The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

by Trenton Lee Stewart


There is a website.
There is a Wikipedia page, but I don't think it's very good.
Of course, Amazon's page has lots of customer reviews.
There's even a third book due in October (available for pre-order now).

So what's all the fuss about? This series-in-the-making features four unusual children, lots of logic puzzles, action and adventure, interesting supporting characters and a strong dose of whimsy. I'm not surprised it's popular. When I read the first book, I had a feeling of deja-vu before I realized that it vibes a lot like the Lemony Snickett books. And all of a sudden I thought, "Voracious reader boy character? Check. Inventive female character? Check. Small but stubborn and precocious child? Check." There is, in addition, a boy with photographic memory and an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure facts; interestingly, he's the only one of the four who isn't an orphan.

There's also something about the general tone that reminds me of the Series of Unfortunate Events. The difference being that I could stand to read these two books, even though one of them is about as long as four or five of the Lemony Snickett. They're not so unremittingly sombre, for one thing, and perhaps less predictable in that things go right more often than they go wrong, but at any given point they could go either way.

There are also shades of Harry Potter in the strong emphasis on ethics and compassion. Just as Harry Potter lets an enemy escape rather than kill in anger, the protagonists in these books, while not shying away from conflict or violence when necessary, refuse to kill. In general, though, there is more trickery than fighting, making them much more readable for people like myself. And of course this sustains the narrative, since the main villain always escapes to menace another day.

I plan to give these books to my children for summer reading. I think they'll enjoy them, and look forward to reading the third this fall. I'll probably read the third one, too. These books are well-written, the characters are varied and interesting, and I know my kids will enjoy the puzzles and their solutions. Not great literature, but very enjoyable, I would recommend these books to anyone.

Triangle Histories: The Civil War -- Abraham Lincoln

by Deborah Kops

This book about Abraham Lincoln is very informative. I was particularly interested to read about the birth of the Republican party in this country -- "Free speech, free homes, free territory, protection to American Industry" as it says on an early campaign poster. Lincoln is known as the President who waged the Civil War, but it was news to me that it was actually his election to the presidency that prompted South Carolina's secession in 1861. His victory was due, in part, to division among the Northern and Southern Democrats, since both factions ran separate tickets. There was even a third party, the pro-slavery Constitutional Unionists. Although it doesn't say so in this book, I believe that Lincoln won the most votes without having won a majority. In any event, the Southern states had clearly declared their intention never to accept him as their leader.

I think this book strikes a very good balance between historical detail and personal history. It includes many fine illustrations, and seems to be a very good source of information about this period.

Maya says:

Lincoln met his wife, Mary, in 1840, and married her two years later. Their son, William Lincoln, died of typhoid fever when he was only eleven years old. He took his last breath at 5:00 with his parents at his bedside. Another son was called Tad, because when he was a baby his head was big like a tadpole's. Lincoln used to pull his sons around in a wagon. He would pull the wagon with one hand, and the other hand had book. Once he got so absorbed in his book that he didn't notice a child had fallen out of the wagon.

Long before he became President, Lincoln studied law. He had one partner who left and so they dissolved their partnership. Lincoln and his next partner got an apprentice named Billy. Later, when Lincoln dissolved his second partnership, he took Billy as a partner and he never dissolved that partnership.

Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in the United States. He was President during the Civil War. One time a battle was fought very close to Washington. He watched it from a balcony of the White House and didn't pay attention to the bullets whizzing past his head.

He was assassinated while watching a play. His assassin was less than two feet away from Lincoln when he shot him. The policeman who was supposed to be guarding Lincoln had gone somewhere else. Later, the assassin was found hiding in a barn and was shot to death by soldiers. Abraham Lincoln was buried on a hill.

Abraham Lincoln didn't deserve to be killed. He was a great man to end slavery in this country.


Ziad says:

Abraham Lincoln was a president who grew up in a state where slavery was outlawed. His father was against slavery. Lincoln lived on a farm. When he grew old enough, he left. He worked in a shipping business, helping sail some cargo down the Mississippi River. One time, the ship began to sink and Lincoln moved the cargo from the back to the front so the ship tilted and the water poured out.

