Inside Jacket

Well, would you look at that? It’s a post! And not just any post but a book review post! It’s time to brush off the old keyboard and see  if I can still call myself a reviewer!

Whenever somebody that I know offline would ask me what my favorite read of 2010 was (surprisingly a question I hear more offline than online), I without any hesitation or doubt would say Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.  “Really?” and a blank stare is what I would almost always get back. People, this book was AMAZING.  Every 945 pages of it. When it ended, I wished there was another 945 pages. I was not ready to let these characters go!  Lonesome Dove has deservedly been called epic. But what makes a book epic?  I think it’s just one of those things that you know it when you read it. And oh, was this book epic.

Larry McMurtry is a master storyteller.  I was a tad daunted opening that very first page and I do admit that even 200 pages into the book I wondered if anything was ever going to happen.  And even though it was off to a slow start, I wouldn’t wish it any other way. The background characterization that McMurtry gives his essential to the story.

The inside cover of my copy of the book lists the key characters with a short description of each. I loved the summary it gave so am taking the liberty of copying it here for  you.

Augustus McCrae: ex-Texas  Ranger. A fierce fighter, loyal friend, gentle lover, a boisterous spinner of colorful yarns. Gus years for adventure, and is drawn into Woodrow Call’s dream – a cattle drive to Montana, to the free and wild frontier . . .
Woodrow F. Call: Gus’s partner and friend, a driven, demanding man, a leader with no patience for weakness – and a secret sorrow of his own . . .

Jake Spoon: dashing gambler, former comrade-in-arms of Gus and Call, his passions plunge him into a terrifying fate . . .

Clara Allen: the woman of Gus’s young dreams. Out of the frontier’s cruelty and death, she forgers a life as generous, brave and unyielding as the land she learns to love . . .

Blue Duck: a renegade Indian with cunning heart of a vulture. He tortures and ills across the Plains, and savors his victim’s agony . . .

Newt: the brave, bewildered young cowboy who discovers his manhood, and his past, on the hazardous journey into Montana . . .

The Hat Creek Outfit: Jake, Deets, Pea Eye and the Boys . . .  wranglers, tracers and scouts, they follow Gus and Call into the heart of the adventure, through sandstorms, stampedes, bandits, floods and snow . . . living on in the undying legends of the great American frontier.

If you don’t know who these characters are from having read Lonesome Dove yourself, I dare you to love them.  I dare you to hate them.

I picked up this book in every spare moment of my day when I was reading it. And when I wasn’t reading it, I wanted to be reading it. I thought about it constantly.  I know I haven’t gone into all the intricacies of why Lonesome Dove is so amazing but let me tell you simply-  the characters! the story! the love! the friendships! the fighting! the determination! the devotion! the heroes! the outlaws! the whores! the Indians! the frontier! the forging ahead! the friendships again!  And it’s also laugh out loud funny with some great one-liners and some beautiful passages.  Definitely need those lighthearted and thoughtful moments between the gun slinging, the scalping, and the hangings.

Yes, my favorite book of 2010 was unabashedly a Western.  A genre I didn’t really think I read.  But did I tell you I loved this book?  Oh, how I loved Lonesome Dove. Officially one of my most favorite books.  Ever. Do you need more recommendation then that?

(I remember when the mini-series came on TV when I was little and we all watched it together as a family. MUST re-watch it now! )

Links of interest: More book  blogger reviews.
Genre: Historical Fiction, Western
Publisher: Pocket Books. 1985.
Paperback, 945 pages. ISBN 067168390X
Lonesome Dove 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.

A lot of Newbery reviews this past week.  A Fine White Dust by Cynthia Rylant is a Newbery Honor book from 1987.  This is one of those books which has benefited from a face lift.  Sadly, the book that I own is the cover on the right (blech!) but I love the book cover shown here on the left.   

At 106 pages, A Fine White Dust is a very quick read.  13-year-old Pete has always loved to go to church. It has always been one of his most favorite places to be.  In second-grade he’d invite himself to go with the neighbors, by fourth-grade he’d get up and go by himself, and by fifth-grade he became very serious and religious about  church.

I didn’t want to go to hell.  I wanted somebody to tell me I wouldn’t go to hell.  I’d look at me and I’d see a boy who never did seem to be good or holy or worth anybody dying for.  Just nothing real special.  And I guess I wanted somebody to make me better.  To save me from hell.

Pete was looking for somebody to understand him.   With his best friend, an atheist and no desire from his parents to go to church, he felt alone in his desire to be close to God.  To be saved.  That all changes when a traveling preacher, James Carson, comes to town.  Pete finds in him an answer to his prayers.  Ardent with a near frenzy call to faith, Pete decides to run away with the preacher as his new disciple leaving behind his friend and family.   But his is faith misplaced?  When he is helplessly betrayed, Pete must come to terms with his faith in God and himself.

