I admit to being a semi-newbie to YA literature. Sure, I was obviously a 'young adult' back in the day, and I've been an avid reader my entire life, so this must have been my choice genre at some point. As an adult, though, my tastes have mostly run toward contemporary fiction primarily, and I've sometimes wondered why some adults opt to read so much literature written toward a YA audience. As a reviewer here for the last year, I've had the opportunity to read a handful of YA novels, and I'm starting to figure out the appeal.
That understanding comes a heck of a lot easier after finishing a book like Jordan Sonnenblick's new After Ever After. The story of what it's like to be an eighth-grade cancer survivor is told from the perspective of Jeffrey Alper, who was diagnosed with leukemia when he was four years old. Now that he's past the all important five year remission mark, he's free to live the life of a normal kid. Right? Unfortunately, it seems as if a new normal is established once you live the post-cancer life, (the after "ever after" part) and for Jeffrey this includes a number of attention and learning challenges as a result of the treatments he received. With a best friend who is also a childhood cancer survivor, and a new girl in his school (who just happens to be beautiful and completely distracting in science class), eighth grade is certainly going to be interesting.
I must admit that once I closed this book after reading the final pages, I needed a few moments alone to just 'cry it out.' While I'm still finding my way through YA literature, my gut tells me that this book has the perfect combination of an authentic adolescent narrator and a story line that simultaneously tackles serious, real-world issues while also nailing the little things that are so huge to teenagers. What I didn't realize before I read it, was that this is a sequel to Sonnenblick's 2006 YA novel Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie, which tells the story of Jeffrey's older brother, whose own eighth grade year will always be remembered as the year his little brother got cancer. I can definitely say that this second book stands on its own, but I didn't hesitate to grab the previous book from the library shelf, and I'm finding it just as tender, funny, and touching as this one.
If you are already a fan of YA fiction, then the most concise thing I can say to you is this: go get this book. If YA isn't your genre of choice, but you enjoy a well-told story that evokes emotion and looks at the difficulties that life can bring through the eyes of a teenager, After Ever After is most worthy of your time. The press release that I got with this book also mentioned that the author's work has been praised by his former high school teacher… Frank McCourt. Wow.
After that kind of recognition, I realize that my application of a Five Star Reads label is less impressive, but I give it wholeheartedly.
Dawn loves that as her children are growing, her reading habits get to expand as well. Life, as she sees it, is chronicled on her blog, my thoughts exactly.
Filed under 12 and up, 5 Star Reads, Dawn, Fiction, Teens by 
Staying Married is Not About Staying in Love is the title of Chapter One in John Piper's This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence. Very different from the world has to say on the subject of marriage, isn't it? In fact, the entire book is very contrary to society's take on the bonds of matrimony. To the world, they are bonds easily broken without a second thought. To which Piper responds, "Staying married, therefore, is not mainly about staying in love. It is about keeping covenant" (p. 25).
I found this book so informative that it's a new 5 Star Read.
If you'd like to win one of THREE copies (U.S. residents) please read my full review of This Momentary Marriage over at 5 Minutes for Mom. The winners iwill be announced in next Monday's book review column at 5 Minutes for Mom.
Melissa & her husband are nearing their 17th anniversary, but she still has much to learn about marriage. She resides in Virginia and blogs at Breath of Life.
Filed under 5 Star Reads, Christian, Giveaway, Marriage, Melissa, Non-Fiction by
I don't often review picture books here. Dawn, Carrie and occasionally Lauren take on those books, and I think that they do a much better job. However, when we had the opportunity to review (and give away!) some books from Sleeping Bear Press, the title D Is for Drinking Gourd: An African American Alphabet really caught my eye.
I assumed that I was picking up a picture book that would share simple facts about the African American experience. I even thought I knew that the drinking gourd referred to an old-fashioned simple drinking vessel. Boy, was I wrong all around. The "drinking gourd" was actually another name for the Big Dipper, which pointed to the North star, which led the way to freedom. It was also a code word to help pass information via songs while on the Underground railroad.
Each page features a picture on a two-page spread, with a short verse about the letter's topic. Then the sidebar has several very meaty paragraphs about the event or item in question (like the drinking gourd information I shared above). I learned so much in this book about the African American experience, either in a specific time in history or throughout the ages about things from Buffalo Soldiers to Cowboys, the Great Migration to Jazz, Politicians to the Tuskegee Airmen, Universities to Writers.
Many of the books from Sleeping Bear Press (including D Is for Drinking Gourd) have a downloadable PDF teacher's guide, which includes reproducible worksheets, vocabulary sheets, a play scene and more. What an incredible resource for use at home or in the classroom.
