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#7
Title: The Thief Lord
Author: Cornelia Funke
Pages: 345
Reason: For school
Grade: B+
Summary: Amazon.com
Imagine a Dickens story with a Venetian setting, and you'll have a good sense of Cornelia Funke's prizewinning novel The Thief Lord, first published in Germany in 2000. This suspenseful tale begins in a detective's office in Venice, as the entirely unpleasant Hartliebs request Victor Getz's services to search for two boys, Prosper and Bo, the sons of Esther Hartlieb's recently deceased sister. Twelve-year-old Prosper and 5-year-old Bo ran away when their aunt decided she wanted to adopt Bo, but not his brother. Refusing to split up, they escaped to Venice, a city their mother had always described reverently, in great detail. Right away they hook up with a long-haired runaway named Hornet and various other ruffians who hole up in an abandoned movie theater and worship the elusive Thief Lord, a young boy named Scipio who steals jewels from fancy Venetian homes so his new friends can get the warm clothes they need. Of course, the plot thickens when the owner of the pawn shop asks if the Thief Lord will carry out a special mission for a wealthy client: to steal a broken wooden wing that is the key to completing an age-old, magical merry-go-round. This winning cast of characters--especially the softhearted detective with his two pet turtles--will win the hearts of readers young and old, and the adventures are as labyrinthine and magical as the streets of Venice itself.
Review: I enjoyed reading this book. I had to give a book talk in my YA Lit class, so I chose this one because it had been sitting in my bookshelf ever since I read Inkheart a year and a half ago. Having devoured Inkheart and Inkspell, I had very high expectations for The Thief Lord. Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to them. I definitely liked the book, but I felt like there were too many little mini-plots woven in. I also didn't feel a real connection to any of the characters, which always makes a difference. Still, it was a fun story. I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks alongside Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, which I'll be reading soon for another class. My YA prof suggested the two books would complement each other...the concept of "pairing" books has been an important one in that class. Basically, when teaching a younger group, such as high school kids, you would give them The Giver before they'd read 1984, or along those lines. Something easy to give them the general idea before they read the more challenging work. I would recommend this book to someone looking for an easy, distracting read.
#8
Title: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Author: Stephen Chbosky
Pages: 213
Reason: School
Grade: B+
Summary: Amazon.com
What is most notable about this funny, touching, memorable first novel from Stephen Chbosky is the resounding accuracy with which the author captures the voice of a boy teetering on the brink of adulthood. Charlie is a freshman. And while's he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. He's a wallflower--shy and introspective, and intelligent beyond his years, if not very savvy in the social arts. We learn about Charlie through the letters he writes to someone of undisclosed name, age, and gender, a stylistic technique that adds to the heart-wrenching earnestness saturating this teen's story. Charlie encounters the same struggles that many kids face in high school--how to make friends, the intensity of a crush, family tensions, a first relationship, exploring sexuality, experimenting with drugs--but he must also deal with his best friend's recent suicide. Charlie's letters take on the intimate feel of a journal as he shares his day-to-day thoughts and feelings:
I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. If they like their jobs. Or us. And I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report due on top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why.
With the help of a teacher who recognizes his wisdom and intuition, and his two friends, seniors Samantha and Patrick, Charlie mostly manages to avoid the depression he feels creeping up like kudzu. When it all becomes too much, after a shocking realization about his beloved late Aunt Helen, Charlie retreats from reality for awhile. But he makes it back in due time, ready to face his sophomore year and all that it may bring. Charlie, sincerely searching for that feeling of "being infinite," is a kindred spirit to the generation that's been slapped with the label X. --Brangien Davis
Review: I'm not even sure what to say about this book. Chbosky has written the most endearing, complex, believable characters I've encountered in a long time. I felt like Sam and Patrick would be MY best friends...the narration was very effective and personal. I was able to draw parallels between this book and others I've read, notably Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain. Patrick, one of Charlie's close friends, is gay, and the boy he loves is the school quarterback, Brad. The relationship between the two reminded me a lot of that of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, with Patrick in the role of Jack and Brad as Ennis. Being able to link the two made it more meaningful for me, because I adore Brokeback Mountain (in both of its incarnations). Anyway. I think this book covers a lot of important topics for high schoolers today (and yesterday, and tomorrow, for that matter). I highly recommend this to anyone, but be aware, there is sensitive subject matter.
