Puss Reboots: A Book Review a Day

Review: Life As We Knew It

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:15:00 PST

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer is the first of The Last Survivors series in which the moon is knocked closer to Earth, forever changing the environment of the planet through higher, more erratic tides, volcanoes and intense storms.

The first book is told in first person journal entries over the course of a year by a sophomore named Miranda. She lives in semi-rural Pennsylvania, sheltered from the rising seas and raging volcanoes. She does, though, have to contend with a harsh winter, made worse by ash blocking the sun, no electricity, no heating oil and dwindling food supplies.

Miranda's very personal story — that of her family and the growing isolation from the rest of the world, then the country, the state, and finally the town until it seems its just Miranda, her mother and brothers, feels real. There's true human drama here. It does, though, take a sizable suspension of disbelief to accept the reason behind the sudden change in things.

My other small complaint is in the narration. The actress reading the book for the audio puts everything — every event good, bad or indifferent in the same perky voice. It's Miranda's birthday and she's happy! Miranda's life is on the line and by gum she still sounds happy! Miranda is bored out of her mind and yup, she still sounds happy!

Four stars

Review: Listening Woman

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:31:00 PST

Listening Woman by Tony Hillerman and performed by George Guidall is the third of the Navajo Mysteries series. Jim Chee still hasn't made an appearance, so it's all left to Joe Leaphorn to do the investigating.

As many of the other reviews note, there's a certain formula to Hillerman's mysteries. First, there's a horrific crime that could have extra significance in the context of Navajo culture — something that would be missed by anyone unfamiliar with the Diné. Then there's the investigation in which Joe (and later Jim) try to find the balancing point between the Navajo spiritual solution and a more mundane one.

In the case of Listening Woman, the book opens with a gruesome murder of an elderly man and a teenage girl. The Diné elder, a blind woman known as Listening Woman, hears the crime and describes the crime in terms of witches and other evil spirits.

Joe's investigation brings together events at a trading post that are a hundred years old, a pair of brothers — one now a priest — and the other a traditional Navajo. There is also a lot of talk of history at a local trading post — and I recommend you read Kurt W.G. Matthies's review as he goes into the historical significance of these passages in fascinating detail.

For me, though, the mystery is always of secondary concern for me in Hillerman's books. I get so caught up in Leaphorn (and Chee's) observations and the nuances of Diné culture and language that I often lose track of the plot. That is especially true when I'm listening to the audio books. For instance, in the case of the trading post, I mostly remember Leaphorn's thoughts on a man's hat and missing hatband. The significance of the missing hat and the man's physical features that mark him as a Diné from a different region, has stuck with me more so than how those observations were clues in solving the crime.

Four stars

Review: The Burning Wire

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:07:00 PST

The Burning Wire by Jeffery Deaver is the 9th of the Lincoln Rhyme mysteries and the first one I've attempted to read. Rather, let me say, listen to. I borrowed the audio book from a friend. His tastes and mine usual match up but couldn't be farther from the case here.

The book opens in a control room where the power grid in and out New York City is being monitored. One after another substations begin to fail, leaving the last one up and running and threatening to overheat. The man in charge there has the option to go for a rolling blackout and chickens out. Instead he calls the CEO who for reasons that only serve the plot but don't otherwise make sense (unless he was paying of the bad guy under the table) orders the power be kept on. Then there's an arc flash and a man getting onto a bus is killed.

But mixed in with that plot, there's a whole bunch of repeated details. Just imagine a 1950s film strip announcer proclaiming: BEHOLD THE POWER OF ELECTRICITY. Then imagine Sergeant Friday pontificating about the ways of forensics, and you'll get a feel for the investigative side of the book.

Either or both of those problems, I might have been able to deal with. The final detail, though, that made me give up after four discs of a twelve disc book was the narrator. There are actual audible YAWNS at the start of sentences. If the person PAID to read the book is bored, what does that say about the book?

One star

Review: The Mummy Case

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:17:00 PST

The Mummy Case by Elizabeth Peters is the third of the Amelia Peabody series. It's the 1894-5 season in Egypt and she, her husband and their young son, "Ramses" are back. They had wanted the pyramids at Dashoor but poor planning on Radcliffe Emerson's part and his lack of social tact has relegated the Emerson crew to Mazghunah.

It also happens to be my third time reading the book. The first and second times I read the book, I did so in print form. In both cases, while I loved the location (even if Peabody didn't), I absolutely wanted to strangle her overly precious and lisping son. This third time, I am listening to the books in order on audio, as performed by Barbara Rosenblat. I'm listening to them specifically for her performances.

So, that brings me back to Ramses. Except for Goldie's teenage son, Arch, I haven't heard Rosenblat do a child's vice. I certainly haven't heard her do one as young as Ramses is these earliest books. As The Mummy Case is the first one where the Emerson spawn has a major part to play. Well, she pulls it off — well enough to make Ramses an almost plausible and almost likable character.

Back to Mazhunah — the Emersons are working out of the ruins of an old Coptic monastery. It's also a reminder of the religious turf wars going on in the nearby village between the Copts, the Muslims and now Fundamentalist missionaries from the United States (shudder). In all this back and forth between the religious leaders is a shell game involving mummy cases and bits of Coptic papyri.

There's a bunch of other stuff too — a lion cub, fires and the first appearance of the "Master Criminal" who is the second most annoying character in the series. Yet — it's all good in audio. It makes for an entertaining and somewhat cornball radio play.

Four stars

Review: People of Darkness

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 18 May 2013 15:41:00 PST

People of Darkness by Tony Hillerman is the fourth of the Navajo mysteries and the introduction of Jim Chee. Chee is hired as a private consultant to figure out who stole the apparently worthless rocks left in a wealthy man's box. Meanwhile, Leaphorn is curious about an old mining disaster that now seems to be connected with a spate of cancer deaths. In the middle of all of this, there's a man driven mad by his desire for revenge.

Hillerman's mysteries seem to bring together the old and the new, especially after the introduction of Jim Chee. As the younger of the two he gets the active cases — though usually as an officer of the Navajo Police. Joe Leaphorn, gets the gossip and cold cases and through patience, and the willingness to sit through many a long story, is able to see how the gossip fits together and (often) relates to the modern day case at hand.

People of Darkness was one of those rare Hillerman books where I was on the same page with Leaphorn. Usually I'm more of a Jim Chee person and I fail to see the big picture as it is unfolding before me. This time, though, I began to see how everything fit together in one of Leaphorn's earliest meetings to hear about the mining disaster and the belief that witchcraft was behind the cancer taking the survivors one by one.

Even though I saw how it fit all together, I still enjoyed the mystery. I listened to it on audio, performed by George Guidall. He has the perfect voice for these books.

Five stars

Review: Beyond the Grave (39 Clues, #4):

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:55:00 PST

Beyond the Grave by Jude Watson is the 4th of the original 39 Clues series. It takes the Cahill siblings to Egypt — first to Cairo and then along the Nile to historical points of interest.

Book four breaks with the format of having two countries to visit, to focus more generally on both the history of ancient Egypt as well as the development of Egyptology starting with Napoleon's explorations into Egypt.

As Amy and Dan learn about Egypt, they get a glimpse into the life and times of their grandmother. Although most of the other families aren't in this book, there are still some hair-raising scenes, including one in a submarine.

Four stars

Review: The Curse of the Pharaohs

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:25:00 PST

The Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters was published six years after The Crocodile on the Sandbank and takes place five years after the events described therein.

In those five years, Amelia and Radcliffe have gotten married and had their one child — a precocious (and sometimes strangle worthy) son, Walter Peabody "Ramses" Emerson. In this book, thankfully, he's still in his infancy and toddlerdom, and unable to travel with his folks when they are called back to Egypt to finish the work of the late Lord Baskerville.

After a lengthy introduction, highlighting the Emersons trying to live a domestic life in Kent, the book moves to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. Along with the tomb with its unusual construction and long sprung booby-traps, the Emersons take on an odd cast of characters — a morbidly obese psychic who claims to be Emerson's lover from a previous lifetime (think a plot borrowed from The Mummy), a reporter who has invented a curse, a photographer with a big secret, a wealthy American, the psychic's meek daughter and an Egyptian mau, who is probably the most sensible character in the lot.

For anyone who as read The Laughter of Dead Kings, the last of the Vicky Bliss novels, will recognize the setting. In that novel, Vicky, unknowingly, retraces Amelia's footsteps. For me, this connection between the two series was the most fun part of the mystery.

As this was also a re-read via Barbara Rosenblat's audio performance, I already knew who had done it and why. It didn't matter. It was a fun re-read.

Four stars

Review: Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 15 May 2013 22:32:00 PST

Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains by Laurel Snyder is is the tale of an unlikely friendship between a farmer's daughter, Lucy, and a prince, Wynston. When King Desmond insists his son spend his time learning how to be a proper prince, Lucy decides it's high time to find her missing mother.

It takes a while for the adventure part of the book to get underway. The initial set up of the kingdom and the characters has a similar feel to A Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo.

The trips up and down the mountain (one each for Lucy and Wyston) are the best parts of the book. Lucy's traveling companions are unusual and utterly charming. The mountain itself has some remarkable features and memorable inhabitants.

But the book just doesn't gel as well as Penny Dreadful. I would however love to re-visit the characters, especially with the unique compromise the king and Lucy's father make to accommodate their children's wishes.

Three stars

Review: Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:42:00 PST

Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure by Michael Chabon is self described in the Afterword as "Jews with swords!" It's set in the 10 century and if you care to slog through the H. Rider Haggard inspired prose, has lots of derring do.

Frankly, beyond the concept of "Jews with swords" and the lovely line drawings that paper the book, I found the book an absolute boring chore to read. It was among the longest 200 pages I've slogged through in a good long while.

The thing is, I didn't buy the friendship between these travelers. The motivation for their travels is obfuscated in excessive wordage that basically comes down to "because I said so."

Two stars

Review: My Friend Is Sad

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 13 May 2013 12:00:00 PST

My Friend Is Sad by Mo Willems is the second of the Elephant and Piggie series for early readers. Gerald is sad and Piggie does everything she can to cheer him up.

This is the book that establishes how strong their friendship is. Piggie dresses up as all number of characters to cheer up Gerald. He does briefly but every time he does, he realizes he wants to share the experience with Piggie. He doesn't, though, realize that it's Piggie doing all these impersonations.

That's another big theme with their friendship — good natured misunderstandings. Piggie and Gerald aren't always on the same page but they often think they are. But they always mean well.

Five stars

Review: Fangbone! Third-Grade Barbarian

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 12 May 2013 12:11:00 PST

Fangbone! Third-Grade Barbarian by Michael Rex is the start of a graphic novel series about a young barbarian sent to Earth to find an army and to keep a magical toe bone safe.

The primitive in the future type story is nothing new. Think of Fangbone as Encino Man or Hercules in New York for the elementary set. Fangbone, though young, is a competent warrior and, oddly, a people person.

Fangbone ends up in modern day, at an elementary school. Since's he's not prepared — doesn't know the culture, can't read, is dressed in fur underwear — he's sent to the special class. Remarkably, he fits right in.

It's a cute book and was nominated for a CYBILS. The artwork is silly — similar to the Lunch Lady or Captain Underpants books. It's also a quick read. There are two more books in the series and I plan to read them.

Four stars

Review: Boy + Bot

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 11 May 2013 15:09:00 PST

Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman, with illustrations by Dan Yaccarino, is another unusual friendship book. A pinecone collecting boy finds a robot in the forest. Though they are very different, they are instant friends.

The robot runs low on charge, so the boy tries to fix it. He tries every home remedy that his mother uses. Then, of course, just as the bot comes to, the boy falls asleep and we get to see the robot home remedies.

It's a cute book and up for a number of awards. But it didn't WOW me like it has other reviewers. It comes down the line after many "something and something" type or "something vs something" books. My favorite of this recent crop is still Shark vs. Train. I didn't think Boy + Bot pushed the envelope as much as it could have.

Review: Bake Sale

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:46:00 PST

Bake Sale by Sara Varon is the story of a pair of friends trying to save up enough money to go to Turkey. Cupcake runs a bakery. Eggplant likes to play in a band. Eggplant has relatives in Turkey, one of whom knows the world famous Turkish Delight — a baking guru that Cupcake would love to meet.

At first it looks like Cupcake, with Eggplant's help, can earn enough extra money in his store to travel with Eggplant to Turkey. But things happen, as they often do, and Cupcake has to work overtime. Responsibilities at the bakery get in the way of playing in the band. Without that time together in band practice, the two friends drift apart.

It's a sweet little story about the sort of bumps friendship go through when responsibilities and commitments get in the way.

The artwork is colorful and engaging. Though designed on real world foods — they are still cute and full of personality. The friendship as unlikely as it seems for an eggplant and a cupcake, it's pulled off here.

Four stars

Review: Little Blog on the Prairie

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:12:00 PST

Little Blog on the Prairie by Cathleen Davitt Bell is about Gen Welsh and her family spending a grueling and frustrating summer living in the "frontier" for their summer vacation. They are forced to compete against other families and are graded on their progress. Meanwhile Gen uses her smuggled in cell phone to micro blog about the experience in texts she sends to a friend.

Gen and her family are a typical tween/YA dysfunctional family thrown into an unusual situation. Their part of the story, while by the books, is rather well told. The few blog posts we get to read from Gen are actually hilarious. Had the entire book been written as a series of texts — such as the internet girls series by Lauren Myracle, or the diary posts from the Georgia Nicholson series by Louise Rennisen, I would have given this book five stars.

Although the book is still told from Gen's first person point of view, it's told not through her writing, but more from an internal dialog. This gives Bell more time to show off how Camp Frontier works and it's in these details that the book falls apart.

The camp is set in rural Wyoming. No problem. Wyoming is still the least densely populated state with 5.1 people per mile (compared to a national average of 79.7) (2010 U.S. Census data). The owners claim that their camp is reproducing life as it was in 1890. It is here — this date — that things fall apart. 1890 is the year that the U.S. census reported the need to draw a frontier line (defined as having a population density of less than 2.2 people per square mile on average) on its maps. Thus the frontier was proclaimed "closed."

Bell in the Afterword credits inspiration for her novel on two things: The Little House on the Prairie television series and PBS's Frontier House. While the Laura Ingalls Wilder books were semi-autobiographic (with details simplified and infant deaths removed), the television series is a far cry from anything close to actual rural life on the American prairie in the 1870s-1880s. Frontier House, while also contrived, was based in an earlier, but legitimately late frontier year — 1883.

One of things the camp owners try to drill into their campers' minds is the importance of self reliance, yet they offer no training (beyond what their daughter offers in an off handed way). The families are told that these were life skills that anyone in 1890 would have. Not necessarily. Those with the means (meaning money) would have hired help in the form of maids or farmhands. Those who didn't want to bother at all with rural life (which were at least two of the families described in the book) would have lived in town.

1890 had a lot more technology than Camp Frontier was either willing to admit or provide: photography, motion pictures, telegraphs, telegrams (Western Union was already 44 years old), telephones (party lines were making it out to rural areas), washing machines (not electric yet), a well established train system (better so than today in some regards) and mail order catalogs. Trains and catalogs made it much easier to import the finer things of city life.

To sum up, then, my biggest complaint with the book is that enough wasn't done to highlight how contrived Camp Frontier was as described. Choosing whether by accident or on purpose the closure of the American frontier as the date to recreate and completely ignoring this piece of history is a HUGE MISSED opportunity.

Three stars

Review: Let's Go for a Drive

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:02:00 PST

Let's Go for a Drive by Mo Willems is the eighteenth Elephant and Piggie book. It's also one of my favorites. I know it seems like I say that about each and every one, but this time I really mean it.

Gerald and Piggie decide it's time to go for a drive. They're very thorough and go through all the items on their list for a successful drive.

But — the kicker is of course the most obvious thing — the car. Do they have one? Do they know how to drive? Maybe they should hire Cat the Cat as their chauffeur because the answer to the previous questions is no.

Five stars

Review: Crocodile on the Sandbank

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:55:00 PST

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters y Elizabeth Peters begins the 18 volume long Amelia Peabody series. It was first published in 1975 but I didn't "discover" the series until 1989. I was sixteen and teaching myself how to speed read. I think in my enthusiasm, I missed a bunch of details and I've been misremembering things ever since. The biggest memory gaff was my belief that Amelia Peabody was American (although I knew the Emersons were British).

About a year ago, a book club friend turned me onto audio books. They're great for my commute or for when I'm cooking or folding laundry. The book that got me hooked was Fatally Flaky by Diane Mott Davidsonn. It was performed by Barbara Rosenblat. She happens to also do Elizabeth Peters two series: Amelia Peabody and Vicky Bliss. I decided for giggles to re-read the Amelia Peabody series on audio and do the series in order.

The book opens with thirty-something Amelia Peabody inheriting money from her late father. She decides to travel to Europe to enjoy the freedom afforded a spinster with funds. Her original traveling companion falls ill while in Italy. While on her own, Amelia encounters a young British woman who has been living in Italy in deplorable conditions. To save the young woman and to continue with her plans of visiting Egypt, Amelia takes the young waif on as her new traveling companion.

Although later books focus on Amelia (or Peabody as she's mostly called later on) and her work as an Egyptologist, Crocodile on the Sandbank is her first trip to Egypt and her only trip as a single woman. This book, then is our introduction to the country, its history under British occupation, and to the early days of Egyptology. It's written in the form of a fictional travelogue and while Amelia promises her "dear reader" that she will avoid such a book. Later volumes are more character oriented (almost annoyingly so, sometimes).

The mystery, part, then, doesn't come until well after Amelia Peabody and companion Evelyn are arrived in Armana and introduced to the brothers Emerson: Walter and Radcliffe (just about the only time he's known by his first name). It's also one of those rare, mundane mysteries — no master criminal (a character who first surfaces in The Mummy Case).

In listening to the book after more than a decade of first reading it, I only had a few concrete memories of details. I remembered Amelia and Evelyn's meeting (though not the location). I remembered Evelyn paining a copy of the floor everyone was working so carefully to preserve. I remember the floor being destroyed. I also remembered who the murderer was but not who he was collaborating with.

