That is all.  Short and sweet.   Because this picture book is awesome and Betsy’s more awesome than I.

Links of interest:  Antoinette Portis website, more book blogger reviews.  A Penguin Story is a fiction picture book Cybils nomination for which I’m a panelist.
Genre:  Fiction Picture Book, approx ages 4-8.
Publisher: HarperCollins. December 23, 2008
Hardcover, 40 pages. ISBN 0061456888
A Penguin Story is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

15-year-old Sam has always been defined as the pastor’s daughter.  But not all is well behind closed doors.  Citing the pressures of being a pastor’s wife, Sam’s mother is an alcoholic who after one too many DUI’s is now in treatment.  But it’s not a fact that Sam wants her friends (who often don’t invite her along to less questionable activities – you know – the whole being the pasture’s daughter thing) to know about nor is it something that Sam and her father openly talk about with each other.

It is during this crisis in her family, that her community faces a crisis of its own.  A young girl in the church has mysteriously gone missing and no one is free from suspicion including her own father and the girl’s older brother, whom Sam has always crushed on.  This family and community crisis shakes Sam to her inner-core where she also experiences her own personal crisis – one that questions her faith, hope, and belief in something that is bigger than she is.

Although the events of this beautiful novel are huge – alcoholic parent, missing girl – it is also so quiet.  Sam is a character that feels so real.  Does she really live in those pages?  It can’t be possible.  She’s out there somewhere.  Living.  Breathing.  The questions that she asks herself are ones that any teen struggling to learn to identify who they are in the world will relate too.  Scratch that.  Not just teens.  Heck, even I found myself relating to Sam in my life right now and supposedly I’m supposed to have it all together right now.

Sam asks herself this question:

Do I believe?

I believe just enough that Jody is alive that I think we should keep looking.

I believe just enough in my mom to try to make a garden for her to work on when she gets home.

I believe just enough in my dad that he’ll have an explanation even if that explanation is that he’s only human.

I believe just enough in myself to know that even if I start in a new school I’ll be okay.

I believe just enough in forgiveness that eventually we’ll be a family again.

I believe just enough in God that I’m praying right now that Nick means what he says.

As a side note, I loved that Sam wanted to create the perfect garden for her mother to take care of.  As a gardener myself, I understand how gardening can heal.  How the creation of something can bring one hope.  When I garden, I’m basically telling myself that I’ll be around to reap the benefits of my work.  I have faith and hope in the plants and my ability to bring forth something that will bloom into something beautiful for me to enjoy later.  Gardening is an activity that while is enjoyable in the moment is one that is always looking to the future.  Sam wants to create a xeriscape garden:  a garden which can thrive on very little care.  Which I can’t help but think is how Sam thinks of herself, her mother, and her family.

Sara Zarr lives locally to me and it’s been my pleasure to be able to chat with her on numerous occasions.  I love that blogging has bridged that gap between author and reader for me.   The beautiful thing that I loved about Once Was Lost was that the author completely disappeared in the narration.  I did worry that knowing the author behind the book would taint my reading of it.  There’s nothing worse than hearing the author’s voice instead of  the characters.  But I completely forgot about Sara except that I had to keep reminding myself that  this amazing story came out her head.  How do people do that?  Honestly, I shouldn’t have been surprised because Story of a Girl and Sweethearts, are very popular books for teens, but I was in awe of the talent and the story that she’s able to tell.

Once Was Lost has a little bit of it all.  A mystery to pull you along, a family in crisis, a young teen discovering her identity and even a bit of romance.  But mostly it’s a novel about faith and how to hold on to that faith when the world we know comes crumbling down around us.

I was able to attend Sara Zarr’s launch party at The Kings English Bookshop in Salt Lake City on release day for Once Was Lost.  Tons of fun as always as so many other local authors came out to attend the big day.

I captured some video to share with you! In this video Sara talks about how the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart (which happened in our SLC community) inspired the writing of Once Was Lost:

Sara talks more about the writing process for Once Was Lost including how the safe return of Elizabeth Smart and Sara’s own therapy changed the outlook of the book:

And last, Sara reads from Once Was Lost (no spoilers – she reads from beginning of book):

Sara is doing a fun video tour of current book tour, I was thrilled to catch a one second image of myself in her last video!