#9
Title: Pamela
Author: Samuel Richardson
Pages: 503
Reason: School
Grade: C-
Summary: Book Description
'Pamela under the Notion of being a Virtuous Modest Girl will be introduced into all Familes,and when she gets there, what Scenes does she represent? Why a fine young Gentleman endeavouring to debauch a beautiful young Girl of Sixteen.' (Pamela Censured, 1741) One of the most spectacular successes of the burgeoning literary marketplace of eighteeent-century London, Pamela also marked a defining moment in the emergence of the modern novel. In the words of one contemporary, it divided the world 'into two different Parties, Pamelists and Antipamelists', even eclipsing the sensational factional politics of the day. Preached up for its morality, and denounced as pornography in disguise, it vividly describes a young servant's long resistance to the attempts of her predatory master to seduce her. Written in the voice of its low-born heroine, but by a printer who fifteen years earlier had narrowly escaped imprisonment for the seditious output of his press, Pamela is not only a work of pioneering psychological complexity, but also a compelling and provocative study of power and its abuse. Based on the original text of 1740, from which Richardson later retreated in a series of defensive revisions, this edition makes available the version of Pamela that aroused such widespread controversy on its first appearance.
Review: The first thing that irritated me about this novel was the lightness the idea of rape was taken with, although I think a lot of that stemmed from class discussion, not the novel itself. The novel was fairly interesting for the first 250 pages or so, and then got incredibly dull. It was far too long and laborious to read. And the 2008 woman in me was just screaming at all of the submission and snivelling of the women. I wouldn't recommend this one.
#10
Title: Shamela
Author: Henry Fielding
Pages: 43
Reason: School
Grade: B
Summary: This book is 100% a mockery of Pamela. Shamela is actually scheming to get Mr. B. to marry her, and of course, it works.
Review: This book was far more entertaining to read, but I can't recommend it because you really must read Pamela first, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone!
#7
Title: The Thief Lord
Author: Cornelia Funke
Pages: 345
Reason: For school
Grade: B+
Summary: Amazon.com
Imagine a Dickens story with a Venetian setting, and you'll have a good sense of Cornelia Funke's prizewinning novel The Thief Lord, first published in Germany in 2000. This suspenseful tale begins in a detective's office in Venice, as the entirely unpleasant Hartliebs request Victor Getz's services to search for two boys, Prosper and Bo, the sons of Esther Hartlieb's recently deceased sister. Twelve-year-old Prosper and 5-year-old Bo ran away when their aunt decided she wanted to adopt Bo, but not his brother. Refusing to split up, they escaped to Venice, a city their mother had always described reverently, in great detail. Right away they hook up with a long-haired runaway named Hornet and various other ruffians who hole up in an abandoned movie theater and worship the elusive Thief Lord, a young boy named Scipio who steals jewels from fancy Venetian homes so his new friends can get the warm clothes they need. Of course, the plot thickens when the owner of the pawn shop asks if the Thief Lord will carry out a special mission for a wealthy client: to steal a broken wooden wing that is the key to completing an age-old, magical merry-go-round. This winning cast of characters--especially the softhearted detective with his two pet turtles--will win the hearts of readers young and old, and the adventures are as labyrinthine and magical as the streets of Venice itself.
Review: I enjoyed reading this book. I had to give a book talk in my YA Lit class, so I chose this one because it had been sitting in my bookshelf ever since I read Inkheart a year and a half ago. Having devoured Inkheart and Inkspell, I had very high expectations for The Thief Lord. Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to them. I definitely liked the book, but I felt like there were too many little mini-plots woven in. I also didn't feel a real connection to any of the characters, which always makes a difference. Still, it was a fun story. I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks alongside Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, which I'll be reading soon for another class. My YA prof suggested the two books would complement each other...the concept of "pairing" books has been an important one in that class. Basically, when teaching a younger group, such as high school kids, you would give them The Giver before they'd read 1984, or along those lines. Something easy to give them the general idea before they read the more challenging work. I would recommend this book to someone looking for an easy, distracting read.