All in all I enjoyed listening to the book. I have a few quibbles with Rosenblat's voice for Amelia. Her British accent is a little too put on — reminding me of the haughty overtones used by the mayor's wife in The Music Man. As it's an early audio for Rosenblat and the first in the series, I'll let it slide. I've heard later ones in the series and Amelia's voice and accent are tempered

Four stars

Review: Vacationers From Outer Space

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 06 May 2013 12:16:00 PST

Vacationers From Outer Space by Edward Valfre is about an intergalactic road trip. It starts innocently enough with a regular family getting ready for a long and potentially boring road trip. The kids in the back decide to imagine that the earth is about to be invaded and only they know.

The book is illustrated with retro style photographs of kitchy diners and other 1950s Americana. This gives a sense of nostalgia that parents might pick up on as they read it to kids.

It would be a good book to read just before summer vacation starts or maybe on the first day of school to start up the traditional "what I did on summer vacation" discussion going.

Three stars

Review: The Snowman

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 05 May 2013 15:16:00 PST

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs is in the style of Frosty the Snowman but told only in pictures. A boy spends the day building a man sized snowman and that night the snowman comes alive.

First the snowman explores the world inside the boy's house. He learns about dinner, TV, the fire place and all sorts of other domestic things. To him the house is an exotic, curious, sometimes magical and sometimes dangerous place.

In return for the boy's kindness, the snowman takes him on a nighttime journey. They fly to Russia and take in the sites. To the boy it's a far away, icy, curious place. To the snowman, perhaps it feels more like home.

The book has an open-ended conclusion. For children learning story structure, The Snowman could be used to open the discussion on how stories are told and how they can be interpreted. It could also be used to get children to provide their own version of the story to accompany the panels.

The book won the Horn Book Award for picture books in 1979 as well as the Zilvren Griffel award the same year. In other words, I was five when the book was first published. I could have read it when it was newly in print, but I don't don't think I did.

Five stars

books | Raymond Briggs | childrens | 1978

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Review: Babymouse: Beach Babe

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 04 May 2013 20:26:00 PST

So far Babymouse has been a graphic novel series I've only read in the context of being a Cybils judge. Coming in to the series so late and not being a fan of the color pink has made me a reluctant reader. I have decided to give the series a go while not acting as a judge to see if I can come to appreciate it on my own terms.

Babymouse: Beach Babe by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm is the second book in the series. In it Babymouse is waiting for the start of summer while day dreaming of surfing waves the size you only see at places like Mavericks.

After cleaning out her locker (in which she uncovers all sorts of odd things including some mythical creatures), Babymouse gets the great news that her family will be spending the summer at the beach. It does mean a long car ride with baby brother Squeak who gets car sick but it's worth it.

Babymouse gets to try surfing, snorkeling, hunting for shells, sandcastle building and all sorts of other beach activities. Through out her imagination gets away with her. Brother Squeak gets underfoot but ultimately Babymouse learns that her brother is the perfect person to pal around with.

Babymouse: Beach Babe is so far one of my favorites from the series. It has a coherent story line and Babymouse is presented as a charming and sympathetic character instead of lazy and demanding as she sometimes is. I'm still not fond of the excess of pink but I'm willing to accept that it's part of the graphic design for the series.

Five stars

Review: Airborn

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 03 May 2013 14:29:00 PST

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel is the first of the Matt Cruse series. Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the luxury airship Aurora. He was born on an airship (a rare occurance) and his father died working on the Aurora. Matt, now, desperately wants to have the career taken from his father but a newly appointed Academy graduate has taken the job of assistant sail maker.

Now into the mix of this coming of age story of a cabin boy learning a hard lesson, add a heaping scoop of Robert Louis Stevenson pirates with a heathy dollop of the lost world exploration of a Jules Verne story. To top it off, frost it with a plucky young woman with a thirst for adventure.

All of this adventure is set in an alternate world. Oppel does a wonderful job of fleshing out this world, starting with the recognizable (the destination — Australia). Then he adds in the details, new names for oceans, a mango scented element needed for lighter than air travel. And finally he tosses in the unexplored — creatures even the people of the Pacificus don't know about.

As it happens, I listened to the audio — twice. It was produced by Fullcast Audio. While I appreciate their desire to turn a ripping yarn into a theatric production, I think they often go too far. Matt Cruse who serves both as narrator and protagonist, suffers from the usual problem of these Fullcast Audio performances: too much earnestness.

The written word has moments of rest, of the quietly mundane — passages that should be read quietly, and perhaps with some flatness of voice. NEVER can one of these performers do that. I suspect they are directed to act each and every word with complete heart and soul. It comes off as insincere, melodramatic and sometimes slap worthy.

Four stars

Review: Jane Goes Batty

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:37:00 PST

Jane Goes Batty by Michael Thomas Ford is the sequel to Jane Bites Back. In the last book, Jane had finally managed to get her final novel published, one she had started working on before her vampire days. Her book was well received in the current atmosphere of Jane Austen mania, and now it's time to write her second book as Jane Fairfax — can she find her voice?!

While Jane is trying to write and is getting more and more behind deadline to the point of getting threatening calls from her publisher, she has to contend with her book being turned into a movie, and with wedding planning. There's just one BIG problem — her future mother-in-law HATES her.

Meanwhile, Byron still can't keep it in his pants. Nor can he resist turning his current obsessions into vampires. Byron creates more problems than he solves for Jane and company.

Jane Goes Batty is a wonderful potpourri of social commentary, satire and campy vampirism. Ford manages to poke fun at the movie industry, publishing, American Judaism, and the Jane Austen fandom while still telling a coherent page-turner. There were many times when I had to stop reading so I could read aloud a passage to my husband or explain to him why I was laughing like a complete git.

The third in the series is Jane Vows Vengeance. I am looking forward to reading it.

Five stars

Review: The Fifteenth Pelican

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:20:00 PST

A couple years ago our local independent television channel aired in order every episode of The Flying Nun. After seeing the "based on the novel by..." for the dozenth time or so, I decide to track down a copy of the novel and see how it compared to the series.

The Fifteenth Pelican by Tere Rios is a slim and adorably illustrated novel. It essentially reads like first episode except that there's a bite to the humor absent in series.

While it may seem like an odd place to start, I recommend reading the Afterword first — even if you're familiar with the show. It's a reproduction of an article about the Sisters of Charity redesigning their habits along more conventional lines. The author offers the hypothesis that Sr. Bertrille's misadventures in windy San Juan, Puerto Rico might be the inspiration.

With that in mind, Sr. Bertrille is introduced as being about ninety pounds of enthusiastic youth. She arrives aboard ship with a fruit basket in hand. The basket and the fact that she's made friends with the sailors, puts her immediately at odds with with proper and strict Mother Superior.

Add to the fact that her light body and oversized and oddly aerodynamic habit gives her lift in the crosswinds that blow across the island — and Mother Superior doesn't know what to do with her newest nun.

Fives stars

Review: The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:50:00 PST

The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum by Kate Bernheimer is one of those surreal metafiction picture books that either works for you or not. As my daughter and I both tend to like these types of books, I purchased the copy on display at our local bookstore.

The title pretty much sums up what the book is about. There is a girl who, for unexplained reasons, lives inside of a castle, which in turn is on display in a museum. She is a living doll or something.

But like Watanuki in the later half of xxxHolic, holding down the shop for the missing Yuko, the girl can travel through dreaming. And here's the make it or break it point — the narration moves from third person to second person. Not only does she dream of places within the fictional world of her book, she also dreams of you, the reader.

The book ends with an interactive piece, asking the reader to draw a picture for the doll to dream of. Now, if you're little one likes that sort of interaction, it's a plus. If you're little one will be put off by that, skip this book.

Four stars

Review: Zed: A Cosmic Tale

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:45:00 PST

Zed: A Cosmic Tale by Michel Gagné is is the omnibus of the Zed comics, originally published in ten volumes, starting in 2001. Zed, a young adult alien, is presenting his alternative energy invention, the Energizer, at a large conference. When he turns it on, the machine overloads and ends up wiping out everyone there except Zed.

The rest of the series (or book in its present form) is about the aftermath of Zed's disastrous presentation. The cutesy artwork is in jarring contrast to the death, destruction and violence that follows Zed around.

I think the book will appeal most to readers who grew up reading The Chronicles of Narnia and actually like The Last Battle. If you find the last book a tedious, preachy disappointment, I suggest skipping Zed: A Cosmic Tale.

I did manage to read the omnibus all the way to the end but it wasn't either a pleasant or enjoyable experience. Your mileage my vary. Good luck!

The original Zed covers.

Read via NetGalley

Two stars

Review: Monster

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 15:56:00 PST

A Lee Martinez has written just about a million books. OK — that's an exaggeration but it feels like that many. His profile on GoodReads says "more than a dozen." Suffice it to say, it's enough to feel like I've certainly read some. As it turns out (to my immense surprise), Monster is the first one I've read.

The book opens with a Yeti going for all the ice cream in a convenience store. It's like something right out of Supernatural — one of the silly episodes (instead of the dreary arc plot ones). Judy, the unlucky cashier on duty during this rampage, isn't sure who to call. So she opts for animal control (it is a big, fuzzy, perhaps woolly, monster, after all). What she gets instead is Monster who specializes in "cryptobiological control."

Monster starts off pretty fluffy. The first couple of chapters read like monster of the week type episodes — really more like short stories with recurring characters than an actually on-going plot. As the book progresses, though, some heavy hitting themes start to leak in. What looks like a Japanese lyric episode of Teen Titans ends up being a black shirt episode of Farscape.

Given its goofy yellow cover and the light tone of the first seven five pages or so, I was taken aback by the gradual but persistent shift in tone. It was my book to read while my kids did their swim lessons, meaning I was pretty much stuck with it. Difficult, dark and somewhat existential details are hard to focus on in a noisy and busy public setting like the bleachers at a high school swimming pool! For that situation, Monster didn't hold up for me.

But I do plan to try other Martinez books. I just won't take them to the pool with me!

Three stars

Review: Body & Soul

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 11:49:00 PST

Body & Soul by Stacey Kade is the final book in the Ghost and the Goth series. It's a pretty tightly woven trilogy, so I recommend reading The Ghost and the Goth and Queen of the Dead first.

Alona Dare has been doing her best living in the body of Lily Turner. Although she's nothing like the original Lily, she still wants to do what's best for Lily's family, and make the most of her second chance at life.

Will, meanwhile, is trying to do what he can to restore Alona. He needs her as his ghost guide. His investigation, though, puts Alona in danger and leaves Lily with a new driver.

Without going into spoiler territory, I'll just say Body & Soul is a strong and satisfying end to the series. It explores some tough questions about life and love while still having the sassy back and forth between Alona and Will. Both, though, have grown as characters over this trilogy.

Stacey Kade now has a new series, Project Paper Doll, which starts with The Rules (2013).

Five stars

Review: The Last Little Blue Envelope

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:23:00 PST

The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson is the sequel to 13 Little Blue Envelopes. Ginny thinks her adventure in London and Europe is over until she receives a note saying her backpack has been found, and along with it, the final envelope.

Curious, Ginny returns to London to meet the boy with her backpack. Although it includes instructions that will lead Ginny to one more piece of her aunt's artwork, those instructions are held hostage by the boy who found the envelope. In order to complete her aunt's final wishes, Ginny has to trust the boy and take him along on the adventure.

While the story lacks the treasure hunt adventure of the first book, Ginny and her companions make up for anything lacking in the way of plot. The boy who found the envelope, Oliver, to my mind was the most interesting and enigmatic of the ensemble. As he reveals pieces of the final letter, he also gives hints to his own personality and life story.

Although the journey set forth by Ginny's aunt is complete at the end of The Last Little Blue Envelope, there's more here that I'd like to explore. I think Oliver could stand alone as a character. He has more stories to tell.

Five stars

Review: Island Sting

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 17:07:00 PST

Island Sting by Bonnie J Doerr is a tween novel set in the Florida Keys. Kenzie has moved down there with her mother, after her parents have divorced. She's a New York City girl and the wilds of a small Florida island leave her feeling out of sorts and out of place.

While exploring her new home, Kenzie sees what she thinks is a dog in the canal. In trying to save it, she falls in and discovers, it's not a dog, but a deer. When she and the deer are rescued down stream, Kenzie is introduced to an on-going poaching problem.

Kenzie in her desire to help the deer she rescued, comes out of her shell. She makes friends and tracks down the truth behind rumors. As she doesn't know anyone on the island, she can see the facts and the rumors with fresh eyes. That helps her piece together the clues and put a stop to the poaching.

For fans of Carl Hiaasen's tween books: Flush, Hoot, Scat, and Chomp (review coming) will find familiar territory in Island Sting. Along with Kenzie, readers will learn about the plight of the endangered Key deer. The endnotes include more information about the deer including links to pertinent websites.

Five stars

Review: The Sword Thief

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:40:00 PST

The Sword Thief by Peter Lerangis is the third of the original 39 Clues series. Armed with the clues found in Italy, the Cahill siblings are en route to Japan.

Although in the post 9/11 word of air travel, stealing seats on an airplane might not be possible, finding Amy and Dan separated from the stuff and their au pair was a dramatic opening. It seems in book three the stakes are higher all the way through. As the siblings dig themselves ever deeper into the challenge, they are forced to take more dangerous risks.

One of things Dan and Amy started to do (reluctantly) in One False Note is allying themselves with other teams. These temporary alliances are a means to an end (either to keep going, avoid the authorities, or in the most dangerous situations — survive).

Alistair Oh returns and they are forced to do some soul searching. His back story is perhaps the most complex so far of any of the Cahills — beyond the siblings' background. His intentions beyond getting to the next clue seem genuine but given previous apparent betrayals, they have to treat his help with caution.

Three stars

Review: Gracie, The Lighthouse Cat

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:40:00 PST

Gracie, The Lighthouse Cat by Ruth Brown is a picture book about two rescues during a fierce storm near a lighthouse. Grace, the lighthouse keeper's daughter spots a ship aground and helps in the rescue. Meanwhile, Gracie, the lighthouse cat, wakes from a nap to notice one of her kittens is missing.

For a book about a storm, a shipwreck and people and cats being rescued, there's not much drama. The humans are rescued all rather matter-of-factly. The rescue of the kitten doesn't involve much either.

For a better lighthouse rescue story that's a little more involved in the adventure and the character building, I recommend The Lighthouse, the Cat and the Sea by Leigh W. Rutledge.

Three stars

Review: Mr. Popper's Penguins

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:34:00 PST

Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater and Florence Atwater was a 1939 Newbery Honor book. Mr. Popper spends the warm months as a decorator — painting and papering rooms. He spends the cold, wet months listening to the radio and following his hobbies — like learning about the exploration of Antarctica.

On of these winters, Mr. Popper receives an unusual gift — a penguin. Mr. Popper, his wife and two kids live in a small urban home. What is he going to do with a penguin? Now the logical answer would be call the zoo. Except — he really, really, really wants a penguin. So he and his family decide to make the best of things.

The first half of the book, then, is how the Poppers adjust to their new penguin. They make a nest in the refrigerator. They teach the penguin how to walk on a lead. They order all sorts of fish.

And that's when things get complicated. The book, is after Mr. Popper's Penguins. More than one penguin. First comes a second penguin — and then the rest is up to mother nature. With so many penguins on hand — Mr Popper decides to see just how much he can train them — with Mrs. Popper's help, of course.

The last third, then, is the Popper Penguins on the road — and their short but lively stage career. Of course, life on the road is difficult and it might end up being more than Mr. Popper can handle.

Although some of the language is outdated, I think with the illustrations and the sheer silliness of having penguins in a home, still has appeal for elementary school aged readers.

Five stars

Review: If Books Could Kill

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:34:00 PST

If Books Could Kill by Kate Carlisle is is the second of the Bibliophile mystery series. This one is set in Edinburgh Book Fair in Scotland. I have to admit that the move away from San Francisco worried me but Carlisle managed to pull off the new location with panache.

Kate is there to demonstrate her expertise in book binding. Her ex-boyfriend and colleague (rival?), Kyle, tells her about a yet unseen Robert Burns poem. Next thing she knows, he's dead, killed with one of her book binding tools!

Usually in these situations, the amateur sleuth would be the number one suspect, and forced to solve the mystery while fleeing from the authorities. Thankfully, though, If Books Could Kill allows the police to be professionals while still providing entertainment.

Carlisle seems to understand Scotland as well as she does San Francisco. She provides a humorous but believable cast of characters, with comedic timing similar to what I've seen in British TV or read in British books.

I am eagerly looking forward to reading the third book in the series once time permits!

Five stars

Review: Crescent Dawn

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 20:42:00 PST

Crescent Dawn by Clive and Dirk Cussler is the twenty-first Dirk Pitt novel. Dirk, his son and daughter, and of course the NUMA crew are brought on board to both thwart an international terrorist plot by Turkish anarchists and to recover an extraordinary cargo from a Roman ship.

I've read half of series, roughly every other one, so I've seen how Dirk and friends have evolved and aged as characters. I've also gotten used to formula of these plots. The typical Dirk Pitt adventure goes like this:

lengthy flashback showing the treasure being lost (and these prologues seem to be getting longer with each novel)
chapters from the villains' points of view to show that they are EVIL GENIUSES
Some oceanography stuff with the NUMA crew
Dirk and company accidentally run into the bad guys
an authorial insert to the rescue
Dirk and company plan their attack
Villains get what's coming to them
Oh hey... let's find that treasure
Epilog

When I read these books, I've found it's best to skip the prolog because I like to be surprised both by what and where the treasure is. I also tend to skip the villains' scenes because they tend to be too long and don't really contribute to the adventure / treasure hunting aspects of the novel. In the case of Crescent Dawn, skipping these scenes cut out about one and a half discs of the nine disc set.

Crescent Dawn is set in Istanbul, Jerusalem, and in parts of England, as well as different sites in the Mediterranean sea. This was also the first book I've read where Dirk Jr. and his twin sister, Summer, have such major roles. Basically it gives the plot the opportunity to have Dirk and his helpers in three places at once. I'm not sure, yet, how brother and sister are different except for their names and genders. Frankly, though, I didn't care because I was more focused on the mystery / adventure parts.

Long story, short, Crescent Dawn is what it is. It's very much a typical late in the series Dirk Pitt mystery. If you're a fan of the series, you'll probably like it. If you're not but like adventure-mysteries, you'll find it a decent beach read. Although Dirk Pitt does age over time, the individual books can be read out of order as the mysteries themselves are self-contained.

