Julie of the Wolves

by Jean Craighead George

The pains of growing up and culture clash meld into a story of animal communication and survival skills with some beautiful nature writing. No wonder this book is a classic. It is told in three parts, and the first one is about Julie's interactions with a wolf pack, which hooked me from the beginning. In the opening scene Julie, a thirteen-year-old Inuit (or Eskimo as they are called in the book) is lost on the Arctic tundra. She had run away from home, trying to reach the coast where a ship would take her to San Francisco. She ran out of food and in spite of finding ways to hunt and forage, is slowing starving. She comes across a small wolf pack and decides that her only hope is to gain their trust and share their food. Incredible patience and close attention to the subtle ways the wolves communicate allows her to do this. I really loved reading about how Julie integrated herself into the wolf pack, and how she lived alongside the animals. It felt quite plausible.

The second part of the book is a flashback to Julie's childhood, which tells how she got into her present predicament. Her father, a great hunter who taught her many traditional skills, disappears one day on a trip and is presumed dead. She is forced to move away and live with an aunt who only seems to want Julie in her household as a source of free labor. Julie escapes this situation via an arranged marriage to an Inuit boy, but this new home is also insufferable. Having run away, got lost in the wilderness and found ways to survive, Julie (whose Eskimo name is Miyax) gradually discovers that she loves living close to the land, that she has a deep appreciation for nature and finds satisfaction in using her skills (not without some major challenges, though). When she finally reaches populated areas again, she's no longer sure if she wants to live among men. Her value system is different now. She directly sees the threat modern man poses to her wolves (who follow along towards the village). And when she makes contact with people, she discovers that far more has changed than her own perceptions. I really felt like the ending was too quick, and I had forgotten what sad notes it contained.

But it does make me more eager to pick up the second book and see where the story goes. Julie of the Wolves was a re-read for me. I'm not sure if I read the sequel before. I have a dim memory of abandoning it, but will see how much is familiar.

Rating: 4/5        170 pages, 1972

more opinions:
Inkweaver Review
Rhapsody in Books
Smart Bitches Trashy Books
Skipping Along

Because of Winn-Dixie

by Kate DiCamillo

This is a really gentle, sweet story about a girl who lives in a trailer park in southern Florida. She's recently moved there with her father, the local preacher, and struggles to make friends. Until she spontaneously adopts a large, ugly dog that's causing trouble in the grocery store. She promptly names him Winn-Dixie and takes him home. The homely, friendly mutt makes his way into everyone's heart, his unassuming nature opening things up for our young protagonist. With Winn-Dixie at her side she starts meeting new people, from all walks of life. She lands a job in the pet shop. She gets her father to tell her more about her mother, who left them when she was only three. She discovers that Winn-Dixie also has his flaws, he needs her understanding and patience too. By the end of the story she's made friends among other children in the town, two older women and a man who usually keeps to himself (rumors say he's a criminal and local kids call him retarded, but neither is true). The voices of the children sound authentic- sassy, confused or insightful as the occasion calls for it. The bits about the library are nice, and the stories the elderly women share. It shows something of how everyone has pain in their lives, but together those moments can be overcome. I liked this story. It's heartwarming and kind.

Rating: 3/5         185 pages, 2000

more opinions:
Stuff as Dreams Are Made On
the Cheap Reader

A Dog on His Own

by Mary Jane Auch

I was looking for some light reads, gathering up a handful of J fiction titles that have been on my TBR list for some time. Saw this one just sitting on the library shelf. It's aimed at a young audience- eight to ten-year-olds- but was a nice surprise. I found it a quick, enjoyable read and a pretty good story.

