Review: Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla

Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I'll be disappointed if this book gets serious Caldecott action.

It was a bare-bones full-timeline biography, already treated so much better in Applegate's novel [b:The One and Only Ivan|11594337|The One and Only Ivan|Katherine Applegate|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1326506063s/11594337.jpg|16536239]. The story wasn't really interesting, except as a visual follow-up to the novel (which was good, but I really disagreed with its Newbery award). I wish Applegate had focused in on a slice of the story that could have been developed more roundly, like the transition to the zoo being difficult, or what one might think of Ivan's paintings.

Karas' work is interesting to look at. His most intriguing choice was to make the humans cartoonish and flat while making the gorillas realistic and expressive. He used both space on the page and painting/drawing techniques to create shifts in tone as the narrative moved along--also somewhat of a separate, complementary narrative (not so for every spread, but for many).



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Review: Grandfather Gandhi

Grandfather Gandhi by Arun Gandhi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This was a pleasant slice of history from a primary source. The interesting turn is that it is less about Mahatma Gandhi, and more what it was like for the grandson to grow up in his shadow. Expectations were thick in the telling, and Evan Turk's fiber work was a brilliant way to illustrate the boy's fomenting anger and frustration. It felt human to see the doubt and anger be the object of the story and take up the bulk of the time. While the lesson his grandfather taught him was probably important, this felt less important than Arun's mismatch to the big world of expectations.

It felt a bit cheap that the worst moment of anger was almost throwing a rock at someone. I'm not sure what to think. It makes him seem like he's inflating himself some by giving us an 'almost' moment, and then solving it by going directly to his wise grandfather for advice. While this may be the true memory, is it the best story about learning to work with anger? I wasn't so convinced.



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Review: A Dance Like Starlight: One Ballerina's Dream

A Dance Like Starlight: One Ballerina's Dream by Kristy Dempsey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Cooper's palette, settings, clothing are spot-on. It looks like a 1940s-1950s set and cast! Once in the 70s when everyone was all romantic about the 50s I asked my mom what those days looked like, and she said she remembered almost everything was brown. All the pink and candy-apple red in the tv shows and movies was exaggerated, rare color for a very muted time. Cooper does much to set the tone and to emphasize accuracy as an expectation for this historical fiction piece.

The best thing about Dempsey's story was that she displaced the story of Janet Collins into the point of view of a little girl inspired by Collins' 1951 debut at the Met. This slice into an everyday telling of this story captured me. This move sets Kristy Dempsey apart from recent biographers of Josephine Baker ([b:Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker|17043027|Josephine The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker|Patricia Hruby Powell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1365397015s/17043027.jpg|23361239] and Florence Mills ([b:Harlem's Little Blackbird|13531513|Harlem's Little Blackbird|Renée Watson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333578009s/13531513.jpg|19093186]), who went for the rags to riches formula. There was really only one 'moment' in the words that grabbed me, when the Ballet Master noticed the unnamed narrator dancing. Even in historical fiction, I expect the storyteller to show me instead of just telling me. And in a story about hope I wanted Dempsey to build on the one moment and craft something evocative in unfolding the visit to the Met.



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Review: The Snow Show

The Snow Show by Carolyn Fisher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This kind of presentation is a great way to keep the storybook alive as greater demand for informational text pushes forward. There are a lot of good narratives in science, including how snow is made. Given how 'just right' things have to be in place for it to happen, it's amazing we have so much snow in the world!

All of this was made even better when we brought Carolyn in by Skype from Calgary to talk to our class about storyboarding, illustration, and production for the book! Exciting to have this kind of insider perspective. She did a fantastic presentation, with drawing included, and via Skype it was so reasonable.



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Review: Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth

Buried Sunlight: How Fossil Fuels Have Changed the Earth by Molly Bang

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I was not drawn in as strongly to this book as I was [b:Ocean Sunlight: How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas|13039569|Ocean Sunlight How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas|Molly Bang|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344693911s/13039569.jpg|18203420]. Maybe it was the palette, maybe it's because I had been looking for a good book on plankton and hadn't been searching for a good book on CO2.