Recommended by The Turn of the Page

Four stars

Review: The Bermudez Triangle

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:24:00 PST

The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson is about the on going challenges of an evolving friendship. While Nina, the ersatz leader of a trio of friends, is away at Stanford for leadership camp, friends Mel and Avery become more than just BFFs. Nina returns to find her friends acting different towards her, each other and their classmates. When she finds out why she had to deal with her own conflicted feelings.

Nina, Avery and Mel all take turns (more or less). The story is told through first person point of view and emails. The jumps from character to character seem forced at times. As Avery and Mel work at the same awful Irish themed restaurant / bar, early on I got confused over which was which. They melded into one character — except that one's a lesbian and one isn't sure, except that she knows she's attracted to her long time friend in a compelling way that she can't explain.

Johnson does a good job of avoiding the usual stereotypes and cliched high-drama parental confrontation scenes. But I still had trouble connecting with Nina — the loudest voice in the group, and Mel, the one who is confident in her sexual orientation. Avery — the confused / conflicted member of the group was by far the most interesting and I wish she had been better developed both as a character and in her character arc. Her sense of conflict seemed mostly there just to isolate Mel and Nina.

Three stars

Review: Bellwether

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:50:00 PST

Bellwether by Connie Willis is a short satyrical novel that looks at fads, creativity, upper management, and the scientific method. It sounds like an unlikely combination but for anyone with any experience with research and development, or academia, will find it a fitting and hilarious match.

The inept office management by Flip brings together a statistician interested in the progression of fads (specifically the 1920s bob) and a chaos theorist interested in animal movements. They are but two researchers at a privately run think tank that is vying for a prestigious grant. The management style of the organization, though, is so poisonous, there's no hope of success.

As I have said before, I adore Willis's take on bureaucracy in research settings — whether academic (such as in her time travel books) or private. She has a biting humor that hits right to the core of how complex organizations can stifle the normal flow of things — and yet inspire creativity (as a survival mechanism).

I have been recommending Bellwether to all of my friends and family who do research.

Five stars

Review: Withering Tights

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:17:00 PST

When I finished Are These My Bassoomas I See Before Me? by Louise Rennison, I was feeling a pang of sadness at the ending of a fun series. It was time, though, for the series to end. Georgia had matured and her story had made its natural course.

Louise Rennison has a new series, the first of which is Withering Tights. Tallulah Casey is traveling somewhere "up north" to Dother Hall for theater school. She's excited and scared but she's going with sage advice from her cousin (Georgia).

Tallulah is a couple years younger than Georgia but not as young as she was in Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging. She's somewhere in the middle, meaning she's full on boy crazy and a full on spazz. Now if these two girls were unrelated, I'd probably be wishing for a completely different voice for Tallulah. As they're cousins, their similarities is understandable and funny.

I found it a quick and funny read. Tallulah trying to fit in with the theater crowd and make her mark was endearing and believable.

The sequel is A Midsummer's Tights Dream — and I will be posting a review of it soon.

Five stars

Review: The Empire Strikes Out

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:31:00 PST

The Empire Strikes Out by Robert Elias takes two things that to me seem completely separate: foreign policy and baseball and shows that aren't all that separate after all. Elias is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. The Baseball Book Review notes that he also teaches a baseball and politics class.

The book walks through the history of baseball and shows how the ebb and flow of U.S. politics and foreign policy interact with how the game. Sometimes the game is used as propaganda — through world tours. Sometimes it affects recruitment. The book covers all the major wars and occupations and how and where baseball was played — either abroad or at home.

The Empire Strikes Out is one of the most interesting and odd political history books I've read. I recommend it to baseball fans and history buffs who want a new way of looking at events.

Recommended by Forum on KQED.

Four stars

Review: Gay Men Don't Get Fat

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:16:00 PST

Gay Men Don't Get Fat by Simon Doonan's latest book. After reading all the reviews and news about his bizarre (to me) book publicity tour, I'm not sure how to review this book.

First there's Doonan's celebrity — if you're from New York and shop (or window shop at Barney's). I don't. I live in California — in a semi rural area. Outside of Doonan talking about his work at Barney's I have no clue what the store is like (nor do I care to learn more).

What I have gleaned from the book is that Doonan is petite. He's short even compared to the short men on my husband's side of the family. My ten-year-old son is as tall as he is. Being so short and being rather active, he's rather thin. So of course he doesn't get fat. But among his friends and acquaintances, he's decided (semi-jokingly) that everyone should be as fabulous and stylish as he is. And of course what works for him will work for everyone.

I will admit that at the time I read the book, I did actually laugh at parts. But in siting and mulling the book and after reading about his campaign against man-boobs, I'm just starting to scratch my head. His view of the world — even when making light of it — doesn't come close to matching the diversity and richness of the LGBT community here. I think more and more he's a throwback to a different era.

And before I get his publicist complaining about how I didn't mention how he celebrates all the different subcultures of the gay community — yeah, he mentions them. He says a few nice things in chapters, but those chapters have to be taken in the greater context.

Read via NetGalley

Two stars

Review: The Adventures of Vin Fiz

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 17:46:00 PST

The Adventures of Vin Fiz by Clive Cussler is the first of two adventure books starring fraternal twins Casey and Lacey. I read and reviewed the second book, The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy last year and was curious to see how the series started.

The book opens with a lengthy introduction to the Nicefolk family, their farm and Castroville, California. Yes, Castroville is known for its artichokes.

Cussler has a habit of using authorial insert to help his heros along. Here, as Sucoh Sucop, gets the entire series going. Sucoh appears at the farm offering to volunteer his time and labor during the harvest. As a parting gift, he leaves the twins a magical box that will make any toy become life size and real (with some caveats).

That's how Casey, Lacey and Floopy the dog end up on a strange cross-country adventure in a toy replica of Vin Fiz. Here is where things go from odd but plausible to head-scratching. The plane takes the twins to places that are more like moments in time from the original Vin Fiz, in those decades where 20th century innovations are starting to arrive but remnants of the 19th century still exist (the calvary and steam trains).

No explanation of the oddities of these towns are mentioned. They just are. Nor are the overly simplistic villains who keep appear explained. They just are and they come off like escapees from a Duddley Do-Right episode.

While these problems still exist in the second book, they are reined in. The adventures the Nicefolk twins have the second time are grounded in reality, even if their craft is once again enchanted.

Three stars

Review: Wet Cats

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:11:00 PST

Wet Cats by Rita Golden Gelman is one of a series of picture books involving rival sets of cats and mice. In this one, the cats enjoy pranking the mice — getting the wet in as many ways as possible. The mice ultimately get their revenge.

It's a cute book done in a comic book style of illustrations. The cat and mouse pranks remind me most of the short silent films by the Lumiere brothers.

The copy my daughter owns is a battered, well-read, ex-library book. The cover is crinkled. The inner pages are wrinkled. The glue spine was stapled as an emergency measure at some point. It's as popular now with my daughter as it was with all the readers who came before her. She has read it numerous times since she bought it.

Four stars

Review: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 18:01:00 PST

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter is the first of the Gallagher Girls series. Cammie Morgan attends an all girls boarding school that specializes in teaching young women how to be spies. During a covert operations exercise off campus, she meets a regular boy — Josh.

In the YA section of books, there seems to be an umpty-billion books set in boarding schools. Throw in Shojo Manga and the number comes close to infinity. OK — maybe it's not that high but it's certainly a popular (cliche) set up for YA aimed primarily at young women.

In many of the boarding school YAs I've read, the main character is usually a newcomer. She (and sometimes he) is usually an outsider (or at least feels like one). And more times than I care to count, said protagonist is there only because Mom (or sometimes both, but hardly ever just Dad) is taking a new teaching job for inexplicable reasons.

So where does Carter's book fall within this trope?

boarding school √
mother part of the school √ (headmaster)

The newbie / outsider role goes to a different girl. She is more of a red herring than an actual plot device. It was frankly refreshing to have the narrator be a knowledgeable, regular part of the school.

Now there's the part of Josh — I'm not going to go so far as to call it a romance. It's not. He's a cute boy. He's not part of the school (obviously). He is her first crush. He is to Cammie, what the Love God is to Georgia Nicholson.

The lack of a love-triangle or an impending apocalypse is a big part of why I LOVE this book. Cammie despite her many spy talents (speaking 14 languages, for example) acts like a teenager. She gets a crush. She over reacts. She obsesses. And she learns from the experience.

Five stars

Review: Homicide In Hardcover

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:31:00 PST

Homicide In Hardcover by Kate Carlisle is the first of the Bibliophile mysteries. Brooklyn Wainright is an expert in book restoration and binding. A potentially cursed copy of Faust leads to the death of her mentor where her mother is a suspect!

Two factors drew me to this series: the book binding aspect and the setting — San Francisco. Carlisle's description of San Francisco and surrounding areas (mostly in Marin county) were believable, capturing both the landscape and the quirks of the local culture. Meanwhile the book binding and repair details were just enough to be interesting without getting in the way of the plot.

I think fans of Penny Warner's Party Planning series will enjoy the Bibliophile series. Brooklyn has a similar dysfunctional but loving relationship with her mother, though her's is in good health, and her father is still alive.

As a first mystery, the clues and suspects are pretty easy to put together for an observant reader. The characters and setting, though, more than make up for the simplicity in plot.

Four stars

Review: I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:52:00 PST

I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows by Alan Bradley is the fourth of the Flavia de Luce mysteries. This one is set during Christmas time, and because of a blizzard, ends up being a locked room (err, snowed in mansion) mystery.

Flavia's home is invaded by a movie crew who are shooting in the area. The well-meaning vicar invites them over to Buckshaw to put on a charity show for the villagers. That's when the blizzard strikes and someone ends up dead.

Although there is a murder mystery tucked away in I Am Half Sick of Shadows, it comes late in the book. The mystery portion of these books has been drifting further and further into the recesses of the plot. More and more the emphasis is on the family and financial troubles. But Flavia and her family are well enough rendered characters to make these distraction from the mysteries interesting reading.

Five stars

Review: The Cat Who Robbed a Bank

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 16:58:00 PST

The Cat Who Robbed a Bank by Lilian Jackson Braun is the 22nd book in the Cat Who series. Qwill now comfortably retired is caught up in a local interest case involving the oft targeted hotel (recently reopened and renamed).

Koko and Yum-Yum, whose real ages must just be ignored in the interest of the "nowness" of the plot (see The Laughter of Dead Kings), take an interest in Oedipus Rex.

In the middle of all of this, jewels go missing and Qwill — ala Joe Leaphorn — is reminded of an old case. The cats must be too because they help Qwill explore his roots and learn about a foundling who as an adult is now expected of murder and robbery.

All of these books are short and fairly formulaic. I was in the mood for a cozy. This was the first of the books that I listened to on audio — read by George Guidall. As he also reads the Tony Hillerman books, it was all to easy to superimpose different characters onto the events in the book.

All in all I enjoyed the book but I found the ending a bit abrupt. It ends very much like a shaggy dog story with a punch line and little else. I suppose they all do that, but on audio it was more obvious.

Four stars

Review: Friends with Boys

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:42:00 PST

Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks is a YA novel about the adjustment period of attending public school after years of homeschooling. Maggie McKay is going to high school, following in the foot steps of her brothers.

For the most part, Friends with Boys is a roman à clef in graphic novel format. As Hicks explains in her blog, she was home-schooled and has three brothers. While the author is from British Columbia, the book is set in Nova Scotia.

The going to high school part of the book is pretty standard. There are the usual problems of making friends, as well as the competition and sibling strife. While it's nicely done, it's not as remarkable as the events in Brain Camp by Susan Kim and illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks.

There is a side story, though, about a ghost in the graveyard which serves as a short cut to the high school. She appears at the beginning of the book and at the end but there is no "meloncholy mystery" as the blurb would have one believe. Instead, it's just filler. I really had hoped to see more emphasis on the ghost plot and less on the brothers / sister relationship.

Three stars

Review: Sink Trap

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 13:20:00 PST

Sink Trap by Christy Evans is the first of the Georgina Neverall mystery series. Set in Oregon, it follows an apprentice plumber (and washout of the dot-com madness) as she tries to solve mysteries in her spare time.

There's a real estate boom going on in her town. She and her boss have been hired to fix up an old commercial building and the home of a the town's former librarian who everyone believes has moved out of state. That is until Georgiana finds the librarian's favorite brooch clogging a sink.

Now from here on it's a pretty standard cosy mystery. The character and her shtick have been introduced. Her supporting characters, her town, and the potential murderers have been paraded by.

From this point on two things have to mesh to make the mystery work: the mystery has to balance clues vs. surprise to keep the reader guessing and the characters and their reactions to situations have be plausible. Those that aren't, need to be explained to some degree of satisfaction.

It's the latter that feel apart for me. First and foremost, the missing librarian is well off financially. Library jobs can pay handsomely but not in the sort of amounts this librarian must have been making. Without a proper explanation (even a tossed in line or two), I'm left wondering why she is the way she is. Her status as a librarian was to mark her as harmless and perhaps an easy victim. But to make the crime worth committing, she also had be wealthy. Thus the mystery hinges on a mix and match set of character attributes without the necessary fleshing out.

Three stars

Review: A River in the Sky

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 22:22:00 PST

A River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters is the 19th book in the Amelia Peabody series, but it comes 12th in line chronologically. It's different from the others, as it's set in Palestine and it's set back in time — just before Children of the Storm.

Peabody and Emerson decide to forego their usual season in Egypt to dig in Palestine. Ramses is to meet up with them but is kidnapped. Mixed in with all of this is a German plot to gain grounds with the Muslims and, of course, the Emersons find themselves right in the middle of things.

I was reluctant to read yet another mystery set in pre-WWI Palestine, and doubly so about revisiting young Ramses. Thankfully Barbara Rosenbladt's performance kept me entertained, though the audio book did become my laundry folding book, meaning I wasn't drawn in enough to want to give it my full attention.

Frankly this book can be skipped. It's filler for the die-hard fans but it's not something especially outstanding.

Three stars

Review: One False Note

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:44:00 PST

One False Note by Gordon Korman is the second of the 39 Clues series. Amy, Dan and Nellie are en route to Vienna and Venice, following a clue buried in KV617 — a piece composed by Mozart for Benjamin Franklin.

Anytime there's a musical clue in a mystery aimed at children, I'm brought back to Scooby Doo where Velma figures out a clue left in a music score. As this clue, though, involves some danger, there's also a hint of Goonies and the TNT booby trapped piano that shows up in a couple different Looney Tunes shorts.

Mixed in the caper, there are a few geography and history lessons. For a short books, the lessons aren't that deep but they're more detailed than the Magic Tree House books. They are interesting enough to inspire curious readers to head to the nonfiction section of the library.

But as entertainment — they're fun. They have a similar pace and mixture of clues and danger as a Clive Cussler book. Except, they are about half the length of the average Dirk Pitt mystery.

Four stars

Review: Planting Dandelions

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:14:00 PST

Planting Dandelions by Kyran Pittman is a memoir in the form of a collection of essays. The book began its life as a blog — as so many memoirs these days seem to. The author is a regular contributor to Good Housekeeping.

I put those details forward because neither fact had any influence in me choosing this book — and perhaps might have some bearing on my overall reaction to it. I haven't read the author's blog (originally "Notes to Self" and later "Planting Dandelions") and the last time I read Good Housekeeping I was a teen and still living at home (in other words, it's been a long time).

What brought me to this book then was the title and the cover — a bouquet of dandelions. See my kids were going through a phase of actually planting dandelions in our balcony garden when I saw this book at the library.

The memoir / essays tell about Pittman's first marriage and the husband she left in Canada, and her move to Arkansas. There she met a new man, remarried and had three sons. Each new child ads a new level of complexity to her life.

So the gist of the book is: marriage is hard, being an adult is hard, Arkansas is really different from Canada, and being a parent is hard (but rewarding). Why yes — adulthood and parenthood is hard but that doesn't automatically make a book "relatable."

Three stars

Review: The Talented Clementine

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:39:00 PST

The Talented Clementineby Sara Pennypacker is the second in the series. The third and fourth graders will be performing a talent show and Clementine is at a complete loss. I can completely relate — while I have talents, none of them are geared towards live performance!

Clementine goes through all sorts of different ideas for the show. None of them really are appropriate for a talent show. Ultimately she settles on working back stage, but it's a job she falls into.

It was another cute book. I really felt horrible for Clementine as her teacher just couldn't believe she didn't know how to perform on stage. Been there myself in school.

Four stars

Review: I Am Not Joey Pigza

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:10:00 PST

I Am Not Joey Pigzaby Jack Gantos is the fourth, and so far, final of the Joey Pigza books. The others are Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, Joey Pigza Loses Control and What Would Joey Do?

In this one, Joey wakes up in the hospital after a dare devil stunt involving the roof, a refrigerator box and himself, goes horribly wrong. Coming too he realizes to his horror that his good-for-nothing dad is back with a new name for himself, for Joey and Joey's mother.

Along with the new name comes a new home at a diner. While the diner could become something great, Joey quickly realizes that his parents are too distracted with their own lives to actually make the diner work. Without the diner, it's clear that their new reconciled lives can't last.

I happened to listen to the book as read by the author. Although Joey Pigza and his dysfunctional family took some getting used to, I was soon caught up into the story. I really felt for Joey as he struggled with the self identity issues that came with his new life.

Four stars

Review: Whad'ya Know?

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 18:49:00 PST

Michael Feldman hosts an NPR talk show called Whad'ya Know? It was also the title of his 1991 memoir. I don't remember when exactly I acquired a copy of the book but I decided I should finally read it to clear it off my shelves.

Feldman broke his memoir into themes, writing pithy essays on pieces of his life — being a parent, being married, etc. He mixed in contemporary political and social commentary.

Unfortunately, reading the memoir twenty years after publication, much of the witty observation has become rather dated. I found the book rather tedious to read. The book is probably best suited to fans of the show.

Two stars

books | Michael Feldman | nonfiction | 1991

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Review: The Wedding Officer

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:55:00 PST

Read nearly any review of The Wedding Officer by Anthony Capella and you'll get a description of a 20-something British officer being sent to Italy to discourage British soldiers from bringing home Italian brides. While, yes, James Gould is a major character in the novel, saying it's all about him is misleading.

Instead, the book is about the occupation of Italy by German and British forces and Livia Pertini, a cook in the foothills of Mt. Vesuvias trying to keep the family afloat. James Gould, wedding officer, doesn't show up until much later. Really and truly, this book should have been titled, The Wedding Officer's Cook.

