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Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “Breadcrumbs” by Anne Ursu

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Hazel’s Mom wants her to find new friends–girl friends. She’s just not so sure about Hazel and Jack’s best-friendship. She knows how tenuous those can become once adolescence begins.

The girls at Hazel’s school want to know if she and Jack are “going out.” Hazel feels like maybe she should say yes, because then maybe they’d think she was likeable enough that someone would want to go out with her. But she isn’t “going out” with Jack. She doesn’t want to “go out” with Jack. He’s her best friend.

“And there was a time when everyone understood that, but they didn’t anymore, because apparently when you get to be a certain age you’re supposed to wake up one morning and not want to be best friends with your best friend anymore, just because he’s a boy and you don’t have a messenger bag.”

Except that one day, Hazel wakes up and her best friend doesn’t want to be friends with her anymore.

Why did I love Breadcrumbs as much as I did? What made it shine so brightly among the myriads of children’s stories available?

Like Amy said in her review, I have a hard time articulating my reasons.

But I’ll try nonetheless.

First, and perhaps most strongly, I loved the literary allusions in this story.

Savvy readers can probably already figure out that this story is at least somehow related to Hansel and Gretel. But the story is just as much (or more) a retelling of the less familiar “The Snow Queen”. But the references to other works don’t stop there. I know I didn’t catch all the references, because I’m not as widely read in children’s fantasy as I could be, but I caught references to Chronicles of Narnia, Coraline, Alice in the Wonderland, Harry Potter, and pretty much every Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale.

Second, I loved this story for how it captured a tension between the wonder of fairy tales and “cold science”.

Hazel hates how everyone tries to tell her the boring scientific explanations for everything when she’s caught in the magic that is snow or whatever. When Jack’s soul goes cold (for that is what happened to him), he suddenly finds fairy tales incomprehensible but math makes perfect sense. Yet math and science aren’t completely placed outside the realm of imagination. Jack has arranged imaginary stats for his superhero baseball team. The imaginative Uncle Martin delights in the geometry of snowflakes.

Third, I love this book for its description of the woods.

The book is split in two–the first half is set in the normal world of school children, the second half in the wild woods not far from the sledding hill. The first half is ordinary with occasional asides into fairy tale, the second half is fairy tale with occasional flashbacks into “reality”. The second half was my favorite.

You see, people go into the woods because they’re desperate. Desperate people prey on other desperate people; desperate people fall prey to other desperate people. Everyone there is either predator or prey, desperately seeking something they somehow failed to find in the “real world”.

It might seem that the woods are a fantasy world completely separated from reality, but really, it’s an unveiling of reality–pulling back the mundane details of daily activities to show the heart.

Finally (for now), I loved this book because it’s a story of friendship against fierce foes.

Hazel and Jack are friends, just friends, not boyfriend-and-girlfriend. I love this, in an age where boys and girls are encouraged to “likey-likey” stuff at younger and younger ages. But that doesn’t mean that non-romantic girl-boy friendship is seen as particularly normal or easy. In fact, Hazel and Jack are constantly at odds with the reality that boy-girl friendships don’t usually last through the transition from child to teen.

Their friendship might not last through this adventure. Jack might be changed. Hazel might be changed. When Hazel sets out to rescue her friend Jack, she has no promises that life might return to usual. She might be able to rescue Jack, but she has no illusions that she’ll be able to get her friend back. She has to selflessly choose to rescue her friend–even if she rescues him only to find that he’s not her friend anymore.

I love this. I love how this speaks of real love, not the smarmy stuff found in so many stories. And I love how this story ends. It’s perfectly fitting.

This is truly a good story.

Rating:5 Stars
Category:Middle Grade Fantasy
Synopsis:Hazel ventures into the woods to rescue her friend Jack, who has been taken away by an enchantress.
Recommendation: Read this book. It’s great.

Categories Faith

When push comes to shove

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I’m absolutely terrified.

We were all sitting around hours after our small group had ended, eagerly discussing one modern issue after another.

Abortion. Gay marriage. Illegal immigration.

The role of the church in all of the above.

Sarah Palin. Ron Brown. Random Irish pastors.

Somehow someone mentioned that Passover was on Good Friday this year.

I said we should do a Seder.

Pastor Justin jumped in: “Have you ever been to one of those?”

My sister looked at me, and now it was her turn to tell my stories.

“Rebekah’s pretty into that–she’s even written her own Haggadah.”

