Lady Emma's Campaign by Jennifer Moore

 Like many a girl in history, Emma has a crush on her big brother's friend.  Sidney has known Emma his whole life, and she is like a sister to him.  He doesn't give her much thought when he goes away to fight in a war with Spain.  Emma, however, can't stop thinking about Sidney. All though she is the bell of her first and second London season, she turns down one offer after another, pining after her own Captain Sydney Fletcher. Then one day her brother receives the terrible news that he has been captured by the French. Whe he boards his merchant vessel to sail to Cadiz to try to negotiate his release, Emma stows away on board. Once in Cadiz she naively marches into the enemy prison and demands Sydney's release.  Bad decision.  Soon she, Sydney and others are running for their lives in the midst of a pitched battle.  Can pampered little naive Emma survive the 50 mile hike to safety?  More importantly, will Sydney ever see that Emma is no longer a child, but a woman who loves him.

I have read several books by Jennifer Moore that I have liked, particularly, The Slow March of Light. I didn't like this one as well as that, but it was fine.  Emma really does start out as a wining pampered teenager, but Moore does a good job showing how her difficulties and experiences open her eyes to the world and help her mature. I also liked the fact that Emma found that one of the best things she could offer her band was emotional support.  In so many modern books, the woman have awesome battle skills, or amazing mental abilities.  It was nice to read a book where the main super power the heroine has is kindness. (2014, 2024 p.)

Alice's Adventure in Wonderland: A Full-Cast Radio Play

 Alice is bored reading outside with her sister. The warm sun lulls her to sleep but she is awakened by a white rabbit with a waistcoat and a pocket watch.  She follows the rabbit down the well, where she finds of world of strange and of

ten rather rude characters.  In her attempts to follow the White Rabbit, she ends up growing very large, and very small.  She attends an "unbirthday" tea potter with the Mad Hatter and March Hare. Finally she ends at the Queen of Heart's garden party where she nearly has her head chopped off. Unflappable Alice is not afraid, and simply tips over the Queen's Soldiers, who are, after all, just a deck of playing cards.

I listened to this in preparations for an Alice themed library event we will be having a week and a half from now.  It had been a while since I had read Alice in Wonderland, but it is still as frightening and "trippy" as I remembered. This time through, however, I recognized that there are also some very clever puns and witty satire going on.  It is one of those books that people think were written for children, but which were really for adults. The recording is pretty good, with all of quite a large cast doing their parts pretty well. (2018, 2 hrs)

Ring of Secrets by Roseanna M. White

 Winter lives with her loyalist grandparents. They urge her to play the dumb beauty at social events, but she is really a patriot spy.  Most men don't see past her beautiful but witless façade, except awkward Harvard professor Bennet Lane. He is convinced that there is more to Winter than her beauty, and is determined to find out what it is.  His attentions make it harder for Winter to pass the information she gleans from her many admirers, but Winter's grandparents urge her to encourage Lane's attentions since he is set to inherit a large English estate. As they are thrown together, Winter begins to feel as attached to him as her grandparents wish, but how can she fall in love with a loyalist, continue her spy work, and let the man she is starting to love see the real her. 

My dedicated readers know how much I loved Ms White's Christian spy romances that were set in WWI.  They have been some of my favorite all time Christian historical romances. I also really enjoyed this one but it has a slightly different flavor. As I read it I wondered if it was one of Mrs White's earlier books, and it is. Her writing just wasn't quite as refined as in the Codebreakers series.  The religious elements are quite a bit more heavy handed.  Every chapter has the characters praying out-loud of spouting scripture. It could be off-putting to some, but it was actually just right for me this week (despite the less than ideal cover). I like her characters, and her plot was well crafted. I wonder how much reflects actually Revolutionary War history? I have already put the second in the series on my wish list and will check it out next time I need some biblio RX. (352 p. 2013)

Faith by Beverly Watts

 Faith third of the many Shackleford sisters.  The other two have married well above their station, but Faith doesn't have her sister's stunning looks or vivacious personalities.  When her father finds he needs time to recover from an injury, Faith agrees to accompany him to Torquay for his recovery.  While there she meets sees a light bobbing around the derelict mansion next door to the one they are renting.  When her father finds out about it, he is sure there is a treasure there, and convinces Faith to go and search for it.  What she finds is a ring, still on the previous owner's severed finger.  The discovery plunges her and the owner of the house, a recently returned sea captain, into dire trouble. As they try to solve the mystery of the ring, they reluctantly admit their attraction to each other. 