It's not that I didn't like reading Livia's story, but it's not what I went into the book expecting to read. The wedding officer bits of the book feel forced into the plot. There's also a tacked on romance at the end that I can only guess was there to appeal to "women readers."

Three stars

Review: Wednesdays in the Tower

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 17:14:00 PST

Wednesdays in the Tower by Jessica Day George is the sequel to the delightful Tuesdays in the Tower. Princess Celie's family is home and her brother Bran, the Royal Wizard is busy trying to catalog rooms full of exotic things that have appeared on unexpected days.

Then on a Wednesday, a typically quiet day, a new tower appears. In the tower is an egg. In the egg is a gryphon and a key to Castle Glower's history.

Celie wants to tell her parents. The castle, though, doesn't. There's a mystery locked up in the ancient traditions of Castle Glower. Celie and Rolf, begin to track down all the clues they can — gryphons in books, in tapestries, old pillows, etc. As they do, they piece together the story of their castle.

Wednesdays in the Tower, thus, manages in about two-thirds the pages, to tell a far more compelling and interesting version of The Pinhoe Egg. Unfortunately the book ends on a cliffhanger and I'm eager to know what has happened and if things can be set to rights!

Five stars

Review: The Pinhoe Egg

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:47:00 PST

The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones is the sixth of the Chrestomanci series. Near Chrestomanci's, there's a pair of feuding families — both secretly magic users. Things come to a head when the matriarch of the Pinhoes is forced out of her home and into a retirement home. Uprooted from her home, a long lost egg is found and ends up in the care of those living at Chrestomanchi's manor — whilst he (as always) remains oblivious.

Coming off the excitement of reading the very satisfying and tight Conrad's Fate (book five), I couldn't wait to jump into The Pinhoe Egg. But the lengthy (and seemingly never ending) open scene of the Pinhoes trying to remove the matriarch soured me to the rest of the book.

I had a feeling these Pinhoe scenes were supposed to be funny — as so often baddies of lower socio-economic status are played up to be. But these sorts of baddies — who are always invariably bumbling but somehow super resilient — end up being forced caricatures, rather than being either funny or fully realized characters. The Pinhoes are the worst of the worst of this sort of character type.

So every scene involving either the Pinhoes or their rivals ended up being an excruciating chore to read. Eventually I got to the point of skimming / yelling at the Pinhoe scenes (as my husband can attest to).

Woven around all this Pinhoe padding, is a novella of Cat and his friendship with a couple of the more normal members of the rival families. They help clean out the old Pinhoe home which has layers upon layers of hidden magic, hiding even darker secrets. Among all this, they find an egg. It hatches under extraordinary circumstances and that helps them to finally piece together the long lost history of a terrible tragedy that had befallen the valley centuries ago.

Frankly if Jones had started with that tragedy and played it straight up, rather than trying for comedy, the book would have been a fantastic ending to an otherwise charming series. As it stands, though, it's by far my least favorite of the books even though it has some of my most favorite characters in it.

Two stars

Review: Shadow Hills

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:07:00 PST

Shadow Hills by Anastasia Hopcus is a YA paranormal mystery. Persephone "Phe" Archer leaves Los Angeles to enroll in an uptight Massachusetts boarding school. She goes, plagued by grief over the death of her sister, and haunted by dreams that might be clues to her sister's death.

Devinish Prep is situated in a rather secluded town (aren't they always?) with a checkered past. A plague of some sort killed off a large percentage of the population, leaving a small set of survivors who all have something in common. That event is continuing to effect events in both the town and the school.

Phe quickly makes friends — the wealthy, alcoholic, shopoholic and fashion obsessed Adriana Dolski and the mysterious, Marty-Stu named Zach. It was in the initial introductions of these characters that I lost interest in the book. Whilst there is a mysterious hidden library and a creepy old hospital on the hill, Phe instead drinks cocktails and goes on a shopping spree with her new buddies.

These scenes of Phe and her new friends highlight the weaknesses of Shadow Hill. The BIG events are lost in an endless stream of minutae — descriptions of Phe doing completely mundane things are given the same emphasis (and sometimes more!) than the key pieces of the book (like discovering the history of the town or investigating the hidden library).

Two stars

books | Anastasia Hopcus | fantasy | 2010

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Review: The Locket

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:04:00 PST

The Locket by Stacey Jay is a YA time travel story. Katie wants a way to fix things after her long time boyfriend breaks up with her on her birthday. He accuses her of cheating on him with a mutual friend. In her moment of despair, her Grandmother's locket begins to burn and hurdles her back in time, giving her a chance to change things.

Beware of wishes that are too easily granted. The locket is a cursed object (as the author discusses in her interview on The Hate-Mongering Tart blog). Every decision Katie makes in the past has consequences.

The time travel mechanics of The Locket are well thought out. The timelines work and there's enough drama and action to keep the pages turning.

Characterization, though, left me wanting more. Katie is too self obsessed. I get that she's a teenager but listening to her whine about how everything has to be perfect got old fast. Likewise, Isaac is too demanding, in a scary and potentially abusive way — making (at least to me) Katie's indiscretion at the start of the novel logical. Finally, Mitch, is a bit of a Marty Stu.

Four stars

Review: The Shadows

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:49:00 PST

The Shadows by Jacqueline West is the first of the The Books of Elsewhere series. It also won a CYBILS in 2011.

Olive and her math professor parents have moved into a decaying Victorian mansion. It's fully furnished with the furniture and paintings of the late Ms. McMartin. As Olive soon discovers, it's also inhabited by her cats — and they can talk.

As her parents are so focused on their new jobs, and their careers, Olive is left to herself and to the house. She begins to notice things like shadows moving in the paintings. Later, she discovers a way to travel through the paintings. What at first seems like harmless fun, though, quickly becomes something dangerous.

As others have pointed out, there's a similarity to Neil Gaiman's Coraline. But the experience of moving into a house is a pretty standard set up for fiction — especially for horror and fantasy.

As a fan of houses with creepy histories, and with the surrealism of traveling through artwork, I loved this book. Although it's written for readers still new to chapter books and longer works, it held my attention. It also has some wonderful black and white illustrations.

Five stars

Review: Soulless

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:25:00 PST

Soulless by Gail Carriger is the first of the Parasol Protectorate series. It's a paranormal mystery romance mashup with some steampunk thrown in for good measure. The original series has spawned a graphic novel adaptation and a YA series.

The book like a parody of Crocodile on the Sandbank (assuming, though that Amelia Peabody and Evelyn are one person). Of course Elizabeth Peter's book is in itself a parody of the H. Rider Haggard books Peabody is such a fan of reading. Anyway, like Peter's book, Alexia Tarabotti is a spinster with a deceased father. Her father was Italian, a fan of improper but enlightening books. Alexia, has inherited from him — her looks (not a popular thing in Victorian England) and her soullessness.

The proper term used in the book is preternatural. A person's amount of soul determines how attractive they are to various paranormal groups — the two big ones in the British Empire being werewolves and vampires. Alexia can't be changed into either because when she's in physical contact with a paranormal, they temporarily lose their paranormal abilities (and become human).

Soulless introduces the reader to an alternate Victorian London where paranormal creatures live openly and are regulated. There's also the alternate technology — akin to the devices described by H.G. Wells and Jules Verne but expanded to fit the paranormal world. Finally, Queen Victoria has her own group of agents to keep watch on illegal paranormal activity. Think Torchwood, but call it BUR (Bureau of Unnatural Registry).

Although this book is primary about Alexia learning how her powers fit into the world of paranormals and BUR, and her finding romance, there's also a mystery. Paranormal creatures who are neither vampires, nor werewolves are rampaging in London. Therein is the true heart and soul of Soulless.

So although the series has been out for ages, I'm only now become a rabid fan. I have Stephanie, bookseller extraordinaire, at the Hayward Bookshop for that. See, I don't like the cover — I still don't. Bustle or no bustle, I want to realign Alexia's broken spine every time I look at it. Stephanie, though, patiently wore me down by asking every single time I stopped by the store if I had read the series yet. Eventually, I gave in. I'm glad I did. I'm about to start the third book, Blameless.

Five stars

Review: Plant a Kiss

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:34:00 PST

In Plant a Kiss by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, a girl plants a kiss and after patience, frustration and hope, reaps the rewards in the form of a long, sparkly flowering vine.

On the surface it doesn't sound like much, but the choice of words, the rhythmic repetition and Peter H. Reynold's delightful illustrations make this something special. The large amount of white space and the limited vocabulary make this book ideal for beginning readers.

My daughter was immediately drawn to the book both for its title and for the little girl on the cover with her long magical plant. She read the book once before checking it out, twice on the ride home and twice more once we got home — and that's just the first day of having it home from the library!

Recommended by my daughter.

Five stars

Review: Emeraldalicious

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 15:54:00 PST

Emeraldalicious by Victoria Kann is the fifth of the Pinkalicious picture books and the second one written and illustrated solely by Victoria Kann.

Peter and Pink discover that the local dump has expanded into the old field where they have played and picnicked with their parents. Using a magic wand made from a stick and the pieces of Pink's broken wand, the children transform the dump into a luscious, flowering garden as well as playground — with a castle made from old junk.

The timing of the release of Emeraldilicious couldn't be more perfect with spring just around the corner. At home my daughter and I have been busy transforming our back balcony into a butterfly garden — a process that is still on-going. Like Pink and Peter, we had to remove some old things and reuse some others. Our magic wands, though, were shovels and spades.

Somewhere along in the picture books, the original theme of unintended consequences (too much pink food turning one pink), into something where magic (unicorns, wands and whatnot) is real. Here, it's a magic wand — or rather — an enchanted stick repurposed as a magic wand. Along with the greater emphasis on magic, comes a change in the style of the illustrations — from bold collages (with samples of text and other patterns clearly visible), to an abundance of sparkles. I prefer the older style illustrations of Pinkalicious and Purplicious but my daughter seems taken with the sparkles.

Four stars

Review: Empire State: A Love Story (or Not)

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:26:00 PST

Empire State: A Love Story (or Not) by Jason Shiga is a graphic novel about first love and first heart break and growing up. Jimmy, who looks like an older version of Jimmy from Meanwhile also by Jason Shiga, now works at a library and decides to follow his heart and go to Manhattan. I can only presume that Empire State exists in the vanilla timesline where Jimmy doesn't get sick and doesn't get a chance to destroy the world.

Like Meanwhile though, Shiga uses color codes to keep two plot threads separate as they intertwine. Blue is present day and red is flashback. The flashbacks show the friendship between Jimmy and Sara developing. She teaches him about coffee and literature. They share walks around Lake Merritt.

But she's a free spirit and in the present day she has realized her dream of working for a publisher. She's in Manhattan and Jimmy is still living at home with his over protective mother. He works at a library in Oakland. He's shown putting protective covers on books and shelving books but it's never stated outright if he's a clerk or a librarian. She has also found a boyfriend and made a life for herself that doesn't include Jimmy in the way he hopes.

While I liked the time travel aspects of Meanwhile, I connected better with Empire State.

Five stars

Review: Chi's Sweet Home 02

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:17:00 PST

Chi's Sweet Home 02 by Kanata Konami continues on with these short comedic episodes about Chi and her new family adjusting.

Chi has been taken in by a family who lives in an apartment with a strict no pets policy. With the appearance of a large black cat, the super is on the prowl. This cat knows his way around and has claimed the entire apartment building as his own. Taken in by Chi's curiosity, he decides to show her some of his tricks.

Along with the near misses with the super, there's the more mundane but equally hilarious parts of owning a cat. Specifically, there's a trip to the vet which includes such fun things like trying to get Chi into a basket, the scary car ride and the actual vet visit.

The Chi books are best suited for anyone who has owned (or been owned by) a cat. The pictures are adorable and the language is easy enough that my first grader can read them. There's also an anime series.

Five stars

books | Kanata Konami | graphic novel | 2005

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Review: Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 14:06:00 PST

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise by Gene Luen Yang was originally published in three parts over the course of 2012. It has since been repackaged as a 240 page omnibus. Since the endings of parts one and two seemed rather arbitrary to me, I'm reviewing The Promise as one work, even though I read it in its original three parts.

The Promise assumes two things of its readers: familiarity with the original Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series and the more recent one, Avatar: The Legend of Korra. These comics come in the time after the defeat of the Fire Lord and the founding of Republic City.

Most of The Promise centers on a single Fire Nation colony on the outer edge of the Earth Kingdom. While both sides claim sovereignty over it, neither side seems willing to ask the residents what they want or what they think is best for their community. The problem is that a new hybrid culture has arisen out of occupation. There are blended families now.

But it's really not until the final third that all the themes come to a head. Aang for instance is horrified at seeing a local fan club wearing the sacred tattoos and clothing of the Air Nomads. It's through his own pain and feeling torn between the nomad life which he so desperately misses, and his new life with Katara (oogies, as her brother puts it), that he begins to see how the war and occupation has changed things for everyone.

For those wondering whatever happened to Zuko's mother, the next set of three books, The Search, will try to answer that question. That series starts in April 2013.

Four stars

Review: Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:32:00 PST

Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians by Jarrett J. Krosoczka is the second of the Lunch Lady graphic novels. In this one, the Lunch Lady and her faithful assistant Betty believe something is up with the librarians' morning meetings. What are they plotting?

I read this book at the start of my last semester in library school. Here are librarians driven over the edge by budget cuts and other cutbacks. They've taken all they can and now it's time for revenge. Librarians don't really plot revenge at their meetings — but if they did, they'd have to go up against the Lunch Lady!

It's a short and silly read. If the school lunch crew can be super heros, why can't librarians be super villains? — with magical powers, no less!

Five stars

Review: Doctor Who: The Forgotten

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 11:08:00 PST

Doctor Who: The Forgotten by Tony Lee started as a six issue comic. I read it as a bound graphic novel volume.

Martha and the Doctor arrive in a museum dedicated to the Doctor and his exploits. Someone though is calling the shots. The price is the Doctor's memories. By reliving previous adventures, one from each regeneration he finds he can regain his memories.

The Forgotten was a fun romp through the previous Doctors, though not as imaginative as the webcomic, The Ten Doctors. The end, though, has a nice resolution though that predates Gaiman's writing for the television series.

The artwork is good. The Doctor in all his different forms is recognizable. The oldest ones are drawn in black and white.

Four stars

Review: Piece of Mind

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 11:18:00 PST

Piece of Mind by Rob Reger (and Jessica Gruner and Buzz Parker) is the forth and final book in the Harper Collins series. Dark Horse, though, is now publishing a three part comic about Emily and her cats trying to break into the music scene — from her basement.

In Piece of Mind, Emily is sent by the ghost of a Dark Aunt, back to the seaside town she visited in Dark Times. Her goal this time is to activate her Black Rock summoning powers before the Shady Uncles gain the power.

As this is the last book in this series, the rules of the world are finally spelled out both for Emily and for the reader. We've known about Dark Aunts and we've heard of Shady Uncles since the very beginning. But now what they are and how they relate to each other comes together.

It was a fun ending to the series. Throughout there are little homages to the previous books. But it's in no means a rehash of them.

Five stars

Review: To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 14:18:00 PST

To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel by Siena Cherson Siegel is another memoir told in the format of a graphic novel. As more and more nonfiction is finding voice in paneled artwork and lettering, there should be a term for them that doesn't imply fiction.

Siena Cherson Siegel when she as a young child had flat feet. Her mother was desperate to do anything to get them fixed. She turned to ballet as a way to perhaps exercise her daughter's feet into the right shape. Long story short, the dancing worked. It also became a life long passion for her.

Along with the ballet, To Dance, is about Siena's move from Cuba to New York. There she went to ballet school and eventually danced with the New York Ballet. All of that is laid out, while avoiding the oft-times unhealthy body image aspects of professional ballet.

I read this memoir originally when my daughter was taking ballet. At the tender age of six, she already started becoming aware of the extreme dieting that some dancers do to stay slim. She also didn't want to give up all of her other hobbies to focus solely on dancing to qualify for team competitions. So now as I write this review, she has given up ballet for two other sports: swimming and bowling.

Five stars

Review: On a Windy Night

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 13:26:00 PST

On a Windy Night by Nancy Raines Day is a Halloween book about a boy walking home at dusk. The wind beats up all sorts of different things, made worse by his imagination.

In the wind the boy here's a voice, "Cracklety-clack, bones in a sack. They could be yours — if you look back." Imagining that he's being pursued, he runs on, stopping to examine each possible threat.

The artwork done by George Bates shows in rich saturated colors, and strong lines the things the boy thinks he sees. Then with a flip of the page, the illustrations relax and show what is really there.

For my two, the book is the perfect combination of ghost story and artwork. Each page is full of enough details to warrant a second or third look. We read through the book once for the story and a second time for the artwork.

Four stars

Review: The Eternal Hourglass

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:52:00 PST

The Eternal Hourglass by Erica Kirov is the first of the Magickeepers series. Nick Rostov lives with his father in a crappy room in one of the older Las Vegas hotel. He's starting the summer off with a bad report card, and another birthday by himself.

Except this time, his grandfather appears on his thirteenth birthday with the offer of a new life, new powers, an extended family he didn't know exists and, of course, new responsibilities. He's also moving to another hotel — this one a palace and magic school in disguise, all run by his extended and apparently massive family.

How Nick reacts (or doesn't) to suddenly being thrust into a magical lifestyle is another bone of contention. Harry Potter fans seem to respond with more enthusiasm to Nick just blindly accepting his new life. Personally I have problems with the set up for both books — but here Nick, despite his crappy hotel apartment, does seem to have a good relationship with his father. I find it much harder to believe that he would just happily up and leave for such an extended period of time to go learn magic with relatives he didn't even know existed. Granted, he's still in Las Vegas, but I think he'd be motivated to find a way home.

Here magic is hidden in plain sight by making it part of the Las Vegas kitsch. It's not a separate world of wizards and witches vs. muggles. Instead, it's a world of creative camouflage. Except — and this is such an overused trope — as soon as the main character has begun to come into his or her powers, the EVIL forces come out of the woodwork. As a reader, I'm tired of this plot. Learning to handle a sudden influx of power should be dangerous enough by itself. There doesn't have to be a BIG BAD lurking around every corner; all it does is get in the way of character development and world building.

The Eternal Hourglass did not work for me. Nick was too passive a character. The inky shadows of BIG BAD, while visually interesting, were more of a distraction from potentially difficult character building opportunities or more complex world building. I wanted a better blending of Nick's personal story, the Russian family history of using magic, and Las Vegas's own checkered history. Unfortunately, none of those pieces came together, leaving me wishing I'd spent my time reading something else.

