WWRW July Link-Up

These titles are just the tip of the iceberg known as my reading pile.

Shadow on the Mountain by Margi Preus, a 2016 Caudill nominee, is a story about a boy named Espen who joins the Norwegian resistance during WWII. I love WWII fiction and Shadow on the Mountain is a solid addition to that genre. The character of Espen is based on actual events in the life Erling Storrusten, who was a teengae spy in Lillehammer during the Nazi Occupation.

Shadow on the Mountain is appropriate for any reader who can handle blood, shootings, beatings, and all the things that come with a Nazi story. Edmund can't wait to read it.

I was seriously scared at the beginning of Hidden by Helen Frost. An eight year old girl, Wren, waits in the car while her mother runs into a gas station. Gun shots. Someone gets in the car and drives away, not knowing about the child in the back seat. Wren hides in the car and then in a boat in the garage for days before  *SPOILER* she escapes and is rescued.

During her days of hiding, readers overhear conversations the driver of the car has with his wife and daughter,Darra, as well as hearing some domestic violence too. Darra leaves food and water out for Wren, while her parents think she must have gotten out of the car after the shooting.

Fast forward several years, Darra and Wren end up at the same summer camp. Wren has a happy family life, security, wealth. Darra's dad went to prison, her parents divorced, and she blames Wren for her woes.

Written in the girls' voices, the style of poetic verse changes back and forth. I didn't realize until I read the Author's Note at the end that the last words of Darra's longer lines tell another version of the story. Incredibly cool!  I love secrets like that!

Hidden is also a Caudill nominee, and though frightening at first, I think it would be okay for ages 10 and up.

Need picture book recommendations? Search the #housewifespicepicturebook hashtag on Instagram for everything we've enjoyed lately.

I'll be posting again next Wednesday. I have some new stuff from Pauline Press and Ignatius/Magnificat Kids to share with you. Susan and Lucy each have a review to share as well!

An InLinkz Link-up

WWRW: Non-Fiction I Have Loved

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming is an intense page turner.  Fleming braids three historical perspectives together in one book that I found engrossing as well as enlightening.

First, she provides an intimate look at the seven Romanovs themselves, the backgrounds of both Nicholas and Alexander, and many, many details of their lives. This is made possible by the release of primary sources, diaries, letters, etc. by the Russian government in 1991.

Secondly, she provides step-by-step explanations of Russian governments from the tsars through Stalin. This historical information provides the backdrop against which the Romanov tragedy plays out.  The reader is provided a view of the social and political conditions of early 20th century Russia that Nicholas and Alexandra either were not privy to (due to being surrounded by ministers who hid the nasty bits from them) or would not believe,which according to Fleming, happened quite a bit.

Lastly, the Romanov drama is contrasted with snippets of newspaper articles and journal entries of peasants, factory workers, and Russian soldiers from the same time period.

I would like anyone who reads this book to come over soon and dish with me over vodka drinks and caviar.

SO MUCH TO DISCUSS! How could Alexandra better fulfilled her grandmother's (Queen Victoria's) wish that she win the people's love?

What if Nicholas II had not abdicated? What if the White Army had reached Ekaterinburg before the executions/murders? Would his dynasty have been re-instated?

Are the Romanovs saints? According to some Orthodox Churches they are. They were certainly pious, though according to Fleming they were anti-Semites.

Marie Antoinette and the Romanovs. Similarities and differences. Go.

I am not familiar with the Russian Orthodox Church's canonization process. How does it differ from the Roman rite?

I was not aware that in some Orthodox churches, there are different kinds of saints, or degrees of sainthood.  The author takes pains to explain some of these "levels" at the end of the book.

Rasputin. All the mystery of Rasputin. Was he a madman? Was he possessed? Was he simply a con man and Alexandra his greatest "mark?" Could he actually hypnotize people by staring deeply into their eyes? I wrote my high school senior year term paper on Rasputin.  I still find him and his hold on the Russian royal family fascinating.