Before he became President, he attended a ball where he met Mary Todd. He married her two years later. They had three children. Their first-born was the only one who lived to adulthood.

During the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth and a group of men were trying to kidnap Lincoln and hold him hostage. Lincoln didn't know that he was constantly eluding them by last-minute changes to his schedule.

At the beginning of the war, the Union seemed to be losing. The Union general McClellan overestimated the Confederate forces and didn't attack when he should have. The Union might have lost if it wasn't for Sherman's victory over Atlanta and his march to the sea, destroying anything in his way that could help the Confederates. In December, Sherman wrote to Lincoln, "As a Christmas present, I present to you the city of Savannah."

When the Confederate capitol, Richmond was captured, General Lee surrendered.

After the war, John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln at Ford Theater. Lincoln died the next day.

Many people say Abraham Lincoln was the best President of the United States. He fought for human rights and accepted blacks as equals at a time when many others didn't.

In Their Own Words: Harriet Tubman

by George Sullivan

This book is part of a series for children that uses primary sources when possible. Although Harriet Tubman didn't leave writing of her own behind, two biographies published during her lifetime contain many quotations. They are:

Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (1869) and
Harriet: The Moses of her People (1886)

by Sarah Bradford, a schoolteacher who was Harriet's close friend.

Going back over this book with Ziad and Maya, I realize that I didn't retain all that much of what I read. As I glance through it the second time, though, I remember how I was struck by a few things: Harriet's early life, not in the deep south, but Maryland, considered to be a less hellish place for slaves than the Deep South, is nonetheless terrible to read about. After her first escape, the Fugitive Slave laws required her to conduct all other escaping slaves all the way to Canada, where they could not be apprehended and sent back into slavery. Harriet was also connected with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, just as the abolitionist movement became intertwined with the struggle for women's suffrage.

I've heard that children's books are a good way to become informed about subjects, since they tend to be concise in their presentation of information. This book certainly fills the bill in that regard, while being interesting and well-written to boot. I think I'll read it again and see if I can remember more this time.


Maya says:

I thought that all slaves had to be in slavery, but I learned that the slave master's will could free them and some slaves could be freed. I learned that because John Tubman, who Harriet married, was a freed slave. Harriet went to a lawyer who read the will of her mother's first owner. Harriet's mother should have been freed she turned 45, but instead she had been traded to another master. Now it was too late, and no one would listen to Harriet's claim, even though Harriet felt that legally she should be free.

Harriet told her husband that she wanted to escape, but he told her that he would tell on her if she tried. Then Harriet tried to escape with her brothers, but they got scared and turned back. Finally she escaped by herself. She became part of the Underground Railroad and helped other slaves escape. Her master offered a reward for her return.

One time she was waiting for a train and some people thought they recognized her. When she heard them talking, she opened a book and stared at it like she was read, and the people said she couldn't have been who they thought she was because slave couldn't read. I thought that was clever of her, because the really couldn't read, even after she was free.

During the Civil War, she worked in a hospital and also served as a spy. I really admire her and think that she was a great person.


Ziad says:

Harriet Tubman was slave who ran away and became a conductor on the Underground Railroad. She conducted more people to freedom than anybody else. She knew John Brown, the white man who attacked a warehouse full of weapons and tried to free slaves, but failed. She had a dream about him being killed before he was hanged. Harriet was impressed because John Brown died for slaves when he could have done nothing about it.

She worked as a spy and nurse during the Civil War. AFter the Union won, when she tried to take a train, the conductor put her in the box car with the animals. She felt that the Union hadn't really won, if people still treated black people so badly.

Harriet Tubman was very brave.

Gone Away Lake

by Elizabeth Enright

This is a wonderful book. It seems that everything I've been reading has such dark overtones, making this sunny, reassuringly normal book about a summer vacation in the country a real treat.

There is very little plot to speak of. A girl and her brother visit their cousin in the country. In the course of their explorations, they find a lake that dried up when it's source was dammed, and two elderly people living in what's left of the summer colony houses there. The old folks reminisce about their past when they used to summer at the lake, the young ones fix up a room in one of the houses for a clubhouse ... it sounds mundane, but reads beautifully. Of course it helps if you love descriptions of woods and swamps and wildlife.

