The Mouth by Henry Anderson

When sixteen-year-old Jack's hometown is burned down and his family killed, his only chance of survival is to travel through a device called 'The Mouth' that opens doors into other worlds.

He must do the impossible-find the world that gave his enemies their extraordinary power and travel to a place known simply as 'The Maximum.'

This book is Anderson's transition from news reporting to novelist.  He shows a lot of promise as a novelist, but I think there's still some work to be done.  Needless to say, it's a tough job to go from such extremes of writing.

The plot is phenomenal.  It's a fresh idea that is carried out pretty well when looking at the timeline.  The characters are bold and vibrant, however any information that you have about them is what you glean along the way.  The worlds that we enter are vast and intricate, but once again, we only have the information about them that we glean along the way.

I didn't finish this book.  It's non-stop action.  It's like being in a chase dream where you never get to stop and breathe.  To tell you the truth, I was just too fatigued to finish it.  Action is a great thing to have in a book, but even more importantly, we need balance.  A little time spent on world building and scene setting and inspecting our characters would go a long way.

I think Anderson could make a great novelist and I'm looking forward to reading more of his works.  He has the facts down.  He's great at keeping you on the edge of your seat.  I'm just hoping he slows down enough to add more of the human interest side of the story so that you don't want to jump off the edge of your seat.  When I find myself chanting for the hero to die, I know a little work still needs to be done.

Over all, if you're an action junkie, you'll like this one just as is.  If you're looking for more than that, wait for his next book and give that one a shot.

Tail & Trouble by Victor Catano

-Judy

When Gabriel's witch girlfriend doesn't return from her latest trip, he gets on the road and heads out to find her.  Sheila's coven is secretive and distrustful of Gabriel, so the only help he has is Sheila's familiar, a bulldog named Orson, who is psychically linked to both of them.

In Florida, they walk right into an elaborate plan to steal Orson.  A mysterious wizard named yareth is behind the plot, and he may also know where Sheila is.

Gabriel and Orson will have to fight for their lives as they navigate around all the magical roadblocks to force Yareth's hand.  They won't give up until Sheila is safe.

In the beginning, I was so frustrated because our main character isn't getting any answers.  No matter where he goes, he's greeted with the same 'I can't tell you' attitude.  Once Gabriel and Orson start to communicate, the story really starts to pick up speed.

As a familiar, Orson is perfect.  He's different than any other familiar that I've read.  I was thankful it wasn't another darn cat.  He has a great humor about him and the best part is that he realizes he's a dog and can get away with things that humans can't.  Not only that, but he makes sure that the humans are aware of his unique position.

Yareth is a wannabe warlock who stumbles on some power.  He's pretty evil and not likable at all.

As a cozy mystery, I enjoyed that this had some new things to offer.  I enjoyed it and I would love to read more by the author.  I hope there will be more in this series.

Catano does a great job of making the usual cozy mystery a unique experience and pulls everything together nicely.

Ezicash by Ian Thompson

The year is 2060, the month June, and it's raining outside.

So starts this tale of a time when the men and women of the United Kingdom, more specifically the residents of Stoke Hammond-a place some seven miles south of what used to be Milton Keynes- have to rise up and vanquish a posturing foe.

Set forty years after the collapse of the European Union, this story tells of a titanic struggle between Europe's strangling, new shadow, EZICASH, a plumber called Phil Lud and his apprentice, Snot.

Called out to what appears to be nothing more than a dripping tap, they are soon pulled into a conspiracy where their actions could very well change the world forever.  Banding together, a community is formed, one that could see these fair isles free, truly free, from its controlling yoke just a few watery miles away.

Can they defeat EZICASH?  Will another European behemoth fail?  Will Britain finally succumb to a destiny plotted so many years ago?

Or can a plumber put a spanner in the works...

Let me start off by reading you a passage...one that perfectly explains what you'll find in this book.

"...Abraham thought it best to just panic, half crouch, half stand and bob about while making an 'eeargg' sound.  Soon pushed out of the way by May, he felt relieved to be marginalised and useless."

You can't help but notice the humorous imagery.  These two, tiny sentences, completely convey exactly what's happening and the reader can see it clearly.

We also have the option of taking this snippet at face entertainment value, or delving deeper.  On the surface, we see a man panicking and being shoved out of the way.  Digging a little further in to it, we see that he has made the conscientious choice to panic.  His feelings at being pushed out of the way show that he feels relieved to be back in his comfort zone, as well as what that comfort zone is.  We also get a glimpse at what sort of person May is.

The entire book runs this gamut.  It's intricately designed so that it can be read for pure entertainment value or studied and discussed.  There's plenty of humor, but it's not raucous, laugh out loud humor.

This book is part of a genre that I shall henceforth term 'chameleon' because of how versatile it is.  It's deep, yet shallow.  It has an intricate plot that you can easily ignore.  We have plenty of political and sociological statements, but if you don't want them, you can gloss right over them.  It's a dystopian as well as a fantasy as well as science fiction as well as mystery.  We have romance and adventure.  What makes this a chameleon book is that it's built so that you can pick and choose which ones you want to take part in.  None of them is overwhelming.

If you're looking for something a little different,  I suggest you check this out.  The flow and storytelling are smooth.  You can pick and choose which elements of the story you want to stick out. There truly is something for everyone here.  If you're looking for a book for your book group, this is a definite.  There are so many different facets to the book that you could take months discussing them.

