BOOK BLOGGER HOP: April Fools

This week's Book Blogger Hop hosted by Crazy for Books is celebrating one of my favorite days of the year -- April 1.

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word!  This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books!  It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read!  So, grab the logo, post about the Hop on your blog, and start HOPPING through the list of blogs that are posted in the Linky list below!!

The Hop lasts Friday-Monday every week, so if you don't have time to Hop today, come back later and join the fun!  This is a weekly event!  And stop back throughout the weekend to see all the new blogs that are added!  We get over 200 links every week!! 

RULES:

Your blog should have content related to books, including, but not limited to book reviews.
So, visit Crazy for Books and join the party.

This weekend's question is:

Since today is April Fool's Day in the USA, what is the best prank you have ever played on someone OR that someone has played on you?

I don't have any particularly noteworthy pranks to relate, only silly little things of the "you had to be there" variety.

April 1 is a special day for me for a different reason. It's my wedding anniversary! Yes, we scheduled our wedding for April Fool's Day. It was a particularly busy point in our lives and we had to squeeze that ceremony in. The first weekend in April fit the best.

I think maybe my husband (then boyfriend) liked the idea because he imagined it might give him a last minute out. But he went through with the wedding after all, and we've been married twenty-two years. And as a bonus, he's never forgotten the date!

Happy April Fool's Day everyone!

THE LITERARY BLOG HOP: March 31-April 2

It's time for the literary blog hop hosted by The Blue Bookcase. Hop on over to see what it's all about. It's a wonderful way to meet bloggers with similar reading habits.



This week's question posed by Meagan is:

Do you find yourself predisposed to like (or dislike) books that are generally accepted as great books and have been incorporated into the literary canon? Discuss the affect you believe a book’s “status” has on your opinion of it.

This is tough. I think I may give a book more of the benefit of the doubt if I feel I am supposed to like it. I try harder to appreciate "great books". I may be able to understand why a book has received its kudos even if I am not personally loving it. But I can't make myself like a book just because I'm supposed to. I probably feel guiltier for not liking it than I would for not liking the latest bestseller though.

My most recent example -- Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. I just finished reading this with my daughter. Over the years we've read a few of the books in this genre: Heidi, the Anne of Green Gables series, and now this one. In these stories there is an orphan or near-orphan child who is just so positive and sunny, with such natural curiosity and liveliness, that even though she gets into occasional scrapes, she wins over the whole town, including her caretakers. The caretakers include a curmudgeon and someone more kindly, or a variation on the theme. I loved Anne of Green Gables, every bit of it. But I found reading Rebecca to be a bit of a slog. She seemed to me a rather ordinary person except that the narrator kept telling me how remarkable she was. And I got a bit annoyed at how hard the narrator worked, trying to convince me of her opinion when I wasn't buying it. This is an enduring children's classic, but I had a hard time appreciating the positives (lovely descriptions, Rebecca's adorable attempts at writing) because I tended to dwell on the negatives (Her best friend has no personality but just drags around after her. Rebecca sells a man some soap and he stalks her throughout her childhood until she is almost a woman. Yikes!)

So, I might try harder to like a book that is generally accepted to be a great book. But in the end, a book's status won't win me over, only the book can do that.

YA BOOK REVIEW: Sean Griswold's Head by Lindsey Leavitt

Although I’ve pointed out before that I don’t read a whole lot of contemporary YA, every once in awhile a blurb catches my attention with a hook I can’t resist. Sean Griswold’s Head by Lindsey Leavitt is just such a book.

Payton Gritas is an unusual teenager in that she is bright, happy, athletic, a good student, has a loyal best friend, no issues with "mean" girls, and comes from a close-knit, functional family. Then she walks in on her mother giving her father an injection and a bomb explodes in her life. She learns her father has multiple sclerosis. He was diagnosed six months prior and her family has been keeping it from her.

Payton’s world falls apart. She reacts in an unpleasantly adolescent manner, but one that is in character and understandable. Payton just does not know how to cope with something this bad. Being angry with her parents for lying is easier than admitting her fear and lack of control. Her parents enlist the aid of a school counselor who assigns her the task of keeping a journal about a focus object. Learning to focus on something will help her to concentrate her emotions. It’s supposed to be an inanimate object, but she decides to focus on the (large) head of the boy who has been sitting in front of her in practically every class since third grade, Sean Griswold (Griswold/Gritas- it’s an alphabetical thing.)

What starts as almost a reluctant joke turns into an actual focus for her life as Payton finds herself more and more interested in the boy attached to the head. And while having a crush at first seems to complicate Payton’s life, creating more problems it solves, luckily, Sean has one steady head.

