The Princess and the goblin but George MacDonald

Very enjoyable! Fans of CS Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien should check this one out. It's sits almost exactly halfway in between the hobbit and one of the more actiony Narnia books- maybe the Silverchair. The characters were a lot of fun, and the fantasy/fairytale elements were creative and interesting. I did feel like it had a bit of a slow start, but once it got going I really enjoyed it. One of the refreshing things about this book was the authors choice to discuss positive character qualities beyond bravery. In addition to the physical courage you read about in every fantasy novel, these characters display honesty, Respect, and responsibility. Faith and the duties of faith are also presented, but in a less heavy-handed way then you would find in any CS Lewis novel.

And now Miguel by Joseph Krumgold

The first hundred pages were so slow that this book was pretty hard to get through. Basically, a boy named Miguel really wants to go on the annual sheepherding journey up into the mountains. His obstacle is that his parents think he's too young, so he spends the first hundred pages hoping they will notice how grown-up he is. Finally, at almost to the halfway point, he starts taking initiative and making his own luck. Also, The topic of prayer becomes pretty important. How do you respond when your prayers are not answered, or are answered in a surprising way? What is the right way to pray? Joseph Krumgold manages to show his characters wrestling with these questions without stepping in and giving answers. because he maintained some authorial distance, I thought that he managed to stay just barely on the secular side of the line. The discussion of prayer was easily the most unique thing about this book, and by far the most interesting to me

Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead

Goodbye Stranger is a book about friendship and betrayal, and criticizing it feels like betraying a friend. However, just as Decius said to Caesar, “Reason to my love is liable,” so I have to tell myself to be honest even while I love Rebecca Stead's writing.

As in all her work, Stead combines playful intelligence with heart as a host of fractured characters navigate several intersecting mysteries. All of the characters are struggling with concepts of love- familial love, friendship, self-love, and romantic love. In all, the book satisfied my need for a new Rebecca Stead novel and filled that Pynchon-meets-DiCamillo niche that only this author seems to find.

That being said, this is still my least favorite Rebecca Stead novel. The mysteries resolved too quickly and easily, and the stakes never felt high enough. Stead did such a thorough job of establishing the loving nature of her characters that I never felt that the outcome was in doubt. This lessened the tension, although I still have to admit that I stayed up three hours past my bedtime so I could finish it.

I hated the epilogue. I think it is the first time that I have seen Rebecca Stead make a clear-cut mistake. It was just wrong, and it undermined the work of the previous 300 pages.

I read this book partly to weigh its viability for the Newbery. I don't think it's a fit. The subject matter is too mature. I think that it is firmly in the YA category, so I would love to see it get a Printz. If it did win the Newbery, it would go alongside Jacob Have I Loved and Julie of the Wolves as a book you really shouldn't give to a fourth grader.

In closing, go read this book. Even a lesser Rebecca Stead novel is worth your time. After you read it, please come back and tell me I'm being too harsh. I'd love to be wrong!

Julius Caesar

Notes on act one:

From the first page, It is obvious that this book is written with the very highest level. It instantly rises above all the Other Shakespeare plays I have recently read.

Notes on act two:

Scene one slows the pace a bit, but act two quickly builds a sense of dread and inevitable violence. All of the characters are fascinating. I am especially dazzled by Caesar himself, who manages to be at once magnetic and foolishly arrogant. He is the man that no one else could be.

Breaking Stalin's nose

I thought it would be impossible to write a great Cold War book at a mid to upper grade level, but this one proved me wrong. It gives a great overview Of living under communism in a short, compact narrative. Although the book references some dark topics, the plot whisks the reader along so quickly that it doesn't become as depressing as it might be. This is worth reading just to see a virtuoso handling of such complicated source material.

The dream keeper and other poems by Langston Hughes

Beautiful and problematic. This short book contains some of the best poems ever written, but also some that would be hard to teach. Numerous poems are written in the minstrel style dialect that gets Mark Twain in so much trouble. All in all, I plan on teaching this amazing book next year, but it will be an experience in critical reading for my students.

A dark traveling by Roger zelazny

Three teenagers with supernatural powers go on a mission to rescue their missing father, and uncover an interdimensional conflict. In less than 150 pages, Zelezny crafts an interesting universe, believable characters, a mystery, a mission, flashbacks that reveal the characters motivation, and a meaningful, climactic duel between good and evil. In other words, more than Suzanne Collins accomplished in it over 1000 pages. This is what happens when a grandmaster gears down to write a Y a title, and it fits in right on the same shelf as Le Guin's wizard of Earthsea, and Heinlein's citizen of the galaxy.

Little women

 Sweetie and I finally finished listening to this one in the car. The group reading on Libbra Vox was great.it had a lot of their best readers including Elizabeth Klett and Karen savage.

The book was originally published in two parts, and the two parts are so different from each other that they should be reviewed separately.

Notes on Little women:

It's great. Louisa May Alcott creates characters who are distinct and believable, And situations that evoke childhood. There is a strong moral center to the book, but it does not feel preachy because Alcott relies on showing rather than telling. Although the protagonists are women, the childhood setting was so universal that I had no issue relating to it. It felt like The logical book to read after the little house series or Anne of Green Gables.

Notes on good wives:

The original publication of Little women ended with the excellent Christmas party chapter. The sequel, good wives, picks up three years later. As the title implies, these chapters are about incipient womanhood. The topic was less interesting to me than the childhood-Oriented chapters of the first half. On the other hand, the Beth storyline is justly famous, and the newlywed chapters were insightful. I also enjoyed the resolution of the character arcs in the last chapter. All in all, it kept my interest up enough to want to finish the book, but I'm not at all interested in reading the signals.