K-10 the dog has had a string of different owners and been in and out of animal shelters several times. He thinks he knows the ropes and is done with humans. He wants to make it on his own and enjoy the freedom of street life. After escaping from his latest encounter with animal control people, he is on the run with a few canine pals. But finds out that his street smarts don't quite cut it, and moreover he needs to learn how to choose his friends. After a series of adventures and mishaps, K-10 figures out who his true friends are, that it's okay to admit you need others, and humans might not be so bad after all. It's a well-told story with believable characters- the animal voices work in this case. It has funny parts, some touching and sad moments, and a lot of good lessons on friendship, loyalty and reserving judgement until you actually know someone. There was only one moment where I frowned at a too-convenient plot device, otherwise pretty darn good.

Rating: 3/5          153 pages, 2008

blogiversary

Nine years today. Still reading, and still book blogging!

Yosemite

An American Treasure
by Kenneth Brower

Of all the National Geographic books I have, this one was the best. The writing is great. It's not as much about wildlife, but what there is of course I loved. Intriguing little snippets that throw exquisite details at me in a few sentences and make me want to go read more right away- for example about how gophers' winter snow leave soil deposits behind that in the spring look like giant worm castings- or so the author imagined as a child. He grew up in the park, his family having been closely tied to it for several generations. His great-grandfather was a contemporary of John Muir and in fact actively opposed Muir on many things, which gives lots of interesting insights into park management here.

There are details on all kinds of things. The history of geological formations- including early mistaken concepts about how they came to be. Controversies and different theologies on how wildlife should be managed in the park. Concerns over human use and the impacts of things like roads, campgrounds and the like. Issues from early decades, including sheepherding. How trails are designed and cut into the rock- the artistry (or lack) of them. Moutainclimbing, of course. Tree blazing, why it was done and what it indicates. Studies of fauna and flora- lichens, wildflowers, giant sequoias. I didn't realize there were so many various microclimates in Yosemite, that's part of what makes this place amazing. It's also about people. John Muir- lots about him. He was such a key figure in the early park's development. There's a close portrait of a Native American woman who learned the art of basketweaving, which plant fibers she gathers in the park, the reasons for their particular uses. Ansel Adams!! I loved that there was a whole chapter about artists who have visited the park, and what they created.

I think it's rather sad I could not find a single other review of this book online. Not on LibraryThing, or even Amzn. It's a book well worth reading. The pictures are stunning.

Rating: 4/5      200 pages, 1990

Yellowstone Country

the Enduring Wonder
by Seymour L. Fishbien

This is a National Geographic publication. It's about the lands encompassing the greater Yellowstone ecosystem- including Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park and the surrounding forests and ranchlands. It's about the wildlife and park visitors, land use management and research programs. Several studies are mentioned- of bison and elk herds, of the timing of individual geysers, of the aftermath of wildfire. Some of the info here was really familiar, as I had already come across it in the book on wildlife refuges and in Summer of Fire. There's lots about the fantastic geothermal features that make Yellowstone famous (quotes from early explorers and visitors make it clear they found it a frightening and "hellish" place). And about debates over certain park features- where campgrounds should be located, how much development should be allowed, how to manage problematic bears and congested traffic, etc. It's clear that the nearby wedge of Grand Teton Nat'l Park has more commercial aspects- but it also has majestic peaks and there's a nice segment in there about mountain climbing, from the author's personal experience in the Tetons. Overall it's a good read describing a wide range of features, and issues faced by park management. And highlighting the awesome beauties of nature found there. Lots of photographs and they are very nice. Many of the landscapes are just stunning.

Rating: 3/5     200 pages, 1989

Majestic Island Worlds

by Leslie Allen, et al

The other authors of this book are Ron Fisher, Thomas O'Neill, Cynthia Ramsay, Tom Melham and Christine Eckstrom Lee. So it's a travel kind of book describing islands. Japan, the Galapagos, Bali, Ireland, New Zealand and the Seychelles. The writing is a bit uneven- I liked the voice of several of the authors, others were dull. My favorite chapter was the one about the Galapagos, it mentions lots of animal encounters. Did you know a few of the Galapagos Islands are inhabited? I didn't. Each chapter kind of has a different focus: the one about Bali tells a lot about religion, ceremony and culture. The one about New Zealand is mostly about its geography and how much the people there love the outdoors. The chapter on Ireland has a touching story about the author finding some long-lost relatives.  The photographs are lovely throughout.  But near the end of the book my attention was seriously waning.  I just don't know if I'll ever read it again.