I am so impressed with this book in particular, and I have a feeling that every single book in in every single alphabet series meets this high caliber (see Carrie's reviews on the Discover the World series and the States Alphabet series, and B is for Buckaroo: A Cowboy Alphabet). I am happy to award my first picture-book 5 Star Reads label to this book.
One of you (U.S. residents) can win this book along with Sleeping Bear Press's The Listeners (which we previously reviewed here and is linked to Dawn's review). Just leave a comment if you'd like to win. We'll announce the winner on February 17.
Check out some other past reviews of books we can also recommend for Black History Month.
J is for Jennifer who was jubilant to discover this delightful book. She jots joyfully at Snapshot.
Check out our current giveaways (we have a LOT this month). Subscribe to our feed. Follow us @5M4B on Twitter.
Filed under 5 Star Reads, Children's Books, Children's Non-fiction, Giveaway, Jennifer, ages 6 - 9, ages 9 - 12 by
Before every holiday, event, or season bloggers often get offers from PR firms or publishers offering up books or stories that tie in. Ever since Martin Luther King, Jr. day I myself have had Black History on my mind. Two of the nominees for the Cybils Middle Grade Nonfiction category that I am judging are titles dealing with Civil Rights, Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice and Marching For Freedom, and The Frog Scientist profiles an African American scientist (review to come).
February means that your local bookstores and libraries will have displays filled with pink and red hearts in honor of Valentine's Day, some books about the presidency in honor of President's Day, and books championing the African American experience in honor of Black History month.
I am glad for this six-week period of time when I am pulled out of my comfort zone and challenged to look at Black History –even if it's a painful reality — whether through non-fiction or by reading novels and picture books that share the African American experience.
One of my very favorite things about reading is expanding my borders. More than ever, this year I am reveling in the worlds to which literature introduces me, and making a concerted effort to expand my borders — this month with African American literature and history, but it won't end there. I hope to continue to explore the culture of those different from me, whether due to their race, class, country of origin or other defining experience (Throughout the year I'll be taking up S. Krishna's challenge to read South Asian Authors).
And so while I hope that you take the challenge this month to read some books on your own or share some picture books with your kids, I extend the challenge further. Don't read "black books" only in February. Add some color throughout your year.
There's an excellent reader's response about Black History Month posted at Black-Eyed Susan's. In it, she reminds us that that "Black History should encompass more than slavery." I agree wholeheartedly, and I would add Civil Rights to that as well.
I wanted to highlight some of our past reviews of books featuring African American characters that you might want to revisit. Yes, many of them deal with that awful time of slavery and the later years when African Americans had to fight for civil rights, but others also feature regular ol' people. . . who happen to be African American.
Throughout the month, we'll feature even more books (see "book bloggers get offers" above). We even have two giveaways up right now: Your choice of books from some African American Living Legends books selected by Hachette books, and two beautiful picture books from Sleeping Bear Press.
Books for children:
Yasmin Peace Series (for tweens)
The Listeners
Obama: The Historic Journey, Young Reader's Edition
Ruby and the Booker Boys
Freedom Walkers
Novels:
A Mercy
The Help
Sugar
Biography/Memoir:
Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Jennifer Donovan also blogs at Snapshot.
Filed under Jennifer, On Reading by
I am happy to present a list of some great books spotlighted by Hachette Book Group for African American History Month, and offer three of you the opportunity to win the book of your choice! If you are looking for some books to peruse this month, you can find more information on each title at the Hachette Books African American History Month page.
Our list of Living Legends recognizes the accomplishments of public servants, artists, athletes, writers and more; people whose personal excellence has aided others, led the way, and continue to enrich our lives today:
Culture:
Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales
Faith
8 Steps to Create the Life You Want By Creflo A. Dollar
Points of Power By Yolanda Adams, Lavaille Lavette
Live Your Joy By Bonnie St. John
Fiction:
Leaving Atlanta by Tayari Jones
River, Cross My Heart by Breena Clarke
Cane River by Lalita Tademy
Medicine:
Brain Surgeon By Keith Black, Arnold Mann
Music
Big Man By Clarence Clemons , Don Reo
The B. B. King Treasures By B.B. King , Dick Waterman , Charles Sawyer
Patti's Pearls: Lessons in Living Genuinely, Joyfully, Generously by Patti LaBelle and Laura Randolph Lancaster
Public Service:
The American Journey of Barack Obama By The Editors of Life Magazine
Long Walk to Freedom By Nelson Mandela
In His Own Words By Nelson Mandela, Clinton
Sports:
On the Line By Serena Williams, Daniel Paisner
A Kind of Grace By Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Sonja Steptoe
Social Science/Psychology:
America Behind The Color Line By Henry Louis Gates , Jr.