“It’s pretty much one of the greatest passions of my life,” I confessed. (I might have been slightly overstating it–but not much.)

And then he made an offer.

Show him what I’ve got. We could do something with it. The whole church. It’d be cool.

Justin was getting excited.

I was feeling reticent.

When push comes to shove, it’s hard to commit to something I might fail at.

I might have sloppy exegesis. I might misunderstand the Jewish customs. I might obscure the truth instead of unveiling it. I might bore people instead of inciting them to worship.

I might be insufficient to the task.

When push comes to shove, it’s the same old story.

Is this about me or is it about God’s glory?

“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
~2 Corinthians 12:9

Categories Flashback Friday

Flashback: Books and more books, part 2

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While my dad has confessed that he has read maybe one work of fiction in his entire life, my mom was and is an avid reader of fiction.

When I was young, her genre was Christian romances (she has since moved on to science fiction–the epic sorts that are thousands of pages long).

Mom reading a novel

I can’t remember where she kept her novels when I was still in elementary school–it couldn’t have been upstairs because there wasn’t any extra room to be had there. But when the four oldest of us moved to the basement and Mom and Dad moved into the master bedroom, Mom and Dad’s old room became the “school room”–and the home of at least two full-length shelves of Mom’s novels.

Anna and I started reading Mom’s novels by fifth or sixth grade at least. By the time Anna was in her teens, we had developed a rather regular habit of having her read to us–me, her, Joshua, and Daniel all gathered in the boys’ room. Anna started, I think, with one of her favorites–Janette Oke’s Roses for Mama. Once we were done with that, we read A Woman Called Damaris, the other book in the large volume Mom owned. The tradition continued on into our later teenage years. We read dozens of books. The last series we read together like this (I think) was Dee Henderson’s–actually, we might of read all of Dee Henderson this way.

That’s not to say that the only reading we borrowed was what we read together. Anna and I voraciously devoured every book Mom owned–and most of the ones she brought home from the library too. We all of us girls were big readers.

We come by honestly, too, since Mom’s mom was and is a reader too. Mom talks about Grandma’s Readers Digest condensed books–and I can’t forget going to Grandma and Grandpa’s and roving through Grandma’s bookshelves and boxes for something novel to read. Of course, there were always plenty of options.

Categories Flashback Friday

Flashback: Books Everywhere

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Prompt #7: “Were there books in evidence around your house? Was there a special room in the house considered the ‘library’? Which of your parents’ books do you remember reading? Which books do you remember them reading?”

We had a small house, certainly too small for a “library”–but we had books, that’s for sure.

We had two tall bookcases in the living room, one on either side of the door that led first to Mom and Dad’s bedroom and later to the schoolroom.

Bookshelf of encyclopedias

The bookshelf on the right contained three sets of encyclopedias–a children’s set, a set of Comptons, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. The bookshelf on the left bore a multi-colored set of illustrated children’s classics and a collection of Biblical reference works–different translations of the Bible, a concordance, Nave’s topical Bible, some Bible atlases, an interlinear Bible with Greek and Hebrew as well as English. An end table cupboard held all of our children’s picture books–when they weren’t spilled out around the house.

Dad has never been much of a reader, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t see him read. In fact, if I was up early enough to see Dad before he left for work, I’d always see him reading. He’d sit at the kitchen table, munching on his cereal and reading the Bible.

Dad was also a big fan of reference works. Often, we’d get into a discussion at the dinner table that would end with the injunction to “look it up”. We’d dutifully go and get whichever reference work was appropriate and look it up. We kids gravitated toward the glossy-paged, full color Comptons when we looked things up, but Dad often made us get out the Britannica to look things up too.

I’m running out of time and have to get to work…but I still have plenty more to say–so I’ll probably end up with a Flashback part 2 this afternoon/evening.

Categories Flashback Friday

Flashback Prompt: Books, books

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I’ll bet you’d never be able to guess that I’m a book lover.

But how was this book-loving formed? Is it innate? Is it environmental? Did I learn to love books by example?

Tomorrow’s prompt asks about the books in your house:

“Were there books in evidence around your house? Was there a special room in the house considered the “library”? Which of your parents’ books do you remember reading? Which books do you remember them reading?”

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Hidden Things

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This week I’m thankful…

…that God is all-knowing

“God understands the way to it,
and he knows its place.
For he looks to the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.”
~Job 28:23-24

…that God is glorified in concealing things

“It is the glory of God to conceal things,
but the glory of kings is to search things out.”
~Proverbs 25:2

…that God is glorified when I examine concealed things.

“Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
~Acts 17:11

May I be a woman who diligently seeks to understand the mysteries of God, but who does it with humility and love, not shirking from tough things, but submitting every conflict to the wise and loving care of the one who knows all things and delights both to conceal and to reveal.
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“But, as it is written,
‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him’—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.”
~I Corinthians 2:9-10

Categories Homemaking, Tutorials

Tutorial: Anne’s Carpetbag

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Remember the Anne-of-Green-Gables-inspired doll carpetbag I made (and gave away) earlier this month?

Finished bag

Wanna try to make one of your own?

It’s really quite simple.

First, print off the pattern. For best results, select “none” for page scaling.

Second, cut out the fabric.

For the outer fabric, I used a heavy upholstery fabric. If you want the bag without the “carpetbag” look, you could use any heavy-weight fabric. Alternately, you could use felt or felted wool (accidentally washed wool sweaters, maybe?) and leave it unlined.

  • 1 bottom piece
  • 2 front/back pieces
  • 2 side pieces

For the lining, I used a lightweight dress fabric. The fabric I used was pretty slippery–I’d recommend that beginning sewers try quilting cotton or broadcloth for lining. If you’re making a felt or felted wool bag, you can skip the lining.

  • 1 bottom piece
  • 2 front/back pieces
  • 2 side pieces

The contrasting handles leave the most up to you. I used a no-fray upholstery fabric that had an almost rubbery back. If you can find something similar, that’s ideal. Otherwise, you could try faux (or real) leather, canvas, or another heavy-weight fabric. If you use a fabric that won’t fray (and therefore won’t need to have it’s sides turned under), cut using the circle template I provided. If you’re using a fabric that will fray, make a circle template about a half inch wider (in diameter) to allow for turning the sides under before applying.

  • 4 circles
  • 2 strips 1 1/2 inches wide by 6 1/2 inches long

Third, assemble the main body of your bag (using the outer fabric).

Line up the bottom and the front (right sides together) and sew along bottom front seam.

Sewing bottom to front

Open up the seam.

Seam opened up

Now align the back piece with the other long side of the bottom piece (right sides together). Sew along the bottom back seam.

Sewing bottom to back

Press both seams open.

Fourth, put the sides on your bag

Align the side of the side piece with side of front piece (right sides together) and pin in place.

Aligning side piece

Now align the bottom of the side piece with the bottom piece (right sides together) and pin in place.

Aligning side piece 2

Finally, align the other side of the side piece with the side of the back piece (right sides together) and pin in place.

Aligning side piece 3

Sew along the pinned portions, making sharp turns in the corners by leaving the needle down, lifting up your sewing machine’s presser foot, and rotating your fabric 90 degrees. Make sure that the extra fabric from the front/back/bottom pieces isn’t in the way before you put the presser foot back down and begin sewing again.

Pivot turns

You’ve now got the first side on.

First side done

Repeat with the second side piece.

Putting on the second side

Fifth, stitch along the right side of all the seams you just made.

Finishing the seams

Notice how the stitching is right on the edge of the seam, going through both pieces of fabric on either side of the original seam. This gives the bag additional form and allows it to stand up on its own.

At this point, if you’re making an unlined bag from felt or felted wool, skip to step 8. If you’re making a lined bag, continue on with step 6.

Finished outer part

Sixth, repeat steps three and four with the lining fabric.

Finished lining

Seventh, attach the lining to the outside.

You’ll start by turning the outside wrong-side out and the lining right-side out. Slip the lining into the outside.

Lining up inside and out

Pin along the top edge of the lining and outside piece, lining up corners and the “dips” in the sides.

Pinning in the lining

Sew along the top of the bag, leaving a small section along the back piece unsewn (so that you can turn the bag inside out.)

Pinning in the lining

A small unsewn section

Turn the bag inside out through the small hole you left between the lining and the outer portion of the bag.

Topstitch along the seam around the top of the bag, closing the opening as you go.

Topstitching

Ninth (and finally), make and attach the straps.

Iron a fold into the long sides of the strap fabric.

Ironing folds in the straps

Now fold the straps in half longwise so that you have a long narrow strip with the previously folded edges on one side (it’ll look like double-folded bias tape). Sew along the edge.

If your circle fabric has the potential to fray, iron under the edges approximately 1/4 inch.

