Mike and Tina Baye are worried about their son, Adam. He’s withdrawn from them lately, and it’s much more than the usual teenage, “leave me alone” behavior. His best friend recently committed suicide, and Adam has lost interest in all the things he used to love. Out of worry, Mike and Tina decide they need to know more about their son than he’s willing to tell them. So they install spy software on his computer and monitor who he talks to, what sites he surfs, what he reads. They discover that he’s involved in a crowd that does a lot of drinking and drugs. But what they learn that frightens them the most is the message someone sends Adam advising him to “just stay quiet and all safe.”

But Adam is afraid, and he runs off when he discovers his parents have been spying on him. Mike and Tina are frantic. They try to locate him using the GPS on his cell phone, and just as Mike gets close, he’s attacked and hospitalized by a group of men who don’t want him finding his son. And when they start to question all the people their son is known to have talked to recently, they come up against one stone wall after another. Mike and Tina soon learn that maybe Adam didn’t just run away. Maybe he was taken.

I liked this book quite a bit. I thought the diverse cast of characters that all seem to be separate and unconnected to the main plot were woven together smartly in the end. The book opens with a particularly gruesome event that seems to stand alone and make no sense to the major story. You wonder when it will come together, and how it possibly could when, just like that… it all does, and it makes sense.

I picture Coben with a giant plot board of sticky notes and string connecting them in front of him when he maps out his stories. He’d have to have some sort of system in place to keep it all sorted out. The guy’s great at plot, I will give him that. But I don’t think the writing was particularly great this time (word choices, phrasings, dialogue). But hey… I’ve read a lot of books that have been bestsellers that weren’t well-written. Goes to show you that it’s the story, the idea behind it all, that makes it a great read. You can be a technically gifted writer, have a way with words, but if you don’t have a story that grabs attention, you’ve got nothing.

This is a story about a woman named Grace Lawson who picks up her photos from a local print shop only to find there is a picture in the set that wasn’t taken with her camera. What’s strange about the picture is that when she looks closely at it, she thinks she recognizes a younger version of her husband Jack in it. And what makes it stranger still is that the woman he’s standing next to in the photo has a giant red X marked over her. When Grace takes the photo home and shows it to her husband to see if he knows anything about it, he reacts very strangely to it, claiming it isn’t him in the photo; then, excusing himself to take a phone call, he leaves the room and never comes back.

Grace is panicked. She’s part of a good marriage — her husband wouldn’t just leave her. She can’t believe a simple photo would just make him disappear. So she goes to the police, but they don’t believe her when she says her husband is in danger. They think he’s left her for another woman, perhaps the woman in the photo, and when she receives an ill-timed phone call from her husband telling her he needs some space just as she’s talking to the police, she knows they’ve written her off as the unsuspecting, cheated wife. But Grace knows her husband and can tell from the way he’s worded his phone message that he’s telling her he needs help and that the police shouldn’t be involved.

So Grace will have to find him on her own. And as she searches for him, she starts to learn that the photograph is much more dangerous than she realized. Her husband has already gone missing, and soon she receives the message loud and clear that she and her children are next if she doesn’t stop searching for him leave the photo alone.

And, as is usually the case with Coben novels, a whole cast of other characters (people in the neighborhood, long lost family members, even mobsters) become intertwined with the event depicted in that simple photograph of the crossed out girl and Grace’s younger husband. You get the sense that it’s a very small world out there.

I liked this book, but not as much as Coben’s other books. I felt the story clipped along nicely and that the suspense was thrilling enough to keep me reading through the night. I didn’t particularly care for the ending — I felt it came together too loosely in the end to justify all the connections between the characters. But hey, Coben isn’t a bestselling author for nothing. He can tell a story and he can tell it well. There’s just the right amount of gruesome violence, thrilling cat and mouse scenes, and twists along the way.

I received a review copy of this book in the mail recently and I was pretty excited when I opened it. I remember loving these sorts of books when I was a kid — the non-fiction volumes about strange facts, people and events… much like Guinness’s books of World Records.

This book is different in that it’s a huge, colorful book of the bizarre and unbelievable. It’s not limited to what’s happened this year, but pulls from history. This book is a perfect gift for young boys, but it’s also just as interesting to girls. And a certain 32 year old mom who spent a good part of an hour telling her 2 year old son to play with his toys because Mommy was flipping through it. I’m all for any books that get kids interested in reading, and I believe the Ripley’s publishers are a great resource for those reluctant readers.

From Ripley’s newsroom:

Enter If You Dare!

Each fantastic annual in the Ripley’s Believe it or Not! range contains completely new material. Every book is full of bizarre facts, incredible photographs, crazy stories, revealing interviews, and fun features – every one guaranteed to amaze.

Enter If You Dare also features icons throughout that direct you to live action clips on this very website, as well as a cool 8-page gatefold section showcasing sideshow performers from the past.

