Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad

Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival

by Norman Ollestad
Copyright 2009

Ecco - Nonfiction/Memoir

272 pages

My parents subscribed to Reader's Digest for my entire life. I can't remember a time there wasn't a Reader's Digest on the coffee table or a side table in the living room. And, it was the Reader's Digest's "Drama in Real Life" stories that probably led to my lifelong addiction to stories like Crazy for the Storm -- stories of survival, of people who found inner strength to beat the odds.

Norman Ollestad was 11 years old and had just won a skiing championship when he boarded a chartered Cessna plane with his father, his father's girlfriend, Sandra, and a pilot who reassured his father that the weather was not a problem.

Caught in a blizzard, the plane slammed into a mountainside, killing the pilot and Norman's father on impact. Sandra was severely injured but young Norman assessed the situation and decided, after some time sheltering under a wing, that their only chance of survival lay in a dangerous descent down the mountain to a meadow where he'd spotted a cabin. A treacherous chute threatened to send them flying into trees or off a cliff, but Norman had been taught never to give up. He and Sandra began their slow and careful descent, stabbing sticks into the slick ice to keep from losing control.

After 9 hours, Sandra was dead but Norman had reached the meadow, alive. This is his story. But, it's not just a story of survival. It's a story of a relationship between a father and son and how that father kept his son alive by teaching him not to quit. It's also a story of a dysfunctional, divided family living on a California beach in the Seventies and how Norman dealt with his grief after the accident.

What I loved about this book was the tension. Chapters alternate between narrative describing the plane flight, crash and survival story and the tale of a young boy whose charismatic, enthusiastic, pushy father taught him to surf and ski -- cheerfully convincing him to get out of bed early to catch the best waves or to go up a ski lift in a snow storm to ski in the best powder when nobody else was daring enough to even go out on the slopes.

What I disliked about this book was the language and sometimes graphic nature. Young Norman was exposed to a strange, overtly sexual lifestyle (when he eventually moved away from the beach, this caused him some difficulty). He lived on a nude beach where people partied, drank heavily and had noisy sex. He had a filthy mouth for a youngster. And, he had a mother with an abusive boyfriend. His parents were divorced and his father lived nearby. Norman's life was not easy and not pretty but his father was the light of his life.

Surfing and skiing figure heavily into the chapters with his father and a glossary of skiing and surfing lingo would have been helpful, but I got the gist.

The two storylines gradually merge and the theme of learned perseverance pushes its way to the foreground. While young Norman's father was sometimes harsh, he was a pretty amazing man -- athletic, musical, charming, effervescent. It was his optimism and determination that rubbed off on Norman and kept him going, focused on the meadow where he'd spotted a cabin from an 8,600-ft mountain.

****Possible spoiler warning and mild rant!!! Skip this paragraph if you want to be surprised by what Norman discovered many years later, when he returned to the crash site.****

One thing about this book that bugged me was that Norman refused to see his survival as influenced by divine intervention in any way. While freezing on the mountain, he decided he would believe in God if he made it to the bottom. And, then he got to the bottom and decided God had nothing to do with it. Later, his grandmother died a terrible death from cancer that simply reinforced his thought process that we're all on our own, down here -- even after he climbed the mountain, many years later, and realized that there was no way he could have possibly seen the cabin from the crash site. I can't imagine going through such an experience and all the little coincidences that kept him alive without seeing the hand of God as a factor, myself, but laying that aside . . . I enjoyed the book.

****End spoiler warning!!! It's safe now, I promise.****

3.75/5 - A gripping story but not family-friendly (lots of language and naked people doing things naked people do -- I just wouldn't hand it to the kids) and sometimes the sports lingo is a little confusing. However, the pages flew and I absolutely loved the way he tied his own father-son story to his own experience as the father of a little boy who learned to love the same thrills in the same way. I could really relate to the inspiring-father bit.

Many thanks to Ecco Books for the advanced reader!

You'll probably never catch me doing this, but it's sure fun to watch:

Lessons from San Quentin by Bill Dallas (sneak peek)

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today's Wild Card authors are:

Bill Dallas

and

George Barna

and the book:

Lessons from San Quentin

Tyndale House Publishers (January 9, 2009)

ABOUT THE AUTHORs:

Bill Dallas is the CEO of the Church Communication Network (CCN), a satellite and Internet communications company serving thousands of churches across North America. He hosts Solutions, a weekly satellite program with Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. A former Young Life leader and Bible study teacher, Bill is a graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He is the proud father of Dallas and Amanda. Bill and his wife, Bettina, life in northern California.

Visit the author's website.

George Barnais the founder and directing leader of The Barna Group, Ltd., a California-based company that offers primary research and strategic assistance related to cultural assessment and transformation, faith dynamics and leadership development.

Visit the author's website.

Product Details:

List Price: $22.99
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers (January 9, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1414326564
ISBN-13: 978-1414326566

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Life in the Median Strip


When I entered San Quentin for the first time, I was only thirty-one years old. Still reeling from the chain of events that had landed me there, I couldn’t believe this was now my life. Numb with disbelief, I tried not to think about where I was and who I would be living with. These people were lowlifes—hard-core criminals. They were beneath me, and I couldn’t believe that I would now be considered one of them.

How was this possible? How did I go from being the golden boy of the Bay Area to fresh meat in a state prison?

My life had been going great—better than great, in fact. After graduating with honors from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, I had made my way west and learned the real estate business. By the mideighties I had joined with a business partner, Tony, and we were determined to take the San Francisco Bay area by storm.

We got off to a flying start. We put together huge deals, raising capital from investors who liked our creativity and chutzpah. Tony and I became known as the boy wonders of the Bay Area, and we reveled in the name. We also believed that this was only the beginning of the riches and fame that were surely in store for us.

While some people are known for being type A personalities, I was easily a type triple A. I wasn’t just living in the fast lane; I was going so fast I was burning down the median strip! Life seemed to be beckoning me for greatness, and nothing was going to stop me from living what I deemed to be the good life.

While I learned to play the real estate game in the Bay Area, I also worked as a male model. The money was good, but it was the clothing and attention that really appealed to me. Once I hit it big in real estate, I wore the finest threads available. I believed that image was everything, and I was selling it big-time. Because I needed to raise megabucks for the downtown developments I was always pushing, I knew it was critical that I looked the part of the well-to-do, successful magnate. No suit was too expensive or too finely tailored for me—Hugo Boss and Armani were my favorites. Throw in some exquisite Italian loafers and a brilliant designer tie, and with my hair gelled back, I was ready for action.

In fact, action seemed to be my middle name. I was constantly entertaining women at home, in clubs, even on the job. Cocaine was my drug of choice, and I always had a designer vodka cocktail in my hand. I loved cutting through traffic in my sleek black BMW sedan on the way to business meetings or driving my gleaming black Porsche around town on weekends.

Late at night, you could find me and my high-flying entourage cruising the city, looking for the best scene. My party mates and I regularly rented stretch limos to weave through the streets in search of the hottest clubs. Sometimes we even intentionally circled a specific club, waiting for a sufficiently long line of partyers to form behind the velvet rope outside. We wanted to pull up to the carpeted entryway and make a grand entrance.

Orchestrating favorable press coverage and wrangling introductions to the most important power players in the area became our standard operating procedure.

I quickly gained insight into how the political system worked, and I began to throw fund-raisers for key city and state officials—not just one candidate per race, but multiple candidates—being sure to grease their palms so they would approve our real estate projects. Often, I handed out more money than could be legally donated, but I always figured out ways to either hide the gifts or to skirt the laws. Such rules were merely a minor nuisance in my climb to the top of the world.

And when it was time to work the system, we worked it mercilessly. When we desperately needed to secure city funding for a $100 million development we were working on, I even dated a government official who would be influential in the decision-making process. The campaign coffers of several of the councilmen were filled, thanks to my generosity. In addition, Tony and I hired people to pack a critical city council meeting and say great things about our proposed project. The line of “local residents” extended outside the council chambers and down the block. The chairman eventually cut the meeting short, noting that the public’s overwhelming sentiment for the project could not be more obvious. The city council voted in our favor.

I was Bill Dallas, boy wonder. I had it all figured out.

