Fun Friday!

Jul1

Welcome to Funny Friday, kicking off a long holiday weekend in the USA and the Ultimate Blog Challenge (31 posts in 31 days!) all in one fell swoop!

Sneak peak at titles rumored to be on board for future Fun Fridays: The Red Blazer Girls in The Ring of Rocamadour and also The Vanishing Violin, crafty fun At Home With Handmade Books, and a little undead versus living battle in graphic novel Ghostopolis.

Be sure that you’ve asked your local library or indie bookstore for these recent BooksYALove fun favorites (click title for full recommendation):

Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity, by Dave Roman – school in space, dinosaur racing, spies = a graphic novel series with a great future!

I Love Him to Pieces (My Boyfriend is a Monster #1), by Evonne Tsang; art by Janina Gorrissen – Baseball, egg-babies, flirting, and a zombie plague! This graphic novel is set in St. Petersburg (be careful on your way to the beach this weekend!) and is first in a series.

Smile, by Raina Telgemeier – yes, you can live through braces, junior high, and high school to come out smiling on the other side! Autobiographical graphic novel with heart.

Cinderella: Ninja Warrior, by Maureen McGowan – choose-your-own-adventure meets fairy tale in this kicking twist on the classic (ninjas! magic! secrets! the worst evil stepmother ever!); first in series.

Kat, Incorrigible, by Stephanie Burgis – mix the straightlaced traditions of Regency England with some irrepressible magic and you’ll find Kat in the middle of it, trying to ‘save’ her siblings from their unhappy futures. Spunky Kat also has to deal with a stick-tight magic mirror, a too-proper stepmother, and a daring bandit on the woods road…

Fish, by Gregory Mone – Pirates, treasure-hunters stealing from pirates, maps and puzzles, and a pirate-to-be who refuses to fight anyone! Such a cast of characters, such a prize – if they can keep it!

Have a fun Friday, and happy reading!
**kmm

Time Quake (Gideon Trilogy #3) (fiction)

Jun30

Time travel meets alternate history in the final volume of the Gideon Trilogy, and it’s a doozy!

So we have the fabric of time tearing apart while Lord Luxon (that rat!) tries to manipulate history in his own favor.

But what’s happening to Kate and Peter? Where’s Gideon now? And the Tar Man? If the time quakes don’t stop, the world that we know may shatter!

Be sure to read Time Travelers (#1 recommended here) and Time Thief (#2 recommended here) before you start this roller-coaster tale of time ripples so you can enjoy every bit of the wild ride!
**kmm

Book info: The Time Quake / Linda Buckley-Archer. Simon & Schuster, 2010.
[author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation:Returning to 18th century England on a duplicate time machine, Kate and Peter try to unravel the snarl of events that their unintended time travel has caused. Kate’s hold on the present (whatever year she’s in) grows more and more tenuous as the multiplicity of universes created by each time travel event start to collide. Their search for the Tar Man and Lord Luxon takes a dangerous turn and may separate the friends forever!

When the original time machine fell into Lord Luxon’s amoral hands, he all too quickly saw its potential for exploitation. Taking “undiscovered” 18th century masterpiece paintings into the 20th century brings wealth, but the Tar Man’s employer is looking for power so he travels to New York City to try his hand at changing history…

Could Lord Luxon’s purposeful damage to key events in the American Revolution truly change history? Can Peter and Gideon keep Kate from fading away entirely? Will anyone ever get back to their home time?

Time quakes muddle past and present, hurtling the friends toward the possible end of our universe as the trilogy races toward its heart-stopping conclusion (443 pages in paperback). (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Time Thief (Gideon Trilogy #2) (fiction)

Jun29

For world Wednesday, let’s travel to England and to two different centuries!
Traveling into the future might be quite fascinating – if one were prepared. As 21st century folks, we have some guesses about the technological marvels that future times may have. But what of a vicious rogue transported from the 1760s right into the heart of modern London? From public hangings to cellphones and police helicopters?

And where’s Peter? Kate moves heaven, earth, and stubborn grownups as she tries to rescue her friend. Gravitational time dilation, time warps…whatever you call the aftershocks of people transported out of their own time, things are getting really messy in our space-time continuum!