Two stars

Review: Stuck on Earth

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:32:00 PST

Stuck on Earth by David Klass is about Ketchvar III doing reconnaissance work in the body of a teenage boy. His goal — decide if Earth should be annihilated. Ketchvar is a snail shaped and sized creature, small enough to slip into the head of Tom Filber.

Tom's isn't exactly happy. There's a lot of home stress — enough so that those who know Tom begin to suspect he's cracking under the pressure. Interestingly, Ketchvar begins to believe this story too.

Ketchvar, though, gets caught up in Tom's life and like Marc Chang of Fairly OddParents, grows to love Earth for all its dysfunction. For this reason, I imaged Chang's booming somewhat surfer dude voice as Ketchvar's.

I found the book a light and enjoyable read. There were a few moments that made me think — Tom's inner dialog with Ketchvar as a stand in for mental illness, and the environmental questions — is the world better off with or without mankind.

Recommended by Charlotte's Library

Review: The Last Suppers

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:02:00 PST

The Last Suppers by Diane Mott Davidson is the fourth in the Goldy Bear Catering mystery series. If these books were a television series, The Last Suppers would have been the season finale and suffers from the same mistakes that many a season finale make.

Goldy and Tom are finally getting married. Except that when Goldy walks down the aisle, Tom is no where to be seen! Shortly after that, a priest ends up dead. When Tom still hasn't appeared, it becomes painfully apparent that Tom has been kidnapped by the murderer.

Mmkay.

I can happily say having read enough of the post-marriage book mysteries, that The Last Suppers is an aberration for the series as a whole. Although Goldy regularly gets herself into trouble by being an amateur detective, usually Tom Schulz stays out of trouble. Yes, he's in a dangerous line of work but he's also a paid and more importantly, a trained, professional. His work as an officer of the law is a means for Goldy to get timely information that most amateur detectives don't have access too.

So while it was interesting to see how Diane Mott Davidson transitioned her series from the caterer vs. police officer set up of the first couple books to the more domestic caterer married to a police officer books, it felt like she was grinding her gears. While Goldy does tend to overly emotional at times, here, she was completely unstrung.

Then there's Tom. He's a professional. He doesn't take unnecessary risks. He just doesn't strike me as the sort of person who would get himself kidnapped and kept prisoner. His continued disappearance to stall the wedding and build unnecessary dramatic tension was a cop out (pun intended).

Had the book just started with their wedding, or immediately afterwards, The Last Suppers would have been a much better — and more in character — part of the series.

Four stars

Review: Gem

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:22:00 PST

Holly Hobbie is one of those real life people who has transcended her worldly existence into becoming a fictional icon. This began, of course, with her Holly Hobbbie drawings which in turn became Holly Hobbie and friends � characters whom filled my ever waking thought when I was in preschool through to about second grade. Now as an adult, I have rediscovered Holly Hobbie, the author and illustrator through her more recently published books such as Everything But the Horse (review coming) and Gem.

Gem is a wordless picture book that is introduced with a letter from "Gram" where she asks her grand-daughter to imagine a spring day adventure, even though it's still the middle of a harsh winter. What follows, all in pictures, is the adventure of a determined toad.

While Everything But the Horse is autobiographical and rather wordy, Gem is just Hobbie's delightful watercolors. They are so intricate and yet whimsical. They capture so perfectly those little moments in a garden. The toad's journey through the garden provides a tour through flower beds, puddles, tall grasses and all number of other scenery.

Five stars

Review: Keeper

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 15:54:00 PST

Keeper by Kathi Appelt is about a ten year old girl trying to fix a day's worth of bad events. It all began with crabs and her overactive imagination. She has a plan to make everything right.

Keeper has been raised to believe her mother is a mermaid. She's been in Signe's care since she was three, living on a tiny road tucked between the Gulf of Mexico and a nature preserve. There are three houses and an old bus that serves as a surf shop.

Keeper's story is intertwined with the stories of the other people living on that strip of beach — Signe, Dogie, and Mr. Beauchamp. Appelt spins her tale in a free verse way, using repetition, poetic allusions, alliteration and the occasional list to create a compelling and quick read.

To everyone I've recommended the book to, I've described Keeper as the inverse of The Mermaid's Mirror by L.K. Madigan (link to review). While Madigan's story is about a girl who is a mermaid but doesn't know it, Keeper is about a girl who believes she's a mermaid but probably isn't.

That isn't to say there aren't mermaids in Keeper. There are but how they play a part in the novel isn't what I expected. It was a delightful twist and one I'm not going to spoil here.

Five stars

Review: One Of Those Days

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 16:48:00 PST

One Of Those Days by Amy Krouse Rosenthal is a picture book about a girl having one of those days — over and over again. Her favorite pants are shrunk, her best friend is being beastly, and no one seems to want to listen to her — among other problems.

Rosenthal uses her list making prowess (see her memoir, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life) to humorous ends here. After my daughter and I read and laughed over Rosenthal's examples of "one of those days" we made up some of our own.

One of Those Days is a good reminder for anyone — child, parent or teacher, especially, that it's not always possible to have a good day. One doesn't always feel happy, or have good luck or get the attention they want, and that's okay.

Four stars

Review: Blueberries for Sal

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 14:33:00 PST

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey is one of those classics I some how missed during my own childhood. Sal and her mother go out picking blueberries at the same time that a mother bear and her cub do the same.

Sal and the cub, being youngsters, get too caught up in the fun of eating the berries and exploring the mountain to notice that they are wandering away from their mothers. Sal and the cub end up swapping mothers temporarily. As you can imagine, both mothers are horrified at finding the wrong child!

Throughout the book has adorable illustrations of the mother and child pairs. They are done in blue, brown and yellows — an unconventional selection for a children's book but none the less very fetching.

Five stars

Review: Who's There?

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 14:08:00 PST

Who's There? by Carole Lexa Schaefer is about a little rabbit who is trying to go to bed but is being scared by loud noises. Each time he hears the noise, he wonders what horrible monster is making it. In the end, the noise is just his baby brother, dragging along a favorite toy.

Pierr Morgan uses dark, cool colors — saturated greens, blues and violets to give the feel of a room late at night. For the monsters he brings in brighter colors to make the rabbit's imaginary beasts pop off the page. The are s delightful addition to the book.

For anyone planning to read the book aloud, I recommend doing a few practice runs in front of the mirror. The various sounds and made up monster names are tongue twisters. On a first or second run, it's a very tricky book to read accurately while putting in all the emotion needed for a dramatic performance.

Three stars

Review: Sophie and the Next-Door Monsters

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:37:00 PST

In Sophie and the Next-Door Monsters by Chris Case, new neighbors are both exciting and a little scary. Sophie's nervous about the dinner party her parents are having to welcome their next door neighbors to the neighborhood.

Sophie is convinced that her neighbors are monsters. Yet, she's supposed to show Charlie her room, and play with him while their parents chitchat. Although Charlie is very strange, she and he do have some things in common. Can they get over their differences and become friends?

As I've said in other reviews, I prefer monsters to stay monsters. Monsters are very popular with young children. Sophie and the Next-Door Monsters follows through. Charlie and his family are, in fact, monsters. But it doesn't matter. They are still the new neighbors and are still welcome. It's a good blend of monstrous fun and a positive message of acceptance and diversity.

Four stars

books | Chris Case | childrens | 2008

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Review: Red Cat, Blue Cat

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 13:37:00 PST

Red Cat, Blue Cat by Jenni Desmond is the story of two cats grumpily living together in the same home. One lives upstairs, the other downstairs.

For anyone who has introduced one cat to another — cats who aren't siblings and weren't raised together knows how difficult it is to get a pair of cats to accept each other. It's no different here. There's a bit of jealousy between the two and that's what plays out.

Red Cat wants to be Blue Cat. Blue Cat wants to be Red Cat. Each tries to be the other by changing their color. Of course that doesn't work but it does get them to appreciate what they like about each other.

When I wrote the rough draft for this review I was wondering what has happened to my youngest cat. She had gone missing over the weekend and it was extremely difficult to write about a book about two cats so very similar to mine — the old calico who was still here and the young tuxedo who was missing.

Thankfully the tuxedo cat returned about ten days later and hasn't tried to explore the great outdoors again.

Five stars

Review: Dear Tabby

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:48:00 PST

Dear Tabby by Carolyn Crimi ended up being fortuitous. In the style of Dear Abby, Tabby D. Cat replies to letters from unhappy cats.

Each letter is written in a unique voice. There is one cat in particular who complains about being too pampered. He's a house cat who wants to see the world and doesn't want to be played with.

Through Tabby D. Cat's responses, though, children learn that Tabby is a stray. Tabby wishes for a "Forever Home." But not every cat wants the same thing. Some like children. Some don't. Some like the indoors, and some don't. Can Tabby help everyone find what they need and find what she needs too?

About two months after we first read this book, we were adopted by Tortuga who desperately needed her own Forever Home. Since then we've talked about Dear Tabby and the different cats, especially Tabby who wanted a home.

Five stars

Review: Ribbit Rabbit

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 20:05:00 PST

Ribbit Rabbit by Candace Ryan is about a frog and a bunny who are best friends. They do everything together until they have a falling out. Trying to go their own way doesn't work out either.

Their actions are illustrated with short i and short a words, most of which rhyme with the title. For example: zip it, zap it. But when the two are squabbling, they swap words.

The book is a good introduction to blending sounds for children who are pre-reading. For children who have moved up to Easy Readers might find the book too simplistic — that was the case with my daughter.

Three stars

Review: The Honeybee Man

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 13:29:00 PST

May in Castro Valley means the start of the farmer's market. And that means fresh honey. Castro Valley is a mixture of urban and rural but honey can be produced anywhere there are flowers. The Honeybee Man by Lela Nargi is about a man who keeps bees in Brooklyn, New York.

Two and a half million people live in Brooklyn, Kings County. It's part of the massive urban area that is New York City, a city containing five boroughs. It's not a likely place for a beehive large enough to produce honey, but that's exactly what the honeybee man and his bees do on their rooftop hive.

The book follows both the bees and the man as they do their part to create the honey. The bees find nectar on flowers abloom all around the neighborhood. They also raise their babies, take care of the queen and build wax rooms.

Kyrsten Brooker's energetic illustrations capture the work the bees are doing and the enthusiasm the beekeeper has for his bees.

Four stars.

Review: Son of Slappy

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 17:07:00 PST

Son of Slappy by RL Stine is the second of the recently launched Goosebumps, Most Wanted Series. My son and his friends have discovered their school's ratty (meaning, well-read) copies of Goosebumps so I was curious to see how the new series compares to the older ones.

The first Goosebumps series started well after I was out of the target age range but I heard of them through a younger cousin and read a few of the early ones, including Night of the Living Dummy (Goosebumps 7), the first of the Slappy books.

Slappy is an evil ventriloquist's dummy. Honestly, except for "The Puppet Show" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 1, episode 9), all ventriloquist's dummies are evil. But Slappy is perhaps the worst of the worst.

Now for those who are complaining that Slappy was destroyed in a previous book; he's evil enough (and smart enough) to fake his own destruction. Now that he's been laying low in an old man's collection (quick — call for an intervention, this dude's a hoarder), Slappy has picked a Marty-Stu named Jackson who is so perfect no adult believes he's capable of doing any wrong. Little sister, though, with Slappy's help has her sights on his perfect reputation.

It was a fun read and very much in keeping with the spirit and formula of the earlier books.

Four stars

books | RL Stine | fantasy | 2013

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Review: Shutter Island

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:00:00 PST

Among book bloggers there seems to be two schools of thought on books to movies: read the book first or see the movie first. I fall into a third school � the "oh hey, this movie came from a book, who knew?" Which is pretty sad, considering I'm both a book blogger and a librarian, and a former film student. Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane is is one of my most recent "discoveries" after watching the film twice in short succession.

If you're wondering what the book is about — it's basically the movie, save for a few minor tweaks to better show rather than tell. If you haven't seen the movie — it's about an escaped convict running loose on a high security island and the two U.S. Marshals who are there to track her down in the middle of a raging hurricane.

As with any story involving a creepy, old, mental institution — whether occupied or not — there's bound to be mysterious happenings afoot. Cinematically, this goes all the way back to The Cabinet of Caligari. In either form — book or film — Shutter Island is firmly rooted in that tradition.

Although there is a twist (and there's always a twist), to the observant and genre savvy, there are clues sewn throughout the novel. As I listened to the book in audio, some of those clues weren't as obvious as they would have been in print form.

Five stars

Review: Strangers on a Train

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 12:23:00 PST

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith is another of those books I discovered because of its film adaptation. In this case, it's one of my favorite Alfred Hitchcock films, taking turns with Psycho and Rear Window for the honor of being THE FAVORITE of the moment. The novel, though, also has the honor of being Highsmith's debut and damn, what fine debut it is.

Two men — Bruno and Guy — meet on a train bound for Texas and New Mexico. Bruno is a youngish playboy who wants nothing more than to get rid of his father so he can have more access to his mother's money. Guy is an architect (not a tennis player as he is in the film) wants a divorce so he can remarry. Bruno sets things in motion by taking care of Guy's problem.

Here, then is the big point of departure of the book and the film. Hitchcock makes Guy, his girlfriend and her family the indisputable heros. Guy is a victim of a deranged killer.

Not so for Highsmith's Guy. Although Miriam's death still comes at Bruno's hand, Guy's reaction is cold and calculating. Though reluctant to participate in Bruno's experiment, he's not against it on moral grounds — more out of a combination of laziness and a fear of getting caught. While he's not as unhinged as Bruno, he's not innocent — he's cold and calculating and perhaps the scarier of the two.

Four stars

books | Patricia Highsmith | fiction | 1950

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Review: Angelology

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:58:00 PST

Angelology by Danielle Trussoni is set in the last weeks of the Twentieth century and in the years up to and during World War Two. A war between the angels and the nephilim is brewing and humanity will be screwed in the process. In the tradition of the religious horror of the 1960s and 1970s, the heros here are religious scholars (angelologists) and nuns. In it's set up, it's most like The Sentinel by Jeffrey Konvitz — except it's about three times as long.

A mysterious and uninvited visitor to a convent in upstate New York, leads Sr. Evangeline onto the discovery of a life time. But she might be too late to save the world. But of course she patiently listens to the elderly Sr. Celestine's long and rambling tales of her life and research in France on the eve of World War Two.

For the reviews that compare Angelology to the Da Vinci Code, I disagree. Although both share Catholic mysticism, they are very different in their narrative structures. Dan Brown's books are basically capers with the good guys either racing to the next clue before the bad guys, or running away from the bad guys. It's charming and silly and there's no real expectation to take any of it very seriously. Angelology is the exact opposite except that it's just as full of plot holes as Brown's books but it takes itself so deadly seriously that there's no fun to be had.

Rather than leaving the plot to a young nun with a closetful of skeletons, what the world needs is the brothers Winchester and their porn watching, booze swigging, on-again off-again angel, Castiel.

All the help the characters in Angelology need. (Sam and Dean Winchester and Castiel)

Two stars

Review: Polly and the Pirates, Volume 1

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:26:00 PST

Polly and the Pirates, Volume 1 by Ted Naifeh is is the first in the series about Polly a girl at a boarding school who catches the interest of some local pirates. The only problem is, everyone else tells her there haven't been pirates in years!

Polly, though, has no interest in pirates. She is star pupil at school and believes her mother was a prim and proper lady of society. When she is kidnapped by pirates she's forced to reevaluate what she knows about her mother.

My favorite part of the book is the setting. The town at first looks like any sort of Caribbean town from a hundred or so years ago. But then as Polly explores more of the town, the unique aspect of the town is revealed. It's mostly (or maybe entirely) built upon ships!

For readers familiar with San Francisco, Naifeh includes some details of his home town. These details are like Easter eggs in an already fun adventure.

My one complaint is the artwork. The claw like hands of all the characters took some getting used to. For the sequel, though, there is a new artist.

Five stars

Review: Deadly Decisions

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:58:00 PST

Deadly Décisions by Kathy Reichs is the third in the Temperance Brennan series. In this one the discovery of parts of a girl's skeleton during the investigation into an on-going biker gang war in Montreal opens up a cold case. Brennan is brought in to help identify the remains and is thrust into a turf war that might involve her nephew.

While the TV series spawned from the books has little in common with the source material, the two do share interesting (albeit sometimes obvious) observations on different subcultures and equally interesting scientific tidbits. I suspect the science is closer to reality (though by how much, I can't say) in the books. Certainly Brennan doesn't have access to super smart assistants and their home-brew magic science sleuthing devices. It is for these two details, though (the scientific investigation and the cultural observations) that I both read the books and watch the series.

In the books, including this one, Brennan, while more connected with friends and family, lacks the bravado and fighting skills of her younger TV counterpart. Instead, she seems to have an uncanny knack for getting both herself and her family into trouble with the very folks she's investigating. While these scenes are there for drama, they quickly become tiring.

Take for instance Brennan's nephew. He shows up conveniently enough just as she takes this biker gang case. He, of course, has taken an interest in hogs. He, of course, is naively suckered into a web of intrigue that puts himself and his aunt in danger. His interaction with the ballsy big bad du jour gives Brennan just the connection to crack the case wide open (of course).

All the way through, until the plot paint-by-numbers called for Brennan to connect her personal problems with the case, the nephew insisted he wasn't hooked up with dangerous bikers. It sure would have been refreshing if that had been the case. I realize that probably won't happen in any of the books I read. But I will keep hoping, nonetheless.

Three stars

Review: The Long Earth

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:36:00 PST

The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter is the first book in a new science fiction (speculative fiction) that explores (quite literally) the multiverse — one Earth at a time.

In 2015, the plans for a stepper are posted to the internet. It's basically a box, some wires, a switch (don't forget that!) and a potato (a Portal 2 reference?). As people (mostly teenagers) build the steppers and hit the switch (if they have one, most don't), they blip out of this Earth and go one step either East or West to another (but unpopulated) Earth.

In trying to save the other kids from the orphanage who stepped with shoddily built steppers, Joshua (who built his to spec because that's what he does), learns that he prefers the near silence of these other Earths and more importantly, he's a natural stepper (no box needed).

Like the disaster books of the 1970s, this novel has an ensemble cast, though the main ones are an orphan and natural stepper, Joshua, a former Tibetan motorcycle repairman (now computer consciousness) — Lobsang, a Madison police officer, and the daughter of the man who invented the stepper.

