What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

I just finished reading the National Book Award Winner What I Saw and How I lied by Judy Blundell. This is one of those books that stays with you even after you finish reading it. There are so many things to think and wonder about. It is the best book that I have read this year—of course, as you can tell from my blog, I haven’t read that many books this year!

This book is set in 1947 right after World War II. Evie’s step-father Joe has just returned from the war and started his new appliance business. Joe refuses to talk about the war and neither Evie, nor her mother, push him. However, one day he starts to get strange phone calls and he tells someone on the phone that they have the “wrong Joe Spooner.” Soon after, he loads Evie and her mother in the car and they head to Florida for a vacation. Evie has never been outside of New York and she is excited. When they arrived in Palm Beach, things are mostly boarded up, but they find an open hotel and begin to enjoy their vacation.

All is great until handsome 23-year-old Peter Coleridge shows up. He was a soldier that served with Joe in Europe, but Joe doesn’t seem to want anything to do with him. However, he immediately charms 16-year-old Evie who promptly falls in love with him. She becomes so absorbed in her feelings for him that she ignores the secrets and lies that seem to fallow him around. But when a tragedy strikes, Evie discovers that she must choose between her family and her love for Peter. Suddenly nothing is what it seems and she doesn’t know who to believe: her devotion to Peter? Her wonderful step-father? Or her mother who has been the one constant in her life? Her choices could destroy her and her family forever!

Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson

I loved 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson so I knew that I would also enjoy her new book Suite Scarlett and I was not disappointed. Scarlett's family owns a small hotel in New York City. Everyone assumes that she must be rich because she lives in a hotel, but that is far from the case! In fact, the hotel has been struggling so much that the family has had to let go of all their staff and Scarlett's parents and Scarlett, her brother and two sisters have had to pick up the slack to do all the cleaning and cooking themselves.

The book begins on Scarlett's 15 birthday. For their 15th birthdays all the Martin children have received a suite in the hotel to care for. Scarlett gets the key to the Empire Suite and almost immediately Mrs. Amberson moves in for the summer. With the help of Mrs. Amberson, Scarlett's life is turned upside down.

Mrs. Amberson is a world traveler, a former actress and a very eccentric person. She tries to help Scarlett's older brother Spencer who wants to become an actor. When she takes over producing a theatre production, she introduces Scarlett to Eric an actor who has just moved to New York. Scarlett now has a budding romance, a new job and the family's failing hotel to worry about. It is sure to be an interesting summer!

Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks

In Mistik Lake by Martha Brooks, Odella's mother harbors guilt from an accident that happened when she was only 16 years old. Sally and three of her friends drove their car out on Mistik Lake and fell through the ice. Everyone was killed but Sally. The people of Mistik Lake say that it wasn't her fault; that she wasn't even driving, but Sally still feels the guilt and finds herself running from everything. When Odella is 16, her mother finally runs away from her family moves to Iceland with her lover. This book is how Odella learns to live with that abandonment, but it is also about why Sally feels the need to always run away from love.

Odella feels a pull to Mistik Lake where her family has a cabin and she and her two sisters spent most of their summers growing up. One summer she meets Jimmy and falls in love. The draw to Jimmy forces her to move back to Mistik Lake to spend the summer before going to college. She finds a job working at the meat counter of the local grocery store with a man who once dated her mother. That summer Odella finally learns the dark secrets about her mother and herself.

This is a gentle read that will be enjoyed by anyone who has ever lived in a small town. The citizens of Mistik Lake are so intertwined that it is hard to separate the families from one another and, of course, everyone knows everyone else's business. Odella, who has lived in a city her entire life, finds it hard to understand how everyone knew her mother and has stories to tell about her growing up. Mistik Lake tells the story of a teenage romance and the adults who have their secrets as they struggled to find love themselves.

Last Dance at the Frosty Queen

Last Dance at the Frosty Queen by Richard Allen Uhlig is definitely a spring time novel. As high school graduation approaches, Arty Flood wants nothing more than to escape his small Kansas town and see the world. But Arty’s life is a mess and it takes money to escape. His boss at Stiles Style, a clothing company for dogs, owes him over $1000 in back wages, the town sheriff blackmails him into dating his daughter, he is having an affair with his drama teacher and his family’s funeral home business is failing.

But Arty’s life begins to look up when the girl of his dreams swims into his life. Vanessa has problems of her own, but she helps Arty see that he must accept responsibility for his own actions and make things happen instead of blaming everyone else. She also lets him see his small town through the eyes of an outsider and shows him that you don’t have to escape to learn how to live.