Above all, though, I just love that this book is set squarely in the real world, with no overtones of fantasy at all, yet still manages to weave such an entrancing spell.

The Brothers Lionheart

by Astrid Lindgren

As I read this book, I wondered what I could possibly say about it. It was very difficult for me to read, but as I read, I realized that the difficulty reflected the degree to which the book had drawn me in, causing me to care and feel for the main character. There's a quote from Lloyd Alexander on the back cover:

The Brothers Lionheart is a remarkable book. Astrid Lindgren surely gains new stature in probing a world far removed from that of the admirable Pippi Longstocking -- this one is far deeper, and more demanding of courage, than any of Lindgren's previous works. Even on a surface level, the story must be her most unusual and unexpected; but what sticks in the mind are the endlessly fascinating questions she raises. Lindgren is speculating not only on the human situation but on the very nature of what may or may not lie very darkly beyond it. It may be unsettling, but that's exactly as it should be.

I guess I would really seize on "demanding of courage" (I had to put the book down several times) and "unsettling," but I would have to add "beautiful." Flashes of joy in the midst of sorrow and danger streak through this book, making it difficult to fully describe or characterize.

Would I recommend it to my children? I'm not sure. Would I stop them from reading it? Definitely not. Any family that reads this book together is certainly going to have a lot to talk about.

Island of the Aunts

by Eva Ibbitson

Maya says:

Island of the Aunts seems to be a half magic book. It has mermaids and creatures I've never heard of, like a booberie and the great kraken, but they really are just animals that you don't see every day.

All the animals on the island have problems. For example, the mermaids have oil on their tails. The booberies' (it's a bird) eggs won't come out. The stoorworm is like a huge white worm. He worries about his thoughts not going all the way down his body, and wants plastic surgery.

The Aunts couldn't fix all these problems by themselves, so they chose some children to help them. Two of the children worked out well, but one used his cell phone to call for help. His father brought a boat and threatened to put all the animals in zoos to make money. Finally, the great kraken came and hummed. His hum made a huge storm. All the good animals escaped. The children escaped with the animals. At the end, the Aunts return to the island and leave it to the children in their so that there will always be someone to regard the island as a sacred treasure, the way that they do.

I think this is a good book. It teaches you to take care of things, and not just try to make money out of them.

Sarah says:

I already wrote about this book here.

The Birchbark House

by Louise Erdrich

This story of Omakayas, a young Ojibwa girl, is set in 1847, on an island in Lake Superior. It describes the family's life over the course of a year: the abundance of food in the summer, the near starvation of an unusually harsh winter, the loss of loved ones to smallpox. The prose is elegant, but unsparing. Descriptions of the family's work as the seasons unfold are detailed and interesting. Laura Ingalls Wilder said that she began her Little House series to describe a way of life that was vanishing. This book stands in valuable counterpoint to her presentation of the white settler's perspective with its portrait of Ojibwa life during the same period.

Even without the historical perspective, though, this book would be a worthwhile story of a young girl growing up. Omakayas is an intriguing character in her own right. The hardships she suffers and the maturity she eventually gains are written with deep empathy that never sentimentalizes or trivializes her experience.

I learned from the dust jacket that Louise Erdrich is herself a member of an Ojibwa tribe, and that the book was written as she researched her family's history with her mother. This doubtless accounts for the way this book rings true on every page. I recommend it highly.

The Pit Dragon Trilogy

by Jane Yolen

Dragon's Blood
Heart's Blood
A Sending of Dragons

I don't have anything against Jane Yolen, and it's not as if these books are actually terrible, but I'm just going to go ahead and say it anyway -- I don't like them. (And if you want to know why I read all three, it's because unless a book or series is totally unbearable, I just always have to see where it's going. I'm obsessive that way.)

These three books pivot around an odd and gruesome conceit -- by spending the night in the birth canal of a (dead, obviously) dragon, humans become telepathically enhanced and able to communicate wordlessly with both dragons and other humans. There is an involved plot about the politics of a planetary Australia (original penal colony struggling to emerge from its past as a dropoff point for jailbirds) and inter-species understanding and cooperation, ending on a hopeful note as the protagonists head back to civilization to bring their newfound enlightenment to the people. Whatever. I still don't like these books.