***

As it turned out, there were a few things I hadn’t figured out. For instance, one of the details I failed to anticipate was the real estate crash of the early nineties. When it hit, it smacked me like a two-by-four across the head. Many people were taken by surprise by this swift and deep change in the economy, but I was taken hostage.

By the spring of 1991, we had used all of the money invested in our projects to fuel our combustible lifestyle and promote other, newer projects we were setting up. The combination of out-of-control spending, not enough financial planning, and the demise of the real estate market caused us to run out of money, plain and simple. Our financial backers, some of whom were falling on tough times as well—thanks in part to my lofty promises about the returns they would be receiving—began asking about their investments, wondering why work on their projects had been halted and how they were going to fare during the real estate downturn. That’s when everything started to blow up in my face.

Our business strategy had been based on impressing people with sizzle rather than substance. We had cut corners and manipulated every angle in an attempt to provide investors with a world-class return on their investments, which incidentally would also have meant that we would be rolling in cash as well.

But that dream was not to be. My business collapsed, and the life I had built around it began to crash. Big-time. Our luxurious office with its panoramic view was shut down. The phones were turned off. I was kicked out of my penthouse, and my prized toys—my homes and cars—were repossessed. My friends found new parties to enjoy and more successful partyers to accompany. The man of the year quickly became a social leper.

As if things weren’t bad enough, the legal hammer began to fall. Due to a lethal combination of ignorance and ambition, I had been handling investors’ money in a way that was apparently illegal—something called commingling of funds. We had used money from one project to float another without the investors’ knowledge. Although my partner and I always intended to pay back each investor after we completed our development activity, our naive and reckless approach was still against the law. Both the state and federal governments wound up filing charges against me, and a drawn-out, expensive courtroom drama began to unfold.

In the meantime, I sought any job I could get and wound up as a salesman at Nordstrom. I think I got the job because I had such fabulous clothing, but I wasn’t much of a salesman on the retail floor. My heart just wasn’t in it. In fact, my heart was nowhere to be found.

I was completely empty, almost numb, and had little energy for life. In the past, I had always been able to push away such feelings of emptiness with new toys, loud parties, and a lot of women. But now, without any of those things to distract me, I was faced with the fact that I didn’t really like my life—or myself—at all.

Flipping through the cable channels one evening, I stopped to listen to a TV preacher talk about salvation and getting right with God. Up to that point in my life, I hadn’t had much to do with religion. While I was growing up, my family had been tangentially involved in Christianity. Although my father never attended any church activities, my mother sometimes attended a local Protestant church, and I went to the Sunday school on those occasions. Those classes exposed me to some of the stories and values that form the basis of Christianity. But I never really understood the big deal about Jesus Christ. Mom and I found the church people to be nice, and she especially enjoyed the potluck meals and the special events, but we were never active in the church or in the pursuit of genuine faith.

That spiritual apathy was the norm for me until age fourteen, when the brother of one of my best friends led an impromptu Bible study. He talked about our sin problem and how Christ had died on the cross to save us from the punishment we deserved. I was aghast. As he painted the picture—God’s sacrificial love delivered through the murder of Jesus, necessitated by my wayward behavior and corrupted mind—it was clear that I needed to do something about it.

After that meeting, I began to pray constantly for forgiveness. When I say constantly, I mean just that: I literally prayed two to three hundred times each day, asking God to forgive everything I was doing and everything I had previously done. I was a wreck over the fact that I was a habitual, lifelong sinner! I did not have a relationship with Christ, only a foreboding fear of wrongdoing and the inevitable eternal punishment if I didn’t get it right.

The church my friend attended was highly legalistic, and every time we went, we were bombarded with an overwhelming parcel of rules and regulations we needed to satisfy. It was truly unbearable, but having been scared out of my wits by this church’s convincing doctrines about the wrath of God and the wickedness of man, I felt there was no escape. I had no choice but to keep trying to do better and to continually beg for forgiveness.

Religion became the heaviest burden I had yet encountered.

The appeal of that religious group was that it provided clear-cut parameters and some semblance of stability for a young boy raised in a very dysfunctional family. But when my father later died, I became the man of the house by default. It was no easy responsibility to bear, and the combined expectations of God and family soon became too much for me to handle. I was on the verge of cracking up. Religion was only adding to my guilt and shame. No matter how hard I tried, I always felt that it wasn’t enough and that I was losing ground on God’s scale of perfection.

Later, I was introduced to Young Life, a national parachurch ministry that works with teenagers. This group had a more balanced theology and was the first to teach me about God’s grace in response to my sinful ways. As reassuring as that approach was, it led to major confusion in my mind. Was He a God of perfection, holiness, and grand expectations, or was He a God of love, forgiveness, and grace? I wanted to believe the latter, but I was fearful that it might be the former.

By the time I was in my junior year of high school, I hit the wall. Having reached my breaking point and seeing no way to reconcile the competing points of view and excessive demands associated with faith in God, I felt I had to flee the whole thing. I knelt down and prayed to God, asking Him to forgive me (of course!) for having to leave religion altogether. I confessed that if I did not give it up I would surely lose my mind. I was absolutely stressed over the confusion and weight that religion had laid on me, so I followed my instinct, which was to apologize and run.

For the next thirteen years, God was not part of the equation. I sealed off that part of my life and focused on doing the best I could with whatever morals, values, and character attributes I had gleaned by that time.

Now listening to the television preacher on that lonely night in July of 1991, I vaguely recalled hearing an intriguing comment attributed to Blaise Pascal, something about how each of us had a God-shaped hole in our hearts that only He could fill. That made sense to me. I had tried everything—money, drugs, sex, alcohol, travel, clothing, political influence, cars, houses—and I was still empty inside. The void that characterized my life could only be filled by something huge—something superhuman, something supernatural, something beyond the limitations of everything I had tried.

So with nothing to lose and everything to gain, on July 11, 1991, I fell to my hands and knees and asked Jesus into my heart. Little did I know that an attorney would one day defend me in court by quoting Jesus: “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).

With little else to live for at that point—retail sales failed to get my juices flowing—I got pretty pumped about the Christian faith and began reading the Bible and memorizing Scripture verses like crazy. I’ve always had a great memory, and since Christians seemed to treasure Scripture memorization, this was an easy way for me to get in the game. Eventually I decided to commit much of the New Testament to memory. That was me, all right: driven and over the top.

In retrospect, it would have been more helpful if I had devoted my time to simply understanding what a relationship with Christ meant and how to nurture it. But somehow I completely missed the fact that Christianity is not something you do, it is about a relationship with God and who you become through that divine connection. I had no idea at the time that my biggest issue in life was the superficiality of my character—or that the only antidote for that disease was a full-on commitment to allowing God to transform that character. Instead, I did what I had always done best: analyze, understand, and act. Deciding to become a Christian was simply a calculated, intellectual choice, and my bull-in-a-china-shop approach to Christianity was characteristic of me: understanding something without emotionally investing in it.

A short while after becoming a Christian, I found that I had some time on my hands while the lawyers battled over my fate. I thought it would be fun to work with young people who were seeking to develop their faith in Christ, so I started volunteering with the local Young Life program. I met some outstanding people who were committed to serving the teenagers in the program, but despite the upswing in my spiritual life, there was no getting away from the increasingly claustrophobic legal realities that confronted me. After a year and a half of expensive, embarrassing, and contentious legal defense, I could no longer ignore reality. I was convicted of felony grand theft embezzlement and sentenced to five years in prison.

I was in a state of disbelief. Up to this point, I had never even given much thought to the charges that had been brought against me. I figured my lawyers would work things out and come up with a way for me to get out of the situation. Even though I had become a Christian, I still had such a disconnect with reality that it had been easy to live in a state of denial, focusing only on the here and now.

For the first time in my life, I was forced to face the consequences of my actions. My crime was considered among the more serious offenses a person can commit, short of murder or rape. Besides a stiff prison term, I lost some of my rights as an American citizen. I would no longer be allowed to vote unless I received a full pardon from the governor. I would not be able to serve on a jury or purchase firearms.

I would also be faced with additional restrictions after I was paroled. For the three years of my parole, I would not be allowed to drink alcoholic beverages. I would be required to submit to antinarcotic testing at the will of my parole officer. I would not be allowed to work in real estate or in professions closely associated with my offense, such as financial services. There could be no outside contact with Tony, my former business partner who was convicted of the same crime. Every time I applied for a job, I would have to inform the potential employer of my transgression. And I would not be allowed to start my own business.