Links of interest:  Sara Zarr website, more book blogger reviews, Maw Books reviews of Story of a Girl, Sweethearts, interview with Sara and  breakfast smoothie recipe.
Genre:  Young Adult Fiction
Publisher:  Little, Brown Young Readers.  October 1, 2009
Hardcover, 224 pages.  ISBN 0316036048
Once Was Lost is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

The year is 1936 and eighty-six-year-old Hennie Comfort (who truly lives up to her name and is a comfort to all she knows) lives in the high altitude of the Rocky Mountains in Middle Swan, Colorado.   The name Middle Swan is one that I will not soon forget as it’s as much a character in the book as anybody else.  It’s a mining town where women send their men off each morning either to the mines underground or to the dredge boats not knowing if they’ll be a widow by the end of the day because the work is so dangerous.

At Hennie’s gate is a sign that says Prayers for Sale and it’s here that she finds seventeen-year-old Nit who asks for a prayer of her own.  Despite the sign, Hennie doesn’t sell prayers, instead she gives them freely to those who need them.  Nit, who like Hennie, has already lost a baby of her own is new in town with her husband and is lonely.  Despite their obvious age difference, Hennie and Nit are drawn to each other through their common loss and Hennie takes Nit under her wings and teaches her how to survive in the rough mining town.

There is nothing more that Hennie and Nit, as well as the other women in town, love to do than quilt.  If somebody had told me that I would love a book that talked about quilting so much, I wouldn’t have believed them!  But yet, the book made me wish it was freezing outside with a warm mug of hot chocolate, pie, and a huge quilt to snuggle in.  Seriously, my only regret in reading the book now was that I didn’t experience it that way.  So come winter and you are wondering what book to pick up, pick up this one.

Hennie’s talent is not restricted to just quilting, she’s a master storyteller and the book alternates with Hennie sharing stories of her past and of the people in town with Nit.  While there is an overarching plot that moves Hennie’s stories along, each of the stories that she shares is complete on it’s own.  They are engaging and full of wonderful characters.  Sandra Dallas quickly engages the reader when Hennie shares a horrific experience in just the first chapter that had me instantly bonded to her and her story.  That bond never lifted, even after I closed the last page and I wished that  Hennie and Nit could come to my home for some conversation and teach me about quilting.

And I couldn’t close this review without noting the historical part of this Historical Fiction book.  I loved being taken back to another time and place.  From the setting of Middle Swan to the dredge, the mines, the mountains, the homes, and even the hookhouse, I felt as though I could have been right there experiencing life where hardships, loss, and grief were a way of life.

A beautiful book.  Beautiful writing.  Beautiful characters.  I’m not satisfied with leaving Hennie and Nit behind and wonder what their unwritten futures will be like.  I wholeheartedly recommend this one.

I have an interview with Sandra Dallas tomorrow.  Make a mental note to check it out.

Links of interest:  Sandra Dallas website, this is an Authors on the Web blog tour, check out more book blogger reviews.  Sandra’s  other novels include Tallgrass, The Chili Queen, New Mercies, Alice’s Tulips, The Diary of Mattie Spencer, The Persian Pickle Club, Buster’s Midnight Cafe.
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press.  April 14, 2009.
Hardcover, 320 pages.  ISBN 0312385188
Prayers for Sale is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s and Amazon.

When Matt returns to his unit, he’s still not sure what happened and despite his misgivings, his superiors are willing to just sweep the incident under the carpet.  It’s better to not say anything at all then incriminate ones self.  But can he live with himself, if indeed, he did shoot the little boy?  And will his friends who know what really happened speak up about it?  And worse, will he be able to pull the trigger next time he’s commanded to shoot?

Purple Heart is an excellent book that explores the idea that war is not black and white.  Instead it’s made up of boys and girls who have friends and family back home who will never understand what they experience every day.  McCormick doesn’t take sides or morally addresses the rightness or the wrongness of the war but rather focuses on the men – rather the boys who are on the verge on manhood – who are fighting it.  Matt Duffy is a character that many will relate to and his struggle with his conscience is also one that readers will sympathize with regardless of their own situations, war or not.