#8
Title: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Author: Stephen Chbosky
Pages: 213
Reason: School
Grade: B+
Summary: Amazon.com
What is most notable about this funny, touching, memorable first novel from Stephen Chbosky is the resounding accuracy with which the author captures the voice of a boy teetering on the brink of adulthood. Charlie is a freshman. And while's he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. He's a wallflower--shy and introspective, and intelligent beyond his years, if not very savvy in the social arts. We learn about Charlie through the letters he writes to someone of undisclosed name, age, and gender, a stylistic technique that adds to the heart-wrenching earnestness saturating this teen's story. Charlie encounters the same struggles that many kids face in high school--how to make friends, the intensity of a crush, family tensions, a first relationship, exploring sexuality, experimenting with drugs--but he must also deal with his best friend's recent suicide. Charlie's letters take on the intimate feel of a journal as he shares his day-to-day thoughts and feelings:
I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. If they like their jobs. Or us. And I wonder how smart they were when they were fifteen. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day, and how they are able to cope with having three quizzes and a book report due on top of that. Or wondering who did the heart breaking. And wondering why.
With the help of a teacher who recognizes his wisdom and intuition, and his two friends, seniors Samantha and Patrick, Charlie mostly manages to avoid the depression he feels creeping up like kudzu. When it all becomes too much, after a shocking realization about his beloved late Aunt Helen, Charlie retreats from reality for awhile. But he makes it back in due time, ready to face his sophomore year and all that it may bring. Charlie, sincerely searching for that feeling of "being infinite," is a kindred spirit to the generation that's been slapped with the label X. --Brangien Davis
Review: I'm not even sure what to say about this book. Chbosky has written the most endearing, complex, believable characters I've encountered in a long time. I felt like Sam and Patrick would be MY best friends...the narration was very effective and personal. I was able to draw parallels between this book and others I've read, notably Annie Proulx's Brokeback Mountain. Patrick, one of Charlie's close friends, is gay, and the boy he loves is the school quarterback, Brad. The relationship between the two reminded me a lot of that of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, with Patrick in the role of Jack and Brad as Ennis. Being able to link the two made it more meaningful for me, because I adore Brokeback Mountain (in both of its incarnations). Anyway. I think this book covers a lot of important topics for high schoolers today (and yesterday, and tomorrow, for that matter). I highly recommend this to anyone, but be aware, there is sensitive subject matter.
#9
Title: Pamela
Author: Samuel Richardson
Pages: 503
Reason: School
Grade: C-
Summary: Book Description
'Pamela under the Notion of being a Virtuous Modest Girl will be introduced into all Familes,and when she gets there, what Scenes does she represent? Why a fine young Gentleman endeavouring to debauch a beautiful young Girl of Sixteen.' (Pamela Censured, 1741) One of the most spectacular successes of the burgeoning literary marketplace of eighteeent-century London, Pamela also marked a defining moment in the emergence of the modern novel. In the words of one contemporary, it divided the world 'into two different Parties, Pamelists and Antipamelists', even eclipsing the sensational factional politics of the day. Preached up for its morality, and denounced as pornography in disguise, it vividly describes a young servant's long resistance to the attempts of her predatory master to seduce her. Written in the voice of its low-born heroine, but by a printer who fifteen years earlier had narrowly escaped imprisonment for the seditious output of his press, Pamela is not only a work of pioneering psychological complexity, but also a compelling and provocative study of power and its abuse. Based on the original text of 1740, from which Richardson later retreated in a series of defensive revisions, this edition makes available the version of Pamela that aroused such widespread controversy on its first appearance.
Review: The first thing that irritated me about this novel was the lightness the idea of rape was taken with, although I think a lot of that stemmed from class discussion, not the novel itself. The novel was fairly interesting for the first 250 pages or so, and then got incredibly dull. It was far too long and laborious to read. And the 2008 woman in me was just screaming at all of the submission and snivelling of the women. I wouldn't recommend this one.
#10
Title: Shamela
Author: Henry Fielding
Pages: 43
Reason: School
Grade: B
Summary: This book is 100% a mockery of Pamela. Shamela is actually scheming to get Mr. B. to marry her, and of course, it works.
Review: This book was far more entertaining to read, but I can't recommend it because you really must read Pamela first, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone!