Shelly's Book Blog

No Castles Here was A.C.E. Bauer's first novel, and I liked it even better than Come Fall. No Castles Here features 11-year-old Augie Boretski, a boy who is small for his age and not much of a reader. He lives with his mother in a run-down neighborhood of Camden, New Jersey, and seems to spend quite a bit of his time dodging Dwaine, who delights in bullying him. One day Augie takes refuge in a shop, only to discover that it is a bookstore. He finds a book that has a changing picture on the front cover. The stories in the book are the source of magic in this otherwise realistic tale, and I love how they interweave themselves into Augie's world.

Come Fall, by A.C.E. Bauer, is the first I've read by this author, and I have already checked out another of her books (No Castles Here) to read. Come Fall combines contemporary realistic fiction, set in a middle school and complete with complex, interesting characters, with the magical world of Oberon and Titania, king and queen of Faery, from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The fairies sub-plot is handled with a light touch, and kids who are not familiar witih Shakespeare's play will not suffer for their ignorance.

The main character is 7th grade orphan Salman Page (named after famous, or infamous, depending on your point of view) author Salman Rushdie. He is the new kid in school, and 8th grader Lu Zimmer is assigned to be his designated buddy. The third main character, Blos Pease, is a social outcast, probably a result of his asperger's-like traits. These three kids form a rather unusual threesome at school and eventually become friends, even though that outcome seems very unlikely at the beginning of the story. I believe this book would fall into the "magical realism" genre, and I find that I like it very much. 

Sphinx's Queen is the sequel to Sphinx's Princess, and it continues the story of Nefertiti and her quest to live her life on her own terms. I think Friesner may end up giving Rick Riordan a run for his money, as her books certainly appeal to the same audience (OK, more girls than boys, I suppose). In these two books, she smoothly blends information about ancient Egypt into a narrative with plenty of action and likeable characters. The ending is, perhaps, not quite credible, but it was certainly the feel-good solution I was hoping for!

Finally, I finished The Cricket in Times Square, by George Selden, this morning. This is another I have chosen for my summer book club. It is a cute story about a cricket named Chester and his friends, a mouse (Tucker) and a cat (Harry). They live at a newsstand at New York's Times Square subway station. The family who own and run the stand are the Bellinis -- Mama, Papa, and Mario. It is Mario who takes in Chester as a pet, after finding him lost and alone near the newsstand. The story is sweet and I enjoyed reading about these animals' adventures. I especially enjoyed hearing about Chester's extraordinary musical ability. There is one thing about this story that concerns me, though, and that is the two Chinese men from whom Mario buys a cage for Chester.  These two absolutely reek of stereotype.  The book was written in 1960, so I suppose the use of this kind of stock character may not have raised as many eyebrows as it does today. I don't think Selden intented any negative comment on these characters. They are kind to Mario, selling him the cricket cage for next to nothing and feeding him a sumptuous meal. Perhaps this will be a good topic for discussion at the book club.

I finished Nobody's Princess, by Esther Friesner, a few days ago. It was very similar to Sphinx's Princess, but this one is about Helen of Sparta ("the girl who became Helen of Troy"). Helen has no talent for, and no interest in, traditional women's activities. She disguises herself as a boy and secretly shares her brothers' combat training. She also befriends the huntress Atalanta, who helps her learn to ride a horse and encourages her independent, adventurous spirit. Another enjoyable story!

I also read the 2012 Newbery winner, Dead End in Norvelt, by Jack Gantos. This one is a little strange, what with all the blood spewing out of Jack's nose, and all the old people dying. There was one scene near the beginning of the book where Jack goes hunting with his dad, though, that was just hilarious. I read it aloud to my boys and they seemed to appreciate the humor, but not as much as I. Maybe it's just funnier in context. Anyway, my favorite character is Miss Volker, the woman Jack helps throughout the novel by typing up her obituaries for the local newspaper and chauffeuring (even though he does not have a driver's license). She is smart, energetic, fearless, and funny, and I thoroughly enjoyed the scenes between her and Jack.

I read on Elizabeth Bird's blog, A Fuse #8 Production, that the British version of this book has a different cover, and is just called Dead End.  I like this cover a lot better. It seems to capture the book's funny/creepy tone a lot better.

Finally, Jack Gantos was a guest on NPR's "Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!" show last Saturday. He tells the story of how, when he was young, he was arrested for drug smuggling and went to prison for a year and a half. It's worth a listen -- very funny!

