The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch ***

The idea is very intriguing--using your own family's history, write a mystery novel with your relatives as characters!  That's what Oliver Pötzsch did about his ancestors, the Kuisl's, a family of professional executioners.  Set in Bavaria in the 1600's, after the 30 Years War, Jakob Kuisl is the hangman for the town of Schongau.  When a group of children that played together start showing up dead, one by one, Jakob is charged with proving the local midwife innocent of the crimes.  With superstition, allegations of witchcraft, hidden treasure, & hired swords, the action is very intense & the plot thickens nicely.

I was excited to find Schongau in a modern German atlas that my husband has.  He's a high school German teacher, but more importantly he loves history, so when I told him where & when the story was taking place in the book he knew immediately that the 30 Years War was over, but that it had decimated Germany.  The whole area was left in poverty & ruin, & it took many years for the people of the area to get back to what their lives had been before the war.  The war had been very brutal & been fought on German soil, with many atrocities performed on both sides of the conflict.  He told me that many people, especially not from Europe, don't know anything about this war & why it was fought.  We think that the Protestant faith just came about when Martin Luther nailed his list on the door of the church, but that was just the beginning.  The 30 Years' War was the fight for control of Europe--would each country remain firmly Catholic, or would they become Protestant?

I liked the setting, the characters, & the action of the book.  My only personal, petty issue was that I was hoping for a bigger mystery in the end.  I was a little disappointed by the conclusion & found it lacking in believability, but overall it was a great read.  I don't know if I'll read any more of the books Pötzsch has since written about his famous ancestors (they seem to be a series of mysteries), but I definitely don't regret the time I spent reading this book.

Goblin Secrets by William Alexander ***

Again my apologies for taking so long to post.  Is it just me, or are blogs just not as popular anymore?  I think Facebook has taken a lot away from them, but in a way that's such a shame.  You only get a few characters on Facebook & there's really no way to adequately describe how you felt about a book on there.  But technology & life go on, & where Facebook now is I'm sure there will eventually be something new.  Things never stand still & change is always going to be there.  I guess I might as well make friends with it!

Goblin Secrets won the National Book Award for children's literature this past year, so I thought it would be a great choice to give a try.  I didn't find it great, but it was very interesting.  It takes place in an alternate world where I have to admit I get very confused.  There are goblins there, but their version of goblins aren't what I think most of us think of as goblins.  They used to be people, but were transformed somehow (it doesn't tell how that happens in the book) & most people fear them.  But they don't seem to do the humans in the book any harm, they simply are traveling performers.  There's a great deal of clock-work characters running around too, which was also rather confusing to me.  I think the most confusing thing right now is that it's been quite awhile since a read the book & I'm only left with vague impressions, & therefore can't really give a good description of what the book was really about. 

Yes, this is one lame review!  But I do hope that this doesn't deter anyone from reading the book.  Like I said, it wasn't bad, just very different.  It's kinda like reading a Tolkien book & entering Middle Earth in only about 100 pages.  Probably good for the younger set, if they can let go of their fetters & just enjoy the ride.

Runaway Twin by Peg Kehret ****

I think it has to be hard for authors writing books for kids in the 4-6th grade, especially if they want to make them realistic.  Let's face it, it's hard to be real without being scary.  All you have to do is turn on the news in the evening, or better yet watch one of the at least 25 crime dramas on tv to see how frightening the world can be. 

I think Peg Kehret has done a good job in this book of being real without going overboard.  I haven't read any of her other books, but she seems to be a specialist in this.  Scary stuff that won't keep kids from being able to sleep at night.

Sunny Skyland is an orphan who's been bumped around from foster family to foster family ever since she was 3 & her mom & grandma died in a car wreck.  It's 10 years later & when she finds a bag of money in the woods near her current foster home in Nebraska she decides to do what she's dreamed of all her life--find her twin sister, Starr.  With just her brains, the money, & a stray dog she finds on the way, Sunny makes her way to Washington state, to the town she lived in before her life changed forever.  Will she find Starr?  And what happens if she does?

