Loganberry Books: Blog

BOOK REC: THE TRUE MEANING OF SMEKDAY
Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Title: The True Meaning of Smekday
Authors: Adam Rex
Reviewer: Audrey [Loganberry's first employee]

What is Smekday? It is, of course, the day the aliens came to Smekland (we used to know Smekday as Christmas and Smekland as Earth). Gratuity Tucci ("Tip" to her friends) knew something was up when her mom came home with a new mole on her neck. Gratuity's mom then said that aliens were contacting her through the mole. Guess what? They were. Gratuity's not only a funny and witty 11-year-old narrator, she explains lots of mysteries. Why is Happy Mouse Land in Florida always so clean, for example? Why do cats love the aliens? Why is Gratuity on the run with an alien named J.Lo? The True Meaning of Smekday mixes thinly veiled criticism of certain dominant world powers with pop culture and adds a dollop of references to the ol' canon of Western lit (Gratuity aligning herself with J.Lo thinks, "Well, I'll go to hell, then!" in a wonderful Huck & Jim moment). Hurrah for delightful Adam Rex! Hurrah for his excellent narrator who is going to get lots of press for being mixed race (Mom was Italian and Dad was black), but who should be getting all that press for being wise beyond her years and for being vastly entertaining. Get this book for all the smart kids you know, and all the adults who were once smart kids and still recognize and appreciate literary gems for the shorter set. This title has been recommended for elementary and middle school children, but I would not hesitate to push it on college students, retirees or anyone else. Such as urbane and discerning blog readers.

VOYAGE TO THE BUNNY PLANET
Friday, February 1, 2008
Harriett

Back in Print alert! The Bunny Planet is back! Rosemary Wells hit stardust with this charming publication in 1992, with three little books in a box. Unfortunately, it quickly went out of print and took awhile for the cult following to clamour it back into print.

Now, for the first time ever, the original Bunny Planet stories are available in a single volume with a sexy magnetic closure and ribbon place marker. This delightful collection includes Island Light, First Tomato, and Moss Pillows, with full-color illustrations, and a new poem introducing Janet the Bunny Queen.

Benjamin Franklin provides the epigraph: "It is the first duty of a flagging spirit to seek renewal in the latitudes of whimsy. I, for one, dream on beyond the five planets to a world without wickedness; verdant, mild, and populated by amiable lapins." This is a must-have for anyone who occasionally needs to be transported from mundane reality to “the day that should have been."

Thursday, January 17, 2008
Harriett

Usually for NOBS Show and Tell sessions, people bring old books, vintage tomes, and collectible curiosities and treasures. I decided to bring something brand new, something most of us hadn't seen before, and something that redefines the concepts of genre.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick just won this year's Caldecott Award, and it's a wonderful and curious thing. This 500+ page book won the highest accolades "to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children." Usually this is interpreted to mean picture books: slim volumes with pictures on every page and some text interspersed, perfect for reading aloud to a 4-year-old. This book does not fit this model. However, if was awarded the Newbery, generally speaking for young adult literature, it would be the writer who was awarded, not the illustrator, even if that is one and the same person, as it is with Hugo Cabret.

Brian Selznick has reinterpreted the relationship of words and pictures in this book. The pictures, pencil skteches with heavy black page borders, are not used to illustrate the words, but are part of the story itself. Like Lynd Ward's God's Man: A Novel in Woodcuts (1929), the pictures tell the story with no words at all. Except that Selznick trades off points of telling the story solely with pictures, and then giving us a couple pages of prose. The reading level might be appropriate for a 10-year-old, but I can't see a 4-year-old sitting through a story this long. I loved it, though, and I marvelled at the balance between words and pictures. The pictures read very quickly: they are sketches full of movement that beg you turn the page and follow the action, not to linger looking for details. The prose slows you down to figure out the finer plot points and plot twists, of which there are many. That doesn't mean all the action is put into pictures however: at one point in Part Two, a chase scene ensues told entirely in pictures, and a little while later, another chase scene is told entirely in words.

It's a wonderful read. It's already been named a finalist for the National Book Award (usually given to adult literature). What's most amazing is that the Caldecott Committee felt strongly enough to warp the boundaries of their award to include it in its prestigious circle. Congratulations to Selznick. Now, forget that someone calls this a children's book, and go read it.

