I Knew it was Familiar...

Mama's Bank Account
by Kathryn Forbes

I picked this up from the library on a whim. A co-worker of mine had found it in the stacks and showed it to me, but as I looked at it I realized I'd read it before. Or part of it. I'm still not entirely certain, but all throughout there was a sense of familiarity as if I had read it in childhood. I'm positive that at least two of the chapters - "Mama and the Graduation Present" and "Mama and Uncle Elizabeth" - were in my elementary or middle school literature books.

Well, enough about why I picked up the book. Here's a bit about what I read:

In episodic chapters, the author draws on the experiences of her Norwegian immigrant grandmother to describe a family in San Fransisco in the early 1900s, and their steadfast Mama. I really enjoyed these heartwarming and often funny stories. Each chapter could be read nearly on its own, though time moves on, and some references are made to past chapters. The importance of family, and Mama's oft-repeated phrase, "It is good," are at the heart of this story.

Happy New Year!

I'm currently on vacation, but I'm hoping to post a "best of" 2011. Stay tuned! While you wait, here's a question to ponder:

Have you made any reading resolutions this year?

Mine is to read more books off my own bookshelves. This is tough for me, because I work in a library every day and see new books and interesting books come through often. And it's sooo easy to put a request on a book when I'm on the reference desk anyways...

Ahem. In all seriousness, my goal this year is to read one book from my own shelves to every library book I read. Yes, a 1:1 ratio. We'll see how long I can stick to that, but mainly my goal is to start reading through the 100+ unread books I've accumulated over the years. Perhaps as I read through I can make more room for favorites on the shelves! Wish me luck!

White Cat

by Holly Black
New York : Margaret K. McElderry Books, c2010.

One morning, Cassel Sharpe wakes up on the roof of his dorm. His classmates and teachers think he wants to kill himself, but Cassel knows that it's just the sleepwalking that plagued him as a kid coming back. But how can he convince the school of that when his family is a group of powerful curse-workers?

The story is set in a sort of alternate universe, where much of our history has happened, but there have also been "workers" who can work magic by touching you - doing such things as altering emotions or memory. In the U.S., this is outlawed and many workers, including Cassel's family, have turned to crime instead. This creates a really interesting scenario that the author plays with in creating the "alternate" parts of history and the way in which society would work as a result, for example, with the crime families and a society that wears gloves. Cassel narrates in present tense, and is a truly conflicted character. He is the non-worker in a family of workers, not out of choice but because he doesn't have the ability, and feels left out as a result. I could empathize with his struggle to do the right thing while still loving his family, but in some ways his way of thinking was very foreign to me. The book reads really fast - I read it in an evening - and I recommend it to fans of teen fantasy looking for an interesting twist.

Hoot

by Carl Hiaasen
narrated by Chad Lowe
[New York] : Listening Library, c2002.

Roy, the new kid at Coconut Grove, Florida, has unfortunately attracted the notice of the local bully, Dana Matherson. When Dana is strangling him on the school bus, Roy has a good look out the window and sees a boy, running barefoot. Intrigued, he makes it his goal to find out about the running boy. Meanwhile, Curly, the foreman at a Mother Paula's pancake construction site, has been having difficulty with starting construction due to some creative vandalism.

To really tell you the meat of the story, I'm afraid I'd have to give away about the first half of it, so I'm going to leave my summary at that. I will add merely that one of the themes is the environment, and Roy's struggle of whether he should get involved in protesting - and how. His parents tell him that, when his heart and his head are telling him two different things, he needs to do his best to reconcile it and decide what actions to take. Not overtly preachy, though how much you enjoy the book will definitely be affected by your own take on environmental matters.

Parnassus on Wheels

by Christopher Morley
Garden City, New York : Doubleday, Page & Co., 1917.

Miss Helen McGill lives with her brother, Andrew, on a farm. She is eminently practical and hardworking while he, an author, is prone to let farm work go in lieu of rambles in the countryside - food for his writing. So when a traveling salesman with a "Parnassus" - a wagon full to bursting with books - comes selling his wagon and pony, Miss McGill decides she'll buy it herself rather than let Andrew take off again.

This is such a cute, humorous story. Miss McGill reminds me quite a lot of Marilla Cuthbert, if the latter had a literary brother instead of one who wanted to take in an orphan. Though written in 1917 (and set in 1907), the characters' thoughts on reading and good books will still ring true for today's readers. The course of the plot never really surprised me, but it was such a warm story that I couldn't help enjoying it. The perfect comfort read for curling up on a cool evening with a cup of cocoa.

The Exiled Queen

by Cinda Williams Chima
New York : DisneyHyperion, 2010.

**Spoilers for the first in the series, The Demon King.

Han and Raisa's story continues where The Demon King left off. Han and Dancer are on their way to the wizard academy; Raisa travels to Oden's Ford as well to the soldier's school with Amon Byrne and his Gray Wolves. Between the Bayars and civil war in Arden, their journeys are fraught with peril before they even arrive.

Usually I like to give myself a small break between the books in a series so that I don't get too sick of a story, but the end of The Demon King left me really wanting the next installment. Unfortunately, that lack of a break left me chafing whenever there was explanation or reminder of what had gone on before. I was most interested in learning what happens at the schools, and felt that much of the time spent traveling drags a bit, where the first book was more evenly paced. I like Han, Raisa, and Amon a lot, and look forward to seeing how their story unfolds in The Gray Wolf Throne. But now that I know there are going to be four books in the series, I'm planning on spacing it out so I have just enough time to give the series a break of a couple of months, while still being able to remember the story line.

A Bit of Christmas Reading

Do you read any books specifically for the holiday season?

If so, do you have favorites you return to, or do you have favorite rereads you return to?

I thought I'd share a bit about my holiday reading. I celebrate Christmas, and enjoy reading a book or two in the month of December specifically about the Christmas season.

Every year - at least for the past five, and perhaps longer - I have read and reread Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It's become a sentimental favorite. There was one year that, besides reading it, I also watched just about every movie version I could get my hands on (including Muppet Christmas Carol and An American Christmas Carol).

But I also like to read something new. This year, I read The Father Christmas Letters by J.R.R. Tolkien. This is a really cute collection I enjoyed paging through. I could have read it in one sitting, but I spread it out a bit over two days. The stories of Father Christmas and the hapless Polar Bear are often funny, complete with reproductions of Tolkien's illustrations. While I probably wouldn't read it from beginning to end for myself, it would make a fun family read-aloud around Christmastime.

So now that I've answered the questions I've put to myself, here's a final one for you:

What have you or will you read for the holiday season?