This is my very first entry to any lj community EVER, so critiques and comments are very much welcome :)

Title: Chalcedony Series - First Book: Four Seasons
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Drama, Mystery, Romance(?)
Format: novel
Rating: T
Warning: (in current chapter) mention of nation violence
Summary: (story) In the land of Zenobyie, where the Kingdoms are isolated, alienated, hidden or ruined, there is a child of the lost Element that will bring Light to his home.

( Read more... )

THIS IS IT!

I'M SO EXCITED!!

5. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Here is the house. It is white and green. It has a red door.

This is a book I probably should have read in high school. It's a book that should be assigned in high school English classes, and it probably would be assigned more often if it wasn't for one chapter. It's such a powerful, important book, and SO right at a teen's level, that when I read it, I had the most anti-librarian thought I've ever had - Can't we just cut out that one chapter? Black it out? Call it the "school edition?"

I stand by that idea. In high school, we read Malcom X and I Know Where the Caged Bird Sings. Neither had the intensity or the literary application (English teachers love that) of The Bluest Eye.

The story is about Pecola, a poor black girl living in Ohio after the Great Depression. She is living with another family - the book takes you through the How She Got There, the What Happens Next, and what I thought were some of the most moving parts of the story, How Her Parents Got There.

Yes, this is an important book about the African American experience in the US, but it's also something to behold in a literary sense. Shifting perspectives, artful language, stories unfolding out of chronology, adding up to something bigger than the sum of its parts.

This is a really a book that everyone should read.

4. Show Way by Jacqueline Woodson

When Soonie's great-grandma was seven, she was sold from the Virginia land to a plantation

in South Carolina without her ma or pa but with some muslin her me had given her.

Maybe this will change once I've had an entire course on the art form, but I'm not the biggest fan of picture books. There are some I think are fun. But they don't really move me.

Enter Show Way.

A perfect marriage of words and images, in my mind. The story is a personal historical narrative, told in verse-like prose, tracing one girl through time, from slavery to 21st century America. The genealogy is the driving narrative, but a symbol that drives the text is the Show Way - a quilt with secret messages sewn into the pattern, showing the way for escaped slaves to reach safety. The family story compounds through time, following the maternal line, and Woodson tells the deeply personal story in a way that feels universal. We all have stories like these in our family, and those stories and those people add up to US, whether we know the stories or not.

Oh, and the pictures are simply revelatory. Amazing. Will move you, even if for whatever reason the text does not. Art. Art Art.

Man, these reviews are simply getting more and more coherent as the days go by, huh?

3. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver

This story about good food begins in a quick-stop convenience market.

The premise is one of those gimmicky things you're getting sick of: someone does BLAH for a year, and writes a book.

Except it's Barbara Kingsolver. And she wasn't dressing like someone from the Bible or going on a self-help spree or cooking her way through a cook book.

She was just eating local food. For a year. A boring premise that turns out to be more interesting than any of those gimmicks.

This book is equal parts memoir and nonfiction. Kingsolver tells stories about the history of her property, laughs about her turkey husbandry endeavors, and describes the seasons and the different kinds of work and food they entail in a way that exudes comfort. Lots of curl-up-inside-this-book-and-live moments. But there is real information here too, about the food industry and why it's infinitely better for the world and our bodies to simply grow your own food. Or to know the person who grew it.

There is something special about a book that makes you want to leap up from the page and DO something.

I don't have a garden yet, but I will.

And I think, just now, as I write, I found the money to buy into my local CSA farm-share for next year...

2. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan

If you spent any time at all in a supermarket in the 1980s, you might have noticed something peculiar going on.

If you were to read any book I have ever recommended, I would tell you to read this one.

There is something wrong with the American diet. We eat too much (because our attitudes about food are all screwed up). We eat crap (because we don't have the strong food culture that values time spent on food). Even the good food is crappy (because of the Big Food monopoly). We would rather eat something made from a machine than made from actual food (because of the media).

Add about 75 more things you'd never thought about/didn't know about food, and you will have In Defense of Food.

I have a crush on Michael Pollan. He tells it like it is in a way that makes you feel okay about yourself, even though you are an idiot and should really stop drinking Diet Coke already.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle put a fire under my feet, but this book has changed the way I eat, already and immediately.

Please, please read this book!

1. Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent

"Please lie down," I begged Zelda. "Please."

Words can barely express how much I enjoyed this book.

And I'm not really going to pretend that this is a book for everyone.

It's probably only a book for those who have Baby Fever with a side of homebirth. Just me and my sister Caroline, really. But I LOVED THIS BOOK.

But really. It's good. Peggy Vincent delivered her first baby as a nurse-in-training in the 1960s. In the age of the "twilight sleep"(Google it: disturbing stuff), Vincent walked into the room of a woman who refused drugs, who refused to sit down, who refused to stop yelling. It changed the way Peggy looked at the medicine of maternity - she began training to be a midwife shortly thereafter, working in hospitals, in an alternative birthing center in Berkeley, and then working her own private practice, specializing in home births.