Noted scientist Stephen Hawking thinks that time travel to the future is indeed possible, so “never say never!” This is the 2nd volume of The Gideon Trilogy, which began with The Time Travelers (yesterday’s feature book) and ends with The Time Quake (tomorrow’s feature).
**kmm

Book info: The Time Thief / Linda Buckley-Archer. Simon & Schuster, 2008.
[author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation:Two people cling to the time machine, roaring into the 20th century. But one is a notorious 18th century villain who pushed Peter away from his chance to return home! Kate is furious and refuses to let her friend be left in 1763, despite their families’ efforts to keep her safe.

Now the Tar Man is loose in modern London, trying to wrap his horse-and-buggy experience around the concepts of automobiles and traffic lights. Of course, policemen are always the same in any century, despite changes in uniform and chase techniques (flying machines? how can that be possible?), and the Tar Man finds ways to elude them as he worms his way into the criminal underworld.

The time machine inventors are trying to create another one while other authorities hunt for the original to destroy it. Kate and her scientist father rush to rescue Peter before it’s too late, but the wrong setting sends them to the wrong year!

Can Kate find Peter in 1792? Will their 18th century friend Gideon be able to help? Is there any way to get the Tar Man out of their time and Peter back into it?

Second volume of the brilliant trilogy, The Time Thief races down the interconnected paths of an 18th century villain and 2 teens from modern England. If the snarl of time loops is cut, what will happen to them all? Stay tuned for volume 3, The Time Quake! (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Time Travelers, by Linda Buckley- Archer (book review) – zapped into 1763, but home is today!

Jun28

Time travel…what if it were possible? Of course, there are rules which every time travel tale must follow, or the world as we know it would go poof!

This is the first book in a trilogy known in the UK as Gideon the Cutpurse (as you’ll see in the UK booktrailer), so named for the friendly, ahem, liberator of excess worldly possessions who helps out Kate and Peter when they are whisked into the 1700s by a rogue antigravity machine.

Quite the adventure for our two present-day teens, thrown back into a world where electricity is an experimental novelty, and death by disease, misadventure, or sheer bad luck is just an everyday occurrence.

Will they get back to our time? Let’s check on The Time Thief (Gideon Trilogy #2) tomorrow, shall we?
**kmm

Book info: The Time Travelers / Linda Buckley-Archer. Simon & Schuster, 2007. [author’s website] [author interview] [publisher site] [UK book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: Peter would not have been transported back in time if his father hadn’t chosen business over their trip together — again! Who knew that his visit to the English countryside in the 21st century would wind up in the 18th century?

Kate and her family are nice, their farm with the sheep and horses is very country, but it’s not the same as a day spent with his dad as Peter’s mom continues her work far away in the U.S.A. Even the research lab where Kate’s dad works is a bit interesting, like the antigravity machine they use to search for “dark matter”.

When Kate’s dog gets spooked, Peter and Kate chase her through the lab…and into nothingness! They awake in 1763 to see a ferocious man trying to carry off their machine on his cart — then he comes after them! They escape from the Tar Man through the woods and meet Gideon Seymour, who may be able to help them retrieve the machine and make their way through 18th century England without letting anyone else know that they came from the future.

In the meantime, the police and their parents are searching for the pair in 20th centure Derbyshire, with few clues and dwindling hope. A phantom image of Kate in old-fashioned clothes appears at her school — she has partially returned as she slept! Now the race is on to recreate the antigravity machine’s effects in the 20th century.

Bandits and horses, corsets and three-cornered hats, hanging and royalty — Peter and Kate must cope with everyday life in the 18th century as they try to get the Tar Man to give back their only way home while keeping thir friend Gideon out of his evil clutches.

First in a brilliant trilogy, The Time Travelers takes you with them into 18th century England — can everyone get home again? Followed by Time Thief and Time Quake. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Infinite Days (fiction)

Jun27

No sparkly, baseball-playing vampires in this book which hearkens back to the original vampire tradition with bloodlust and cruelty. But there’s a price to be paid for this blood-transmitted immortality, as these vampires lose their sense of touch over time, rather like being encased in glass (not the usual vampiric super-senses).