Roughly two-thirds of the novel cover Joshua and Lobsang's journey west. The other third is divided up between the mechanics of stepping, the ramifications back on the Datum (original Earth), and some other accounts of people stepping (presented as blog entries, for example).

How I pictured Lobsang's ambulatory unit.

Joshua, in his late twenties, is hired to go in search of the end the Long Earth. He will be traveling with Lobsang in a carefully built airship set up record anything unusual that is found along the way. It also serves as a back-up drive (one of many) for Lobsang (just in case). Should something happen (which means something invariably will), Joshua is in charge of brining Lobsang (meaning the airship's datacenter) home to the Datum.

I listened to the book on audio CDs (ten discs), performed by Michael Fenton-Stevens. My favorite character (due in large part to Fenton-Stevens's work), was Lobsang. If I ever have a self-driven car — I'm naming it Lobsang. Realistically, I should name computer part Lobsang, and the vehicle the Mark Twain — but you get the idea.

While I can clearly say I enjoyed the book. And while I can easily recommend the book, I do have some quibbles with it. The first is the authors' choice of Madison Wisconsin (and other parts of the United States) for their setting. The problem is that these American characters were so clearly being strained through a British filter twice (one in the text, and again in the audio performance). Most of the time it didn't matter but sometimes an American character would say something that no American would say ("disorientated" instead of "disoriented"). Or the narrator would mispronounce something and I'd be once again taken out of the moment ("fehma" instead of "f-ee-mah" for FEMA).

My second quibble is the big threat which comes down to what Joshua calls a "migraine monster." Frankly, with Terry Pratchett as one of the co-authors, I wasn't all that surprised that there was a huge ecosystem bearing creature lurking on the Long Earth. So while I was half expecting a giant terrapin / pachyderm combo, I got instead, something that brought to mind one of the water monsters from Pikmin 2 (though large enough to carry an elephant).

But it was still a fun read and I'm planning to revisit the Long Earth when The Long War is released later in 2013.

Four stars

Review: Green

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:52:00 PST

Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger was a 2013 Caldecott Honor book. Where One Boy teaches children some basics of counting as well as words within words, this one highlights many shades of green as well as the things in life that are (or in some cases, not) green.

Like One Boy, Green has die cut shapes that help unite the pages by allowing bits of color through. Here, the shapes are much smaller and more subtle — sometimes making just a few petals on a flower or among the camouflage of colors, some relevant text ("khaki" and "jungle").

The illustrations appear to have been painted this time, giving a very lush and eye pleasing exploration of the color green. As Sondra Eklund says, it's "exquisite craftsmanship" makes it "worth another look."

Five stars

Review: The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland - For a Little While

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:25:00 PST

The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland - For a Little While by Catherynne M Valente is a short story prequel to the Fairyland books. It was originally published online at Tor.com and later as part of This Year's Best Science Fiction (2012 edition), edited by Rich Horton.

In The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, September quests in the shadow of good Queen Mallow. She is expected by those she meets to usurp the Marquess and return Fairyland to its former glory. At every stop she makes she hears more and more of Queen Mallow. Whether or not September's decisions are influenced by Mallow's reputation is never fully stated but she is ever present.

In the sequel, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Mallow's fate is known by September. She continues to remain ever present, but now as a tragic character and a warning to September. Throughout her (almost) return to Fairyland, September begins to worry that she may have unintentionally followed the same path that Mallow does.

This short story takes a small part of Mallow's life in Fairyland. Valente shows how a small girl who wants some peace and quiet can be swept up by Fairyland and be recruited into leadership. Questions asked (mostly in the second book) are answered.

Read it on Tor.com

Five stars

Review: The Underneath

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 11:15:00 PST

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt was her debut novel. In print form, it was illustrated by David Small. I happened to listen to the audio but in retrospect, I wish I had read it instead.

The book opens with a very pregnant calico cat being dropped off in a Texas bayou. As she looks for a safe place to bear her kittens, she hears the song of a chained up hound dog, Ranger. They become friends and he provides for a safe place (albeit temporarily) for her and her twin kittens — a boy (Puck) and girl (Sabine).

Ranger's sadness stems from the chain around his neck and a years old wound from the time his owner, Gar Face, shot him. Gar Face who's two main goals in life are drinking and shooting things, is the most dangerous threat awaiting the calico and her kittens. As with so many animal themed Newbery books, an animal dies. It is an unfortunate part of the realism of this book, and might be a difficult story for some children.

Mixed into the story of the kittens and Ranger trying to survive life with Gar Face, is an older tale — a magical one involving shape-shifters who have been part of the Bayou since its earliest days. One of them is Grandmother Moccasin, a creature sleeping in the base of an old tree. She is grieving for loved ones long since lost and she aches for revenge.

The parallel stories are told in a poetic voice. There is repetition to set the mood and tempo of the book. And here, though, is where I had trouble with the audio — the performer chose to read bayou by the regional Texas pronunciation, bai-oh, but the poetry of the book would fit better with the more widely used bai-you. Even though the choice is regionally correct it was jarring.

Three stars

Review: Sapphique

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 13:55:00 PST

Sapphique by Catherine Fisher is the sequel to Incarceron. It opens in the aftermath of Finn escaping from the prison and the Warden escaping into it.

Finn, who Claudia believes to be the missing crown prince, must now prove his identity, even as his memory remains spotty. To mix things up, another Giles appears, claiming to be the original. With the Queen taking his side, it's clear that civil war can't be far behind.

Meanwhile things inside of the prison are getting more dangerous for everyone involved. The prison AI wants more from its existence and has decided the best way to achieve that is to escape its physical bounds. Doing, that, though puts both the prison and the Realm at risk.

I'm breaking with the majority to say that Sapphique was more of a page turner for me than the original. Now that the big secret is out, namely what the prison is and where's it's located, there's more time to concentrate on how the worlds of the prison and Realm work (or don't).

In the extra space left by the vacated mystery is filled with glimpses of the damage done by the war the necessitated the mandated Era. Things aren't much better on the outside than they are on the inside of the prison.

Although Incarercon and Sapphique are more fantasy than science fiction, I think fans of Maria V. Snyder's Inside Out and Outside In will like these two.

Five stars

Review: Mariana

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 11:45:00 PST

Mariana by Susanna Kearsley was reissued in 2012. Julia on her third random encounter with a charming old house decides she has to purchase it. She gives up her life in London for the small town life. Along the way she discovers her ties to a woman named Mariana who lived during the Restoration.

I read the book for the description of the haunted house. The initial couple of chapters deliver just that — a mysterious house, a ghost on a gray horse and a woman in a green dress. Rooms flip between their modern setting and older time periods. This set up is moody, atmospheric and completely addicting.

Then the book moves from being about ghosts to being about reliving the past. Julia is suddenly inside the body of Mariana and is basically along for the ride. At first these extended flash backs come without warning but then, for plot convenience, Julia gains control over them and like a drug addict continues to pop back into Mariana's life.

The big hook for the novel is supposed to be Mariana's life and the mysterious Richard and how he ties into Julia's handsome neighbor. If you are a fan of period romances, then you will love the novel. If you're not, you will be left with lengthy flashbacks that feel forced and a modern day story that boils down to drinking in the pub, hanging out with Julia's ever-so-perfect vicar brother, waking up in dangerous situations and mooning over reincarnation.

Read via NetGalley

Three stars

Review: This is Not My Hat

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 12:12:00 PST

This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen won the 2013 Caldecott. It's the sequel to the equally delightful and minimalist, I Want My Hat Back. He also earned an honor for his illustrations in Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett.

While the first book was told from the perspective of the hat-misser (a bear), this one follows the hat (and the stealer of said hat). As the fish explains, the hat doesn't even fit on the owner's head.

Here, then, the excitement is in the chase. If the previous book was a mystery (where is the hat? who stole it?), this one is a thriller. We know who has it and we wonder how and when he'll be caught.

I don't know if there will be any more hat books from Klassen, but I'm in love with his illustrations and somewhat dark sense of humor.

Five stars

Review: Why Read Moby-Dick?

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 10:59:00 PST

Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick came to be from the writing of In the Heart of the Sea, a history of the shipwreck of the Essex (the inspiration for Moby Dick). Why Read Moby-Dick, then, like the movie Adaptation is to Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, if she had made the film herself.

Philbrick's book is really more of a lengthy essay in chapter form and comes out at a slim 131 pages. It's his thoughts on the book, it's pivotal scenes and his theories on the meaning of the book. While those theories are interesting, they are light on analysis and citation. Perhaps Why Read Moby-Dick would work better as a readers' companion to In the Heart of the Sea than as a critical analysis of Melville's novel.

I chose to read Why Read Moby-Dick to see what arguments Philbrick uses to encourage reluctant readers to pick up the novel. I did this, though, as an avid lover of the novel. I don't need to be convinced to pick it up and sadly, having read through Philbrick's long plot summary stripped of the woodcuts and Melville's humor, I'm not sure I would want to pick it up based solely on his recommendation.

Why Read Moby-Dick will appeal mostly to Philbick fans and perhaps Melville fans who are more rabid in their devotion than I am and need to have a copy to complete their collection.

Read via NetGalley

Three stars

Review: f2m

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:15:00 PST

f2m by Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy is a YA novel about 18 year old Skye deciding to go with her heart and transition to male. Will Finn be welcomed into the once all-girl band? What will her parents and brother think? Plus, there are family secrets!

The book is a pretty quick and tame read. For young adults who might feel the need to transition (especially those in Australia, as some of the steps are very specific to Australian health care), the book reads like a step by step process, wrapped up in a fictionalized package.

To fluff things up, there's Skye/Finn's paricipation a punk band, some stuff about getting a drivers' license and finally, the history of Great Uncle/Aunt Al, whose history is only revealed after Finn begins his transition.

Frankly, Al's story was more interesting than Finn's. From the small handful of transition stories I've now read, they all seem desperate to find a balance between making it seem normal for the character who is transitioning, while making it as dramatic / traumatic for everyone else in the book, while still making the book a "clean" read.

While I still recommended F2M for the logistics of transitioning, I think the best (meaning most believable characters) book I've read so far is Jumpstart the World by Catherine Ryan Hyde (link to review).

Four stars

Review: The Danish Girl

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:15:00 PST

The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff is a fictionalized account of Einar Wegener's transformation into Lili Eiber. When the model for his wife's current painting fails to show, Einar agrees to don the costume and pose in her place. And then he begins to realize he's more comfortable being a woman. Soon he is spending most of his time as Lili Eiber.

The book is set in Finland and in Pasadena, in flashback. Einar's wife was raised in Pasadena, California. I enjoyed seeing the city at the turn of the last century, through the early 1920s, through her memories. Her emersion in the California school of art (plein air painting of sweeping landscapes in bold colors) played against Einar's small, subdued landscapes that he had fallen out of habit of painting. Through their artwork, then, their relationship and personalities are introduced and explored.

I read The Danish Girl in the same weeks as Parrotfish — a YA novel about a female to male transgender teen. The striking difference between the two is the level of support Lili receives from her wife and their friends. How much support the actual Lili received, I don't know. As a story of support in a potentially difficult stage of life — it's a lovely novel.

Recommended by the Zen Leaf

Four stars

Review: The Pirate's Daughter

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:08:00 PST

The Pirate's Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson is like Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani, except that it's set in Jamaica and the movie start du jour is Errol Flynn. Whilst Elizabeth Taylor didn't leave much behind on her trip to Big Stone Gap, Cezair-Thompson asks the question: What if Flynn fathered a child while on the island?

In 1942, Flynn did in fact land in Jamaica, his ship damaged from a storm. He did fall in love with the island and did start to build a house there. The remains of the house are still there. For the novel, though, the original landing is pushed forward to 1946 and Flynn's initial stay is much longer to give the first act of the novel time to play out.

Flynn's predatory nature and the effect it has on Ida and later her daughter, May, is drowned out by too many voices. Cezair-Thompson jumps around in points of view, not sticking with Ida or later, May. Either a strict first person telling (from Ida and later May) or a more removed, omniscient narrator would have succeeded in telling a less muddled story.

With all the padding I never felt like I got to know Ida or her piece of Jamaica. By the time she had vanished, leaving her daughter in the care of relatives, I didn't care enough about May to continue reading. Included in my links are more positive reviews if you want a second or third opinion. I though, cannot recommend this book.

Two stars

Review: Parrotfish

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:31:00 PST

Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger is about the transitioning of Angela into Grady — female to male. Problems arise at school — the administration doesn't have a clear cut policy in place and there's of course bullying, problems at home — the mother who desperately doesn't want to lose a daughter (even a tomboy one) and problems with friends (over reacting or not knowing how to react).

The title comes from a species of fish that changes its sex. Grady believes in his heart of hearts that he should be male even if his body isn't. He needs, though, to prove to others that his feelings are natural and normal.

While the book would be useful for teens either going through the same thing or even just feeling like fish out of water, the pacing and characterization felt forced. Except for Grady and a sympathetic gym teacher — and perhaps the father's over the top approach to Christmas decorating, the characters are presented at the extremes of both genders. Men are MEN and women are WOMEN.

In this sort of dichotomy, there's nothing for Angela (pre-Grady) to do except to change into Grady. There's no wiggle room, and therefore no way to explore the nuances of gender. As some one who isn't especially feminine and who has friends and family who fall somewhere between the two extremes — I had a hard time relating to Grady or anyone else in the book.

Three stars

Review: Sarah Emma Edmonds Was a Great Pretender

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 11:02:00 PST

I have been interested in the American Civil War since high school. I like reading about it, whether it's fiction or nonfiction. As soon as Carrie Jones announced her nonfiction picture book biography of Sarah Emma Edmonds called Sarah Emma Edmonds Was a Great Pretender, I immediately added it to my wishlist.

Using simple, straightforward language, Carrie Jones outlines Sarah Edmond's childhood and early adulthood. Jones explains that Sarah's father wanted a son and she did her best to pretend to be the boy he wanted. When it was painfully clear that she could never live up to expectations, Sarah left Canada for the United States where she started selling bibles. Through experimentation she learned that she could sell far more books dressed as a man than she did dressed as a woman.

But this book isn't about gender identity per se. It's about her part in the Civil War. She joined the Union Army as soldier (named Frank Thompson) and male nurse. When the army needed spies, she decided to do her duty and volunteer. Jones goes through some of her different missions and her different disguises.

Mark Oldroyd's illustrations show the many faces Sarah wore in her life and her army career. Sometimes she dressed as a woman (or as Carrie puts it, a woman pretending to be a man, disguised as a woman). Throughout all the costume changes, Oldroyd is able to let Sarah's personality shine through so we can see it's still her.

It's a fascinating slice of American history seen through a nonfiction picture book. The book includes a short bibliography in the endnotes and I plan to read through the listed books as time permits.

Five stars.

Review: Demon Eyes

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 11:52:00 PST

Demon Eyes by Scott Tracey is the sequel to Witch Eyes. Braden has come to Belle Dam for answers about his past and his unusual magical ability (as well as the crippling migraines caused by it). Instead, he's found himself in the middle of a decades long feud.

As the book opens, Braden comes to realize that the danger he thought was past is still lingering. No one believes him and he must do everything in his power to prove his hunch.

Along with Braden's family problems, his health issues and the on-going feud, is his homosexuality. In the previous book the plot was more focused on the mystery of Belle Dam than on anything else. Now though as things reach the lull as the midpoint in a trilogy often does, Braden's sexual desires are brought to the forefront to fill in the gaps left by the plot.

Rather than build a single relationship that could put two men in conflict with the town politics, Braden has a rather in effectual love triangle. Really it's more of a lust triangle in that neither man seems all that interested in this outsider with horrendous migraines and a bad attitude. Frankly, given how much Braden is prone to whining in Demon Eyes, I don't blame them!

The book quickly falls into a predictable flow of events: Braden decides to assert himself, someone decides to stop him, one or both of Braden's would be boyfriends comes to the rescue, Branden is forced to use his power, Braden faints. Rinse, wash, repeat. It was an unsatisfying sequel to such a strong start to a series.

Read via NetGalley

Three stars.

Review: Blood Fruit

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 19:52:00 PST

Blood Fruit edited by James E.M. Rasmussen is a collection of eleven queer, horror, short stories. A lot of them have a paranormal aspect to them as well as the erotica.

The stories all share an element of dangerous hook ups where the promise of sex comes with a price. The encounters are usually between a human and something that appears human but either isn't or is undead.

It's a relatively quick read. One could read a story a night before bed or plow through the entire collection over a lazy afternoon.

The stories are:

"The Lure of Dangerous Woman" by Shanna Germain
"A Different Kind of Monster" by T.A. Moore
"Just Past Winter" by Nathan Sims
"Hemophobia" by Trent Roman
"The Diarist" by Mark Silcox
"After All" by Laramie Dean
"Happy Anniversary" by Stephen Osborne
"Tombstone" by Raymond Yeo
"Captive Magic" by Garry McLaughlin
"Hollow" by Jamie Freeman
"For Her Eyes" by Quinn Smythwood

Three stars

Review: Six Chinese Brothers: An Ancient Tale

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 10:40:00 PST

Once upon a time there was a family of brothers with amazing abilities. One of the brothers commits a crime and is sentenced to death. By asking for one last night at home the brothers were able to take each others place until there were no ways left to run the execution. For their devotion to father and family, the execution is called off.

That's the basis of a Chinese folktale. The number of brothers varies. The version that's probably best known for better (or worse) here is Five Chinese Brothers by Claire Hutchet Bishop. There's also Seven Chinese Brothers by Margaret Mahy.

My favorite of the lot is Six Chinese Brothers by Hou-Tien Cheng. The brother who can drink up the entire ocean (the final form of execution being drowning in the bay) is replaced by two brothers with stretchy powers (one of arms and one of legs). The drowning is thus adverted by being able to stand on the bottom of the sea.

Somehow the progression of one punishment to another seem more logical to me. The ability to stand on the bottom of the sea seems more likely than the ability to swallow the entire sea!Also, this book avoids the unpleasantness of a child's death in lieu of thievery.

The best feature of the book, though, are the illustrations. Instead of having five identical bright yellow Simpsonesque brothers, there are six distinct brothers created from cutting paper outlines. They are done in red and black paper and are so much more interesting to look at than the westernized stereotype of Chinese men.