This is a memoir not about Vincent, but about the important and exciting work that she did for decades. She is a talented storyteller, but it comes out in the way she can remove herself from the story and put the focus on the many, many women she assisted. Which is exactly what you want from a midwife, I'd think. Each episode, each birth, is as interesting and exciting as someone close to you. I was flipping pages late into the night, wanting more and more stories.

If you are a lady, and you plan on someday procreating and taking the epidural as soon as they hand it out, then you might not want to read this book. It might change your mind.  

Here is the first installment

of the books I read this year

that I liked the best.

Unlike previous lists,

these are in order.

(Suspense!)

10. It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita by Heather Armstrong

My husband has great hair, but even more impressive than that, he has impeccable taste in socks.

The Willoughbys

Once upon a time there was a family named Willoughby: an old-fashioned type of family, with four children.

This book charmed me. It was my second to last book off the syllabus, and I had this big stack of shiny new books waiting for me... oh, I could taste them, they were sitting on the shelf, taunting me, all the books I hadn't had time to read for three months... but I forgot all about them. This book was so completely charming.

I think that's one of those buzz words you're supposed to avoid in book reviews, or so says one of my esteemed professors, who has done her time as a professional reviewer. Charming. So let me be a little more specific.

The Willoughbys are an old-fashioned family. Old-fashioned things happen to the four Willoughby children, like when a baby is left on their doorstep. Or like when their parents decide they no long want children, so they run off to Europe and leave their children in the care of a tough-minded, kind hearted nanny named Mary Poppins. Oh wait, her name is just Nanny. They leave the baby in the care of the reclusive millionaire who lives in an impressive mansion, paid for by his successful candy business.

So really, "goofy" might be a good word. "Satirical," would be another, but not really a fun word. "Clever." "Hilarious."

I really just like "charming," though.

3. Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan

My first thought is: My mother is dead.

I have already written a brief review of this book, so instead, I will tell you a little story.

Last summer, my mom and I took the bus down to Chicago to see the vendors at ALA's national conference. It was free, it was a fun little library road trip. And mostly, I wanted to troll for ARCs. I found this one and read it on the bus ride back to Michigan. It took me a few hours. I put the book down and sighed. The lady across the aisle from me asked me how it was. I said something about it being good, being sad, or something. She read the back of the book, said something about how she didn't know he had one out, and I said I didn't know either. And then I told her to keep it, because we'd grabbed two - one for me, one for Caroline.

Fast forward a few months. It's Cybils nomination time. I like the Cybils, in theory, but holy goodness why must we nominate EVERY BOOK WRITTEN IN AN ENTIRE YEAR, especially because the underdogs never seem to win. Oh, but that never stops me from joining in the fun. I took a brief glance through my Read Along At Home Guide and thought surely every book I'd read that I thought was halfway good was already nominated.

Until my eyes landed on Love is the Higher Law. Oh snap! Must nominate!

Fast forward some additional months. There's an incoming link to my blog, from the Cybils blog. Oh, they've linked to me, because I've nominated a title. How nice. Oh, and they've started reviews. I wonder what the reviewer thought about the book? Does it really stand a chance?

So here's what I found.

Just read the first paragraph.

I'm glad she liked it as much as I did.

4. & 5. The Hunger Games and Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.

Don't you love when a book gets loads of hype, and it's actually a good read? I do.

For the 2% of the planet who hasn't read these already, Katniss Everdeen is a 16-year-old girl living in District 12, the poorest of the "states" that now make up a post-disaster US. Most of the people here work in the mines, but the work is dangerous. Katniss's father died there, leaving her to help provide for her mother and younger sister. When she can, she sneaks past the electric fences that surround District 12, leaving the community to hunt game in the woods. It's illegal, but she's good at it - her father taught her how to set traps, track prey, and shoot a bow and arrow - and it's lucrative. But not always. One year, Katniss buys 20 tessera - extra rations of food and oil - from the government, but it's at a high price. Every year, to remind the Districts of the dangers of rebellion, the government draws the name of one boy and one girl from each District to compete in an epic, televised battle to the death.

Every child gets one entry, but every tessera costs you one more.

But when it comes time for The Reaping, Katniss isn't selected - it's her little sister Prim.

Gah!

Okay, is that enough to get you to want to read the book?

How about this:

My mom listened to it on audio, brought it home and said "Read This." I gave it to Lance, my 24-year-old boyfriend. He listened to it and said "READ THIS NOW!"I read it: I thought the first 50 pages or so were slow, but after that I couldn't put it down. Then my 13-year-old sister read it while my family was vacationing at my grandpa's house. By the time they all came home, Caroline, my 16-year-old sister had read it and so had my DAD. My dad who once told me that YA was just "stories about teenagers where you throw in a swear once in awhile to get a rise," or something to that effect.

So if you fit into any of those categories, you will like these two books. The sequel, in my opinion, was just as good as the first installment. Thanks to my CHL buddy, Elena, I got to read it before November (that's how long my hold took to come in). And yes, we both have the release of number 3 on our calendars.

8.24.2010. You might as well write it down too.

Come back tomorrow for THE TOP FIVE!

Short Story- No title as of yet

Post-Apocalyptic New York (I've never been to New York, which may become evident)

Sounds suspiciously like a detective story from the 50's.