So Lenah becomes human and rejoices in the life and loveliness of the mortal world, until… You knew there had to be an “until…” to make the story work, right? Conflict, struggle for power = some things never seem to change, whatever world you’re in, so hang on for a wild ride as Lenah starts living as a modern teenager and trying to stay alive, too.

Release date for the sequel, Stolen Nights, has been pushed back to June 1, 2012. Maizel notes on her blog “As my editor says, second books are always the most difficult. And she is 100% right.” Hmmm…wonder how early you can pre-order a book?
**kmm

Book info: Infinite Days / Rebecca Maizel. (Vampire Queen, Book 1) St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010. 336 pg paperback [author’s website] [author’s blog] [publisher site] [book trailer] [Italian book trailer]

Recommendation: Vampires lose sense of touch over time. Lenah, a 500-year old Vampire Queen, longs to be human again and to truly feel, after centuries of ruthless hunting and feeding, viciously cruel hunting and feeding.

But the ritual for returning her humanity is hidden and difficult, involving true sacrifice by another vampire, the most selfish of all creatures. Even more difficult would be hiding her new mortal status from the vampires she created, who will then view her as new prey, rather than their leader. So she starts a 100 year hibernation, while Rhode, who made her a vampire and loves her for eternity, finds the ritual’s instructions and steals her body from the English crypt in the 99th year.

Waking up on a New England morning, Lenah sees sunlight for the first time in almost 600 years and realizes that Rhode has helped her become human again, even as he dies in the daylight. Now she must cope with the technology which developed as she slept, along with all the teen tensions of a private high school. Finding friends and relationships, realizing that machines now can capture music, enjoying food and breezes and the sea, Lenah learns about life and new love, even as she tries to ignore the calendar days moving toward her supposed awakening from hibernation.

Will the other vampires find her here? Are her friends at school in danger of losing their lives? Their mortal souls? Did Rhode’s sacrifice buy her time to truly live or merely months before her doom? First in a new series. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

The contents, not the container

Jun26

Terry Border makes weird things – Bent Objects, to be exact. And he concocted this still-life at the behest of his publisher. Yep, a book publisher asked for a sculpture that showed eReaders zooming way beyond printed books… anyone else see the ‘huh?’ in that??

Of course, it is the contents of books that we crave – the drama, the emotion, the relationships, the information, the humor – and sometimes the container doesn’t matter at all.

If I’m looking for a map of the Lewis and Clark Trail, I don’t care if it’s online, in a National Park Service guide, or in a library book.

I’ve read numerous books in bite-sized pieces delivered to my email by Daily Lit, as Advance Reader Copies through NetGalley, and in whole works through Project Gutenberg (and have even helped proofread some new digitizations there).

But our brains just don’t read text on the screen the same way that they read text on a page, according to researchers, as Thomas Larson notes in his overview of several recent books and studies on the two methods of reading.

I still love print books best for fiction, curled up in my chair, with a cat or two on my lap. No batteries to run down, no cords or mice (sorry, kitties), no overheating (laptops can be lapscorchers). The tactile experience of turning the pages of a book contributes to our reality of the reading experience.

I like real.
**kmm

Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots, by Abby McDonald (book review) – city girl in Canadian mountain town

Jun24

book cover of Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots by Abby McDonaldFor Fun Friday, we’re heading north of the border. I can see why Jenna would rather spend her summer with the godmother she hasn’t seen in years, instead of sweltering in a Florida retirement community with her grandma – it’s been ridiculously hot in C.Florida this summer already and there’s only so much bingo that a teen wants to deal with…

But how could she be prepared for a small community in the Canadian forest, where hunting and fishing are essential parts of life, a one-horse town where everyone has known everyone forever?

Oh, I did laugh out loud when Jenna, the kayak, and the beaver lodge had a sudden meeting, but Jenna’s summer looks like an uphill climb, doesn’t it? And what about the bear, and the moose, and the mountain biking? Well, you’ll just have to read this funny book to find out, eh?
**kmm

Book info: Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots / Abby McDonald. Candlewick, 2010. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: Jenna is a Green Teen for environmental awareness at her high school, so when she can choose between spending the summer in the Canadian woods with her godmother Susie or snoozing through card games at her grandmother’s Florida retirement village, she jumps at the chance to head north.