This is an enjoyable quick read with likeable teens in credible situations. It was easy to empathize with Payton, despite her self-centered behavior, very realistically portrayed. She wasn’t a perfect kid but she was a good kid. Readers will want things to work out well for her in a situation that will never be anything better than manageable. And readers will cheer for Sean, one of the nicest teen male protagonists I’ve run across in a long while. This sweet YA love story is, at heart, a book about learning to cope.

BOOK REVIEW: squirrel seeks chipmunk by David Sedaris

I hadn’t ever read anything by David Sedaris and I thought I should remedy that. The problem was which book to read. Then I heard about "squirrel seeks chipmunk." Aesop’s fables for the twenty-first century. I made my choice.

In this collection of stories (that can be devoured in a sitting) Sedaris uses animals to show what is wrong with humans. This is not a unique idea but Sedaris puts a new spin on it, and the fables definitely have a modern tone. Squirrels date chipmunks, mice raise snakes, one lab rat tries to tell another that the only thing wrong with him is his attitude... With stories like these, he mocks the moral failings that are most recognizable today. There are sixteen tales in this bestiary. The messages are not subtle but they are cleverly represented. Sedaris has a reputation for the humor of his writing, but I found these stories too brutal to truly be funny. Clever, yes. Entertaining, certainly. But too painfully harsh to make me laugh.

From this intro to Sedaris, I can see why his writing has received so much acclaim. The voice is strong and it’s impossible not to be affected by what you are reading. So now the problem is which of his books to read next.

YA BOOK REVIEW: The Legend of the King by Gerald Morris

The only bad thing about the story of Camelot is that I know how it’s going to end.

   King Arthur has played a large role in my long love affair with the middle ages. Once upon a time, the Arthurian ideal of chivalry embodied for me all the romantic and glorious images the word "medieval" conjured up: gallant knights, noble ladies, castles, questing, the protection of the downtrodden etc. Of course I learned that the real middle ages were nothing like Camelot. But I was thrilled to learn how the Arthurian romances were born in the middle ages. These extraordinary tales have survived through the centuries. They have been told and retold. New generations of story tellers have built upon them, turned them on their heads, told them from the point of view of major and minor characters– the adventure and romance live on.
But there is no escaping the fact that Camelot ends tragically. Good and evil clash. Evil doesn’t exactly triumph but it is a pyrrhic victory for good. No matter how you slice and dice the tale, it will break your heart.

   Which brings me to one of my favorite series of books and my review for today. If you like adventure tales that will captivate you, make you laugh out loud, characters that will win your heart, and writing that will make you stand in awe of the cleverness of the author, try reading The Squire’s Tale(s) by Gerald Morris. This ten book collection is written for older middle grade kids (I swear they are equally entertaining for boys and girls) and for teens. But if you are a grown-up who likes Arthuriana and you have no convenient young person around, go ahead and read the books just for yourself. The obvious jokes will entertain kids while the more subtle humor will have parents chuckling as they read between the lines.

   Morris retells several classic Arthurian tales, remaining surprisingly faithful to original storylines, but inserting enough extra context to help modern-day readers make sense of medieval material. Most, but not all, of the books make use of the boy named Terence from book number one (The Squire’s Tale) who ends up being squire to Sir Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew. Terence has other talents that I will leave you to discover. I read the book with my son, who was about 8 or 9 at the time. He was hooked. We’ve reread it more than once over the years.

   Still, it isn’t my favorite book in the series. My favorites are The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf (Book III) and The Ballad of Sir Dinadan (Book V). I think Dinadan ranks up there with my favorite fictional characters of all time.

   So, after nine marvelous books, Gerald Morris brings his series to a close with The Legend of the King, which tells the story of the final confrontation between Arthur and Mordred, using for excuse the affair between Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot. We’ve seen hints of the end. Mordred, Arthur’s illegitimate son, (his only son and thus his heir), has been lurking for the past couple of books. Sensitive characters (like Terence) have felt something amiss. Therefore, anyone who knows the story of Camelot will pick up this last book with a bittersweet reluctance. Gerald Morris will tell the story and tell it well. But even he can’t change the course of well-known fictional history. Can he?

   Knowing it would break my heart, I had to read it anyway. I had to see the way this version brought Arthur’s legend to a close.

   These books don’t have to be read in order because each one is a pretty well self-contained tale. However, I do recommend that you read them sequentially since I think ALL series should be read that way. And I think this one also has a more pleasing chronology if read from one to ten. Save The Legend of the King for last, but by all means, read it. The legend of Arthur is not complete without its finale.

   Have I gushed enough?

ESCAPE TO THE PAST WITH: Frederica by Georgette Heyer

The last few books that I’ve read have been rather heavy, depressing even, for one reason or another. And with all that’s going on in the world, it’s easy to get...shall we say discouraged. Sometimes a person just needs to take a few hours and shut out the world. I needed to read something fun and breezy that would not make me think too much or improve me morally in any way. I needed to relax.

What could be better than to return to the Georgette Heyer Challenge -2011 and read a classic Regency romance?