First draft or whatever, based on the prompt to include:

New York, a child, a convict, a photograph, and a poem

Whose entry scratches our itch for a December winner?

Just for Fun entrants:

(These are my favorites,

and I really wish I had time

this year

to read more!

I'm trying to catch up...)

1. Keesha's House by Helen Frost

This was the first Required Reading book of the semester that made me want to curl up inside the book and live there forever.

Keesha's House is a novel in verse... a novel in sonnets and sestinas to be specific. Novels written in strict verse of turn me on a little, in that English major kind of way. And the form had a lot to do with why I liked the book so much. The form is comforting, even though the characters are struggling with some heavy stuff. The ensemble class of high school students are dealing with teen pregnancy, being kicked out of their homes, substance problems, getting locked up in juvenile detention, etc but they all come together to find common ground in Keesha's house. Not that Keesha's House is even a legitimate place for Keesha to live - she rents a room, having left her own home for her own reasons, but she kind of stands as a symbol for all the other kids, a sign that even though their lives might suck right now, there are ways to come out ahead, like Keesha. And when Keesha has problems of her own, they will be there to support her, too.

Oh gosh, I liked this book a lot.

2. Liar by Justine Larbalestier

Along for the Ride

There are very few authors as consistent as Sarah Dessen. Yes, consistent can mean plots that feel familiar, characters that seem like they've met in other books. But when those plots are so engaging and characters so real on the page, then its hard to think of the word "consistent" as a bad thing. Actually, it's impossible. I mark the release dates for the new Dessen book on my calendar, and go out that day to buy it. The hardback.

Along for the Ride has Auden, an intellectual high school grad who lives with her mother, the dramatic English professor. But when her mom gets a little too much to handle, Auden takes her father up on his offer - a summer at his house, on the beach, catching up and getting to know his new wife and their baby, Auden's new half-sister, Thisbe. But her dad is busy, trying to write a novel, and doesn't even notice that his wife is melting down under the pressure of a newborn. Auden steps in as babysitter, and working at her stepmom's clothing store. Through this job, she meets a gaggle of friends and Eli, the only person around who, like Auden, can't sleep. They forge an after-midnight friendship, and Auden realizes that growing up surrounded by academia, she missed out on some things. Like that gaggle of friends, those crazy midnight adventures, and learning how to ride a bike.

For those of you have read Dessen, you know where this is going. For those of you who can't, you can expect what Dessen is so known for - a tasty summer romance with characters you will root for.

4. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Like Sarah Dessen, Laurie Halse Anderson can really only hit it out of the park. One mode: excellence.

However, I didn't really want to read this book. I put it off. I finally did, and I didn't want to talk about it, much less recommend it.

I am including it on this list because the writing is gorgeous, the story legitimately haunting. Lia is a character caught in the crux of things she can't control, and things she can.

But this is an eating disorder story. And since Laurie Halse Anderson can't do anything but write so painfully close to her characters, this is a hard book to read, especially if you are a person who has ever shared her life with an eating disorder, even for the slightest span of time, or have ever watched a loved one suffer. Lia's story is not one you would want to read, want to acknowledge exists, for so many people.

So LHA has again, elevated the "problem novel" to an artform. Lia's voice is so well done, so provocative, the way a broken, starved mind might see the world.

Just read at your own risk.

5. Jumping Off Swings by Jo Knowles

Speaking of somewhat transcendent "problem novels"...

I bumped this book up to the top of the queue because even though I just turned in my final paper at 3:30, yesterday afternoon, I whipped through this book from start to finish before I went to bed.

That's a fairly high compliment. I think Ms. Knowles would take it that way, since she is a graduate from my program, and probably can recall what a life-draining experience CHL 401 was.

So there are four characters, who all get their say in this book. Ellie is misguided, looking for love but finding sex. One night, that sex is with Josh, who was a virgin and was expecting fireworks and manliness and validation but finds he can't get rid his mind of Ellie's face when he left her in the back of his dad's van, alone. But he brags to his friends anyway, including Caleb, who finds his friend's masculine posturing appalling, especially since he's had a crush on Ellie since grade school. But Ellie is in no state to deserve Caleb, really - she's wounded, she's stuck in this pattern that's killing her spirit, and then she's pregnant. Her best friend, Corinne, is her only confidante.

And I give this book high marks primarily because it is a book about Teen Pregnancy that is more about HOW teen girls get pregnant than "What Happens Next?" The choice Ellie makes isn't the focus of the book, nor are the after effects of that choice. Knowles is writing about the community of friends, their perspectives, how they handle the news, support or reject their friends, survive their parents, et cetera. Ellie's pregnancy is simply the story element that ties these four characters together. And double props for Josh - I haven't read a book that gave a teen father such delicate treatment.

Runners Up

• Perfect Fifths: A Novel by Megan McCafferty
• Impossible by Nancy Werlin
• The House You Pass on the Way by Jacqueline Woodson
• The Treasure Map of Boys by E. Lockhart
• The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp

P.S. Tomorrow is my FAVORITE ALL TIME BEST OF THE BEST OF 2009 LIST!