she is waffling).

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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‘Odd and the Frost Giants’

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

By: Neil Gaiman
Year: 2009
Genre: Children

Find this book at Amazon.com

If you have ever read any of Neil Gaiman’s adult novels, you would know that he has a fondness for mixing mythology and modern times. In “American Gods” Gaiman weaves the story around the battle between old European gods brought to America by immigrants with the new American “gods” such as the internet, media and technology. In “Anansi Boys” the story follows a sensible British man dealing with the death of his father (who he finds to be the trickster character from African mythology). “Odd and the Frost Giants” brings that love of mythology to a younger audience.

Odd is a young Norse boy in the age of plundering Vikings (not the kind who lose the playoffs). His father has died and his mother—who was pillaged from a Viking trek by Odd’s father—has remarried a man who doesn’t like Odd. Odd himself broke his leg when he was younger and has trouble walking. In the midst of a winter that has gone on far too long, Odd leaves home. What he finds are a bear, eagle and fox who claim to be Norse gods who have been thrown out of Asgard by the Frost Giants who keep the world in perpetual winter. Odd decides to come to their aid and get them home.

This is a very short book. Much shorter than Gaiman’s previous children’s novels “Coraline” and “The Graveyard Book” and not nearly as dark or creepy. It is well written and interesting. It’s just very short. It was originally written for Wold Book Day in the UK in which authors write a book for free, publishers publish the book for free and those new books are sold for £1 tokens which the children are given for free (Gaiman writes about it here. Wish they’d do something like that in America!). This book wasn’t originally available in the US. Thankfully, it is now. While I certainly paid more than a few dollars for this book ($10 through Amazon.com), it is a beautiful, hardcover edition with illustrations.

Right now, one of my nine-year-old daughters has taken the book to read and I believe she will like this a lot. There isn’t anything too graphic in this story (heck, the book is too short for that!) and while Odd’s mother was indeed pillaged, there are no violent specifics of what pillaging really was. If you’re children have read “Coraline” or “The Graveyard Book,” then “Odd and the Frost Giants” will be a piece of cake.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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‘Artemis Fowl’

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

By: Eoin Colfer
Year: 2001
Genre:  Teen

Amazon.com summary:

Eoin Colfer describes his new book, Artemis Fowl, as “Die Hard with fairies.” He’s not far wrong.

Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is the most ingenious criminal mastermind in history. With two trusty sidekicks in tow, he hatches a cunning plot to divest the fairyfolk of their pot of gold. Of course, he isn’t foolish enough to believe in all that “gold at the end of the rainbow” nonsense. Rather, he knows that the only way to separate the little people from their stash is to kidnap one of them and wait for the ransom to arrive. But when the time comes to put his plan into action, he doesn’t count on the appearance of the extrasmall, pointy-eared Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaisance) Unit—and her senior officer, Commander Root, a man (sorry, elf) who will stop at nothing to get her back.

Fantastic stuff from beginning to end, Artemis Fowl is a rip-roaring, 21st-century romp of the highest order. The author has let his imagination run riot by combining folklore, fantasy, and a fistful of high-tech funk in an outrageously devilish book that could well do for fairies what Harry Potter has done for wizardry. But be warned: this is no gentle frolic, so don’t be fooled by the fairy subject matter. Instead, what we have here is well-written, sophisticated, rough ‘n’ tumble storytelling with enough high-octane attitude to make it a seriously cool read for anyone over the age of 10. –Susan Harrison

I can hear it now—”‘Die Hard’ with fairies? Yeah, right.” But you know what, I think it’s true. This book is wonderful and fun. The main character is a little snot: He’s a brilliant, he’s got a specially trained bodyguard/butler and he’s a little bit wicked.

When I picked up this book, I was tired of random sex, violence and swearing in cheap paperbacks. I don’t mind those things, as long as they are organic to the plot. But authors now are including graphic sex because it’s expected. Characters are swearing because it makes them “gritty” not because their character would use the F-word at the start and end of every exposition. I turned to young adult novels to get away from the “just because” features of adult novels.

This is a great read. Currently my son is reading this book (after I’ve been on him for years to read it!) and he loves it. It is fun, it is creative and it is a pretty fast read. I have great respect for an author who can take a silly little idea—a world where fairies still exist, centaurs are smarter then the offspring of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and LEPrecon isn’t a little guy in a jaunty hat but a group of highly trained fairies who help hide the fact that creatures like this still exist—and write a compelling, believable novel. Colfer most certainly accomplished this. What I found truly wonderful was Colfer’s ability to make Artmis a wicked, young middle-schooler that you end up cheering for by the end.