This book is well written & it also has a realistic ending.  Some of the adventures she encounters are a little far fetched, but the way Peg Kehret describes them makes you more than willing to believe.  Coming face-to-face with a tornado in the middle of nowhere with no shelter doesn't sound like a good recipe for survival, but the descriptions are wonderful & the matter-of-fact way the author uses them makes you really think this is what a 13 year old girl like Sunny would say.

The media is full of so many stories of separated twins who found each other when they were older & happened to have lived similar lives.  But when two paths diverge you never know where they'll end up.  I don't want to give anything away, but I found the need for acceptance of life the way that it is at the end of the book refreshing.  It has a happy ending, the kind that will stick with you.

The Airplane Boys Among the Clouds by John Luther Langworthy ****

So I was browsing through http://www.gutenberg.org/ the other night & while looking at the listings of kids series books this one caught my eye.  More accurately, this one caught my husband's eye.  He likes planes & he likes history, & seeing a book written for kids back in 1912 about planes pretty much was a melding of the two.  He begged me to read this one next & review it on here, so now here we go! 

First off, this was fun to read.  It starts with the full title: The Airplane Boys Among the Clouds; or, Young Aviators in a Wreck.  I think I know what might happen to our two intrepid heroes, Frank & Andy Bird!  But wait!  They don't just fly their new-fangled fancy biplane up to the top of Old Thunder Top & give the eagles that nest there a nasty scare--they also deal with two mysterious men who've come to town.  Oh yeah, & there's an escaped convict too who takes pot-shots at them while they fly above him.  One of my favorite lines is when the police chief tells Frank Bird (remember, Frank's only about 17):

"He might try to steal your new biplane I've heard them talking about; or even burn down your whole outfit.  Better get a gun, & keep watch.  He's fair game, you know, if so be you catch him prowling around after dark.  An escaped convict hasn't any rights in the eye of the law."

Alrighty then, Chief!  I'll just shoot to kill then!  Wow!  Those were the good ol' days!  Lucky for the convict, Jules Garrone, that Frank decided to spring a trap on him instead.  And the Bird boys (including their friends Larry, Elephant, & I'm sorry to say Stuttering Nat) were quite upstanding lads to boot.  After they caught the dastardly devil this is what ensued:

"Frank had meanwhile tied his ankles as well, & helped drag him further into the shop.  When the man started to using language that was offensive, he warned him plainly that if he kept that up any longer they would find some means of gagging him."

Take that, you rotten scoundrel! 

Even with my limited knowledge of aviation it amused me to hear the references to guy wires & the smart little Kincaid engine that the boys had put on the biplane they'd built.  Also the fact they needed a good push sometimes to take off.  The wheels were referred to as bicycle wheels, & the Wright Brothers were referenced also--as contemporaries! 

So all in all, I'm glad Dog suggested this book.  If you'd like to download it yourself for free just click this link.  I don't think it's read too much anymore, but I can sense the amazed love that many a young boy 100 years ago would have had for this body of work.

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 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!

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown **

I was loaned this book by someone I work with, or else I probably wouldn't have read it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being a snob or anything, it's just that these kinds of books start to all seem the same. And since I've read The Da Vinci Code, I have to say that I was right.

I like The Da Vinci Code. It was fast paced, interesting, and the ending was great. Dan Brown wrote a great thriller when he wrote that one. So not surprisingly, he stayed with the same model when he wrote The Lost Symbol.

Here are some of the similarities: same main character, smart woman in distress that then helps the hero, classic architecture, big crazy scary guy that likes to kill, a secret that most people don't know but which is right under their noses.

Even with all those similarities, I was still flying through the book trying to find out how it ends. Well, it ended quite lamely. The ending was just not very good. It was anticlimactic and didn't make a lot of logical sense. For example, if you'd gotten your hand cut off and been tortured all day, wouldn't you want to take a nice rest around 2 AM? I know there are a lot of cool things you'd like to tell the hero, but you've had a rough day and to top it all off you found out a very disturbing bit of family info that would make most people collapse in pain and horror. But no. You'd like to take the hero on a little tour of Washington D.C. in the wee hours of the morning. Why not.