Five stars

Review: Highway Robbery

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:51:00 PST

Highway Robbery by Kate Thompson is a short chapter book with a lovely vintage feel to it. It has a few plates of pen and ink illustrations, something I've not seen in recently published books.

The story is told as a discussion between the main character, an un-named street urchin, and the reader who has presumably met the boy while going about his or her business.

The boy defensively explains why he's holding onto such a fine black mare, far better than any boy in his situation should ever have access to. He's been entrusted with the mare by a well dressed man who has business in town. The boy plans to take good care of the horse because it's more interesting than begging and if does a really good job, there might be extra coins in it for him.

In this dialog, the boy reveals details of his day and hints at who this mysterious man might be. One, of course, can guess from the title that the man in question is up to no good.

For a book where very little happens in the present, it's a quite the page turner. It can be read in one sitting.

Five stars

Review: How to Dine on Killer Wine

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 15:00:00 PST

How to Dine on Killer Wine by Penny Warner is the fifth of the Party Planner mysteries, all of which are set in and around San Francisco. This one takes Presley to Napa — one of two large wine producing areas in the North Bay.

Presley has been hired by a winery to put on a party to celebrate the launch of a new line of wines. There's also a lot of bad blood between the rival wineries. At the two extremes: an eco-warrior who wants to get every winery to be green certified; and a giant conglomerate who is buying up the smaller wineries to produce massive amounts of cheap (box) wine.

So of course a guest ends up dead. Her most memorable parties end up this way. And of course, her client is accused with the crime. Somewhere in the middle of the rivalries and the Bingo night gossip is the truth. Presley with the help of her mother are on the case!

Any qualms I had about the direction of the series (see my review of How to Party with a Killer Vampire) were put to rest in How to Dine on Killer Wine. Clearly Presley is back in her element — catering at famous landmarks around the Bay. The Napa Valley felt like Napa and the rivalries came off as believable.

The tension between the different characters as well as Presley's removal from the urban bustle of San Francisco, brings to mind another book I read around the same time, Winter Study by Nevada Barr. The approach, though, is much lighter in Warner's book.

Five stars

Review: One Crazy Summer

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:25:00 PST

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia covers the summer trip of Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonette and Fern to visit their mother in Oakland, California. Big Ma has declared it time for Cecile to act like a mother to her daughters, years after leaving them, if even for a few weeks in the summer.

Delphine (the oldest, and narrator) expects the California of television and movies — beaches, Disneyland and summer heat. She gets instead, Oakland — fog, hills and the beach is a long bus ride away. She also gets a distant mother, greasy food from the local Chinese takeout, and days spent at the Center — run by the local Black Panthers. It is nothing Delphine expected or wants. All she wants to do is take her sisters home.

One Crazy Summer is one of those books I'd like to see made part of the California curriculum. Although it's historical fiction, it touches on so many issues and themes that are still relevant. It's also a well crafted story with believable, positive characters.

The sequel, P.S. Be Eleven comes out later in 2013.

Five stars

Review: Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 14:18:00 PST

Rez Life: An Indian's Journey Through Reservation Life by David Treuer is part memoir, part interview, and part history of the Ojibwe and the Leech Lake Reservation.

Individually these pieces of Ojibwe life are well written, fascinating views into a piece of Native American culture. Where the book falters is in its organization. With little or no segue, the narrative jumps around through memoir, interview and history.

This book would be best suited for readers familiar with the Ojibwe and / or Northern Minnesota. There's not enough by way of introduction or logical structure to aid the uninitiated reader. I would recommend reading this book in conjunction with other texts.

Three stars

Teaching children to read

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 12:02:00 PST

Literacy is one of the best tools a parent can give to a child. While it's tempting to rush the process, the child's brain needs to ready. While children tend to reach these milestones around certain ages, children don't come with pre-programmed schedules.

What parents can do to help the process, is to recognize what stage their child is at and provide skill appropriate materials. I know — that sounds really clinical and scary. Don't worry — much of this involves playing games with your child and can be done during down times like driving in the car between errands, during meals, or during bath time, for example.

Babies:

Babies are like foreign exchange students. They've been studying the language but they either can't speak it or they don't speak it well yet. To get your baby ready for reading, talk, sing (or listen to music) and read those baby board books as often as you can. Baby talk helps children learn those tricky vowels but regular talk helps too.

If you don't know any nursery rhymes — your local library will have them — often both in book and on CD. The Dewey number for nursery rhymes is 782.4

If you don't want to sing nursery rhymes — any sort of nonsense song will do. Practice your rhyming skills and make stuff up. When my son was little, I'd sing: Mister, mister, Sean —
Get your jammies on

Toddlers:

Once your little one is up and about and babbling, start singing that old alphabet song. Along with memorizing the order of the letters, start naming things:

A is for apple
B is for banana
C is for cabbage
... and so forth.

Trying to name one thing for each letter of the alphabet helps link those letters and the things they stand for. Q, X and Z will be tricky but you can have fun with them. There are a number of these alphabet books available.

For example:

ABC I Like Me by Nancy Carlson
Alphabet Mystery by Audrey and Bruce Wood
Alison's Zinnia by Anita Lobel
Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel
Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert
Harold's ABC by Crocket Johnson
LMNO Peas by Keith Baker
What Pete Ate from A to Z by Maira Kalman
The Z was Zapped by Chris Van Allsburg

Rhyming Words:

Practice those rhyming words! Here's where Dr. Seuss's easy readers come in handy: Cat in the Hat, Fox in Socks, and Hop on Pop, for instance.

If you have PBS, you can watch Super Why! with your child. Red's power is rhyming words.

Blends:

If your child knows the alphabet and can come up with words for different letters of the alphabet, he or she might be ready to try reading. The last major hurdle are the blends. You can use letter blocks, Scrabble tiles or similar to bring together letters that make different sounds together: F+L, S+H, T+H, etc.

Either version of The Electric Company (the 1970s version or the more recent relaunch) are good for learning blends. Frankly, I find the new version has more practical advice for reading but the older skits go more for slap stick and might appeal better to the younger set.

Those first books:

When your child is ready to start reading on his or her own, pick books that are big on pictures and light on text. Reading in those first few attempts is HARD work. Fortunately there are TONS of fun picture books available for the beginning reader. For my daughter, the book that took her over the edge and made her a reader was Banana by Ed Vere.

Last but not least:

Let your child pick out some of the books he or she wants to read. Pay attention to your child's hobbies and pick accordingly. There is no one right book for every single child.

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Review: Extra Yarn

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 19:24:00 PST

Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett is illustrated by Jon Klassen, the author of I Want My Hat Back and This is Not My Hat (review coming). For fans of Klassen's books, there's a cameo tucked inside.

Annabelle finds a box of yarn. It's the most colorful thing in her dreary village — a place that reminds me of the painting Jagers in de Sneeuw (1565) by Pieter Bruegel. Just imagine that snowy landscape filled with Klassen's characters, being slowly but surely covered in knitted sweaters and blankets and whatnot.

Presented with a box full of yarn, Annabelle sits down and knits herself a sweater. When the box remains full of yarn she knits sweaters for all her friends and family, neighbors, and the local wildlife and pets. When she still has yarn, she yarn bombs the village and the forest until everything is colorful.

It's here that her knitting draws the attention of a jealous duke. He steals the box but the yarn isn't there. It doesn't matter if you have the tools and supplies if you don't have the drive to create.

Five stars

Review: Poor Rich

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 10:49:00 PST

Poor Rich by Jean Blasiar is about an asthmatic teen who is trying to fit in. When his asthma suddenly seems to vanish he sees his opportunity to make something new with his life. Part of this involves writing poetry and short stories.

The first half of the book is written in first person from Rich's point of view. It's in a style somewhere between Jean Shepherd and Allen Zadoff. There's a family crisis (Dad leaving because he realizes he's gay) and a parrot (U2) who has more personality than anyone else in the book.

Unfortunately, just as the book really seems to be going somewhere it stops. The second half of the book is instead, Rich's stories. Of course they're supposed to continue on the plot and Rich provides explanations behind each one. The problem is, the break the flow of an otherwise funny story. I didn't want to change gear and start reading Rich's fiction. The sudden change left me feeling cheated.

1 star.

Review: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:13:00 PST

Before starting in on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again by Frank Cottrell Boyce, read the introduction. Boyce explains why he wrote this sequel and why he wrote it the way he did. Boyce, like I think many people of our generation, saw the movie before reading the book, and was shocked by how little the movie resembled Ian Fleming's book. The only thing the book and the movie agreed on was the make of the car and the fact that it could fly of its own accord.

Boyce goes one further — deciding that it could be any model of flying car. Well, not exactly, but the Tooting's vehicle of choice is one of those old air cooled VW bus — something vintage with the movie. I have to admit that a flying VW bus gave me pause but Boyce trundles on with the comedic confidence you'll find from the likes of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams. And he pulls it off.

In all fairness to the cover art — the Tootings don't start off with a flying car (or a VW bus). Both come over the course of the first third of the novel. The bus is part midlife crisis and part family hobby, a means to a family vacation on an extreme budget after dear old dad is made redundant.

The remainder of the book is the adventure itself — some of which involves flying. There are baddies who are a stylistic compromise between the straight up gangster types of Fleming's book and the more magical (surreal) baddies of the film.

And, just as the film broke for Boyce, right as things were getting really interesting, the book ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. As this is a book about a flying car, the cliffhanger is rather literal.

The relaunch continues (thankfully!) with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time (March 2013).

Four stars

Review: Hot Rod Hamster!

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:01:00 PST

Hot Rod Hamster! by Cynthia Lord was mentioned on the 100 Scope Notes blog. It's about a hamster who goes to the junkyard to build his own hot rod for an upcoming race.

For each part of the car, the hamster is give some choices. Sometimes the book stops to ask the reader, "which would you chose?" and other times the selection is left the hamster.

That interactivity is a good start but it could have been taken further. Regardless of what choice the reader makes, the hamster makes his own choice too. It would have been nice if there was a mix and match aspect to the book to acknowledge the reader's choices.

This book will delight children who like cars and specifically like racing cars. When I was the target age of the this book I spent many an afternoon either at antique car museums, watching my father rebuild one of his antique cars, or going to antique car shows. That, though, is a very different culture from hot rodding.

Three stars

Review: I Want My Hat Back

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:26:00 PST

Although I'd heard of I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen, it took the numerous parodies that were popping up across the internet to get me to read it. The one that finally did it was The Doctor Wants His Fez Back.

I Want My Hat Back is, in itself a parody of the children's book which takes a character to meet all the friends in the quest for something. In this case, the Bear is looking for his hat. He interviews each character in the book until he finds his hat.

How he gets his hat back, though, is up to interpretation. The youngest readers might not get how he does it. The most observant ones, though, will get the joke and see it coming. It's funny either way.

The Bear and his forest companions make a cameo appearance in Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett (review coming).

Five stars

Review: Pirate vs. Pirate

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:23:00 PST

When my husband needed a break from telling his own pirate bedtime story, I read Pirate vs. Pirate by Mary Quattlebaum to the kids.

Bad Bart is the worst of the Atlantic pirates and Mean Mo monopolizes the Pacific. Having run out of others to terrorize, both pirates set out to meet and beat the other. What they don't realize is that they are evenly matched in all their skills. Days and days (maybe even months) of competitions prove this beyond a doubt that they are equally bad and mean and filthy rich pirates.

Most of the book is taken up with their lengthy competitions. The competitions are as silly and overdone as Shark vs Train by Chris Barton. The humor also reminded of the old Monkey Island games (which my children have recently started playing).

It's good piratey fun. I'd recommend it for story time the next time Talk Like a Pirate day rolls around (September 19).

Four stars

Review: The Maze of Bones

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 13:50:00 PST

The Maze of Bones by Rick Riordan is the first of the original 39 Clues series. There are eleven books in total, as well as three spin off series: Cahills vs. Vespers, Rapid Fire, and the Cahill Files.

The book opens with Amy and Dan Cahill attending the reading of the will of the last Cahill matriarch, Grace. Although they'd been in her care, she had mostly left the caregiving to an au pair. The funeral gives them two options: take one million dollars each or forfeit the money and compete in a worldwide treasure hunt ("The 39 clues") to find the secret to the Cahill power. The siblings, as well as many other distance relatives, decide to vie for the treasure hunt.

Back when this series was brand spanking new, the book was part of a larger multi-media thing run by Scholastic which included a social media website treasure hunt (with prizes) and a trading card game. I don't know if any of that jazz is still going, nor do I particularly care. The book (or audio book, in this case) stands alone just fine.

There's an E/I (educational and informational) aspect to each of these 39 Clues books. In this one, the Cahill kids learn about Benjamin Franklin and his time in France. They also learn about the Paris catacombs (hence the title). In this regard, the book reads like a combination of the Magic Tree House series and a Dan Brown thriller.

Four stars

Review: Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 09:58:00 PST

Tom Lichtenheld's illustrations drew me to Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker. The book is a rhyming story about the process of going to bed, similar in spirit to The Going to Bed Book by Sandra Boynton or Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (and its many parodies).

Here, though, the creatures going to bed are construction equipment. It would be a good book to read in conjunction with Job Site by Nathan Clement and Hard Hat Area by Susan L. Roth.

As a stand-alone story about bedtime, it's lacking something. The rhymes are soothing and the illustrations are adorable but seeing construction equipment put themselves to bed is also odd. My daughter even commented on how strange it was that the trucks were the ones going to bed, rather than the people driving them. The book, perhaps, would work better as a bedtime story for younger children (ages 2-3), and less as a read alone book for older children.

Three stars

Review: The Last Train

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 19:01:00 PST

The Last Train by Gordon M Titcomb is a folk song that recounts the last years of passenger trains as a major source of transportation in the United States. Wendell Minor's paintings turn the song into a children's picture book.

The narrator tells about his father who used to sell tickets at the now boarded up and dilapidated train station. It goes through the memories of hearing and seeing the the trains roll through town and imaging the places they were headed to and from.

As a child I listened to trains rumble through Rose Canyon below my grandparents' home. In the day time I would rush out to watch them — so many times that my grandmother kept a foot stool out there so I could see over her fence. So I get the nostalgia — but I'm not sure how well that plays with children with the context of a parent or grandparent explaining the book.

Now as a parent, I'm happy to say my kids are growing up in an area where trains are still an every day thing. They don't go as many places as they used to but we can still go down to our little station (un-manned) and catch a train or just go train watching. We can hear them blow their horns at night.

Four stars

Review: A Bit Lost (Little Owl Lost)

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 11:14:00 PST

A Bit Lost, published as Little Owl Lost in the United States, by Chris Haughton is about a little owl who falls out of his nest and needs help finding his way back. He finds help in the form of a squirrel, who in turn recruits other forest floor animals. Together they get the little owl sorted.

Plot wise, A Bit Lost, brings to mind Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman. There's a similar, humorous repetitiveness as the owl goes from animal to animal looking for a way home.

Artistically, Haughton's custom type face (based on his own hand lettering) and the bold use of shape and color, is like the hyperactive version cousin of I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen (review coming).

Five stars

Review: Crow Boy

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:14:00 PST

Crow Boy by Taro Yashima is about a boy struggling his way through school. It was a 1956 Caldecott Honor book.

Chibi (small boy) has a hard time in school. He's overly shy. He keeps to himself. He never seems to adjust. When the graduation talent show rolls around, all the students are surprised to see Chibi participating.

The talent show is his chance to shine. And it's the explanation of the book's title. The unnamed narrator, a fellow student, changes his opinion of Chibi as he sees him highlight his talent — talking to crows.

Four stars

Review: Fullmetal Alchemist Volume 20

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:05:00 PST

Fullmetal Alchemist Volume 20 by Hiromu Arakawa builds on the alliances begun in the previous one. Ed with help from the chimeras focuses on his recovery. Meanwhile Al, Mei and Scar come up with plans to fight back based on what they now know.

The lone wolf, though, is Greed in Lin's body. There's an internal fight between two very strong personalities in one body. Normally I dislike the shared body plot but Greed and Lin are both interesting enough to make the plot work. Most interestingly, Lin is able to warn Ed about the "Day of Reckoning".

Al's group heads to Leor. He hooks up with Rose as well as another familiar face. Here's another point in the story where the manga (and thus Brotherhood) is a significant departure from the tangent taken by the first anime series. Rose in that version ended up a very broken character. Here, though, she's a strong, confident and happy leader. She has risen to the occasion and has helped keep Leor together after all the riots and military run mayhem.

Four stars

books | Hiromu Arakawa | graphic novel | 2008

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Review: Flu

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:23:00 PST

Flu by Wayne Simmons opens with a quarantine team going to a council flat. Their goal is to seal in the newest of the flu victims before they can spread the infection further. This outbreak makes the outbreak after WWI and the recent swine/avian flu thing look like picnics.

They find what they expect — a recently deceased person — but then things go horribly wrong. The body re-animates. The flu has taken on a new form, one that kills and then creates a zombie from the corpse. Zombie bites can bring on flu symptoms.

The remainder of the book is divided among different sets of survivors as they try to avoid the zombies, stay well and find food. It's a fairly typical post-BIG EVENT survivalist novel at this point. The only difference is its setting, Belfast.

The book ends with a brief hint of what caused this outbreak. More information about its origins would have sealed the deal for me. There is also hint of things to come — which presumably are addressed in further detail in the sequel, Fever (2012).

Three stars

Review: The House in the Night

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 13:47:00 PST

The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson has a stunning and inviting cover, a black house outlined in white and lit by a few yellow lights. The book retells and expands upon the nursery rhyme "There is a Key to the Kingdom."

The book uses the pattern of the rhyme to carry the reader through the story as a child is put to bed. There is a light in the room, a bed in the light, a book on the bed and so forth. Each piece of light is highlighted in yellow with the remainder of the illustration being a black and white line drawing.

Emergent readers should be able to predict what comes next especially as the story begins repeat in the objects in reverse order. The richly detailed illustrations can also be used with children to name and count objects.

Four stars

Review: Black Juice

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 14:54:00 PST

Black Juice by Margo Lanagan is a collection of ten short stories with a science fiction or fantasy bent. The book is oddly, as the SF Site Review notes, classified as juvenile fiction. While many of the main characters are young, it doesn't read as being specifically written for teens. As the stories are open for interpretation, I can, though, see them being used in a junior or senior high school English course.

The first story — "Singing My Sister Down" — was the stand out for me. A family goes to watch their daughter sink into the hot tar as punishment for a crime that is only vaguely described. It reminds me in terms of language and tone to Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."