Rating: 3/5       200 pages, 1987

America's Wild Woodlands

edited by Donald J. Crump, et al.

I'm going through my National Geographic books. This one has numerous authors. It is, just as the title describes, a description of the various types of forests that cover North America. The chapters are about visits to different national parks and refuges, each encompassing a particular type of habitat. While the refuge book told me a lot about animals, this one is mostly focused on plants. Names of plants abound, their different communities and what makes them thrive and how people are managing woodlands to keep certain species from disappearing. There's frequent mention of harvesting methods, selective logging and thinning of trees, concerns about how to manage fires (which can be rejuvenating) and over other negative influences on forestland: insect infestations, tree diseases, acid rain. It reminds me a lot of Thoreau's Faith in a Seed, but this book is actually drier reading. Thankfully the text is brief, makes its point, and the pictures are numerous. Photographs are very nice and the illustrations by Alan Singer are exquisite in their tidy detail.

Disappointingly, only the cover illustration (hidden by the jacket) includes a bird, all the others show identifying tree foliage.

Rating: 2/5      200 pages, 1985

The Other Wind

by Ursula K. LeGuin

I loved LeGuin's books of Earthsea as a teen. I was ecstatic when years after reading the original trilogy I came across her collection of short stories set in the same world, and much later, the fourth book Tehanu. A number of years back when I heard The Other Wind was published, I was so eager to read it, but  somehow never got around to it until now.

Now Ged is an old man. He used to be Archmage but those powers have left him and he lives on his mountaintop on Gont, keeping goats and tending a garden. A young sorcerer comes to him, a man whose skill is mending things- broken pots and fences, the like. His beloved wife had died and he is harrowed by dreams where he stands at a low wall, his wife reaching to him across it from the dry land. The dreams become more distressing, with other dead figures troubling him until he can no longer sleep and frightens those around him- shouting in the dark at nightmares. He comes to Ged for help but the old man points him to Roke- he senses that these dreams show a significant change coming to their world, something gone wrong in the basic order of things. The young man's journey takes him to the center of their world, where me meets Tehanu the burnt girl, a foreign princess offered in political marraige, and the young king himself. I had forgotten how much I liked Lebannen's character, even though when I first met him in an earlier book I thought he was something of a brat! There are delicate relationships between the characters, strangers and friends, foriegners and those familiar to us. I had forgotten than in this world, some people exist who are really dragons, and some dragons can take human form. The depth LeGuin goes to exploring the foundations of her island world explains why that is so. It's very satisfying in that regard, and I liked that her final version of the distinction between life and death wasn't the expected one, that it took into consideration the ancient tales and superstitions of her foreign, 'barbaric' characters as well. It's very good at looking at how opposing cultures view each other. Most of all, this is a story about the relationship between life and death.

It was a good read, but somehow did not touch me vividly as the earlier books have done. LeGuin is a master of understatement- when I was a kid this let my imagination free to fill in the gaps, to invent all the details. Now I find it just a little bit flat. I was more interested in the ideas presented, than the characters themselves. I admit I had a sudden throb of nostalgia when I first opened the book and saw the map. How I remember poring over that map as a younger reader, following the characters on their journeys between the islands, imagining the different peoples and customs on each. A lot of it came back, reading this final novel. I have a borrowed library copy in hand, but will have to get another to add to my own collection, just to have this series complete.