Did you know THEY FOUND THE MISSING ROMANOV BODIES in 2007? Did you know that the American team of DNA scientists and the Russian team disagree on which five Romanov bodies are interred in the royal vault in the cathedral in St. Petersburg?

I can't even tell you all of the good stuff in this book.

Yes. It is a "kid's book."

Shut. Up.

The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia won the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction and was a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book.

The Robert F. Sibert Award is awarded "to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished informational book published during the previous year."

I haven't read all of the Sibert Award Winners and Honor Books (though I would love too), but I have read some such as:

Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon (Newbery Honor Book) by Steve Sheinkin

We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson

Secrets Of A Civil War Submarine: Solving The Mysteries Of The H. L. Hunley by Sally M. Walker

An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 (Newbery Honor Book) by Jim Murphy

The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler

I also read As the Waltz Was Ending by Emma Macalik Butterworth. It's not an award winner, but it was recommend by an old friend and it is a historical memoir.  It takes place during World War II which is my favorite time period.

 As the Waltz Was Ending is the memoir of a young Austrian girl in the 1930s. She is accepted into the Vienna State Opera Ballet School just as Hitler comes to power.  Her adolescence and ascendance through the ranks of the ballet academie and the spread of Nazi Germany are told in tandem.

As you may expect, Emma's story is a sad one. Sad but interesting enough.

SUPER SAD SPOILERS AHEAD!

Then I hit the last chapter where Emma and her friend get abducted by Soviets, they are raped in a farmhouse (disturbing but not detailed), from which Emma escapes but her friend is killed in the attempt.

oh. Her father kills himself too.

But, she marries an American guy, moves to the United States and lives happily ever after, then writes this memoir.

As the Waltz Was Ending is okay, but go forth and read The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia instead.

When you get your hot little hands on The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia , don't bother flipping to the index in the back of the book looking for the Prince or Princess Kuragin, recent guests of the Dowager Countess Grantham.

There is no index.

WWRW February Link-Up

Welcome back to the What We're Reading Wednesday book review link-up party!

I post book reviews nearly every Wednesday here at Housewifespice{dot}com, and I used to have a weekly link-up. Then I had a baby. A high-need baby. Then, I fell off the blogging wagon.

I'm clawing my way back, slowly but surely, but I'm not confident enough yet to host a weekly link-up, so monthly it is. For now.

Here's what I've been reading.

Old college friends were discussing old books on the Facebook. I'm a sucker for old books. So I cracked my knuckles and opened up the World Catalog on my library's website and proceeded to track down some endangered titles with the skill of a Tatooine bounty hunter.

Hannah Fowler by Janice Holt Giles, where have you been all my life?

We first meet Hannah in the wilds of unsettled Kentucky territory, in 1777.

I said SEVENTEEN seventy-seven.

Not Eighteen seventy-seven, like those Ingalls and Wilder folks. Livin' the easy life in the 19th century. Railroads and telegrams and sewing machines. Pish posh.

This book is hard core.

Hannah is tending her pa, Samuel, who is suffering from a self-inflicted ax wound. They are alone and had been on their way to Daniel Boone's fort when the accident occurred. Alone. In the middle of an unsettled land filled with unknown dangers, Indians, mountain lions, bears, wolves, tetanus. Dutifully and skillfully, Hannah hunts and forages, tends the camp, and nurses her father. She is SurvivorWoman.

Hannah is a plain woman. When her mother died, Samuel raised her "as good as a man." She can hunt, track, handle an ax, build a loom, cut fence posts, as well as cook, spin, weave, and bake. There's not much she can't do.

She is painfully shy however. And extremely humble.

She has a chance meeting with another human in the endless forest. Tice Fowler had been searching for his stolen horses when he meets Hannah. He kindly stays with Hannah and her father until they can travel. Unfortunately, Hannah's father does not survive his injury. Tice kindly helps Hannah bury her father and offers to escort her to civilization.

