This cover art is from the final story, Kibuishi’s “The Escape Option.”
Explorer: The Mystery Boxes (Graphic Novel)
Edited by Kazu Kibuishi
Harry N. Abrams
Library copy from Junior Library Guild
[#41 in my 75 book challenge]
I picked up this book from our most recent Junior Library Guild order, intending to just flip through it and see what it was about. I ended up reading the entire thing.
Essentially, this is a graphic novel short story collection all on the same theme: mystery boxes. Each story has a different author/artist and style, but all have an element of fantasy to them. Including lots of unicorns. There are seven stories:
The stories are short and cute, but they also have some interesting depth to them. The artwork is beautiful in some stories and brilliant in others, as there is a nice variety in styles and tones. Some stories feel dark, some epic, and some just fun. My favorite was Spring Cleaning because I enjoy Raina Telgemeier’s art and I liked the fun tone of the story. I also liked the ending to The Escape Option because I didn’t see the twist coming. It’s good when a 15-page story can give me a twist ending, that’s not an easy feat — especially with a graphic novel.
FINAL GRADE: C I give it a C based on my personal taste (it was average), but a B for my library and my students. This is not a book I read for me, but one I read for my kids. Boys and girls alike with appreciate this little collection. They will love it, like they love all graphic novels! But this one will surely stayed checked out more than it’s on my shelf. I also like the potential for using this as a jumping off point for a writing exercise, since each story takes on a common theme, kids could write their own story about a mysterious box. I might even be inspired to do so!
What would your story about a mysterious box be?
The discs in the audio book has similar artwork to this cover.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
by JK Rowling
Scholastic/Scholastic Audio
Audiobook from Public Library
[#28 in my 75 Book Challenge]
First off, let me make it clear that this review IS FULL OF SPOILERS! I’m assuming at this point that everyone has already read the books, seen the movies, or has no interest in doing either (and if that’s the case, why are you reading this?). If you don’t want spoilers, don’t read beyond this point.
Seriously. I’m warning you.
Rereading Harry Potter after all the books and movies are done, over, and available on DVD/in paperback is an interesting experience. I’m not tearing through the novels like I did the first time, so it’s going a little slowly. Let it be known that I LOVE HARRY POTTER and I love how Rowling sets up the series. I love the depth and details in every book. I love the characters and the themes.
That being said, some things annoy the crap out of me. And other things I just don’t understand.
Ten Things I Didn’t Like/Don’t Understand About Harry Potter IV
1.) The length. I feel like we could have chopped out about 50-100 pages and still gotten along just fine. I love the fact that Rowling weaves an epic tale, but this novel in particular feels unnecessarily long.
2.) Dobby. And Winky. And all the house elves. I feel like this whole story line was an afterthought.
3.) The length of the tournament. I don’t quite understand why the tournament has to last all year and why there are months between each task. It seems a little over-the-top to have those Dumstrang and Beauxbatons kids hanging around Hogwarts ALL YEAR for three days of actual tournament. Hold it over a week and be done with it. Geeze.
4.) The logistics of the tournament. Did those Durmstrang and Beauxbatons kids spent an entire year having class on their boat and in their carriage? That seems like a waste. How did they go to class? And is that really necessary? Did the whole school come? It doesn’t make much sense.
5.) Voldemort always shows his mean little face in late spring. Just in time for him and Harry to have a showdown at the end of the school year as a climax to the story. If I were Voldy, I’d show up in October and really scare the shit out of everyone. If I were Harry, I’d catch on to Voldy’s little pattern REAL QUICK.
6.) The portkey. If we are using an object as a portkey to take Harry to Voldemort, why do so much work to make that happen (ahem, Barty Crouch Jr, I’m talkin’ to you)? It seems to me that luring Harry into a portkey trap could be accomplished with far less hooplah.
7.) Voldemort’s LOOOONG graveyard speech. Oh, Voldemort. Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort. Is the super-long speech in the Graveyard really necessary? I know you think you are awesome and clever for resurrecting yourself and all, but you go in to a very intense amount of detail for a kid you’re about to kill. I understand the need for narrating the full story here, but no villain (no matter how self-centered) would go into all those random details.
8.) Speaking of Voldemort and random details — why did he expect his followers to come find him in the woods in Albania? Come on! That’s like the world’s hardest game of hide ‘n seek. Needle in a haystack, anyone?
9.) Barty Crouch Jr. I felt like I needed a degree in rocket science to understand the Barty Crouch Jr. situation. I mean, I’ve read the book before and all, but I’d forgotten the details. I almost needed to draw a diagram.
10.) The end. The ending wouldn’t end! I read this as an audio book, and there was a whole disc after the Mad Eye Moody = Barty Crouch Jr. plot is revealed. Rita Skeeter, Fred and George’s joke shop, Hermione and Krum all needed to be wrapped up. But after 700+ pages I was tired and didn’t really need all of that falling action. It’s a series, for goodness sake. I’ve still got three to go!