The good thing about taking a day off to sit at home being sick, is you might have enough energy to read, and nothing stopping you from reading (gasp) in the middle of the day. I wasn't too ambitious or anything (after all, I was sick), but Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader hit the spot just right. It's a fun, well-written and entertaining novella, and wonderfully short enough to finish in an afternoon. I take unusual pleasure in finishing a book in one sitting since I do that so rarely. Despite the title, not much reference to Virginia Woolf, but Queenie discovers the classics, and annoys her staff with her new pasttime. The consequences of reading are both minute and profound in Bennett's hand, and his portrait of Queen Elizabeth wonderfully droll and human. Recommended.

BOOK REC: YELLOW-LIGHTED BOOKSHOP
Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Title: The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History
Author: Lewis Buzbee
Reviewer: Aunt Susan

If you love books and bookstores, do try The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History by Lewis Buzbee. It was published in 2006, and it’s a small book, but small only in size. It’s too full of good information to be in the precious category, and it’s so “right-on” it made me laugh. Highly recommended.

Title: The Dangerous Book for Boys
Authors: Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden
Reviewer: Audrey [Loganberry's first employee]

Have you seen The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn Iggulden and Hal Iggulden? It came out a few months ago and stirred up a little bit of controversy, but it contains stuff that Every Boy Should Know and is packaged as an old-fashioned Book About Being a Boy. Tying knots, making secret ink and paper airplanes, knowing the rules of soccer and about the Battle of Gettysburg and the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and about amazing and daring explorers and their feats--this is a cool thing. The book is cataloged as YA in my library, but I think any sharp 10-to-14-year-old would like it. It's not smarmy, it's just cool. And it's good to have a Navajo Code Talker's Alphabet Table, or a basic introduction to Shakespeare, or directions on building a go-kart or on finding direction with a watch, or any of these things, in a handy reference volume. Get one and check it out!

Title: The Woman Warrior
Author: Maxine Hong Kingston
Reviewer: Jeneen [Annex Gallery artist, January 2008]

This book is a compelling memoir of a young Chinese-American woman growing up in California in a family that owns a laundry business. It is very powerfully written, with strong, simple sentences. However, the book is anything but simple. It is extremely poetic, and has passages that are dream-like, especially when ghosts are evoked. The book can be terrifying at times, and the main character claims vengeance. This is an intense, original, lyrical book that stays with you.

Title: The Attack
Author: Yasmina Khadra (nom de plume of former Algerian army officer Mohammed Moulessehoul, author of three other novels published in English)
Publisher: Vintage Books (London), translated from the French by John Cullen, 2007.
Reviewer: Amy [of “Tell Me a Story” radio show]

The story of an Israeli Arab who works as a surgeon in a Tel Aviv hospital, representing integration at its most powerful and successful. Then Dr. Jaafie's world turns upside down when his beloved wife is found among the dead in a suicide bombing on Tel Aviv's streets. What begins as horror turns still more terrifying when the bomber is discovered and Dr. Jaafie returns to his Palestinian roots seeking answers. The author astonishingly represents every point of view so that the reader's world, like that of the protagonist, is constantly turned upside down and inside out. I couldn't stop reading, never stopped reassessing my own judgments about what and who is good, how to untangle the tangled web of longheld grievances. good and bad, the entanglements of an impossible place and time. As the Literary Review wrote, the author is passionately moral but never sits in judgment--a rare treat. And the prose is as drop dead beautiful as the story is compelling.

Title: The Universe in a Single Atom
Author: His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Reviewer: Elaine [Former Director of the Cleveland Green Building Coalition, currently moving to D.C. to work for the Green Chemistry Institute]

This is a joyful exploration of the intersection between science and spirituality. As a scientific layperson, the Dalai Lama recounts his dialogues with scientists as he explores modern physics, neuroscience and others. Fearlessly, he seeks out the most renowned scientists from all over the world to delve into what on the surface fascinates him.

Many of Tiffany's famous stained glass lamps were designed by a woman named Clara Driscoll? She had a studio of ~35 girls to help execute these designs? And there's a connection here to Kent State University in Ohio?

Yup. The lavish new book sets the record straight: A New Light on Tiffany: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls by Martin Eidelberg, Nina Gray, and Margaret K. Hofer accompanies an exhibit that recently closed at the New York Historical Society. Thanks for the news.

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