2.29.2008

Pippi Longstocking: Review Haiku


Iconic Swedish
hooligan meets her match in
kooky Lauren Child.


Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, illustrated by Lauren Child. Viking, 2007, 207 pages.

2.28.2008

I Am the Wallpaper: Review Haiku


True-to-life look at
friendship, first love, Interwebs --
sure he's not a girl?


I Am the Wallpaper by Mark Peter Hughes. Delacorte, 2005, 228 pages.

Sweethearts: Review Haiku


You can't escape your
past -- especially when it
comes back to love you.


Sweethearts by Sara Zarr. Little Brown, 2008, 217 pages.

2.26.2008

Where have you been, young lady

Currently in the middle of Pippi Longstocking and Sweethearts and enjoying both.

BUT -- my reading time is severely limited, as I'm getting ready to attend a writers' conference here next weekend. I'll be critiquing manuscripts and talking about narrative voice, and apparently I may be thrown into a horrifying First Pages situation on Friday night. So instead of reading this week, I have been writing and rewriting and revising and throwing out whole pages of stuff I previously thought was good. (How do you writer people do this all the time?) Plus I wrote sixteen rejection letters yesterday; typically I can't do more than a dozen before turning into Super Cranky Unhelpful Editor, so apologies to those authors who'll be getting letters from me in the next few days. I didn't mean it.*

Anyway. I'll resurface at some point -- with any luck, rejuvenated from a whole weekend sans bebes. (Sorry, honey.)

*Well, I did mean it. But I meant it more nicely than I said it.

2.21.2008

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree: Review Haiku


Impeccable logic
won't hold in middle school
social politics.


Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree by Lauren Tarshis. Dial, 2007, 199 pages.

Princess Mia: Review Haiku


Mia. Open your
goddamn EYES. Grow up. Move on.
Oh, wait -- you did. Good!


Princess Mia by Meg Cabot. Harper, 2008, 274 pages.

P.S. Munchkin: That says "princess!"
Me: Yes. Yes, it does. But you can't read it.

2.18.2008

Book of a Thousand Days: Review Haiku


Good old Shannon Hale:
count on her for love, magic,
wisdom, and yak dung.


Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale. Bloomsbury, 2007, 306 pages.

2.17.2008

If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period


Typical middle
school drama, until it takes
a strange, whiplash turn.


If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period by Gennifer Choldenko. Harcourt, 2007, 216 pages.

The Ghost, the White House, and Me: Review Haiku


History lessons
wrapped in a predictable,
fairly boring plot.


The Ghost, The White House, and Me by Judith St. George. Holiday House, 2007, 153 pages.

2.15.2008

The Puzzling World of Winston Breen: Review Haiku


A love letter to
puzzle geeks. Somewhere, Ellen
Raskin
is smiling.


The Puzzling World of Winston Breen by Eric Berlin. Putnam, 2007, 215 pages.

2.14.2008

Cybils winners!

Posted here for your enjoyment.

(I know, I know, the day's almost over. I've been working, okay?)

2.12.2008

Anna Friggin' Karenina: Review Haiku


Boy meets girl; boy gets
girl; girl meets train. Three weeks of
my life lost, all lost.


Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Originally serialized in Russian between 1875 and 1877, 754 pages.


#32 on The LIST.

2.04.2008

Vacation roundup: by the numbers

Books read: 4 2/3*
Pages read: 1628*
Countries visited: 2
Cities visited: 3
Train trips taken: 3
Public transportation trips stolen: 10? 15?**
Cups of kaffee mit schlag consumed: eighty bazillion
Plates of wiener schnitzel consumed: um, four? It's really good.

* Includes Anna Karenina, or as I prefer to call it, Anna Friggin' Karenina, which I'm still reading. Yet another example of why I did not study 19th-century literature in college: its and my temperaments are diametrically opposed.
** Seriously. We bought subway/tram tickets the first couple times, but there is no requirement (nor means) to insert/punch/validate/show a ticket for public transportation in either Austria or Germany. There are some benefits to quasi-socialism . . .

2.03.2008

Well, that sucked

Gaah. So the whole season was an expletive waste. What a game.

All is not lost, though: pitchers and catchers report in eleven days.