What the Dog Saw By Malcolm Gladwell
Women:
Jewels By Michael Cunningham, Connie Briscoe
Mrs. O By Mary Tomer
If you'd like to win, click through to Hachette's African American History Month page, and then come back here and leave a comment about which book you'd most like to win (U.S. and Canadian readers are eligible).
We will announce three winners on February 17.
Check out our current giveaways (we have a LOT this month). Subscribe to our feed. Follow us @5M4B on Twitter.
Filed under Giveaway by
When I mentioned on my personal blog that I was reading Ted Dekker and Erin Healy’s novel Burn, I received a surprised email from a friend and fellow blogger. Seems my friend knows something of Dekker’s novels which are by any accounts unusual to say the least, and she was curious about my like or dislike of his work. I have to say, some of his novels I have loved, The Circle Trilogy to name three. Some of his novels, well, weren’t exactly my favorites. Burn, however, is a book I both enjoyed and recommend to you.
From the publisher’s description:
The past Janeal thought had burned away is rising from the ashes.
Years ago, the Gypsy Kumpania where Janeal Mikkado lived was attacked by outsiders. With her best friend about to be consumed by a fire, Janeal had two options: try to save her friend–at serious risk to her own life–or disappear with the million dollars that she had just discovered . . .
But the past is quickly coming back to haunt her. Both the best friend and the boyfriend that she was sure were dead have reappeared in her life, as has someone who knows about the money. There's a debt to be paid for the money she found, but there's an even greater debt she must face–and if the chaff isn't burned from her own heart, it will consume her.
For a thriller to be a thriller, supernatural or no, the reader must be not only caught up in the action and suspense but she must also be uncertain of how it will end, that is, right up until the end. Few things are as disappointing to this reader than figuring it all out well before she was supposed to. Burn is an interesting thrill ride because rather than shocking us with some big Aha! moment, Dekker and Healy carefully reveal the strange and mysterious conflict that is the heart of the novel’s premise, at first in cautious hints but later in outright storytelling, informing the reader well before the characters themselves understand. Thus the tension comes from wondering how it will all be resolved, a tension that swells to an exciting and gripping conclusion.
I read somewhere that Burn and the authors’ first collaboration, Kiss (which I have not read), represent a kinder, gentler (less unusual?) Ted Dekker and I think there’s some truth in that. Suspense, yes. Supernatural elements, yes. Thriller, yes. Hard to put down, yes. All of that with more character and relationship driven action and less shock factor. All in all, an enjoyable read.
Thanks to Amy at Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists for the review copy!
Wife and mother, Bible teacher and blogger, Lisa loves Jesus, coffee, dark chocolate and, of course, books. Read more of her reflections at Lisa writes….
This review, and others from the week, are linked to Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books. Link up your own, or see what other book bloggers are reviewing.
Filed under Fiction, Lisa, Mystery/Suspense, Sci Fi/Fantasy by
I love memoir, and yes, I did read and enjoy (loved!) Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir which helped stimulate the memoir genre as we know it Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. In the introduction to Committed, Gilbert herself addresses the difficultly of publishing a follow-up to the kind of blockbuster success that Eat, Pray, Love became. I wasn't necessarily holding her to that standard, but was hoping for more of the same kind of personal exploration and self-examination that she shared in that book.
Committed is instead written like a project memoir (which I also like). In books such as the hilarious A.J. Jacobs' The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible or Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project (linked to my review), the author takes the approach that a journalist would — examining his or her own life and supplementing it with intensive research on the subject. Yes Gilbert shares her personal experiences, but mostly explains or reacts to other studies she's read on marriage — and divorce — or laws, or social commentary on the institution.
Ultimately, she's not trying to change the world (well, she might be trying to sway thoughts and laws about marriage and what it does to women) — she's telling her story. She's telling why she chose love, and why she had chosen to be unmarried and child-free before being forced to take another look at marriage.
If you are looking for information on the institution of marriage — particularly if you feel disenfranchised from it either by divorce, or singleness (by choice or circumstance), or exclusion (by the legal definition of marriage), then I can highly recommend this book to you. As she says in the subtitle "A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage," she is in fact looking at the institution of marriage from the viewpoint of one who does not believe that marriage has been a good thing — for her personally and also more broadly for women in general.
But for me, a happy-to-be-married woman who is (fairly) socially conservative, it is more of a flatline. I am glad I read it, because I do like Gilbert's style and matter-of-fact way of looking at life, but I don't need to read it again, and I'm not sure that it will stick with me as others (such as the ones I mentioned above) have.
