Recent Reads: Coville, Landy, Kenner

Read some great books lately that I wanted to share with you guys...

DARK WHISPERS by Bruce Coville

Third book in the Unicorn Chronicles. Lovely and magical and awesome. Worth the wait. Cara continues her adventures in Luster, the world of the unicorns... These books are for every girl who has (or had) a unicorn poster in her bedroom. Really, they are the quintessential unicorn books. Classics.

PLAYING WITH FIRE by Derek Landy

Sequel to Skullduggery Pleasant, involving a kick-butt girl heroine and a skeletal detective (who's the good guy, despite the whole freaky skull-for-a-face thing). Lots of fights. Lots of magic. Lots of deadpan humor. Don't read this while drinking milk or you will spray milk out of your nose.

DEJA DEMON by Julie Kenner

Latest installment in the adventures of a demon-hunting soccer mom. If you have kids and like Buffy, you must read this series. Must. Read. They're exciting and fun and hilarious and romantic. But more importantly, they're empowering. I find myself thinking, "If Kate can pull off a dinner party while juggling two kids and a demon apocalypse, then surely I can get through today..." Okay, so a zombie hand did crawl through the dining room during her dinner, but still...

Happy reading!

Mom, Missouri, TARN, and Kushner

Got a new review for Out of the Wild today:

"Even better than the first book!" -- my mom

(When I told her I was going to quote her on my blog, she added, "Tolstoy had better watch out! Or maybe say that I said Tolkien...")

My mom was here visiting this past week (which is why I've been absent from the online world), and as you may have guessed from the above, while she was here, she read Out of the Wild. Rather nerve-wracking when you know that someone you love is reading something you wrote. I had to force myself not to perch on the edge of the couch and watch her facial expressions.

But she liked it. (Phew!) And I knew she liked it fairly early on because as she was reading, she skipped to the end. You see, my mom has this habit of reading the endings of books before she's read the middle. But she only does it with books that she likes. Kind of like Harry in "When Harry Met Sally" but her reason is slightly different from his: she says that if she likes a book, she has to read the ending early so that she'll be able to put the book down. Otherwise, she'll read straight through without stopping to eat, drink, or be merry. (Okay, she didn't actually say "be merry." I'm paraphrasing here.) So when I saw her flip through the pages to read the end of Out of the Wild, I took that as the highest compliment.

I've been teasing her about her read-the-end-first habit for years, but now that I know why she does it, I think I have to stop teasing her about it. I really shouldn't throw stones at other people's reading habits anyway. I'm a major skim-reader. I often skim so fast that I completely miss major parts of the action and then have to backtrack a couple pages to figure out who died. But it has the upside that if I reread a book, it's practically new to me because I'm seeing all sorts of sentences that I missed the first time around. :)

Anyway, I am a bit behind on my trip reports...

Trip Report: Springfield Green County Library

This was the first author visit I've done where I didn't have to leave my desk. Last Thursday, I talked on the phone with a group at the Springfield Greene County Library in Missouri. The kids all had great questions, and it was so much fun. Definitely up there in my list of Favorite Phone Calls.

I don't have any photos of the event to show you, for obvious reasons. But if you want, you could click here for a website with photos of bizarre phone booths.

Trip Report: Teen Author Reading Night

On Wednesday, I participated in Teen Author Reading Night (TARN) at the Jefferson Market Branch of the New York Public Library. The other authors reading were John Coy, Susane Colasanti, E. Lockhart, Daphne Grab, and Rachel Vail, and our host was David Levithan. Everyone was awesome, as was the enormous red curtain behind us.

John, Susane, E., David, Me, Daphne, Rachel, and the red curtain

I really love group readings. It's kind of like going to an ice cream store and sampling lots of flavors. And I really liked all the flavors at TARN.

Recent Reads: Kushner

And lastly, I have to tell you about the book I read on the train to and from Teen Author Reading Night: Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword. It's about a girl whose uncle insists she become a swordswoman instead of debuting to Society and marrying the most eligible man she can find. It's kind of Jane Austen meets Tamora Pierce, and it was totally absorbing. Definitely the sort of book where my mom would have read the ending first.

Recent Reads: Hale, Reisman, and Clare

Since friends know I like books (and by "like", I mean, need books like a koala needs eucalyptus leaves), they often ask me what I've read lately. For some reason, this question always makes my mind go totally blank. It's ridiculous. I'll have read three great books that afternoon, but when put on the spot, I'll come up with nothing. I have no idea why. I think it has something to do with all the 80s song lyrics that are clogging my brain... Anyway, in the interest of being able to answer this question on the fly, I thought I'd tell you guys about a few of the books that I recently read and loved. This way, I can just direct people to my blog when I draw a blank. Assuming, of course, that I can remember the URL...

First up is BOOK OF A THOUSAND DAYS by Shannon Hale. Shannon is a master storyteller, and this is my favorite book of hers (at least so far -- I don't know what she's working on next). It's based on a fairy tale called Maid Maleen about a princess who refuses to marry the suitor her father chooses and so her father imprisons her in a tower. Shannon's story is told in diary-format from the point-of-view of the servant who agrees to be imprisoned with the princess. It's a beautiful story with a strong, likeable, sensible heroine who grows through the tale to an ending that made me cheer out loud. I loved every page.

Second is SIMON BLOOM, THE GRAVITY KEEPER by Michael Reisman. I met Michael at a NJ library conference and thought he was awesome. His presentation even included costume changes and juggling. His book is also fun and awesome. It's about a boy who finds a book that allows him to control the laws of physics (for example, eliminating the effects of gravity in his bedroom or lessening friction so he can "skate" over the ground). Many, many super-fun scenes. But one of the things that I think makes this book important is that running beneath every scene is the theme "science is cool." This feeling of joy-in-science makes Gravity Keeper a nice counter-balance to all the dystopian SF out there. It's a perfect read for any kid/preteen who has shown even a smidge of interest in science.

Last but not least is CITY OF ASHES by Cassandra Clare. This is book two in Cassie's Mortal Instruments trilogy. I enjoyed the first book (City of Bones), but I think this book is even better. It's full of magic and kick-butt fight scenes (yay!), and it also has laugh-out-loud clever dialogue. One of my favorite scenes involves a character trying to convince another character to tell his parents that he's become a vampire. She hands him a how-to-come-out-to-your-parents brochure, and he tries it out, substituting in the word "undead." I think it's the humor that I love most about this book. It makes the characters feel real, and it makes the book a whole lot of fun.

Happy reading!

Ooh, and I just realized, today is June 9th, which means there are just ten days left until Out of the Wild comes out!!!!! I'm so excited. Let the countdown begin!