The Illustrated Wee Free Men

Oddly, the presentation of Wee Free Men as an illustrated storybook ... works. I would not have expected that, but the act of illustrating the story's horrible nightmare monsters makes them lose much of their power. So here we have a Terry Pratchett book that can be read aloud to a six-year-old.

Saving newspapers with Kindle

If I can get my New York Times this way, I'm buying one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/technology/companies/04reader.html

Two Durrells

I stopped reading Lawrence Durrell's book The Greek Islands after it irritated me for fairly trivial reasons -- he called an island dear to me "a bit of a slut." So, I had felt slightly guilty for failing to sample his purported literary masterwork, the Alexandria Quartet.

Not any more!

http://www.themillions.com/2009/04/modern-library-revue-70-alexandria.html

Much as I suspected.

While elder brother Larry was launching his literary career, little brother Gerry, unwittingly anticipating the unschooling movement by several decades, was running barefoot on Corfu, working on his nature collection and, evidently, his comic prose style. (As often happens, it's the youngest sibling who gets the sense of humor.) My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell's memoir of his childhood years on Corfu, is a perfectly delicious book. I'm crossing my fingers that the two sequels are half as good.

Peter and the Starcatchers

Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, is such an awful book that I'm not going to wait until I finish to review it.

This book is an effective, non-habit-forming substitute for a sleeping pill. Allegedly a prequel to the J.M. Barrie classic, it is sheer torture to read aloud, draining the life force out of the reader with every artless, plodding, cliche-ridden sentence. The characters are wooden, the attempts at humor are vulgar and/or disgusting (but what did I expect from Dave Barry?), and the story line is predictable and tedious.

I would drop it immediately if I weren't reading it aloud to a six-year-old who wants to find out how it ends. Learn from my experience -- don't start.

Magic's Child

Magic's Child, by Justine Larbalestier (book three in the Magic or Madness trilogy), as reviewed by The Lazy Bookworm:

After a slow second book, this book pulled me right back into the story of Reason Cansino. The book begins around 24 hours after creepy Raul Emilio Jesus Cansino gave Reason his powerful magic and crumbled to dust right before her feet. In an intense account of a fascinating transformation, Reason begins to rapidly change, the essence of magic rushing into her. But she becomes more magic than human.

During this, Reason's friends Jay-tee and Tom begin to chose between magic or madness.

Being a die-hard fantasy buff, this book put a interesting perspective on magic that set it apart from other YA books. I also really liked most of the characters, finding them easy to relate to. By the end I had even warmed up to Reason.

All in all, this was the best book I have read this year so far.
--The Lazy Bookworm

Note: some minor "adult" content

It's dead, Jim

Last print issue of Book World:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/12/AR2009021203265.html

Rest in peace.

Leaning forward into Freddy the Pig

There's enough in the Freddy the Pig series for several doctoral dissertations, but no time for that now. But Freddy cannot be resisted. We'll stall him a bit with the link for his fan club:

http://www.freddythepig.org/