Wild Things

by Clay Carmichael
ages: 10+
First sentence: "Humans were diggers and buriers, the cat thought, like dogs."
Review copy provided by the publisher.
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It's a familiar story: girl -- who has been forced, because of a crazy and neglectful mother, to mostly raise herself -- finds, after her mother's untimely death, herself under the guardianship of her odd, reclusive uncle. It's an uneasy relationship; neither girl or uncle, for their own reasons, are quite ready for other people in their lives. Over the short months in the book, they grow, they stretch and yes, they change.

But as Fuse #8 pointed out in her review, this is not a coming-of-age story. It's a story of wildness and freedom. Of love and trust. Of art and beauty. And about finding everything in a broken life.

And familiar though it is, Carmichael makes this story soar.

One of the reasons that this books works so well, is because, although it's familiar, it's not stereotypical. It's not the Carmichael makes them do the unexpected, it's that she breathes life into the familiarity and makes the characters real. Perhaps it's the chapters from the cat's perspective that makes it unusual enough, or perhaps it's because there's so many characters to love: from Zoe, wise beyond her years, but a total spitfire about it; her Uncle Henry, who reminded me strongly of a good friend, cranky, disillusioned, yet with great capacity to love; to Bessie, broken in the heart, but is not defined by her illness; and the Padre, the local priest with a loving and tolerant heart. Or the minor characters, who had me giggling and and smiling and loving every minute of it.

The other reason is that Carmichael holds the book together with a motif -- something that could backfire, if she had gotten preachy about it. Too often, it's easy to fall into the mundane with something as familiar as love, or the affairs of the heart. But, while the motif there and, yes, it's obvious, it doesn't overwhelm the plot or the characters or the simple beauty of the writing. Carmichael takes the motif, weaves it into the book and makes it work with the story instead of letting it overwhelm it.

It's not much to hang a book on: familiar characters and plot and a motif, but it's genuine and heartfelt. A book very much worth reading.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I've been asked to make sure y'all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

Also Known as Harper

by Ann Haywood Leal
ages: 10+
First sentence: "Winnie Rae Early followed ten steps behind me the entire way home from school."
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Eleven-year-old Harper Lee Morgan loves to write poetry. It's possibly fate -- her mother named her after the author, after all -- but she thinks it's more that she just has words bubbling up inside her that need to come out. And come out they do: her short, observant, often touching poems are interspersed throughout the book.

Some people like things shiny and crisp
But I tend to like the things with the scraped up edges.
That way I can tell other people have liked them too.
They've torn them and spilled on them
or broken off a corner or two
As they went about the important business
Of their day.
Something smooth and straight and new
Has an emptiness about it
Because it hasn't been important
To anyone yet.

Because her life is full of fodder for poems. See, her Daddy took to drinking and eventually took off for good, leaving her Mamma, herself, and her little brother Hemingway with too many bills and too little money. Eventually, the family gets evicted from their home, and things go from bad to worse, as the family moves to a motel and eventually is kicked out on to the streets.

The word is overused, but this really is a poignant little book: Haper's full of spunk and spittle, anger and love, hope and disillusionment. The world that she and Hemingway encounter is a harsh one, but it's not black and white: Leal paints a gray picture. No one is "good", no one is "bad", and even the looming idea of social workers coming after them because they aren't in school isn't inherently evil. It's a world where no one is exactly what they seem -- whether it be someone who appears to be homeless, or the next door neighbor girl who is as mean as they come. It's a world where literature -- To Kill a Mockingbird, specifically -- provides hope, escape and a place of refuge.

It also provides a glimpse into the plight of the homeless, but does so without being preachy, which isn't an easy balance to achieve. Above all, it's a good story about a girl -- a family -- just trying to find a way to make it all work.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I've been asked to make sure y'all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

Library Loot #45

Um... it's not bigger. It's smaller. On the upside, I'm getting a lot more books in the mail, thanks to the Cybils.