This time around I chose Frederica because it was so winningly recommended by Stephanie at Books are a Girl’s Best Friend (the host of the reading challenge.)

Frederica is the mother hen of her siblings, an orphaned brood of country gentry consisting of Harry (the eldest, kind-hearted but too feckless to act as the guardian he should), Charis (the not yet twenty year old sister) and two younger brothers, Jessamy (16, determined to enter the church, studious, well-behaved, but not quite all grown up) and Felix (13, intelligent, precocious, and adventuresome–thoughtlessly so.) They have some money but not much. Frederica brings them to London so that Charis can have at least one London season. She believes Charis is wasted on the country folk because she is so exceptionally beautiful and sweet-natured in the bargain. Frederica is determined that she should marry well. Frederica herself, being all of twenty-four, figures she is respectably on the shelf and need not worry about a husband of her own. Her ambition is to be an aunt.

But first, she must launch Charis. To do this, she enlists the aid of Lord Alverstoke, a thirty-some-odd distant relation she used to hear her father mention from time to time. Alverstoke (or Vernon) is wealthy, fashionable, and exceedingly bored. He is considered by the ton to be selfish, rude, and a terrible rake. When Frederica appeals to him for aid, he agrees, but only to spite his sister, who wants him to throw a ball to launch her daughter’s first season.

Vernon not only helps introduce Charis to the ton but in the process, he takes on the role of guardian of sorts to the younger boys. The novel follows the progress of his discovery of responsibility and Frederica’s learning how to lean on someone else for support. In the process...well, it is a romance.

The book is filled with amusing scenes and lovely repartee. Frederica is an engaging heroine who manages to put her family first without suffering from a martyr complex or coming across as a doormat. Alverstoke manages to have a reputation for being rude and selfish without ever actually acting rude or selfish...except to his sisters, who so obviously deserve it.

The storyline takes its time. The characters get to know each other before falling in love. Even though the reader knows it will happen, it is nice to see things take a natural course. There is nothing earth-shattering. No edge of seat suspense. No terrifying villains. It is a pleasant, entertaining love story. Opening these pages is a perfect invitation to relax.

Of course, the real world was still waiting when the book was done. But a little vacation was sure nice.

ESCAPE TO THE PAST WITH: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

For the Back to the Classics Challenge, we were supposed to pick one book with a war time setting. I decided that I should take this as a true challenge and read a book about WWI—something way out of my comfort zone. It’s bothered me for awhile that I hadn’t read All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. The book has been called by some "The Greatest War Novel of All Time." In fact, the praise is quoted (without attribution) on the cover of my copy. How have I gone for so long without reading it?

AQWF is narrated by the twenty-year-old German soldier Paul Bäumer. Along with several of his classmates, he enlisted in the army at the encouragement (or bullying insistence) of one of his school teachers. We follow Paul through about three years of war. He and his friends are sent to the front lines where they primarily fight in the trenches. The Germans are losing and the death toll is horrifically high. Paul and his comrades have little apparent interest in the war’s outcome; they want only to make it out alive. But slowly, inexorably, they die.

This is a very personal narrative, not a big picture of WWI. You don’t come away from it with a greater understanding of the causes of the war or the political maneuverings of the great men. We never learn the names of the leaders or generals. Those are not the things that interested Paul. This is the record of the daily struggle to survive the trenches. We watch a small group of young men move back and forth to the front line. The narrator does an extraordinary job describing the details of their struggles, from the joy in an extra ration of beans, to their (unsuccessful) schemes to rid themselves of lice and rats, to the way they tried to help the new recruits who were so poorly trained they fell in droves. But what stands out is the battle scenes. It is impossible to put oneself in the place of a twenty-year-old boy who has seen so much of death—slow agonizing death—as he drops to the ground while mortar fire explodes all around him. And yet the descriptions are so vivid you suffer for Paul. You can understand how he can be paralyzed with fear one moment and propelled to action the next. You can empathize with the way the men are forced to push aside their grief when one of their comrades dies. It is too overwhelming. Too frightening. There is nothing to be done for the dead. They have to concentrate their efforts on living.

This isn’t a depressing book. It is somehow beyond depressing because of its matter-of-fact realism. The novel’s message is stronger because it does not go into the big picture particulars of WWI. The trenches were horrible, but every war has its unique psychological horrors. By focusing so much on the individual soldier, this book shows the universal tragedy and waste of taking boys who are on the cusp of manhood, boys who should be about to begin their lives, and sending them instead to kill and to die.

This is a truly powerful book. The writing is so descriptive, so beautiful, you are right inside Paul’s head as he experiences the war. His thoughts run the gamut from simple and animalistic to profound. I’m hardly qualified to judge "the greatest war novel of all time" but I can recommend this classic highly. I won’t be forgetting Paul Bäumer anytime soon.