Book Review - Leviathan

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld is a new young adult novel.  I thought it would be great if one of our young adult patrons wrote up a review for us.  This review is from Korbyn age 14.

The book Leviathan was more or less a fictional story about the events leading up to and the fighting of WWI. Even though some parts of the story were true, the feeling of the story leans more to the fictional side.


To start off, the book began with the introduction to two different characters across Europe where the start of WWI originated. One of the characters was Aleksander the son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria Hungary. As you should know, WWI started with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. When Alek’s father dies, he is forced to go into hiding or face his death by the assassins of his father.

The other character is Deryn who is in the Darwinist (British) air force. She snuck her way into the air force by pretending to be a boy under the name of Dylan. She goes up in a Huxly (a flying beasty) that gets caught in a storm and is rescued by a huge airship called the Leviathan. It is a beast made up of many beasts and is on a mission. While flying, the Leviathan gets attacked by a group of German ,Clanker (Middle Europe and Russia) airships. They sustain heavy damage and go crashing into a glacier.

Meanwhile, Alek and his escapes are witnessing the crash from a castle not far away from the damaged Leviathan. Alek devised an ingenious scheme, or so he thought, to help the Darwinists. He carried some medical supplies down to the ship. It turns out that he gets arrested, but is then set free to help the Darwinists escape the Glacier and the Germans. The Germans attack the ship but the ship miraculously survives. The downside is that the engines on the ship were shot and unusable after the attack. It so happens that Alek and his escapes had a walker that was heavily damaged, but the engine was still operational. They eventually got the engine on, and narrowly escaped the oncoming German assault that was just moments away from blowing them out of the sky.

I personally thought that the book was a huge success. I love the huge war machines and fictional beasts/animals that were so extravagantly detailed. The plot and overall story was a hit and the characters were dynamic. All in all, the book was a huge success for me and if you have a passion for enormous war machines or like a fictional twist on historical events with adventure, this is a book for you.

Book Review - The Red Garden

The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman caught my eye in the Bookpage news, that our library subscribes to, to circulate to our patrons.  I have never read any other books by Alice Hoffman, so I have nothing to base my inclinations on other than feeling. 

The story follows a linear gathering of characters from the mid 1760's till the present day in an area around the small town of Blackwell, MA.  A rich tapestry of players enter the stage, from Hallie, a simple colonial girl searching for something more, to a contemporary girl that has her life planned out, only to be interrupted by the tenderness of a secluded poet. 

Each chapter represents differing stories that are faintly connected through geographical location, sentiment or family heritage.  I found this format to be on one hand, a fresh idea in a book, but on the other, it left me with a bit of a disjointed feeling.  One thing that does tie the character's stories together is a liberal dose of mystery, that includes a ghost of a drowned girl, an apple tree that blossomed and provided fruit to the town of Blackwell in the year without a summer, a supposed mermaid, and of course a garden where everything that is grown is red.

Some chapter stories were painted more rich and bold by the author and some held more of an impressionist style that had me trying to read between the lines for thoughts on how all the pieces fit together and left me wondering what the characters lives were like in the future.

Over all, I found the book to be interesting, drawing me in with the layered time periods and characters that form around an area that comes to be known as the Red Garden. 

Favorite Picture Books for Christmas Season

In The Christmas Alphabet kid's can follow the holiday season from A to Z in this lovely alphabet book.  As each lettered door is opened a fantastically wrought paper pop-out appears depicting images of Christmas time.  

Minerva Louise is definitely my favorite chicken.  I bet some giggles will break out when this book is read, especially when Minerva thinks the chicken (angel) on top of the Christmas tree has laid some pretty colored eggs in the branches.

Eric Carle's Dream Snow is a gem filled with collage images of a farmer dreaming of snow.  Clear pages  with snowy blobs add the illusion of Mr. Farmer and the animals covered in snow.  Mr. farmer awakes to find real snow covering the ground and realizes he better hurry and get some surprises set out for his animals.

In the book, The Snow Tree, the animals of the forest find a way, in the white of winter,  to remember the colors of the year.  Each animal brings something of a different color to decorate a special snow tree.

