Inside Jacket

I remember Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott being a good book.  Sadly, it has fallen ill to the passage of time.  I read it much too long ago and I simply can not remember anything about it.  And that my friends is a very sad thing because Elizabeth Scott rocks.  I have no hesitations in recommending her books.

I can tell you what Love You Hate You Miss You is about from reading synopsis’s myself.  In fact, I’ll share with you from Scott’s website:

It’s been seventy-five days. Amy’s sick of her parents suddenly taking an interest in her. And she’s really sick of people asking her about Julia. Julia’s gone, and Amy doesn’t want to talk about it. No one knew Julia like she did. No one gets what life is without her.
No one understands what it’s like to know that it’s all your fault.

Amy’s shrink thinks she should keep a journal but instead, Amy starts writing letters to Julia. And as she writes letter after letter, she begins to realize that the past holds its own secrets–and that the present deserves a chance.

Looking over some of the reviews myself, it feels vaguely familiar but yet I cannot recall any feelings nor basic details about the book.  However, other reviewers were very enthusiastic about Love You Hate You Miss You and sad that it didn’t receive more attention at the time of it’s release.  Hey, it’s Elizabeth Scott, I say go read it despite my not being able to remember anything about it.  Will it stand the test of time?  For me, obviously not.  But I didn’t dislike it in the least.  I don’t think all books have to have staying power.  It was a good read at the time.

As a side note – I find it interesting to note how our feelings for a book change over time.  Do you find yourself  not being able to remember basic plotlines of books that you’ve read in the past?

Links of interest: My book reviews of Something, Maybe, Living Dead Girl.  Elizabeth Scott website and blog.  Other blogger reviews.
Genre:  Young Adult
Publisher:  Harper Teen.  May 26, 2009.
Hardcover, 288 pages.
Love You, Hate You, Miss You is available from your local independent bookstore, Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

I know I’ve been saying this a lot about the Halloween picture books that I’ve been reviewing this past week but I have another book for you that is sooooo cute and adorable that I can hardly stand it.  Have you seen Goodnight, Little Monster by Helen Ketteman and illustrated by Bonnie Leick?  It’s a new one this  year and one that you have to have!

Rhyming text describes one little monster’s going to bed rituals: bathtime and scrubbing every scale, tangling his hair, bedtime snack of worm juice and baked beetle bread, brushing his fangs, reading a book, checking under the bed for scary children, and snuggling in with a night-light (an eyeball of course).

Sweet dreams, Little Monster.
My darling, sleep tight.
With Mama nearby,
you’ll be safe through the night.

What absolutely steals the show in this book are the gorgeous illustrations. Just enough cuteness and just enough ick. Bonnie Leick certainly knows how to make me wish I could bottle up that little monster, put him in my pocket, and take him home with me.  I love the clawed monster feet on all the furniture.  Lots of bugs.  Lots of spiders.  Bats and mice as well.  Both of my kids got a great kick out of the worm juice and baked beetle bread. They love to point out the jar of eyeballs on the copyright page.

Although perfect for the Halloween season, I’d read this book all year round.  Oh man, the illustrations are just too adorable.  I can hardly stand it.

Links of interest:  Helen Ketteman website, Bonnie Leick website, more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, approx age 4-8.
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books.  August 2010.
Hardcover, 32 pages. ISBN 076145683X
Source: Library copy.  A 2010 Cybil’s nomination for which I am a 1st round  panelist.
Goodnight, Little Monster is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Hush, Baby Ghostling by Andrea Beaty and ilustrated by Pascal Lemaitre is the perfect bedtime Halloween book for the much younger set and one that won’t leave them frightened at all.

Mama ghost sings her sweet baby ghostling a soft bedtime lullaby:

Hush, Baby Ghostling.
The haunting hour is past.
The bats have ceased their swooping
and  the dawn is coming fast.

So nestle safe beside me
in our happy haunted home,
And dream a dream of darkness
where the wild monsters roam.

Mama leaves a bit of darkness in the hall, in case he’s scared of the light and will reassure baby ghostling that the songs and laughter is just the wind outside.  She’ll search the closet for that little boy with ten pink toes, blue eyes and golden hair who might give him a fright.

She sends him to bed with sweet kisses and dreams of hisses, howls, screeching owls, of bats and banshee cries. “Now dream a little nightmare while the ghoulies dance and sway. Dream a dream of darkness where the wild monsters play.”   The book ends with hugs, kisses, and the whisper of I Love You.

Although I like Pascal Lemaitre’s illustrations in Andrea Beaty’s other books like Firefighter Ted and Doctor Ted, I’m not a huge fan of the illustrations here.  It’s as though everything glows.  And maybe it’s supposed to?  But all in all, I can see past the illustrations to a cute bedtime lullaby. Great for those kids who will understand the turnabout of the words and how baby ghost is more scared of us than we are him!

