This is a copy of an email I sent earlier this month. I decided I want it included in the BLOG after all.
I just finished Karen Cushman’s The Long Silence of Francine Green which in true Cushman style is historical fiction, but much closer to us than usual. It is set in Hollywood CA in 1949-1950, and I think she nails the loss of innocence, the confusion and the fear of the early McCarthy years by telling of the gradual awareness of these things from the point of view of an admitted good girl who wants more than anything to stay out of trouble at home and at her Catholic school. Francine as naïve observer of the world is totally believable, and her new friend Sophie who delights in the attention of being a thorn in the nuns’ side, is just as credible as the outspoken daughter of an unsuccessful widowed Hollywood screen-writer. Blacklists, naming names, sadistic teaching nuns all conspire to force Francine to find her voice. The only complaint I have about the book is that it ended. I wasn’t ready to stop being part of Francine’s life just yet.
I also recently read M.T. Anderson’s The Clue in the Linoleum Lederhosen which is goofy, clever, fast moving and I think, deeper than one assumes. Anderson is spoofing all the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Happy Hollisters, and other mystery series as the characters each represent a type of child crime solver with sometimes hilarious results (what happens if a series is cancelled before the hero is ready to be “done”?) The zany writing style will keep kids who have graduated from Time Warp Trio and Captain Underpants coming back to see what else Anderson wrote.
Just before I went on vacation I read The Book of Story Beginnings by Kristin
I just finished Karen Cushman’s The Long Silence of Francine Green which in true Cushman style is historical fiction, but much closer to us than usual. It is set in Hollywood CA in 1949-1950, and I think she nails the loss of innocence, the confusion and the fear of the early McCarthy years by telling of the gradual awareness of these things from the point of view of an admitted good girl who wants more than anything to stay out of trouble at home and at her Catholic school. Francine as naïve observer of the world is totally believable, and her new friend Sophie who delights in the attention of being a thorn in the nuns’ side, is just as credible as the outspoken daughter of an unsuccessful widowed Hollywood screen-writer. Blacklists, naming names, sadistic teaching nuns all conspire to force Francine to find her voice. The only complaint I have about the book is that it ended. I wasn’t ready to stop being part of Francine’s life just yet.
I also recently read M.T. Anderson’s The Clue in the Linoleum Lederhosen which is goofy, clever, fast moving and I think, deeper than one assumes. Anderson is spoofing all the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Happy Hollisters, and other mystery series as the characters each represent a type of child crime solver with sometimes hilarious results (what happens if a series is cancelled before the hero is ready to be “done”?) The zany writing style will keep kids who have graduated from Time Warp Trio and Captain Underpants coming back to see what else Anderson wrote.
Just before I went on vacation I read The Book of Story Beginnings by Kristin
Kladstrup which is a fantasy on the order of Funke’s Inkheart. It involves a notebook
in which young aspiring writers begin stories only to have to live them out somehow.
Tension is caused when stories begun more than 70 years apart become entwined
and the solution to the more recent must not affect the ending of the first, or somehow, the latter story cannot happen… I know, I know, such unlikely juxtapositions are only possible in fantasy, but for once I didn’t find it a problem. I liked Lucy and Oscar. I didn’t quite believe Lucy’s father’s character, but I enjoyed the book and think that it will be a handy suggestion to make to children who enjoy Funke or Micheal Ende’s Neverending Story. 
I also managed to read Jennifer Weiner’s Goodnight Nobody (adult chick lit) which
I also managed to read Jennifer Weiner’s Goodnight Nobody (adult chick lit) which
was perfect airplane reading but I found not as engrossing or interesting as her previous books.
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