Parenthetical

Ok, people, true fact: I read four of these nominated buggers today. That’s the kind of volume we’re talking about here. I committed to reviewing everything I read, and I intend to keep up with that — mostly because it’s good for me, as a writer and as a person who remembers stuff better if [...]

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Lonely Portia looks out her window one night and sees a giant purple monster shuffling into the woods near her house. So of course she goes out to investigate — and discovers the adorable, silent, hungry creature she eventually names Jellaby. She brings him home and feeds him tuna fish, and he becomes her secret [...]

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Babymouse loves Halloween. (I can relate. My front porch still looks like Halloween threw up on it.) She wants to dress up as something scary and have a party with her friends, most of whom seem to be boys. But her nemesis, Felicia Furrypaws, informs her that, “Everyone knows that girls have to be pretty [...]

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It’s about time for a Cybils review of something I love unreservedly… and fortunately, here it is! Rapunzel’s Revenge has the somewhat unlikely premise of Rapunzel set in an alternate magical Wild West, but it totally works. The wicked witch is a greedy landowner whose growth magic allows her to run a slave mine and [...]

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* If by “exclusive,” you mean “me, a couple of other librarians, some bookstore folks, a publicist, and 500 students.” And if by “interview,” you mean “hanging out while madly selling books at lunch, and then listening to him speak to a few English classes.” Summary first: John is awesome. He is intelligent, warm, well-spoken, [...]

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The lovely and talented Kate Diamond tagged me on the “page 56″ meme a while ago, and I have slacked. Anyway: Here are the rules: Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 56. Find the fifth sentence. Post the text of the next two to five sentences in your journal/blog along with these [...]

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Apologies, again, for being AWOL. I have a stack of reviews in the queue, and I’m going to try to bang them out quickly to catch up. Brevity is the name of the game, folks! Kristin recommended this little book to me — and as she pointed out, it was a perfect choice for Banned [...]

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I just cataloged a novel called No Cream Puffs, by Karen Day. It’s about a girl in 1980 Michigan who plays baseball on the boys’ team. The girl’s name? Madison. I’m skeptical. I don’t know any 39-year-old Madisons. I sure do know a lot of twelve-year-old Madisons, though. What do you think? Is this an [...]

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If you’re waiting with bated breath for reviews of all the books I’ve been reading, you might have a bit of a wait — say, a couple of months or so. I have 5 or 6 reviews in the pipeline, because the reading hasn’t slowed down nearly as much as the writing. And I will [...]

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Via Omnivoracious: Roald Dahl: sexiest spy in America Not to give away the best part, but… She proved such a tigress in bed that Dahl later claimed to have begged his superiors to take him off the assignment. He was ordered back to the bedroom, and told to close his eyes and think of England.

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