While reading I had a hard time remembering the sun was the narrator because Bang only kept a subtle visual presence on each spread. The little yellow dots in the fossil fuel areas was not quite enough to remind me sunlight was supposed to be a character. I liked the way [a:Carolyn Fisher|1312768|Carolyn Fisher|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-ccc56e79bcc2db9e6cdcd450a4940d46.png] kept her Snowman narrator visually present throughout her presentation on how snow is made in [b:The Snow Show|4414904|The Snow Show|Carolyn Fisher|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328834459s/4414904.jpg|4463068], even when in vapor form.

Still, I like Bang & Chisolm's series, and this felt like a clear and even-handed description of how carbon emissions are related to climate.



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Review: The Slug

The Slug by Elise Gravel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Funny dialog between narrator and slug lightened up the facts, and the animation-style cartoon illustrations brought a great tone. This was a good way to do an informational presentation about slugs. I hoped at first this was going to be a sample of an under-represented animal getting a picturebook dedicated to it. While that's partially true, I was disappointed to see it was part of a series on disgusting animals. The others in the series: worm, fly, rat would be fun to read, too! I'll have to get them. This disgusting animal series is an interesting and fun thing to see in its own right, so I still found it very enjoyable!

Why no back matter or sources for the research?



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Review: The Slug

The Slug by Elise Gravel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Funny dialog between narrator and slug lightened up the facts, and the animation-style cartoon illustrations brought a great tone. This was a good way to do an informational presentation about slugs. I hoped at first this was going to be a sample of an under-represented animal getting a picturebook dedicated to it. While that's partially true, I was disappointed to see it was part of a series on disgusting animals. The others in the series: worm, fly, rat would be fun to read, too! I'll have to get them. This disgusting animal series is an interesting and fun thing to see in its own right, so I still found it very enjoyable!



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Review: Galapagos George

Galapagos George by Jean Craighead George

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This is another example of the growing trend of using biographical style to treat the story of a remarkable individual animal. Jean George shared her own surname with Lonesome George, the tortoise the story is about. So she used this name to trace the tortoise's ancestors back eons into evolutionary time. It was a good technique, and a simple way to present some scientific facts about the tortoises.

At first I was bothered by the near duplication of Jason Chin's cover from [b:Island: A Story of the Galápagos|13170025|Island A Story of the Galápagos|Jason Chin|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1340899771s/13170025.jpg|18349340]. But the interior was different enough that it did not feel like a simple ripoff. While the narrative held things together, it was not particularly compelling or engaging. The back matter has plenty of reference information both about the book itself and to guide me out to other sources. In particular, George mentions the Charles Darwin Research Station and near the end features working scientists--good move!



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Review: Weeds Find a Way

Weeds Find a Way by Cindy Jenson-Elliott

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



[a:Carolyn Fisher|1312768|Carolyn Fisher|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-ccc56e79bcc2db9e6cdcd450a4940d46.png]'s deep textures and dynamic lines in the composition drew me in and gave me a sense of movement, something happening on each double-page spread throughout the whole book. This started with a wide variety of seeds moving around the landscapes, finding their way. It culminated with the lines signifying plants moving by growing down, up, and out. The beauty of the weeds was enchanting, and reminded me of the Lao and Hmong people I knew in San Diego, who insisted there was no word in their language for 'weed'. I loved the earthy palette. The back matter offered more information on specific weeds and on what it means for a plant to be a weed. While this information offers much of what is there on the wikipedia page, the story itself is built on its own narrative structure, not on a simple narrative outline.



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Review: Ashley Bryan's Puppets: Making Something from Everything

Ashley Bryan's Puppets: Making Something from Everything by Ashley Bryan

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



For the prolific author-illustrator, this felt like a tribute book. His eclectic array of puppets is each displayed and introduced in free verse. While the strangeness of his puppets is attractive, and I would love to see them in a performance, I did not get much of an experience from this book. It was more like a gallery or exhibit catalog than a children's book. There were too many presentations in a row, and no narrative to hold them together. Also, if I see puppets, I want to be led to a performance.

I didn't know about Bryan's puppet-making before, and the use of found objects was fascinating--especially the ways he was able to channel imagery and tone from African traditional sculpture.



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Review: Bad Bye, Good Bye

Bad Bye, Good Bye by Deborah Underwood

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



For the words, the only thing about this book is the word play on badbye/goodbye. Underwood also did well at writing so the rhythm stayed clear. But I thought this was the sort of overdone topic and style that editors weren't supposed to be interested in even looking at anymore. "How about a book where a kid moves away from home, but learns to feel better--and it will rhyme!?" I guess once you've got a foot in the door and you have an editor you can pitch ideas the regular public couldn't even get an agent to look at.