When I checked this book out, I forgot that the first one in the series had more sexual element than I was comfortable with.  The true was the same with this book.  98% of the book was just fine, but one chapter suddenly depicts them jumping into bed together.  The description was at a level some might not object to, but it was too much for me. Actually, the references to sextual arousal, though pretty tame, were throughout the book.  I think I need to start a companion list to my "clean romance writers" list.  This one will be "Not so clean romance writers to avoid."  Watts will be my first addition. (2021, 254)

Tiger Daughter by Rebecca Lim

Wen Zhou's parents immigrated to Australia looking for a better life.  Instead, Wen's father gave up his medical training and is working at a Chinese restaurant.  There is not much money in the house, but Wen's father expects everyone to maintain appearances even if their clothes are threadbare and discretely mended. He rules the home with an iron hand and has a sometimes explosive temper. Wen is a constant disappointment to him, and she finds solace from his verbal abuse in her friendship with Henry, a first generation Chinese immigrant in her class.  Even though his English isn't very good, he is smart and has dreams of qualifying to attend an exclusive charter school. He and Wen are working together toward that goal with tragedy strikes in Henry's family.  Wen wants to reach out and help her friend, but her mother is afraid of the retribution they would both receive if her father found out. Can Wen find the "tiger" within to help her friend, and maybe heal her own family?

This got a ton of starred reviews when it was first published in the US In 2023. Lim creates such an authentic voice for Wen that one must wonder how much is autobiographical.  I have read many immigrant stories about Chinese Americans, but never of Chinese Australians.  If this story is accurate, the immigrant situation for Chinese people in Australia is just as bad, if not worse, than in America. It was a little different to have the book narrated by someone with an Australian accent, and it made me remember that the US is not the only place where immigrants struggle to adjust to a new life. I thought Lim did a good showing how a girl can realistically stand up to a domineering father.  I also liked seeing Wen's mother be inspired by her daughter's show of strength. This is a good choice for kids who like reading books from other cultures, but young reader beware that it deals with some heavy issues. (192 p. 2023)

Northwind By Gary Paulsen

 Leif was orphaned very young in a small Viking port town.  He was raised by various townspeople until he was old enough to work on a ship and then went to sea. His ship is stranded in a 

northern village where the crew got along alright catching and smoking salmon and eating local berries and plants.  Then one day a ghost ship comes, bringing death and plague.  Leif and another boy escape the village in a canoe but fall ill as well.  Finally, Leif finds himself alone in the northern wilds and has to figure out how to feed himself and avoid being killed by the fierce nature around him. As he does, he discovers unspeakable beauty and peace, and the strength that lives within himself. 

I am a huge Gary Paulsen fan and with this short survival story he did not disappoint.  The writing is so good!  Is it narrative or free verse poetry?  I would say poetry. The descriptions of nature are transcendent and I just know, having met Gary Paulsen and knowing a little about him, that he personally experienced all the things that Leif experienced. That is why he can write them so well. I know a couple of years ago he was doing a long stint living on a boat and traveling around the world. I am guessing this story arose out of experiences he had on that trip. I think that Leif's description of writing on the piece of bark also explains why Paulsen, himself, writes. I am just glad he has an agent that keeps bugging him to turn in his writing so that he can get it published so the rest of us can see the world through the author's eyes. I am eager to give this book to teen boys who like Hatchet but also the Ranger's Apprentice series. (256, 2022)

The Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield

 When Xeones is a young man his town was conquered by an invading army. He escapes and lives as a vagabond for a few years, but eventually unites himself with the Spartans because he sees in them prowess and valor that would have saved his hometown if they had been there.  He becomes a squire to a young spartan noble, Alexandros, and later to a Spartan commander, Dienekes, who is enlisted to stand at Thermopylae with 300 Spartans and their allies to off the overwhelmingly larger Persian Army.  It is a suicide mission and of the 300 Spartans and their squires that are called as defenders, Dienekes is the only survivor.  He is captured by the Persians, and Xerxes compels him to tell his story and explain how a group of 4000 men were able to kill tens of thousands of Xerxes best fighters before they were overcome. Xeones not only tells about the battle, but about the lives of the brave Spartan warriors, their families and their training.  He contrasts the code of honor and the self discipline of the Spartans to the excesses of the Persian court.  Through the Spartan's heroism, the Persian army's advance is delayed long enough for the Greeks to later launch a sea offensive that halted the Persian invasion of Greece. 