On top of that, I was liable for multiple fines, taxes, and other payments—one of the fines alone was $750,000. I also would need to have regular check-ins with my parole and probation officers, could not live more than fifty miles from their location, and could not leave the area without their approval.

But I’m getting ahead of the story. Before I could enjoy the relative freedom of parole, I had to complete my prison term. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my life was about to change. Dramatically.

Everything I Read in April, 2025

April:

41. Meditations: On the Monk Who Dwells in Daily Life by Thomas Moore - Way back in the 90s, when I had small children and was happy if I could squeeze in a couple books per month, I remember my mother-in-law told me about reading Thomas Moore's Care of the Soul. Maybe I even have a copy, somewhere. I collected books more than I read them, for years. Meditations is one of those I probably bought in that era. Lordy, I do hold onto books. The "meditations" are more like vignettes about meditation than meditations for the reader, but I still enjoyed this book about what it means to be a monk, what Moore's life was like when he was a Catholic monk living in a monastery and how it had an authoritarian structure, why walks in nature and other things like reading and being silent are ways of caring for the soul, and observations about religion — including how hair is cut, curled, or covered to fit religious strictures. A fascinating little book that I sometimes loved, sometimes didn't fully understand, and which is very thought-provoking. 

42. Cat + Gamer, Vol. 7 by Wataru Nadatani - I was perusing Hoopla when I discovered that the 7th volume of Cat + Gamer has been released. The 5th and 6th volumes were a little disappointing but I thought #7 was back to the fun of earlier releases. Riko plays hide and seek with her cats and finds that one is better at the game than the other. She must solve a mystery when she hears a crash noise and discovers that one of the cats has made a mess (while she's in the midst of playing a mystery game). And, she is surprised to find that her boss is entertained by the cats climbing all over her or zipping by the screen when she begins working remotely. She also has to learn how to concentrate to avoid letting the cats distract her from her work in her new home office. A great entry in this series!

43. Whose Boat is This Boat? by The Staff of the Late Show, Stephen Colbert, Andrew Boneta, and John Henry - I was watching The Late Show when Stephen Colbert talked about this crazy book. It has hardly any words in it so I almost feel like it's ridiculous to note it as a book "read" but I'm adding it for posterity. At any rate, I didn't buy a copy at the time it was released, although I probably should have because the profits went to hurricane victims. Instead, I happened to find a copy when I was working as a volunteer at our local library sale. It made me laugh so I brought it home to show to my husband and I'll undoubtedly re-donate it in May. The words are actual verbatim quotes by the president and I do recall that he asked about a boat that had been washed ashore during a hurricane. Silly, but a fun read that takes about 2 minutes, max. Great for reading to impatient cats. 

44. The Eights by Joanna Miller - Beatrice, Dora, Otto, and Marianne are among the first women allowed to attend Oxford University to obtain a degree in 1920. As they get to know each other, dive into their studies, and learn the strict rules that are meant to keep them from interacting too much with the men of Oxford, secrets are revealed, challenges faced, and yes, there is a little bit of romance and heartbreak. I absolutely loved the friendships, the setting, the challenges each faced as individuals and collectively as women dealing with misogyny, and the historical context (what's genuine and not is described in the author's afterword). Included are a glossary, a map, and a bibliography. An excellent work of historical fiction based on real-life events and favorite, so far in 2025. 

45. Normal Rules Don't Apply: Stories by Kate Atkinson - An interconnected set of short stories that begins with an apocalyptic tale called "The Void", this quirky set of stories are absolutely my kind of storytelling. It took me a while to become aware of the interconnections — sometimes as little as a word or the brief appearance of a character caught my eye — but once you start to see how things are connected, those connections and the through-line become even more fascinating. Jumping back and forth in time, you read the stories of an old man and his dog, an actress who falls for a prince, a man who takes advice from a talking dog, and a queen whose wish for a baby parallels with the story of a family with six children crammed into a vicarage, among others. And, throughout, there are mentions of The Void, a killing event that keeps recurring. But, why is it happening? Darkly humorous and smart storytelling. I found this book in the library sale and snatched it up so fast anyone nearby probably only saw a blur. It's worth keeping for a reread. Next time, I'll go into it knowing the ending and watching for the connections earlier on. 

46. Castle of Water by Dane Huckelbridge - Three passengers and a pilot are en route from Tahiti to a small island in the Pacific when a storm arrives. Only two survive the crash after a lightning strike but they end up on the same uninhabited and isolated island. Barry and Sophie hate each other. Sophie is  French architect grieving the husband lost in the plane crash, and Barry an American who has just left his high-paying job. The island they've landed on is small and has limited food and fresh water. Will Barry and Sophie ever figure out how to get along? And, if they do, will they survive and make it off the island? Will someone come to rescue them or will they have to figure out a way to leave their island home? By far one of the best "stranded on a desert isle" books I've read. The author has a lighthearted touch and I thought the character growth was believable. Tragic but with a beautiful, uplifting ending. 

47. Becoming Dr. Q by Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa - This memoir provides a fascinating look into how one man left difficult circumstances in Mexico, jumped the fence to the US to work in the fields, and eventually became a brain surgeon. Obviously, he's a pretty brilliant man to be able to learn a new language while studying and arrive at Harvard a mere decade after he arrived in the US. But, he's also impressively driven and upbeat and this helped both Dr. Q, as he's known, and his family to survive the long hours of medical school and residency to become one of the country's foremost brain surgeons, teachers, and researchers. At the time of publication, Dr. Q was working at Johns Hopkins (in 2012) and he had a lab for studying and trying to find a cure for brain cancer. I don't know if the lab still exists as he's moved on to Mayo in Florida and mentioned the importance of both NIH grants and the NIH database in his work. An excellent, clearly written book about a remarkable man, acquired for discussion in one of my book groups. 

48. Modern Poetry by Diane Suess - Modern Poetry is one of those volumes of poetry that I've got mixed feelings about. The words that kept coming to me as I was reading were "unflinchingly honest and raw". Friend Buddy calls it "confessional poetry" and that is certainly accurate to the style. I came away from the reading feeling like I understand the poet, her motivations, her frustrations, and some of what life has taught her. But, at times it was a little too raw for me, personally. That's a very individual thing, obviously. In general, her poetry is very accessible, something I appreciated. I particularly liked reading about her visit to the home in which Keats died in Italy and her thoughts about marriage and how she's grown cynical and uninterested in it. I'm glad I read Modern Poetry. It was this month's selection for Buddy's Contemplative Reading Project. 

49. The Wartime Book Club by Kate Thompson - The story of two women on the isle of Jersey during WWII: a librarian and a postal worker. Bea and Grace are the best of friends. Bea works at the post office, as the first female postal worker, and Grace has taken over the job of head librarian since her friend and boss, Ash, was evacuated from the island of Jersey. During the occupation of Jersey, they are involved in small but dangerous acts of defiance against the Nazis. While I didn't consider the writing style all that good (it was a bit wobbly, in my opinion), the characterization was terrific and the story gripping. The pages absolutely flew. So, I ended up loving this book in spite of its flaws. There is quite a bit of extra material at the end of the book that explains which bits are true and where the author took creative license. 

50. Wilfred and Eileen by Jonathan Smith - Wilfred and Eileen meet on his last night at Cambridge. Wilfred is intending to become a surgeon and Eileen is dating his friend, David. I don't want to give anything away but their story is one of long walks and a love that is not considered appropriate by either set of parents. Wilfred goes off to war in 1914 and is severely injured. He's never the same but Eileen is a strong woman and loves him fiercely; and, Wilfred is an energetic, lively, and determined man. Lovely, gut-wrenching, and heartwarming. A wonderful story of love and determination to survive against the odds, based on a true story told to the author by one of his students and researched with the approval and help of Wilfred and Eileen's descendants. 

51. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone - Blue and Red travel up and down the strands of time, where they are on opposing sides of the time war, altering history for the sake of whatever purpose their leaders prefer. This often means killing characters who originally survived, like stopping the murderers of Caesar and taking the killers out instead of letting Caesar die. The two time travelers cross paths frequently and through notes hidden in ever more obscure places and objects, they will become unexpectedly connected. Read for Tiny Book Group on the Fable app. My thanks to Carrie of Care's Books and Pie, who told me not to worry about the details and instead enjoy the poetry of the book's writing. Yep, that worked. 

