The Graveyard Book

Gaiman, Neil. 2008. The Graveyard Book. With illustrations by Dave McKean.

I really loved this one. The atmosphere, the pacing, the characters, everything is just right with this one. The Graveyard Book is the story of a young boy, Nobody Owens, whose parents (and sister) have been murdered. The young baby--toddler--wanders into the neighboring graveyard and happens to escape the killer. The residents of the graveyard take pity on him. They adopt him. Mr. and Mrs. Owens especially. (Along with Silas.) Give him the freedom of the grave yard. They raise him. They teach him. He is one of their own. And yet...and yet he's not quite of them. He's alive. Can the dead really and truly raise the boy right? Silas is his guardian. He is one of the few that can leave the graveyard. He walks amongst the living and the dead. Him being quite neither. They only know this. Someone is out to kill 'Bod' (their nickname for Nobody). And it is only if the boy remains there that he is safe. But how long will the boy be content with them, with only the dead for company, alone from others his own kind?

This is an adventure-filled story with great characters and amazing atmosphere. The book is slightly unusual in that it is episodic. The book spans a dozen years or so. We see Bod grow from a toddler to a young man--a teen boy of fifteen or sixteen. We see him learn to walk and talk and fade and haunt and dreamwalk. We see him learn to explore the world around him both in and out of the graveyard.

Definitely recommended.

First sentence: There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Just so you know...

I've got a new survey up for my Reading With Becky google group. Some members aren't signed up to received emails, so I feel they sometimes miss out on the latest announcements and such. Hopefully, they're readers of this blog :)

It's never too late to join the group, by the way!!! I'm always looking for new members to join in.

Just email me and request an invite to join. The only real qualifier is that you've got to *love* reading books.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Octavian Nothing

Anderson, M.T. 2006. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation: Volume 1: The Pox Party.

Let's see...what can I say about Octavian Nothing. It's an award-winning book--winner of the National Book Award, winner of a Printz Honor. It's historical fiction--set in the Colonies right before the American Revolution. It's more literary than your typical teen book--it's heavy in semicolons and rich in detail.

So what is so astonishing about the life of Octavian Nothing? Many things. Many many things. For starters, he's a slave who doesn't quite realize he's a slave. He has little inkling just what he is...or who he is. Who is he? He's a human experiment. He's being studied to determine if Africans are inferior (or equal to) to Europeans. Everything about him is being observed and measured. He's been given the finest clothes, housed in a luxurious way (at least comparatively speaking), taught to play musical instruments, taught in a classical way--learned in many diverse subjects including English, French, Greek, and Latin. He is a child who had a very strange, very odd, very out-there upbringing. Who is raising him the members of the College of Lucidity. Strange men who are fascinated by science, math, philosophy, art, music, etc.

There are several events that change everything for Octavian. That turn his whole world, his whole life, his very being upside down and inside out. Through the course of the book, Octavian goes from a privileged boy who is clueless about the oppression of slavery to a full-grown man who has experienced the oppressive wrath and cruelty of his masters. A man who now longs for freedom.

Even that isn't quite a fair assessment of what this book is about...of what it has to offer readers.

I can't promise you that you'll love it...or even like it. You may, of course, respond that way. But this is a book that requires you to be engaged, to connect emotionally and intellectually with the text. It's a book that requires you to wear your thinking cap.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Triple-8 Challenge, *Official list

Eight books by Asian and/or Asian-American authors

1. Revolution is not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine
2. The Girl with the White Flag by Tomiko Higa
3. Yellow Umbrella by Jae soo Liu
4. Year of the Rat by Grace Lin
5. The Fold by An Na
6. The Mats by Francisco Arcellana
7. Guji, Guji by Chih-Yuan Chen
8. The Dragon's Child by Laurence Yep

For a list of potential books please see this post.

Eight audio books.

I thought long and hard about this category. A challenge is supposed to be challenging. And since I rarely listen to audio books, I thought this might be a good chance to expand my comfort zones and grow as a listener :)

1. Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
2. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
3. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
4. Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
5. The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer
6. The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
7. The Composer is Dead by Lemony Snicket
8. Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank You Notes by Peggy Gifford

I own a few titles--the Little House books and the Chronicles of Narnia and both Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. But the library may prove invaluable here as well as iTunes podcasts of classics. For example, almost all of Jane Austen's books are available as podcasts one chapter at a time.