This is an older books someone recommended to me when they heard that I studied classics in college.  As I listened to it I was transported back to my years reading Homer and Virgil in my Greek and Latin classes. The subtitle of the book is "A Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae" it is just that.  It is written in the high epic style of the old classics.  I loved the long descriptive similes, just as one finds in Homer, and the rousing and wise speeches of the military leaders and leading women.  I kept asking myself, "who is this guy" meaning the writer.  He is clearly familiar with the Greek and Roman classics. I expected to discover that Pressfield was a professor of ancient languages or something, but no. He is a man who struggled for 30 years to get something published, going from one minimum wage job to another. He is a military veteran, so he does understand the idea of comrades at arms.  I am still shaking my head as to how he was able to capture the feeling of an epic with no formal training. I enjoyed the book quite a bit, despite very descriptive battle scenes, and lots of crude references as one might expect among fighting men.  The whole book is very masculine, and a reader can almost feel hair growing on their chest as they read it.  It brings up interesting philosophical questions about the nature of valor and the meaning of honor.  Wikipedia says that it is required reading in several military academies. (400 p. 1998)

Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce

Margery Benson lives a lack-luster life as a domestic arts teacher at a girls' school.  One day a cruel joke played by the girls pushes over the edge and she walks away from it all and decides to attempt to fulfill a life long dream of finding a legionary gold beetle of New Caledonia. She will be the leader of the expedition, but she needs an assistant, especially since her hip is none too flexible these days.  Only four people apply, and only one gets the job when the others turn out unsuitable or unwilling. Her assistant, Mrs. Enid Pretty is the opposite of Margery. Bold and vivacious, she has an uncanny way of making the impossible happen. As the two women face life threatening nature and soul killing societal prejudice together, they find freedom by throwing off social convention and sharing with each other their painful pasts. 

I am still puzzling over this book. I both loved it and found it hard to finish. On the one had I think Joyce is a brilliant writer. She has an amazing turn of phrase, and some of her sequences are laugh-out-loud funny.  Enid and Margery are very sympathetic and relatable. I had two struggles with the book.  One was the pacing which was, in my mind, painfully slow.  If the book had been 25% shorter, I think it would have been a better book. I think the other is that I just am not a huge fan of the "dream the impossible dream" type stories.  People can improve their lives without doing something drastic and dangerous. (spoiler alert) I also wasn't thrilled with the ending.  I can kind of see why it had to end that way, but after committing 12 hours to the story, I felt pretty bummed at the ending. (2021, 368 p)

The Orphan Keeper (adapted for young audiences) by Camron Wright

 Chellamuthu lives in a poor village in India. His mother is strict and there is never enough food, but he faces his challenges with energy, intelligence and exuberance.  Then one day he is betrayed by some older boys and sold to kidnapers. His family, especially his mother, searches for him for weeks, and Chellamuthu tries to find a way to escape, but before he can, he is adopted by an American family.  He doesn't speak English, and everything is strange, but his new parents are kind and eventually he starts to forget about his life and family in India.  Sixteen years later a chance meeting reconnects him with his Indian heritage, and he begins to seek for the family he lost. 

This book is based on a true story, though many of the details are fictionalized.  I was surprised to learn that is it published by Shadow Mountain and that it was written by a Utah author.  I loved the detail about Chellamuthu's life in India and the emotions and experiences of Chellamuthu when he first arrived in America feel very authentic.  I was horrified to think that this probably not an isolated incident.  I have had several friends did foreign adoptions.  Were all of the kids really orphans, or part of a human trafficking business?  This would be a great book club title because it raises a lot of ethical questions.  Of course it was terrible that Chellamuthu was kidnapped and taken from his family, but his dad was rather abusive, and he really did have many more opportunities in America.  This is the young reader's version, so I imagine the harsher realities of his life are left out.  Am I a wimp to think that I am totally fine with that? (2022, 288 p)

The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

The jungle at the interior of Honduras are said to be some of the most dangerous and most inhospitable in the world.  For centuries, Hondurans have retold a legend of a Ciudad Blanco, or White City, in the middle of the jungle area, and for decades different explorers and scientists have tried to locate ruins in the region, without much success.  Then in 2012, a new technology, lidar, gave proof that there were ruins under the dense canopy of the jungle.  A team of scientists and explorers undertook an expedition to find and study the site, with startling results. 