While I didn't read as much as I'd hoped (there are two books I was trying to slip in before the end of the month and then . . . sigh . . . I was too tired to read for a couple days) but the quality was pretty high. The Eights, Normal Rules Don't Apply, Castle of Water, The Wartime Book Club, and Wilfred and Eileen were my absolute favorites. Becoming Dr. Q was also excellent and particularly relevant as it's about an immigrant; it was my selection for book group discussion and I chose it because it highlights what we lose by deporting people randomly. It was not long after Dr. Q arrived that President Reagan offered amnesty to people who had entered the country illegally. Had he been rounded up and deported like what's happening today, we would have lost one of the country's most prominent brain surgeons. Everything else was very good (although Whose Boat is This Boat? is just silly). I didn't dislike any of the books I read and didn't have any DNFs, this month. So, I consider it a decent reading month. 

Update on my yearly goals:

1. Book-buying ban - This month was an utter failure. I decided to toss in a few extra books when I bought next month's book for the Contemplative Reading Project (so . . . 4 books purchased, I think?). Add to that the many I brought home from the library sale, which is allowed, and then . . . oh, darn. I saw an ad that had a book in it that I absolutely wanted to read right now, maybe yesterday, plus there was another book that has been driving me crazy with desire and two others I've been planning to eventually buy. So, another 4. Altogether, I brought home more than I can read in a month. However, I have at least 6 boxes of books, 2 bags (one for Kiddo to go through — entirely cookbooks), and a stack that are all ready to go out the door. So, the failure of my book-buying ban is being nicely offset by a good bit of vigorous weeding. 

2. Read from the bedroom stacks - I ditched this goal but still managed to read 3 from the bedroom stacks. Not enough but better than zero. 

3. Read some specific books I've been wanting to read - Nope. But, I've picked one for next month. 

4. Read one Persephone title per month - Success! I almost missed out on this one because the book I chose for April was not calling to me. Finally, I decided I should go back to the library and find a different title, Wilfred and Eileen. Fantastic choice! It's a quick read, which was perfect since I didn't get around to choosing a new title till the end of the month, and it is also a very moving, beautiful story of love and war. 

Not a great month for yearly reading goals but hopefully May will be an improvement. 

©2025 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos. 

Weekly Reading Update #3 - Including mini reviews of Juniper Berry, Lord and Lady Spy, and Horoscopes for the Dead

This photo has absolutely nothing to do with my weekly reading update. I just thought it was cute.

This past week was a pretty good reading week! Happy am I! I finished reading 4 books.

Juniper Berry by M. P. Kozlowsky (Fiction; ages 8-12) is a book about a young girl who used to have a lovely life with her actor parents. Then, they became extremely famous (Jolie-Pitt famous), moved to a massive mansion, began to take less and less interest in her and finally became distant, angry, muttering strangers with no time for their daughter. When Juniper meets a young neighbor whose parents have gone through exactly the same thing, they decide to investigate. What they find involves a tree, a whole lot of balloons, lost souls, glowing bugs and an evil bad guy. I thought Juniper Berry started out terrific, went downhill and then ended on a decent note. It's not a favorite but it definitely would have qualified for the RIP VI Challenge, if I'd bothered to sign up . . . which I haven't done. But I still intend to, if it's not too late.

Lord and Lady Spy by Shana Galen (Romantic Historical Fiction) is not quite what I expected. I figured two spies married to each other would mean lots of adventurous spying, maybe a bit of Mr. & Mrs. Smith: Regency Style. Unfortunately, the book begins with a little spy action but quickly becomes a murder mystery involving the Lord and Lady competing with each other to try to win a spot in their former spy agency, which has mostly disbanded. Whilst trying to one-up each other (comparing the number of bullet scars) and trying to repair their floundering marriage (mucho graphic sex), they work on solving the mystery. Eventually, the storyline improves a bit, but this particular book was a little shy on the type of action and adventure I'm accustomed to in a Shana Galen book. It was only my love of her action scenes that kept me going. I'd particularly recommend this one to the romance crowd. I like a little chaste romance but I mostly read Galen's books for the action.

Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins (Poetry) - Oh, how I love Billy Collins. I bought this slim volume of poetry at Borders. It was absolutely my most exciting find (although I found a lot of great books . . . maybe a few too many for the budget). I've already mentioned this book in last week's Fiona Friday post -- about how I admire the way Collins can turn something ordinary into a funny, witty, meaningful bit of poetic genius.

Take, for example, "What She Said". Here is how it begins:

When he told me he expected me to pay for dinner,

I was like give me a break.

I was not the exact equivalent of give me a break.

I was just similar to give me a break.

--from "What She Said", p. 68 of Horoscopes for the Dead

I can't imagine anyone reading that and not breaking out in a grin. I absolutely loved Horoscopes for the Dead and gobbled it down in a single evening. It's definitely one for the keeper shelves. Wouldn't you know, my eldest has already dropped a hint that he'd be happy to take it off my hands! Um . . . gift idea?

The other book I finished will not be released till October 1 and the title wouldn't fit up there in the subject line because I already pretty well bogged it down. But, if you must know, it's a children's book entitled The Busy Life of Ernestine Buckmeister and I'll definitely review it when the time comes.

Currently focusing on:

The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman (Historical Fiction/WWII) - The story of a Czech couple separated at the beginning of WWII and reunited in the United States, many years later. Married but separated when she refuses to leave her family, his letters are returned and he assumes she was killed in a concentration camp. She reads his name in the list of dead when the boat he was taking to Canada from England is torpedoed. I will probably finish this book tonight or tomorrow and then I'll let you know what I think, next week!

I haven't picked up any of the other books currently in the "Now Reading" section of my sidebar for at least a week. Oh, no, that's not true. I still occasionally read a few pages of Haiku Mind. But, my friend's manuscript and Jamie Durie's The Outdoor Room ended up at the bottom of my bedside pile, this week, and I let my whims take over my reading, as is often the case when I'm slumpy. I plan to focus on those two, soon. I took How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson out of my sidebar because that cupcake cover was making me hungry, but I'll keep hacking away at it because I do have the desire to become more domestic and I am just crazy about Nigella Lawson's chatty, relaxed writing style.

In other news, we only got about 6" of rain from Tropical Storm Lee -- definitely on the low side of predictions and the rainwater soaked in pretty nicely because we've had a lengthy drought. We have enjoyed the cool front that came along behind the storm. The cats are ecstatic about being able to sit in open windows, sniffing the outside smells.

How have you been doing, this week?

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

The Questory of Root Karbunkulus by Kamilla Reid

The Questory of Root Karbunkulus: Item 1 - Miist by Kamilla Reid
Copyright 2007, Book Surge
Fantasy/YA
306 pages
Root Karbunkulus Website

What led you to pick up this book? I requested the book to review for a July book tour and received two copies (one to give away) directly from the author.

Summarize the plot but don't give away the ending. Root Karbunkulus, an orphan from the world of Dre'Amm, has been raised on Earth by two women who claim to be her aunts in a half-orange, half-puce house where she is treated more like a slave than a "niece". When Root is invited to join in on a quest in the magical world of Dre'Amm, she jumps at the chance to leave her awful home. The children are divided into teams in order to go in search of the first item, the Miist of Kalliope. During their quest, they face dangerous creatures and frightening ordeals. Will they succeed in finding the Miist of Kalliope and live to face the next 5 challenges?

What did you like most about the book? I liked the creativity of the author. There's a huge cast of characters and creatures -- at times, almost overwhelming -- but very few of them gave me the sense that they were borrowed from other works.

What did you think of the characters? Root is the main character and I think she's a likable heroine. She's courageous and she has a good heart. The rest are quite a hodgepodge. Teammates Dwyn and Lian each typically have strengths and weaknesses that occasionally add tension. As teammates, they bring their own unique and useful skills to the table. My absolute favorite character is Argo Bumplekins. I never wanted his scenes to end. And, I loved his crazy spying vine, Betty.

Share a favorite scene from the book: No contest -- definitely the scene in which Root discovers the source of the ringing sound she's been hearing for hours and hours is a phone in the basement. The phone splits in half and shows the caller, Argo Bumplekins, in miniature. This is how the Dre'Amm telephone system works and I loved it. I want a phone like that.