But the teens of tiny Stillwater, British Columbia, have known each other forever and don’t exactly welcome Jenna. Ethan, Grady, and Reeve play practical jokes on her from the moment they meet. Fiona hates everything, especially her stepmother, Susie, who works frantically with her new husband to transform a huge old house into a bed-and-breakfast resort before the first guests arrive in a few weeks. And Jenna’s best friend doesn’t get much cellphone signal at her summer camp job back home… what else could go wrong?

How about crashing through a beaver dam with her kayak or accidentally catching a trout? “I left the cork on the hook! I didn’t think anything would actually bite!” screams vegetarian Jenna.

The five teens start to get along as they create a website (complete with videos of Jenna’s rookie attempts at rock climbing and dirt bikes) so the inn can compete with the new luxury spa hotel across the valley, but secrets and misunderstood kisses may end the whole summer with a crash!

Does everything have to be eco-friendly or else? What makes a true friend? Why do guys have to be so complicated? (and watch out for the bear, Jenna, and the moose, too!)(One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Four Seasons (fiction)

Jun23

Today is “Let It Go Day”, as Wellcat.com urges folks “Whatever it is that’s been grabbing your gut or your psyche, let it go. Just let it go. It’ll be a better day afterwards.”

Ally is having an awful time letting things go. After all, piano is her whole life. Except that perhaps it isn’t – maybe a little time with friends or an occasional sleepover would also be good for a 13 year old who happens to play piano like an angel.

Thankfully, Ally doesn’t have “helicopter parents” or “stage-manager parents” always hovering over her, pushing her to practice-practice-practice, win-win-win. Her parents are both talented musicians and know the dedication that it takes to succeed in such a competitive field, yet they somehow miss the signs that Ally could crumble under the strain.

A fascinating look into the demanding world of classical pianists, into the psyche of super-talented youth, into the gaping void of “what now?”
**kmm

Book info: Four Seasons / Jane Breskin Zalban. Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site]

Recommendation: As a piano student at Julliard, Allegra must practice 6 hours every day and attend music classes all day Saturday. But the pressure is so intense that Ally wonders if she could stop. Just stop playing the piano, her chosen instrument since age 4.

Child of two wonderful musicians, Ally has a true gift for the piano, yet still wants what normal 13 year olds have – friends, sleepovers, time to relax. Her famous piano teacher is demanding and stern, quick to remind her about the 7 year olds at the school who have already won international piano competitions.

When she finally has time to talk to a nice guy from her regular school, Ally starts thinking about whether playing the piano competitively is worth it. After a disastrous summer music camp festival, who is more surprised at the choices she begins to make: her best friend? Her parents? Her piano teacher? Ally?

Much like her beloved Vivaldi concerto, Ally’s story has four distinct sections. Can the tension of these four seasons turn life into joy? (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Journey of Dreams (fiction)

Jun22

Let’s go to Central America for World Wednesday, where the designs of Guatemalan huipiles tell stories, woven into the cloth, strand by strand, using a backstrap loom. It would take many weeks for Tomasa or her mother to weave enough cloth for an entire skirt or blouse.

Tomasa tells her story as she would weave a huipil, strand by strand, row by row, along the jungle paths and strange city streets of their journey. Guatemala’s long civil war was at its height in 1984, when thousands of Native Mayan families like hers fled from their land as soldiers destroyed their villages. Many thousands more were killed in the government’s “scorched earth” campaign – it was a bitter time.

Questions about refugees or immigrants often have no easy answers, but hearing the stories of others’ lives can help us understand how their world is different and perhaps show us ways to make life better for others.
**kmm

Book info: Journey of Dreams / Marge Pellegrino. Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2009. [author’s website] [publisher site]

Recommendation: As she and her mother weave, Tomasa hears the helicopters carrying soldiers. As they wash clothes at the river, she worries aloud about the planes spraying poisons, trying to force people from their small farms. Stones are thrown at their house, wrapped with notes threatening them to keep quiet about the planes and the pesticides.