This is fairly sensationalized nonfiction about a modern day explorers. It was very interesting and written in an engaging style.  Preston captures the contrasts of the thrill of seeing a completely unspoiled jungle environment, with the terror of being surrounded by animals and insects that could kill you with one bite. The end of the book took an unexpected turn.  (spoiler alert) with a discussion about the role contagious diseases have played in world history, and specifically, in the devastation of populations of indigenous peoples of the Americas. I knew that great numbers of natives were killed by small pox and other diseases but I had no idea how many. It was interesting to have him end with dire predictions that the world could face another global pandemic like the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. Of course this was written before 2020.  Um. Been there. Done that. (2017, 448 p.)

P.S.

I was a little bit delighted with how this tied in with the last Charlie Thorne book I read.  I didn't realize the Charlie Thorne book was based on a real legend.

The Outward Mindset by The Arbinger Institute

 The city administration where I work is sending all the managers to an Arbinger Institute training next week. In preparation we were asked to read Leadership and Self Deception, which I read several months ago, and The Outward Mindset.  The Leadership and Self Deception book is written around a fictional narrative about a middle manager executive who is called into his manager's office and trained to be more open and compassionate to his co-workers and family.  This book is more like a workbook written to go along with the training.  It contains several real-life stories about different companies and their success or failure at maintaining an outward mindset.  It also includes a lot a commentary that reinformces the main ideas meantioned in the Leadership book. I found the book fairly dry, and that it really didn't have any new ideas that hadn't been discussed in the Leadership book.  Still, I tried to satisfy due dilligence by considering my own actions by asking myself if there is someone with whom I need to be more open. It sounds like it will be an OK training and I am looking forward to attending. (2019, 208 p)

The Mad Wolf's Daughter by Diane Magras

Drest it the youngest child of a Scottish Medieval warlord.  Though a daughter, Drest has been taught alongside her brothers to be a brave and fearsome warrior. When her father and brothers are captured and taken to a nearby castle to await execution, Drest sets out on a quest to save them.  On the way she meets up with a young injured knight, Emerik, from the castle. At first she takes him along as a captive but as they share adventures they become reluctant allies. Whenever she finds herself in peril, she hears in her head the voices of her brothers and father giving advice and encouragement. As Drest and Emerik make the grueling overland trek to the castle, Drest hears disturbing things about her family's past and reputation.  Though filled with questions, she stays determined to save her family or die trying.

This book got a lot of attention when it came out in 2018.  Drest is the epitome a "strong girl" character.  She has awesome fighting skills, and "can do" attitude, but at the same time, gives in to compassion when her training has taught her to be relentless. Although an adventure story, the book has a lot to say about families.  Drest's family has a checkered past, but they have always supported her.  She has to come to accept their love, while forgiving their faults. I could see both girls and boys enjoying this book because of the non-stop action and adventure, and being delighted by the creative medieval name calling sprinkled throughout.  The book resolves, but only partially, and there is already a sequel.  (2018, 288 p)

Leadership 101 by John Maxwell

John Maxwell has written numerous books on leadership and management.  This one is a short summary of his basic leadership principles.  I liked the fact that he presents his ideas without gimic; no catchy acronyms or catch phrases. He just lays down common sence ideas like the importance of selfdiscipline, and earning people's trust by having integrity.  He also emphasies that developing leadership is on ongoing effort that can take years.  He illustrates principles with short anecdotes from history or from his own life.