Rating: 3/5      273 pages, 2001

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Wild Lands for Wildlife

America's National Refuges
by Noel Grove

This National Geographic book is about the National Wildlife Refuges. When it was written there were about 400 of them, in almost every sate. They are areas set aside specifically for wildlife- not recreation or sightseeing. Yet many allow visitors- hiking, limited hunting, even camping. Although a few- Alaska a pointed example- have vast areas of wilderness untouched by man, most of them are closely managed with areas periodically burned to restore certain plant species, or farmland strictly monitored to leave stubble for migrating waterfowl to forage in or work done to restore depleted wetlands. The book describes numerous refuges that the author visited, and tells descriptive stories about the various, sometimes conflicting ways they are run (quite individually, it turns out). Some of the reading is a bit dry, when it veers into politics and management details, but most of it interested me- the layout of the land, its purpose, the animals it strives to protect. There are passages about Florida Key deer, whooping cranes, bison, ruffed grouse, tule elk, longhorn cattle, alligators and more. There are stories of mistakes, pollution, overhunting, battles over land rights and efforts to educate the public. There are stories of success- wildlife multiplying and returning to lands they had forsaken. There is the comeback of bald eagles and peregrine falcons, the questionable future of Hawaiian monk seals. Wolves are barely mentioned as they had not yet been introduced back into the lower '48. Photographs are by Bates Littlehales. They're very good, crisp and vivid.

The book is divided into five sections by the different habitat types and areas: prairies, coastal lands and islands, Eastern forests, the interior West, Alaska. Mostly graced by pictures, but the text is a decent portion too.

Rating: 3/5        208 pages, 1984

This Good Earth

edited by Les Line

I didn't realize it until I actually started reading, but this large format, photo-heavy book features articles from past years of the Audubon magazine. It has a brief outline of the publication's origins and history, especially highlighting the efforts made to save birds from millinery interests in the 1800's. Least you think Audubon is only about bird conservation, the essays cover a wide range of subjects celebrating natural wonders and wildlife (mostly in North America). Including: the formation of fossils, lava flows on Hawaii, how wind shapes coral sand dunes in southern Utah, tortoises on Isabela Island, views from a fire lookout peak in Idaho, the persistence of ice, the beauty of life that thrives in cold-water oceans, patterns weathered in rock by wind and water at Point Lobos, and a broad picture of Alaska.

You know me- my favorite chapters were those featuring wildlife. The longest one is about osprey, and had a lot to do with their decline- this book was published just after DDT was banned and it speculates on the role of pesticides in weakening raptors' eggshells, but had no solid conclusions. It mentions numerous other things that contributed to falling numbers of osprey and other birds of prey (I always though ospery were solitary birds; learned here that they sometimes nest in colonies of several dozen adult pairs.) I enjoyed the essays on tallgrass prairie, chaparral forests and a marsh locked in winter's chill- very well-written and descriptive of environments I'm not too familiar with. There is an interesting chapter by Hal Borland on the names of wildflowers and herbs- just as much about wordplay and nomenclature as it is about nature. The article on bighorn sheep was too short- I wanted more! Another on lichens was really intriguing. Some of the articles however, did not hold my interest.

Funny thing is, I wasn't paying much attention to who the authors were until browsing the credits at the end of the book I noticed Peter Matthiessen among them. This is an author I've always felt like I should like but the few times I've tried reading his books I couldn't get through them. And one of the few articles in this volume that I skipped over was also by him- it describes an arduous hike down a volcanic slope in Hawaii. I guess his writing is just not for me.

The photographs are nice but not spectacular, mostly because they show their age.

Rating: 3/5         256 pages, 1974

Girlchild

by Tupelo Hassman

It's about a girl who grows up poor in a trailer park. All the miserableness you'd expect to find. I liked the author's voice, the way she makes pictures with words in a new way really intrigued me. I liked the idea that the main character fixated on a girl scout handbook and yearned to integrate its moral code into her life- but it turned out that was such a small part of the story. I started dreading it was going to be a story about sexual abuse, and it was. I could not read more than one description about that- even though at first what was really going on was only hinted at, the character couldn't even bear to describe things herself. Some of the chapters are just pages full of blacked out lines with a word or two visible here- I have never seen that in a novel before and it baffled me. It's told in bits and pieces, diary entries, social worker's reports and the like- which I suppose could work but here didn't give me any connection at all.