I'll say one thing, though, she sure has managed to come up with some new material in the telepathically linked human and dragon genre, which is becoming rather pathetically overworked. BTW, the phrase "pit dragon" refers to the fighting pit where specially trained dragons compete for the entertainment and financial gain of their human masters. In case you were wondering.

The Clockwork Twin

by Walter Brooks

Walter Brooks wrote a series of books that I absolutely loved when I was a child. The main character in these books is Freddy the pig, a talking pig who works as a publisher, a poet, a detective, and general jack-of-all-trades on a farm in upstate New York. Of course the farm has many other talking animals as well: the hens and rooster, the three cow sisters, the ducks, Freddy's friend the farm cat, and the villainous rats who are always hatching nefarious plots from their stronghold in the barn. My stepmother very generously bought Maya two books from the series as a Christmas present, and to my joy and wonder she actually managed to give her two that I had never read.

The Clockwork Twin is a story with such an innocent attitude toward technology. Through various plot machinations, a young boy who comes from an unhappy home with his aunt and uncle winds up on the farm. An inventor staying there constructs a clockwork boy to be a companion for him; the boy is constructed so that a rooster perches inside to act as an engineer who controls the clockwork. When the aunt and uncle show up on the farm to reclaim their ward, they end up taking back the clockwork twin instead. And they can't tell the difference! Oh. my. God. Suspension of disbelief is one thing, this is on an entirely different level.

I love this book anyway. Reading some of the pompous speeches given by Charles the rooster, a recurring character, I can't help thinking that I appreciate the language more as an adult than I could have as a child. So again, like many of Astrid Lindgren's books, I feel that this is a multi-leveled writing experience that I understood one way as a child (although, of course with different books by the same author) and yet enjoy with different perception as an adult.

I would strongly recommend any of the Freddy the pig series, especially the quintessential Freddy the Detective. You know what? I think that Ziad and Maya would, too.

Mischievious Meg

by Astrid Lindgren

A non-magically realistic book, written in a very natural and simple style that avoids being dull at all. Meg lives in the countryside of Sweden. Her family is very comfortable in their big house by the river. This book follows her through a year in her life, with an especially beautiful chapter as the family prepares for and celebrates Christmas.

Maybe the most interesting aspect of this book is the neighbors, of whom her parents disapprove. An adult can see that the father drinks too much, that the son carries too much of the burden of supporting the family. But Meg sees this family on their own terms, with the father and mother dancing together in the living room, and the son singing as he makes the pretzels that they sell to earn their living. It's not your typical black and white presentation, and no judgment is passed. For Meg, her neighbors are amusing and interesting, and she likes them, especially the son. They're just a part of the way her life is.

You can tell from the title that Meg is a lively girl. Lindgren seems to have a special sympathy for such children. As the mother of a challenging child myself, I found the following passage especially resonant:

At that Meg started a real earthquake. That was what Father called it when she got furious and desperate as only Meg could. The tears streamed down her face, and she screamed so loud she could be heard all over the house.

And again, it interests me that there is no judgment here, and that Meg is not portrayed as a child at odds with her family. It's very refreshing that her whole family is so matter-of-fact about her temperament even though they don't indulge it.

Many of Astrid Lindgren's books are extremely funny. This one is more low-key, but still amusing, and very enjoyable to read.

Ronia the Robber's Daughter

by Astrid Lindgren

This book deserves all the superlatives that have become cliches, and then a whole new set of superlatives again. It is that good. Set in a fantastical landscape of wild mountain woods habited by dwarves and harpies in addition to bears and wild horses, this book celebrates the beauty of nature just as Rasmus and the Vagabond does.

Its basic story is old as the hills: boy and girl from warring clans meet and join forces. Unlike Romeo and Juliet, they swear kinship, not love. Roaming through the magical forest where they live, each finds themselves up against dangers they cannot survive alone. Fortunately, the other is always close to hand. It is this chain of chance encounters that forges their relationship. In the end, they are the catalyst that brings their two clans together again. This is not a simple story, nor is it heartwarming in the cloying Disney sense. Instead it is human, and recognizable, and believable in spite of its surreal elements.

