Looking Forward ~ Looking Back This Week In Books

Sunday Salon

Well, the bug we've been sharing at my house was no fun, but in the last week or so at least the reading has been great.


Finished:

	*gasp* Second 'adult book' I've read this year. City of Night is a continuation of Michelle Sagara West's excellent House War's series and is a book I've really been waiting to read. It was slow to begin, but what a 'WOW' finish.
	MORE Gary Paulsen Sarny was so very good. I love Paulsen's portrayal of this strong woman who makes the transition from slave to citizen. Paulsen drives home the sorrows of the war and of the insidious institution of slavery.
	Canyons was interesting. There was little of Paulsen's usual info on survival and more mysticism than he's ever hinted at. The story is about two boys. One an Apache, one who lives in modern times. It's magical how their lives overlap.
	Read the first two books in the Alanna series and decided to pick up the Keladry quartet to do a compare-and-contrast. I was curious to see whether there were 'too many similarities' for readers to enjoy both since both series followed the girls as they went from novice to page to squire to Lady Knight. I'm happy to say that that's definitely not a problem. I'm loving both and now that I'm almost done with Keladry, I need to get back to the feisty Alanna. Great model for girls. Both series skirt the line between YA and MG.
	Wow. This is a fabulous adventure arc that I highly recommend. Despite my enthusiasm though, I have to tell you that the first book is not as impressive as the rest of the series. Longer than the Alanna books, Tamora uses the pages to good advantage. Very, very good.
	I liked the writing in this one but there were elements of the story that really turned me off. For one thing, way to many mentions of dead children. Yuckadoo. I will be reading more in this series though. My almost 10 year-old daughter highly recommended Sachar's other books to me.
	I CANNOT believe this one is available at Amazon. Bug Boy is funny and entertaining and educational. The story is simple -- boy gets device that changes him into bugs -- but Carol Sonenklar makes the most of the premise, weaving lots of great bug info into the mix. Track this one down at the library!

Currently Reading:

	Tamora Pierce has been my focus for the last two weeks. I started both the Alanna and Kel series and adore them-- and their author. If you are looking for strong female role models in the YA/MG categories... look no further.
	Gary Paulsen does Scifi?!? Yes, here's a tale with a straight scifi bent by one of my favorite boy-friendly authors. In this book 13 year-old Mark is zapped off to an alien world where he has to struggle to survive amongst warring alien tribesmen. Boys are going to like this one -- or so I gather from the many positive reviews/comments at Amazon-- BUT I am finding this book downright painful to read. The problem? It should have been longer. I know publishers insist on shorter fiction for young adults and kids, but there's just no character development in this book. And too much of a reliance on cliches to make it work. NOT for adults

Pam
Somewhere in the X-burbs