Borrowed from the public library.

Abandoned      275 pages, 2012

more opinions:
Regular Rumination

TBR 62

The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale- Shelf Love
Pit Bull by Dickey Bronwyn- Reading the End
How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster
The Dawn of the Deed by John A. Long
Something New by Lucy Knisley- Bermudaonion
The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf- So Many Books
Guide to Bird Behavior  by Donald Stokes
Unearthed by Alexandra Risen- Bermudaonion
The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks- Farm Lane Books Blog
The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner- Bermudaonion
100 Birds and How They Got Their Names by Diana Wells
The Underdogs by Melissa Fay Greene- Bermudaonion
Finding Wild by Megan Wagner Lloyd- It's All About Books
The War That Saved my Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley- Reading the End

A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth- Shelf Love
A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa- Reading the End
Never Look An American in the Eye by Okey Ndibe- Caroline Bookbinder
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah- Reading the End

Madapple

by Christina Meldrum

This is a strange one. Aslaug is an unusual young woman- she has grown up in total isolation with her mother. They forage for food in the nearby forest, use herbs for medicines and live without most modern conveniences. She's not unintelligent- Aslaug's mother taught her to read (in several languages) and verses her in botany, science and the mythologies of numerous ancient religions. But the mother keeps secrets, blacks out passages from the books Aslaug has access to and presents some erratic behavior to say the least. When her mother dies, Aslaug is abruptly introduced to the modern world. She is very ignorant of cultural norms, her social skills are rough and her inability to judge others' intentions makes her seem endearingly innocent in one moment, rude in the next. What really charmed me was her way of filtering and describing everything via her understanding of botany- she attributed plant characteristics to all sorts of things around her. It was a very different way to see the world (a bit reminiscent to me of how the narrator in Aquarium described so many things as if they were in an aquatic realm).

The story really revolves around Aslaug's trial- when a neighbor sees her attempting to bury her mother's body in the backyard, he calls the cops and Aslaug is suspected of murder. A social worker assigned to her case looses track of her, but Aslaug herself locates her mother's family- their very existence had been kept secret from her- and finds herself in another place detached from reality. They are members of a fundamentalist christian sect. The second half of the book wasn't quite as engaging for me- but I kept reading to see what the end result would be. Not what I expected! When Aslaug first meets the family I kept wondering whose version was reality- her cousin kept telling her certain things, her aunt had a completely different take on it all, and then when things got really weird I started wondering if Aslaug herself was an unreliable narrator. I don't usually like mysteries, nor do I always enjoy books that jump around in time- this one skips constantly between the trial with snippets of others' testimony and versions of events, and Aslaug's more narrative description of what happened. But in this case it worked for me.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 3/5        410 pages, 2008

more opinions:
A Patchwork of Books
The Well-Read Child
Becky's Book Reviews
Confessions of a Bibliophile
Bookshelves of Doom

Tropical Aquarium Fish

Comprehensive Edition
by Dr. Chris Andrews and Dr. Ulrich Baensch

General book on fishkeeping, an old version. It was kind of amusing to see hairstyles and decor in the photographs of kids leaning over their aquariums, that I recall from middle school years, several decades ago now. Most of the information about setup and maintenance was not new to me, but I kind of liked reading it anyway. I was a little surprised at some of the recommendations- such as running a light ten to fourteen hours a day- that seems way too much to me and I also noticed that lots of the photos of fish had serious algae in the background. Either someone didn't care about finding pictures of fish in clean living conditions for the publication, or it was just norm and accepted to have so much algae in your tank back then. One of the authors here invented tetra flake food, so it's no surprise that for each species profiled in the book, his products were listed as the best foods. Live and frozen foods were dismissed, for the risk of carrying disease. I think you'll find it different now- at least at the places I frequent online, many aquarists opine that live foods are best for the fishes, dried and flake food being of poorer quality overall. Also I was astonished to read a description on how to deal with unwanted snails in an aquarium- it involved stripping the ends of wires attached to a battery and dangling the exposed copper ends into the tank. What.

