a WONDERful book

I love recommendations from fellow librarians.  As people who spend our entire lives surrounded by books, it is sometimes hard to tell the good from the bad and the good from the great.  Every one has a different taste in books, but for the most part, a great book is a great book to everyone.

Enter, Wonder, the first novel by JR Palacio.

Filled with references to other wonderful contemporary novels, kindness, and triumph over bullying, this novel is quite the 'great book'.  Auggie (August) Pullman is the recipient of a combination of genetic mutations and disorders that leave his face 'deformed'.  He has lived with it all his life and lived with the stares and shocked faces that greet him everywhere he goes.  After being homeschooled most of his life, Auggie's parents decide that he should start the 5th grade in a real school. 

Much like the book Schooled by Gordon Korman, another of my very favorite books, I found myself appalled at the treatment of Auggie when he gets to school.  Perhaps I just have blocked most of my middle school experience from my memory bank, or perhaps I simply still suffer from only seeing what I want to see, but  I just don't remember my experience that way.

Don't get me wrong - I totally remember high school like that.  I just don't remember middle school kids being that mean (especially in fifth grade).  Either way, both books help us understand that although some kids grow up differently than we do or look/act different, they are still kids, they still have feelings, and they still just want to find their place in the world.

Sometimes the narrator of an audiobook can make or break the way we feel about a novel.  It was definitely the narrator of Shakespeare's Secret who facilitated my love of that book.  In the exact opposite way, I actually had to turn off the audiobook of Wonder after only ten minutes; knowing that if I left it on, I would end up hating the book.  I ended up reading the book and loving it.  It didn't take long, as it is a fast read, and I found myself wanting to know what would happen to Auggie and his friends.

I would recommend this book to all children entering middle school as a way to teach compassion and understanding of those different than we are.  In an environment where everyone is trying to find their place, it might go a long way to understand that everyone is trying to do the same thing.

Hmmmm... It's a Mystery!

Oooh - Everyone loves a good mystery.  And this one is GREAT!  

As a child, I spent a lot of time reading realistic fiction (mostly Sweet Valley Twins,  which is funny considering how much twins freak me out).  It wasn't until library school when I read my first real mystery.  Yeah, I'd been forced to read mysteries in middle school, I am sure... I DID read The Westing Game, after all... but I had never picked one up out of my own volition.  I didn't even read The Boxcar Children, a childhood staple in most lives.  Perhaps it has something to do with how big of a baby I am and how I avoid suspense like it is the plague (I can't even play hide-and-go-seek for fear I pee my pants in anxious terror), but mysteries just never had much appeal.

Enter the aforementioned Shakespeare's Secret.  Perhaps it is that in children's mysteries, the suspense is minimal, or that it only lasts for a few pages, but I loved it.  It was awhile until I picked up another mystery, but I definitely wasn't disappointed in picking up the first in The Red Blazer Girls series, The Ring of Rocamadour.  

As the audiobook selector, I had a conversation about this particular series a few months back.  We owned several of the audiobooks, but not the actual books.  In our collection development policy, if we don't own the physical book, we shouldn't own the audio... so I had to convince our YA selector to purchase the copies or get rid of the audiobooks.  After a 15-20 minute discussion, we decided to keep them and purchase the whole set.  I am SO glad we did (and so is she).

I don't know if it is because they had to use their brains to solve the mystery or because they were the most sarcastic middle school girls I have ever read about, but I felt as if I would have been friends with them when I was younger.  I found myself immediately living with them in their city dwellings, fretting over school-girl crushes, and enjoying the 'Catholic humor' and adventure that ensued.  

As soon as I put the audiobook on in my car, I recognized the narrator as the same one from a different book I had listened to, which always excites me.  I enjoyed the book so much, I also checked out the physical book so that I could be reading it at home, on lunch, before bed, and then listen to it in the car.  I would definitely recommend it to any parent looking for a fun 'girl book' for their daughter that isn't too mature and has just the right amount of 'sass'.

As my coworker says, now we just have to get recommending it to the right kids!

I'll Be Seeing You....

As I have been recently avoiding books that make me cry, I was surprised when the book, See You at Harry's was recommended to me and I jumped at the chance to read it.  I was even warned.... this will be sad.  

I felt confident.  It has been a long time since I really had a breakdown.  I have been dealing with my life pretty well, and I even read a book about a widowed woman and laughed through the 300-some pages of her experience.  They say that humor is a more intelligent way to deal with grief.  If that is true, I am the smartest person alive.  As Chandler on Friends would say, "I'm not so good with the advice, can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?"

When this particular book was recommended as a 'most wonderful story', I took it home and spent the following nights engrossed in its pages.  It truly is a great story, and one that I didn't want to put down, but I spent the entire book much like I did while reading The Help.... with a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.  As I was warned that it was a sad story, I knew that something bad would happen... I just didn't know what.   That might have made it worse.  It sounds bad to say, but I was expecting an awful outcome... and what happened was just short of that.