A mind-boggling array of incredible and bizarre facts, stories, interviews and features are all presented in a stunning new design. New highlights included “Ripley’s Revealed,” an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at such subjects as contortionism, fire-eating and sword-swallowing. Fascinating interviews with some of the planet’s most extraordinary people explore their motivations, while the popular “Ripley’s Research” boxes explain the science behind some of the most incredible takes in the book. Enter If You Dare also includes a dramatic double gatefold that throws light on the shady world of vampires, and two single gatefolds – a tribute to the Coney Island sideshows, and a lifesize portrait of tiny teenager Jyoti Amge who stands just 23 1/2 inches tall. With something strange to entertain and shock every member of the family, Enter If You Dare is sure to continue the massive success of the expanding Ripley’s book brand.

It’s been nearly 3 months since my last post? Yikes. Well, time flies when you’re busy, busy, busy. But I have been reading a bit here and there.  I’m just not finding the time or motivation to write reviews lately. I will though. I’ve been on a real Harlan Coben kick lately — keep your eyes peeled for reviews of Hold Tight and Just One Look. I’m also starting his Myron Bolitar series, with Deal Breaker on my nightstand. And I’m still plugging through Gabaldon’s Outlander series (just bought An Echo In the Bone in trade paperback at Costco). And I have a review copy of one of my childhood favorites to put up soon — the 2010 version of Ripley’s Believe It or Not “Enter if You Dare.” Hopefully I’ll find some time this week to put them up.

I received a promotional packet from Ripley’s Entertainment Inc which included book covers, the first book in the RBI series, and information about the books in the series. I was quite impressed by it. The packet informed me: “We have heard from many librarians and educators that Ripley’s should publish a series for younger children especially aimed to boys and reluctant readers. From this suggestion we are happy to present the RBI series.”

I really like the idea behind this series. Books for children and young adults that tells a story while at the same time incorporating some non-fiction into the mix as a group of teens from the RBI work to solve a mystery. Peppered throughout the pages are facts about aspects of the story in sidebar and plenty of illustrations to help kids imagine the action. I think this series is well-designed and thought out. It interests kids who like non-fiction and fiction, it appeals to young kids with the illustrations and older kids with the modern feel of technology and gadgets the teens in the RBI use which are pictured throughout the book. There are trading cards included in the book not just for characters, but for some of the facts (or fiction) found in the story. The characters are multicultural and a good mix of character types. And while the focus may have been boys and reluctant readers, I think this series will appeal to any kid in its age demographic.

The covers are slick and colorful — certainly eye-catching. The books aren’t too long so as to turn off reluctant readers by its size. And they’re affordable at $5.00 each. And I believe that books are some of the best gifts you can give. Especially when they’re interactive and fun like these.

When I was a kid, I loved The Baby-Sitters Club. The first weekend of very month, my parents would give me a few dollars (man, back in the day when you could get a book for a few dollars — I feel so old) and I’d run out and buy the latest book in the series. I adored the idea of a club for baby-sitters that was run like a business with positions like secretary and treasurer. I loved the idea that they met once a week and took calls from parents who wanted to pay them to watch their kids. Maybe it was because I’ve never babysat for kids myself, and I thought the idea was so glamorous.

As were the characters. Tomboy Kristy, artsy Claudia, wallflower Mary Anne (who totally took a step up the cool ladder when she got her boyfriend, Logan), sophisticated Stacey, hippie Dawn, bookworm Mallory, dancer Jessie. There were so many of them! And so many kids to babysit too.

Anyway… I loved the books. I read them from elementary through junior high. And then I stopped because I outgrew the characters. The series itself ended in 2000. But then I discovered a little while ago that Martin wrote a prequel this year to the series called The Summer Before, all about the summer before Kristy’s Big Idea (book one in the series). And I had to read it. It just reminded me so much of my youth that I couldn’t pass it up.

So I got it from the library and reading it again brought back so many memories of the series and when I was a little girl. The story itself wasn’t anything special. Sort of an introduction to the 4 original members of the club. Thinking on it now, I wonder if this book is Martin’s attempt to capture those girls who so loved The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (the BSC of the current generation). Perhaps they’re hoping to renew interest to the series and bring new stories out soon.

I have to say that I like that idea. I think the BSC is good for young girls today. Certainly tamer than Gossip Girl and the other “Mean Girl” type series that are out there now. You’re not going to find Kristy worrying about teen pregnancy the way you might expect Serena Van Der Woodsen to have a new bedfellow every week. And, as a mom, I think I’d prefer my pre-teen to be reading the BSC.

Anyway, I wouldn’t say this book was great reading, but it was great for a trip down memory lane to those of us who grew up on the BSC series. Finally… a plug for a blog called BSC Headquarters (www.claudiasroom.blogspot.com — genius domain!) I discovered a while back that is all about the BSC — the author, Tiff, is rereading the BSC books as an adult and offering her thoughts on the series now that she’s older. I find it to be a lot of fun.

