Enchantment

by Orson Scott Card.

This was an amazing book for me to read. I love fantasy, and I love the way that Orson Scott Card's brain works. Yes, it was published in 1999 but sometimes I'm a little slow to jump on the wagon okay? Okay.

Essentially what he has done is to gather all the versions of several fairytales/folk stories and combine them all into one big novel. You'll no doubt recognize Sleeping Beauty, but I loved recognizing little bits of Andrew Lang's compilations along with tales from the Grimm Brothers, not to mention quirky and not-so-popular characters from old tales as well. The research he had to have done gathering all the versions of these stories to write this book just overwhelms me. He did a phenomenal job.

The story starts during the Cold War, or just as it was beginning, in the Soviet Union. It follows the thoughts and actions of Ivan, a child whose parents decide to convert to Judaism in order to obtain visas to leave the Soviet Union since they believe the time for free travel is going to be limited or cut off entirely (and of course they were right). They end up coming to America to raise Ivan in the land of opportunity, and that is pretty much all I can tell you without spoiling the book. Granted, all that I've told you happens in the first 5 chapters so please know that I haven't given anything away, this story is amazing, and I ended up staying up until 3am to finish the book like a teenager because I was so enthralled.

I Am A Mother

by Jane Clayson Johnson

I loved this book! It is written to an LDS audience though it is perfectly fine for any female audience or male for that matter. Affirmation of the uniquely feminine quality of motherhood for those with or without children. All of those who have meekly responded, "Oh I'm just a mom." This is the empowering book for you. This is not a man-hater book but a memoir of one lady's choice to give up the fast life of television journalism for a less glamorized but more meaningful life as a mother. As she said, “I left one wonderful thing for another incredibly wonderful thing.”

Her expressions, however, are not sugar-coated. She acknowledges just how tough the job can be, the moments of self-searching and wondering. It is not just the middle-of-the-night feedings and the never being off duty. She has a chapter in her book called, “Can I quit now?”

“Sometimes, the challenges of mothering, the daily physical and emotional exhaustion and occasional self-doubts causes us to devalue what we do and to devalue it in the eyes of our children. The day-in-and-day-out of daily mothering is invisible, because so much of what we do doesn’t last, and we do it within the walls of our own home where it is not noticed. I traded in fancy lunches and fancy restaurants for something better. Still, there is no one to tap me or any mother on the back and say, ‘terrific diaper change.’ There’s no praise or recognition for the day in and day out of mothering.

We pay a lot of lip service to motherhood. We give mothers awards and we occasionally say, aren’t they great, but we don’t extend them the same respect in reality. I have experienced that first hand. When I told one executive that I was leaving New York and moving to Boston, he said, ‘What are you going to do?’ I told him, ‘I have the opportunity and privilege to be a mother.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but what are you going to do?’

“We have to change that paradigm,” said Jane, and she hopes her book will play a role in that shift. “I want every woman to feel for herself that mothering matters, that nurturing matters, that we have to start valuing these skills in our society and really most importantly in our selves.”

Coraline

by Neil GaimanI haven't seen the movie on purpose, because I wanted to read the book first. Its a really quick read, I think it took me about 3 hours to finish it front to back.

I would recommend this book to mothers, and mature children. As in children who are older than 9 years old. I think children younger than 9 might get nightmares from this book. There isn't anything specifically graphic or violent in it, but its the idea of what is presented that I can see young children taking and letting their imagination run wild with in a really not-good way. That being said, I enjoyed it! I probably won't ever buy this book, but I will recommend my own kids read it when they're old enough to understand it.

Gaiman has written a dark fairytale that centers on a little girl named Coraline. She and her parents move into a new flat, which is essentially an old house subdivided into 4 apartments. 1 apartment is empty, and Coraline discovers a key that opens a door connecting her unit to the vacant one. Surprisingly, the other quirky tenants of the house warn her about danger, and she has some dreams that provide warning or insight to the situation as well. When Coraline's parents go missing it is up to her to not only find them and bring them back to the real world safely, but to rescue other children who have gone missing many years before.

The Hiding Place

This book will, quite possibly, change your life.

It has mine.

It's the story of Corrie ten Boom,

a survivor of the Holocaust.

It is different than the other Holocaust survivor

stories I've read in that

she was not Jewish, but rather Christian.

It was also different in that,

its pages were so full of love and courage and faith

that I could only feel those same things as I read.

This is a book not only worth buying,

but worth reading over and over.