Hannah accompanies Tice to Ben Logan's fort and sees her safely esconced in the care of Mrs. Ben Logan. It doesn't take long for word to get around that there is a single female in the area.  Hannah is courted by every eligible bachelor and widower for miles around.

Only one man will do for Hannah. She overcomes her shyness to make Tice Fowler her partner for life.

The novel goes on to tell of their marriage, the building of a home and a family, the accumulation of stock, the passing of seasons.

I was perfectly content for the book to stay this way, happily ever after and so on and so forth. But deeeeep into the novel, 4/5 or 5/6 of the way in, danger and destruction threaten. Hannah is up to any hardship though. Nothing can stop her.

Janice Holt Giles is real fond of writing the dialogue in a countrified dialect. It's a mite burdensome at the get-go, but you'll soon be swimmin' like a duck. Giles wrote this epic in 1956, and her treatment of Native peoples is less than politically correct, historically accurate though it may be. I do not know.

Hannah Fowler is a novel about real love, romance, and contentment. It is also a novel about crazy people who went to live in the vast unknown in the middle ages with nothing but a gun, an iron kettle, a spinning wheel, and an axe head. For real. Just the axe head. Hannah makes the handle herself.

I will stop now.

Now for the part we've all been scrolling down to see...

An InLinkz Link-up

WWRW: One for grown-ups, one for teens.

My mother sent me a trilogy for Christmas. A trilogy I had never heard of. The first volume is Seek the Fair Land by Walter Macken.

By page twelve, I was hooked, and horrified.  This book is sad.

Very, very sad.

When I told Patrick that, he responded, "Of course it's sad.  It's IRISH!"

Yes.  One very sad, but somehow uplifting historical novel about 16th century Ireland is what I'm talking about.

Coincidentally, I saw that someone shared this article on Facebook, right when I was in the middle of the book.  The article (from CNN.com) is about the little known Irish slavery that was common in Barbados, Jamaica, and throughout the Caribbean as well as other atrocities inflicted by Cromwell and the British on the Irish.

I googled the name of the tiny town in Seek the Fair Land that gets razed, and ohmygosh, it's a real place!  Over three days in 1642, every.single.person in Drogheda was slaughtered.  History estimates that maybe 30 escaped to be sold into slavery in Barbados.

Every single person, except the four who are the main characters of this book.

Seek the Fair Land is about a young man who escapes the massacre with his two young children and an injured priest.  They spend the next several years avoiding mankind and living in the wild, eventually making their way back into civilization.  That doesn't last too long though and they find themselves on the run again.

SPOILER: This book has a happy(ish) ending.  If I had known that when I began reading it, it wouldn't have been nearly as terrifying.

WARNINGS: This book has rape, infanticide, murder, brutality, nudity, and I'm certain I'm forgetting more. None of these things is described in a glorified or particularly detailed way.

On The Other Hand, this book has great courage, great love in the face of great evil, saintliness, martyrdom, and miracles.

Seek the Fair Land is a great book, for adults, or nearly adults.  Great for Catholics, great for people of Irish descent, great for young men, or anyone who likes well-written historical fiction.

It's very sad though.  So I'm taking a break before I read the next title in the trilogy.

Unfortunately, for my next book I happened to choose a young adult novel about a Jack the Ripper copycat serial killer in London, set in modern times.

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson is about Rory, a young native of Louisiana who ends up attending boarding school in London's East End when she is seventeen. The day she arrives is also the first day the "new" Jack strikes.

Killing on the same dates, in the same fashion, and in nearly the same locations, this Jack the Ripper's territory is all around Rory's new school.

The book has loads of fun and fluffy stuff about Rory adjusting to  boarding school, her light romance, snogging, field hockey, classwork etc. About halfway in, we learn something very interesting about Rory.

Due to a near death experience she had on her first day of class, she can see ghosts. And talk to them. And they can see her.

Enter the Ghostbusters, or the Shades of London rather.  The Shades are a division of the police force with the ability to see and if necessary, destroy ghosts.  Their target: New Jack.  New Jack's target: Rory.