My son will be 2 years old in a few months, but I think he’s starting to embrace the terrible 2’s with gusto already. Don’t get me wrong, he’s actually a great kid. He plays well with others, he hardly ever gets upset. He treats things well and listens most of the time. Most people tell me he’s so well-behaved and happy. And he is.

But he has this habit of smacking me. Or pulling my hair. Or pinching me. Usually this happens when he’s frustrated and can’t communicate himself well, and it almost always happens now when we’re in public places because I don’t allow him to go running off and I make him hold my hand if he won’t sit in his stroller or the shopping cart.

We introduced the idea of a naughty corner a while ago to mixed success. When he’s put in the corner, he stays there and he waits until the time is up. He’ll even take himself there when you tell him he has to go to the naughty corner. The part that doesn’t seem to be working is that he seems happy enough when he’s there; like he’s thinking, “That’s cool. I was gonna stand here anyway.” When his time is up, he dutifully gives a sorry hug and then he’s on his way. The problem is that he’s too young to understand that he’s supposed to be thinking about why he’s there and that it’s meant to be disciplining him and deterring him from repeating his naughty behavior. He just does it again and again. And we keep putting him in the corner again and again. Consistency and all that jazz.

So I was starting to think I needed some new tricks. Enter Supernanny. My husband and I don’t regularly watch her show, but we have caught it a few times when we’ve been channel surfing and it’s been on. We find that we like Supernanny’s methods because they’re quite similar to what we believe parenting should be like (discipline fairly, praise freely, maintain a routine, be consistent, etc.). So I thought I’d place a hold on her book and see if there’s anything I haven’t thought of yet.

There wasn’t. We pretty much do everything she discusses. We have the naughty corner. We use the involvement technique (as a way to deter naughty behavior). We put our son to sleep at night with similar methods. But just because I didn’t learn anything new from her book isn’t to say that it isn’t a good resource. I’d say it’s a fabulous resource for parents who are looking for structure and routine as a way of shaping and directing children towards good behavior.

I came away after reading this book to understand that I just have to keep up what I’m doing — be consistent until my son is old enough to understand a little better what the naughty corner means. He’s just too young to figure out yet that just because Mommy or Daddy said no to hitting them that one time doesn’t mean he can hit any other time either. I figure he’ll grow out of the phase once he can better communicate his frustrations and understand boundaries a little more. And until then, I’ll just leave him at home with Daddy when I need to go out in public ;)

And since this is a book review, I’ll end here by saying I think this is a great book. My only criticism is that I think I would have liked more “troubleshooting tips” for specific examples/scenarios (ie. what do you do with a nearly 2 year old son who is being naughty, but doesn’t understand what naughty means?), but that’s content for a whole other book. I wouldn’t buy it for anyone other than yourselves though, since I don’t think most parents would take kindly to someone gifting them a book on parenting, if you know what I mean ;)

Addie Downs has been an overweight girl her entire life. Years of eating in secrecy to hide her frustrations and pains leads to nearly 350 pounds by the time she’s 30 years old. It’s not like her pain isn’t real, as her life has been full of tragedy — in high school, her fit, popular brother is injured in a car accident that leaves him severely brain damaged, her father dies of a brain aneurysm when she is 18 years old, and her mother dies of cancer only a year later. Addie has spent her life hidden away in her home where no one would make fun of her and she can lose herself in her art and food.

The only person who ever managed to draw Addie out of her shell was her best friend Valerie Adler. Valerie moved into Addie’s neighborhood the summer they were 8 years old. A child of divorced parents, she lives with her mother, a beautiful woman whose life revolves around staying slim and finding men to support her. Val is full of life and ideas. She’s not afraid of anything or of speaking her mind. She’s the yin to Addie’s yang, and they become the best of friends until they reach high school and Val becomes a cheerleader and starts hanging around the popular kids. While Val doesn’t abandon Addie (she still invites her along to things), Addie knows she doesn’t belong with that crowd.

One night, Val’s invited to a party at a popular boy’s house. She brings Addie along, but ends up leaving her to herself as she parties with her new friends. Just as Addie’s had enough and goes to find Val and drag her home, Val shows up ready to leave — but she’s looking pale and her hair is messed and her clothes are disheveled. Addie discovers Val was raped by a boy from their school, and, determined to do the right thing for her friend, she tells her mother. But Val doesn’t want to make a scene, and she doesn’t want to lose her new friends, so she denies Addie’s accusation, and accuses her of being jealous. It is the moment their friendship ends. After graduation, Val moves out to California and Addie has to deal with her family’s tragedies, and they don’t see each other again.

