Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume

I always knew Judy Blume as THE writer for tween girls - I loved her books when I was 10, 11, 12, she was one of the only authors I could find whose characters I really identified with. I'd heard of Then Again, Maybe I Won't when I was a tween myself, but for some reason had never read it. Imagine by surprise when it turned out the star of the story is a boy!

The Again, Maybe I Won't is about a young boy whose family comes into some money and moves into a big house in a rich neighborhood. He is forced to leave his friends and to get used to this new environment, where he finds that rich people come with a whole new set of problems. All while dealing with the usual pre-teen boy issues and growing up.

I'm obviously not a boy, but I thought that these boy issues were really well-dealt with. I'd be curious to hear an actual boy's opinion though! :-)

I enjoyed the fact that it's so dated. I loved how the family, including an infant, were going somewhere by car and the adults would just pass the baby around to feed it, burp it etc. Nowadays you're not allowed to go home from the hospital without a car seat. How times have changed and the 80s weren't even that long ago! Or does it just seem that way because I'm getting old? :-)

I think that anything by Judy Blume is worth reading, that's my main message to you!

The Babysitters' Club

I used to love these books when I was a kid and decided to re-read them now that I'm often in need of simple, brainless activity. They totally hit the spot - great for reading a few pages while doing night-time feeds with Baby! I liked the thought that I was a child when I read them the first time and here I am now, re-visiting them with my own child in my arms.

The collection I got has the first three books - 'Kristy's Great Idea', 'Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls' and 'The Truth About Stacey'. I doubt you'd like them unless you read them as a kid - there's no great philosophy to the story lines, they're just about a group of 12-year-old girls who form a babysitting club. There are more books in the series than I remember, I'll see what's available on Bookmooch!

Hope everyone is doing well - I still don't have the hang of fitting blogging into my days, but I'm working on it! Everything else is going well, I'm loving being a Mom and dreading going back to work in June! :-)

Challenges: Flashback Challenge

The Tales of Beetle the Bard

What fun! :-) Reading this short book of stories by J.K. Rowling was just as pleasant and absorbing as reading the Harry Potter books was for me. As in I was totally inside the story world and didn't care about anything else. It's nice when books do that, isn't it?

There are five fairy tales in this collection, each followed by some notes and commentary by Albus Dumbledore. I enjoyed this analysis and 'historical' information just as much as I did the stories themselves.

I won't say more, as it's a short book and you should read it. Unless you hate Harry Potter, in which case it's probably not for you! :-)

Challenges: 2010 Countdown Challenge, 999 Challenge

A Thousand Splendid Suns

I literally just finished reading this and had an urge to write about it before my emotions died down. The book has been sitting on my shelf for years, as I couldn't imagine it being as good as Khaled Hosseini's first one, The Kite Runner. I'm happy to report that A Thousand Splendid Suns is just as good, if not better!

The two main female characters are beautiful. I loved Mariam and Laila from the first pages of reading about them and continued to do so until the end. Their strength in the face of unimaginable hardship was amazing, especially so since I imagine that they represent a whole generation of women. We, living in countries where there is peace and equality, don't know how lucky we are. I admit that I take so very much for granted, all my freedoms included. I have nothing but admiration for the women who lived through Afghanistan's troubled years and the Taliban's rule. I cannot imagine going through it myself.

A Thousand Splendid Suns gives us a glimpse into the history of what seems to be a beautiful country (I've never been) and one which definitely has a rich culture and past. This history is shown to us through regular human beings in everyday situations. There can't be anything that we can identify with more.

If it wasn't for authors like Khaled Hosseini, we would never have the chance to experience Afghanistan and to be made aware of what the news we watch on tv means to the people there, how it affects them. I for one feel richer having read A Thousand Splendid Suns and am extremely grateful to the author for affecting my life in this way.

Challenges: 2nds Challenge, 999 Challenge, Every Month is a Holiday, Orbis Terrarum, Whitcoulls Challenge

Through the Looking Glass

When I read Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland earlier this year, I already knew that I wanted to read Through the Looking Glass as well. So when I saw that it was on The Literature Network and could be read online, I went for it.

Through the Looking Glass was just as charming as the first Alice book. In this one, Alice ends up in the world on the other side of the glass in the mirror - a world where nursery rhyme characters exist, where chess pieces are real people and where everything is done backwards or in the wrong order. Alice's adventures and the people she met in this world were great. Simply great.

