#43
Title: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
Author: David Wroblewski
Genre: Fiction
Challenges: 100+, Read and Review, Pages Read, A-Z, Fill in the Gaps, Support Your Local Library, Audiobook, New Author
Rating: A+
Published: 2008
Dates read: 6/21/09 - 7/8/09
# of CDs/hours: 18/21.75
Read by: Richard Poe

From the back cover, “Author David Wroblewski‘s brilliant debut novel has earned an impressive collection of starred reviews and drawn glowing praise from established authors. After reading the book, Stephen King said, ’ won’t read another one this good for a long, long time.’

“In the remote reaches of northern Wisconsin, young Edgar Sawtelle and his family raise a unique breed of intelligent, companionable dog. Into this idyllic setting strolls Uncle Claude -- a charmer with a touch of menace. When Edgar’s father dies, Edgar and a loyal pack of dogs escape to the backwoods, suspecting Claude has committed murder. But no matter where they run, they cannot avoid the creeping hand of fate.

“Evoking Hamlet while remaining startlingly original, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is an immediate classic.“

I stayed up nights listening to this spell-binder, weeping at the tender moments, holding my breath at other times so enraptured was I. Then I went back and re-read/re-listened to the prologue. Because this is book my f2f group will discuss later this month I wanted the book as well. It helped, too, when the tracks of the CD were unintelligible to have the book handy to fill in the blanks. And I learned how to pronounce Chequamegon (Shoe wam a gun) which is a real National Forest as is the town of Mellon.

#42
Title: Babies Don’t Eat Kimchee
Author: Nancy Patz
Illustrator: Susan L. Roth
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
Challenges: 100+, Read and Review, Pages Read, Book-a-Week, New Authors, Support Your Local Library
Rating: A
Published: 2007
Date read: 7/3/09
Number of pages: 22

From the front fly page, “When a baby sister comes along, it seems she is just too little for anything! Will she ever be big enough to play? To whisper secrets? To eat Kimchee? Will she always lie there? Scream for no reason? Be so helpless and little? When a baby sister is just TOO LITTLE to do anything, what’s her big sister to do but wait and wait and WAIT … and dream about what’s to come.”

Again, this is a story that pulls at your heart strings and shows how special it is for a big sister to get a new baby sister and fantasize in Roth’s brilliant reds, oranges, greens and blues.

#41
Title: Clara Caterpillar
Author: Pamela Duncan Edwards
Illustrator: Henry Cole
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
Challenges: 100+, Read and Review, Pages Read, Book-a-Week, A-Z, New Authors, Support Your Local Library
Rating: A
Published: 2001
Date read: 7/3/09
Number of pages: 30

From the front fly page, “Clara is a cute cabbage caterpillar. But to Catisha, who is catty and crimson, Clara is only a common caterpillar with no hope of becoming a colorful butterfly. Sure enough, Clara comes out cream colored. And during an encounter with a hungry crow, Clara proves that being colorful and conspicuous doesn’t compare with being common, content, and courageous.

Pamela Duncan Edwards and Henry Cole’s comic and compelling alliterative collaboration is captivating!“

I loved reading this book to my granddaughter if we only got through the first have, if that. Like Aesop’s fables, there is more than one moral to the story - one of which could “A friend in need is a friend indeed”.

#40
Title: Me With You
Author: Kristy Dempsey
Illustrator: Christopher Denise
Genre: Children’s Picture Book
Challenges: 100+, Read and Review, Pages Read, Book-a-Week, Read Your Own Book, New Authors
Rating: A+
Published: 2009
Date read: 7/3/09
Number of pages: 27

From the front fly page, “Here is a special twosome. From tea time to game time, in singing or swinging, in the good times and even the grumpy ones, too, this granddaughter knows her grandpa loves her. Indeed, they are ’ pair beyond compare.’

“With simple rhymes and delightfully charming illustrations, Me with You celebrates the sure love that comes from a grandfather and grandchild who dare to be ’completely themselves’ with knowing that together -- they are even more!“

A friend who works in a children’s book store gave this book to my husband this Father’s Day. Not only does she have good taste in books but intimately knows our family. We all adore her. The story is so fitting of a grandpa and his granddaughter and the illustrations are perfectly perfect.