Over the years, Addie grows bigger and bigger until one day she decides she’s had enough. She puts herself on a strict diet during the day, and knocks herself out at night with sleeping pills so she won’t binge eat anymore. She takes up swimming and goes faithfully every day. Over the course of a year, Addie loses weight and becomes a normal-sized person. She’s healthier and happier, and she’s determined to make a better life for herself until one night the doorbell rings and her former best friend Val is there with blood on her coat and a plea for help because she thinks she’s just killed the boy from high school who raped her. What follows is a hilarious adventure as the girls find themselves on the run from the local police chief.

I enjoyed this book, though I really didn’t like the character of Valerie much. She irritated me with her vanity and stupidity. I know that Addie was so self-conscious that she held onto that friendship because no one else was interested in being her friend, but Addie comes across as a very smart person, even in her youth. I couldn’t see that she’d take someone as silly as Val very seriously, but I guess desperation makes people willing to put up with a lot.

Apart from Val’s character, I thought the book was very funny and well-written. I liked the way Weiner jumps back and forth between past and present as she tells the story of these girls’ friendship, and why they ended up the way they did. I liked the realism in the characters’ observations of life. I appreciated that there are side characters with their own stories and Weiner weaves them into the main plot and that everything comes together well.

I’ve always been a fan of Weiner’s (except for Goodnight Nobody which I just couldn’t get into, though I may give it another try in the future), and this novel is a lot like her other novels (main character is usually an overweight girl looking to find a happier life). I think I’d like to see her write something different in the future though. I think it’s time she went beyond the “write what you know” mantra and explored new ideas for main characters.

Recently, An Echo In The Bone, the latest book in the Outlander series was released, and I found myself thinking, wow, it’s been a long time since Gabaldon wrote an Outlander novel, and… where did I leave off in this series? I couldn’t remember enough about it, so I thought the best way to remedy that was to start over. No easy task when you consider the size of these novels. But start over I did with the first of the series, Outlander.

Englishwoman Claire Randall and her husband Frank are on a sort of belated honeymoon in Scotland. Having been separated shortly after their marriage by war taking Frank into the army and Claire into service as a nurse, they have been reunited and are enjoying another start to their marriage. On a trip to Scotland to learn more about Frank’s roots, they explore the countryside where they come upon a stone structure high atop a hill in the Highlands called Craigh na Dun. Frank, a professor of history, is fascinated by the stones, as they are often used in worship by pagans of an ancient time. Claire is interested in the foliage growing around the stones, as she enjoys learning about herbs and their medicinal uses. One day, Claire decides to go to the stones atop the hill to look for some plants she spied on an earlier trip, when she is literally sucked into a time warp transporting her back 200 years to a time of warring Highlanders and Englishmen.

She is set upon by Captain Jonathan Randall, the very relative her husband Frank had been researching. She discovers that Randall is not a hero of any kind, but a vicious sadist intent on raping her. As she fights to get away, she is rescued, then kidnapped, by a clan of Scottish men, who whisk her away deep into Scottish territory, at the Mackenzie clan’s Castle Leoch. Along the way, she meets a man who will become very important to her — the outlaw Jamie Fraser, a young, fiery, handsome Scot, who also happens to have been beaten and injured to an inch of his life. Claire calls upon her experience as a nurse and her knowledge of herbs to aid Jamie, and is soon labeled as a physician at Leoch and made invaluable to the inhabitants of the castle.

The chief of the clan, Column Mackenzie and his brother, the war chieftan Dougal Mackenzie, are reluctant to allow her to leave Leoch, not only because she is a healer, but because she is an English woman, and they suspect she is working as a spy for the English or for the French, as she has chosen to identify herself by her Maiden name of Beauchamp, rather than link herself in any way to the terrible Captain Randall. The Mackenzies are determined to find out her true identity, and eventually lead her back to the English to attempt a trade of sorts in order to discover who she is working for and how she came to be in the woods of Craigh na Dun that day they discovered her.

It soon becomes clear when Captain Randall manhandles Claire violently, that she is not working with him. But Captain Randall demands that she be handed over to the English army, as she is an Englishwoman and it is their right to claim her. To avoid handing her back to Randall, the Mackenzies decide they shall make her Scottish, and wed her to Jamie Fraser.  Neither Claire nor Jamie really want to marry, but they can’t deny a strong attraction between them — one that explodes into a passionate love that will change their lives forever.

Claire now has to decide which man she will be faithful to — her husband Frank, whom she left 200 years in the future, or her new husband Jamie. Frank is safe, if a bit dull, but he offers her stability and security in a time of modern conveniences. But Jamie lights her up with a passion she has never felt before, and he fights for her honor and safety at every dangerous turn.

And there is a lot of danger in this time period — the barbarism of the Highland games is no joke. This is a time of ruthless violence. A time of theft and killing at every turn. Claire is afraid for her life, but at the same time, she has never been happier. She is in love and her skills are useful at a time when modern medicine doesn’t exist. This is a time of beauty, untarnished by tar roads and vehicles puffing their fumes into the environment. Even as her protectors and new friends are attacked and beaten, she doesn’t want to leave them. They’ve become her family.