At one point, I returned to the person who recommended the book in the first place to check with her as to what was about to happen.  As someone who often turns to the end of novels to read the last chapter to keep anxiety at bay, I was very nervous.  She wouldn't tell me what happened (very nice of her), but she did assure me that everything would turn out 'ok-ish'.

When bad things happen, it is sometimes children who get left behind and neglected. This isn't the first book I have read where something bad happens and a child is basically ignored while their parents get a grip on things.  While I would like to say that these types of books aren't accurate and don't portray what actually happens when tragedy strikes, I unfortunately know that they are.

As with Captain Nobody by Dean Pitchford, another of this type of realistic fiction books that deal with family tragedy and children's coping skills, See You at Harry's gives an accurate portrayal of a family in grief.  When tragedy struck my own family, I watched as my aunt and uncle went through the heartbreak of losing their child and were so caught up in their own grief they left my cousins to fend for themselves.  I guess the other children are a casualty of the tragedy as well.  

Hopefully, this type of books provide comfort to grieving families and to the children left in them.  Perhaps if they read these novels, they feel as if what their family is going through is normal, which is half the battle in grief.... knowing that they aren't alone.  How unfortunate.

Feeling Less Than Stellar

For the most part, the past few months have been filled with some light and fluffy books.  But, when life hands you lemons, it might be best to make a Lemonade War.  The book, by Jacqueline Davies just happens to be one of my favorites of the summer.  We even used it as a Summer Reading Club prize this year to go along with our 'Food' theme.  

In the novel, two siblings (a boy and a girl) who spend a lot of time together making lemonade stands start to feel the pressure of competition when it is recommended that the younger of the two should skip a grade and they should start the fall in the same class.  As someone who felt the need to 'compete' with her siblings always, I felt a sort of kinship with the brother in this story.  The frustration of feeling like no matter what you do, it might not ever be good enough is so real that it brought back a flood of memories from my own childhood.

As the middle child, I feel as if I am predisposed to feeling like I am not as good as my siblings and that my parents never really noticed me as a result.  I am quite sure that my parents paid just as much attention to me as my siblings, but the actuality of the situation means nothing to a child.  It is all perception and feeling.  I spent my formative years being told that I was incredibly pretty - only to grow up thinking I wasn't smart.  My brother and sister were always told they were smart.... and because no one ever told me that I was smart too, I thought that I was pretty and dumb.  

No matter what actually happens, the competition that siblings feel for each other trumps reality.  I was talking with a friend a few weeks back and he remarked how his sister is so smart that she has always made him feel dumb.  This particular person is so incredibly gifted in art and music, I thought to myself - I would imagine that growing up in his enormous shadow, she felt she HAD to be smart in order to compete with his greatness, and that she feels inadequate when compared to him as well. 

As children, what makes us focus on our weaknesses to the point of ignoring our greatness?  It is something I have spent quite a few years of my adult life thinking about.  It took until I was 25 for my sister to tell me that she was always jealous of me.  That she and my brother never had to work for a grade, it just came naturally... but that I worked so hard to get what I wanted, it made her jealous.  I just couldn't believe it.  My brother said the same thing.  He had to take a semester off from college because he didn't know how to study, but I already knew when I got to college because I had been doing it for so long.  I can't help but think how weird it is to be jealous of the study habits of someone else.

That is what makes this book so wonderful.  It discusses these sibling relationships and the secrets we keep about them without being preachy.  It allows a child to understand that just as much as they envy their sibling, they are being envied as well.  Perhaps if I had read this book as a child, I would have spent less time feeling little and ignored and more time trying to figure out what my awesome qualities were.  I might have found them sooner.

'Anne with an E'

As a child, the only gift (besides a check) that I can remember getting from my 'Grandpa O'Keefe' is the 2-VHS tape set of Anne of Green Gables.  I don't know if he bought the same movie for all of his granddaughters, but I like to think he bought it especially for me, being that I am named after his daughter, my godmother, Anne (with an E).

I didn't know growing up, but I guess that proper 'etiquette' for names in the 50s and 60s stated that Anne as a first name should have the 'e' and Ann as a middle name should not (just like Jeanne vs. Jean for first or middle names).  Being that my 'Anne' is a middle name, I think that makes me special (and Anne with an E is so much more distinguished!).

Nowadays, people name their kids all kinds of crazy things and spell them any way they want.  I guess there was a time when that wasn't the case.... something that as I just read Anne of Green Gables was mentioned when Marilla remarks about the Barry girl named 'Diana' instead of Jane or Mary or something more common.  In the story, Anne has no problem with wonderfully crazy names and asks to be called Cordelia. 

I have watched those tapes (and now DVDs) probably 20 times since I received them, each time thinking about my grandfather and how much he must have wanted me to have them... seeing as he never again sent an actual gift.  The movies hold a special place in my heart and I still remember what I was wearing and where I was the first time I watched them.

It wasn't until it was a suggested book for a book club that I am in that I happened to read the first in the Anne series, Anne of Green Gables.  This is a book that most people read sometime in their childhood, but for some reason almost half of the book club had not.  I wasn't expecting much, as having been on several book award committees I have found that reading beloved childhood books as an adult doesn't always result in adoration, but I was smitten almost from the first page.

