The Secret of Zoom by Lynne Jonell ****

The Secret of Zoom is another Mark Twain Award nominee, and though it's pretty fantastical in nature, I liked it! 

Christina lost her mother in an explosion back when she was just a baby, so she lives with her scientist father in an eccentric mansion that she's never allowed to leave.  She watches the kids from the nearby orphanage pick up garbage and live what looks like a miserable existance until she finally meets one, a boy named Taft, who asks her if she's found the secret tunnel.  This sends Christina on a search of the house, the eventual finding of the tunnel, and an amazing adventure.  Her whole life becomes questions:  what is Zoom?  Where do they take the orphans?  Why does the evil head of Loompski Industries value children with perfect pitch?  And is her mother really gone forever?

I couldn't put this book down and I can truely say the action never stopped.  But if you've read my blog before this then you know my schtick is I'm ultra-aware of characters that have developemental disabilities.  Before my son was born I never would notice this, but it seems like every book I read has at least some mention about the differently abled, if not a major character.  The Secret of Zoom is no exception.
I can say that I think Lynne Jonell wrote the character of Danny with accuracy and grace.  I know some would say he's been steriotyped, but I can see my own son reacting in the same ways to extreme stress and abuse.  And I'm thankful Ms. Jonell had her other characters treat him with compassion and care.  At one point Christina has to try to rescue Danny from out of the inside of a garbage truck, but at the same time she may be sacrificing the rest of the orphans she's trying to save.  What worth is Danny's life?

What if she did save ninety-nine orphans while leaving Danny in the garbage?  Could she really pretend to be a hero?  Could she even look Taft in the eye, knowing she had done that?
Christina bowed her head.  Ninety-nine wasn't going to be good enough.  It had to be one hundred.  And it had to be now.

Having read only two of the MTA nominees so far I can say that this book is my favorite.  We shall see if that changes or not!

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje ***

How many times have you seen a movie of a novel before you read it?  I couldn't tell you the number I personally have seen, but The English Patient is one of those.  I first saw it when it was released in theatres back in the spring of 1997.  My husband and I saw it at the Battlefield Mall Cinema in Springfield, Missouri.  I loved the movie almost instantly--the romantic story line, the amazingly beautiful cinematography, and of course Ralph Fiennes.  I like Ralph.  A lot.

So here is the series of events that caused me to read the book 14 years after seeing the movie:  my husband finds the book laying in the hall of the high school he teaches at two years ago; he keeps it in his room and asks around to see who lost it but no one claims it; he puts it in the closet in his classroom and forgets it; about 10 days ago I'm talking with our foreign exchange student about movies we love and I mention it; Dog remembers he has the book at school and says he'll bring it home; he brings it home a couple days later after we both forget about it; I read it.  Not so dramatic, but there are so many turn along the way that might have led me to never reading it.

So, now that I've read it the question is what do I think of it.  And I'd have to say I liked the movie more.  Don't get me wrong, Michael Ondaatje's writing is beautiful and poetic.  He is a poet as well as a novelist, so this makes a great deal of sense.  A poet can convey emotion very succinctly--just a few seemingly unrelated words can be strung together and make a portrait of feeling that you can feel to your core.  But I guess I'm just a very pragmatic, practical person.  For me, there has to be a good reason for the emotion.  Why would someone shoot themselves?  To me you'd need a pretty darn good reason.  Why would someone turn their back on love when both of them desperately need it?  Again, I crave a solid reason.  And in the book, but not in the movie, for me the reasons just didn't seem real. 

Dog and I watched the movie again after I finished the book and it just confirmed my feelings about it.  I love the movie, and I think the characters from the book are carried over very well into the movie.  But I feel more comfortable with the motivations of the movie characters.

If you've neither seen the movie or read the book, I suggest reading the book first.  Then watch the movie and tell me what you think.

The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore ***

Overall, this book can be summed up with one word:  stupid.

But this is Christopher Moore, so I knew going into it that it would be stupid.  This man is a genius of stupidity, if that makes any sense.  He takes some really odd characters and basically makes their lives even more insane than they already were.  I was pleased to see some of the characters from two of his previous books I've read, The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove & Lamb, were included in this book. 

The setting is in Pine Cove, California, one of those trendy, artsy towns that you end up visiting and thinking it would be neat to live there.  And then you leave.  Basically there is a murder, a confused angel, and zombies.  Yeah, it's pretty stupid.

My only beef with the book is when the R-word comes up in reference to the angel.  In many ways I think Christopher Moore did a fairly decent job dealing with the word, but I just hate hearing or reading it at all.  I know it's out there, I know it's used by a lot of people, but I hate it and I don't see the need for it. 

Other than that, I overall recommend this book if you want to read something really stupid and silly.  If you want to read something that's silly but profound, I recommend Lamb.

The Potato Chip Puzzles by Eric Berlin ***

I'm going to attempt to read all the Mark Twain Award nominees again this year, & this is my first one! 
If you like solving all kinds of puzzles, then this may be the book for you.  Eric Berlin does a good job of injecting math, word, geometry, & other kinds of puzzles into this fairly entertaining book.

Winston Breen is a puzzle sleuth, so when he helps the principal of his junior high solve a puzzle they find out that there is going to be a puzzle-solving competition, & of course Winston will be on the team from his school.  The team of three students & one teacher must solve 6 different puzzles in order to win the prize:  $50,000 for their school.  But they're up against some of the best puzzle pros in the area.  Can they win?  And which team is cheating?