So, I had a tough week at work politically, and felt like I needed a leadership peptalk.   I just randomly chose this title and it wasn't a bad choice.  For one thing, it is short.  The recorded book is only two hours long so I was able to listen to the whole thing in one day of doing chores around the house.  Also, I realized that I actually do much of what he is speaking about, which built my comfidence a bit. It also gave me some ideas about how to go forward with some of my problems at work.  So, if you just need a two-hour book to groud yourself and reset as a leader, I recommend this one.  I may read more by Maxwell in the future.(110 p. 2002)

The False Prince by Jennifer Nielson

Sage is living in an orphanage when a nobleman, Conner,  buys his freedom and takes him, and two other orphan boys to his posh estate.  They boys soon discover that the king and crown prince of Carthya are dead, and that Conner plans to train all of the boys to impersonate the younger prince and only remaining heir to the Carthyan thrown who was lost in a ship wreck four years earlier. Then he will help the best contender to seize the thrown and avert civil war. Conner has made it clear that the two boys who are not chosen will be killed to keep the false prince's identity secret.  Sage and the other two boys enter into a deadly competition to win Conner's confidence and approval. As the intense training progresses, Sage begins to realize that Conner's motivations are far from purely patriotic.  Sage must plan carefully to gain the thrown, save the other's lives, and expose Conner for the murderous traitor that he is. This is a pretty decent medieval intrigue novel. Sage is a likable character, reminiscent of Jen from Turner's The Thief with his propensity for sneaking around at night and stealing things from other character's pockets.  The interplay between the three orphan boys is interesting, and Conner is a complex antagonist. The ending will be no surprise for any astute reader, but it is fun and satisfying none the less.  Nielson is another Utah author who is doing quite well nationally, and The False Prince is optioned for a movie.  (342 p)

Savvy by Ingrid Law

This book received the Newbery Honor award back in 2009, but somehow I missed it until just this year. Benjamin suggested it might be a good read aloud, so we read it a chapter a night as a family. It was a great chapter a night book, because the chapters are quite short, and we are pretty busy people. In this version of reality, there is a family in which each person has a special Savvy. One of the family can cause electrical activity, while another can capture radio waves in jars. The people of the family "get" their Savvy on their thirteenth birthday, and the main character of the story, Mibs, is excited as her birthday approaches, and wonders what her savvy will be. Then, just two days before her birthday, her father is in a terrible car accident and is in a coma. Mibs and her siblings are left in the care of a neighbor who doesn't know about their special gifts. When Mib's birthday comes, she believes that her gift will help her father, so she stows away on a bible delivery bus to try to get to the city where he is. Most of the book consists of the crazy bus trip with Mibs, her older brother, her younger brother, and two neighbor kids. The bus takes some unexpected detours, the kids meet some interesting people, and learn more about each other and themselves. I can see why this was a Newbery contender. The story is fast and funny, the characterizations are rich and fully developed, and the story contains some thought provoking philosophical questions . (342 p.)

The Buccaneers by Ian Lawrence

I enjoyed The Seance so much that I decided to read another Ian Lawrence book. This book is actually the 3rd in a series that includes, The Wreckers, and The Smugglers. I didn't realize it was in that series when I started it. I had read The Wreckers before, but I haven't read The Smugglers. Still, this story is only slightly dependent on the earlier books, and can be enjoyed as a stand alone. Lawrence must do huge amounts of research before he writes his books. Just as The Seance faithfully reproduces the 1920's, and The Lord of The Nutcracker Men recreates the time of WWI, this book totally recreates life on a merchant ship during the early 1900's. And like those other books, this is one thrilling adventure sequence after another. This book reminded me a lot of Treasure Island. A teenage boy, John Spenser, goes on his first sea voyage on a ship owned by his father. Early on in the voyage, they come across a sailor in a life boat, far from land, and bring him aboard. Some of the crew fear that he is a Jonah, (i.e. bad luck) but he turns out to be invaluable when the merchant ship happens to come across a ruthless pirate and his terrible crew. This book has it all, cannon battles, storms at sea, and buried treasure. This is another great historical fiction for boys. (244 p)

