Book Review: The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamilla

I am fortunate enough to co-run a book club with Deb Currie with one of her classes. It is so much fun to hear her students and listen to their enthusiasm about books and book choices. 

Last week we were talking about a service (via the public library and available through our website) called Tumblebooks. Tumblebooks has a bunch of picture books, some chapter books and some simple classics.  I thought it was a great place to find books to share with family members over the Thanksgiving weekend. We were excited to discover Nancy Drew books in there. AND there are Kate DiCamillo books as well. I noted that I wanted to read one of her books and was considering this title. Deb Currie encouraged me to get on with it and read it. Her enthusiasm was contagious and I just had to read it. I am so glad that I did. This book has so many elements of fairy tales and offers some of life's greater truths. 

No matter how old you are, this book is fun. 

"Despereaux looked down at the book, and something remarkable happened. The marks on the pages, the "squiggles" as Merlot referred to them, arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time."

Book Review: They Lost Their Heads: What Happened to Washington's Teen, Einstein's Brain, and Other Famous Body Parts / Carlyn Becca

Expect to be amused, grossed out, and astonished by this book that puts death and body parts squarely in the midst of history. 

Did you know that the phrase in Jack and the Beanstalk, "I'll grind his bones to make my bread" refers to the common practice in the 1800s of mixing ground up bones into bread to bulk it up? Yumm!?

Did you know that the reason George Washington looks so puffy in the one dollar bill is because he stuffed his face with cotton while his portrait was being painted due to his caved-in face that was the result of losing so many teeth?

If you want to be guaranteed of having a place to "go" after you die, you might want to be an emperor in the Han Dynasty - their tombs were filled with items they would need in the afterlife including a toilet. 

Check out this book, but be warned - this isn't supper-time reading!

Book Review: How to Stop Time / Matt Haig

 

Tom Hazard was born in  1581 with a weird disorder in which he only ages one year each 15 years. This creates a lot of havoc and some charges of witchcraft. When he loses his mother (she was placed on a ducking stool and drowned while the towns' people were determining if she was a witch. She died which "proved" that she wasn't, though the towns' people didn't believe that.)

Left on his own to figure out how to get by without aging, Tom does the best he can and finds himself falling in love with Rose - but despite moving around, people begin to talk when she ages and he doesn't. This story travels through time, mostly set in the 1500s, the second half of the 1800s, the 1920s and now. How would you live your life if you were Tom? How would aging so slowly change your perspective? And what can we learn from history? Are we destined to relive society's mistakes? 

I borrowed this book from the Nashua Public Library and enjoyed it so much that I have put on hold Matt Haig's next book - The Midnight Library.

Book Review: There There by Tommy Orange

Wow this book offers a lot to think about. There are many characters - with the commonality of Native American blood and the urban experience, specifically Oakland. Standing in each of these character's shoes allows for some empathy for even those characters who are intent on doing bad things. 

Orange wanted people to see a different story about Native people as many of the stories written are either set in the past, or on a Reservation. This is a big story comprised of personal stories that allows the reader to vicariously experience the motivations and inner thoughts of a variety of people and see how those smaller stories come together in a single moment and that leaves the reader wondering about what happens next.

 

Book Review: The Other Way Around / Sashi Kaufman

Andrew has lived through a lot in his young life: many moves, his parents' divorce, and now he is enrolled in a nearly-all-girls school where his mother is headmaster. He feels untethered and isn't doing well. And then he ends up spending the Thanksgiving holiday with his uncle and cousin (who wets Andrew's bed). He has finally had enough and decides he needs to escape to his Mima's house. But plans change when he meets a bunch of old teens at the bus stop and ends up joining them in a road trip filled with camping, dumpster diving, and life lessons.

This is a surprisingly satisfying read - really about growing up, finding perspective, and learning about life. This is about traveling across the USA in a van and encountering unexpected experiences. It is also about love - all kinds of love - that of friendship, that of romance, and love of family. Finally, there is the process of looking toward one's future. 

So many books about teens who are on their own center either on boarding school or some kind of Lord-of-the-Flies island. This is a refreshing change.