For a YA book about a serial killer, it wasn't that bad.  I'll let my high school girls read it.  If they dare...

Don't forget the big What We're Reading Wednesday Come Back Link Up Party Next Wednesday, February 4th!  I cannot wait to read all of the e-book-reports.

WWRW: Five of Our Current Favorites

I'm baaack.  Today anyway.  One day at a time.  Minute by minute.

1.  America's Test Kitchen Slow Cooker Revolution Volume 2 is bringing sanity and deliciousness to our dinner table, with lots of "open, dump, walk away" recipes that I can manage in the 3.2 minutes Polly will stay in the Bumpo.

This is my copy.  I flagged every recipe that did not require prep work.

To be honest, the most prep work required is microwaving chopped onions and garlic before adding to the slow cooker.  So for normal people not holding high-need babies, it's totally do-able.

Every recipe we've tried so far has been a hit.  Welllllll, I liked the Spiced Tenderloin with Quinoa. The minions ate it, and proclaimed it "interesting." It's the first time these gringos have had anything flavored with garam masala.

Monday, we had the Chicken Pomodoro.  To. Die. For.  Definitely making a double batch of that next time.

We've also made the Chicken Adobo, the Chicken Tomatillo Chile (yum!), and Thursday, I'm making Easy Beef Stew.

November + Polar Vortex = Comfort Foods

2.

Harriet, You'll Drive Me Wild! by Mem Fox is Jill's current favorite.

"Harriet Harris is a pesky child."

Jill snuggles up to me as I read this book daily. She looks up at me meaningfully when Harriet makes mess after mess.

She smiles knowingly when I read, "Her mother didn't like to yell, so instead she said, "Harriet, my darling child. Harriet, you'll drive me wild."

Yup. It's like a day in my life right there on the printed page.

3.

A Life of Our Lord for Children by Marigold Hunt is a family read-aloud for the RC Connecting with History course we are using here at St. Jude's School for Kids Who Want To Read Good and Do Other Things Good Too.

And it's really interesting.  Basically, Hunt re-tells the Gospels with a linear timeline, while including all the background info about Jewish and Roman life of the period.  I enjoy reading it, while Edmund enjoys listening.  I'm even picking up a few new facts. Learn something new everyday!

When we finish A Life of Our Lord for Children, we'll continue with Hunt's The First Christians: The Acts of the Apostles for Children

4.

I began Dear Mr. Knightley: A Novel by Katherine Reay, but kept "misplacing" the book, only to find my high school girls were much further along in it than I was.

So I did what any kind and generous parent would do.  I read the ending, and then handed it over.

Dear Mr. Knightley: A Novel is an ideal book for the young adult reader.  Set in modern times, with a "Daddy Long-legs" type plot, Reay's novel is sweet without being saccharine, and relevant without being raunchy.

I predicted (quite accurately) the entire plot and ending, but that didn't diminish my enjoyment in seeing the protagonist live happily ever after.

5.

I read Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy  by Rumer Godden at least fifteen years ago, and I'm re-reading it for Micaela's Stella Maris online book club.

It's like a completely different novel this time around.

Lise Fanshawe, brothel manager goes to prison for a crime passionnel.  From prison, she enters religious life.  From one enclosure to another.  She finds her freedom behind the walls of a convent.

There is so much to think about in this book.  I am avidly looking forward to discussing Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy with the others who have read it.  You've got time.  Come on! Play along!

Yeah.  I would NOT let my high schoolers read this one.  It's gritty.  She's a prostitute. But it's not graphic.

When I was telling Patrick about it (He lets me "tell" him my books, God made him just for me.), he said that this sounded like a book that I would hate.  And it does.  But like I said, gritty, not graphic.

Since I've been MIA for so long, I'm not going to host a link-up, but rather add this post to Jenna's Five Favorites party.

WWRW: A Story About Sudan

I had planned on something completely different for today. My three picture books about math related topics will have to wait for another Wednesday, because I just finished the most beautiful, heart-wrenching, hopeful story about two children in South Sudan.

