Sunday Summary: New Year

Well, my book choices so far this year are heavily dependent on what is due at the library this week. From the books I finished, only one does not fit that description. It was my U day book:

• Where the Mountains Meet the Moon, by Grace Lin (great book)
• Wanting Mor, by Rukhsana Khan (very interesting)
• Uncle Boris in the Yukon, by Daniel Pinkwater (a memoir)
• Ten Things I Hate About Me, by Randa Abdul-Fattah (disappointing)
• March Towards the Thunder, by Joseph Bruchac

I am clearly very deadline oriented. Bookmarks inched along in:

• Colibri, a bedtime read
• Countdown to Summer, poems for school days
• Parenting the Children of Now, a bit confusing
• Dragon, Actually
• The Knife of Never Letting Go, full of boys
• Sea Glass, slow starting
• The End of Racism, provocative but slow

Ludell

This is my first post for the Shelf Discovery Challenge, after actually reading that book. I'm trying to read one book per section, and for the first chapter, "Still Checked Out: YA Heroines We'll Never Return" I only had one choice, Ludell by Brenda Wilkinson. Well, I may reread Starring Sally J Freedman As Herself because my only memory is reading it, so I'm not sure it counts.

Ludell is the only non-white heroine in the chapter, and her accent was hard for me at first, keeping me distant. The pace of the book also seemed jerky or syncopated -- jumps in time, then concentrated pages. But as I eased into Ludell's life, I started to really enjoy her story and the depiction of her life. I even liked the occasional jumps into the heads of the adults around her, which gave an added dimension to the book. All the other books in this chapter feature comfortably middle-class kids (like I was), so Ludell's life in segregated Georgia seemed even more remote. Yet like all kids she could rely on the parents around her to keep her safe, even if that parent was her grandmother. She had friends to rely on or who let her down. She had goals and dreams, sometimes even realistic ones. I think I'll try to hunt up the sequels, and I like the final chapters with their emphasis on her blossoming writing skills. B+

2010 Take Another Chance Challenge

I enjoy deferring decisions. If I have six rooms to clean, I might roll a die to see which to start in. I choose music in the car by sending pre-literate kids off to the library CD shelves to bring back spoils. (Their selections are definitely changed now that they are, in fact, literate. I may need to start blindfolding them.) So this challenge seems right up my alley.

Find Your Next Book Here has designed 12 challenges in all, and all have you pick books in a sideways kind of manner, from Challenge one, based on books whose author's name echoes yours, through blogroll roulette (2), and books by members of the same family (11). This sounds like fun! I'll start out on the baby level, A Small Gamble (3 of 12).

Challenge Five looks pretty easy: Title Word Count. I pulled the number two out of the random.org generator, and top book on my library stack was a two-word title: Wanting Mor. I'm off!

I think I'll do Challenge 9 next: Same Word, Different Book. I have two books called Fire handy -- perfect!

* Fire, by Kristen Cashore

*Fire, Peter Dickinson & Robin McKinley.

Challenge 1 is also complete now, with Elizabeth Moon as my doppleganger. Oath of Fealty was a great continuation of the story begun in the Deed of Paksenarrion. That's the baby level! The next level, moderate, would mean three more.

Hmm, this is getting complicated. I'm going to list all the challenges on the bottom, and keep track up above.

Challenge 1: Read Your Doppelganger
Finished

Challenge 2: Blogroll Roulette

Challenge 3: 100 Best Book

Challenge 4: Prize Winner Book

Challenge 5: Title Word Count

Finished

Challenge 6: Genre Switch-Up

Challenge 7: Break A Prejudice

Challenge 8: Real and Inspired

Challenge 9: Same Word, Different Book
Finished

Challenge 10: Become A Character

Challenge 11: All in the Family

Challenge 12: Author Anthology Pick

Wanting Mor: Hard Times in Afghanistan

Rukhsana Khan's Wanting Mor's front jacket promised a journey of unremitting misery. It's not enough that the narrator, Jameela, loses her extended family to an American bombing raid, or that her mother dies of illness, or that her dad is a boozing loser. She also has a cleft lip. So it was with considerable trepidation that I opened the first page of this book, expecting an educational lesson in how bad life can get.

Khan's touch is much more deft than that though. Yes, Jameela's life is unimaginably hard compared to the cushy lives of my kids, but she doesn't see herself as a victim. Her voice is authentic and hopeful, striving to follow her ideals and her mother's code but not always succeeding. Her commitment to Islam rings true, as do her attempts to honor her father even when it's painfully obvious that he doesn't deserve it. I really enjoyed this book, and I'll look around to see if Khan has other books available. The dangers and heartbreak of war show clearly, but so does Jameela's individuality and strength of spirit. A-.

Challenges: Well, I feel quite accomplished. This book starts off the 100 Books Challenge, the A-Z Challenge, Support Your Library Challenge, Take Another Chance Challenge (#5), and the Young Reader Challenge. I'll come back and edit those as links when I get the challenge posts up.

Challenge Explosion!

