Book Buzz

LAT

NEIL GAIMAN

An excellent horror story for kids! The cover says for all ages but I wouldn’t read this to sensitive children age 9 or under. Coraline discovers an alternate world where her “other” parents have time to play with her, where the food would always be to her liking (not like at home where her real dad cooks weird food) and she could have any thing she wanted. When Coraline gets back to reality she discovers that her parent are missing. She finds them caught in the mirror writing “help us” in the mist. She must go back!

The book starts with an interesting quote: Fairy tales are necessary not to prove that there are dragons but to prove that dragons can be beaten.

A great book for youth. Already a movie.

NIKKI TATE  Dear Nikki  Loved Trouble on Tarragon Island. I had no idea that it was an issue book. For some reason I had thought it would be a mystery and for youth of a bit younger age than what it was. I loved the writer’s group and the various forms of writing that were accepted. Using the letters to the editor as a way to voice different opinions was great. I’m looking forward to reading more of your books. Now that I’m not a  teacher-librarian I have not been reading as many books for young adults as I read before. But I have read some interesting books. (see http://bevd.edublogs.org/ ) While reading your great book I frequently thought of my sister Linda who is a vibrant, spirited sixty and has been a Nana for 4 years now. From Saskatchewan, Linda found home and community in the woods, issues and people of the Vancouver and Islands area.  For a long time Linda thought she would never become a grandparent. Her youngest son who loves kids (Zane Micah Wilcox a rising star on the Saskatoon pottery scene) decided not to have children with his spouse. Her eldest son, a curmudgeon at 18, was never interested in kids but with his spouse decided to have one child. Linda has been an ecstatic granny ever since.  Linda has been an active environmentalist for decades, participating in many civil disobedience protests. With a peace group in Helena, Montana (she lived there with a husband for a few years) she did a protest that had all the women lying nude in the snow spelling PEACE with their bodies. The photo was made into posters and t-shirts. She wasn’t a granny at the time but I don’t doubt that there would have grannies in the group. There was one summer that Linda was mad at Zane for having sat around the whole summer. She complained to us, “He could have done something useful like go up to Clayoquot Sound and get arrested.” We laughed thinking that there are not many mothers who would be wishing that there twenty something sons were going out getting arrested! Micah says that he misses you and hopes that you will once again come and visit. Certainly if you are ever out this way again you are most welcome! BRIAN 

 Wings alternates between the stories of two girls: Kour’el weak, injured, imprisoned and Maighdlin who lives in a once vibrant, joyful kingdom. The latter’s grandDa Petaurus used to be King Vassil’s huntsman but now he sits in front of his hut waiting for Maighdlin to bring him his daily bread.  The King had been mortally wounded and now the bewitching Queen Mariah rules in his stead. When all the young women from the village are forcefully taken into service at the palace grandDa, joined by a youth betrothed to a different maiden, set off to rescue his granddaughter. This is where the two stories combine. The first part of the book is far too long, with far too little happening; while the ending climaxes without enough development.  There is an interesting twist at the end of the book that could have used more explaining. With this in mind it is still worth reading. It does add to the myth of dragons in interesting ways. Kudos to Cora Taylor! It is certainly her best book yet.