Review - Frederick

Frederick
by Leo Lionni
Date: 1967
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 32
Format: e-book
Source: library

While the other field mice work to gather grain and nuts for winter, Frederick sits on a sunny rock by himself. “I gather sun rays for the cold dark winter days,” he tells them. Another day he gathers “colors,” and then “words.” And when the food runs out, it is Frederick, the dreamer and poet, whose endless store of supplies warms the hearts of his fellow mice, and feeds their spirits during the darkest winter days.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This book has been around longer than I have, and yet I can't recall reading it or even seeing it at the library when I was a child.

It's a cute little story, sort of like "The Ant and the Grasshopper", but with a bit of a twist.  I thought the "illustrations" (actually paper collages) were kind of neat, though I'm not sure how appealing they would be to young children.

My favourite part of the book was Frederick's poem, which he recites to the other mice during the cold winter.  It has a nice, bouncy rhythm and reads well out loud.

Quotable moment:

Who scatters snowflakes? Who melts the ice?
Who spoils the weather? Who makes it nice?
Who grows the four-leaf clovers in June?
Who dims the daylight? Who lights the moon?

Recommended to: young children who like simple stories

Premise: 3/5
Meter: 4/5
Writing: 4/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 4/5

Overall: 3.57 out of 5

In My Mailbox (78)

Borrowed from the library:

Brown Girl Dreaming
by Jacqueline Woodson

Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse.

Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child’s soul as she searches for her place in the world. Woodson’s eloquent poetry also reflects the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, despite the fact that she struggled with reading as a child. Her love of stories inspired her and stayed with her, creating the first sparks of the gifted writer she was to become.

The Grumpy Guide to Life
by Grumpy Cat

In a world filled with inspirational know-it-alls and quotable blowhards, only one figure is indifferent enough to tell the cranky truth: Grumpy Cat. Following the success of her New York Times bestselling debut, everyone's favorite disgruntled feline is back with this demotivational guide to everyday life, love, friendship, and more. Featuring many new photos of Grumpy Cat's famous frown and packed with uninspiring observations, The Grumpy Guide to Life will help anyone get in touch with their inner grouch.

Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters
by Barack Obama
illustrated by Loren Long

In this tender, beautiful letter to his daughters, President Barack Obama has written a moving tribute to thirteen groundbreaking Americans and the ideals that have shaped our nation. From the artistry of Georgia O'Keeffe, to the courage of Jackie Robinson, to the patriotism of George Washington, President Obama sees the traits of these heroes within his own children, and within all of America’s children.

Breathtaking, evocative illustrations by award-winning artist Loren Long at once capture the personalities and achievements of these great Americans and the innocence and promise of childhood.

This beautiful book celebrates the characteristics that unite all Americans, from our nation’s founders to generations to come. It is about the potential within each of us to pursue our dreams and forge our own paths. It is a treasure to cherish with your family forever.

Freebie from Amazon.ca:

Steel Lily (Periodic #1)
by Megan Curd

Avery Pike is a commodity. No, more than a commodity. Her existence is guarded at all costs.

She’s a water Elementalist, the strongest of her dwindling kind. She creates steam to provide energy to fuel Dome Four: the only thing standing between humanity and an earth ravaged by World War III. No steam, no Dome. No Dome, no life.

Or so she thinks.

That is, until a mysterious man offers her a way out of having to donate steam. A way to escape the corrupt government of Dome Four. While the offer seems too good to be true, Avery is intrigued. But when she arrives to her new home, she realizes the grass isn’t any less dead on this side of the fence. Instead, the lies are just hidden better.

Which means digging deeper.

When Avery enlists the help of her friends to uncover the truth, she learns that while some secrets are better left concealed, humankind was never meant to live in a cage. And when you can control the most sought after resource, you can learn to control anything…including the fate of your world.

What was in your "mailbox" this week?  Let me know in the comments!


In My Mailbox was started by Kristi of The Story Siren.

Weekly Recap - August 31-September 6, 2014

Here's what I blogged about over the last seven days:

Sunday - I shared what I got In My Mailbox. This week I got two books: one set in India, the other in Gaza City.

I reviewed A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman and gave it 2 ladybugs.  I think this is the first novel in verse that I've really disliked!

I also reviewed a picture book, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters by Barack Obama, and gave it 3.83 ladybugs.  The illustrations by Loren Lang were super cute!

Monday - I reviewed The Grumpy Guide to Life by Grumpy Cat and gave it 1.67 ladybugs.  I am not a cat person.  Not even a Grumpy Cat person, apparently!

Tuesday - I participated in the Top Ten Tuesday meme.  This week was a back-to-school theme.  We picked which ten book characters we'd have sitting at our lunch table!

Thursday - I participated in Booking Through Thursday.  This week's topic was assigned reading in school.