A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story by Linda Sue Park is about Salva, a young boy, 11 years old, and his escape into the bush when soldiers attack his village during the civil war in the 1980s.  From the bush, he makes it to Ethiopia, then to Kenya, and *SPOILER* eventually to the United States.

This civil war was about northern Sudanese forcing the southern Sudanese to become Muslim.  Sound familiar?  Millions of people were displaced and/or killed during this war.

But that is only half of the story.  Every other chapter is about Nya, the young girl in a village in southern Sudan in the year 2008.  Every day for seven months of the year, Nya spends her entire day making two long and dangerous trips to the pond to collect water and bring it to her family's home.

The other five months of the year, her family camps close to a larger water source. At the camp, Nya and her family spend much of the day digging for water.  It is very dangerous to camp near this "lake" because Nya's father and brothers are at risk of running into enemy tribesman.

The stories seem completely separate, different characters, different time periods, even different tribes.

Just wait.

Best. Ending. Ever.

And the it's all based on a true story!

A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story by Linda Sue Park is in the running for the 2015 Caudill Award.  I truly hope this book wins.  In my mind, it already has.

Bear in mind that there in addition to horrific warfare and murder, including the slaughter of children, a lion eats a boy (not graphic, but present) in this book. If I have to assign an age-group, I'm going with 5th grade and up, but as an adult, I found reading A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story a completely worthwhile experience.

An InLinkz Link-up

WWRW: Twitter Style

I've got a lot of books and a little time, so I'm going to review these titles in 140 characters or less. Give or take.

Pioneer Girl: A Novel by Bich Ming Ngyuen

Tries too hard.  Vietnamese American girl with a connection to Rose Wilder Lane travels the country to do research and hooks up with a few guys along the way.  #disappointed #adultbook

Slob by Ellen Potter

Fat kid who gained all of his weight since #spoiler his parents' double murder.  Adopted by 911 dispatcher.  Tries to find the killer with a long shot science project.  #icried #teensandup

One for the Murphys by Lynda Mulally Hunt

Girl enters foster care because her mom's boyfriend nearly beat her to death.  Did her mom really hold her down while he beat her?  #toodark  #icried #makeyourkidsreadhappierstuff #teensandup

Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool

Best written book of this post.  Autistic kid before autism had a name in a prep school in ME befriends KS kid whose mom just died.  WWII.  Bootleggers.  Fiction that borders on fantasy.  #middleschoolandup  #awesome @vanderpool wrote #newbery #moonovermanifest

We Have a Baby by Cathryn Falwell

Please read this book slowly, thoughtfully, and in a gentle voice.  Jill and I love this one. #greatnewbabybook #breastfeeding #agesonetothree

An InLinkz Link-up

WWRW: A Book Review and a Link Up as usual.

Miss Amy at my library asked me to read The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy by Kate Hattemer.  It's a new Young Adult novel, and I think the Young Adult label works, as much as a general label like Young Adult can.

Selwyn Academy is a school for the creatively gifted.  It is a school of the arts:  dance, theater, music, art, writing, etc.  The students are high-minded intellectuals contemplating truth and beauty, art vs. life, until a reality show comes in and makes contestants of them.  "For Art's Sake" reduces the student population to shilling their skills and faking relationships in exchange for a shot at screen time and scholarship money.

Some of the students fight back.  Amidst an in-depth study of Ezra Pound's The Cantos, Luke, Jackson, Elizabeth, and Ethan (the voice of the novel) create their own underground publication, The Contra-Cantos. In doing so, they uncover bribery among the administration, dishonesty in their teacher, and lose one of their own to the reality show bizniz. (Note my use of tri-colon.  Ethan loves tri-colon.)

Hattemer writes a great story with lots of references to art and literature (love!), but the plot of Vigilante Poets moves clumsily.  The foursome plan, attack, fail.  Plan again, attack again, fail again.   Plan a third time! And so on.  It's a lengthy book and some parts are downright tedious.