Bean's illustrations were interesting to look at. The way he used blurred overlays and backgrounds around the main picture gave a feeling of movement, but not using the simple drawing technique of dynamic lines. This is reminiscent of Donald Crews, who made movement with similar techniques in books like [b:Shortcut|368196|Shortcut|Donald Crews|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388254903s/368196.jpg|3109645]. I felt not only movement, but also a cinematic feeling of many things happening or moving around the main figures in time with recently past images gradually fading and others coming into focus.



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Review: Brother Hugo and the Bear

Brother Hugo and the Bear by Katy Beebe

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Primary source documents often have these little human moments that hint at a wider story. Beebe took this found moment and magnifies it into a charming tale. She did not take the easy way out, and chose to exit with a good punch line. Schindler did a good job of using the narrative elements known from the flat iconic church style, without needing to go all the way there. He offered depth with a hint at the flatness, and went to town instead with the decorative elements in and surrounding the capital letters.

All in all I enjoyed it because of how it treated this small slice of history, without the need to present the whole timeline. The end notes provided enough context to help me see how the artists made their decisions, and to appreciate the historical facts and background knowledge both of them brought in their research.



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Review: Draw!

Draw! by Raúl Colón

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Colón charts his own path in a medium well known in the 80s and 90s from the likes of [a:Chris Vanallsburg|6865653|Chris Vanallsburg|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-ccc56e79bcc2db9e6cdcd450a4940d46.png] and [a:William Joyce|137553|William Joyce|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1407870851p2/137553.jpg]. Not to mention, it reminds me of Nancy Erekson's beautiful prismacolor on paper work! Nancy reminds me how long this kind of layering takes, so I appreciate how much work the book represents. Colón's flawless drawing! I could sit and look at the giraffe page for hours! I loved watching how he used the palette for all the shadows and nuances. Look at those reds in the chin stripes on the zebra, and the blue green shadows on the backs of the giraffes' legs! And the way drawing paper insists on its own texture despite the colors makes each page so look-at-able.

The peritext says [a:Raúl Colón|3513587|Raúl Colón|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1307040621p2/3513587.jpg] used lithograph pencils, and Nancy and I discussed whether he did the scratches in the paper beforehand so the drawing wouldn't go into those grooves or whether he scratched afterward to create those interesting contour lines. I think Nancy is probably right: he likely grooved his pencil drawing before digging in with the prismacolors.

The little jokes in the narrative were a lot of fun: Making the front and back of the story in the 'real' world less realistic, drawn with black outline; moving out of imagination was a visual loss, more spare; keeping the animal from the previous page and showing it in the background on the next page--the rhino was pretty funny; the way the little heron gets on its tiptoes to try to see the elephant drawing; boy on back of elephant, birds on back of buffalo. Not laugh-out-loud jokes, just fun.

It's a simple narrative: draw pictures of folks and share sandwiches with them. As with other memorable books about making pictures ([b:Harold and the Purple Crayon|98573|Harold and the Purple Crayon|Crockett Johnson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327390957s/98573.jpg|1285373], [b:Journey|17262290|Journey|Aaron Becker|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1367256642s/17262290.jpg|23859090]) Colón's work makes magic out of visual imagining.

A wonderful main character with brown skin, strong multiculturalism without making the story follow that topic. There was no trace of tokenism, just good representation in a strong wordless picturebook.



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Review: Feathers: Not Just for Flying

Feathers: Not Just for Flying by Melissa Stewart

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Stewart made a cross-cutting narrative that was a clear arc across the entire book, using similes to find human connection to the information. This broader presentation is in large print at the top of each page, suggesting a read-aloud of the entire book to get the main point (diverse functions of feathers on various kinds of birds) before coming back to look at the detailed text vignettes on each page that explain feather functions in more informational terms.

Remarkable illustrations, challenging material, demanding a realism that must have been painstaking. What was even more fun about the illustration was how Brannen illustrated all the little adhesives and office supplies (frames, paper, cardboard, pins, paperclips, tape, staples). This gave me the feeling that I was looking at her visual research, not just at her paintings. I loved how this playful postmodern decision makes me think about Brannen and storyboarding process.