Catching Fire

by Suzanne Collins.People, I am in agony. (Long SIGH). Just finished reading this about an hour ago. It took me that long to collect myself enough to turn on my computer. It is going to take me so much longer to get the story out of my head. The closest I can come to describing how I feel is to invoke memories of how YOU felt after the 4th Harry Potter book came out, you were drawn into the story, and then it ended without any satisfactory resolution. If anything, you felt more compelled to read the 5th book than ever, even though it wouldn't be published for another year or so. That is how I feel right now. I desperately want to dive right into the next book.

I started reading The Hunger Games on Thursday, finished it Friday. Bought Catching Fire Saturday night (I knew if I bought it in the morning my Saturday would be a wash) and couldn't put it down today.

Its so tough to write about how I'm feeling, and a brief synopsis of the story without giving away spoilers. I need someone to talk to about this. About what has been going on and what we think the 3rd book will bring us. I have read reviews on Catching Fire that were a bit derogatory when comparing it to The Hunger Games. I completely disagree. I think that the games and arena pictured in Catching Fire were appropriate given the tributes who were present. And anyone who doesn't think the traps and snares and trials throughout were as intense as the first book has become completely desensitized in my opinion.

Angst.

I am so looking forward to reading the third and final book in this trilogy.

Dragonhaven

by Robin McKinleyI felt a little bad for saying I was mad at Robin McKinley in the last post, so I decided to read one of her recent novels to make up for it.

Dragonhaven is the story of Jake, a teenager growing up in a Wild Animal Preserve. Both his parents have worked there his whole life, and he plans on living there his entire life as well. The catch is that life at the preserve is a bit precarious because money is tight and various government factions are always looking for ways to get rid of it so they can use the land for development or oil drilling or gold hunting or whatever. And the biggest catch of all is that the preserve is actually for preserving dragons. Thats right, dragons.

It turns out dragons aren't just mythical creatures afterall. They've just figured out how to survive without attracting much human notice. There are preserves in Kenya and Australia too. But the preserve Jake lives/works at is the biggest in the world. And other than finding dragon scales and smelling the air no one has seen a real dragon in decades. Until Jake stumbles upon a dying dragon who has just given birth...and all the babies are dead except one. Technically it is illegal for a human to "interfere" with nature to save a dragon's life...and so Jake makes a split-second decision to try to save the dragonlet, come what may in consequences. And the entire book is pretty much about his struggle to help the dragonlet survive without attracting the notice of anyone around him....

I enjoyed reading this book a lot. It was laugh-out-loud funny in a quite a few places. And it was interesting, I didn't want to put it down because I genuinely didn't know how the plot would resolve itself. However, I picked the book up not knowing anything about it, and it took about 50 pages for me to catch on to what the book was really about. Mostly this is because the entire novel is told via Jake's streaming consciousness, in the past tense because the story happens when he is 14-15 years old, but he's writing it down as an 18-19 year old. The author does a great job of getting into a teenage boy's head: this book reads just like you're really listening to a 15 yr old talk and try to explain things. And this is partly why its so funny in places, because of his descriptions or whatnot. But it is also why its a bit hard to get into until after 50 pages, because Jake is struggling with how to start telling his story.

If you can make it past the first 50 pages I definitely recommend this book. Its entertaining. Original. And it feels real, even though its fantasy. I think you'll find it gives a view of dragons that hasn't been given in literature ever before.

River Secrets

By Shannon Hale.

Like Enna Burning before it, River Secrets picks up right where its predecessor novel leaves off. Therefore, to get into it you've really got to read the first two books in this Bayern trilogy.

Can I just say, to get it out in the open, that reading River Secrets made me kind of angry? It is such a good book---and it just brought to my mind The Blue Sword and The Hero And the Crown by Robin McKinley, and made me so angry she never wrote a 3rd Damar novel! It would have been wonderful! Shannon Hale has managed to write 3 really great books, all centering around the country of Bayern, all told from different perspectives and involving different adventures and twists and turns....and Robin McKinley could have done this with Damar and she ended up going a whole different direction. Makes me, as a reader, feel snubbed. And I know RM published those 2 novels almost 20 years ago, but reading a really great "third novel" just brought out all these repressed feelings of what might have been. Sigh.

ANYWAY: River Secrets is told from the point of view of Razo, another friend of Isi and Enna. Kind of fun to read about Bayern and Bayern traditions from a male perspective this time. Razo and many others of the soldiers belonging to the king's personal guard, Bayern's Own, accompany an ambassador to the capital city of Tira, in an effort to establish good relations between the two countries. However, a lot of people are still upset about the war which recently ended, and seem to stop at nothing when it comes to stirring up conflict, false accusations, and potential uprisings. Razo has to solve a few mysteries in order to ensure a 2nd war isn't begun.

These Bayern books are truly enjoyable. Go read them now if you haven't already!!