There was a lot of excitement in this book as the teams raced to solve the puzzles, but I was confused by the difficulty of some of them.  Some were so hard to me that it seemed like I'd never have solved them on my own (lucky for me the answers are in the back of the book!).  Yet I was surprised that the final puzzle wasn't as hard as I expected.  Also I thought there would be more of a twist in the story at the end, so I was mildly disappointed when I reached the end of the book. 

Overall, though, I think it's a great book for the puzzle-minded kid aged 8-14.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes ***

Tony is remembering his first girlfriend from back in the 60's.  He's retired now, divorced, & rather confused when he gets an inheritance from Veronica's mother.  Why would he get 500 pounds from his ex-girlfriend's mom 40 years later?  He soon finds out it has something to do with his friend Adrian. After Tony & Veronica broke up back then, she started dating Adrian.  A few months later, Adrian killed himself.  Is Tony remembering the past correctly?  And what is the past, if not what we remember? 
Overall, this was a great book.  The writing was excellent & it read quickly.  You tend to feel Tony's confusion along with him, & you can become very emotionally invested in the outcome.
That said, there are two things about this book I didn't like.  The first is something that has happened to anyone who reads. You've heard of a great book, everyone says it's the wonderful.  So you get it & read it.  And you just don't quite get it.
That happened to me with this book.  It has a twist at the ending & I understood that.  But there was an aspect of it that I just didn't grasp, & it's not because the author didn't supply it, it's because sometimes I just don't get the obvious.  I don't want to give away the ending, but it's so hard not to & properly discuss this book.  So I'm going to make an announcement:

SPOILER ALERT!!!  PROCEED WITH CAUTION!!!

OK, so in the end we find out that Adrian killed himself because he'd gotten Veronica's mother pregnant.  Alright, I get that.  But what I fail to grasp is why Tony has anything to do with that.  There's the implication that maybe he somehow encouraged it in his angry letter to Adrian when he found out he & Veronica were dating.  But I don't see how that has made him some sort of accomplice to the whole affair.  I just don't get it, so if you've read this book & you understand what the heck is going on, please leave a comment & tell me!
The second thing that upsets me is the portrayal of Adrian's son.  He obviously has a developmental disability of some sort, but lame approach is taken that this is a horrible tragedy.  I guess I'm tired of seeing people with those types of disabilities as being tragic figures.  They can be tragic, don't get me wrong, but not because of their disability.  The only tragedy that I saw was the fact that a young man would rather kill himself than deal with impregnating someone, even if it is his girlfriend's mom. 
And that brings me back to the first problem--why would she leave money to Tony? 
I think I better just leave it there & start reading a new book!

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens *****

One of the main reasons I love this book is just because of it's title.  It says it all.  Who among us hasn't had great expectations when we were younger of what our lives would be like?  We were going to be different.  Individuals, living how we wanted, not like our parents.  Not stuck in some small town or small mindset, but living large.  I was young enough when I first read Great Expectations to realize that's how I felt, but old enough to hear the nasty voice of doubt whispering in my ear. Since then I've come to realize that giving a child the gift of great expectations is actually a curse--they'll be like Sisyphus, pushing that boulder up the hill but having it crush them at the bottom in the end.
Pip grows up in the country being brought up "by hand" by his shrewish older sister & her gentle husband.  Joe, Pip's brother-in-law, is actually Pip's greatest childhood friend.  Joe is a simple & ignorant blacksmith, but his kindness & care for others makes you realize how wise he actually is.  Joe & Pip simply live for the day that Pip will be apprenticed to Joe & then "what larks!" they will have together.  But a series of events that seem to be unrelated conspire to make Pip wish to be more than he ever thought he could be, & to then give him the means to that end.
Great Expectations is about the foolishness of youth & about growing up & leaving behind those that we love.  It's about the abandoning of the people that made you good in favor of those that you think will make you great.  And it's about the journey back home after being led far afield.
It's also a book about judgement.  I can't tell you how many times I've labeled people in my mind based on some small aspect of their character that I think I've had some sort of special insight into.  It's all rubbish.  The label always comes from within the labeler-- you see something of yourself you'd rather not like to admit to in someone else.  There are several quotes from this book that I like, but by far my favorite is one where Pip refers to his great friend Herbert:

We owed so much to Herbert's ever cheerful industry and readiness, that I often wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his inaptitude, until I was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude had never been in him at all, but had been in me.

Thanks Mr. Dickens.

Thousands of Tiny Dots...

Just thought I'd pop on here & tell you all what I've been up to.  Haven't been reading anything new, unfortunately.  But I have been re-reading some of my favorite books.  Right now I'm tackling Great Expectations again.  I haven't read much of Dickens, but this is by far my favorite book by him.  I think it has a lot to do with my own great expectations, & how it seems like they just set us up to not appreciate all  the small things that happen to us that, when added together, make up a solid life.  When viewed in hindsight I think most of us would think a great many people have lived important lives in some way or another.  I often wonder, though, how many of those people thought they were supposed to achieve something large, or great, all at once in the course of their time on earth.  Only in retrospect can you look back & feel that you've lead a "good" life.  At least that's what I hope.  My expectations are still making my life difficult.  I hope that once I'm out of my 40's (& God help me, I've only just gotten into them!) I can maybe start to forgive myself for what I consider my lack of acheivement in my life.  I hope that I can start to see in a few years the solid wall of something built of the many little things that make up my daily life.

But for right now I'm still stuck not seeing the whole picture.