Other parts are exquisitely written.

"But I can also tell you - not from experience but from the glimpses found in day dreams and books and cold hard thought - that once you'be recognized a person as a person, you can start to love that person well.  It's an awful thing to learn, but it's the best thing in the world to know."

Then again, there are some crude jokes as well as rumors that one of the contestants is sleeping her way to the prize money.  (She isn't really, she just needs that prize money so badly, she'll sacrifice her reputation to get it.)

As Ethan says,

"Remember:  this is not a novel, not a memoir, not produced by anyone with artistic skill.  It's just about what happened last year. It's about reality TV, a desperate crush on a ballerina, and a heroic gerbil named Baconnaise.  But mostly it's about my friends. Please remember: not art, just life." 

An InLinkz Link-up

A Tale of Two Trilogies and a Winner!

First off,

We Have a Winner!  Congratulations to Jill L!  She has won the Driscoll's berry coupon giveaway!

Secondly,  I hope each and every one of you is having a wonderful Easter Week!

Public Service Announcement:  Don't forget - This Friday is Meat Friday! 

Now for some book reviews:

The third installment of Jennifer Niesen's The Ascendance Trilogy is out!  And it's awesome!

Young King Jaron and his landlocked country of Carthya are being attacked on all sides, by all of his enemies who have banded together against him.

With a few friends at his back, and lots of witty comments along the way, Jaron must face incredible odds while injured and grieving a devastating loss.

As usual, Nielsen combines great dialogue with action-packed adventure.  I was particularly impressed with Jaron's invocation of "the saints" as he leads his people into battle and his concept of an afterlife for those who've lived virtuously.

I'd say these books are appropriate for ten and up?  In The Shadow Throne, you will find battlefield violence, some tortuous beatings, death, blood, and the occasional kiss (maybe twice?).  You will also find sacrifice, true love, loss, and responsibility, not to mention an epic surprise ending.

I reviewed Part One:  The False Prince here and Part Two:  The Runaway King here.  You should definitely begin at the beginning.

Technically speaking, The Lunar Chronicles is a series, not a trilogy, with Part 4:  Winter yet to be released.

I greatly enjoyed Cinder, had some issues with Scarlet, and was delighted to find Cress not only resolves one of my qualms, but is a better book (than Scarlet) with better characters overall.

Cress is Marissa Meyer's sci-fi re-telling of Rapunzel, complete with a blind "prince."

Cress is a shell, which is like the Lunar version of a "squib."  Lunars, the race of people that populates the moon, generally have the ability to control the minds of Earthens.  But Cress doesn't.

She does have a gift for technology and hacking, which is why she has spent the last seven years of her life alone, in a satellite, monitoring all of Earth's secrets for the evil queen and cloaking the Lunar ships that are set to invade Earth.

Scarlet is only in this book briefly as she is captured by the Lunars and imprisoned on the moon.  In those brief moments, she mentally re-hashes her one night of passion with Wolf and makes it seem as though perhaps it was just some passionate kisses.

In my opinion, the best scene in Cress, is when she and Captain Thorne (again, the likeness to Captain Jack Harkness was striking) crash land on Earth.  Thorne has been blinded in a fight, and Cress has never been to the surface.  He must ascertain their location and manage their survival through the eyes of someone who has never seen an animal in real life, or the sky, or the sun.

Her total naivete and innocence is the perfect foil for his brash womanizing attitude and their romance is one of the greatest things about this series.

Unlike the previous two volumes, Cress is very clean.  Focused on fighting the evil Queen Levana and stopping her marriage to Cinder's heartthrob Emperor Kai, Cinder, Wolf, Cress, Thorne, and the lovable droid Iko face the impossible.

This series is definitely "young adult."  I'll let my high school kids read it, I'd probably let an 8th grader read it, but with the joking sex change reference in Cinder, and the love scene and references to porn (which is frowned upon) in Scarlet, I'd definitely reserve this series for teens.