While some of the writing work, and certainly the illustrations added to the informational outline, this is clearly one of those books where the question "is it better than looking at the wikipedia page" raises my eyebrows. I think there should have been a different cut through this topic to justify a full four-color hard-cover picture book.



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Review: Hatchet

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



A quick caveat. My 2 stars are for the 2006 reprint edition with the green cover only.

It's like Simon & Schuster didn't even hire a copy editor. Someone made a bad scan of an early manuscript or something, and then didn't even check the copy! For example, page 69: "[The bear] was black, with a cinnamon-colored noise." This edition came out in 2006, well before the financial crisis, well before all the editors at all the publishing houses started getting fired in droves.

For a Newbery Honor book in reprint, you'd S&S would be careful. At any rate, when the misprinted words didn't make sense in the sentence it emphasized the odd, repetitive style Paulsen used in this book, but in unfavorable ways. I believe the first time I read it, this was part of the book's charm even though it was hard to get used to--it was a kind of writerly writing. This time, with the copy editing errors I had to endure not only the repetitive prose, but then I had to re-read a lot of those sentences, multiplying the effect unpleasantly.

Anyway, the book is on Pearl's 'battle of the books' list this year, and this was the only edition B&N had on the shelf. So I'm reading it aloud to her. Bonus, she threw up this evening right before I read Chapter 7 to her, the one with all the throwing up! I might get back in later and rate the book better if I can go down to the library and get an older edition. Lazy publishing just made me crabby.



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Review: Conversational Tahitian; An Introduction To The Tahitian Language Of French Polynesia

Conversational Tahitian; An Introduction To The Tahitian Language Of French Polynesia by D.T. Tryon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Are you interested in learning Tahitian? Are you not French? This book is about all there is. Got the last two cheap used copies from abebooks and amazon, sent one to Bela just before she ships out next week!



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Review: The Pilot and the Little Prince: The Life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Pilot and the Little Prince: The Life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry by Peter Sís

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Sís is a long-time favorite of mine, and I find his recent foray into biography interesting. In his interview in The Guardian he writes about his inspiration for this book, showing that his motivations are largely personal. I don't think I appreciated this biography as much as he would have wanted. I don't always like picturebooks that try to do a whole lifespan in the biography. Lately I'm more intrigued when an author picks out the interesting slice from a bigger-than-life life and deepens the experience of just that moment.



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Review: Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker

Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Powell's rhythmic yet unmetered prose was a perfect match to Josephine Baker's improvisational style. Robinson's folk-art style allowed him to emphasize movement with flowing lines and evocative shapes. This was a great match of author and illustrator. The consistency of the pictures with the subject reminded me of [b:A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams|3238642|A River of Words The Story of William Carlos Williams|Jennifer Fisher Bryant|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347836624s/3238642.jpg|3273289]

From my review of Robinson's work with Renee Watson on [b:Harlem's Little Blackbird|13531513|Harlem's Little Blackbird|Renée Watson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333578009s/13531513.jpg|19093186]: "Like other well-known biographies of American figures, this one focuses on a 'from humble beginnings all the way to the world stage' narrative." This thematic similarity made me wonder how the project came about. Did Robinson pitch it and get matched up to Powell, or did Powell pitch the book and then Chronicle editors asked Robinson because of his known work?

It is the sort of 'pull up your own bootstraps' story that we love in America. But the story is laced with sad moments skipped over quickly in the writing. Clearly, to fulfill her potential as an artist, Baker left a lot of people behind. These were not excluded from the story, but Powell makes it seem like none of these cruelties mattered, when they might have been a deep source of humanity in the writing. I see many writers today, even on TV now, who are good at presenting darker moments of cruelty without painting over them or justifying them. If this had been different I would have reached for that fourth star.



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Review: El Deafo

El Deafo by Cece Bell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



So at first I was skeptical because of the drawing style. I was worried that the story would be preachy, condescending, or smarmy. The tone of the stylized animal people reminded me of Marc Brown, and I didn't want to see a remix of Arthurian ;-) sermons. Bell unworried me quickly.

Her first-person narration was compelling from the very first pages, including her gradual realization as a preschooler that she was losing her hearing. I expect a lot of people will be writing about how the book handles a topic in diversity, but I didn't feel like this book was topical at all. It was enjoyable and engaging because of the clear human themes, it was so much more than a book about being deaf, and certainly did not devolve into any kind of pity story.