I highly recommend Purple Heart to teen boy readers, especially those with an interest in the military.  It’s not often that a book like this will come along and catch their attention.  And yet, Purple Heart isn’t just for boys.  It’s for any reader who wants to experience the war through the eyes of a young soldier who is just trying do what is right and make sense of his newfound surroundings and friends.

As always, Patricia McCormick continues her streak of excellent books on thought provoking subjects.

Links of interest:  Patricia McCormick website, more book blogger reviews.  Maw Books reviews of Sold, Cut and My Brother’s Keeper also by McCormick.
Genre:  Young Adult Fiction
Publisher:  Balzer and Bray.  September 1, 2009  – Released just this week!
Hardcover, 208 pages.  ISBN 0061730904
Purple Heart is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

There are so many different plot points of Pope Joan as it covers a period of at least forty years so I won’t go into too much detail, otherwise I could go on forever.  While we were explaining the plot to a couple of people in our book club, it took us like twenty minutes to go through the entire time line and not leave out anything important.  Not that it’s a confusing book because by all means it’s not.  I highly enjoyed it and found myself always wanting to pick it up to read and thinking about it when I wasn’t able to.

I’m not Catholic nor am I familiar with Catholic history but Pope Joan is about the rise and stardom of a female Pope during the ninth century, which I imagine is a topic of hot debate among historians, so I appreciated the author’s note “Was There a Pope Joan?”  I fully admit that I haven’t researched further into the subject as it’s part of history that completely intimidates me, but Pope Joan is an excellent book to breach the subject and act as a springing board if one wants to further explore or discover this part of history.  I fully appreciated the details in the book about how people lived during the ninth century, especially how women were treated.  Besides the fact that a female was able to rise to Pope under the guise of a man, I probably found this the most fascinating aspect of the book.

Joan was never at peace because born a female in the ninth century meant that she was viewed as inferior to men and was never allowed full access to education.  She was smart and eager to learn and begged her older brother to teach her how to read and write in secret.  A kind priest recognizes her talent and against the wishes of everybody around her, particularly her father, insists on educating her.  This is unheard of.

After her older brother dies and her younger brother is later killed in a horrible viking attack, Joan assumes his identity and enters a monastery as John Anglicus.  Under this deception, she becomes one of the most talented and wise priests and learns the art of healing.  She eventually makes her way to Rome where she becomes entwined with the politics of the papal seat and in time rises to its very throne.

Joan fears that her secret will be found out at any moment and I loved the tension that this underlying current created.  If discovered, there would understandably be an uproar among the people and death for herself.  There is a fantastic love story as well.  Hmm . . . I just tried to explain it but it comes out all jumbled and funny.  Let it suffice to say that I thought the love story was . . . well, fantastic!

Pope Joan is a novel that at it’s theme is the empowerment of women.  How they were viewed as less than human, built to be incapable of even thinking or acting like a man.  Almost as cattle simply to give birth.  They were undervalued and underappreciated.  It is this huge prejudice that Joan fights against her whole life and even as John must endure the men’s way of thinking as she has immersed herself into their world.  As Pope she tries to change this but comes up against much prejudice.  But yet, what is so sad is that 1200 years later and this way of thinking in many parts of the world has not changed.  It felt so barbaric in the ninth century but yet one could see so many parallels between then and today.

The best part about reading Pope Joan was having the author Donna Woolfolk Cross call in to our book club and chat with us for over an hour! I really wish I had transcribed everything that we discussed but I was too busy enjoying myself (and going in and out of the room because of course that’s the one time I have to bring my two kids with me!).   The hot topic of discussion was research and what was based on fact and what was fictional.  What characters were real and which ones had no counterpart in history.  My favorite part of the call was talking about how cruel and savage this time period was in the treatment of women and how in some cases we have gained so much but yet so little.

We also discussed the movie.  Because, yes, there will be a movie!!  Donna even gave us a “secret” link (sorry folks, wish I could share) to the movie trailer and it looks SO good.  I can’t wait to watch it.  But you want to know the best part?

*Donna has a fabulous promotion going on right now and YOU have the chance to be flown out to the US movie premiere and walk the red carpet!*

How do you ask?

