Title: A Face Like Glass
Author: Frances Hardinge
Genre: fantasy
Similar books: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
City of Masks by Mary Hoffman
Rating:
 |
| pleasant if a bit long |
Summary (provided by publisher): In the underground city of Caverna, the world’s most skilled craftsmen toil in the darkness to create delicacies beyond compare—wines that remove memories, cheeses that make you hallucinate, and perfumes that convince you to trust the wearer, even as they slit your throat. On the surface, the people of Caverna seem ordinary, except for one thing: their faces are as blank as untouched snow. Expressions must be learned, and only the famous Facesmiths can teach a person to express (or fake) joy, despair, or fear—at a steep price. Into this dark and distrustful world comes Neverfell, a girl with no memory of her past and a face so terrifying to those around her that she must wear a mask at all times. Neverfell's expressions are as varied and dynamic as those of the most skilled Facesmiths, except hers are entirely genuine. And that makes her very dangerous indeed . . .
My opinion: The world of this novel is a particularly inventive, complex one. Hardinge has done an amazing job with the world-building. We are presented with myriad cultural rules and a complex political situation. Toss in a strange girl completely unprepared to navigate any of it, a pawn in a game she can't begin to understand, and its a recipe for a fascinating read. All of this world-building, though, means that the pacing is on the slow side, a situation compounded by the complexity of the characters. It must move slowly for the reader to follow the plot, but this can feel like it is dragging. It's a book that takes a fair amount of dedication.
More Information: A Face Like Glass releases May 9.
Adanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.
I don't know about you, but sometimes an idea grabs hold of me and just won't let go. Today's craft started with this doodle:
Once I drew this hippo, I couldn't drop the idea of giving an animal wings. I didn't have any plastic or plush hippos around but I did find this anteater. A scrap of cardstock and some elastic string finished it off.
Reynaldo loves his new wings.
Title: Lemons
Author: Melissa Savage
Genre: historical/realistic fiction
Similar books: The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin
Soar by Tracy Edward Wymer
Rating:
 |
| a solid read |
Summary (provided by publisher): Fans of Kate DiCamillo’s Flora & Ulysses and Katherine Applegate’s Crenshaw will fall in love with this charming adventure story about a girl learning to accept her new life, her quirky detective neighbor, and their epic search for Bigfoot.
Lemonade Liberty Witt’s mama always told her: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But Lem can’t possibly make lemonade out of her new life in Willow Creek, California—the Bigfoot Capital of the World—where she’s forced to live with a grandfather she’s never met after her mother passes away.
Then she meets eleven-year-old Tobin Sky, the CEO of Bigfoot Detectives Inc., who is the sole Bigfoot investigator for their small town. After he invites Lem to be his assistant for the summer, they set out on an epic adventure to capture a shot of the elusive beast on film. But along the way, Lem and Tobin end up discovering more than they ever could have imagined. And Lem realizes that maybe she can make lemonade out of her new life after all.
My opinion: In some ways, this is a standard fish out of water story. Lem wishes for her old life back even as she begins to adjust to the new. The cryptid aspect gives it some freshness. It's historical in setting, and needs to be for the sake of certain plot elements, but doesn't feel particularly historical. This has two very different effects on the book. on the one hand, it gives it an air of universality. We don't get stock on the history elements so it's easier for modern readers to relate. On the other hand, because we sometimes forget that this is set in the late 60s, those historical elements that do come through can be a bit jarring. Or we find ourselves wondering why the characters don't, say, Google a subject. This can leave the reader feeling slightly off kilter. Still, it takes itself seriously and thus doesn't belittle the thoughts, emotions, and experiences of the reader.
More information: Lemons releases May 2.
Advanced Reader Copy provided by NetGalley.
There
are many levels of science fiction, from mostly realistic with some mild
sci-fi elements to tales entirely set in a fictional world. While my
personal tastes lean more towards the former, I try to read novels that
fit all over the spectrum. Luckily, there are some really good sci-fi
novels being written for young people these days. Here are six sci-fi
novels, from beginning readers to teen novels, written in the last six
months.
6 new sci-fi novels:
1. Nowhere Near You by Leah Thomas
2. The Time Museum by Matthew Loux
3. Star Scouts by Mike Lawrence
4. The Castoffs by M.K. Reed
5. How to Tame a Triceratops by Will Dare
6. Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray
If there's one craft material most of us have in abundance, it's cardboard. I've got two quick(ish) projects here I threw together out of corrugated cardboard.
Desk organizer
This project came out of necessity. I have a mug on my desk at work that holds pencils, pens, scissors, etc. Then I started keeping some sugar packets and condiments in there as well, and it struck me as a potential problem. A pen dropped a little too hard on a packet of hot sauce could spell disaster. Not to mention contamination. A little bit of hot glue and duct tape turned this box into a handy second organizer for my desk.
Birdcage
I wanted to keep random action figures and figurines in a birdcage. But birdcages are surprisingly hard to come by. So I made my own.
A Series of Unfortunate Events
When The Bad Beginning first came out I was enamored. It wasn't the adventure or the mystery. It was the tone. A Series of Unfortunate events relied on a tongue-in-cheek, self-mocking, intentionally over-wrought tone. My brother and I devoured each volume. When the first movie was announced, I was thrilled. The dramatic, action oriented nature of the plot was well suited to film and the right cast could do justice to it's pseudo-serious nature. When they cast Jim Carrey in the role of Count Olaf, I figured it would perfection. The reality was ... less than perfect. In this case, I think it's a failure of the script, which combined several books and eliminated many of the best elements. It takes itself too seriously and cuts out most of the quirky narration. The cast does it's very best, of course, but there is little you can do to fix a poor script.
Fast forward a decade to the Netflix miniseries. After the disappointment of the film I wasn't thrilled by the announcement. Even when I found out Neal Patrick Harris was slated to play Count Olaf. This new effort is stronger. While the cast is a bit lackluster at times (particularly the children) it has the same charm of the original novels. Lemony Snicket himself is a more present character. There are new jokes that keep true to the sense of the source material. I don't know that it is as engaging as the book but is worth watching. I've only seen the first two episodes, those based on the first novel, so I can't speak to the series on the whole but it's a promising beginning.
Strange Medicine by Jon Farndon
Like many non-fiction books aimed at young readers, this is more a collection of trivia than any real informative text. It relies somewhat on the gross-out factor of folk remedies but Farndon takes pains not to be overly graphic. The text is gentle enough for an upper elementary reader. Use this one to what a child's scientific appetite.