I'm going to zip about and sign up for a bunch of challenges while I write this post. It's in REAL TIME, people, so hold on to your bologna sandwiches (that's a Trout Fishing in America reference, in case you boggled at my non sequitur there). I love the idea of lists, and challenges are lists you do with other book-loving people. And maybe I'll read some new books, and maybe I'll get a warm fuzzy sense of accomplishment for reading books I'd have read anyway. It's all good!

Here's what I've seen:

• 2010 A-Z Challenge (Titles and Authors), which runs Jan 1 - Dec 31, 2010
• Book Awards IV, Jan 1- Nov 1, 2010
• What's In a Name?, Jan 1- Dec 31, 2010, where I have to read a book in six categories: Food, Water, Title, Plant, Place, and Music
• 2010 Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge. Jan 1 - Dec 2010. Since I live in denial, I'll sign up for the Just My Size (50 books) level.
• 2010 Science Book Challenge, 2010. Three nonfiction books about science.
• Take Another Chance Challenge, 2010. There are twelve challenges to pick books in different and reader-stretching ways. I'll start with the 3 book level. I think I'll start with Challenge 5: Title Word Count. My number is 2, so I'll go look for a two word title.
• 100+ Book Challenge, 2010. This apparently just means keeping a list, and you can even include picture books. I'll just have to keep track of the books I started last year, which don't count.
• Young Readers Challenge. Read 12 books from the E or J section of the library. I'll try to do the ones I read with my third grader.

Well, that's probably enough to start. I'll have to do individual pages for many of these challenges, so I'll be peppering my pages with posts. But this way I'll feel like I'm ticking things off my lists as I read books! Warm and fuzzy times in 2010, here I come.

A Fatal Waltz: Dancing in Place, Mostly

Tasha Alexander's Victorian mysteries about Lady Emily, widow and amateur sleuth, gently combine mystery with historical period setting, with a dash of romance. They are fun reads, especially with Emily's enthusiastic hobby of ancient Greek culture and art and her timely sense of independence, more subtly done than most; Emily seems grounded in her time, not suddenly transplanted from the twenty-first century.

This third book, A Fatal Waltz, doesn't break much new ground; she continues to be engaged, she continues to face opposition from conservative male grumps who disapprove of her modern ways, she continues to sleuth about with her buddies. Some book series are ready to go for hundred of episodes, and the characters don't change at all. In better ones, each book advanced the characters a bit; if the main characters are settled (see Roarke and Eve in the Death In books), then some attention is given to minor characters and their lives. Alexander's books read more as individual novels, with plot arcs and substance to each, so the stagnation is this book bored me a bit. I'm not sure if she is settling her characters in for the long haul, but if so, more attention needs to be paid to the life bits that keep me interested. If she was just getting her breath, than the next books about Lady Emily will be that much more interesting.

I grabbed the next one from the new book shelf at the library, so I obviously still have faith in Alexander. And the plot and dialogue keep me turning pages; I'm just hoping for a fuller feeling when I close the back cover. B-

Library Loot: End of Year

Happy New Year! I shall have lots of New Years Resolutions, but first I want to finish off my library journey from last year. Yesterday my kids were with their dad, so I had to make my library circuit by myself. Alone against the ravenous books, I fought bravely but was completely devoured.

At the first library, I managed to turn in the overdue book from last week, and was charged the princely sum of 10 cents. My city library is the nicest library in the world. Kindness like that deserves reward, doesn't it? Rewards like high circulation count. I walked out with:

• Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children, by Rafe Esquith
• After Tupac & D Foster, by Jacqueline Woodson
• Are You Alone on Purpose, by Nancy Werlin
• Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Reality Check, by Peter Abrahams
• Worldweavers: Gift of the Unmage, by Alma Alexander

I had a few things due at the county library, so up the hill I went. I only had one book on the hold shelf, so things couldn't be too bad, right?

• The Dazzle of the Day, by Molly Gloss. Recommended by Jo Walton on Tor.com.
• Alex & Me, by Irene M. Pepperberg. (I think I have BookNAround to blame for this one.)
• The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, by Leonard Mlodinow (from Uncertain Principles, while I wait to read Chad's book)
• NO Talking, by Andrew Clements (audio -- it's for the CHILDREN. Well, for X.)
• Does My Head Look Big in This?, by Randa Abdel-Fattah
• Blaze of Memory, Nalini Singh
• Lawn Boy, Gary Paulsen
• Deep, Dark, and Dangerous, by Mary Downing Hahn
• Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat, by Lynne Jonell

To add insult to injury, I stopped by the Friends of the Library Sale wall. Hey, I'm a friend! Friends don't ignore each other, you know. At least these don't have due dates.

• A Ceremonial Death, by B.J. Oliphant (aka Sherri S. Tepper)
• Talk to the Hand, by Lynne Truss
• Spartan Warrior: Legacy of Blood, by Michael Ford
• The Curse of the Viking Grave, by Farley Mowat

My final score is now 79. I shall go look at Library Loot to comfort myself that other people also think they have infinite reading time.