So those were things that jumped out at me, but really it is a standard book. Tells about essential equipment and how to set it up, explains the nitrogen cycle, how to introduce fish slowly, the benefits of growing live plants, dealing with vacation absence, identifying major diseases and how to attempt breeding certain species. But the majority of the book- over three quarters of it- is pages of species profiles. More than two hundred fishes are shown here and although the pictures are older and not always of the best clarity, I enjoyed looking through them. There were some fish in there that aren't popular now and I've never actually seen them in shops, some rare ones are mentioned and others are interesting because I recognize them even though their common names and appearance have changed through selective breeding, since this book was published.

Rating: 3/5       240 pages, 1993

The Girl Who Could Fly

by Victoria Forester

It starts out intriguing, with an inquisitive farm girl named Piper, who is born with the ability to float (I kept thinking of Princess Hyacinth) and teaches herself to fly. Her parents disapprove and the community is shocked when they find out. They decide it's best to send Piper to a secret institution for kids with special abilities. Where she meets children of all sorts (mind-reading, super strength, control over plants, etc) and gets involved in a government conspiracy. I thought this would be to learn from or manipulate the kids' abilities, but turns out it is to force them to conform instead. I liked Piper's character- someone else described this book as 'Little House on the Prairie meets X-Men' but she really reminded me of Anne of Green Gables. You'd think the story would get more intense when Piper gets to the special school but that's when it quickly went downhill. The telling got a lot more careless and suddenly I had no investment in continuing. I glanced at some of the reviews on amzn and it looks like I wouldn't have enjoyed where the story was going, anyway.

Borrowed from the public library. A better read on this theme would be Black and Blue Magic!

Abandoned        329 pages, 2008

Rosemary and Rue

by Seanan McGuire

Sixty pages in, and I'm done reading this one. Too bad, it was pretty good so far. It's an urban fantasy where fae (many kinds) inhabit our world, hiding their activites from humans. The main character, October, is half fae/half human, so she doesn't really fit into either side. After being trapped as a fish in a public pond for fourteen years when she crossed someone, she is shunning the fae and making her way best she can in the human world. But then she gets a horrific message from her old friend and mentor- in the moments of her death. Her friend lays a curse on October forcing her to investigate the murder. So she gets drawn back into the tangle of fae politics whether she likes it or not.

Well- I liked the voice of October. She's got spunk, and some wry humor. And I really liked the setting- McGuire depicts San Francisco very well. But- crime mysteries really aren't my thing, no matter how wrapped up in fantasy they are. And in spite of the main character's frequent asides to quickly explain things, the details of how things worked in this world of magic mixed with reality was a bit much for me to keep track of. I would have liked to read more about her imprisonment as a fish, haha! But of course that was just barely mentioned in the story.

This one had been on my older TBR for a long time- don't remember where I first saw it menitoned. Borrowed from the public library. Moving on now.