This book is written in a multi-level kind of way, so that a preteen interested in first love could find traces of it here, but a child interested in adventure would probably not even notice. There is, it seems, something for everyone here, and it is written, as usual, in a clear, matter-of-fact style that still manages to be lyrical and full of the joy of life.

Rasmus and the Vagabond

by Astrid Lindgren

Is there anyone in the world who hasn't heard of Pippi Longstocking? I know some people aren't familiar with the books. If all you know of her is the obnoxious movies that have been made based on those books, you can be forgiven for not loving Astrid Lindgren. Otherwise, you have no excuse. The Pippi Longstocking books are wonderful, and that's all there is to it, and Astrid Lindgren is one of the best children's authors there is.

Her other books are wonderful, too. Rasmus and the Vagabond is one I found only recently, and it is charming. The story is about a young orphan who runs away from an orphanage and finds shelter and adventures with a tramp wandering the roads.

I wonder if the term magic realism can be used for children's books. There is usually some element of the fantastic in the books of Astrid Lindgren that I have read so far. Here it is understated, but the way that Rasmus comes through so many perilous situations unscathed has a vague unreality, like a movie where the little kid is resourceful and clever and outwits all the adults. This didn't lessen the pleasure I found in this book in any way, though. The surprise ending is a happy one, a fitting end to a book that is full of joy in the world of nature and unpredictable human relationships.

Clawstone Castle, Castle in the Air; Castles, Castles Everywhere

The Beasts of Clawstone Castle
by Eva Ibbotson

This is a lovely book. It is afflicted somewhat with the cartoon characters I complained about previously, but it has other-worldly snow-white snows to compensate. I share Ibbotson's evident dislike of developers, and love of old ramshackle buildings, so this book was a joy in many ways.

Castle in the Air
by Diana Wynne Jones

This book just kept on surprising me. Although at one point I'm sure I noticed the magic carpet and flying djinn of the cover artwork, when I started reading about Abdullah the carpet merchant in the bazaar, the strong feeling of deja vu in reading this so soon after Carlo Chuchio was startling. Then, as the book neared its conclusion, the somewhat unexpected morphing of many characters into familiar friends from Howl's Moving Castle threw me for a loop. Well, kind of. I was wondering, what with the connection in the titles, whether there was going to be some kind of overlap.

Like Howl's Moving Castle, this book presents many things that are not what they seem, and plot twists that are amusing and inventive. I enjoyed it a lot.

Lloyd Alexander

When I finished reading The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio, I was impressed by the large bibliography of Alexander's books listed at the beginning of the book. The first books of his I ever read were the first volumes in the Chronicles of Prydain -- The Black Cauldron, I think, is the first one I read. I can still remember the library I checked them out from. It was not my normal library. I have no idea now which town that library was in, how I happened to have a library card from there, or what I was doing there at all. I remember the shelves, and the look of the books, and not much else.

Now that I'm raising two fantasy buffs, both of whom love Tolkien, revisiting those books made sense. Tolkein's work is grounded in European mythology, the Chronicles in Welsh mythology; both deal in an epic way with the struggle between good and evil. Interestingly, the books we got out of the library seem to have been the same editions I checked out so many years ago. Published in the early sixties, they mark the beginning of Alexander's successful career as a writer for children. Forty years later, it's not really surprising that he's written a lot since then, but when I saw the list it was a nice feeling. Something that has existed only as a memory, feeling fixed and static, is in fact a living, growing thing. His body of work is a living bridge between the present and my past.

"It's great," I thought, "that a writer I remember from my childhood can be part of my life now. It's cool to know that he's still writing."

So I started looking for the publication date. Which is when I noticed that the book had been published by his estate. And that the little author bio found on the back flap of the dust cover has two years in parentheses next to his name, as in (1924-2007). Apparently he died in May.

So the discovery of his many books that remain for our family to explore is a sad one, too, because now that list really is fixed, written in stone as much as any monument to his memory.

I was surprised to learn that he is an American writer. Given the double l in his first name, and the Welsh underpinnings to his best-known works, I had jumped to the conclusion that he was British. Nope. Born in Pennsylvania, and living there when he died. It also somehow surprised me that he's written several award-winning books that I've never even heard of. There is a list of them here, which I plan to work my way through. I just wish I had gotten to it sooner.