There isn’t a whole lot redeeming about Artemis, but you will find yourself sucked into this world and then wanting to read more. Thankfully, there are more books and unlike other long-running series I’ve stuck it out with, so far I haven’t been disappointed with any of the Artemis Fowl books. The nice thing is, you can enjoy this with the kids in your life, too.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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‘Crazy Talk: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms’

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

By: Rolf A. Jacobson, Editor
Year: 2008
Genre: Religion & Spirituality

Amazon.com summary:

So much theology is confusing and intimidating. The concepts themselves are given weighty-sounding names, such as incarnation and justification, and the explanations of the concepts sometimes can be more confusing than the names.

Captivating, entertaining, and highly informative, Crazy Talk helps readers navigate their way through that complexity and offers a vocabulary that dares—and equips!—its readers to embrace their own faith in a new, well-informed way.

The purpose of Crazy Talk, says author Rolf Jacobson, is to render the heart of our Christian theology in a form that is accessible and appealing to everyone. The format of the book is similar to that of a dictionary of theological terms—but with a twist of humor! Each entry includes the name of the theological term, an ironic definition of the term, and a short humorous essay offering a fuller explanation of the term. In making the term understandable, Jacobson concentrates on the big theological issue that is at stake in the term – and why it matters. Includes over 50 black and white illustrations.

Okay, well, I’m a little behind on new book reading because this reading for class is killing me! So I’m going through my bookshelf to offer some of my favorite books for your reading pleasure!

In the interest of full disclosure, editor Rolf Jacobson is one of the professors at Luther Seminary. I took a class from him last spring. This book is fantastic on it’s own, though. Jacobson and his crew are funny and irreverent (and in case you haven’t figured it out, I love irreverent). I use this book a lot in my personal life and in my ministry work. This is the kind of book you pick up, read a couple entries and set it down. You will laugh out loud and—gasp—learn a little something about theology.

There is no doubt this book has a Lutheran bent to the definitions, especially since Jacobson is an ordained pastor in the ELCA and the other authors are his students (who I believe became pastors in the ELCA). But for those who are not Lutherans, this is still an entertaining way to learn some of the terminology that the religiously-learned like to toss around (justification, sanctification, rapture and anticrist) without clearly explaining. It’s also a good book for those who may not have their own beliefs in God. If you really want to understand what you don’t believe in, read up on it. And if you’re reading up on it, you might as well be laughing while you do so.

I’ve actually ended up purchasing three copies of this book. I bought two, one for me and one to give to a friend of my mom’s. But the copy I bought for myself disappeared and it was a while before I realized it had been snatched by my mom. So I had to buy a third copy. But it was worth it and I suggest finding a copy for yourself.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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‘Coraline’

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

By: Neil Gaiman
Year: 2002
Genre: Children

Amazon.com summary:

Coraline lives with her preoccupied parents in part of a huge old house–a house so huge that other people live in it, too… round, old former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their aging Highland terriers (”We trod the boards, luvvy”) and the mustachioed old man under the roof (”‘The reason you cannot see the mouse circus,’ said the man upstairs, ‘is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed.’”) Coraline contents herself for weeks with exploring the vast garden and grounds. But with a little rain she becomes bored—so bored that she begins to count everything blue (153), the windows (21), and the doors (14). And it is the 14th door that–sometimes blocked with a wall of bricks—opens up for Coraline into an entirely alternate universe. Now, if you’re thinking fondly of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, you’re on the wrong track. Neil Gaiman’s Coraline is far darker, far stranger, playing on our deepest fears. And, like Roald Dahl’s work, it is delicious.

What’s on the other side of the door? A distorted-mirror world, containing presumably everything Coraline has ever dreamed of… people who pronounce her name correctly (not “Caroline”), delicious meals (not like her father’s overblown “recipes”), an unusually pink and green bedroom (not like her dull one), and plenty of horrible (very un-boring) marvels, like a man made out of live rats. The creepiest part, however, is her mirrored parents, her “other mother” and her “other father”—people who look just like her own parents, but with big, shiny, black button eyes, paper-white skin… and a keen desire to keep her on their side of the door. To make creepy creepier, Coraline has been illustrated masterfully in scritchy, terrifying ink drawings by British mixed-media artist and Sandman cover illustrator Dave McKean. This delightful, funny, haunting, scary as heck, fairy-tale novel is about as fine as they come. Highly recommended. (Ages 11 and older) —Karin Snelson

I found this book years ago, long before it became popular and long before it was made into the fantastically beautiful and creepy summer movie. I LOVED it at first reading. It was weird. It was creepy. It was a children’s book! Neil Gaiman shows that children can appreciate the creepy just as well as adults.

This was my first entry into the world of Neil Gaiman. It actually wasn’t until several years later that I picked up a paperback by some author and really liked it that I even realized they were by the same author. While I just can’t get into his original works, the Sandman series of graphic novels, Gaiman has become my favorite author. His stories are creepy, quirky and a little absurd. If I had the chance to meet him, I would just giggle like a school girl and blush while handing him a book to sign. My witty repartee would sound something like, “Eeep.”. Yeah, my daughters have the Jonas Brothers, I have Neil Gaiman.