Anne is a lovable, laughable, and kindred character, and through her trials and her excitement I found myself remembering my own childhood and comparing notes.  Did I fall off a ridgepole after being dared to walk it? No..... But I did get challenged to a race through the 'World's Largest Human Maze' in Breckenridge, CO only to finish 40 dizzying minutes later than the other kids and throw up all over upon my exit.  Was it embarrassing? Yes.  Was I being competitive? Oh heck yes.

I actually own all of the Anne books, and never had picked one up to read it - I find it hard to read a book after having seen the movie.  I spent my childhood watching the movie instead of reading the book, but I found myself believing I was one of Anne's 'kindred spirits' just the same.  I am so glad to have been 'forced' to read the book for book club, even if it was some 20 years late.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

It has been awhile since I posted anything - a direct result of the turmoil of my personal life and the loss of my husband.  Through his stay in various hospitals and nursing homes, the 'favorite things' song kept playing through my head like a mantra for when I was feeling sad, mad, bad or any other emotion that ends in 'ad'.

One of my favorite books (which I love to recommend to EVERY child that comes into the library... and adults too) is Shakespeare's Secret.  I know.... those of you who know me well have probably been waiting to see when this book might make its appearance on here.  Although it isn't a book that makes me cry, I do get quite emotional while talking about how much this book inspired me to read all things 'Anne Boleyn'.  

In library school, I had to pick one of the books I read for my Children's Literature class and write a review of it.  This is that review:

Elise Broach’s debut novel about a lonely middle-school girl named Hero is one not to be missed.  Hero and her older sister Beatrice have just moved into a small town outside of Washington, D.C.  The girls may share the source of their names, Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, but they could not be more different.  The story follows Hero as she learns about her new town, the secret of the house into which she has moved, and how to accept herself and grow through her experiences.  The novel allows the reader to enter the overbearing world of English royalty and observe some of the social injustice that occurred at the time of Queen Elizabeth’s rein.  Shakespeare’s Secret is an accurate portrayal of a new student dealing with typical middle-school problems and any reader can relate to Hero’s dilemmas and predicaments.  The narrator of the audio book only adds to the brilliance of this novel, as she provides excellent character separation.  The mood and setting created by her voice are easy to get enveloped in.  This novel, both in print and in audio book formats, is an excellent title to be added to any school or public library and can easily be worked into a school curriculum. 

My love for the book goes far beyond 'the best book I read in library school'.  I was just getting into the world of children's literature in my second semester.  For someone who was stuck reading Sweet Valley Kids and Baby Sitter's Little Sister books well into High School, I missed out on a lot of great books for kids.  It is only lucky for me that I have to read books I should have read as a child for my job.

After reading Shakespeare's Secret, I was so excited to learn about Anne and Shakespeare as well as try to figure out if Hero's discovery of their connection might actually be true.  I devoured books on Elizabethan England and Shakespeare like I was a two year old eating an Oreo.  It was definitely just as messy.  I tell this story to parents as often as I tell it to children - mostly as encouragement to find 'that book' for their child... one that will inspire them to absorb as much information as they possibly can on a subject before finding the next book that inspires them.  It is incredible to watch and even more awesome to experience.  

I encourage everyone to check out Shakespeare's Secret, but on that same note, I encourage them to find their own 'Favorite Thing' and have fun with it!

A Welcome Distraction

Sometimes, instead of books causing me to cry, my real life becomes so overwhelmingly sad that I turn to them for comfort and an escape. Over the past few weeks as my 'real life' became slightly overwhelming, my 'book life' became light and fluffy. Instead of gravitating toward the sad stories that make my heart break, I opted to read The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone (in between adult chick-lit titles).

I have an affinity for books that take place in and around Chicago landmarks (such as The Time Travelers Wife or Chasing Vermeer), especially ones written by Illinois authors. This is even more true when it comes to places I have actually been such as the Thorne Miniature Rooms in the Art Institute of Chicago, which is where this book takes place. Like most other books that 'play on history' such as my most favorite of favorite books, Shakespeare's Secret, I delve into the story and can't be distracted.

This sort of devotion to a story can cause the people around you to be annoyed, but it can also help you through a rough time, creating an alternate reality in which you can live for a few moments at a time. This fascinating story of two friends, Ruthie and Jack, who find a magic key that shrinks them and allows them to live in the 68 Thorne rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago, is one that can do just that.

I thoroughly enjoyed living within the rooms that I have seen so many times, and not only remembering what they look like, but learning about the life outside of the rooms; what it was like in 18th Century France, or in America before I was born. Now, I love a good HGTV interior design show, and this book is basically a child's version of a cross between Antiques Roadshow and House Hunters International with a bit of family mystery, art history, and friendly fun. What is not to like?

While I wouldn't recommend this book to someone looking for a good cry, I did tear up at the end when things come together and Ruthie and Jack help an old artist find his passion for life again. It is a wonderful story to be read aloud or read alone - either way, you can easily find yourself lost in The Sixty Eight Rooms.