People, myself included, often feel paralyzed and unable to say what we really want to say. I think this is what Bell did with authority in this book. Any potentially risky situation can make loss of voice happen. Bell exaggerated this for me with anxiety about her hearing devices, but she also gave this theme plenty of air time in other dialog (not about hearing) between her and her friends and family. I felt like I got a very specific experience of inclusion and exclusion, the tension between wanting a strong identity yet feeling 'othered' by forces outside my control. It was a good experience! Because the power she eventually gained mostly just 'happened', it did not feel like she was working toward a big finale about the triumph of the human spirit as much as she was showing how she was able to transform herself around some small happy accidents of fate.

As such, I was a little disappointed when the afterword was dedicated solely to discussion about growing up deaf. Yes, I appreciated its overall value, but hoped for a little more than a topical discussion. I would have liked to read maybe even an invited preface by another author (like [a:R.J. Palacio|4859212|R.J. Palacio|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1351246501p2/4859212.jpg]on the cover) where some of the broader literary work might have been noticed in front or back matter for this edition! (Maybe when it goes to next edition, right?)



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Review: The Book with No Pictures

The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novak

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



My favorite thing about writing this review was putting the book on my 'picturebooks' shelf. It has to go there, because it does everything (but one) to send the signals it is a picturebook. While absence of pictures is the point of the book, Novak used standard size, cover, endsheets, and other picturebook format to craft the contradiction (counterpoint)!

As postmodern fiction, the book is gimmicky. But it is clearly directed at the read-aloud as the toy being played with, so this specific gimmick is something we haven't already seen a lot of. For example, similar postmodern objectifying of the book was there in Lane Smith's [b:It's a Book|7747422|It's a Book|Lane Smith|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1316737426s/7747422.jpg|10577192], but Smith's work plays on different features of the picturebook experience. Novak makes narrator and audience into literal, explicit characters instead of leaving them tacit or projecting them onto an illustrated character in the book--I get to imagine this fictional read-aloud person in the book as 'me'.

Because it demands an audience that is well-saturated with experience in read-alouds, I can't see myself doing this read-aloud until I am sure the kids do have that deep experience with picturebooks and read-alouds. A well-versed crowd of picturebook aficionados should be ready for the laughs!

Finally, and most enjoyable--this is a book about prosody! The small sans-serif reader parts felt like I should read them in Jim Gaffigan's 'aside' voice from his stand-up comedy. Direct use of graphic design elements such as font, size, color, ellipses, page placement (including use of negative space), are a little bit over the top. I tend to prefer it when readers are guided to a choice instead of 'told' how to read the words. But many of these graphic design moves help Novak stage the obviously different characters with a kind of 'stage directions' tone that helps readers maintain the different voices needed for the book to work well. So despite my preferences, it was a pleasing approach to prosody.

I'd love to see Novak do something more with these simple manipulations of narrative structure and the social machinery of the picturebook read-aloud!



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Review: Harris and Me

Harris and Me by Gary Paulsen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I'm reading this the same time I'm reading [b:Hatchet|69940|Hatchet (Brian's Saga, #1)|Gary Paulsen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388190251s/69940.jpg|1158125] out loud to the family. I should have picked this one for read-aloud! The nostalgia of farm life is well-laced with manure, chores, cuts and bruises. Watching the two boys get into trouble chapter after chapter was like repeated dips into the Foolish section of [a:Stith Thompson|288488|Stith Thompson|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-ccc56e79bcc2db9e6cdcd450a4940d46.png]'s folk motif chapter on the Wise and the Foolish.

The episodes would have felt completely folk-tale-ish if they hadn't reminded me so much of the dumb stuff my cousins and I used to do up at grandma and grandpa's property in Butler. I laughed out loud several times during the reading, so that Pearl had to come over and see what I was reading. She might be in next.



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Review: The Vacation

The Vacation by Polly Horvath

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This was a great read-aloud. I so enjoy when Polly Horvath puts her effort into drawing the characters in all their humanity even if it paints her into some strange plot corners. I don't know if I even remember what really happened for most of the book, but I do remember laughing out loud over and over at the way Henry and his aunts said things. When Henry realized that he preferred his 'unpleasant' people to the milquetoast folks they met near the end, it felt good to agree. This is one of the great things about experiencing unpleasantness in books--I can agree with Henry in principle, but then be glad I'm not actually in the family in the book. Unpleasant people and situations are also so much more interesting and tolerable when the writing is funny!