#39
Title: The Shadow of the Wind
Author: Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Genre: Fiction
Challenges: 100+, Read and Review, Pages Read, A-Z, Fill in the Gaps, London 2012, Around the World, Support Your Local Library, Audiobook, New Author
Rating: A
Published: 2001
Dates read: 6/8/09 - 7/2/09
# of CT/hours: 11/8 1/2

From the back cover, “Barcelona, 1945 - Just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, and a boy named Daniel awakes one day to find that he can no longer remember his mother’s face. To console his only child, Daniel’s widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona’s guild of rare book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world. Daniel’s father coaxes him to choose a book that will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the book he selects, a novel called The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax’s work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact he may have the last of Carax’s books in existence. Before Daniel knows it, his innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness, and doomed love.

“An uncannily absorbing historical mystery, a heart-piercing romance, and a moving homage to the mystical power of books, The Shadow of the Wind is a triumph of the storyteller’s art.”

Amen! I really liked the way this book started and ended and most of the parts in between. I loved that Daniel’s life paralleled Julian’s and that in the end …. Oops -- don’t want to give away the ending. You gotta read this if you’re a book lover. And even if you’re not.

#XXI
Title: I Chronicles
Book: The Daily Bible in Chronological Order 365 Daily Readings, New International Version (NIV) with devotional insights to Guide You through God’s Word.
Commentary: F. LaGard Smith.
Genre: Religion
Challenges: 100+, Read & Review, Operation Actually Read the Bible, Pages Read
Rating: B
Dates read: (3/30/09 - 6/26/09)
No. of pages - 21

I finished this book ahead of schedule because I started a new Bible study, Disciple (Under the Tree of Life) which includes I and II Chronicles in The Writings portion of the study. I Chronicles runs concurrently (ca. 1011 BC) with I & II Samuel, and all the way to the end of the Old Testament. I Chronicles also covers the genealogies from Abraham, Judah, including David and Solomon, tribes east of the Jordan, and the Levites, tribes of the north, descendants of Benjamin, people of Jerusalem after the exile, death of Saul, David anointed king, bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, psalm of praise, God’s covenant with David, David extension of the kingdom, census and plagues, preparation for building the Temple, Levites and their duties, division of worship heads, military division, civil officials, and Temple personnel.

Following the genealogies, according to Smith, is “a record of the people of Jerusalem, but the specific time, either before or after the exile, is not entirely clear. It does seem to correspond most closely, however, to similar listings in Nehemiah’s accounts. “ If so, they are of the families living in Jerusalem at the very time that these national archives are being compiled.

#XX
Title: Micah
Book: The Daily Bible in Chronological Order 365 Daily Readings, New International Version (NIV) with devotional insights to Guide You through God’s Word.
Commentary: F. LaGard Smith.
Genre: Religion
Challenges: 100+, Read & Review, Operation Actually Read the Bible, Pages Read
Rating: B
Dates read: (6/25/09 - 6/27/09)
No. of pages - 4

Smith writes of the prophecies of Micah, “As Amos went to the people of the north, so the prophet Micah comes to the people of Judah, and the message is the same. God does not appreciate empty worship from those whose lives are morally and ethically bankrupt. He desires righteous thoughts and deeds, and not just a show of traditional formal worship. This is also the message of Micah’s contemporary, Isaiah, whose writings are often strikingly similar in content. God’s message through all of his prophets is unmistakably the same message -- of sin, destruction, exile, restoration, and the coming of a Messiah to save the world.

“Micah’s predictions of future events are more numerous and specific than those of other prophets. For example, Micah predicts the fall of Samaria, the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib, the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, the exile in Babylon, the return from captivity to peace and prosperity, and the birth of the Messiah in the city of Bethlehem.

“The three major discourses (in this book) are representative of Micah’s preaching to the people of Judah.”