Pete is working out who he is independently of his parents and best friend and I really liked that about his character.  He’s also very naive though, thinking that he can simply run away and begin a new life with the preacher.  He learns the hard way that not everything will go according to plan and that one shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket – so to speak.  He certainly learns about heartbreak and betrayal but it also seems that his character is slightly  more or less the same than at the beginning of the book.

I’m glad I read this one but also not one that will stick with me for a long time.  But well worth the read because I haven’t read many books about young children who are navigating the world of faith and God.  A very positive book in that regard.  It is not his faith that fails (in fact – his faith in God only becomes stronger) but rather he learns to beware the folly’s of man.

Links of interest:  More book blogger reviews.
Genre: Middle Grade Historical Fiction
Publisher: Atheneum. Reprint 2006.  Originally published 1987.
Paperback, 112 pages. ISBN 1416927697
Source copy: Own
A Fine White Dust 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.

Written in 1949, The Door in the Wall by Marquerite de Angeli won the 1950 Newbery Medal.  To tell you the truth, I don’t have much to say about the book except that I read it.  And I liked it.  I found it entertaining and authentic.

From the back cover:

Ever since he can remember, Robin, child of Sir John de Bureford, has been told what is expected of him as the son of a nobleman.  He must learn the ways of knighthood.  but Robin’s destiny is changed suddenly when he falls ill and loses the use of his legs.  Fearing a plague, his servants abandon him and Robin is left alone.

A monk named Brother Luke rescues Robin and takes him to the hospice of St. Marks, where he is taught woodcarving and – much harder – patience and strength.  Says Brother Luke, “Thou hast only to follow the wall far enough and there will be a door in it.”

Robin learns soon enough what Brother Luke means.  And when the great castle of Lindsay is in danger, it is Robin, who cannon mount a horse and ride to battle, who saves the townspeople and discovers that there is more than one way to serve his king.

Shortest book review ever. But really, not much else to say.  Noteworthy in the aspect that I don’t often read books set in the Middle Ages. A perfectly fine book.

Links of interest:  More book blogger reviews.
Genre: Historical Fiction, approx ages 9-12.
Publisher:  Yearling. July 1990 later printing. Original publication date 1949.
Paperback, 128 pages. ISBN 0440402832
Source copy: Own
The Door in the Wall is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2009. 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.

In Leaving Gee’s Bend by Irene Latham, ten-year-old Ludelphia Bennett only knows one way of life and that is sharecropping and the people in her small town.  In fact, she’s never left the town at all or explored the surrounding communities.

Life is relatively simple and happy but not without its sorrow as her mother loses baby after baby or without poverty due in part to the Great Depression.  There is one thing that Ludelphia loves more than anything and that’s to quilt.  Her mother says she was born to quilt and she’s never seen without a scrap of cloth and needle in her pocket.  The act of quilting and the subsequent act of contemplation that it brings is a thread that binds this story together.

When Ludelphia’s mother delivers her new baby early and falls deathly ill, her family is told that there is nothing that can be done.  But Ludelphia won’t give up that easily and takes off on her own to Camden, a town forty miles away in hopes of bringing the white doctor back with her.

The journey is eventful and challenging and tests Ludelphia’s courage and resolve. Remember she’s never been beyond her town’s borders before nor even seen a white person.  But in her attempt to save her mothers life will she end up dooming the entire town of Gee’s Bend?   It’s certainly possible.

I enjoyed learning more about this real town of Gee’s Bend which is steeped in quilting history and was the inspiration for this novel.  The book felt a bit slow near the beginning of the book but once Ludelphia began her journey, everything began to move along and I was fully invested in her story.  Many in the town believe in witchcraft which I felt brought an intriguing element to  not only the story’s beginning but its end as well.

Ludelphia is a strong and memorable character and while she may not always be the smartest in certain situations, I like young girl characters who know what they want and how to hold their own.

I can’t think of anything better to say then what Steph worded so well in her review:

It offers a memorable character and a compelling story with several interesting twists. It also provides fertile ground for discussion of quilting and folk art, sharecropping, poverty, racism, courage, and compassion, among other things.

The cover is ultimately what drew me to this cover. I knew I wanted to read it before I knew what is about.

Leaving Gee’s Bend is part of my themed reading for the month of February which celebrates Black History Month.  Join me this month as I explore books that celebrate the history of African-Americans.
Links of interest:  Irene Latham website, blog and Twitter.
Genre:  Middle Grade Historical Fiction, approx ages 9-12.
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile.  January 7, 2010.
Hardcover, 230 pages. ISBN 0399251790
Source copy: Unsolicited review copy (meaning it mysteriously showed up in my mail)
Leaving Gee’s Bend is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2009. 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.