Okay, let’s get off the freaky fan train and back to the book review. Coraline is a smart, sassy young woman. I think she’s probably late elementary/early middle school-aged. Her parents have work to do and have just moved into a new house with no other children Coraline’s age. So she goes exploring eventually to find a world that is exactly as she wants and where everyone’s focus is solely on her. But something is not quite right in this other house.

This is a scary book. Not slasher-horror movie scary, but it is scary. And not everyone likes it. My son read the book for the first time a few years ago. He loved it. My daughters read the book in their classes last year (3rd grade) and loved it (and I turned Zoe’s teacher on to Gaiman and created another fan!). My brother-in-law (an elementary school teacher) couldn’t read past the first few pages. He, obviously, did not love it. Like my previous review of “The Graveyard Book,” young kids should read this with an adult. While this is called a “children’s book” it is not for little kids.

And if you haven’t seen the movie, I recommend that as well! The director (who also directed The Nightmare Before Christmas) captures the creepiness of the book. Usually I don’t love movies that have been adapted from novels, but this one was great (even with some minor non-main plot changes). It was also beautifully done. Even if you don’t like the book, the movie is just amazing to watch (just ask my husband who doesn’t have the same great taste in fiction as I do).

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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‘The Graveyard Book’

Friday, August 21st, 2009

By: Neil Gaiman
Year: 2008
Genre: Children (older elementary)

Amazon.com summary:

In The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman has created a charming allegory of childhood. Although the book opens with a scary scene—a family is stabbed to death by “a man named Jack”—the story quickly moves into more child-friendly storytelling. The sole survivor of the attack—an 18-month-old baby—escapes his crib and his house, and toddles to a nearby graveyard. Quickly recognizing that the baby is orphaned, the graveyard’s ghostly residents adopt him, name him Nobody (”Bod”), and allow him to live in their tomb. Taking inspiration from Kipling’s The Jungle Book, Gaiman describes how the toddler navigates among the headstones, asking a lot of questions and picking up the tricks of the living and the dead. In serial-like episodes, the story follows Bod’s progress as he grows from baby to teen, learning life’s lessons amid a cadre of the long-dead, ghouls, witches, intermittent human interlopers. A pallid, nocturnal guardian named Silas ensures that Bod receives food, books, and anything else he might need from the human world. Whenever the boy strays from his usual play among the headstones, he finds new dangers, learns his limitations and strengths, and acquires the skills he needs to survive within the confines of the graveyard and in wider world beyond.  —Heidi Broadhead

Neil Gaiman is my favorite author (although I haven’t read the graphic novels—Sandman—that he is most famous for). He is a British author with a wicked sense of humor. Several of his books have been made into movies (ha ha, not going to say which ones in this entry because I want to review those, too!). His are the books I read over and over.

“The Graveyard Book” is his second major work aimed at the late-elementary age. It begins with a pretty brutal murder of a family (though NOT described in detail). The sole-survivor is a toddler who’s curiosity led him out of the house before he was found. He toddles to a nearby cemetery where he is adopted by a couple who happens to be dead. This keeps him safe from the man trying to kill him (”Jack”). The book follows the boy, eventually named “Bod” (short for “Nobody”), as he grows up and has to deal with being a living human with only dead friends and family. He experiences life outside the cemetery, but it never works out the way Bod expects because the rules of living in a cemetery are not the same as living in the, well, living world.

I enjoy reading Gaiman because his books flow well and deal with the absurd-while-still-supernatural in the real world. His main characters are usually quite flawed but still relatable and likable. This book is no different. I read it very quickly, partially because it is a short, easy-to-read book. With “The Graveyard Book”, Gaiman collaborates with his long-time-partner, illustrator Dave McKean (Gaiman wrote and McKean designed and directed the 2005 movie, MirroMask. This is a great movie if you’re looking for something visually stunning and quite a bit different). I like these images because they give you a feel for the characters and surroundings, but don’t in anyway compromise the reader’s own imagination.

“The Graveyard Book” isn’t for everyone. His first elementary book, “Coraline” (okay, I gave you one of the books-into-movies) is loved by my children. They have all read it multiple times, including in school. I loaned “The Graveyard Book” to one of my daughter’s third grade teachers and she loved it. I loaned “Coraline” to my elementary school teacher brother-in-law and he couldn’t get past the first couple pages. Gaiman is a one of those authors you either really like or just don’t get. I, obviously, really like him!

There are some scary parts (creepy scary, not bloody scary) and some unsavory characters. Older elementary age (third and up) should have no problems. While this might be an okay book to read to younger kids, I would suggest reading it together to talk about some of the scary things.

As a side note, rumor has it that Gaiman lives not-to-far out of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. He is the only author I would LOVE (love love love) to meet and get an autograph from. So if you run into him, could you send him to my blog?

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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