Saturday - I reviewed Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout and gave it 1.57 ladybugs.  I'm so glad to be done with that one!

Review - Obsidian

Obsidian (Lux #1)
by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Date: 2011
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 294
Format: e-book
Source: Amazon.ca

Starting over sucks.

When we moved to West Virginia right before my senior year, I'd pretty much resigned myself to thick accents, dodgy internet access, and a whole lot of boring... until I spotted my hot neighbor, with his looming height and eerie green eyes. Things were looking up.

And then he opened his mouth.

Daemon is infuriating. Arrogant. Stab-worthy. We do not get along. At all. But when a stranger attacks me and Daemon literally freezes time with a wave of his hand, well, something... unexpected happens.

The hot alien living next door marks me.

You heard me. Alien. Turns out Daemon and his sister have a galaxy of enemies wanting to steal their abilities, and Daemon's touch has me lit up like the Vegas Strip. The only way I'm getting out of this alive is by sticking close to Daemon until my alien mojo fades.

If I don't kill him first, that is.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This book made me really, really angry.  Don't get me wrong: it's not a terrible premise and there are plenty of people out there who love this sort of story.  But it was just so badly written, with so many basic problems, that I just couldn't get through it without getting very uptight.  My inner editor was screaming, and I was nearly in tears at the thought of all those five-star reviews on Goodreads.  Because this isn't a five-star book.  It just isn't.

Let's set aside for the moment the fact that the story is pretty derivative.  I haven't seen a lot of aliens in YA paranormal fiction, but that doesn't mean that Obsidian is entirely original.  I was reminded of both Twilight and the TV series Roswell as I was reading this book.  At this point, I don't think we're going to find anything that's 100% original, and that's fine.  Aliens living in semi-rural West Virginia could've been a really great starting point for a cool story.  What really got to me here was the quality of the writing.  This is not fan fiction or a self-published work.  It supposedly had the editing resources behind it to make it a polished book, something that people would want to pay money for.  And yet, it read like a first draft that even the author didn't bother to re-read.  The writing itself was extremely juvenile, repetitive in places, full of typos and misused words, redundancies, verb conjugation errors, and many continuity problems.

I thought for sure, while I was still reading, that this was -- or had started out as -- a self-published work.  So I searched out the author's website to see if that was the case.  While I was there, I found something very telling:

Quality of writing, of storytelling and of craft are TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE. What one person loves, another hates, and so forth. There are people out there who don’t mind a book where it looks like the English language threw up comma splices all over it. There are people who see ‘there’ versus ‘their’ misused and lose their ever loving mind. A good book is subjective. As a writer, you’ve got to write what you want to read, what you are passionate about, and what you think is good.

I disagree completely with that first sentence.  Storytelling and craft... yes, those may be subjective.  Quality of writing is not.  It's like trying to argue that McDonald's offers "good" food just because you think it's yummy.  It might titillate your taste buds, but it's never going to be "good" food.  If this is her attitude, then it explains why I had such a hard time reading this one.

And it's too bad that this is the way she thinks (note, I don't want to pick on just her; I've seen other authors react this way... especially when they've been called out on the quality of their writing).  Imagine if this book had been proofread and edited and made to be the best it could be.  Then it would have gained even more fans.  Instead, it just alienated (no pun intended... really) those who demand a little more quality in the books they read.

Aside from that, there's not much else I can say about this book.  I can see why some people might like it, and why they might like Daemon, but I didn't.  He's just a standard hot paranormal male character who does little of note other than repeatedly rescue the heroine.  Even the bonus chapters at the end did little to bring me around; in fact, they may have had the opposite effect.  When you need to rewrite chapters from another character's point of view just to clarify what was going on in the main story, you haven't really done a great job in the first place.

Quotable moment:

My stomach flipped thinking about how close his lips had been to mine. Worse yet was the knowledge that I had wanted him to kiss me. Like and lust must not have anything in common.

Recommended to: YA paranormal fans who don't mind a caliber of writing that's the literary equivalent of a squished Happy Meal

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 2/5
Writing & Editing: 1/5
Originality: 2/5

Enjoyment: 1/5

Overall Rating: 1.57 out of 5 ladybugs

Booking Through Thursday (32)

Booking Through Thursday asks:

We all had to read lots of different things in school—some of which we liked, some of which we didn’t. Are there any authors that you’ve grown to love because you were introduced to them in your English Lit class? Or—the contrary. Are there any you hate because you were forced to read them? Did you ever go back to try them again?

When I was in elementary school, we had to read a couple of books by Geoffrey Trease: Cue for Treason and Word to Caesar.  We read the former in Grade 6 and the latter in Grade 7.  Actually, we didn't even finish Word to Caesar since we started it so close to the end of the school year.  I was enjoying it so much that I asked the teacher if I could borrow it for a few days so I could finish!

