Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

Peter and the Starcatchers (Peter and the Starcatchers, Book One)

by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

Stinking Moderns. Next thing you know they'll have a soul up on a scale under a 'soul-scalpel.' Wait. That was The Golden Compass? 1 Star.

"Holes" by Louis Sachar

     This book is really, really wonderful. It is one of the better Kids Lit books that I have read in a really long time. I go back to it and reread it every once in a while just to remind myself that all of the good books aren't written by dead people. It has never failed to cure me of my cynicism. For you purists, there are spoilers in the next paragraph.

     It is about Stanley Yelnats and his family curse, and how it gets broken. It appears to be quite purposefully calling up the story of Adam's curse and Jesus' curse-breaking activities, with Stanley, the "second Elya" breaking the Yelnats curse in the fifth generation. Interestingly, his actions break the curse for his family and secure the curse on the Wardens family. The curse/blessing imagery is so prevelant that I am not sure if I would even believe Sachar himself if he tried to convince me that it wasn't on purpose.

     It is a worthwhile read and I happily give it five stars

Farmer Giles of Ham - J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien, justifiably famous for his fantasy novels "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit," also wrote a novella entitled "Farmer Giles of Ham." It is a medieval tale written in what could be called an 'oral' style, meaning that it is like reading a story that is being told to you like your Grandpa might tell, if he were a great storyteller. Tolkien's lighthearted tale about a more than reluctant hero who is thrust into hero work while always trying to get out of it and continually succeeding without any merit is a treat to read.

Tolkien's ability to communicate a lot with a few words and a striking image are in full force throughout the story and I, for one, love stories of dragons and swords and giants (as long as the dragon doesn't turn out to just be misunderstood). This is the kind of story that forms the souls of youngsters in the proper direction. 5 Stars

Iron Thunder: The Battle Between the Monitor & the Merrimac

Here is a civil war novel about a boy aboard the Union's Monitor. Not a bad book, but it is really the reader's interest in this bizarre battle and the advent of ironsides in naval battles that really carry the story along. This is to say that fascination in history and not a fascinating in the plot makes the book move along.

The side stories about young Tom Carroll are fine. There is a conniving copperhead spy who forms the first plot, and the actual battle with the Merrimac forms the second. 3 Stars.

Blood on the River: James Town 1607, by Elisa Carbon

Well Done.
Historical fiction has so many pitfalls that most rarely get read. The desire to be history often slays the story. If that danger is meet and surmounted then the history often comes in as an aside -- and like small towns in the heartland, if you blink you'll miss it. This book about James Town navigates both the Scylla of fact and of Charybdis of play: neither too exacting to be literature, or too liberal to be history. Here is a fine book

But it has more strengths than that. A story about a street urchin gone colonist has the interplay of Indian politics as stage, the colonists' pastor as hero, and the boys learning to heed the latter for the former as the climax. Of course, for all this praise it does have its low points: a tad over-descriptive, a bit sappy, an abrupt end, and a few blank spots in Samuel character. Nevertheless, a good four star read.

The 13 Clocks, by James Thurber

The 13 Clocks by James Thurber

I have to say that I have never read a children's story quite like this before. Reading it gave me the palatable sense that reading it has forever and unalterably changed something. It reminds me of the first time I heard Gerard Manly Hopkins. That distinct "no going back" feeling keeps sneaking up on me and staying just behind corners that I have just turned.
The 13 Clocks is an old fashioned fairy tale in the tradition of Andrew Lang. It leans heavily and unabashedly on the traditional fairy tale and it does it well and inventively. But that is not what makes it stand out. What makes it stand out is the prose. The prose is like boisterous Russian Dancing Men. It is as playful and joyful as a two day old foal chasing a butterfly just emerged from its cocoon. At times it takes on the rhythm and feel of a great epic poem, and in other places it yanks a smile onto your face quite unexpectedly. Even if you are just reading this one to yourself, make sure that you read it out loud  This one not only gets five stars. This whole blog gets its name, and yea its very purpose, from Thurber's masterpiece.

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