Thumbs Up: The Questory of Root Karbunkulus is told in the standard fantasy/quest manner, with a wildly imaginative set of characters, settings, creatures and events. Fantasy is something I only occasionally read, in part because I tend to find strange names annoying. In this case, I rather liked her name choices although I thought there were a few too many characters. I'd say the book is above average on creativity. One unanswered question I had was "Why?", meaning "Why were children chosen for this quest?" The author says the reason that children of a certain age have been chosen for the quest will be explained in future installments of the 6-part series.

In general: I enjoyed the book, but I have a few minor complaints. The beginning seemed a little complex and adult for children (I thought it might be a bit confusing), but the book gradually became an easier read. I felt a little overwhelmed by the number of new characters and creatures that were introduced. However, the book is so vividly described that it's easy to visualize every character and setting. The book also seemed pretty well-edited until about page 100. From then on, I found numerous grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors. And, the final annoyance (which may be a personal taste issue) was the use of the word "kids" rather than "children" throughout the book. There was one short section during which a group of children were referred to as "children" . . . but then the author reverted back to the word "kids". I once had a teacher who pounded this into our little heads: "Kids are baby billy goats. Children are human." That lesson apparently stuck.

Read other reviews, here:
teensreadtoo
BookReview.com
MyTwoCents

Next up: An interview with the author of Root Karbunkulus.

Totally unnecessary but interesting side note: The author is Canadian! I'm not going to list this book as one of my reads for the 2nd Canadian Reading Challenge, Eh? because I'd rather focus on books that are actually set in Canada. But, still . . . cool. Look for my excuse to use the word "toque" in the interview.

Ugh. Oh. Argh. The roofers are here. It sounds like the house is being attacked, like an earthquake on top of a storm on top of a bunch of hammering noises. The cat is decidedly displeased. Kitty is actually a little sick, so we were planning to take her to the vet, but she has hidden (surprise, surprise) and refuses to emerge. I keep hoping she'll come out, if only so we'll have an excuse to leave the house.

*Update* - The roofers have left, our new turbines are rotating up a storm, and the cat has emerged, but a bit too late. Just after writing the paragraph above, the kiddo declared that he'd had enough banging for one day and was monstrously hungry (which is pretty much always the case). We dashed out for a bite to eat -- in two separate vehicles -- and then he branched off to work at the pool and I spent my afternoon with Anne, Marilla and Matthew on lovely Prince Edward Island but really in the local library, where the nearest person sitting in the window had his feet propped on a skateboard.

I roamed around in the library, a bit, and found that Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer was finally on the shelves. Wahoo! I read 3 chapters of that, as well, and then checked it out.

Hubby strictly forbade me from photographing the roofers on the off chance that they might find my presence distracting, darn it. So, to keep this post from looking entirely too dull, I'll share a photo I re-photographed from my father's first photo album. Thank goodness he wrote on the photo or I'd never have been able to find him. This is my father returning from the Philippines on the U.S.S. President Adams at the end of WWII (barely visible at the back, but isn't the photo great?). He had an entire series of photos, apparently taken by a professional as the ship arrived at the dock.


Off to finish Anne of Green Gables with a box of tissues nearby. Smiles all around!

The drive from Oklahoma and other jazz

I'm finally back in Mississippi! Squee! Yesterday was the big driving day, home from Tulsa. Above is the Lake Village Tourist Information Center in Arkansas (taken with my new phone camera, which is total crap but better than nothing), a regular bathroom break stop on the route home. It's hard to see, but the tropical storm was whipping up like crazy and there were lots of whitecaps (only one is visible -- don't ask me why; I'll just blame the camera). I walked into the building and the fellow who works there said, "Power's out." I said, "Okay, I guess I'll just have to use the bathroom in the dark, then!" Like I was going to wait for a McDonald's.

About a half-hour after Lake Village, I hit the tropical storm, around Lake Providence, Louisiana. Civil War buffs probably know the place the storm let loose: Soldiers' Rest in Lake Providence. Across the road from Soldiers' Rest is a cemetery that I'll have to check out someday -- a tomb with a carved marble soldier in Civil War regalia dominates the view from the road. From there on, I was occasionally mumbling at people who drove too fast or didn't bother to turn their headlights on as visibility dimmed. As I told Carrie K., at that point God cracked the tropical storm egg and out fell the yolk of yuck -- the kind of rain that windshield wipers simply can't keep up with. It was bracing. But, I made it home fine.

While in Oklahoma, I finished:

Copper Fire by Suzanne Woods Fisher (review here) and
The Importance of Being Married by Gemma Townley

I spent a lot of time on the road and very little time on the computer -- and I didn't even break out the laptop -- so I hand-wrote my review of A Promise to Remember and will try to get that typed up, tomorrow.

I'm finally really "getting" The Words of War (dispatches during the Civil War by reporters from The New York Times and The Charleston Mercury, along with a brief account of what historians say) by Donagh Bracken. Because I'm so thoroughly ignorant about the Civil War, I bought an atlas of battles, as I mentioned earlier. But, neither book is for those who are totally unfamiliar with either the geography or the personalities involved in the war; and I've had to really study the maps to figure out who was who and what was where. Fortunately, I'm a nerd and even though it has sometimes has felt a bit like "homework" reading the two books, the truth is that I always did like homework. My husband claims that's one of the keys to Bookfool: "You love learning more than anything."

Suddenly, everything began to click, this weekend. The problem was that I had to look back and forth, back and forth, figuring out who was on each side. I knew Grant was a Federal and Gettysburg is in Pennsylvania, as well as the fact that Port Gibson, MS, was, "too beautiful to burn" (and, of course, I know about Vicksburg), but that's about it. Seriously, I knew that little about the Civil War. So, I'm about 2/3 of the way through the war and it's just now finally clicked. I know Bragg, Hood, Sherman, Hill and Longstreet are Rebel names, for example. Till they finally sank in (around the time Longstreet was struck in the shoulder by his own men in The Wilderness), it was taking me hours to get through a single battle. I have learned a great deal. I'll have to travel home one more time, though, so it's possible that you won't see a review of The Words of War till next week. We'll see. I'm loving it, at this point.

Playlist for the road:

Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams (this has become an all-time favorite album)
B. B. King - Why I Sing the Blues
John Mayer - Continuum
Steven Curtis Chapman - This Moment (The song "Yours" makes me bawl, since hearing the new verse about the loss of his daughter, Maria Sue, so I end up mopping my eyes at that point -- probably not good to listen to while driving -- "Cinderella" also gets me)
Three Doors Down (self-titled album -- this one is my youngest son's fault; he left it in the CD player)
Disc 3 of Journey to the Center of the Earth, audio (but it was putting me to sleep, this time, so I canned that).

I am currently reading:

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale and, of course,
The Words of War by Donagh Bracken

Just started reading:

Talk of the Town by Lisa Wingate

If roadkill was dinner, yesterday we would have eaten:

Armadillo with a little raccoon side dish

Hope everyone had a fabulous week! I'm ready to get this estate-clearing business over with, and hope that things will stabilize after the last trip home, this weekend.

Bookfool, buried in little trinkets that I'll probably end up wanting to sweep out the door

Books Read in 2009

I'll do a separate "Reading Year in Review" post, in which I talk about favorites and such. This is mainly for record-keeping. In 2009, I read a grand total of 202 books - by far the most books I've ever read during the time I've kept track.

January
1. 84 Charing Cross Road - Helene Hanff
2. I Choose to be Happy - Missy Jenkins
3. We're in This Boat Together - Camille F. Bishop, Ph.D.
4. A Civil General - Stinebeck and Gill
5. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - Kate DiCamillo
6. Flight, Vol. 1 (graphic novel) - various/anthology
7. Daylight Runner - Oisin McGann
8. Austenland - Shannon Hale
9. Alpine Americas - Olaf Soot & Don Mellor
10. Recovering Me, Discovering Joy - Vivian Eisenecher
11. Never Say Diet - Chantel Hobbs
12. Grace for the Afflicted - Matthew S. Stanford
13. Katie & Kimble - Linda Thieman
14. Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall - Bill Willingham
15. American Born Chinese - Gene Luen Yang
16. Written in Blood - Sheila Lowe
17. The Feast of Love - Charles Baxter
18. No Experts Needed - Louise Lewis
19. The Porcupine Year - Louise Ercrich

February
20. A Lovely Little War - Angus M. Lorenzen
21. Lessons from San Quentin - Bill Dallas
22. When God & Grief Meet - Lynn Eib
23. Houston, We Have a Problema - Gwendolyn Zepeda
24. The Giggler Treatment - Roddy Doyle
25. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson
26. For Women Only - Shaunti Feldhahn
27. The Book of Unholy Mischief - Elle Newmark
28. Out of Time - Paul McCusker
29. For Men Only - Shaunti & Jeff Feldhahn
30. Surviving Financial Meltdown - Ron Blue & Jeremy White
31. Hate that Cat - Sharon Creech
32. A Reliable Wife - Robert Goolrick
33. I Do Again - C & J Scruggs
34. Word Gets Around - Lisa Wingate

March
35. Haunted Encounters: Ghost Stories from Around the World (anthology) - various
36. Zig-Zagging: Loving Madly, Losing Badly - Tom Wilson
37. It's a Green Thing - Melody Carlson
38. Throw Out 50 Things - Gail Blanke
39. The Musician's Daughter - Susanne Dunlap
40. Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs - Ellen Kennedy
41. As Shadows Fade - Colleen Gleason
42. Mrs. Meyer's Clean Home - Thelma Meyers
43. Ghost Cats of the South - Randy Russell
44. Images of Madison County - Stephen Kirkpatrick
45. An Offer You Can't Refuse - Jill Mansell
46. Love Begins in Winter - Simon Van Booy
47. 10 Things I Hate About Christianity - Jason T. Berggren
48. Yesterday's Embers - Deborah Raney
49. Agent to the Stars - John Scalzi
50. Who by Fire - Diana Spechler
51. The Ever-After Bird - Ann Rinaldi
52. The Girl She Used to Be - David Cristofano
53. Otto Grows Down - Michael Sussman, illus. by Scott Magoon
54. Monkey, Monkey, Monkey - Cathy MacLennan

April
55. SLOB - Ellen Potter
56. The King with Horse's Ears - Batt Burns
57. How I Got to be Whoever it is I Am - Charles Grodin
58. Go Back and Be Happy - Julie Papievas
59. Real Solutions for Busy Moms - Kathy Ireland
60. Spiced - Dalia Jurgensen
61. The Lost Hours - Karen White
62. So Not Happening - Jenny B. Jones
63. . So Long Status Quo - Suzy Flory
64. The Blood of Lambs - Kamal Saleem
65. Living Fossils: The Grand Experiment, Vol. 2 - Dr. Carl Verner
66. Fire Me - Libby Malin
67. Stop the Traffik - Steve Chalke

May 2009
68. The House in Grosvenor Square - Linore Rose Burkard
69. The Wonder Singer - George Rabasa
70. I Am the Central Park Jogger - Trisha Melli
71. No Touch Monkey - Ayun Halliday
72. Memory's Gate - Paul McCusker
73. I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti - Giulia Melucci
74. A Girl's Guide to Modern European Philosophy - Charlotte Greif
75. On the Run - Bill Myers
76. Love Begins in Winter (reread) - Simon Van Booy
77. The Dead and the Gone - Susan Beth Pfeffer
78. A Lucky Child - Thomas Buergenthal
79. The Non-Runners' Marathron Guide for Women - Dawn Dais
80. Gossamer - Lois Lowry
81. Evolution: The Grand Experiment - Dr. Carl Werner
82. The Nonesuch - Georgette Heyer
83. Olivia Kidney - Ellen Potter
84. Holly's Inbox - Holly Denham
85. Last Night in Montreal - Emily St. John Mandel

June
86. If your kid eats this book everything will still be okay - Dr. Laura Zibners
87. Crazy for the Storm - Norman Ollestad
88. Don't Call Me a Crook - Bob Moore
89. The Lone Ranger & Tonto Fistfight in Heaven - Sherman Alexie
90. Nothing but Trouble - Susan May Warren
91. The King's Legacy - Jim Stovall
92. Scared - Tom Davis
93. In the Sanctuary of Outcasts - Neil White
94. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane - Katherine Howe
95. Rubber Side Down: The Biker Poet Anthology, ed. by Jose Gouveia
96. The Unit - Ninni Holmqvist
97. The Corinthian - Georgette Heyer
98. Wicked Lovely - Melissa Marr
99. A Summer Affair - Elin Hilderbrand

July
100. Cousin Kate - Georgette Heyer
101. Valley of the Shadow - Tom Pawlik
102. The Castaways - Elin Hilderbrand
103. During My Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present - Brandon S. Gorrell
104. Through the Fire - Shawn Grady
105. Shimmer - Eric Barnes
106. The Power of Praying for Your Adult Children - Stormie O'Martian
107. Overheard in New York - Morgan Friedman & Michael Malice
108. The Sword and the Flute - Mike Hamel
109. The Myrtles Plantation - Frances Kermeen
110. The Mysterious Benedict Society - Trenton Lee Stewart
111. The Imposter's Daughter - Laurie Sandell
112. God*Stories - Andrew Wilson
113. The Plight of the Darcy Brothers - Marsha Altman
114. Sweetwater Run - Jan Watson
115. Offworld - Robin Parrish

August
116. The Missionary - Carmichael & Lambert
117. Ex Libris - Anne Fadiman
118. Paper Towns - John Green
119. June Bug - Chris Fabry
120. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (promo book)
121. Evernight - Claudia Gray
122. The Daddy Longlegs Blues - Mike Ornstein, illus. by Lisa Kopelke
123. All the World - Liz Garton Scanlon; illus. by Marla Frazee
124. Chicken Dance - Tammi Sauer; illus. by Dan Santat
125. Mr. Darcy, Vampyre - Amanda Grange
126. Hugh & Bess - Susan Higginbotham
127. The Woodstock Story Book - Linanne Sackett and Barry Levine
128. TSI: The Gabon Virus - Paul McCusker
129. The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
130. Christianish - Mark Steele
131. New Tricks - David Rosenfelt
132. Don't Shoot! We're Republicans! - Jack Owens
133. Darling Jim - Christian Moerk
134. Secret Society - Tom Dolby
135. Godmother - Carolyn Turgeon
136. The Eternal Smile - Gene Luen Yang
137. Enthusiasm - Polly Shulman
138. Visions of America - Joseph Sohm

September
139. Vanishing - Candida Lawrence
140. The Greatest Knight - Elizabeth Chadwick
141. Abide with Me - John H. Parker
142. Bundle of Trouble - Diana Orgain
143. House of Dark Shadows - Robert Liparulo
144. Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same - Mattox Roesch
145. 31 Hours - Masha Hamilton
146. The Treasures of Venice - Loucinda McGary
147. Pale Phoenix - Kathryn Reiss

October
148. The Unlikely Disciple - Kevin Roose
149. Breaking the Bank - Yona Zeldis McDonough
150. To Serve Them All My Days - R. F. Delderfield
151. Day by Day Armageddon - J. L. Bourne
152. Crossing Myself - Greg Garrett
153. The Maze Runner - James Dashner
154. Cheating Death - Sanjay Gupta
155. Uglies - Scott Westerfeld
156. Not Becoming My Mother - Ruth Reichl
157. The Sneeze - Anton Chekov
158. Bone, Vol. 1: Out from Boneville - Jeff Smith
159. Bone, Vol. 2: The Great Cow Race - Jeff Smith
160. Bone, Vol. 3: Eyes of the Storm - Jeff Smith
161. Psmith in the City - P. G. Wodehouse
162. Cross My Heart & Hope to Spy - Ally Carter
163. No Idea - Greg Garrett
164. Bone, Vol. 4: Dragonslayer - Jeff Smith
165. Christian the Lion - Anthony Bourke and John Rendall
166. The Bible Salesman - Clyde Edgerton
167. Constance & Tiny - Pierre Le Gall
168. Constance & the Great Escape - Pierre Le Gall

