I Shall Wear Midnight

I Shall Wear Midnight

By Terry Pratchett

5/5stars

Reviewer: Cheryl

Tiffany Aching is a young lady whose journey began in Wee Free Men where, as a 9 year old girl, she faced the Queen of Faerie in order to rescue her kidnapped little brother.  However, it is not necessary to read all three previous books of her story to enjoy this one.  In I Shall Wear Midnight she has completed her training in witchcraft and is now going about the mundane business of being the witch of the Chalk.  It’s hard work and hardly glamorous, and to make matters worse, an evil spirit has begun to creep into people’s minds, spreading fear and misinformation about witches.  Tiffany encounters attitude changes in friends and the village folk she cares for, and gradually it becomes clear that she must defeat this ancient evil to make the world safe once more in spite of itself.  To help in her quest, she brings along the Nac Mac Feegle, a clan of tiny blue faerie beings with a taste for mischief and brawling.  Their antics provide a big dose of comedy to lighten this dramatic tale and a balance for Tiffany’s good sense and responsibility.

In the midst of the humor and adventure, we learn some serious things along with Tiffany.  She remains herself in a world where those differences can be dangerous.  She must choose to do good for people even when they don’t appreciate it, and she has to find the strength to see the world beneath the world and not end up cackling.

Over the course of almost 40 Discworld novels, Sir Terry Pratchett has had a lot of time to cultivate a rich and complex fantasy world.  While you may be seeing only a half dozen characters in depth in any given story, there is a sense that everyone you meet is someone.  Much of this setting draws on the folk traditions of the British Isles, so it has a comfortable country tone.  For all their extraordinary attributes, his characters are realistic and interact in very normal ways.  The result is a world that relates well to our own.  Even while immersed in this place of magic and surprises, we get the impression that the author is winking just off stage, letting us know that there’s more of our world here than first impressions would reveal.

Mary Smith

Mary Smith
by A. U'Ren
5/5 stars
Reviewer: Sue

Summary:
Mary Smith, who lived in London, had a very important job in 1927.  She was the town’s “knocker-up”.  Long before the sun came up she would leave her house with her peashooter and a pocket full of dried peas.  Many people depended on Mary to wake them, and she wouldn’t leave until they came to their window to let her know that she had woken them up with the plinking from her peas hitting their window.  This fun story has a great unexpected ending when Mary’s daughter is still in bed when Mary comes home after her morning rounds.

Review: This is one of my favorite picture books!  It is based on the real Mary Smith who had to wake up the town people.   At the beginning of the book be sure to look at the actual photograph of Mary.  Also the end of the book has a little more of an explanation of the job of the “knocker-up”.  What child can’t imagine the job of shooting dried peas at a window – and getting paid to do it!

After Dark

After Dark

Author: Haruki Murakami

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Reviewer: Lydia

            Haruki Murakami’s short and minimalist book, After Dark, appears simple and straightforward on the surface; separate people, who are vastly different, all intersect on one fateful night in Tokyo. There is Mari, the lonely and lost girl looking for her place in the world. There is her sister, Eri Asai, who has suffered a horrible shock and now sleeps all day long. Over the course of six hours, Mari meets a young musician, a hotel owner, and a Chinese woman who was savagely beaten. Mari is drawn outside of her comfort zone with these new acquaintances, while simultaneously discovering the many, and often dangerous or shocking sides, to a city during the nighttime hours.

            The book has several other plotlines, but these were much harder to understand as they meditated on the role of perspective, the passage of time, and the role of memory. There are several untied endings and no real answers at the end of the novel; however, this just lends the story an even more realistic feeling. Murakami’s writing is highly descriptive while using as few words as possible. While the story meanders during some parts of the book, I highly recommend this short read for the style of the prose and the depth of the characters. Next on my list is Murakiami’s latest novel, IQ84.

Useful Idiots

Useful Idiots

Author: Jan Mark
5/5 stars
Reviewer: Lydia

A skeleton is unearthed, found buried beneath the sand on a deserted beach in the distant future. The setting is the United States of Europe, and professions such as archaeology are considered a lost science due to the feelings of separatism and inequality that their findings stir up. This, combined with the ongoing and bitter dispute between “native” people and the rest of society that is now nearly genetically identical and flawless, is the basis for this novel. Who, exactly, owns the rights to the dead body? So begins Jan Mark’s teen sci-fi thriller, Useful Idiots.