This was a great book. It’s the reason I kept on buying the series. Gabaldon’s writing is rich in details that bring the time and the places to life. There is certainly a lot of filler in the book — historical facts and details that might not be necessary for the storyline, but which help establish an authenticity and feeling that connect the reader to the story. Of course, this is not a book for the squeamish, as there is a lot of detailed and gory violence in it; and this isn’t a book for the prudish, as Gabaldon has no qualms writing sex scenes and plenty of them. I can recall being in a creative writing class once and discussing the difficulties of letting go of your inhibitions and writing a sex scene that will really put you in that moment and almost make your reader feel uncomfortable, like they’ve walked in on a private moment they aren’t supposed to be a part of. It’s not easy to write like that, but I have to say Gabaldon dropped those inhibitions and gave it gusto. You want sex, you got it. But it’s not all sex. At least not the first half or the book, anyway. My husband used to joke the first time I read this book and we’d be reading our books before bedtime, when he’d lean over and look at my pages every few minutes to discover another sex scene or body part being exposed. It was annoying the first couple of times he did it, but after it turned out he was right near the 4th or 5th time, it became funny and we’d make it a sort of game where instead of him looking over to glance over the pages, I’d just call out, “Another one!” and we’d laugh. You could get mighty drunk if you played it as a drinking game ;)

Anyway… enjoyable read. I’ll be starting the next one (again) shortly.

The last book in Beddor’s Wonderland trilogy is the best of the bunch. King Arch has taken control of Wonderland, after WILMA, his Weapon of Inconceivable Loss and Massive Annihilation has rendered the Heart Crystal inert. Creativity throughout Wonderland and to worlds far away, including Earth, has dimmed — writers are unable to write, inventors are at a loss for ideas, and the powerful Queen Alyss and her ruthless Aunt Redd have lost their Imaginative powers, leaving them unable to defend themselves against King Arch’s massive and well-armed army. The only choice they can think of is to join forces to defeat Arch and save Imagination.

Obviously, there are obstacles in the way. The house of Clubs has sided with Arch, and rounded up Imaginationists into well-guarded prison camps where any creativity will be squashed before it can flourish. The Queen’s top soldier, Hatter,  is preoccupied with finding his kidnapped daughter. The oracle caterpillars are sending mixed messages, and seem to be splitting and taking sides amongst Arch, Alyss and Red. And the Heart Crystal is failing, growing weaker every day it is under Arch’s control.

I enjoyed this story, and think it was a good read. I liked the idea of working together despite differences. I liked the idea of working towards the common good.

The second installment of Frank Beddor’s Wonderland trilogy finds Queen Alyss learning that defeating her Aunt Redd for the role of Queen didn’t mean everything afterward would be easy in comparison. Her Aunt Redd may be gone, having leapt into the Heart Crystal with The Cat and disappearing, but no one knows if it’s for good or if she’ll find a way back to Wonderland to challenge Alyss for the queendom again.

It certainly seems like Redd may be on the verge of returning. Her army of Glass Eyes have continued attacking Alyss’s soldiers, and Glass Eyes are programmed to follow only their leader’s orders… and their leader has always been Redd. What Alyss doesn’t realize is that King Arch of Boarderland, Wonderland’s neighbor, has decided now is the time to rise up against Alyss and claim Wonderland for his own. He’s devised a plan to wipe out all of Alyss’s armies and to eradicate Imagination altogether so that everyone will be equal under his rule. His plan is WILMA, his Weapon of Inconceivable Loss and Massive Annihilation. Comprised of strands of silk from each of Wonderland’s caterpillar oracles, WILMA will destroy the Heart Crystal and the power of Imagination in Wonderland. But in order for it to work, Arch needs Hatter Maddigan, the top member of the Millinery squad of soldiers to set it in motion. To force his cooperation, he kidnaps Hatter’s daughter, Homburg Molly, and holds her hostage.

Arch doesn’t believe Redd will return, but Redd’s a determined villainess. She understands the Heart Crystal, and the fact that ideas that are passed into the Heart Crystal often find their way out to other worlds, such as Earth. And it is on Earth one day that a painter discovers he has lost his ability to paint the landscapes he so loves. Instead, every time he sets brush to canvas, he finds himself painting the image of a woman and a large feline. The harder he tries to stop, the more the images come to him, until one day he has painted a life-size portrait of Redd and The Cat, and they break through and find themselves free of the Heart Crystal and existing in France. Redd sets to work amassing an army of followers on Earth and finding the portals back to Wonderland — the puddles that exist where no puddles should exist. These portals will bring her back to Wonderland through the Pool of Tears, where she will challenge her niece again for the throne.

So Alyss doesn’t have a very easy start to her Queenship. Even though she has managed to rebuild Wonderland to be almost as glorious as it once was under her mother’s reign, she still has the threat of her Aunt Redd returning, and to top that, King Arch is plotting his coup, and her personal bodyguard, Homburg Molly, has been kidnapped. At least she has the love of her life, Dodge the palace guardsmen, to brighten her days, but even he is still focused on getting revenge at all costs against The Cat for the murder of his father, and it is obvious that he is willing to put his life in danger at every moment to get it. All of these problems are coming at her at once, and Alyss isn’t sure her Imagination will be strong enough to defeat them all. (more…)

Wow, I’ve been reading a lot of children’s books with my 17 month old, and I’m behind on posting reviews for them. So, in time for Christmas, I thought I’d post reviews of some of my favorite books to read with my son at the moment, including some of the books I’ve bought him for Christmas.

I think my favorite book to read with him right now is Bear’s New Friend, by Karma Wilson. I love it so much, I bought him all of the Bear books for Christmas this year: Bear Snores On, Bear Feels Scared, Bear Feels Sick, Bear Stays Up For Christmas, and Bear Wants More. What I love about these books, apart from their excellent illustrations by Jane Chapman, is that the stories rhyme and I can read (or sing) the stories to my son over and over again and I don’t get tired of them. The stories are fun, with recurring characters so it feels like they’re little literary friends that your little one will enjoy spending time with. I love Bear’s New Friend so much, that I’m considering having a Bear themed party for my son’s second birthday, and turning the story into a puppet show to perform for the kids. You really can’t go wrong picking up these books for your children. They come in board books for the very small, and hardcover with big pages for the older kids.

Not that I need to tout illustrator and author Eric Carle’s books, but I do love them. Our collection includes Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What do you See? and From Head to Toe. These are regular reads around here that promote learning of colors, sounds, various animals, body parts and movements. The repetition makes singing the words easy and these books, especially From Head to Toe, are interactive — my son loves to thump his chest like a gorilla and clap his hands like a seal. In fact, I can start singing the first words of any of these books, and my son will go hunting for it among the stacks of them on the ground and hand me the correct one for us to sit and read together. We also have Eric Carle’s The Mixed Up Chameleon, which we got in a set, but I have to say that I don’t actually care for it very much. Ordinarily, you just can’t go wrong with an Eric Carle book, but I’d give that one a pass for young kids. Too many words that don’t rhyme equals a short attention span for my son. Perhaps he’ll enjoy it more when he’s older.

Sterling Publishing has sets of “Look & See” books that are (or were) available at my Costco, with titles including: The Curious Cat, Amazing Animals!, The Green Caterpillar, What Do I Eat?, Wheels on the Go, and A Circus of Colors, by La Coccinella. The books came in pairs for reasonable prices, so I bought them up. My son likes these books because they have holes in each page that overlap each other and get bigger with each turn. He loves to put his fingers into the holes and turn the pages to get to the next one. The stories themselves vary in quality, and  if you want to buy some for the storylines, I’d recommend The Curious Cat and Amazing Animals! the most, as they’re a lot of fun and will give you plenty of chances to use different voices for characters. I also like The Green Caterpillar which is similar to Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I like that it helps children learn colors and to recognize basic fruits and vegetables, but my husband refuses to read it to our son because the insect characters in it are mean and bully the Green Caterpillar. So, a little warning to those of you who might be sensitive to that.

Another of my very favorite books to read with my son is Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak’s I Love You Through and Through, illustrated by Caroline Jane Church. I adore this book so much, and I think part of the reason for that is because the main character resembles my son a little bit with his ginger-colored hair and his huge, toothy grins and little belly hanging over his pants. Visually, this book is adorable, and the story is fantastic as well. It shows the child that you love him no matter what mood he’s in, what he looks like, or what he does. There’s another book with a little blond girl as the main character called, How Do I Love You? which I don’t have, but have seen and think is also very cute.

For Easter, a friend of our family gave my son Watch Me Hop! by Rebecca Young, and illustrated by Von Glitschka, with design by Pamela Notarantonio, which is available through Scholastic. The photos in this book are printed with lenticular technology on a special type of paper which causes the animals to look like they’re actually moving when you move the picture around a bit. The story rhymes nicely and it teaches children to recognize animals.

For my son’s birthday, his grandparents gave him Ten Barnyard Babies, available through Priddy Books. It’s a sound book that teaches numbers and animals. Each page has a button to push that makes the sound of the animal on it. My son loves to hear the animals and he loves to put his fingers through the holes on the page. The only way this book would be more suitable for young children is if it were a board book. The pages bend easily, and my son has creased and bent quite a few of the pages when he gets his hands on them and I’m not fast enough to notice. Priddy Books also makes lots of little chunky board books and touch and feel books for babies about colors and animals and shapes and letters (oh my!).

Top That! Publishing has sets of books with magnets in them (First Words, Colors, Shapes) that would be suitable for older children or young ones with supervision. My little guy enjoys playing with the magnets on our fridge and dishwasher, and my husband and I really love the First Words book for its magnets, because we use the letters to play an ongoing game of Scrabble on our fridge.

These are just a few of the books in the ever-growing collection of fun reads for my son.

I enjoy reading books that take a well-known story and twist it into something new, such as Gregory Maguire does for the land of Oz in Wicked and Son of A Witch. Which is why I’ve started reading Frank Beddor’s series of books based on the stories of Wonderland, from Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland. While Maguire’s books are targeted for adults, Beddor’s books are classified by my public library as being books for the juvenile audience. Although, with the violence and death in it so far, I’d say these books are almost better suited for the young adult  and adult audiences.

Beddor’s Wonderland is not the light and airy world we remember from Disney’s adaptation of the book. It does start out that way, when the world is ruled by Queen Genevieve of the Heart family. Her Queendom is one of singing flowers and beautiful, shining cities. It is a land of imagination, where those who are inventive are able to create things out of nothing, just by using their thoughts and the power of the Heart Crystal. It is said that ideas that pass through the Heart Crystal are beamed out into space where they will reappear in similar forms in other worlds. It is a wondrous world, ruled fairly and kindly by Genevieve. But it’s also a world on the cusp of a war with Genevieve’s sister, Redd. Redd is gathering her card soldiers and inventing new weapons and tactics as she plans her takeover of Wonderland. Redd was once the heir to the Queendom, but when it became apparent she preferred to practice Black Imagination instead of White, she was exiled by her parents, and Genevieve was chosen as the next queen. Redd has never forgiven her family for the exile, and, together with her assassin, the Cat, she orchestrates a brutal attack that leaves Genevieve and her husband, King Nolan, dead. It would also leave her neice, the 8 year old Princess Alyss, orphaned and forced to escape Wonderland through the Pool of Tears, a lake into which no one who goes in ever comes out.

You’d be correct to assume that Alyss is the Alice in Wonderland character. In this version, she’s a princess and the next in line to take the throne, although with Redd’s coup d’etat and Alyss entering the Pool of Tears, that future seems very unlikely. Alyss’s entry into the Pool of Tears takes her to Earth, and Oxford, England in particular. Her bodyguard, Hatter Madigan, was sent with her by her dying mother’s last request, but they are separated in mid-transfer, and he ends up in Paris. On her own in a strange land with not nearly as much imagination as Wonderland, Alyss is forced to live as a street orphan, performing tricks of imagination to earn pennies in the street. She is caught one day and put into an orphanage where she is adopted by the Liddel family, and raised as Alice. Her stories about Wonderland are hushed by her adoptive parents, pushed down as silly imaginings, until she meets a friend of the family who takes an interest in her story. The Reverend Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carrol, listens to her stories and asks Alice if he may publish them into a novel. Alice agrees, hoping the book will open others’ eyes and help her find a way back to Wonderland. Instead, the Reverend turns her stories into a childish fantasy, and Alice is heartbroken. It seems Wonderland is lost to her forever.

Having given up hope, Alice tries to convince herself that she did imagine Wonderland, and that perhaps there was no such place. She lives in England for the next 12 years as the obedient Alice Liddel, and even finds herself engaged to marry a true prince. It is at her wedding day that unexpected visitors arrive and bring her back through the Pool of Tears to Wonderland, where she leads a new rebel army, the Alyssians, in a raid against the tyrant Redd, who, in Alice’s absence, has turned Wonderland into a dismal and bleak world of Black Imagination. Together with the Alyssians, the returned Alyss faces her Aunt Redd and the assassin Cat in a battle for the throne.

I enjoyed this novel. I thought it was fun, and an interesting take on the Wonderland stories. I don’t much like the cover of the book very much — it is quite boring in comparison to the sequels that follow. I’m looking forward to the rest of the novels in the series, including Seeing Redd (which I am reading now) and Arch Enemy. I hear that Frank Beddor, who also happens to make movies (he produced There’s Something About Mary), is in the process of turning these novels into screenplays. I think they’d make great movies. I’m also looking forward to seeing the new Alice in Wonderland movie slated for release in early 2010, starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Like this novel, it has a dark feel to it, which I think works so well for Wonderland lore. And, also related to that dark feeling, I recall playing a videogame called American McGee’s Alice, which was wonderfully sad and creepy, and had an accompanying soundtrack with equally sad and creepy (but fun!) music. Check them out, and visit Frank Beddor’s Wonderland site for some fun interaction with the books. (more…)

Robert Langdon is back with another mystery to solve. His good friend, the very wealthy philanthropist Peter Solomon, is hosting an event at the Capitol Building in Washington, DC, and his keynote speaker has fallen ill. Robert is asked to fill in at the last minute, and is flown by private jet to Washington, where he is soon to discover that his friend actually did not invite him, but he is in urgent need of his help. Because instead of a glitzy event attended by Washington’s elite, Robert arrives to discover Peter’s hand, sawn off and placed strategically beneath the Capitol’s dome, with symbols tattooed on the fingertips containing a message for him to decipher. Robert realizes that he has been manipulated by a very sick man with the resources and cunning necessary to bring him to D.C. on an impossible quest to locate The Lost Symbol, an fabled icon of Masonic mythology. If Robert doesn’t help this man find what he’s looking for, Peter will die. Then, to make the matter even more urgent and mystifying, he is greeted with the arrival of the Central Intelligence Agency’s top agent, who takes Robert into custody and claims that he must do as this sick man requests, or the entire nation’s security will be compromised.

This all seemed a little familiar. And that’s because I could have been reading The Da Vinci Code instead. The similarities are many. TDVC: Old friend of Langdon’s found dead in museum with cryptic message pointing to clues which sets our symbologist hero on a seemingly impossible quest. TLS: Old friend of Langdon’s hand is found in museum with cryptic message (literally) pointing to clues which sets our symbologist hero on a seemingly impossible quest. TDVC: The security of the entire world depends on Robert keeping sensitive information from coming to light. TLS: The security of the entire world depends on Robert keeping sensitive information from coming to light. TDVC: rich with historical information about Opus Dei and architectural and art history. TLS: rich with historical information about the Masons and architectural and art history. TDVC: contains complex code to break. TLS: contains complex code to break. TDVC: Robert is teamed up with beautiful, intelligent scientist who has access to critical information. TLS: Robert is teamed up with beautiful, intelligent scientist who has access to critical information. Both books feature villains who are not averse to murdering to get what they need to achieve a goal that is “bigger than us all” and who would die for their causes. Both books take place in the same amount of time — one long, thrilling night.

Yes, Brown reused his formula here, and when you consider how wildly successful The Da Vinci Code was, who can blame him? Does it detract from the story and make it less of a good read? A teeny bit, yes, but perhaps only to those of us who read a book to appreciate its writing as much as its story. But does it matter in the end? Not really. This is still a good book. I appreciated the history in it, and, like The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons before it, I found myself wanting to stop at certain points as I read to go look up things on the Internet to see if Brown really was accurate in the information he presented. So while I did find the story formulaic, and a few of the characters to be underdeveloped and underused, I am still impressed with the effort that is present within the details. This was not a book that was put together in a hurry. In fact, this is a book that was long overdue for fans of Brown, especially following the success of The Da Vinci Code. Originally intended to be published in 2006 under the title The Solomon Key, this novel was pushed back so Brown could keep working on it (and probably due in part to his legal issues at the time). I can appreciate that time was taken to make the novel better, despite the pressure he no doubt felt to publish so quickly after the bestseller that was The Da Vinci Code.

I can’t say that this is his best work, but it’s still a good read and a page-turner. Thanks to Victor at Special Ops Media and Doubleday for the review copy. (more…)

Myron Bolitar receives a pleading phone call from a woman he spent one passionate weekend with 10 years ago, asking him to fly to Paris to see her. He hasn’t seen Terese Collins since that weekend, but something in her voice convinces him this isn’t a booty call she’s asking for. He can tell she needs his help, and as soon as he lands in Paris and is pulled into questioning at the airport by the local authorities, he knows Terese is in bigger trouble than he ever could have imagined.

Myron soon discovers Terese is a suspect in the murder of her ex-husband, another man she hasn’t seen in ten years, but one who called her to meet him in Paris with the promise that she would learn something that would change her life forever.  When the ex was found brutally murdered shortly after, Terese becomes the prime suspect when it is discovered that Terese and her ex-husband had a child and that child’s blood was also discovered at the scene of her father’s murder, but the child is nowhere to be found. That’s not the problem though, the problem is that their little girl was supposed to have died in a car accident ten years ago; an accident that left Terese in a coma long enough to miss her daughter’s funeral. After waking up from the coma, and discovering she was responsible for the accident, the grief and guilt caused Terese to estrange herself from her husband and leave him. But it may now be possible that the girl did not die after all, but instead had been taken away and raised in a cult to become a domestic terrorist for an international ring that Myron soon finds himself entangled with, leaving him fighting for his and Terese’s lives as they search to discover what happened to her daughter and ex-husband.

Personally, I thought this book was a good read, though it did sort of fall apart for me with the whole terrorist ring and its ties to 9/11. I think that sort of thing just isn’t my kind of reading. But that being said,  I did read it all in one go, something I haven’t done is a very long time, especially not since the birth of my baby boy a year ago, so it was thrilling enough to keep me engaged from start to finish. However, I wouldn’t say this is the sort of book that makes you think or work your brain too hard the way good suspense and complex details found in something like Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code can do, but it’s an entertaining read and has some fun characters in it, particularly Myron’s eccentric friend, Win, and their co-workers at his legal agency.

I haven’t read many of Coben’s books, and this is my first of his Myron Bolitar novels, but I can see myself picking up more of them for some quick, entertaining reads. (more…)