Links of interest: Andrea Beaty website, Pascal Lemaitre website, Maw Books reviews of Firefighter Ted, more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, approx age 4-8.
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry.  August 4, 2009
Hardcover 32 pages. ISBN 1416925457
Source: Review copy for 2009 Cybil’s nomination for which I was a panelist.
Hush, Baby Ghostling is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Such a gorgeous picture book!  Last year Amanda at A Patchwork of Books was so enthusiastic about this book that I just knew I Need My Monster by Amanda Noll and illustrated by Howard McWilliams was something special long before I got my hands on it.

Ethan can’t go to sleep properly.  Not when his resident under the bed monster, Gabe, has gone on a week-long fishing vacation.  How would he ever go to sleep without Gabe’s familiar scary noises and his spooky green ooze?  He  missed his ragged breathing, his nose-whistling, and the scrabbling of his uncut claws.  Luckily, he has a substitute monster appear under his bed.  Unluckily, his panting wasn’t scary enough and he didn’t have claws.  A second, third and fourth monster arrive but upon inspection none are as scary as Gabe and quickly dismissed.

Was I being too picky? NO.

I knew that my monster needed to be well-clawed and menacing.

The whole point of having a monster, after all, was to keep me in bed,
imagining all the scary stuff that could happen if I got out.

My boys love the monsters and are quick to fall into a fit of giggles over one particularly monster with a rather large tongue.  I was a bit worried that my boys would be scared of monsters under the bed but no fear, it’s an adorable story of a rather unique friendship.  Almost makes me wish I had my own monster under the bed.

A perfect read-a-loud book and illustrations to drool over.  Seriously gorgeous illustrations.  Highly recommend that you pick I Need My Monster up.  It’s a beautifully spooky book full of monsterly fun!

Links of interest: Amanda Noll website,  more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, approx age 4-8.
Publisher: Flashlight Press.  April 1, 2009.
Hardcover, 32 pages. ISBN 0979974623
Source: Review copy for 2009 Cybil’s nomination for which I was a panelist.
I Need My Monster is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

When  I was in New York City this past May I attended a book signing event at Books of Wonder with a good dozen debut authors. Three Rivers Rising by Jame Richards is one book that I picked up there because I simply couldn’t resist it.

One -  it’s free verse.

Two – it’s historical fiction.

Now some of you may be inwardly groaning to yourself because you don’t like free verse or historical fiction.  But for me it’s a match made in heaven.  A guarantee that I’ll read the book. I love free verse novels.  Adore.  Combine that with historical fiction and Three Rivers Rising was a no brainer purchase for me.

Dust jacket summary:

Sixteen-year-old Celestia vacations with her family at the elite resort at Lake Conemaugh, a shimmering Allegheny Mountain reservoir held inplace by an earthen dam.  Tired of the superficial cheer and sly judgements of the society crowd, she much prefers to swim and fish with Peter, the hotel’s hired boy.  It’s a friendship she must keep secret – her parents would never approve – and when companionship turns to romance, it’s a love that could get Celestia disowned.

These affairs of the heart become all the more wrenching on a single, tragic day in May 1889. After days of heavy rain, the dam fails, unleashing twenty million tons of water onto Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in the valley below – the town where Peter lives with his father.

Told my multiple narrators, Jame Richards’s searing novel in poems explores a cross-class romance, the random hand of disaster, and a tragic and indelible event in American history.

What I really liked about Three Rivers Rising was how nostalgic it felt.  How I was really taken back in time not to just a different time but to a completely different way of thinking.  To a time where family appearances meant more than that actual family. Where one doesn’t hesitate to sacrifice the limb to save the tree, so to speak.  To a time where romance between the classes was merit for being disowned.  I loved the struggle between the characters as they simply tried to love each other.

I enjoyed the free-verse quite a bit. I always do. I have found with other readers that free-verse is something that either you love or hate.  I’m solidly on the love side.  However, I found the free -verse here to read more as prose rather than poetry making me wonder how the novel would have fared simply as prose.  But it’s fair to say that I’m glad it wasn’t prose but instead free-verse.

I had never heard of the Johnstown flood prior to reading Three Rivers Rising and Richards does an excellent job building up the tension prior to the dam breaking and describing the ensuing disaster and recovery. While Johnstown wasn’t the only city hit in this flood, there were more than 2,200 deaths in that area alone.  Reading about this incredible disaster against the backdrop of family and forbidden romance was exciting.

Jame Richards includes an author’s note, a South Dork Dam chronology, and further reading recommendations.  I have found that I like this kind of extra information in the historical fiction that I read.

I simply loved this book.

Links of interest: Jame Richards website, more book blogger reviews.
Genre: Free Verse Historical Fiction, Young Adult
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers. April 10, 2010
Hardcover, 304 pages. ISBN 0375858857
Copy source: Purchased from Books of Wonder, NYC
Three Rivers Rising is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.