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

I haven't blogged for a month. I am really embarrassed that I have been so bad about posting and reading for that matter. A couple of weeks ago I got the chance to go to Boston for an IB conference. The conference was really enlightening and taught me a lot about the program, but touring Boston was even better! This is a picture of me with the duckling statues in Boston Commons. These statues are of the 8 ducklings and their mom from Robert McCloskey's children's book Make Way for Ducklings. In the book, the ducks return home to Boston Public Garden. The book was originally published in 1941 and it won a Caldecott Medal somewhere along the way. It is a children's book that is still in print today and still a fun read! My new friend here was "feeding" the ducklings, but he said that it was okay if I took a picture with them.

The HHS library has a bunch of new audio books. They are in the format of Playaways which means that the book is loaded onto a small mp3 sort of player. It fits easily into a pocket and was great to listen to on the plane. I listened to Airborn by Kenneth Oppel. It is a fantasy book and different from any other book I have read (or listened to). The audio book has a full-cast audio which means that even though Matt narrates the book, the other characters have different people reading their parts. This makes the book very easy and enjoyable to listen to.

Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the airship Aurora. His father worked on the Aurora before he was killed in an accident and Matt has worked on the ship for several years. It is the only place he feels at home and close to his father.

Matt is on lookout one day and he spots a tattered hot air balloon. The airship rescues the balloon and finds an old man injured in the basket. The man dies a few days later after telling Matt about the creatures he saw in the sky. A year later Matt meets Kate who is a passenger on the Aurora. Kate is the granddaughter of man who died in the hot air balloon and she has come to find the strange animals that her grandfather claims he saw. She and Matt have many adventures include a run in with pirates, a ship wreck and the discovery of the amazingly new flying animals. Airborn is a great book filled with adventure for all!

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Like Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery," Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins begins with all the young people between the ages of 12 and 18 joining together where two names will be called: one boy and one girl. These two names will designate who will represent the area in this year's Hunger Games. When Katniss's 12-year-old sister's name is read, Katniss immediately volunteers to go in her place. Thus she finds herself in the ultimate survival game: 24 young people thrown into an arena forced to fight to survive until only one remains. These games sponsored by the Capitol are televised so that all can see who will kill or who will be killed.

Katniss has many survival skills that help her in these games, and she is not afraid of hunger because her family never has enough to eat. But the idea of killing another human being sickens her. Plus one of the contestants is a neighbor Peeta. Katniss and Peeta went to school together and they train together. Soon she discovers that Peeta has been in love with her since they were small children. And Katniss credits him with saving her life when her family was starving. In order to win will she be able to kill Peeta? Is Peeta really trying to kill her?

The gruesome idea behind the Hunger Games adds a desperate component to the novel as you read to see who survives. Once the games begin, it is nonstop adventure and excitement. I couldn't put this book down. I had to know what would happen to Katniss, Peeta and the others in the Hunger Games.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

I love books with strong female characters. I am so tired of stories where the poor defenseless girl has to be saved by the big strong man--ick! It is really thrilling that so many authors today are writing books where the female protagonist learns to solve her own problems. Graceling by Kristin Cashore is a great example of this.

In this fantasy novel, some people are born with "Graces" that provide them talents in various things; for example, a person might be born with a talent in sword fighting or a talent in running. Others can tell that you are a Graceling because when your talent develops your eyes change colors so that you have two different colored eyes. Katsa is a Graceling. Her grace is in the area of killing. Called the Lady Killer, Katsa has been in service to her uncle the king since she was very young. Her job is to threaten, maim or kill anyone who does him wrong. She is feared wherever she travels.

Katsa doesn't want to spend her life killing for King Randa who does things she doesn't agree with, so she forms a Secret Council to help right the wrongs that are happening in the Seven Kingdoms. On one of her secret missions, Katsa meets another Graceling, Po, who challenges her to become her own person. Po is a talented fighter, but no match for Katsa. However, they become friends as Katsa deals with her identity, her womanhood, and who gets to control her life.

Besides having a great character in Katsa, Po is not afraid to admit that she is stronger than him and can beat him in a fight every time. He encourages her to find out who she really is. This discovery is really important when Po and Katsa set off to another part of the Kingdom to deal with a truly evil king who has his own Grace that is worse than anything they could ever imagine. This adventure is exciting and fast-moving as Po and Katsa try to save the Kingdom while running for their lives.

Graceling is a great adventure story, a wonderful love story and a fantastic story of finding one's true identity. It is definitely on my list of 10 top books of 2008.