8 classics by women writers (any time period pre-1950)

1. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
2. Persuasion by Jane Austen
3. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
4. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
5. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
6. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
7. Camilla by Fanny Burney
8. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Right now, I'm thinking Zora Neale Hurston, Jane Austen, Kate Chopin, etc. I'm sure my list will change as I explore. But I know this is something I'd like to do for 2008.

8 Award-Winning Children's Books (Caldecott, Newbery, Printz, etc.)

1. Hitty, Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field (Newbery, 1930)
2. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Newbery Honor, 1938)
3. By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Newbery Honor, 1940)
4. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (Newbery Honor, 1941)
5. Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray (Newbery, 1943)
6. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert O'Brian (Newbery, 1972)
7. The Entertainer and the Dybbuk by Sid Fleischman (Sidney Taylor Book Award, 2008)
8. My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett (Newbery Honor, 1949)

Extras: Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse (Newbery Winner, 1998) A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck, (Newbery Honor, 1999), A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck, (Newbery Winner, 2001)

For the record, honor books count as well in my book.

8 Nonfiction Books

1. The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank
2. I Have Lived A Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson
3. The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender
4. Painting the Wild Frontier by Susanna Reich
5. Wanda Gag: The Girl Who Loved To Draw by Deborah Kogan Ray
6. My Bridges of Hope by Livia Bitton-Jackson
7. I Will Plant You A Lilac Tree by Laura Hillman
8. The Year We Disappeared by Cylin and John Busby

My list may change, but this is what I'm planning at the moment. No promises though. :)

8 Childhood Favorites

1. Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
2. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
3. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
4. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
5. Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
6. The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
7. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
8. Mandy by Julie Edwards

Alternates:

8 by Beverly Cleary

1. Beezus and Ramona
2. Ramona the Pest
3. Ramona the Brave
4. Ramona and her Father
5. Ramona and her Mother
6. Ramona Quimby Age 8
7. Ramona Forever
8. Ramona's World

8 by L.M. Montgomery

1. Anne of Green Gables
2. Anne of Avonlea
3. Anne of the Island
4. Anne of Windy Poplars
5. Anne's House of Dreams
6. Anne of Ingleside
7. Rainbow Valley
8. Rilla of Ingleside

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

Rilla of Ingleside

Montgomery, L.M. 1921. Rilla of Ingleside.

I will try to dry my eyes long enough to type out a review that couldn't hope to do this book justice. Rilla of Ingleside is the final book in the series of Anne books. The novel is set during World War I. For those that think Anne's life was so rosy and so perfect...just consider that her children came of age just in time for the declaration of war. The novel opens in July of 1914. Within the first few chapters, Anne has seen her firstborn son, Jem, off to war. Before the novel closes, she'll send off two more of her sons: Walter and Shirley.

Rilla of Ingleside isn't Anne's story--though we do get glimpse of the fiftyish year old mother and wife--it is Rilla's through and through. Her youngest child is just a few weeks (or is it a few months?) shy of her fifteenth birthday. Her teen years will be impacted greatly by the war. She'll have to say goodbye to her three brothers, two of her childhood chums (Jerry and Carl) and her almost-sweetheart Kenneth Ford. (Kenneth Ford is the son of Leslie Moore and Owen Ford whose story we were swept away with in Anne's House of Dreams.)

What does Rilla do with her time? She doesn't go away to school (high school and college) like her sisters Nan and Di. No, she'll start a Junior Red Cross society for the younger crowd in the village. But perhaps what changes her as a person (as a soul) is when she adopts a war baby. She quite inadvertently discovers a tragic baby--just a month or so old--whose father is a soldier overseas and whose mother has just died. Too compassionate to send to an orphanage, she takes him home--and does so in style. This baby is carried home in a soup tureen. For four long years, Rilla plays the role of mother. And it does change her...and for the better.

Life on the home front worrying about loved ones far far away is hard. Waiting to hear if they're dead or alive or if they're coming home...is difficult, is life changing. War brings hardship and worry and sorrow and grief and new perspectives on life as well.

The heart and soul of this book--the sentimental details that will pull at your heartstrings is Dog Monday. Jem's dog that stays at the train station all the years while his master is away. The dog that can't be tempted or swayed to leave the spot where he lost saw his Jem. The dog's loyalty...to both Jem....and to Walter...is not easily forgotten.

Rilla of Ingleside is a fitting end to a wonderful series. Like Anne of Green Gables, it has its bittersweet moments. It's about life--the good, the bad, the ugly, the joyous, the heartbreaking. I think it's only right that both books can bring both tears and smiles.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews