Slug roundup

Sluggy Slug just won't go. What if Sluggy Slug is bribed with sweets? Will Sluggy Slug remain true to character, even when confronted with the powerful temptation of refined white sugar?

That's pretty much the whole story of Sluggy Slug. And yet, it's enough. It's the rare easy reader board book that's droll enough to make up for the extremely limited vocabulary.

Funny thing about slugs -- so unappealing to step on barefoot (even worse in socks) and yet so charming in a children's book. Or as a stuffed animal. Or both -- as in Bunny Party, one of the many Max and Ruby stories by Rosemary Wells.

Formulaic? Yes, but it's not about the story. It's about Max's party guests, including Can't-Sit-Up-Slug, who ends up slumped on the table.

It figures. How like a slug.

Pirate Girl

Not everything Cornelia Funke writes is 500 pages long. She's also written a number of picture books for young children --not all of them very good.

But here's one that is. The story is a simple one. Fearsome pirates make a mistake when they capture a little girl named Molly, who is off on a trip to visit her grandmother. Despite being cruelly mistreated, she refuses to cooperate and quietly plots her escape.

To describe the resolution would be to spoil the book. But it's that rarest of things: a girl-power book that charms me and my seven-year-old both.

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