All the details and exactly how to enter is on the author’s website where she says:

Simply buy a new, Three Rivers Press/Crown Publishing paperback edition of Pope Joan by August 9 and send me the original receipt. In August, I’ll pick randomly from the pile of receipts to select someone and their guest to join me at the U.S. movie premiere in the fall (exact date still to be determined).

Includes two tickets to the movie premiere, plus round trip airfare for two from any location in the continental United States or Canada,
and one night hotel accommodation for you to share with your guest.

To tell you the truth, your odds right now are pretty good and after visiting with Donna I would love to win and hang out with her, so not only is Pope Joan worthy to add to my library anyways but this extra incentive has me returning my library copy and buying a new copy in a heartbeat.

Check out these movie stills:

(Image copyright:  Summit Entertainment)

I hope the movie just as good as it looks, but it looks great!

So seriously, go buy the book.  You’ll want to read (and watch) this one!

Links of interest:  Pope Joan website and promotion details.  Details on how you can have Donna at your book club! Trish at Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’? is giving away a copy of the book (which you’re buying anways, right?).
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Publisher:  Three Rivers Press, June 9, 2009.  (Original hardcover published by Crown September 1996)
Paperback, 432 pages.  ISBN:  0307452360
Pope Joan is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Set in the 1930’s during the great depression in the dust bowl of Oklahoma, Out of the Dust is told as a diary in free verse form, a style of writing that I love more with every book I read.  Billie Jo is fourteen and loves to both write and play the piano.  She’s also eagerly anticipating the birth of her baby brother.

But that all changes when an accident leaves her hands wounded and her mother and brother die in childbirth.  Billie Jo’s father is emotionally unreachable:

I don’t know my father anymore.
He sits across from me,
he looks like my father,
he chews his food like my father,
he brushes his dusty hair back like my father,
but he is a stranger.

I am awkward with him,
and irritated,
and I want to be alone
but I am terrified of being alone.
We are both changing,
we are shifting to fill in the empty spaces left by Ma.
I keep my raw and stinging hands
behind my back when he comes near
because he
stares
when he seems them.

September 1934.

Dust is just as much of this story as anything else.  It’s everywhere and non-relenting.  It makes for a bleak and harsh environment.  Billie Jo wants to escape it all but when she does she comes to realize that the landscape is more a part of her than she realized.

Out of the Dust is a great historical fiction novel for young readers and I loved the free verse.  Recommended.

Genre:  Historical fiction, ages 9-12.
Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks.  October 1, 1997
Paperback, 240 pages. ISBN:  0590371258
Out of the Dust is available from your local independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Miracle’s Boys is a beautiful exploration of what happens when parents die, leaving their children behind to cope in their absence.  Ty’ree, the oldest, gives up college to care for his two younger brothers.  Charlie has was just been released from Rahway Home for Boys for armed robbery and twelve-year old Lafayette is just trying to make it through each day.

Although this is a story about each brother in the aftermath of such a loss, it is Lafayette’s story and he is our narrator.  Lafayette is full of guilt.  Why did his father die?  Why did his mother die?  Why must Ty’ree sacrifice for him?  Why is Charlie so different after coming home?  Could he have done something different?  What did he do in the past?  Could he have changed it?  Will his family be taken away from him?  Will Ty’ree be able to keep them together?  Will Charlie mess everything up?  On top of all of that, Ty’ree lives with the guilt and the secret that he thinks he caused his mother’s death.

On Jacqueline Woodson on Miracle’s Boys (from her website):

I wanted to write a story that had no girls in it. I also wanted to write about how hard it is to be poor sometimes. I also wanted to write about how hard it is to lose someone you love—in this case, both parents—and how that pain starts shaping itself into other things sometimes like anger and isolation. Most of all, I wanted to write about three brothers who are funny, handsome, searching, and caring of one another.

Loved it.  Plain and simple.  You will too.