Maybe tomorrow, maybe tonight, the army will come for the older schoolboys, like her brother Carlos, to make them soldiers against the rebels who are trying to save their land, to make them shoot at their neighbors.

Mama and Carlos slip away one night, escaping to the north. Soon, Papa decides it is too dangerous for the rest of the family to stay, and they flee in the darkness, just ahead of the soldiers who burn the crops, bulldoze down the houses, try to erase their village from the map of Guatemala.

Tomasa helps Papa lead her little brother and baby sister through the jungle, across rivers, and even into cities, looking for Mama and Carlos. When sanctuary workers locate them in the United States, the journey becomes even longer and more perilous.

Can the family get through Mexico to find Mama and Carlos? Will they die crossing the borders, as so many refugees have? Who can hear Tomasa’s dreams of running, of friends left behind in the ruined village?

Tomasa weaves into her huipiles many symbols from the Qui’che legends that Papa retells, the faith of the Church, and the love of her family in this compelling look at the Central American refugee experience, as seen through a 12 year old’s eyes. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Atomic Weight of Secrets, by Eden Unger Bowditch (book review) – inventions, intrigue, adventure

Jun21

book cover of Atomic Weight of Secrets by Eden Unger Bowditch published by Bancroft Press | recommended on BooksYALove.com“Strange round bird with three flat wings, Never ever stops when it shivers and sings” – what an odd song to learn as a child! And not to know any other nursery rhymes or children’s stories…

Welcome to the slightly steampunk world of The Young Inventors’ Guild in 1903! Meet five brilliant children with incredibly talented, intelligent parents – parents who are swept away from them as the children are brought from around the world to a small farm outside Dayton, Ohio, USA.

And those mysterious men in black who take them to and fro in black carriages and other conveyances – every time the children see them, they’re wearing different all-black outfits, including tam o’shanters and top hats, Zouave pants and riding breeches, fur coats and inflatable vests.

Their parents hardly even write letters to them (this is 1903, after all), yet dear Miss Brett (their teacher in the farmhouse) assures the children that they are quite alright. The children’s various discoveries lead them to decide that they must invent something to ensure their safety and escape from the men in black.
Perhaps there are some grown-ups they can trust to provide some necessary assistance in this covert operation?

Feel free to share this adventure with younger readers as we wait for the next volume of The Young Inventors’ Guild Trilogy to be published.
**kmm

Book info: The Atomic Weight of Secrets, or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black / Eden Unger Bowditch. Bancroft Press, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My book talk: Five brilliant children whose parents are talented scientists – why have they been brought to a farm in Ohio in 1903 from their homes all over the world by mysterious men in black costumes of all sorts? And what about their new weekend homes in the city nearby, with wonderful nannies and bedrooms for their parents who never arrive?

Having school with Miss Brett at the farm is much nicer than being bullied at their school in London, think Jasper and Lucy, but where are their parents? Faye misses working in her parents’ laboratory in India, where she was treated like a princess. Noah can’t play his violin right now, worrying that his mother doesn’t know where he is (she left to star in another opera just before…). And Wallace, well, his late mother said he’d make a discovery before his 10th birthday that would save the world – and he has just a few days to finish the project.

The youngsters teach Miss Brett about their advanced experiments, and she introduces them to the wonderful world of stories and rhymes and children’s games that their tutors and scientific encyclopedias never covered. During the week, they discover farm animals’ habits and hopscotch and how to bake biscuits, then are taken “home” to their nannies by roundabout routes in black carriages or autocars by men in odd black outfits every weekend. Whether at the farm or in town, patrols of men in black circle around their residences like clockwork, week after week.

The children investigate a pageless journal Lucy found in her mother’s room and discover that it once contained pages written by the Young Inventors’ Guild. They decide to use it to chronicle their experiments as they pool their knowledge of scientific principles so they can escape the mysterious men in black and rescue their parents!

Are their parents safe? Why don’t they write or even use that newfangled telephone device in the farmhouse closet?
Can the birdwatcher seen near the farm help them?
What about Faye’s cousin or those clever brothers they met in town?

Mystery, science, and the song of The Strange Round Bird (which they all learned as tiny children) meld in this exciting first volume of The Young Inventors’ Guild series. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)