An InLinkz Link-up

WWRW: 3 Good Books

I am on a reading streak lately.  Three for three.  Three books from the Caudill shelf that I thoroughly enjoyed and can whole-heartedly recommend!

Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins is a modern-day story about the civil war in Burma and the young boys who are forced to fight in it.  The first half of the book is Chiko's story.

Chiko's father is in prison (they hope) and his mother is running out of money for food and rent. When Chiko answers an ad for a teaching position, he is tricked by the government and shipped off to a military training camp.  At fifteen years old, Chiko is one of the older recruits.

In addition to learning kickboxing and strength training, Chiko experiences first hand the cruelty of the captain and the wisdom of a savvy street-fighting friend. Sent on a mission in the jungle, Chiko is seriously injured by a mine.  He is found unconscious by Tu Reh and his father.  Tu Reh and his father belong to a small ethnic minority, the Karenni, aka the enemy.

Tu Reh narrates the second half of the story.  He must choose whether to mercifully end Chiko's life, or bring him back to the refugee village just across the border, risking the wrath of his people.  Tu Reh listens to his father, makes his decision, and has to stand before a village council to defend his choice.

Bamboo People has a good amount of violence.  There are beatings and deaths.  A Karenni girl that escaped the Burmese soldiers has experienced some horrible things that are never disclosed.  Her gentle and peaceful spirit is a wonderful point of contrast to her love interest's desire for revenge.

For middle-schoolers and up, Bamboo People is a compelling story of war and forgiveness set in a region that I knew little about.

Close to Famous by Joan Bauer opens with 12 year-old Foster and her mother fleeing the mother's abusive Elvis-impersonating ex-boyfriend.   They leave Memphis and end up in a small town in West Virginia.

Foster dreams of having her own cooking show.  Since her father's death while serving our country in Iraq, Foster has looked up to Food Network cooking star, Sonny Kroll. She learned to bake from his show; cupcakes and muffins are her specialty.  It's good that Foster has a talent to develop, because she has a severe learning disability and barely passed 5th grade.

The new townspeople support Foster and her mother, helping them find a place to live, a job for her mother, and Foster even gets the help she needs with reading. Foster and her mom have their own effect on the town too, making friends, saving lives, changing the world one cupcake at a time.

Wonder by R. J. Palacio is just. incredible.  I cried.  A lot.

August Pullman is going to attend a real school for the very first time, and he's going into 5th grade.  The reason he has homeschooled until now is because he has had so many surgeries.  On his face.  Because he was born with severe birth defects.  On his face. Facial abnormalities. Severe facial abnormalities.

Wonder is about acceptance, suffering, and seeing people with your heart instead of your eyes.

I was reminded of this episode when I read Wonder.

Wonder is about 5th graders, some of whom fancy themselves as dating each other. Not that they actually go on any dates or anything.  Note passing is about as exciting as it gets.

Augie has a sister is in high school.  She has a boyfriend and they do occasionally kiss, but this story is much more about how his sister deals with feeling eclipsed by her brother's needs her whole life, and her struggle to figure out her own identity in a new school where no knows her as "the sister of that deformed kid."

Reports state that author "R. J. Palacio wrote Wonder as a sort of  "penance" When she was getting milkshakes with her two sons in Brooklyn one afternoon, they saw a girl with a facial deformity. Her three-year-old started to cry and she rushed her kids away, and instantly regretted that she hadn’t stayed to talk to the girl."

The same WSJ blog article that reported the above, also declared Wonder to be a "crossover hit." Generally, a crossover hit is a book written for one age group that appeals to another age group.  For example, the Twilight series and the Harry Potter books are all examples of crossover hits.  

In other words, I'm not the only adult who loves this book.

Don't miss out on a chance to win $15 in coupons from the berry people at Driscoll's!  

Looking for that last minute book purchase for the Easter basket?  Or need a unique First Communion gift? I reviewed two books on Monday that would be perfect.

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