The other stories to me seemed unnecessarily vague. In afterword, Lanagan explains the inspiration for each story. Frankly, I wish I had read that first. It would have made understanding and appreciating the stories easier.

Take for example, "Pippit." It's a story of slow talking giants who miss their small human friend, whom they see as a Messiah. They want to escape to go find him. To me, the story read like the creatures were whales, perhaps. Turns out they're elephants.

To be honest, I got tired of trying to wrap my head around these stories. I didn't make it through the entire collection. Other reviewers, though, have had much better success and enjoyment from reading Black Juice.

Three stars

Review: Little Owl's Night

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 17:55:00 PST

Little Owl's Night by Divya Srinivasan is is about a young owl who loves to watch the other nocturnal creatures. When it's nearly dawn, and therefore bedtime, he wonders about the day time creatures.

As Little Owl is tucked in for bedtime, his mother explains what day time is like. She describes it in poetic terms. Along with her gentle words are adorable illustrations formed from basic geometric shapes and soothing colors.

It's a good book for children looking for a new bedtime story or those who are fans of owls.

Four stars

Review: Hubert Horatio Bartle Bobton-Trent

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:08:00 PST

Hubert Horatio Bartle Bobton-Trent is by Lauren Child, an author best known for her two series: Charlie and Lola, and Clarice Bean. Hubert is the son of wealthy, bored parents who decide what they need to enrich their lives is a child. It sounds shallow but Hubert's parents do genuinely want to be parents.

There's just one problem — their enormous mansion. For instance, it takes too long to go from the kitchen to bed. SO each and every night, Hubert drinks cold hot chocolate even though it's made hot for him.

Then there's the expense of keeping such a house. Obviously Hubert and his parents have to make some changes. What they decide is the true charm of this book — showing that family is more important than all the money in the world.
Of course it also has Lauren Child's recognizably charming illustrations.

Five stars

Review: Tuesdays at the Castle

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:08:00 PST

Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George is the start of her tween fantasy series, Castle Glower. Princess Celie spends her time mapping the castle. It's a sentient building that changes itself to fit both its mood and the needs of its residents every Tuesday.

That is until the King, Queen and eldest son go missing. Though no bodies are found, they are declared dead, and Celie's middle brother is put on the throne by a council of visiting dignitaries. This by itself is highly unusual as Celie and her siblings protest. As they are under age their protests go unheeded. Likewise, as children, they lack the self confidence to stand up for themselves (at first).

Jessica Day George has created a fascinating fantasy world where the monarchy is not a divine right. Rather, it is at the whim of the castle. To be a good monarch, one must be in tune with the castle.

Although this is a short novel aimed at tweens, there's enough magic, characterization, world building and political intrigue to keep an adult reader enchanted.

Five stars

Review: 1Q84

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 15:28:00 PST

Big books need savoring. I usually have one door stop book going, along with the shorter books I tear through in a couple of days. Normally a chunkster will take me three or four months. Sometimes � like Ulyssses, it will take me six months. In the case of 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami , I needed fifty weeks.

1Q84 was originally published as three books over the course of 2010 - 2011. The first imported translation has all three books in one volume — and that's the one I read. The books, though, are still labeled. Books one and two contain the bulk of the novel's pages, with the final book working like an extended coda.

The first two books are told as parallel stories: that of Aomame, a fitness instructor and part-time hit woman, and Tengo, an editor and part-time mathematics cram tutor. Both have their lives fundamentally changed after making unusual, split-decisions. Aomame having an appointment to keep, leaves her taxi on the crowded overhead freeway to take the emergency stairs in hopes of catching a subway train. After leaving the stairway she beings to notice changes in the world. Tengo, meanwhile, agrees to ghostwrite (re-write) the novella of a teenage girl for entry into a literary competition. The novella ends up winning the prize, thus lifting the book into best seller status and the girl into unexpected fame.

Now while there is a parallel earth — coined 1Q84 by Aomame — most of the novel is more personal and character oriented. Tengo has issues to work out with his father. He also has the novel he's working on. Aomame wants to right the wrongs brought again women by men. She's found her calling, by taking work from the Dowager.

But that parallel world is there, lurking under the surface. It's most obvious sign comes in the form of a sky with two moons. As Tengo and Aomame struggle through their issues, they are drawn farther and farther into 1Q84, until there is nothing left but to either fight back or find a way to escape.

While a dedicated reader could read the book in a month, I preferred reading it slowly. I read two chapters a week (give or take) — one of Aomame's and one of Tengo's. Later in the third, I would read three chapters as a go.

Five stars

Review: Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:09:00 PST

Start with Albert Brook's 1999 film The Muse, change the setting to Paris when Impressionism was the hot new art style and throw in some color reproductions of famous paintings with completely cheeky captions and you have the foundation for Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art by Christopher Moore.

The book opens with the death of Vincent van Gogh. While it's not quite the Doctor Who version, I did happen to start the book right after re-watching "Vincent and the Doctor" (series five, episode ten). The coincidence certainly put me in the right mood for Moore's book.

Sacré bleu (ultramarine) — the blue once reserved for the Virgin's clothing — was one of the most sought after but hard to come by pigments. As this color is so crucial to the flow of the story — the cover is done in shades of blue. Likewise, the text is printed in a very dark but distinctly blue shade.

Moore uses the color as the set up to introduce a muse — Blue — and the parasite who feeds off the creativity she inspires. This parasite provides access to his especially potent blue pigment to specially chosen artists. The blue has certain properties that allow the artist time to finish more complex pieces. The downside, though, is the madness and ill-health that comes from such an outpouring of creativity and productivity.

Most of the book follows a fictional baker who has the desire to paint. He falls into an unlikely friendship with Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Welcome to the world of sex, drugs and burlesque.

Sacré Bleu has risen to the top of my all time favorite Christopher Moore books. While his bawdy humor is still there, it's matured from the previous sophomoric affairs to something more refined.

Five stars

Review: The London Eye Mystery

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 11:39:00 PST

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan R Dowd is told from the point of view of Ted, a teenage boy with Asperger's syndrome. Ted sees things differently, relating most things through the ebb and flow of weather patterns. It is his creative take on things along with his sister's patient help, that they are able to solve the mystery of Salim's disappearance from the London Eye.

Salim and his mother, Gloria, are visiting briefly before they make the big move to New York City. All Salim talks about is seeing and riding the London Eye. He goes up but he doesn't come back down. The police are called and Gloria and he end up missing their flight, some two days later.

While the police follow what few leads they have, Ted and Kat do their part. Ted works and reworks the events in his head, coming up with a list of possibilities. His commentary takes us through his thought process in an approachable, likable and believable fashion.

Although the first piece of the mystery is pretty obvious — the how Salim got off the eye, there is still the mystery of where did he go. More importantly, is he still alive? For the attentive reader, the clues are there. It is possible to solve the mystery before Ted and Kat do, but I didn't. I got too wrapped up in the fun of reading the book and I missed a couple key points.

Five stars

Review: Vanished

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 11:39:00 PST

Vanished by Sheela R Chari is a wonderful debut novel aimed at tweens. It's part mystery and part coming of age tale. Eleven year old Neela is learning to play the veena — a four foot tall stringed instrument from India. When her instrument goes missing she is determined to get it back, even if it means going head-to-head against a curse!

Neela's missing instrument is her grandmother's, a veena decorated with the carved head of a wyvern. After its disappearance, she finds herself surrounded by reminders of the missing veena. What Neela must do is decide if these reminders are clues or just further evidence of the curse.

Vanished is set in Boston. Neela and her family are a believable blend of American and Indian cultures. As the focus is on the stolen veena, the novel doesn't fall into the usual trap of creating tension through Neela's westernization and her family's traditional ways. Instead, she is part of a vibrant, believable family that is finding the balance between old and new traditions.

For a tween mystery, Vanished is delightfully complex. The clues are all there for attentive readers. I have to admit I was to taken in with the curse angle to pay attention, so as things unfolded, I was surprised.

While knowledge and appreciation for Indian culture (especially music) certainly enhances the reading experience, it's not necessary. The author does an excellent job of weaving descriptions of key details into the novel.

Finally, there is the lovely cover art designed by Jon Klassen, of I Want My Hat Back. By itself, the cover is inviting. It covers the basics of the plot in a quick glance — a girl and her veena. But as readers reach the end, they will discover the true significance of the cover art. It gets to the heart and soul of the piece.

Five stars

Review: Mostly Monsterly

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 11:11:00 PST

Mostly Monsterly by Tammi Sauer is is about Bernadette trying to find the right balance between being herself and being a monster. She has to face her fears, though, as she starts a new school — Monster Academy.

Bernadette likes to sing friendship songs and her classmates prefer to uproot trees. She likes cupcakes with sprinkles and they eat fried snail slime. Should she try to be as monstery as possible at school while being herself at home? Or can she be herself in both places and still make friends?

Combined with the message of be proud to be yourself are the adorable illustrations by Scott Magoon. Even at her most monsterly, Bernadette is still a likeable character — as are her more rowdy, monsterly compatriots.

Recommended by 100 Scope Notes

Four stars

Review: Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit: A Book of Changing Seasons

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:52:00 PST

Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit: A Book of Changing Seasons by Il Sung Na follows a snow rabbit as it explores what other animals do during winter. Each pair of pages show a different type of animal as it prepares for winter: birds migrating, turtles swimming, hibernation and so forth.

Na's soft and somewhat whimsical illustrations are a charming addition to the text. The little rabbit acts as a tour guide of the winter season, going from animal to animal.

Then at the end, it's finally revealed what the rabbit does to adapt to the winter season. As spring approaches, poof, the rabbit turns brown.

Snow Rabbit, Spring Rabbit introduces children to animal adaptations and the seasons. Children could be asked to talk about what animals around where they live do in winter, or what they do differently in winter.

Four stars

Review: Cat Tale

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:58:00 PST

Cat Tale by Michael Hall is about three cats who go on an adventure, have a run in with homophones and find themselves scrambled and confused. Lillian, Tilly and William J begin their day with a picnic but along the way:

They use a box.
They box some fleas.
And flee a steer.

You can see where this is going. The further they go, the more and whackier the homophones they encounter become. Hall's brightly colored pictures illustrate the homophones, helping early readers master some of the oddities of the English language.

Cat Tale has a good balance of easy to read and challenging words for children who are making the transition from learning to read to more difficult books. My daughter, struggled with understanding the plot the first time, being caught off guard by the homophones. The second time she read the book aloud and that helped to her to hear what Hall was doing.

For the younger set, I think the homophones combined with the silly illustrations will make for a fun storytime or bedtime story.

Five stars.

Review: Freddy Goes to Florida

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:28:00 PST

Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter R Brooks (born January 9, 1886, died August 17, 1958) is the first of the Freddy the Pig books. It was originally published as To and Again (like a precursor to The Hobbit, aka There and Back Again, but with barn animals). After the success of the third book, Freddy the Detective, the first two books were re-named to have Freddy in the title.

Freddy is a pig who lives with a variety of other barn animals on Mr. Bean's farm (no, not that Mr. Bean). The dynamics between Freddy and the other animals reminds me of Babe (the movie, not the book by Dick King-Smith). Frankly it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the makers of Babe took some inspiration from the Freddy books to fill out the ensemble cast.

Freddy while talking to a barn swallow decides he's had enough of winter on the farm. Migrating to Florida sounds like a grand idea. When he decides to walk to the Sunshine state, the other animals on the farm (including a pair of spiders) decide to follow along. The book chronicles their trip down and back, including some episodic adventures on the way.

Freddy and his friends are completely ignorant on what it will take to get to Florida or what to expect along the way. The fun, though, is in the journey itself. They see new things, meet new people and animals, don disguises, duel with alligators, thwart robbers and save the day.

To go with the silly text, are equally delightful pen and ink illustrations by Kurt Wiese.

Five stars

Review: Teeth, Tails & Tentacles:

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 17:38:00 PST

Teeth, Tails & Tentacles by Christopher Wormell has a striking title and cover. The title alone was enough for me to seek it out when looking for titles for the second of two projects in the materials for children ages 5 to 8 class I took in 2011.

Christopher Wormell makes his own woodcuts to create bold illustrations with eye catching details ready for counting. The book goes through twenty different animals and invites children to count one to twenty by looking at specific details on an animal (the spots of a ladybug or the diamonds on a rattlesnake, and so forth).

The book includes an appendix that gives facts about each of the animals as well as the author's artistic process.

Five stars.

Review: Go, Dog. Go!

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 17:03:00 PST

A book both my children loved when first learning to read on their own is Go, Dog. Go! by PD Eastman. It's an opposites in the style of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss.

Here and there are dogs in cars and they must go, go, go! As they go there are many different opposites and colors and other basic things to learn and read about.

The dogs being in race cars of different colors made both my children laugh. With all the off the wall illustrations and word combinations, the book does pull together into a coherent plot with a beginning, middle and end.

Five stars

Review: Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat, Are You Going to Sleep?

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 11:53:00 PST

Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat, Are You Going to Sleep? by Bill Martin Jr. is the sequel to Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat, Are You Waking Up?. Now it's bed time and the little kitty isn't sure he's ready yet.

Using the easy and addictive rhymes Martin is known for, this book is both easy to read and soothing to listen to. Slowly but surely Mama cat eases her little one into bed, giving him one last chance to do all those things.

Five stars

Review: The Storm in the Barn

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 12:11:00 PST

The graphic novel The Storm in the Barn by Matt Phelan is an American fantasy set during the worst of the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression. It's 1937 and Jack Clark believes the answer to the drought is hiding in Talbot's abandoned barn.

The story brings together American history, a coming of age story and the fantasy of L. Frank Baum. Jack desperately wants to save his family and his town. His sister has dust pneumonia and is stuck in bed. She passes the time reading Ozma of Oz when she has the strength. As Jack tries to avoid the bullies, help his sister and save the town, he sees points of similarity in their situation in Baum's book.

The text is minimal, with the expansive artwork — either browns and grays or blues and grays telling the bulk of the story. Phelan creates a grand sense of scale, placing tiny Jack against the enormity of the dust storms.

Reviewers of the book either like the blending of Oz and the Dust Bowl, or they don't. As The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a chance for Dorothy to escape the humdrum gray life on a Kansas farm, Oz as a solution to the drought worked for me.

Five stars

Review: Getting Rid of Matthew

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 11:05:00 PST

Getting Rid of Matthew by Jane Fallon is her debut novel. It was recommended to me by my mother who thought it was like the book I was reading at the time (Busy Woman Seeks Wife by Annie Sanders). Turns out they aren't anything alike.

Helen who is now in her late thirties has been carrying on an affair with Matthew for four years. He used to be her boss and their relationship cost her a promotion. Now she's stuck in a one room flat in a dead end job and dull life. She finally (after years and years of whining to him to leave Sophie, his wife) decides to dump him and move on with her life.

But no, that would be too short of a book. Instead, Matthew decides to leave his wife and move in with her. All the way through Helen could have done the sensible thing and told him to bugger off, or changed the locks or gone to the police for help if the previous options didn't work. She doesn't.

And the fact that Helen doesn't take any control of her life is why I ended up skimming and then skipping to the end. Helen whines. She moans. She acts like an overwrought teenager. She isn't likable. Matthew is even more loathsome. And then there is Sophie, the wife, who isn't that far removed from Helen in emotional maturity.

1 star

Review: Bride of the Rat God

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 10:16:00 PST

Bride of the Rat God by Barbara Hambly was originally released in paperback in 1994. It's now been rereleased in ebook form. Intrigued by the setting — 1923 Hollywood, and the mystery — an ancient Chinese curse, I decided to give the book a try.

Nora, a British WWI widow, comes to Hollywood where her sister is a silent movie sensation. After her arrival, members of the crew are brutally murdered. If Shang Ko, a self described Chinese wizard, is to be believed, the movie star sister is in danger — cursed by the very necklace she's been wearing in her current movie.

It sounds so good. It has a promising setting. The reviews, for the most part, have been ecstatic — praising the world building and the author's genre savvy. I expected to love the book with my film history background and my current interest in Chinese culture. Sadly, though, I failed, twice, to finish the book.

Bride of the Rat God failed to gel for me. After the initial discovery of a body, the book falls into a routine of describing Chrysanda Flamande's day to day schedule at the studio as well as her Pekinese dogs. Every so often Shang Ko will pop up, say something vaguely ominous.

The dogs end up being the true heros of the book, but not being a fan of the breed and usually finding pets in mysteries to be tedious at best, they didn't add much to the reading experience for me. But the actual mystery doesn't get back on track until well past the half way point of the book. By then, I was bored and ready to move on.

Read via NetGalley

Two stars

Review: Lunch Lady and the Author Visit Vendetta

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:20:00 PST

Lunch Lady and the Author Visit Vendetta by Jarrett J. Krosoczka is the third of the Lunch Lady series. Dee, Terrence and Hector are excited to have a favorite author at their school. When the author isn't what they expected and the school coach goes missing, the kids and the Lunch Lady (with trusty Betty at her side) must investigate.

As far as set ups go for this series, this one seems the least plausible. The whole set up is based around an incredibly famous and wealthy children's author who hates children and hates making public appearances. The author's evil scheme, though, is amusing.

My reaction to book three is hit or miss. It will either work for you or it won't. So far my favorites are books two (Lunch Lady and the League of Librarians) and four (Lunch Lady and the Summer Camp Shakedown).

Three stars

Review: The Three Weissmanns of Westport

webmaster@pussreboots.pair.com (Sarah Sammis) — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 11:20:00 PST

The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine was inspired by Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Familiarity with the original seems to be a good predictor of how well liked (or not) this retelling will be.

Betty Weissmann, Joseph's second wife of 48 years, is handed divorce papers. Joseph has fallen for a much younger woman at work. Betty, deciding to play the widow instead of the divorcee, leaves her Manhattan home for Westport, Connecticut. Shortly there after for reasons explained at length, she is joined by her adult daughters, Miranda and Annie.

Much of the remainder of the book is focused on Miranda, a once successful literary agent, specializing in memoirs, finding herself and finding romance. Her romantic life is the largest divergence from Austen's version.

But for me, the problems weren't with the points of departure, but with the places where the Weissmanns' misadventures are forced into a narrative construct that only makes sense with younger characters living in a different time and place. For instance, the Weissmanns' are invited to Palm Springs for the winter but it doesn't ring true as a substitute for families going to London for "the Season."

Three stars

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