November
169. Pretties - Scott Westerfeld
170. A Climate for Change - Hayhoe & Farley
171. Found - Margaret Peterson Haddix
172. $20 Per Gallon - Christopher Steiner
173. Among the Hidden - Margaret Peterson Haddix
174. The Church of Facebook - Jesse Rice
175. Bone, Vol. 5: Rock Jaw, Master of the Eastern Border - Jeff Smith
176. The Blue Umbrella - Mike Mason
177. Into the Wild - Sarah Beth Durst
178. Against Medical Advice - Patterson & Friedman
179. The Foundling - Georgette Heyer
180. How to Lower your Cholesterol with French Gourmet Cooking - Chef Alain Braux
181. The Wizard of Oz (condensed) - L. Frank Baum; illus. by Charles Santore
182. Letters to Darcy - Tracy Ramos
183. How to Roast a Lamb - Michael Psilakis
184. Logan's Run - William F. Nolan & Geo. Clayton Johnson

December
185. Tickle Tut's Toes - Julie Appel & Amy Guglielmo
186. Catch Picasso's Rooster - Julie Appel & Amy Guglielmo
187. One Simple Act - Debbie Macomber
188. Specials - Scott Westerfeld
189. The Christmas Secret - Donna Van Liere
190. Life After Genius - M. Ann Jacoby
191. Schooled - Gordon Korman
192. Mass Casualties - Spc. Michael Anthony
193. Terror in the Towers - Adrian Kerson
194. Beyond the Night - Joss Ware
195. The Reptile Room - Lemony Snicket
196. The Sum of His Syndromes - K. B. Dixon
197. Among the Hidden - Margaret Peterson Haddix
198. A Circle of Souls - Preetham Grandhi
199. Those Christmas Angels - Debbie Macomber
200. How I Live Now - Meg Rosoff
201. Spellbinder - Helen Stringer
202. Look Who's Laughing Now (collection) - selected by Ann Spangler

Whew! I'll come back and add links if I ever have the strength. What a year!

It's a Green Thing: Diary of a Teenage Girl by Melody Carlson (sneak peek)

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

Today's Wild Card author is:

Melody Carlson

and the book:

It’s a Green Thing: Diary of a Teenage Girl

Multnomah Books (February 17, 2009)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Melody Carlson is an award-winning, best-selling author of nearly 200 books for teens, women, and children. Before publishing, Melody traveled around the world, volunteered in teen ministry, taught preschool, raised two sons, and worked briefly in interior design and later in international adoption. "I think real-life experiences inspire the best friction," she says. Her wide variety of books seems to prove this theory. She and her husband enjoy an active lifestyle of hiking, camping, and biking in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where she says, "A new story seems to spring from around every corner."

Visit the author's website.

Product Details:

List Price: $12.99
Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Multnomah Books (February 17, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1601421184
ISBN-13: 978-1601421180

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

June 9

My cousin Kim gave me a new diary yesterday. She received it for graduation, but she prefers to journal on her computer. “With a security lock, of course,” she confessed. Anyway, this nicely bound book (a green product made of recycled materials) seems to be enticing me to write. Especially since I already filled up my old diary, which is safely hidden away in one of my suitcases tucked into the back of the guest room closet. Okay, as both Kim and my uncle keep telling me, “It’s not the guest room, Maya. It’s your room.” I’m trying to see it that way. But it’s not easy. So much about my life is not easy…but I must admit that it’s getting better. And I do have hope.

Anyway, since today was rather interesting and the beginning of summer vacation, I will start here. Although to get “here,” I need to go back to before the school year ended. I’d been attending Harrison High for several weeks when Mr. Fenton challenged our art class to volunteer for a community project. We’d been invited by the park district to create a mural on a downtown youth center. A lot of kids signed up, and everyone seemed supportive and interested. But today, the first day of the project, Marissa Phillips and I were the only ones to actually show. “It figures,” she said as the two of us stood gazing up at the big, boring wall. The paint was splotchy looking, with random beige smears that resembled a bad case of psoriasis. Probably someone’s attempt to hide the graffiti and tagging, although a few offensive words still showed through.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “That no one else would come.” “Why’s that?” I adjusted the twisted strap of my Osh Kosh overalls. I’d gotten dressed pretty quickly this morning, barely managing to catch the downtown bus. “Because people are basically selfish.” I turned and looked at her. With hands planted on her hips, Marissa stared at the ugly wall and frowned. For some reason, when I first began attending Harrison High, I felt drawn to this girl. Like we shared some commonality. And I suppose we do have some physical similarities. We’re both tall and have long hair, although hers is straight and mine is curly. And because she dyes it black, her hair’s a lot darker than mine. I think that’s why her complexion looks so pale. Whereas mine (thanks to my dad) is the color of café au lait.

But our looks aside, we are similar in other ways too. Or maybe we both just have an attitude. She’s not afraid to speak her mind and has opinions that not everyone shares. She’s two years older than I am. In fact, she just graduated with my cousin Kim. Not that she seems older exactly. Or maybe I just feel older than sixteen. Sometimes I feel like I’m in my thirties. But a hard life can do that to a person.

“So if that’s true,” I asked Marissa, “if people are basically selfish, why are you here?”

She laughed. “I thought you knew.”

“Knew?”

“I’m doing community service.”

“For what?”

“Oh…something that happened a couple of months ago. I guess you hadn’t moved here yet.”

“What did you do?”

“I got caught with alcohol in my car.”

“Driving under the influence?” I knew Marissa was kind of a wild child, but I thought she had more sense than that.

“No.” She shook her head firmly. “I wasn’t under the influence. I was underage.”

“Well, obviously.”

“It didn’t really help much that my dad’s a cop.” She made a face as she reached into her bag and retrieved a pack of cigarettes. She shook one out, quickly lit it, then blew out an exasperated

puff.

“Your dad’s a cop?” Now this caught me off guard. Of all people who might have law enforcement officials in their family, Marissa just doesn’t seem to fit the profile. I can only imagine how frustrated her father must feel.

“Oh yeah…” She peered back at the wall. “In fact it was his recommendation that I spend my summer vacation performing community service. If dear old Dad hadn’t been in court that day, I probably would’ve gotten off a lot easier.”

“You’re doing community service for the whole summer?”

“Yep.” She blew another puff of smoke over her shoulder.

“And you’re okay with that?”

“It was either that or give up my car and move out of the house. And I wasn’t financially ready for that…not just yet.” She took in a slow drag, then looked curiously at me. “So what’s your excuse?”

“Excuse?”

“For being here.”

“You mean because I must be basically selfish too?” She shrugged.

“I just wanted to do it,” I admitted. “I mean, when Mr. Fenton described the project, it sounded kind of fun to help someone else, and he made it seem like it would only take a week.” Marissa laughed sarcastically. “Yeah, right. Think again.” I frowned back up at the wall. “With just the two of us, this mural could end up being your entire summer of community service.”

“I wouldn’t mind so much, except that it’s going to be scorching out here before long, and this wall is in the sun most of the day.” She reached in her bag again, and this time pulled out her cell phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“Friends…Hey, Spencer,” she said warmly. “What’s up, dude?” Then she winked at me. “Well, Maya and I are downtown right now. We volunteered to do this mural project, and we sure could use some big, strong guys to help out.” She smiled knowingly. “Oh yeah, for sure. Maybe you could get Jake to come and help too…No, it’s no big hurry. I mean, we need to kind of figure out

where we’re going with this mural and get the paint and stuff. Maybe not today. But how about tomorrow? First thing in the morning?” She got a catty smile now. “Oh yeah, totally.” Then she hung up.

“Help on the way?”

“Sounds like it.” She slipped her phone back into her bag.

“Spencer is such a pushover when it comes to good-looking women.”

“I hope he didn’t get the wrong impression.”

“We’re talking about Spencer, right?” She laughed. “Of course he has the wrong impression. It’s just the way that boy’s brain is wired.” And I was fully aware of this. Spencer had begun hitting on me as soon as I started going to HHS a couple of months ago. I’d been flattered at first, but as I got to know him better, I realized that I needed to draw some boundaries. Even so, I wasn’t going to admit that Spencer wouldn’t have been my first choice for help. “So…do you think I should call anyone else?” I offered. “Sure. Do you know anyone else?” I kind of shrugged.