The premise of the story is unusual, which makes it an interesting and exciting read. Mark creates an atmosphere of discontent as she details the story of young Merrick Korda, an archaeology student caught in a dangerous game involving the government, black market, academic institutions, and reserve land. Mark cunningly fashions the natives, known formally as Aboriginals and insultingly as “Oysters”, after ourselves. She simultaneously paints a very clear and perhaps accurate depiction of a future dystopic society in which all imperfections and inequalities have been erased. The book ultimately deals with questions of equality, race, and human ethics as the events come to a horrifying close.

I have read Useful Idiots not once, but three times, each time at a different age. While the book is marketed as Teen Fiction, I believe it should be read by both teens and adults. It is an unusual yet highly enthralling story which has something for everyone. The dialogue is spot on, Mark's writing is beautiful and highly descriptive, and there is a healthy dose of suspense. Science fiction, mystery, fantasy, thriller, and romance—the book manages to be all of these at once and yet none of them. Useful Idiots is truly in a class of its own.

One Dog and His Boy

One Dog and His Boy
by Eva Ibbotson
5/5 Stars
Reviewer: Deb

Summary: 
This book is Eva Ibbotson's final masterpiece; a tale of a boy and dog who were meant to be together.

All Hal had ever wanted was a dog. "Never!" cries his mother. "Think of the mess, the scratch-marks, the puddles on the floor." But on the morning of Hal's 10th birthday, the unbelievable happens. He's allowed to choose a dog at Easy Pets, a rent-a-pet agency (a fact his parents keep from him). The moment he sees the odd-looking terrier, he knows he's found a friend for life. But no one tells Hal that Fleck must be returned. When Hal wakes up on Monday morning, Fleck is gone. If dog and boy are to stay together they'll have to run away. . . .

Eva Ibbotson’s final novel is a tale laced with humor and brimming over with heart, stunning in its beauty of the love of all things dog.

Review:

Eva Ibbotson’s last novel is definitely one of her best ever.  Quirky characters abound in this heartfelt story about a boy who only wanted a dog.   His quest across England to Scotland to insure that he keeps his beloved Fleck is comparable to LASSIE COME HOME.   If you are a dog lover or just enjoy a good story with many twists, this is a novel for you. I loved it. I would recommend this for grades 4 and up.

In Defense of Food

In Defense of Food

By Michael Pollan

5/5 stars

Reviewer: Marina

Eat Food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants. 

These 7 words are what Michael Pollan distills years of food research into.  This is the answer to the question so many of us find ourselves asking all too often of the right way to eat to lose weight and be healthy.  Really you could stop right there if that is all you are looking for from this book, but if you continue on you’ll be rewarded with a plethora of information on food and food science.  Pollan discusses nutritionism and the age we live in where the nutrients in a food item are more important than the whole and how that can often lead us astray.  Frequently, a whole is greater than the sum of its parts and food is no exception.  Sometimes it is the way components in a food item or a dish interact that create benefits for the body and focus on just the carbs (or any other aspect) of a particular food overlooks this fact.

Pollan also discusses the social, cultural, and scientific changes over the years that have lead us to as whole gain weight, develop diseases, and generally live unhealthily.  He looks at how our great-grandmothers used to eat and urges us to go back to simpler times.  No he’s not telling you to give up your modern conveniences that help the cooking process, but he is telling you to eat REAL food not the stuff manufactured in laboratories.  So if you want a simple plan to be healthier and some interesting science, history, and cultural studies about food- be sure to pick up this book. 

The Arrival

The Arrival

By: Shaun Tan
5/5 stars
Reviewer: Marina

Shadows are encroaching on the city our main character leaves behind in search of a better life for his family. He arrives in a fantastical world full of fear and promise. Tan masterfully tells the story of immigration and being an outsider in a new world through exquisite pictures. The arrival serves as a silent movie of the ups and downs of the immigrant experience that anyone can relate to. It is a beautiful, deeply moving book that is hard to put into words (possibly because it uses none). Pick it up and enjoy the journey.