I don't think I had another positive experience with assigned reading until I got to university.  That's where I read Jane Eyre for the very first time.  I was surprised at how much I could love an assigned-reading book!

But there's always two sides to every coin.  In the same class where we read Jane Eyre we also had to read Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding.  I never actually did.  It was so awful, so boring and confusing, that I couldn't get past the first twenty pages.  I used Coles Notes to write the essays and got rid of that stupid little paperback as soon as I could.  I have no desire to try reading that book again.  Ever.

I also have no desire to read any more Hemingway, Dickens, or Hardy, thanks to my high school English classes.  In fact, I didn't read a lot for enjoyment throughout much of high school... and I think it's because I was feeling worn out from reading books I wasn't enjoying!

Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Book Characters That Would Be Sitting At My Lunch Table

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Book Characters That Would Be Sitting At My Lunch Table.  Ten characters?  That is one big table... and one potentially volatile situation, if all those personalities clash.  Okay... here goes:

Enzo from The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein - If you've never had a dog, you're probably not aware of this, but they make efficient cleaner-uppers.  Not crazy about that meatloaf the cafeteria just served you?  Feed it to the dog.

Sam from Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver - Every lunch table needs a mean girl!  Actually, I'd prefer to have the version of Sam after the events in the story.  I like it when people can learn from their mistakes.

Hazael and Ziri from the Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy by Laini Taylor - Here are two characters who, historically, should be mortal enemies (hey, we might as well make lunch interesting).  I think these two were my favourite characters in the whole series.

Howl from Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones - He can be a bit of a diva... but, so what?  The dude can do magic.  He'd come in especially handy if one of us were cursed by someone from that dodgy-looking table of witches over in the corner of the cafeteria...

Lucius from Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey - He'd have definite opinions on our food choices... especially if we brought lentils.

Jack from Room by Emma Donoghue - He's a little young to be sitting with the rest of these characters, but maybe the presence of a child would help keep some of the others in line.  You don't want to go ballistic on your enemies when there's a kid watching.

Gen from The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner - Okay, so he might end up pilfering your lunch money, but he's such a character.  He seems like he'd be a fun guy to have around.

Farhad from Tiger Moon by Antonia Michaelis - I kind of wanted to put Nitish, Farhad's talking white tiger companion, at the lunch table, but I wasn't sure how he'd react to having to sit next to a dog.  So I'll go with Farhad, who's courageous and intelligent and willing to risk everything to help a girl he's never even met.  Sounds like a cool person to eat with, doesn't he?

R from Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion - A zombie?  Why not?  You wouldn't need to buy him lunch.  Of course, the sight of some random body part dropping off might make the rest of us lose our appetites...

What are some characters that would be sitting at your lunch table?

Review - The Grumpy Guide to Life

The Grumpy Guide to Life
by Grumpy Cat
Date: 2014
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Reading level: A
Book type: picture book
Pages: 112
Format: e-book
Source: library

In a world filled with inspirational know-it-alls and quotable blowhards, only one figure is indifferent enough to tell the cranky truth: Grumpy Cat. Following the success of her New York Times bestselling debut, everyone's favorite disgruntled feline is back with this demotivational guide to everyday life, love, friendship, and more. Featuring many new photos of Grumpy Cat's famous frown and packed with uninspiring observations, The Grumpy Guide to Life will help anyone get in touch with their inner grouch.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

If you're not familiar with Grumpy Cat, you must have been living under a rock for the last year or so.  She's popped up in many an Internet meme with her trademark scowling face and crabby observations.  In small doses, the schtick is funny.  After over a hundred pages of the same thing... it's not.  After a while, I stopped smiling and began to feel quite depressed.  The sentiments are downright misanthropic, very negative, and often mean-spirited.  It starts to wear on you after a while.
Added to that were numerous badly Photoshopped images of the cat that made me wonder if the book had been put together by a bunch of beginner graphic design students.  It wasn't that impressive, and it made the book seem like little more than an attempt to jump on the bandwagon and cash in on the popularity of this ugly little cat.

And maybe it's really overthinking things, but I feel distinctly uncomfortable with the whole Grumpy Cat phenomenon after reading this book.  The cat can't help how she looks.  She may be perfectly sweet and not at all grumpy (her real name, after all, is not Grumpy Cat, but Tardar Sauce), but the whole meme just endorses the idea that how we look is all we are... and that's an idea I think we should be moving away from, not reinforcing.

Okay, off the soapbox.  In short, this book stopped being funny after a few pages, and unless you like looking at badly Photoshopped snapshots of cats, your time is probably better spent elsewhere.

Quotable moment:

The tide is a great reminder that whatever you do doesn't really matter because it will just get washed away and forgotten.

Recommended to: cat-crazy people who are impervious to constant negativity

Premise: 2/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 2/5
Illustrations: 2/5
Originality: 2/5

Enjoyment: 1/5

Overall: 1.67 out of 5