Summer Beach Reading

The books I either started or finished while at the beach last week. Believe it or not, I did do a few others things, but mostly I read! It was great!

The Sunshine Sisters by Jane Green

Jane Green has been one of my favorites for several years, but this just seemed too formulaic. A rotten mother, three daughters, all affected in one way or another by her bad mothering. But, when the mother is dying of ALS, she wants her daughters to gather around, forgive her and form relationships with each other. So, they do. Ho hum!

Same Beach Next Year by Dorothea Benton Frank

A new author to me and again, just a little too predictable. Two couples meet at the beach every year. One husband had a relationship with the other wife when they were young and so there is residual sexual tension that one day erupts, yada yada yada. The best part of the book was when the spurned (or not so spurned) wife heads out to Greece on her own to discover her long lost relatives and herself. Loved the descriptions of Greece and it made me want to go there.

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Kip recommended this to me and I finally got to read it. The writing style was sometimes like reading a stand-up comedy routine, but at least it was funny! Another way to view the racist attitudes perpetrated here and in South Africa. Thanks for sharing your story, Mr. Noah.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

I had read The Marriage Plot last year and did not enjoy it so was hesitant to read Middlesex, but I kept hearing about this from so many sources, I finally broke down. It was long, but was very good. I liked this so much more than The Marriage Plot. Cal was born with recessed male sex organs and looked like a female baby. He was raised as a female and discovered at 14 that he had the male chromosome. While fictional, the story is told in first person and was very believable. Enlightening and entertaining.

Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam

Two young women who have known each other since they were eleven, now living in New York City. And it doesn’t get any more exciting than that. Told through present day events as well as flashbacks, we sometimes get the viewpoint of Sarah and sometimes know what Lauren is thinking. As a former middle school classmate so knowingly delineated: Sarah is rich, but Lauren is pretty. And Alam is able to show how being rich or pretty affects your life in so many ways, even Sarah and Lauren cannot quite understand it. While nothing much happens in this story, it is one that will stick with me as I think about these characters.

Mrs. Saint and the Defectives by Julie Lawson Timmer

A sweet novel about a woman and her teen-aged son, recovering from a divorce. Markie and her son Trevor and suffering in silence and trying to figure out their own way back to the lives they want to lead when their interfering neighbor enters their lives. Mrs. Saint pushes her way into their lives and maybe the most annoying thing was that she was almost always right! While the writing was not great, I loved the story and enjoyed the premise.

Broken Harbor by Tana French

This is the fourth book in a series by French. They are police procedurals set in Dublin. One difference between this series and others I have read is that French focuses on a different detective in each book, usually one that was in a previous book, but not the main character. She also manages to set up the story so by the end (in three out of four of the books), the officer decides to leave the force. As the others were, this was a complicated story, with several clues that come at different times as well as foreshadowing that did not help me solve the crime. I like the story, but the pace is a little slow and maybe she could tell it in half the space!

The Ophelia Cut by John Lescroart

This is about the 15^th book in the series about a lawyer in San Francisco. I have not read any of the others and from reviews online, this was not the best of the series, so I may read some of the earlier ones since I liked the characters and the courtroom scenes were well done. I have heard a lot about this author and am willing to give him another shot.

A Distant View of Everything by Alexander McCall Smith

I will read anything by Smith and almost always love it. This is no exception. Another in the series about Isabel Dalhousie, the Scottish philosopher and now mother of two boys. Besides the great philosophical debates that Isabel has with herself, I love the love story that is portrayed between Isabel and her younger husband who adores her and both their sons. A feel good read that I looked forward to!

The Late Show by Michael Connelly

Another of my favorite authors, Connelly is starting fresh with a new character, still an LAPD officer, but this time a young woman. She has a lot in common with Bosch (his main character in several novels): she won’t give up, she works when she doesn’t have to, she doesn’t seem to need sleep and she is concerned about the victims at all times! I haven’t finished this one yet, but I am already hooked on Renee Ballard.

