Review: Anastasia's Secret by Susanne Dunlap

genre: young adult historical fiction
source: publisher

At the heart of this novel is a girl and her family - bonded together by love and by circumstance - and an ages old empire on the brink of extinction.

As the youngest grand duchess in the family of Nicholas II Romanov, Anastasia has spent her insulated life among her older sisters and sickly younger brother. She's always ready for a prank, safe within a cocoon of wealth and privilege. Unfortunately, rumbles of unrest among her father's people begin to reach her ears through a boy she knows she probably should stay away from. And young love has a way of blossoming, even as the world Anastasia has always known begins to crumble around her.

Anastasia's Russian world, the political landscape and the closeness of the Romanov family all felt plausible and authentic. Her growth into young womanhood during such tumultuous times was especially poignant. Sometimes the first person narrative fell a little slack, but her aloofness felt almost like a forced maturity - as if she was searching for answers and a purpose for all the horrible changes to come upon her in such a short time. Occasionally, it was just a bit too spelled out for me.

Dunlap did her research and it was just deep enough for young readers to glimpse the horror of revolution without going over the edge. All the Russian names might turn some people off, but there is a nice guide in the beginning to help you out - and I do feel more knowledgeable about how Russian names work now. I know this book is being pushed as a love story - and I did enjoy that part of it, it certainly fleshed out Anastasia's character, but for me, the true draw of this story was its historical context and the inside view of one of the most famous historical stories told.

Review: Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy

genre: parenting non-fiction

I heard some buzz about this book a while ago, and even just from what a good friend wrote about the book, I knew it was something that would interest me.

Let me start off by saying this is not your average parenting book. It's not really "un-parenting" either - it's about taking the nitty-gritty of parenting seriously but knowing when your job as a parent is to just let go and let your children do things on their own. It's about giving your kids skills and then letting them actually USE those skills in the real world.

Lenore Skenazy is all about the real world.

She lays all the facts out on the table, and in a zany and humorous way she lays many parenting, nay, societal myths onto the chopping block. She tackles everything from the safety of Halloween candy to educational dvds to, yes, the infamous scenario of letting her nine year old ride the subway alone. What she hammers into us (and yes, it's sometimes a bit repetitive) is that the world is NOT REALLY A COMPLETELY UNSAFE PLACE. Through the media and our own collective, technologically advanced fear, we have convinced ourselves that all horrible things that could happen have a very good chance of happening to us, at any moment, and our sureness of this fact has really hampered our ability to teach our children confidence, competence and independence.

I know that's a really long sentence. But I'm kinda thinking it works.

I enjoyed listening to this one. The reader was pretty hilarious - the book has a really conversational tone and does a great job of giving baby step tips on how to start giving your children small bits of independence, some of which I've already started trying at home. I think, if nothing else, this book offers a great second opinion on so so many of the issues out there - and makes you stop and think: what if maybe I don't REALLY have to be so terrified about "blank?"

It's worth reading, I do think. I really do want to raise confident and independent people and this book is certainly a good place to start.

Review: Midnighters by Scott Westerfeld

genre: young adult

What if, for one hour a day, the entire world was frozen in motion - except for you? Oh, and a whole slew of terrifying creatures?? This is what Jessica Day finds out soon after moving to Bixby, Oklahoma. What she thought were terrifyingly real "dreams" make her suddenly very eager to become friends with the other kids at her new school that seem a little...off.

It's a slap-bang premise, I have to admit. To have this space in time where all bets are off, where an ancient and frea-kay set of rules suddenly apply and you get to be a part of it - that's just one great piece of imagination. I think Westerfeld nearly completely pulls it off. His characters are intense - although Jessica seems a bit "blah" compared to everyone else, but I can see how he's just getting her set-up to become who she truly is in the next two books.

My only complaint? He gets cheesy at the climax, darn him! It really was a great ride to the climax and while I believed it and I can see the potential, the dialogue cheesed out on me. I'm going to forgive it, though, because it really did keep my attention until I finished. I think I need to find out how this all turns out.

Review: The Foundling by Georgette Heyer

genre: fiction
source: publicist

It is hard to be a rich and powerful Duke, especially when you are 24 and treated like a child. Gilly, the Duke of Sale, finally had his fill of over protection and coddling - and as soon as an opportunity for excitement presented itself, he grabbed it and ran. In this story, he stumbles into all sorts of scrapes and causes all kinds of anxiousness among the throngs of folks who had been watching out for him. Part soap-opera and part temerarious adventure, The Foundling doesn't take you where you expect it to.