Also the massive revelation at the end of the whole sha-bang is just kinda...okay. I'm saying if I were the big scary guy that likes to kill and I was still running around at the end of the story, I'd be killing. Just cause I would have found out that none of this was really worth anything. And cause I'd like to kill.

So while this was an interesting and fast read, I don't recommend it very highly. I have only read these two Dan Brown books, though, so if his other writing gets off this same pattern I would be more than glad to give it a try. But if it uses the same format...I think I've already been there.

Found by Mararet Peterson Haddix ***

I'm going to reveal something about this book that you might not want to know if you haven't read it yet, so don't read any further if you don't like having your book spoiled!!

*****************

I used to really like time travel books--I have always been fascinated with the past and I'd love to be able to go back in time to see what life was really like, especially the clothes! But as I've gotten older I have a hard time dealing with the paradoxes that present themselves when you try to actually think of time as fluid. That's the only reason I haven't given this book 4 stars. I guess I'm just getting to where I don't want to have to get a headache when I read anymore!

A plane load of babies mysteriously appears 13 years ago, with no pilot or crew. The 36 babies are adopted out, with Jonah and his friend Chip being two of them. And now someone is coming back to find them all, but what are they going to do with them? Jonah, his sister Katherine, and Chip must try to figure out what's going on before they're stopped...or worse.

This was a great page-turning read, and if it wasn't for my brain not being able to grasp all the complexities of time travel I would have liked it even more. I'm not sure if I'm going to read the next book in the series or not...we shall see! But certainly do recommend this book if you like suspense and sci-fi.

The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne ****

I've resurfaced. To say I've had a heck of a time recently would be an understatement. I don't know if it's my age, my hormones, or just the time of year, but I was down in the dumps for the whole month of December & didn't know if I was going to be able to pull myself out. I've read that the early 40's are the most depressing time of most people's lives, so maybe this is just my new periodic normal. If it is, it sucks. I didn't read. Anything. Which shows how bad off I was. Even when I'm not actively reading a book I'm always reading something: a magazine, articles online, something. But not this time.

I'm glad to relate that I think I've snapped out of it. I hope like hell that I don't snap back into it, but I'm realistic if I'm anything. If you see a large break on here again, that's most probably what's going on. So bear with me, please.

On to the book--

I've been going through the Dover Publications catalog & looking at the books they offer in a new light. I had an AHA! moment & saw that most all of their items are copyright free. Which means something wonderful: Project Gutenberg. You see, I've got this doggone Kindle that I have a love/hate relationship with. I love the instant gratification of reading material, but hate the lack of sensory input, ie. the feel of the pages, the smell of the book, the heaviness or lightness of the tome. But when I get free ebooks from Gutenberg, well...I start loving the little devil again.

A.A. Milne, of Winne the Pooh fame, wrote a mystery book back in the 20's. And even though I kinda figured out what was going on before the amateur detective did in the book, I liked it. In fact, I liked it a lot.

The usual suspects are gathered at a British country estate in the roaring 20's for a lovely summer weekend. They do the usual stuff that those folk liked to do: golfing, playing on the bowling green (?), anyone for tennis, that kind of stuff. Oh yeah, & then a dead guy shows up & ruins the lovely weekend & I say!, let's figure out what happened, what?

There's all sorts of cool stuff like secret passages, a flamboyant actress, people doing mysterious things in a pond in the dead of night, & the really smart fella that just happens to show up just at the right time & figure the whole thing out. I'm amazed they didn't just kill off all those really smart fellas in England back in the day--they could have gotten away with so much crime without them!

It was a good book to get me out of my funk. If you get in a funk yourself & need a little nudge to get your ass back in gear, I suggest this chestnut. Jolly good show!