Incredible Journey

Another children's book it's hard to believe that I missed as a youngster. Boy, to read these posts, you'd think I hadn't opened a book until 2005! Sheila Burnford's story of a young Labrador retriever, a older bull terrier, and an aloof Siamese cat speaks to a broad audience. Enjoyable by children and adults too! This book is especially great to read if a child's just read Where the Red Fern Grows or Old Yeller. Definitely an uplifting animal story. Not as complicated to read as Call of the Wild or White Fang, The Incredible Journey gives readers the feel of the wilderness and the search for home & those who love us that's both exciting and comforting.

Highly recommended for grades 3-6. Also highly recommended for anyone else who loves animals & enjoys animal stories.

Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously

I selected this book for my library's January book club selection (yes, you can see what a slow-poke I am about my postings if you hadn't already noticed!). Being in my early 30's, I can sympathize with Julie's housekeeping (even though my own apartment has never been quite as bad as hers), her relationship with her husband, and friends. I also am able to sympathize with her desire for "something else" - a challenge, something new, something to blast one out of his/her rut.... something.

I found the book engaging, candid, and at points, laugh-out-loud funny. If you're easily offended by the f-word, you might want to select a different book. While it's not on every page, it's sprinkled throughout the text with some regularity.

Highly recommended for most adults - especially those searching for a way out of their own rut. Perhaps the answers are simpler than we think.

Red Chrysanthemum

In this installment of Laura Joh Rowland's series starring Sano Ichiro (he has various titles depending on how far along in the series you are), we find disturbing parallels to the news in the contemporary United States - the horrors of child molestation and child murder. Rowland explores the political intrigue and dangers surrounding exposing & proving these charges in the setting of feudal Japan. More a thriller than a mystery, Sano and his wife, Lady Reiko, find themselves trapped by the roles they are expected to play in their society. While trying to stop the heinous practices of another member of the aristocracy, Lady Reiko finds herself (and therefore her husband and son) in greater danger than ever before.

Rowland masterfully portrays the feudal Japanese setting, explaining potentially unfamiliar concepts without breaking the action. The tension of the social structure as it existed in Japan at that time adds to the suspense of this thriller/mystery. I've read all the books in this series and look forward to her next! The characters are as well-rounded and complex as the setting. Readers interested in this setting will not be disappointed! The dialogue is rich and not stilted.

Interested readers should start with Rowland's first novel, Shinju and will be grateful there are many more in the series to read after that! Her latest book in the series is The Snow Empress, which I can't wait to get my hands on!

Good-bye Mr. Chips

While many reviewers praise this book by James Hilton on its sentimental interpretation of the story of an English schoolteacher, Mr. Chipping (aka the titular Mr. Chips), I found the story to be sad, though not depressing. I thought of it less as a portrait of an institution or a boarding school Everyman, than as a story of someone passed by & not really thought about by his peers or students. Having the people in his life regard him flippantly (though without malice) as "Mr. Chips" made me sad that no one really knew him. Probably, though he cared for his students, the young men they became probably didn't think twice about him after they left school. The picture I saw was a very lonely one. I suppose in a way, he is an Everyman in the sense that we can never really can know those around us, but still - I'd like to think some of us are more sensitive to the needs of others than most of the people around poor Mr. Chipping. Maybe that's the entire point of the sentimental story.

Recommended for middle and high school students. Also recommended for general audience.

The Dante Club

I believe this was Matthew Pearl's first novel. I really enjoyed it - liking the suspense/thriller aspect of the book. His descriptions are excellent. If you can make it past the first murder and all that entails (it's gruesome - you'll look at houseflies askance for awhile), you'll find a well-written historical thriller filled with literary figures. The characters don't just simper away in their studies, but are written as *people* each with his (predominantly male cast of characters) own foibles and point of view. The other murders that take place in the course of the story I didn't find quite so horrible (as in inducing horror/repugnance as opposed to "terror" - it's not a scary book), so if you make it past the first one and enjoy Pearl's writing style, you won't be disappointed.

I'd never recommend this book to readers of cozy mysteries! It's definitely more in the thriller genre. I suspect that if the jacket copy intrigues to someone and they're aware it has some gruesome scenes & they pick it up anyway, that they'll enjoy the book. I'd also recommend the book to people who like thrillers set in the present. They might find they enjoy the historical setting. :) Not for kids!

Matilda

I can't believe that I'd never read this book as a child! Roald Dahl was one of my favorite authors, though I think he and I had a falling out after I read Danny, Champion of the World when I was in ax. 4th grade - I'm not sure why since I liked reading about Danny and his father living in their caravan. Since the 2nd grade when my teacher Mrs. Stabenow read The Boxcar Children to us, I wanted desperately to live in a boxcar & living in a caravan was very nearly the same thing! I remember not liking that nearly so well as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. At any rate, my Dahl reading tapered off after Danny. sigh... I missed out on a treasure - Matilda is a wonderful book! I would have loved it as a child. I would have loved the child vs. adult aspect of it - I liked other books like that.

I would recommend this book highly to anyone needing a bit of a break from stern grown-up fare, but also interested in a book not dumbed down for children. The book is well-written enough to appeal to grown-ups & helps give us back a piece of that wonder of childhood. Oh - I'd recommend the book for kids too! :)

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, & War

In this non-fiction title by Nathaniel Philbrick, which won the National Book Award in 2oo6, we return to those American icons, the Pilgrims. Philbrick's engaging prose puts the formation of the Plymouth colony and the Pilgrims' interactions and their relationship with the Native Americans under a historical microscope. (I am imagining an extra diminutive Miles Standish wriggling on a glass slide, but that's beside the point).

This is the only balanced book I've encountered on this subject. The Pilgrims and later, other English colonists, are all too human. Philbrick doesn't venerate the Pilgrims, nor does he vilify them. He treats the Native Americans in the same way and describes as best as possible the cooperation and conflicts that occurred. He doesn't entirely step away to allow the reader to draw his/her own conclusions, but draws us readers into the past to see events as they played out without making heroes or villains of anyone.

The conclusions drawn (at the end in the last chapter) point toward the possibility of living together in a tolerant, cooperative, mutually beneficial society. That this is possible - it was at one point and could be again. Perhaps that's what drew so many readers to the book last year and why it remains so popular at this time. We Americans (and most other people in the world too I believe) want to live in peace with our world neighbors even though our belief systems are different and our cultural values differ. Working together, we can build a world where we all can thrive.