Reading List

The following list of books is organized by the date I returned them to the library. There is overlap between the two children, obviously, since they both tend to read most of what we check out. Maya says she has actually read all the bird books, which makes her much more of an authority on bird care than I can claim to be. Ziad's attention has been largely focused on Harry Potter lately, which explains why the number of library books he's read as dropped off dramatically. So really this is just a partial reading list, but I think it demonstrates adequately that even though they are homeschooled, they are literate (and at or above grade level).

Ziad’s reading list:

October 24
Parrots and Parakeets as Pets
Keeping Unusual Pets: Cockatiels
Growing Up With Science (Illustrated Encyclopedia of Invention) v.2
Angelina’s Halloween (Angelina Ballerina series)
Arty Facts: Animals and Art activities
The Unicorn’s Secret 8: The Journey Home

October 30
Fire and Wings: Dragon Tales from East and West
Young Cam Jansen and the Substitute Mystery (Level 2)
Space Emergency: Astronauts in Danger
My Parakeet

November 6
Secrets of Droon: Under the Serpent Sea


Maya’s reading list:

October 24
American Humane Pet Care Library: Birds
A New True Book: Talking Birds
My Parakeet
Parrots and Parakeets as Pets
Keeping Unusual Pets: Cockatiels
Henry and Beezus
Angelina’s Halloween (Angelina Ballerina series)
Arty Facts: Animals and Art activities
Young Cam Jansen and the Substitute Mystery (Level 2)
Best of Friends (Puppy Patrol #17)
Mystery of the Dark Lighthouse (Mystic Lighthouse Mysteries)
The Unicorn’s Secret 8: The Journey Home

October 30
Animal Ark: Kitten in the Cold
Animal Ark: Horse in the House
Animal Ark: Foals in the Field
Fire and Wings: Dragon Tales from East and West
Eyewitness Books: Dance

November 6
Secrets of Droon: Under the Serpent Sea
Parakeets
ASPCA Pet Care Guides for Kids: Birds
Unicorns of Balinor: By Fire, By Moonlight
Island of the Aunts
Not Just a Witch
Little Women
School Trouble for Andy Russell

The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio

by Lloyd Alexander

This book raises a lot of questions for me. While I was reading it, I found the story very gripping. It reminded me a lot of the Coelho book we read a while back, The Alchemist, because of its quasi-middle-Eastern setting and fantastic elements. The characters were also pretty 0ne-dimensional. This is definitely a fairy tale, and there's nothing wrong with that.

The issues I have deal partly with subject matter. A key plot element is the kidnap and escape of a young girl. It is clear from the context that she is meant to be sold into slavery as a prostitute or concubine. This introduces themes of sexual enslavement and rape even though the text glosses over it. How explicit would this have to be before I say that I think this is inappropriate for young children? To what degree is it OK for my children to skim over these depths without noticing too much (which is surely what would happen if they read this book)? I can't help feeling that the subtext here is like a time bomb that can go off inappropriately -- that stories where girls are vulnerable in this way conveys a message they don't need to get in their psyches, however subliminally.

Then there are issues of style. What is up with these semi-Arabic names and turns of phrase? Why does the fawning servant with the Arabic name speak in a flowery style that is basically satirical? Why is his name (Baksheesh) a real word (it means cash or tip in Arabic) when everybody else has made-up names? Why does the leader of the horse caravan speak an obvious pidgin English and why is his adherence to tribal honor and customs lampooned so predictably? Have the PC thought police wormed their way into my brain so that I have lost all sense of humor, or is this just light-hearted fun and I should ease up already? I swear, I can't tell any more.

I honestly can't decide what I think about this. For myself, I liked the book, I thought it was funny and interesting, and it had some cool plot twists. But I think I'm going to be taking it back to the library without giving it to my kids.

Eva Ibbotson

Two books of hers I have read recently:

Not Just a Witch
Island of the Aunts

She came highly recommended by a homeschooler I know, so I looked forward to reading them. And now that I have, I am beginning to wonder -- what is it about British writers that they are so focused on some of the nastier aspects of human behavior? Bullying is an especially prevalent theme, but petty-minded selfishness comes in a lot as well. Diana Wynne-Jones, J.K. Rowling, Raold Dahl, Jenny Nimmo, and yes, Eva Ibbotson all seem to spend a lot of ink on characters that are unpleasant in very specific and similar ways. It's not just that they are selfish and mean, but they're also shallow and one-dimensional, a kind of cartoon villainy that seems flat and predictable to me.