Which is why I had to put it down mid-way through. I'm SORRY, I'm sorry. I know Georgette Heyer is supposed to be amazing, which is why I won't give up on her after this one. The writing is great, I loved how we kept switching from point of view to point of view to get the story from different angles. I think my problem was expectations - I was looking for romance and this is definitely more of a Wilkie-Collins-esq crime story than a romantic tale.

Please check out another review:
Swords and Dreams
Goodreads

And if you have a suggestion for a different Georgette Heyer to read, I'd love to hear it :)

Review: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

genre: historical fiction

I can see why this book has been handed to me by different friends and recommended by both acquaintances and strangers. Outlander is a gripper of a historical fiction novel - taking place partly in just post World War II Scotland, but mostly in the Scotland of the 1700s. This early Scotland that the 20th century native Claire Beaumont suddenly finds herself stranded in, is a wild and ferocious place and she has to quickly figure out the new rules and find a place for herself before superstition or clan/crown warfare gets her killed.

Luckily, Claire is a resourceful woman, a 27 year old skilled nurse recently returned from the war. Her ability to help the sick and injured enables her to be useful and stay in the keeping of two brothers, leaders of the clan McKenzie. That ability also puts her in path of Jamie, a tall and strapping Scot - classically redheaded, with fierce pride and a strong arm. As she befriends various folks around the manor, her precarious situation becomes more and more clear - without a past for anyone to verify and suspicions running high as deadly encounters with the British seem to keep occurring - Claire is forced into situations that require some sticky decision making. Not the least of her decisions is: how do I get myself back to my own century, alive?

While the plot did move along fairly quickly, and the writing was engaging, there was a certain level of "romance novel-esq-ness" that detracted for me. It made the ending predictable and left nothing to the imagination. The dichotomous natures of the hero, in particular, and heroine: headstrong yet loving, hotheaded yet gentle, sometimes felt a bit trite. That being said, Gabaldon is a master at dropping you into another century and leaving you there, surrounded by historical details that ring true - the Scottish accent was lovely to read and she was consistent with it. I did like the love story, and it certainly was a vital part of the tale being told, maybe I'm just not used to the bawdiness of Scottish Highlanders in 1743. Parts of this story were brutally raw and hard to read, unmasking a violence that seemed to be a constant undertow throughout much of life back then - either in bed or out of it.

It's quite a journey, this book. Claire gives pre-industrial Scotland a run for its money and I think that she certainly did have more depth to her character than your typical romance novel heroine - with her wealth of knowledge that could only be put to such primitive use, she was thrown into very interesting circumstances. Because of her toughness and the strangeness of her situation, about half way through the book, I started caring about her and her love enough that I really did want to find out how it all worked out. If you can get past the ribaldry, Outlander gives you just what a historical fiction novel should: the chance to feel as though you've lived in another time.

Review: One Day in the Alpine Tundra

genre: children's literature

I found this one at a thrift store to try with my nearly seven year old son. He's a big fan of nature-ish non-fiction, so I was hoping it would be right up his alley. I was totally right.

You get exactly what you'd imagine, based on the title - we spend one day on the alpine tundra, with occasional time stamps. We meet all different kinds of animals specific to this area: the pica, the water shrew, the water pipet, the marmot and goshawk. As we go through the day we get a brief rundown on their habitat and lifestyle, what they eat and how they survive during the nine-month long winter. My son and I had great conversations about hibernation and how animals survive if they don't hibernate.

If course, it's not particularly thrilling, although there are certainly some "circle of life" moments. While chock full of information, it does ready like a story. Sometimes I felt the vocabulary was a bit thick, but I think that's because the tundra is such an unfamiliar place. I liked learning about how these animals had adapted such a severe climate. And, my son loved it - he picked another book in the series for our next read. That's success in my book.

Review: Front and Center by Catherine Murdock

genre: Young Adult
book sent to me by the author's publicist

Front and Center is the third and final book in a trilogy, so I highly recommend reading Dairy Queen and The Off Season first.

That being said, this is such a fantastic wrap up to what has been a fantastically enjoyable series. D. J. is back in school and ready to play her favorite sport: basketball. And as much as D.J. would prefer to blend in the background instead of having to, you know, talk to people or especially ever be in the limelight, things are taken out of her hands a bit. And suddenly she's got some really tough decisions to make: about boys, about playing basketball and about the kind of girl she wants to be.

Maybe the thing I love most about these books is D.J. and her relationship with her family - they're a quirky bunch, as full of faults as every other family, but they really do watch out for each other. And they are so grounded in the mid-west, with their farm and love of sports and small-town sense of community. Not only that, but D.J.'s commentary on the world is just such a pleasure to read, she's a riot. Her internal wisecracks and sarcastic observations are nearly always spot-on. And in this final book, she really does have to dig deep to find out what she's willing to do for the people she loves - and for herself. Loved it.