So there you have it. Ten things that annoyed me about this book. Most of all, though, I did love it. I pick up on different things every time I read the series, and I love the complexities Rowling includes…just not the unnecessary stuff. This time around I definitely noticed how dark the writing is in the scenes of Voldemort’s return, and how scary it all really is. Voldemort is a truly creepy bad guy.
FINAL GRADE: B+ It’s Harry Potter, for goodness sake. The series gets an A+, but I can’t say that this book gets an A on its own. But it’s Harry Potter. You should read (or re-read) it. Everyone. Everywhere. Always.
Have you read Harry Potter? Re-read Harry Potter? How did it hold up on the re-read?
This book cover is actually pretty accurate.
The Lightning Thief
by Rick Riordan
Random House
Audiobook from audible.com
[#60 in my 52 60 book challenge]
I did not like this book. But middle school kids will (and do) love it. In case you don’t know the story, here’s the blurb from Goodreads:
After getting expelled from yet another school for yet another clash with mythological monsters only he can see, twelve-year-old Percy Jackson is taken to Camp Half-Blood, where he finally learns the truth about his unique abilities: He is a demigod, half human, half immortal. Even more stunning: His father is the Greek god Poseidon, ruler of the sea, making Percy one of the most powerful demigods alive. There’s little time to process this news. All too soon, a cryptic prophecy from the Oracle sends Percy on his first quest, a mission to the Underworld to prevent a war among the gods of Olympus.
If Harry Potter were poorly written and about mythology instead of magic, it would be this book. I thought it was extremely derivative of the Harry Potter series, and it didn’t meet the expectations of JK Rowling’s series. This book represents everything I thought that Harry Potter would be when I initially refused to read the series.
Let me take a step back. I know Harry Potter is not original. JK Rowling borrowed almost everything in her novels from other great works, mythology, and literary archetypes. But it works. I wish I could articulate why it works, but I don’t know if I can…and I don’t have the room here to do so. However, I feel that the plethora of kids’ fantasy novels that followed the Harry Potter explosion were trying to ride on Rowling’s coattails. Percy Jackson, whether intentional or not, felt like one of those novels. I should have seen this coming when one of Riordan’s other novels, The Red Pyramid, ended up in my “gave up on” pile.
I’m not the only one who sees far too many Harry Potter similarities — read a couple of the reviews over at Goodreads to see that many of them agree (and they list out the similarities, if you’re interested). To me, this just felt like a middle school novel. The middle school kids like an action-packed story and the fantasy element, and they aren’t going to make too many comparisons or ask too many questions. That’s why I’m giving it two different grades…
Final Grade (for me): D I just don’t like fantasy, and think all of these Newberry-hopefuls are raising my personal bar for kid-lit.
Final Grade (for my students): B The kids will like this. I will keep buying it and recommending it. It is great for a study of mythology and getting kids excited about Ancient Greece, which is in our curriculum. And, of course, it gets them excited about reading!
The more I look at this cover, the more I like it.
A Wrinkle In Time
by Madeleine L’Engle
[#56 in my 52 60 book challenge]
I started this book in 1995. It took me sixteen years to finish it and move it from the “currently reading” pile to the bookshelf. I think I can rest easy tonight with a smug smile on my face because I have accomplished something great today.
Okay, that’s all a bit of a stretch, but I really did give up on this book in the fifth grade and I’ve always said I would come back to it one day and finish it.
Unless you live under a rock, you have at least heard of A Wrinkle In Time and the tesseract/time travel business. I was surprised to find that the plot was more simple than I had remembered. Meg Murry’s father, a scientist, has been missing for many years. One day three mysterious ladies come and take Meg Murry and her youngest brother, Charles Wallace, so save their father. A schoolmate, Calvin O’Keefe, is along for the ride. They tesser across the universe and across time to different planets and stumble across The Dark Thing and great evil while trying to get all the family members home safely.
My favorite part of the story was Camazotz, the weird planet where everyone does everything at the exact same time. It was creepy and mysterious, but also very close to the themes we see in dystopian literature about control. I also like Charles Wallace quite a bit and wanted to know what his deal was. The basic story was okay. It didn’t blow my mind and make me squeal, “OMG, this is my new favorite book!” I know sooooo many people that feel that way, but I just don’t get it. Do it need to read it twenty more times? Do I need to tesser back twenty years and read it then? Someone help me shed some light on this.
The big things I didn’t get mostly involve Calvin O’Keefe. Why was he even there? And what does he end up seeing in Meg? Yeah, Meg has this great quality to love, but she’s not all that special. I don’t doubt that Meg and Calvin could fall in love over time, but it seemed very quick to me. “Hey, I just met you and you are completely average in every way, but I’m going to hold your hand and make googley eyes at you, okay?”
Maybe I’m just too old for this. I missed the boat and missed the magic of this kids classic. Maybe I need to read it a few more times and revel in the liberal religious aspects of the story (L’Engle was an Episcopalian, it seems). My book club kids thought the story was okay, but they still far preferred When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. I think I feel the same way.
love Love LOVE this cover.
Tales from Outer Suburbia
by Shaun Tan
Another Junior Library Guild book! This one came with my November books and I snatched it out of the pile while my assistant laughed at me for being a complete nerd.