In J.K. Rowling's books, I have always felt that her scenes with the muggle family who take Harry in are her very weakest. In fact, when I read her first book for the first time, the first chapter was almost enough to make me close the book in disgust. (I'm glad I kept reading.) With Island of the Aunts, my feeling was that my kids didn't really need to be exposed to this ugliness. The thing is, that with all these authors, there is a lot of other stuff as well, all of it interesting and fun to read. Which way do the scales tip? Overall good, or not worth it?

So I decided just to keep out of it and let Maya read it for herself. She loved it. And when I asked her about the characters I hadn't liked, she said they made her sad but there was so much else in the book that she loved. And since I'm probably way over sensitive about things like this, I bet most everybody else would like them, too.

Island of the Aunts is about three sisters (who have a fourth sister, who has children, thus making them genuine aunts) who care for the injured wildlife, somesupernatural, that appears on the shore of their island. Realizing that they're not getting any younger, they take a unique approach to finding someone to carry on after they're gone. Not Just a Witch is about two witches actually, both idealistic and longing to make the world a better place.

For those of you that haven't read Eva Ibbotson's books, I think they're worth checking out. Definitely well-written, imaginative and quirky, and awarded with Maya's seal of approval.

Harry Potter is upon us

Decisions, decisions. Should we go to the library party on Friday night or the bookstore party in the morning? Well, the bookstore won out, since we had copies on reserve there.

So down we drove to the bookstore, seven o'clock in the morning, and found the party in full swing. Lots of games where the kids could win little stones, then trade them in for a prize from a grab bag. A scavenger hunt, book readings, trivia contests. Friends we hadn't seen in a while. It was a nice couple of hours, but I started to get hungry, plus really, it seemed like time to get reading.

And so now, it's over. Seven books and more than that many years of waiting. Reading this last installment, I was really impressed. I know I have spoken slightingly of the Harry Potter series in the past. This last book pulls it all together beautifully, though. As someone who has lost people I loved dearly, I feel this book touches eloquently on what death means to the ones who survive. I've never really thought these were appropriate as children's books, and this last one is certainly no exception. It's very intense, and difficult to read in places. Ziad is tackling it, but finding it tough going. I wonder if he'll re-read this series any time soon. I doubt I will. It feels funny, though, not to have another book in the offing.

More Books

More Books

Herewith some more notes on children's books, because I'm never going to be able to remember all this:

Dave Luckett

The Girl, the Dragon, and the Wild Magic

This book is OK, but the dragon doesn't make an appearance till the book is almost over.

Patricia C. Wrede

Dealing with Dragons
Searching for Dragons
Calling on Dragons

These books also sound more dragon-y than they really are. What they are, mostly, are the almost standard revisionist princess ("Embroidery is so BORING! Why can't I study fencing?") done really well. I enjoyed reading them quite a bit. It's kind of odd the way the dragons are definitely an essential part of each plot, yet remain so firmly in the background at almost all times.

Jenny Nimmo

Midnight for Charlie Bone
Charlie Bone and the Time Twister
Charlie Bone and the Invisible Boy
Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors

The American publishers of these books want you to think that Charlie Bone is Harry Potter's doppelganger. In fact, these books are so much more. There is magic, there is an academy, there are evil relatives, there is (most suspiciously of all, in my mind) a big, bustling, red-haired (it's the red hair that seems a bit too much, to me anyway); there are many differences though. Definitely worth reading.

Maya Angelou

All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes
A Song Flung Up to Heaven

Time for a change.

Reading with Ziad and Maya

We are in the middle of Rinkitink in Oz, which is itself in the middle of the original series of 15 Oz books written by the original author, L. Frank Baum. It is one of my favorite Oz books, second only to Glinda of Oz, which is the last one we will read. I don't even remember when we started in on the Oz books, as our nightly reading is sporadic. We've switched over to power-through mode, though, and are now reading a chapter a two as we can find time during the day.