Now pin your straps to the sides of the bag as shown below.

Pinning on straps

Layer the circles on top of the edges of the straps and pin.

Circles over straps

Now, you’ll stitch around the edge of the circle, securing the straps and the circle to the bag. I made a little “X” through my circles to further secure the strap.

Finished bag

Congratulations, your Anne-inspired carpetbag is now complete!

Categories Books

In Which the Cybils are Announced

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I had a blast participating in Amy’s Armchair Cybils this year. I set out to read one book nominated in each Cybils category.

I failed.

But I got close–and had a grand deal of fun in the process.

Book Apps
I realized a little late that one needs to have some sort of e-ish reader or smart phone or whatever to read these. Since I do not, I refrained.

Fiction Picture Books
I read two finalists–one of which (Me…Jane) became the winner. It wasn’t my pick of the two I read, but I’m certainly not displeased with the results.

Nonfiction Picture Books
I read a whopping four of the six finalists–and was thrilled to see that my pick for winner made winner. Congratulations to Carlyn Beccia, author of I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat, for writing a remarkably readable mini-history of strange cures.

Easy Readers
I read two easy reader finalists and was officially unimpressed. I hope that the winner, I Broke My Trunk! by Mo Willems, was significantly better than the two I read.

Early Chapter Books
I have Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie sitting on my nightstand but have not yet read it. Oh well, since Have Fun, Anna Hibiscus! ended up as the winner. I still might read Like Pickle Juice, though, just because I have it.

Poetry
I was somewhat limited in my options since I chose to only get books from my library–and because my library had few of the poetry books. As a result, I ended up reading none. However, the book I most wanted to read ended up as the winner: Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto. I might just recommend that my library get a copy.

Graphic Novels
I read finalist Level Up, which I was rather stunned to find that I enjoyed. I really prefer text to pictures, so I didn’t expect to like any graphic novel. The winner ended up being Zita the Space Girl by Ben Hatke. I didn’t have Zita out of the library, but now I’m trying to decide whether I want to read the other finalist I do have out of the library.

Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction
I read Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu (and quoted from it). I really recommend it–and intend to review it in full at some point, if I can get to it. The winner, however, was The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale. Amy has spoken highly enough of this one that I really will have to get my hands on a copy.

Middle Grade Fiction
I finished The Friendship Doll just last night. (I was rather behind after my decidedly unsuccessful attempt to read a Cybils middle-grade fiction nominee.) I enjoyed The Friendship Doll although I’m not sure if I was enthralled with it. I’ll have to think more on that one. The winner was Nerd Camp.

Young Adult Nonfiction
I read two finalists, Amelia Lost by Candace Fleming and Unraveling Freedom by Ann Bausum. I enjoyed reading both, although I felt Unraveling Freedom was a bit propagandish. I am ecstatic to see that the well-written, informative Amelia Lost won the award.

Graphic Novels
What? The Graphic Novels were separated into Middle Grade and YA? I didn’t catch that. See above for what I read. The winner in this category was Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol.

YA Fantasy and Science Fiction
I read two–one of which was my first-ever (and possibly last-ever) “demon” fiction. Misfit by Jon Skovron was interesting, to say the least. It feature a half-demoness, half-human whose uncle is, um, Dagon. Yeah. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, I guess. The story itself was written well. But I really couldn’t be comfortable with the subject matter. The other book, Blood Red Road by Moira Young, was absolutely wonderful. This is the kind of epic that is bound to spawn sequels (possibly even movies, GAG!) I am delighted to see that Blood Red Road won the award.

Young Adult Fiction
Having read a fair number of nominees (The Fitzosbornes in Exile, The Big Crunch, The Summer I learned to Fly, and Paper Covers Rock), I didn’t prioritize getting to finalist. Which is why Between Shades of Gray is still sitting on my nightstand. I did not read the winner, Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach.

Conclusions

I had a great deal of fun participating in Amy’s Armchair Cybils this year–and really hope she runs the same challenge next year. I’ve officially decided I’d probably be a very frustrated first-rounder, but I have really enjoyed immersing myself in the finalists over this past week (Yes, I checked all of the finalists I mentioned in this post out of the library a mere ten days ago.)

Please, run over to Armchair CybilsAmy’s to see what others are saying about this year’s Cybils.

Categories The Week in Words

WiW: Bits and Pieces

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I have officially discovered that highlighting something on Facebook using Diigo accomplishes exactly…nothing. So the great quote I had (that I can’t remember who posted) is lost.

So here’s a modge-podge of other quotes:

“RT @BurkParsons God doesn’t accept me just as I am, he loves me despite how I am; he loves me just as Jesus is.”
~Powlison, retweeted by Nateoh

Love this. So true. God doesn’t accept my sin–He paid for it. He doesn’t just look over my sin–He gave me His righteousness instead.

“The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could become man and join himself to a human nature forever, so that infinite God became one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.”
~Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology

Almost incomprehensible, the Incarnation is. But I am so thankful that the Son forever became fully man, while remaining fully God, that I might no longer be estranged from God.

And, somewhat off the topic, this week I taught my 2nd and 3rd graders about God’s justice and mercy, the penal substitution, and explained how Jesus didn’t physically “go to hell”.

The kids were tracking. I think we underestimate what they can learn.

My dad, however, commented: “So when are they going to give you fifth, sixth, eighth graders?”

No idea, but whatever age I get, I’m going to keep pounding home my point, like a broken record: the gospel is on every page of Scripture.

The Week in Words

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Categories Books

Cybils Nonfiction Picture Books

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This year’s Cybils Nonfiction picture books was heavy on the nature/environment theme, with a whopping five out of the six titles falling under said theme.

I read four of the Cybils finalists, three environmental/nature ones and the lone non-natural book.

Cybils nonfiction picture books

All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon and Katherine Tillotson is a poetic celebration of the water cycle, with text that TaP dAnCeS and sprays with different fonts and sizes of fonts. The illustrations flow in semi-abstract fashion.

This is a great conversation-opener, but will require conversation about the water cycle, since it doesn’t so much explain as it eludes to how the water cycle works.

Can We Save the Tiger? written by Martin Jenkins and illustrated by Vicky White tells about animals that are extinct, animals that are endangered (like the tiger), and once endangered animals that have been preserved. The illustrations are classic nature notebook stuff–highly detailed black and white shaded drawings with the occasional colored bit.

This book did a nice job of balancing the interests of animals with the interests of humanity–and talking about the difficult decisions stewardship of the earth involves (not that it uses the term “stewardship” to describe it.)

Thunder Birds by Jim Arnosky is classic Arnosky, featuring fantastic nature drawings. This title showcases the avian predators in their fierce glory. The fold-out pages often allow for life-size drawings of bird heads, accompanied by statistics about each type of bird and a narrative piece about Jim’s (and often his wife Deanna’s) experiences with each bird.

This is the least narrative of the books so far, meant more for browsing and reading in short snippets than for reading aloud all in one setting. The fold-out pages are fascinating and it’s fun to have a glimpse of the size of the animals–but I fear the format isn’t as durable as a normal two-page spread.

I enjoyed all three of these books, but something about them rubbed me a little wrong. It took me a while to identify it, but I think I finally figured it out.

In an age where we eschew “moralistic” literature and (rightly?) consider the Victorian morality pieces to be pedantic, we seem to have no problem allowing environmentalism to be the new morality. As long as it’s environmentalism we’re championing, it’s just fine to moralize.

Thus, All the Water in the World ends with the injunction “All so precious–do not waste it. And delicious–we can taste it. Keep it clear, keep it clean…keep Earth green.”

Okay, I’m all about keeping water clean and keeping Earth green. But this feels a little bit like propaganda. I guess I’d rather children’s books (which are meant for an audience that doesn’t really have much judgment) focus more on facts and less on persuasion. Or something.

Which probably explains why my favorite of the four I read was Carlyn Beccia’s I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat. (Although the fact that I’m all about medicine may also contribute to my attraction to this title.)

I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat is written in quiz format, asking the reader to identify which of the proffered historical cures might actually help. The following pages walk through each cure, answering “Yes” “No” or “Maybe” to whether the cure would work and giving a brief history of the use of that specific “cure”.

This was a fascinating and imaginative book. It’s gross enough that boys should really love it and not gross enough that girls won’t read it–a perfect mix.

These books were all Cybils NonFiction Picture Book Finalists. I read them as a part of Amy’s Armchair Cybils. If asked to rank the books, I’d put I Feel Better at the top of the list, followed by Thunder Birds and Can We Save the Tiger?. All the Water in the World ranks last in my book, but basically just because of that bit I quoted above. Apart from those few lines (which interrupt a beautiful book), I’d recommend all four titles.