"The Story Girl" by L. M. Montgomery

I think my kids enjoyed this book even more than I did when I read it aloud to them this summer.  That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, because I definitely did!  But I think they loved it even more.  Sometimes, with read-alouds, I am the one to say, "Hey, want me to read a bit?" but with this one, it was more often one of the kids saying, "Do you have time to read to us?"  Which was really delightful.

This is all about a group of kids on Prince Edward Island.  It's narrated by a guy named Beverly as an adult, looking back to a delightful summer from his childhood when he and his brother spent several months with an aunt and uncle and had fun with their cousins and friends.  The kids have all sorts of adventures together, get into mischief, learn some lessons, solve some problems for one another and others, and spend a lot of time listening to the Story Girl tell stories.

The title character's real name is Sara Stanley, but everyone calls her the Story Girl because she is so wonderful at telling stories.  She's fourteen and is blessed with both a vivid imagination and gift for storytelling.  She's the center of the group of kids -- not the leader, but the one their adventures always end up revolving around.  

This is one of those "slice of life" books I love that has a string of adventures and escapades and incidents in the lives of its characters, rather than one all-encompassing plot.  L. M. Montgomery excelled at both kinds of books, which is pretty amazing! 

Particularly Good Bits:

It is always safe to dream of spring.  For it is sure to come, and if it be not just as we have pictured it, it will be infinitely sweeter (p. 320).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  Good, clean, wholesome fun!

This is my 28th book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list, and my 21st read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"The Scarlet Letter" (Manga Classics) by Nathaniel Hawthorne (original story), Crystal S. Chan (story adaptation), and SunNeko Lee (art)

I bought a few more of the Manga Classics in August -- some that my kids weren't all old enough for when we first got into them a couple of years ago.  I think they can handle them now -- or, at least, they are for this one.  Since The Scarlet Letter centers around an adulterous love affair that produces a child, I wanted to wait until my youngest was old enough to understand what all that meant rather than being confused and asking questions she wasn't ready for.  

They handled that topic even better in this manga than Hawthorne does, I think.  Granted, it's been twenty-ish years since I last read it, but both times I read and studied Hawthorne's novel in college, I found it distasteful.  Not just because he tended to sermonize incessantly, or because he told us about most of the conversations and things that occur throughout the book rather than showing them to us -- those are just marks of older writing and changed tastes, on a whole.  No, it felt like Hawthorne's attitude toward Hester Prynne was not entirely kindly.  He wanted the readers to sympathize with her, clearly, but the narration almost has this prudish prurience to it.  He disapproved of sex outside of marriage, but he was also super interested in exploring the topic.

Maybe that was just my high school and college self reading into it more than was there -- I don't actually care enough about this story to want to revisit the novel itself to see if my impression is accurate.

Anyway, this manga adaptation is lovely, kind, and straight-forward.  It does show many of the Puritans to be overly stern, some to be hypocritical, some to be downright ungodly... and some to be kind and forgiving.  I appreciated that they didn't try to villainize all Christians or even all Puritans.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for the subject matter aforementioned.  Nothing smutty or provocative in the artwork or storytelling, but the storyline is what it is.

Announcing the 2024 Tolkien Blog Party

This announcement is a few days later than I intended it to be, but that's okay, right?  We still have more than three weeks to get ready for this year's Tolkien Blog Party! 

This will be the twelve annual Tolkien Blog Party!  Wow!  A rather momentous number, don't you think?  We'll pretend it is, anyway.

If you haven't joined one of my blog parties before, or haven't joined one lately, here's how this event will work:

• I will provide a giveaway with Tolkien-related prizes, some blog games, a blog tag for all and sundry to fill out, and a link-up where everyone can share their party posts.
  
  
• You get to provide posts of your own on any Tolkien-related subject (book reviews, movie reviews, character sketches, lists of favorite moments, musings on how cool Gandalf's sword Glamdring is, an appreciation post for the dwarves, whatever.)  All posts must be appreciative and not derogatory, and all posts must be family-friendly.

It doesn't matter if you've only read Tolkien's books or only seen movies or shows based on them -- all Tolkien fans are welcome to enjoy the festivities!

You are hereby invited to attend!  Start making your plans for your posts, and help yourself to this year's blog buttons.  Share them on your blog with a link to this post so others can join the fun, use them in your party posts, and so on.

There's no formal sign-up sheet for who wants to post about what, but if you want to discuss some options in the comments, I'm always here for that!

"The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle

This book felt like what you'd get if Neil Gaiman and C. S. Lewis co-wrote a novel.  It's sometimes eerie and dark, sometimes just weird and funny, sometimes heartwarming, and always off-kilter, but with deeper meaning below the surface.

It has a fairly simple storyline: the last unicorn learns she is the last unicorn and sets out to find out what happened to the rest of her kind.  She meets bad guys and good guys and mediocre guys.  She has adventures.  She gets in and out of dangerous situations.  She almost decides to give up her quest, but doesn't.  She grows wiser and helps others grow kinder or wiser or more noble.  

The writing was beautifully image-rich and often surprising, sometimes making me think of Jasper Fforde and sometimes of L. M. Montgomery.  But mostly of Gaiman and Lewis.