Kids will enjoy feeling the embossed pages and looking at the colorful animal images along with hearing the story of friendship, peace and the glory of nature.

Share one of these books with a child in your life.  Reading to and with children really does help children develop so many learning skills, plus it is time well spent with someone you love.

Happy Reading!

 

Click on the title links to take you directly to the MORE to request a copy of these books.

Two Good Reads

I've seen this book being requested and checked out quite a bit so I thought I would give it a try and read it.  I like history and a good story and this was both. 

The book follows the life of Rachel, a young Hawaiian native, around the turn of the century.  Her life is tainted by leprosy, the lost of loved ones to that disease, plus the eventual contact of it herself.  As a young child Rachel is shipped off to Molokai, the Hawaiian island set aside as a leper colony. 

I was intrigued as the story unfolds of how Rachel survives despite her limitations and leads a life among the lepers of Hawaii. 

I highly recommend this as a good read, it's the kind of book that would make a great movie.

 

Another title I ran across lately is the 13th Tale by Diane Setterfield.  I simply loved this book.  It has the essentials I like to see in a good story, a bit of history, love, and mystery all well told and wrapped in a Victorian setting without the smothering vernacular.  The story enfolds the past and the present as a writer struggles to leave her last tale amidst the living...a tale of deception, love and mystery.  It is the 13th tale.

Hope you give these books a try!

Jenny

A Must Read

Hi, Jenny here....I guess it has been awhile since my last book review, not that I haven't been reading some great books, just haven't taken the time to write down my thoughts. Out of all the books I've read these past months, Bloodroot was the best and I highly recommend it as a must read for 2010.

If you are looking for a book that will stick with you, this is the one. First time novelist Amy Greene weaves a fascinating story of one Appalachian family that spans decades. The book unfolds like a living scrapbook, penned all in first person using the voices of each different character to write on the hearts of readers the ethereal joys, sorrows and intimate decisions of each person.

I am intrigued with the authors ability to breathe life into each character and give them their own distinctive voice. The story language of this book is like a slow brewed and savored drink that once drunk, becomes a part of you.

Click here to reserve your copy.


"Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about legacies - of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss - that haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today." (taken from the publishers description)

It's me, Kris!

I know, I know! It's been a long long time since I have been here. I have been reading a lot of book but it seems that a lot of them have been real duds!

I just read Sandra Brown's Rainwater. It was not her normal style of book. It was OK. I liked that the characters were not the normal ones she has. David was not super macho but still a man of quite strength. Sandra did a good job ( I think ) of developing them. And they did not "hop" into bed on the first page!

But I did not like Sandra Brown's Smash Cut. I can't put my finger on it but I found it dull.

I just read Julie Garwood's Sizzle. I found that I had to force myself to read it. Dull. I feel that Brown was trying too hard to make the funny parts funny, the sexy parts sexy and the tense parts tense. Remember, this is just IMHO.

I also read Dean Koontz Breathless. I got to chapter 5 and put the book down. This pains me as I am a big Koontz fan. But the book left me cold. You know how he has some dry, sharp humor in his writing? Well it was too dry and too sharp. I felt that Koontz was just trying to make a deadline. I want him to write another book like " From the corner of his eye" or "One door away from heaven" and many more. I know he has it in him to do another great one.

Well, that's enough book bashing for now.

Book Review - The Help

I found The Help on Book Page, a monthly release of book reviews and new books. It was a good thick read, spread with wonderful character sketches and peppered with moral and civil issues.

The story's meat is based on the lives of several African American maids in the 60's. A young budding, white journalist takes on the task of writing the story of the maids. They meet in secret to share their lives as hired help. They feel the real threat of segregation laws and the hands of those who have the power to destroy their lives. Stories sad, sweet and demeaning are shared as Miss Skeeter, the journalist, types away filling page after page with the lives of The Help.

This first novel by Kathryn Stockett was wonderfully descriptive and left me feeling like I had a filling southern meal heaped with bitter truths.

Jenny