I am once again amazed by Lewis Carroll's imagination. Seriously, how can you come up with stuff like this??

Some of my favorite quotes:

However, this was anything but a regular bee: in fact it was an elephant.

and

Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said: 'one CAN'T believe impossible things.'
'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

and

'I didn't say there was nothing BETTER,' the King replied. 'I said there was nothing LIKE it.'

Ha ha. If you need some cheering up, these are the books for you! :-)

Challenges: 2nds Challenge, 999 Challenge, Decades Challenge

Twilight

I'm probably the last person in the world to read the first book of this series, but hey, it was worth the wait! I was even more curious to read it after I saw the movie in December - I thought it was really beautifully filmed. So when I started reading I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the tone, the atmosphere of the book was the same as in the movie. So they got it right!

Twilight is a love story between Bella and Edward. They don't really have the usual teenage complications, but they have a different (big) one. Edward is a vampire. He's a good vampire and tries real hard not to feed on humans, but still. I liked the way their differences were treated by Stephanie Meyer - it doesn't really bother Bella that Edward could eat her at any moment. That's really the best example of adolescent love and trust I've seen, obvously brought to new heights.

I really enjoyed reading this. The first half was slow and dark - Meyer had to set up the characters I guess. Then it got very exciting and I couldn't put it down.

I won't say any more, since you've all either read it or at least heard about it. Just that I'll need to get to a bookstore to buy the second book soon!

Challenges: 1st in a series, 999 Challenge, A-Z Challenge, Banned Book Challenge, Countdown Challenge, New Authors, Romance Reading Challenge, TBR Challenge, What an Animal, What's in a Name, YA Romance, Young Adult Reading Challenge, Whitcoulls Challenge

The Time Machine

The Time Machine was my first book by H.G. Wells and I owe my discovery of this fantastic author to Nymeth, who in her recent review mentioned that it's available online here.

Reading this online has been a great way to use my coffee breaks and lunchtimes. I will definitely check out loads of the other classics available there when time allows.

The Time Machine itself was very enjoybale and I plan to read more by H.G. Wells. I've certainly always wanted to read War of the Worlds so that might be next. The story is told by an unnamed narrator who hears it told by a man known only as The Time Traveller. He is sceptical at first, but is convinced that time travel is possible by the end of the story.

And what a story! The Time Traveller travels to the year 802,701 and finds life on Earth very different from what he knows in his own time. The people are happy and peaceful and he assumes that this is the natural progression of intellect. I don't want to give away anything about the story, but obviously there are a few twists and surprises.

What I liked most about it is what I also liked about Lois Lowry's The Giver - the question of do we really want peace and quiet and order and what it will really look like once we achieve it.

I was also very impressed by how far ahead of his time H.G. Wells was. Even the chapters where he travels even further than 802,701 show are realistic. I hope not, but you never know, with the direction our planet is going in!

The books was published in 1895 and contains in it so much of early science fiction, but also astute social commentary and an understanding of the world and its people and how they fit together. Figuring out what 802,701 was really like took some knowledge of human nature and interaction.

Anyway, I loved The Time Machine - thanks Nymeth for the suggestion and for helping me discover online reading! :-)

Challenges: A-Z Challenge, 999 Challenge, Casual Classics, Decades 2009, New Authors

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God is considered to be the first Afro-American feminist novel. I can definitely see why this is so. The heroine, Janie, is strong, intelligent, articulate and self-confident. She is one of the first black heroines to be like this, to have a mind of her own and to have her rich internal dialogue shown in literature.

Janie is a great character. She has so much common sense and I loved the way she behaved, not caring about social standards. She is also soft and feminine and romantic, so basically she's real. Her story is both sad and happy. A large portion of her life is very hard, but eventually she finds true love and her life is finally like she imagined and hoped it would be when she was a little girl.

One thing that I didn't like at the beginning but understood better after reading the introduction to this book is the dialogue between men. It annoyed me and I thought it was because it never actually brought the story forward, it didn't really contribute anything. I read afterwards that the author did this on purpose to signify a lack of growth. That made me see the novel in a completely different context.

I had some trouble 'reading the accent'... it was slow going at times and I really preferred the third person narrative just because it was easier to read.

And with writing like this, I didn't want to miss anything. Zora Neale Hurston's prose has been described as poetry and at times it really is. Here are two sentences that spoke to me:

It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again.

Isn't that beautiful? Or:

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

That is so true. And beautiful. And, to me at least, so powerful that the words are alive.

