Sunday Salon --Looking Forward ~ Looking Back... This Week In Books

Our studies of ancient Greece continue but we've managed to throw in a cool book about snow, and I've read two new YA books.

ON THE NIGHTSTAND:

	Entwined by Heather Dixon Everyone loves this book but me apparently. BookList gave Entwined a starred review and it's gotten good reviews at Amazon and GoodReads, but I found it to be too long and underwritten. To give you an example of what I mean, there was this odd repetitive aspect to the descriptions. The heroine Azalea, for example, was constantly stabbing her palms with her nails, and the king's major characteristic was how he sternly sucked in his cheeks. Something he did nearly every time he entered the scene. And while I don't want you to think the book was without features of interest for younger folk, I will say that the outcomes were predictable, right down to who would marry whom. I suggest Entwine for Tweeners and Middle-graders who like long novels. This book is written at the 5th Grade level. Hardcover: 480 pages Publisher: Greenwillow Books (March 29, 2011) ISBN-10: 0062001035
	The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter's Wonder by Mark Cassino with Jon Nelson, Ph.D. What an enjoyable book. The photos and drawings are beautiful and amazing, and the children and I all learned something about the physics of snow. This is definitely a book kids will read over and over as snow crosses their radar. Amazon has a Look-Inside for this one, so check it out. AR 4.8
	Sapphique by Catherine Fisher The adventure continues in Sapphique as Claudia, Finn and friends unravel the mystery of Incarceron. In this book the prison actually becomes as creepy as the original promo material promised it would be. Add to that that Finn and Keiko are fleshed out as characters, and Sapphique is a book that lovers of Incareron are going to adore. Personally though, I tired of the artifice of switching back and forth between scenes. Fisher did this so often at the end --multiple times within a chapter -- that I started to laugh every time I was jerked elsewhere. As a means to follow different characters in a complex story this technique can be a great tool; but to use it as a means to artificially generate excitement, signals to me that maybe the story needed a crutch.
	"The Ancient Greeks" (History Starts Here) by John Malam Our Greek studies continue with John Malam's book that address ancient Greek culture in a general way. Not a bad general introduction, I thought the material was too simple for the 4.4 Reading Level. You can find my full review here.