The truth is, I still don’t know that many people in this town. Kim and her best friend, Natalie, already have summer jobs. But I was thinking about the kids in Kim’s church youth group—particularly Dominic. Any excuse to spend time with Dominic seemed like a good excuse to me. But I didn’t know his number, so I called Caitlin. She and her husband, Josh, are the youth leaders, and she’s been sort of mentoring me since I committed my life to God a couple of weeks ago. She answered, and I quickly explained the mural project and our lack of volunteers. “It was supposed to take only a week,” I said finally. “But with just Marissa and me and this great big wall, well, it’s a little overwhelming. She’s already called a guy to help, but—” “What a cool project,” Caitlin said. “That building is a real eyesore. It’s great that someone wants to make it nice, and I’m sure that’ll be a blessing to the kids who use the center. Why don’t I call around and see who might be willing to help out?”

“That’d be awesome, Caitlin.”

“When do you want your helpers to show up?”

“We have to figure some things out first. We probably won’t need anyone until tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.” I hung up and smiled hopefully. But Marissa was frowning at me now. “Why are you calling in the church people?”

“Why not?”

“You want me to make you a list of reasons?”

“Are you willing to turn away free help?” She dropped her cigarette butt to the pavement and ground it out with her heel as she shrugged. “I guess not. So what’s the deal, Maya? Are you one of them?”

“One of what?”

“Are you a Christian too?”

I took in a deep breath, then slowly nodded. “Actually, I am.” She shook her head in a dismal way. Like this was really unfortunate.

“I’ll admit it’s still kind of new for me,” I said.

“Why?” Her dark eyes narrowed as she studied me closely. I started to feel like a bug beneath a magnifying glass.

“Why?” I repeated, confused. “You mean why is it new for me?”

“No. Why did you do it?” The way she said this made a woman walking through the parking lot glance nervously at me, like she assumed I’d committed some horrendous crime.

“Become a Christian?”

“Yeah.” Marissa made a sour face. “I mean, I can understand girls like Kim and Natalie… They’re such goody two-shoes. But you, Maya? I thought you were different.”

“I am different.”

“Then why?”

“Because I was unhappy and lonely and hopeless and depressed and just really, really lost.”

“And now you’re found?” I could hear the teasing note in her voice.

“Actually, I do feel kind of found.” She rolled her eyes.

“Look, Marissa, if anyone had told me just a few months ago that I was going to make a life-changing commitment like this…well, I would’ve reacted just like you. I would’ve said they were

crazy. Seriously, I never would’ve believed it myself.” Her countenance softened ever so slightly, and she didn’t question this statement.

“And like I said, it’s still new to me. Basically, all I can say is that I was totally mixed-up and messed up and just plain lost…and now I have this real sense of peace. Honestly, it’s something I never had before.”

“Peace?”

I nodded eagerly. “Yes. It’s hard to describe it, but it’s like my life is in good hands now, like I feel hopeful.”

“You sound like Chloe Miller now.”

I smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” The fact is, of all the Christians I know, which aren’t that many, I can relate to Chloe best. I mean, Kim is cool and takes her faith seriously. And Caitlin is sweet and sincere and helpful. And Nat… Well, don’t get me going there. But right from the start, I seemed to get Chloe. And she seemed to get me. Maybe it has to do with the whole music thing—a kind of artistic, outside-the-box sort of thing.

“So what do you think we should paint on this wall?” Marissa seemed eager to change the subject, and I felt relieved.

“I’m thinking we should get some sketches going.” I unzipped my pack and retrieved a sketch pad. “We’re not supposed to do anything out here without Mrs. Albert’s approval.”

“Who’s that?”

“The superintendent. But if we can get her okay, we could probably start putting the drawing on the wall before our other volunteers show up. That way we can put them to work.”

“Yes sir.” She gave me a cheesy grin. “You the boss.” Before long we were sitting there on the curb, discussing ideas and playing with images. Unfortunately, Marissa’s ideas leaned toward the dark side, and when I challenged a particularly frightening image, she seemed slightly offended.

“So what do you want to paint?” she shot back. “Sunshine, flowers, and sweet turtledoves?”

“No, not exactly. But something more cheerful than a dragon burning a gnarled tree stump.”

“I was just trying to come up with something that graffiti artists would respect,” she said defensively. “Something they wouldn’t make fun of and want to deface.”

“That’s a good point. We don’t want it to be too childish.”

“But I suppose a dragon might be scary to some of the little kids who come here.”

“What exactly is the purpose of this building?” I ventured. She shrugged. “It’s a youth center. Duh.”

“So it’s a place for kids to come…for what purpose?”

“To hang. To play. For kids who need something like that.”

I kind of frowned at her. “Why?”

“You know, it’s for kids who might be kind of underprivileged, or maybe they’re unsupervised. The center has a day-care program and all kinds of classes and activities for after-school programs. Stuff like that.” Now she laughed. “Oh yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have had anything like that back in Beverly Hills, little Miss Rich Girl.”

Sometimes I wish I hadn’t told Marissa so much about myself. But at the time, when I needed a friend a couple of months ago, it seemed right. And I thought I could trust her. Not that I

can’t.

“I’m not a rich girl.”

“Says you.” I just rolled my eyes. The truth was, I would’ve appreciated a center like this when I was a kid. Not that I plan to admit that to Marissa. But despite her misconceptions, my childhood wasn’t exactly ideal or nurturing, and I certainly never felt rich. Of course, Beverly Hills isn’t the sort of town where people are terribly concerned over the welfare of the younger generation. Like Marissa, people just assume that if you live there, your parents have lots

of money, and you’ll be just fine.

“So it sounds like it’s a place that’s meant to encourage kids, to help themgrow into better people, to give them hope,” I finally said. Marissa laughed loudly. “Hey, maybe you should go into politics or public relations or advertising or something.”

“Come on. The sooner we figure this out, the sooner we can get some serious sketches going. And the sooner we can get started, the sooner we can get done, and we won’t be out here

baking in the sun all summer.”

“You seem to have it all figured out, boss. Go for it.” Marissa pulled out another cigarette. Now I was tempted to point out the risks of emphysema and lung cancer, as well as how smoke makes your hair stink and yellows your fingernails, but I figured she was probably already aware

of these facts.

“Fine. I think we should create something that feels hopeful.” I squinted up at the blotchy-looking wall again. “Something colorful and cheerful and happy.”

“Maybe we could paint a pwetty wainbow?”

Just before I made a smart retort, I stopped myself. “Hey, maybe you’re right.” I grabbed my sketch pad and began to draw.

“But we’ll design it in a more modern style. Sort of cubist.” She looked over my shoulder as I drew a series of sharply angled shapes, working them together to make an arch.

“Interesting…,” she finally admitted.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I can kind of see it. And it would actually be fairly easy to put a team to work on it since it’s mostly shapes.”

“Exactly. We’ll draw them out, and they can paint them in.”

“We’ll need a lot of different colors.”

“So you can see the rainbow?” I asked. “I mean, since there’s no color in my sketch?”

“Yeah. I get where you’re going.” She snuffed out her cigarette, then reached in her bag for a tin of colored pencils. “Here, add some color.”

By midmorning we had a final colored sketch as well as Mrs. Albert’s approval. “Very nice, girls,” she told us as we were ushered out of her office. “And anything will be an improvement over what’s out there now.”

“Well, that was flattering,” Marissa said as we headed down to the storage room to meet the janitor and check out the ladders and painting supplies. “At least her expectations aren’t too high.”

Marissa laughed. “Yeah, I’m pretty good at meeting people’s low expectations.” I wanted to ask her why that was, but we needed to get busy if we were going to put more volunteers to work tomorrow. And to my relief, Marissa actually knew how to work hard. By the end of the day, Marissa had gotten the paints, and I had managed to get a fair amount of the sketch onto the lower part of the wall.

“Nice work, boss,” Marissa said after we’d put the supplies away and stood looking at the beginning of our mural. “Same back at you.” And I have to admit that I was kind of excited to see how this whole thing would turn out. And hopefully more people will show up to help tomorrow.



Maya’s Green Tip for the Day

Don’t pour harmful wastes down public waterways.

Storm drains on public streets are for rainwater to run off

so the streets don’t flood. They’re not a convenient way

for people to get rid of chemicals or solvents or even the

bucket of soapy water after you wash your car. Unless

you use bio-friendly car-wash detergent, which I highly

recommend. You need to respect that the water that runs

off our streets eventually winds up in streams and waterways

and can harm innocent fish or other marine wildlife.

So don’t use your street drain as a dumping spot.