For A/K:
Dora's Book of Words / Libro de Palabras de Dora : A Bilingual Pull-Tab Adventure!
Waiting for Winter, by Sebastian Meschenmoser
Two at the Zoo, by Danna Smith/Illus. by Valeria Petrone
One Fine Trade, retold by Bobbi Miller/Illus. by Will Hillenbrand
Eliot Jones, Midnight Superhero, by Anne Cottringer/Illus. by Alex T. Smith
Catfish Kate and the Sweet Swamp Band, by Sarah Weeks/Illus by Elwood H. Smith
The Last Polar Bear, by Jean Craighead George/Illus. by Wendell Minor

For C/me:
Outlaw Princess of Sherwood A Tale of Rowan Hood, by Nancy Springer
The Last Invisible Boy, by Evan Kuhlman

The roundup is either at Reading Adventures or A Striped Armchair. Obligatory FTC note: the links are provided through my Amazon Associates account. If you click through and actually purchase one of these books, I'll get a teeny, tiny payment. But, since no one ever does, and it's SO much easier using the associates account to put up these links, I'm going to keep doing it.

*Ones that M eventually read.
**Picture books we really liked.

A Season of Gifts

by Richard Peck
ages: 9-12
First sentence: "You could see from here the house was haunted."
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I'm not a big Richard Peck fan. Sure, I've read his other Grandma Dowdel books, but while I think I found them charming, I think that's about all I found them to be. Not exactly thrilling or touching or even memorable.

That said, I really wanted to love this one. Perhaps it's because it's that time of year, and it's vaguely a Christmas book. Perhaps it's because I've heard so much good about Peck over the years that I wanted to see if I could figure out what I was missing.

It was a good book: charming, like I remember the others being; funny at times, poignant at others. It's full of fun and interesting and mildly skanky characters; historical details from the 1950s, from Elvis going into the Army to the Russian scare. There's a lovely, hilarious Christmas program and an overall moral to the story. There's bullies and new friends, there's adjusting to small town life by our narrator, Bobby, one of the new Methodist parson's kids. Yet -- like so often when you have expectations from a book -- there was something missing. Something to make the book soar. Becky has more thoughts on that -- and she hit upon much of what I was feeling.

Perhaps some of Peck's other books are better?

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I've been asked to make sure y'all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

Fifth Business

by Roberston Davies
ages: adult
First sentence: "My lifelong involvement with Mrs. Dempster began at 5:58 o'clock p.m. on the 27th of December, 1908, at which time I was ten years and seven months old."
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I first became aware of this trilogy several years ago when Julie at On the Curve (Back then she was Bookworm...) told me I HAD to read it. I started it, once, got nearly a third of the way in, and then abandoned it because life got in the way.

Thankfully, my online book group chose it for this month's book, and I was able to sit down to thoroughly enjoy this book.

The first in a trilogy (I will read the other two... later...), Fifth Business is the personal history of Dunstan Ramsey: historian, scholar, Deptford boy. He's also a friend to Boy Staunton, recently murdered. The history seems almost pointless, aimless in its endeavor: why does Dunstan's connection with Mrs. Dempster -- the woman of the first sentence, and a fairly major presence for much of Dunstan's life -- matter in the ultimate rise and fall in the plot? I found that it didn't matter: Dunstan's story, mundane as it was, was immensely fascinating. The writing was at once elegant and accessible: Davies didn't go in for the long, flowery, overwrought descriptions that seem to plague many authors, instead choosing a first-person narrative that drew you in with simple, yet evocative language.

It was also surprisingly religious. I think I was expecting something more along the lines of the fantastical: magical realism and all that. What I got was an introspective, philosophical work about faith, doubt, and life's purpose. Dunstan's fascination with saints, his discussions with the Jesuit priest about a God to help him grow old; all incredibly fascinating, yet somehow didn't have much to do with the plot.

I wonder -- and this is why I'll eventually get around to reading the other two -- how the story all plays out, because this book felt very much like a beginning. While there was a story arc, the plot, the mystery, didn't kick in until near the very end of the book. Which makes me wonder in what direction the other two books -- The Manticore and World of Wonders -- takes the plot.

At any rate, Julie (if you're still out there), you're right: Davies is a brilliant writer, and this book is definitely worth the time. I'm just sorry it took me so long to get around to it.