I read Shaun Tan’s Lost and Found last spring and I was completely mesmerized. I’ve read it several times since then and I believe it is truly an amazing little book. It only gets better every time I read it. Tales From Outer Suburbia has a similar effect. Lost and Found was more like a picture book, but Tales from Outer Suburbia is a little less easily defined. On first glance it looks like a picture book, but it contains a lovely combination of fifteen short stories and fabulous illustrations.
Each story can be summed up in one word: quirky. The entire book is quirky. Reading it, I get the feeling that there are layers upon layers of meaning that I’m just not yet grasping. I’ll have to read it about thirty more times to even attach personal meaning to some of them. But they are weirdly beautiful. Profound. Intelligent and simple at the same time. It’s hard to explain unless you read it for yourself.
I’ll do my best to try to explain a few of the stories so you get the idea:
The stories are odd. But stunning. I’ve never read anything like Shaun Tan’s stories. He says so much in so few words, you get a lot of bang for your buck and your time with this one. If you get the chance, give his work a try and see if you can explain it all better than I do. It will be worth it.
If you want to see some of what Tan’s work is about, watch this video of my favorite story from Lost and Found. It is a story called “The Red Tree.”
Index cards are my favorite teaching tool.
I challenged them to write tweet-length reviews for the book to promote it to other sixth grade students. We thought about quotes on movie posters and trailers to make our reviews attention-grabbing and exciting…without revealing too much information. They did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself (pictured above).
Now that November is approaching, it’s time for book club to start a new novel. Since When You Reach Me was inspired by A Wrinkle in Time and the kids are on a time-travel kick, we’ll be reading it next. I read 3/4 of the story in the fifth grade, so I’m glad this is going to give me the opportunity to read something that’s been in my TBR pile for approximately twelve years. Awesome! I’ll keep y’all posted on the joys and pitfalls of trying to explain tesseracts and the fourth and fifth dimensions to twelve-year-olds…
…or maybe they’ll be explaining them to me!
Oct 8
This gallery contains 12 photos.
Yikes, my TBR pile is getting HUGE! For those not down with the lingo (yes, I just said that), TBR means “To Be Read.” All bibliophiles proudly complain about how big their TBR piles are. It’s the never ending struggle to read all that we wish to read…which never happens. Being a librarian, I am [...]
My students have been super excited about starting a book club at our school, and the club has been a great success so far. We have started our year reading When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, and we are about halfway through the novel.
At this week’s meeting, we made notes about all of the strange things that have happened in the book on index cards. When You Reach Me is full of strange events, and I have told the kids that all of these “questions” will have answers by the end. The index cards let us share theories about why these things have happened to make predictions about the story. In addition, we will use the cards to make a timeline at the end of the story because time is such an important element in the conclusion. We will also be able to pull out each card and talk about each event at the end, and make sure that all of our loose ends were, indeed, tightened up.
I thought I’d share their work, since it ended up being such a fun activity. There was so much animated discussion at our table and the kids we completely engrossed in the conversations. We made sure to note the page numbers for each event so they can be referenced lated (some kids noted the pages on the back of the card).
We will finish When You Reach Me in two weeks, and then we’ll move into A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle. Since When You Reach Me references A Wrinkle In Time and was inspired by L’Engles stories, I think it will be the perfect choice!
Sometimes a book just isn’t worth reading. You start it and you put it down. You walk away. You avoid picking it up back up. Reading it is a chore.
I try really hard to go ahead and finish any book that I am at least 2/3 of the way through. I am a notorious non-finisher, which is why my yearly challenges keep me on track to follow through. In general, though, I have no problem giving up on a book in the first 50 pages if it’s a dud.
I read somewhere that there is a rule about how many pages you should read before you are allowed to give up. The rule is 50 minus your age. I’m 27, so I am allowed to give up after 23 pages. Sounds good to me.
So here are the books I gave up on recently and why:
The Red Pyramid
by Rick Riordan
I was listening to this as an audio book. It’s something like 14 hours long. I gave up on disc 3 because it was making me fall asleep in the car. I stand by my earlier statements that fantasy is just not a genre I enjoy, and Harry Potter is just an exception. Weird gods/character, time travel, magic, kids going on a quest…and I don’t think it’s done very well. Apparently I’m not the only one who didn’t like the book, because a quick browsing of the internet revealed that many others felt the same.
Bullyville
by Francine Prose
Not terrible, but not terribly interesting, either. Nothing hooked me here. I’ll be selling my copy to Ed McKays (our local used bookstore)
Citizen Girl
by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
I loved The Nanny Diaries, which I read when I actually was a nanny. So I thought this one would be a great read, because it is about making it as a 20-something in the professional world, which I am also doing. Unfortunately, I found the story confusing and flat. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere or setting up an interesting plot. I bought it from Ed McKays and immediately sold it back to them. It was kind of a bummer.
So RIP to these three books, and I’m excited to read some good literature! Current titles in my hands include Superfreakonomics, Alice in April, and I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President. Hopefully none of these are duds. If they are, I’ll certainly let you know.
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