Tales of Thailand by Pira Sudham

genre: short stories
book 9 of 10 for the Orbis Terrarum Challenge 09

Tales of Thailand is a collection of short stories that can give readers a varied and harshly realistic view of life in this country of extremes, where a belief in "karma" can make even the humblest farmer accept his lot in life with patience.

The author comes to these stories from personal experience, having grown up in the rice fields of Esarn, the poorest region of Thailand. And while I sometimes felt that the writing only scratched the surface of the emotions involved in the plot, I still feel like I have a greater understanding of the struggles, so qualitatively different than my own, that so many have had to endure.

We read of concubines and prostitutes, monks and soldiers, beggars and millionaires. There are land disputes, financial crises, prisoners of war and pleasure cruises. We travel from Bangkok to tiny rural villages. Bluntly illustrated is the disparity between those who have and those who have non and no one seems able to fine true happiness while their belief in karma makes them feel as though they don't even necessarily deserve it.

Despite the bleakness of the tales (it's not easy reading about young children being sold into slavery to pimps), I really did get a sense that Sudham wants to find hope in the hard places. He wants the story of these forgotten people to be told. I certainly know more now about modern Thai history. For those who want a look at a more raw and unforgiving Thailand, this book is worth trying to find.

Review: In A Perfect World (TLC Blog Tour)

genre: adult fiction

At 32, stewardess Jiselle was beginning to think that she'd never be a wife - until the amazingly attractive airline captain Mark Dorn proposes. But it's not just Mark she'll be getting, she'll also be receiving in marriage his three older children. Her dreams of motherhood and marriage are made more complicated by the bizarre flu that's been circulating and really, she had no way of knowing how much life was going to change.

In a Perfect World is tightly written with maybe a bit more back-and-forth-in-time than I'm used to. I hurt for Jiselle and the situation she chose, I know that stepmotherhood is no picnic and she has to work her way through some tough relationships. I liked the relationship parts of this book a lot, it was fascinating to see how these people worked together (or not) when the situation in America and beyond becomes something that everyone has to deal with. Since I appreciate books that have an apocalyptic flavor, the flu and the chaos it brings were incredibly interesting to me. Sometimes the dialogue was a bit harsh, and if you are concerned about content, you can check out my review here.

In all, I liked that this book had two different but interconnected angles - Jiselle and her experience trying to put together a new family vs. a world where one flu can affect even the smallest details of our lives. And while it's not necessarily a happy story, it did feel like a real story - an authentic "worst case scenario," that grips you until the end.

buy it here

Interested in meeting the author in real life? Check her out here:
10/8 Ann Arbor, MI Nicola's Books
10/14 Birmingham, MI Borders
10/15 Novi, MI Borders
10/21 Milwaukee, WI Next Chapter Bookshop
10/22 Minneapolis, MN Magers & Quinn
10/27 St. Joseph, MI Forever Books
10/29 Chicago, IL Book Cellar
11/3 Ann Arbor, MI Borders

Review: The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

genre: young adult historical fiction

book 11 of 12 for the 2009 Young Adult Challenge
book 5 of 5 for the War Through the Generations Challenge

Helmuth is a pretty typical youth in Germany. He works hard at school. He has a great love for his country. He agrees with everyone around him that Germany was unfairly treated at the end of The Great War and he can see the potential that lies in the Nazi party to bring his beloved country back to greatness. One thing does separate him, though: he's a Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And as he grows older and as the Nazis rise in power, he begins to see a conflict arise in his heart between his love of his religion and the state's desire, nay, demand, for him to see Adolf Hitler as his only savior.

Events in Hamburg, both in the city as a whole and specific things that happen to people he love, make the teenage Helmuth begin to realize that something in his country has gone very wrong. And despite the vast machine of terror he is up against, Helmuth decides to take action -action that may very well cost him his life, but will help him to keep his faith and spirit intact.

What an amazing story this is, based on the actual life of Helmuth Heubener. Bartoletti has written it in such a powerful and yet, simplistic way. As a member of the Mormon church, I was incredibly impressed that she got the feel of our beliefs right, even the more specific cultural language felt authentic. And Germany - its landscape and food, the love of the Fatherland that runs deep within the veins of its citizens, she got it just right also. And despite the deeper nature of the story, she told it with care and sensitivity - I might venture to say that it's the perfect introduction to World War II literature for young adults, even as young as 10 or 11, if they are interested. Because even as horrible things are happening, Helmuth is a shining example of standing up when it comes time for a choice to be made - and that even when you aren't yet an adult, having peace in your heart because you've done what you know is right is worth sacrificing everything for.