I spent most of this book going, "What, now?" because it's generally pretty trippy stuff.  I did enjoy it, overall, and I could see using it for high school history for my kids if they begged me for more fantasy for lit class, since it's definitely a modern fantasy classic.

Particularly Good Bits:

"One good woman more in the world is worth every single unicorn gone" (p. 250).

"Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not simply be abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story" (p. 251).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some lightly bawdy humor, plus some dark and perilous and creepy things.

This is my 27th book read for my 4th Classics Club list.

"Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus" by Dusti Bowling

Zowie!  Is this book ever wonderful!  In fact, it's probably in my top 3 for favorite new reads this year so far.  I laughed, I cried -- it moved me, Bob.

Thirteen-year-old Aven was born without arms.  So, she doesn't really miss arms.  Her adoptive parents have taught her how to do just fine getting through life using her feet and her ingenuity.  So, the only thing she really misses right now are her friends, because her dad just got a new job that means they've had to move from Kansas to Arizona.  His new job running a struggling Wild West theme park is pretty cool, and Aven thinks she has uncovered a small mystery involving a locked building, a missing photo, and a pretty necklace half buried at the foot of a giant saguaro cactus.  

Slowly, Aven makes new friends: first, a boy with Tourette's Syndrome, then a boy who struggles with being overweight.  Eventually, she finds acceptance and even friendship with some of the so-called "normal" of kids at school, too.  The theme park finds some new energy and life, and Aven solves her mystery.

Throughout the book, Aven displays compassion, humor, and tenacity.  She's got a really upbeat attitude, without being gratingly perky, and her perseverance is inspiring.  I was really excited to learn that there's a sequel, too!

Particularly Good Bits:

Seriously, people, you're not fooling anyone.  Just keep staring -- it's okay to be curious.  Everyone is (p. 60).

But there are a lot of hard things in life.  Who would I be if I gave up when things got hard? (p. 223).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for a little tiny bit of rude humor -- there's a boy with Tourette's Syndrome who says "chicken nipple" all the time, and Aven mentions that people like to ask her how she wipes after using the bathroom when she has no arms.  She refuses to explain.  It's very mild and totally age-appropriate, so I wasn't bothered.  I doubt most kids would be.  

No bad language, and no inappropriate content.

This is my 20th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"The Midnight Show" by Sarah Pennington

This is such a fun book!  A fantasy version of the 1920s, with magical beings, speakeasies, jazz music, and so on.  AND it's a retelling of my favorite fairy tale, Twelve Dancing Princesses!

Popular singer Dayo Temitrope can't figure out why her dancing shoes are worn through every morning, and why her feet are covered in blisters.  She doesn't dance that much during her nightclub act, and she certainly doesn't go out dancing with her admirers enough to wreck her feet so badly.  So, she hires private investigator Bastian Dennell to figure out what's going on.

Bastian is excited to get to work for such a famous singer, especially since he's already a fan of hers.  But her case takes darker and stranger turns as he goes along, involving enchantments, disguises, and missing people.  But it all comes to a happy conclusion, and I am excited to read the next book in the Bastian Dennel series!

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for some intense scenes and possibly frightening imagery.  No cussing, smut, or gore.

This is the 19th book I've read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"Treasure Mountain" by Louis L'Amour

It's so convenient that Tell Sackett is my favorite Sackett, because L'Amour uses Tell as his narrator for a LOT of the Sackett books.  And Tell never fails to delight me, with his keen observational skills and dry humor.  Treasure Mountain is no exception!  Also, I love the books where multiple Sacketts and their friends pop up, and this has Tell, Orrin, Tyrel, and random friends bopping in and out as well.  Very good fun!

In Treasure Mountain, Orrin Sackett goes to New Orleans looking for any possible clues as to where his dad went twenty years earlier when he left New Orleans and was never seen again.  It's a very cold trail to follow, but these are Sacketts, people.  They're part bloodhound.  And they're all smart and savvy and wise to the ways of the wicked.  

Except Orrin is always falling afoul of witches women.  And he goes missing.  So then Tell shows up in New Orleans looking for Orrin.  And, because Tell really just never fails to find what he's seeking, he and Orrin then head off on the cold trail of their dad, who, it turns out, left N.O. looking for a million dollars in gold someone had buried in the Southwest.  But there are bad guys, and bad women, and dubious food, and extreme landscapes, all standing in the way of the Sacketts and their quest to find any remains of their dad, who was on a quest to find gold.  Which, of course, makes for a great yarn.  I enjoyed it.

Today just happens to be actor Sam Elliott's 80th birthday.  Sam Elliott played Tell Sackett in the 1979 TV miniseries The Sacketts, which my husband and I happen to be planning to finish watching this weekend.  So this seemed like the perfect time to finally post this review.  Happy birthday, Sam Elliott!!!

Particularly Good Bits: 

"Once a man has lived with mountains you can't offer him a home with a prairie dog" (p. 34).

"Mountains are hard upon evil," I said.  "They don't hold with it" (p. 175).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for a smattering of cuss words and some violence.

This has been my 18th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.