Summer Fiction and Fantasy or Beach Reading for Kids

Who Wants to Be a Princess? By Bridget Heos, Illustrated by Migy

 

A fictional princess from the middle ages shows and tells the differences between fairy tale princesses like Cinderella and Snow White and a real medieval princess. Some of the dialogue is tongue in cheek, like when she describes the mess made in the dining hall by the bones, grease and crumbs that fall on the floor and are not cleaned up. “Rats are everywhere. We’d prefer they leave, but what can we do? (Other than tidy up, I mean.)” Each two page spread shows what it’s like in modern fairy tales for princesses and contrasts that with how a princess in the middle ages actually lived. Colorful, entertaining and informative.

Princessland by Emily Jenkins, Pictures by Yoko Tanaka

 

This is a perfect companion book for Who Wants to Be a Princess? (See above) Romy wants to visit princessland and as she describes what it is like in Princessland, her Lady Cat goes along with her turning her imagination into reality. Only Romy’s idea of what it is like in Princessland is just like the fantasy that is debunked by Heos! Read them together to discuss the similarities and differences or read this one alone for a little bit of pure fantasy time!

Princess Tales Around the World Adapted by Grace Maccarone, Illustrated by Gail de Marcken

 

Maccarone has taken ten stories of princesses from various places in the world and retold them in rhyme. de Marcken adds to the charm with colorful, intricate illustrations retelling each story again with art. On each page, there is a list of objects to find that may or may not be important to the story. Adults and children alike will be enchanted with these stories that originate in Persia, India China, England and other parts of Europe. This book is worth it just for the illustrations!

DC Super Friends: Girl Power

 

 A simple book to advertise the women in DC Comics may help to counteract all the princess books!

Go Big or Go Gnome by Kirsten Mayer, illustrated by Laura K. Horton

 

The pun in the title gives a premonition about how this story will progress: it begins with a silly premise and gets sillier as the story progresses. But, Mayer and Horton make a great team and the silliness is fun the gnomes are all so nice to one another, it makes me want to live in gnome-land. Poor Al does not have a beard like all the other gnomes, and wants to participate in the B. I. G.: Beards International Gnome-athon. Read to find out how he gets to not only participate, but win a trophy. For once, I was not concerned that all the characters were male!

Two from the Adventures in Cartooning

Hocus Focus by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold and Alexis Frederick-Frost

 

Ogres Awake! By James Sturm, Andrew Arnold and Alexis Frederick-Frost

 

The continuing saga of the Little Knight and Edward his horse. In Hocus Focus, the Little Knight cannot wait to learn magic and messes up a potion, turning Edward into a monster worm. In Ogres Awake! Little Knight is excited and scared about the ogres sleeping on the castle lawn. Every step of the way, he misinterprets the reason for the making of potato stew. In reality, the King and his minions have decided to feed the ogres when they awake to prevent damage to the kingdom. Each story is told with cartoon panels moving the story forward and the end papers give drawing lessons for drawing Little Knight, Edward and other characters from the stories.

The Cow Said “Meow” by John Himmelman

 

Using cartoonish drawings and a few simple words in word balloons, Himmelman tells a story with humor and irony. This would be a perfect picture book to use when teaching inference! And the teacher could ask: what were the animals thinking? Loveit!

Mac and Cheese by James Proimos

 

This falls under the category of: What? You published a book about what? Here goes: Mac and Cheese are characters who meet others throughout their day like P. B and Jay, and Oil and Water. They go through a day having an inane conversation about a myriad of things; in fact, they sound like two grade schoolers jumping from topic to topic. You may love this book and it’s mindless chatter, or you may feel like I did: What?

Ned the Knitting Pirate by Diana Murray, illustrated by Leslie Lammle

 

No two ways about it, Ned likes to knit and the captain hates a knitting pirate. Murray uses rhyme to tell this story that includes a captain with a wooden leg and a hook, tough as grit pirates, a Rusty Heap for a boat, and a sea monster that “cannonballs bounced off his sides as if his skin was Jell-O.” In other words: all the ingredients for a story about pirates, including the ubiquitous, “Yarrrrh!”

A Unicorn Named Sparkle by Amy Young

 

A mail order unicorn for 25 cents? A fantasy of a unicorn is contrasted with the mail order animal that looks and acts like a goat! Lucy is expecting one thing and gets another. While she initially wants to send back the ornery unicorn, she eventually sees that the unicorn she got is the one that is perfect for her. Is this a metaphor for life?