Jennifer Donovan would love to be able to travel as widely as Elizabeth Gilbert has. She blogs at Snapshot, where she shares about some of the trips she's been able to take (but not quite as candidly as the memoirist does).
I knew that there was a new Mr. Men Show on Boomerang/Cartoon Network. But I made a snap judgment that it was a smart-alecky show with no redeeming value.
Then when Carrie reviewed the Mr. Men and Little Miss books, I reconsidered a little bit, but we still didn't start watching them. This week, I posted in my "I Read It!" post that we've recently enjoyed some of the books, and Kyle has been watching the show when he's home from school (which has been all too often with several morning delayed openings lately), so I decided to watch it with him.
I was wrong. While it's not educational per se, it does seem to hold to the spirit of the books. In the TV episodes, we see a whole cast of characters interacting together. The two I watched with Kyle featured Little Miss Calamity, who cracked me up, especially as she hung out (and thus played off of) Mr. Rude. Mr. Bump always cracks Kyle up, and Mr. Grumpy is sort of convicting (to this too-often-grumpy mommy). We've also enjoyed the antics of Little Miss Scary and the fears of Mr. Nervous as they play out on screen.
There are a few episodes available on DVD.
By the way, speaking of books (authors) and Boomerang, the kids and I were both delighted to catch the name of the director of a new Quick Draw McGraw cartoon short that they've been showing on that network: Mo Willems. FYI, he also worked on Suzie Kabloozie shorts for Sesame Street (which I remember from Amanda's Sesame Street days!), and was head writer on Codename: Kids Next Door, which I'll have to pay a bit more attention to the next time it's on.
Jennifer and her kids are all confirmed bookworms, but we really like TV and movies too. Find out more about what we're up to if we're not staring at a screen or burying our noses in books at Snapshot blog.
Check out our current giveaways. Subscribe to our feed. Follow us @5M4B on Twitter.
Filed under Books on Screen, Children's Books, Jennifer, ages 3 - 6, ages 6 - 9 by
I have read quite a few Amish fiction novels, and I have enjoyed many of them. After a while, however, I started to feel like I was reading the same story repeatedly. When I was asked to participate in the blog tour for The Choice
I am happy to report that The Choice
The Choice
If you are interested in The Choice
Lauren is a wife, a mother of two, and an avid reader. She blogs at Baseballs and Bows. Lauren thanks Litfuse Publishing for providing the review copy of this book.
An Irish Country Girl is the fourth book in the series that Patrick Taylor began with An Irish Country Doctor. This book focuses completely on the life of their housekeeper Kinky, going back to her teen years in Cork County. It's a story of Irish superstitions, first love, and a young woman's dreams.
I hadn't read any of the other books, and because it departs from the storyline, I didn't miss the previous events at all. I'll probably read some of the others in the series, which I get the sense are sort of like an Irish doctor version of James Herriot's English country vet novels, but one could easily read this book as a standalone.
In An Irish Country Girl It's Christmas, and Maureen "Kinky" Kincaid is telling the local children of Ballybucklebo the story of the Dove Shee that warned a man and ended up taking his life back on a St. Stephen's Day in the 1920s. At first this story seemed a bit long-winded to me, but it ended up being important backstory to Maureen's own life and love story.
The Irish dialect is used throughout the book, and first it seemed a bit cumbersome, but once I got used to it, it added so much depth to this sweet story of first love and life's aspirations.
We are pleased to be able to offer one reader the entire set of four novels in the Irish Country Village series by Patrick Taylor: An Irish Country Doctor, An Irish Country Village, An Irish Country Christmas, and the newest book An Irish Country Girl.
U.S. and Canadian shipping addresses are eligible, so leave a comment if you'd like to win. We'll announce the winner on February 10.
Check out our current giveaways. Subscribe to our feed. Follow us @5M4B on Twitter.
Check out that gorgeous locket in the ad in the left sidebar. Get $20 off any order at Emma Parker & Co. Jewelry with the code: BOOKLOVERS.
We have several winners to announce this week. From our Classics Bookclub giveaway that ran through the end of January:
Jane Eyre from Readable Classics goes to Katy at A Few More Pages (#15).
The winner of The Invitation to the Classics is Hope (#22).
You can still join in anytime! We'll be linking up our reviews and progress on March 29.
The winner of the Brainiac Secret Agent Activity Book is #9 – Sarita Rogers
You can also find Jennifer Donovan trying to find some of the luck of the Irish that her last name promises at her blog Snapshot.
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