And because I can:

Links of interest:  Maw Books reviews of  Jacqueline Woodson titles, including Feathers, If You Come Softly, Behind You, Show Way, Locomotion, Peace Locomotion.   Jacqueline Woodson website.
Genre:  Fiction, approx ages 9-12.  A great book for boys.
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile.  December 31, 2001.
Paperback, 192 pages.  ISBN: 0698119169
Miracle’s Boys is available from your local independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

But Hollis finally makes a home for herself with the wonderful Regan family and for once she’s thinking of not running.  She is beginning to relax and can see herself finally shedding away her tough exterior.  But when an accident occurs, Hollis feels that she has no choice but to run again.  Her new family begs her to come back but betraying her own wants and desires she moves on.  This time she’s placed with an elderly woman, Josie, who unbeknownst to the foster care system is in the beginning stages of dementia.  Hollis likes  her a lot, because she used to be an art teacher and Hollis loves art more than anything.  When the system finally catches on to her situation and arranges Hollis to be transferred again, she knows that she must make a decision that will affect everybody around her.

The story is told in two alternating time lines, the time with Josie and the one with the Regan family.  We know of her past feelings of living with the family but are gradually given details on why she felt like she had to give it all up.  I loved Hollis.  I particularly enjoyed the thought process that she went through as she deals with the agony of being in the foster care system, feeling unloved, and how she begins to soften only to have it taken away all over again.

She’s the type of character that does frustrate you a little only because as a reader you know more than she does, you want to sit her down and say, “Now look here, what in the world are you doing?!  You can be happy if only you do this and this . . . “  And that’s why Pictures of Hollis Woods is a wonderful story because we want all of Hollis’ dreams to come true and we can’t put the book down until we find out if she has or not.

Pictures of Hollis Woods has been made into a Disney movie.  Here is the first bit of the film:

Has anybody seen the movie?  I think I’ll try to track it down.

Links of interest:  Maw Books review of Lily’s Crossing also by Patrica Reilly Giff.
Genre:  Juvenile Fiction.  Approx. ages 9-12
Published by Wendy Lamb Books.  September 10, 2002
Hardcover, 176 pages.  ISBN: 0385326556.
Pictures of Hollis Woods is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

From the book jacket:

The characters – including a college student waitressing in a remote resort in the Sierra Nevada, a devout Christam man working in a shelter for the homeless, a privileged young woman seeking someone to blame for her inexplicable discontent – share a fundamental predicament, the struggle to name and embrace some faith that can break their fall.  In equal measure, they hunger for and resist this elusive possibility and what it demads of them.  What one is willing to reisk for the sake of transormation or the right to refuse it is a particularly tough dilemma for the women in these stories.

Two of my favorite stories were Wait for Instructions in which a woman struggles to care for her aging parents and abusive father and Slender Little Thing, a story of a nanny who works long hours as a nanny taking care of other children while her own daughter is put in daycare, so she can provide a better life for them both.  I was struck with these two stories because one, the way in which they were told, and two, because I’m still sitting here wondering what happened to these characters.  What happened to the wife whose husband was controlling.  Is she all right?  How could she put up with a monster of a husband?  And the other ended so strangely, frankly, I’m not sure what to think.

Catherine Brady has a gift for fleshing out the characters in such a short amount of time and her writing style if distinct and memorable.  But I must admit that I had a really hard time getting into the flow of the writing.  Once I got over the fact that there are no apostrophes when people speak I was able to appreciate how the lack of them propelled the stories in a way that would have been hindered with them.  But maybe this just shows my lack of expertise in being well read in short stories, a genre that I don’t read that often but am often curious to their appeal.  Will I be running out to read more short stories?  Maybe not, but I appreciate Brady’s story telling and excellent writing.  Each story was so distinct and memorable from one another, a mark of a truly talented writer.

Catherine Brady’s website and you can follow Catherine Brady while she’s on tour with TLC book tours.

Do you read a lot of short stories?  What is the mark of a great short story?

After losing their parents in a fire Lonnie and his little sister Lilli are put in separate foster homes.  The story is told in a series of very loving letters from Lonnie to Lilli.  After a rough road, Lonnie is beginning to feel at home.  But that doesn’t mean he takes it well when his sister begins to call her foster mother mom and is gradually beginning to forget her parents.  He knows that he must capture their memories for both of them.  Lonnie is torn between the life that they now have and the life that they’ve left behind.  There are a lot of deep issues in this very short book and it’s beautifully told.  Such a short review for a book I really enjoyed.  Highly recommended.  The more I read Jacqueline Woodson the deeper I fall in love.

Other books I’ve reviewed by Jacqueline Woodson:  Show Way, Feathers,  If You Come Softly and Behind You.  Jacqueline Woodson’s website.