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

When I was a kid we had a card game called, "Authors." It was a simple "Old Maid" kind of game where you collected 4 books by a famous author to make a set. The one with the most sets at the end of the game wins. It was a great game, too, because from it I learn a lot of famous authors and their most well known works. One of the authors in the game was Robert Louis Stevenson and one of his cards was Kidnapped. I really enjoyed Treasure Island, so when I saw this book this week I decided to give it a try. It was originally written in 1886 as an adventure book for boys, and it deals with the conflict between the British King George and the Scottish clans in the 1750's. I can see why a Victorian boy would have loved this book. It is full of all the kinds of adventures like sword fights, a shipwreck, long forced marches, treacherous relations, that still populate adventure fiction. The main character, David Balfore, is orphaned, so he goes to find his uncle who reportedly owns a big estate. When David meets his uncle he begins to suspect that he, David, is the rightful heir instead of his old miserly uncle. Of course, this is the case, and to prevent David from inheriting, the uncle pays a sea captain to capture David and sell him into slavery in America. David then goes through a book full of adventures, escaping the ship and making his way home through Scotland with the help of a rebel-rouser, Allen Breck, who is wanted for rebellion against the crown. It sounds like a great book for boys, right? The only problem is that it is full of Scottish dialect. By the end of the book the reader is totally conversant with Scottish terms like "ken" and "bairn". For modern boys it would take a really confident reader, maybe one who has read all of the "Redwall" series by Brian Jacques, to get through it (230 p).

Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus

As with most of the books I "read" I actually listened to this book. I downloaded the MP3 version from Net Library and listened to it as I did my housework. On Net Library they only had the title as I wrote it above. As I was listening to it, I thought, wow, this is a pretty good adventure story. It has the feeling of Captains Courageous or Call it Courage (both excellent historical adventures every boy should read). --spoiler alert--A young teen, named Manjiro, is out on a Japanese fishing boat when it gets caught in a large storm. The boat is shipwrecked on a small island and the survivors are eventually picked up by an American whaling ship. At that time Japan was very isolationists. Foreign boats straying into their ports were not treated well, so the whalers drop the castaways in Hawaii. The captain comes to like the young boy, however, and adopts him as his son. He takes him back to America and the boy learns English and goes to school. Eventually he returns to Japan, just in time to be the interpreter when Admiral Perry lands in Japan and is instrumental in establishing the first Japanese and American diplomatic relationship. When they got to the part in the story when Manjiro goes to the California gold rush and gets enough gold to finance his return to Japan, I thought to myself, "Ok, that is a bit much. I wonder why the author thought she had to add the California gold rush into an already on-the-edge-of-unbelievable story?" When I got to the end of the book, there was an author's note that stated that all the major events of the story, including the California gold rush stuff, were based on a true story, I couldn't believe it. This Manjiro guy led an amazing life! I guess sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. This is a great new historical adventure and well deserving of its Newbery Honor award.

Take Me to the River by Will Hobbs

This brand new Will Hobbs books unites two of the author's favorite themes, a love for the South West and a love of rivers. In the book two cousins meet in Texas and take a river trip down the Rio Grande. The story is set against the backdrop of the drug cartel violence in Mexico. While on the river the boys encounter a cartel hit man who tries to get them to help him escape capture. They also happen to be running the river in the middle of a major tropical storm. Flash floods and automatic pistols combine to make the adventure one wild ride. Hobbs action writing and descriptions of the beauty and awesome forces of nature are excellent. As always with Will Hobbs books, the boys are way more skilled and courageous than 15 year olds have a right to be. That said, the boy characters are very likable. Neither of them suffer from major character flaws, and they get along really well together. It was refreshing to read a teen novel completely devoid of adolescent angst and dysfunctional family life. This would be a great book to recommend to reluctant reader boys ages 10+. (192 p)

Akimbo and the Elephants by Alexander McCall Smith

In our Library there is a section called "intermediate." This section contains very short simple novels for children that are transitioning from picture book to chapter book reading. Many of the books in this section are in one of two genre, either humorous fiction, (e.g. Junie B. Jones) or Fantasy, (e.g. The Fairy School series). But what if there is a child, probably a boy, or maybe a girl, who doesn't want humor or fantasy? The Akimbo series is a great choice for that kind of kid. Akimbo is the son of a game warden at a wild life reserve in Africa. In this book he finds an elephant that has been butchered by poachers and decides to bring the culprits to justice. Using wit and courage he figures out who the poachers are, and then leads the Rangers to them before they can kill another elephant. As I read the book I admired the way that the author was able to tell the story with very simple vocabulary and sentence structure, without sounding simplified or stilted.(68 p)