Abandoned       358 pages, 2009

more opinions:
Fantasy Cafe
Discriminating Fangirl
Fantasy and Sci Fi Lovin' Reviews

The Majesty of the Horse

by Dean Server

I have two coffee-table books on horses. When I started reading this one, I thought I might decide to keep it in place of the other- it's more up-to-date and has nicer quality photographs. But I'm holding onto both, because it turns out they have different focus. This book was an easier read, the prose is more casual and friendly and it's not as dense with information. Tells more about the biology and keeping of horses. It also has an overview of their history with mankind and a snapshot of various breeds, but gives me different details on those. For example, I noticed that the other book said Arabians have different body structure, the number of ribs and vertebrae, that makes them so unique among horses at one point scientists were going to consider them a different species. This book doesn't say anything about Arabian skeletons, but points out that Exmoor ponies, one of the oldest breeds, have a different jaw formation than other horses, including an extra molar. Also of note in a historic kind of sense- it tells of the Przewalski's horse being extinct in the wild, with captive populations growing in hopes that they would someday be introduced back into the wild. That is now a success story.

Great photographs. If I was still in the habit of making detailed drawings from photos, I'd definitely source these.

Rating: 3/5       128 pages, 1997

Fledgling

by Octavia Butler

The narrator wakes up alone, in the dark, with a severe head injury and a desperate hunger. She has no idea where she is, what has happened to her, or even her own name. She feeds on animals she catches (craving raw meat) and slowly healing, starts walking out of the forest. Gradually the names of items around her come back, and she starts to make sense of the world. But other things she cannot recall, so when she first meets a human she has no idea of their differences. She stumbles through the world unknowing, and so does the reader along with her.

She is Ina. An ancient species that lives by feeding on human blood, that cannot stand the daylight, that has extra-heightened senses and strength. Vampires, but not exactly the same as those in human folklore (even the characters in the book have misconceptions of the Ina). For example, they can't convert humans into their own kind, they are not undead, they raise their young and live in family groups separated by gender. The main character here- who looks like she's ten but in Ina years she's over fifty- gradually learns about herself as she comes across others of her own kind. It's an urgent matter, because almost as soon as she discovers what she is and where her people are, she finds out that someone is very seriously trying to kill them, and maybe they are targeting her in particular. Because it turns out she's not quite like the others of her kind. Her skin is darker and she can walk around in the daytime. She barely understands herself what these differences mean, but it's very apparent that someone else finds them threatening.

I liked the idea behind this book, and the themes it explores. Especially how it showed the Ina creating symbiotic relationships with the people they fed on- becoming bonded, giving something of value to the humans in return. Their social structure is different from what I expected, and it takes the humans in the story time to adjust to that as well.  Her first human partner is a grown man but oddly enough I didn't find it disturbing to read descriptions of this to-all-appearances pre-pubsecent girl being in such a relationship. I suppose because I expected a vampire story to be creepy or disturbing in some way. And this one doesn't really have any gross factors. But the other reason might be because I never really felt connected to the characters, it never felt real or engaging. The prose often felt stiff, the descriptions were not of things that interested me, and even though the backstory and explanations came through other characters, it felt like they were just there to do that: lots of people standing around telling each other stuff, in the most deadpan ways. I admit I skipped an entire chapter in the middle because I was loosing interest, then picked up reading again and skimmed more near the end.

Read more about it in the reviews linked to below- I didn't even tell you some of the more interesting points because I'm tired now.

Rating: 2/5        316 pages, 2005

more opinions:
Things Mean a Lot
Speculative Book Review
Amy Reads
Savidge Reads
Rhapsody in Books
Literary Omnivore

The Bird King

an artist's notebook
by Shaun Tan

I love looking at how other artists work, and that's exactly what this gives me. For it's not a book you read, it's one you look at. One I want to keep on looking at. A selection of quick drawings and detailed studies, from Shaun Tan's sketchbooks. Some are working studies for film and book projects he did, others are drawings that grew a life of their own- titles suggesting a story behind them, although he claims the pictures originate first. There are drawings from life- I particularly like the ones from museum figurines- people around him, landscapes made into wild abstractions. My favorites are among the final pages, little idle doodles and quick jottings that are full of half-formed thought and lively action. It's really inspirational. It makes me want to go spend hours drawing.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5        128 pages, 2010

more opinions:
Waking Brain Cells
Charlotte's Library
Apples with Many Seeds