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Review: Can You Survive Storm Chasing?: An Interactive Survival Adventure

Can You Survive Storm Chasing?: An Interactive Survival Adventure by Elizabeth Raum

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



An informational spin on the choose your own adventure structure, embedding the 2nd-person 'you' character (me) into factual scenarios of extreme weather. The choices were pretty benign, until I made a wrong one! (And ended up with a severed carotid artery from a flying shard of glass.)

Elizabeth Raum did a good job of working in the real-life science work with the facts about each kind of storm. Quick pacing of the plot elements makes up for lack of development in the stock story.

Just enough photos, but maybe could have used more? Back matter good for informational text. Uncertain whether bibliography items were Raum's sources or her ideas for extension texts.



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Review: West of the Moon

West of the Moon by Margi Preus

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Nancy warned me the ending might be disappointing, but I didn't realize she meant the very ending! Instead of the last mini-chapter, Preus should have written just, "And they all learned their lesson and decided everyone could be friends." Gads, she held it together right until then. I literally threw the book down. Was this Margi Preus, a bully editor, who made the call on that too-easy ending?

Okay, so that bothered me, and a handful of loose strands she left hanging from earlier in the story. But I think Astri will linger with me for a while. She was a complicated, well-drawn antihero and I couldn't help but follow her along like Greta and have my heart broken a bit by each bad decision she made. She felt like a real person with real regrets that would follow her around. I started out rating this book as a three-star, but then I thought about how the middle of the book really drew me in with its character development and nice work with suspense.

In a piece of historical fiction I appreciated such a clear page of citations. Just enough to get one started. I think editors need to press the issue of being more clear about what is the difference between sources and extension material. The vague term 'bibliography' does not suggest academic sources enough, especially since its overuse as a term for extension materials in children's books for the past 20 years. I favor the term 'sources' as an honest representation of research. I'm not sure [b:Growth of the Soil|342049|Growth of the Soil|Knut Hamsun|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320482326s/342049.jpg|2435698]is the Hamsun title I would have picked to cite as an influence for this story. And did Preus not read Theodore Blegen or Ole Rolvaag?--I find these omissions from the list strange. Also, Astri feels like a page pulled right from Kristin Lavransdatter, especially the first book. I guess you can't credit every influence, and maybe I'm just being hyper-aware of possible Norwegian influences.

It was fun to see the stories about death I knew from Katherine Briggs' English tales (in addition to the traditional Norwegian raft), and I thought Preus might use these motifs to lead herself to an interesting and maybe elegant finish to the book with Astri dying. No dice. [Nancy also reminded me this nice weaving of folk material was so well done in [book:The Tiger's Wife|8366402], and I could certainly see that. The Norwegian storytelling also brought Paulsen's [b:The Winter Room|207589|The Winter Room|Gary Paulsen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386922287s/207589.jpg|1097662] to mind.]

I just felt like with a little more attention to the ending this could have been a book for the ages. Lois Lowry comes to mind as someone who has figured out how to craft a difficult ending that leaves one thinking and wanting to talk to people about what it all meant. Who else does it well?



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Review: The Night Gardener

The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I enjoyed how this book worked for me. The situations and characters brought out that genuine sense of dread and impending danger I recognize from nineteenth-century gothic novels. While Auxier cites different author influences, I was reminded clearly of Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, who was also excellent at evoking similar feelings. And he also noted that his wife is a scholar of Victorian literature, so it made sense.

I thought the storyteller character was a bit overdone and anachronistic, but it also appears to be a signature device of Auxier's (after visiting his site and seeing the romantic significance of the Anglo Saxon scop). The ending was also difficult to stomach, too tidy and preachy. My favorite gothic novels, while reaching a satisfying resolution, also do not work so strongly to dissipate the horror--it lingers in the story and then in my mind for a few days afterward.

So Auxier's directly didactic 'message' about wishing (he actually has characters cite Aesop in the text) was over the top in the ending, but was very interesting to follow throughout the body of the text (parts 1 & 2), where the power of the magic over the characters made a lot of sense.

Lu, you were right, it does have a lot of the tone and elements from Splendors & Glooms!




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