It makes me happy that a book like this is now a classic, considering that it didn't get very good reviews at the beginning. Not surprising though, since most reviewers were men!

Challenges: Decades Challenge, Genre Challenge

Through Thick and Thin - Young Women Talk Relationships

I picked up this short book edited by Jane Waghorn from the library last week, as it sounded interesting. Young women talking about their relationships with their families and friends. It was pretty good - I think it's one of those that is good for teens to read, because it shows them that they're not alone in the way they think.

The book is divided into sections by kind of relationship - with siblings, with mothers, fathers, grandparents, friends and boyfriends/girlfriends. I liked that the girls were in varying situations, some fairly standard and some not. The girls also came from different cultural backgrounds, which contributed something extra as well.

The message that came across strongest to me concerned how much is expected of young women today. Wow. I don't remember having that kind of pressure on me. I guess because we've become a culture of over-achievers, with women in general being expected to have fantastic and fulfilling careers as well as perfect families, this isn't so surprising. Many of the young women in this book were expected to take care of their siblings and participate in running the household - they had a lot of responsibility that seemed to belong more in the adult world. Maybe some of these expectations are worth thinking about. These days, watching what is going on around me and thinking of having kids of my own, I tend to vote for anything that prolongs childhoood. Kids grow up way too fast these days.

Challenges: 888 Challenge

The Third Policeman and some Polish reading

I wanted to read Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman since I heard that reading it would help me figure out what's going on in Lost. Great reason, eh? As it turns out, I'm no closer in understanding Lost... but I've realised that the absurd is not really for me...

The book itself is about some very strange events that happen to our main character. And by strange I mean really strange, like viewing a bicycle as almost human and developing a relationship with it. The action is peppered with some very long footnotes explaining the scientific theories of a Mr De Selby, greatly admired by the main character. I don't know whether the theories or the action is more absurd.

I'm not saying I hated it, I didn't. I did enjoy some bits and parts were definitely amusing. And there is no question that the story is extremely intelligent and that O'Brien was way ahead of his time when he wrote it around 1940 (it was only published in the 1960s). But it just wasn't my kind of thing.

I started The Third Policeman during the Read-A-Thon, which was definitely a mistake. Not a read-a-thon friendly book! The other book I half-finished during the Read-a-thon was a collection of columns by Polish actress Krystyna Janda, Rozowe Tabletki na Uspokojenie, which literally translated means Pink pills to calm you down. I'm enjoying reading in Polish a lot more than I used to, which was the point of the whole excercise so I'm happy. This particular book was entertaining, I'm glad I picked it up.

Challenges: A-Z Challenge, 888 Challenge, 1% Well-Read Challenge

The Truth About the Leprechaun

Intriguing title, eh? Both for a book and a blog post! When I saw Bob Curran's book in a shop when I was on holiday in ireland, I couldn't resist buying it... I admit that I couldn't resist many other books either and I'm sure to get to those sometime in the next few years. :-)

The Truth About the Leprechaun is just that. It tells us about where the leprechaun comes from, what folk tales are associated with it, how he fits into Irish folklore in general. It also gives tips on how to behave around a leprechaun (carefully!) and how to get it to tell the truth (although no solution is really offered for this).

It's interesting - the leprechaun isn't the smiling, jolly little green fella we see on tourist merchandise, but a malevolent trickster. I especially loved the stories that the author got from Irish people living in rural areas, tales of seeing a leprechaun as well as old stories that were passed on through generations. I really like that there is someone like Bob Curran who is collecting this information - the younger generations don't believe in fairies and all that so without books like this one all knowledge would be lost. And keep in mind that it might be true that they used to inhabit Ireland before people came so it's all history!

I liked a particular theory that I've only seen associated to the old gods so far - that although we think of leprechauns and fairies as small, they used to be big, they just got smaller as people believed in them less and less. I've heard this in relation to gods in general - that they're only powerful if people believe in them. I think it's an interesting aspect of the collective mind. Oh and Terry Pratchett used the theory in his book Small Gods. So it has to be true! :-)

I'd recommend this book to people who are interested in folklore and... well, that's it, pretty much. If you think fairies are a big lie you probably don't want to read this. Although I should point out that the style isn't dry and academic, but rather amusing. As if the author really thinks you'll meet a leprechaun soon and will need to know what not to do.

Challenges: Non-Fiction Five, 888 Challenge