Sphinx's Princess, by Esther Friesner, drew me in right away and kept me hooked. Set in ancient Egypt (14th century, B.C.), the book follows Nefertiti, a young, beautiful woman, who is forced to leave her home and family in Akhmin to live at at Pharaoh Amenhotep's court in Thebes. Her father's sister, Amenhotep's Great Royal Wife, Queen Tiye, is terrified of losing her privledged position and wants Nefertiti to marry her son, Thutmose, as a means of securing her son's and her own future. Unfortunately, Thutmose isn't at all the type of man Nefertiti could love. He is cold and seems to care about no one but his pet cat.

Nefertiti is strong and smart, though, and she finds ways of making the best of her life in Thebes. She befriends Thutmose's brother and one of his sisters, and she is able to secretly continue the writing lessons she had enjoyed back home. Friesner weaves much historical detail into the story, such as the names of many Egyptian gods and the ways in which the people worshipped them, the customs of the royals, the  means of transportation, and the clothing, jewelry and make-up styles of the time. It never feels like a history lesson, though. The characters are well developed and the story is fast paced and engrossing. I look forward to reading the sequel, Sphinx's Queen.

Oliver Twist is one of many English classics that I have always been meaning to read. I bought myself a Nook for Christmas (Merry Christmas to me!), but I'm too cheap, so far, to pay for content for it. What better opportunity is there, then, to read classics such as Oliver Twist, which are available to download as ebooks for free? I went to the Project Gutenberg web site and dowloaded a copy of the ebook, and then transferred it to my Nook. This was all pretty easy, but I did need to email for help from Adobe when my Nook could not read the file I had transferred. Turns out I had to use the Adobe Digital Editions software to complete the transfer (thus enabling the digital rights management, I presume), so I had to delete the file and start again. No worries, though, as it worked fine once I got this procedure figured out.

I love reading on the Nook! It's great to be able to change the font size to whatever is comfortable, and the Nook is light and easy to hold. Page turning is as easy as a light tap with my finger on the touch screen. I'm thinking of reading Wuthering Heights next.

Anyway, I really enjoyed Oliver Twist. I hadn't realized before, but much of it is really funny. The humor arises from Dickens' biting sarcasm when describing the dreadful treatment Oliver receives at the hands of such self-serving, hypocritical characters as Mrs. Mann and Mr. Bumble. Mrs. Mann is the woman in charge of caring for the orphans at the workhouse where Oliver lives when he is a child. Dickens writes of her:

"The elderly female was a woman of wisdom and experience; she knew what was good for children; and she had a very accurate perception of what was good for herself" (p. 6).

Dickens spares none of the adults in poor Oliver's young life: the members of the Board who were supposed to oversee Mrs. Mann's activities, as well as the Beadle, Mr. Bumble, are mercilessly skewered by Dickens' eloquent descriptions. Dickens write of the board:

"So they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they), of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it" (p. 12).

Also, even though I knew that Fagin and Sikes were villainous thieves, I never realized how horrifying it would be to read the passages in this book where Oliver is at their mercy. Oliver's goodness and purity contrast almost too starkly with these two men's total depravity. As I read, I thought that no human could possibly be that good or that evil. In the end, though, the extremes make the ending that much more satisfying. Evil gets its just punishment, and Good gets its just reward. The End!

In Mister Creecher, by Chris Priestley, a fifteen-year-old boy named Billy meets Victor Frankenstein's creature late at night on New Year's Day, 1818. At the time, Billy is not only very ill but also in imminent danger of receiving a sound beating courtesy of several neighborhood thugs who have taken a servere dislike to him. The creature, whom Billy soon starts to call Creecher, as though that were his last name, saves Billy from the bullies and nurses him back to health, and thereafter the two form a bond. At its heart, this book is the story of Billy and Creecher's complex, changing relationship.

It turns out that Creecher does not care for Billy simply out of the goodness of his heart; he wants Billy to spy on Victor Frankenstein for him. Billy, who is a thief by trade, is happy to comply because his profession becomes considerably easier and more successful once he has the terrifying Mr. Creecher to scare his marks into submission. For a while, they are both content with what they are getting out of their relationship. As the story progresses, however, Billy learns more of the back story behind Creecher's actions. Readers familiar with Mary Shelley's story will understand why Billy's enthusiasm for continuing his relationship with Creecher may begin to wane.