What we're buying this week!!

Since I wasn't able to get here to put in last week's order, we're doing double this week!!  Let's take a look at all the wonderful books we have coming in!

Let's start with our staff reviewer's requests!!  I love that my reviewers all have different tastes in books!!

Next up, let's we have suggested books!

Now we'll go through and order from our 'to buy and review' list.

Lastly, we have our random picks.  These used to be books that I randomly found that had five reviews or less, but we're branching out a little.  I have entirely too many books that I want to read and too many holes in the library!

Happy reading this week!  Don't forget to stop in Tuesday to give us more suggestions!

50 Things Your Parents Want You to Know by Shelly Campbell-Harley, M.A.ED

This is the second of Shelly's books that I've read, and I really enjoy them.  The purpose of the 50 Things books is to give short snippets of information that can be shared.  It's a starting off point, a jumping off point if you will, for difficult conversations.

In this book, we take a look at fifty things that your parents want you to know.  You probably already figured that out from the title.  In order to do my review, I first read the book.  Then I gathered my son and my mother and we read through each thing together.  I read aloud each item and then we had a short discussion on it.  Had we been a different family, it may have been more lengthy discussions.

As it was, nearly all of these were discussions that we'd already had in the parent/child relationship.  Now, we're a bunch of weirdos.  We like to talk.  We like to discuss after we've mulled things over.  We don't normally take a lot of time to think about what we're going to say.  We think about things and then just blurt them out to each other and see where it takes us.

For a lot of families, having some of these discussions can be tough.  Most of them involve having faith and believing in yourself.  They talk about how to be happy and how to be a productive person.  Sometimes, especially when you're angry or disagreeing with your child, it's hard to keep an open mind and sit down and tell them that you love them even though you disagree with them.  I think the most difficult part of conversations with your child is getting them to respond to you.  You can give them advice for living their life, but half the time they'll tune you out.

Between the three of us, we all agreed that everything in this book is something that a child needs to hear from a parent or caregiver.  Not only that, but great wisdom can be found for adults as well.  Knowing something and living it can be two entirely different things and sometimes a reminder is exactly what is needed.  These are all great discussion points in the book.  Even if you have a great relationship with your child, it doesn't hurt to add a little reinforcement.

The only issue that was brought up is that this book has a religious background.  Though most of the pages are good, logical sense, some of them involve faith and a belief in God.  While we all are firm believers, we also realize that not everyone is.  For those who do not have religious tolerance, feel free to skip those passages.  You can still find valuable information here.

Whether you have a good relationship with your child or not, this book can be a valuable communication tool.  You can go through it all at once for lengthier discussions, or go through one number at a time.  If you don't know how to talk to your child, you can gain some great ideas.  If you're a child who feels like your parents don't believe in you, they're probably thinking the things in this book, they just don't know how to say them to you.  Communication can be just as difficult on the part of the parent as it can the child.

Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish

Amelia Bedelia is one of my childhood favorites.  I had a difficult time understanding idioms and that has passed down to one of my children.  Looking back, I realized that she was the reason that I was able to communicate with people who used them.

In this book, Amelia begins work for a family.  She's a dedicated worker and puts all of her effort into finishing the list of chores that the family has written out for her.  Problems occur when the instructions are unclear.  Amelia follows them to the 't', even though it makes no sense to her.  The family returns and is flabbergasted at Amelia's work.  However, they find where her true talents are and learn to communicate with her in order to make this a happy situation for all.

Having a special needs child, I know how difficult communication can be.  Using unclear language to someone who doesn't understand it just muddies everything even further.  Amelia Bedelia has a charming way of explaining to adults and other children how someone with communication issues can absorb what's being said to them.  For those with good cognitive skills and poor understanding of idioms, it can help teach them that some words are meant to be taken literally.  Though there are only a few examples in the book, most of them are common and could help with day to day understanding.
The fascinating part for me is that the family that Amelia works for, even though vastly frustrated with her work, finds where her talents lie and decide to focus on that.  They learn how to be more clear and communicate with her so that she can fulfill her duties to them.  What could have been a disaster is turned into a wonderful employee/employer situation with a little understanding and shifting.

For those who don't have communication issues, it's simply an adorable and humorous book.  Amelia is industrious, a hard worker, silly, and completely lovable.

This book is just one of many, but it's a great way to introduce your child to Amelia and see if he/she is interested.  The pictures are colorful and there are anywhere from a couple of sentences to a small paragraph per page.  Most third graders could easily read this on their own.

Ascent of the Unwanted by Nathan Boyce

Her family murdered.  Her unborn child ripped away from her.  And she herself was abducted, raped, and sold as a slave into prostitution.  Is any woman strong enough to overcome such unrelenting injustices?  Miranda will show that a strong woman can do to those that have wronged her.  At the same time, a stable boy seeks the tools to avenge his mother's brutal murder.  Joining the Cavaliers seemed like the only place Erik would get the training he needed, but if he failed he would either be indentured as a servant or killed.  Title and power determine what is legal and right, those deemed beneath society have little recourse.  together these two, along with their friends, begin their quest for vengeance.  The Ascent of the Unwanted is a harsh glimpse into the bowels of cruelty, and how a small group of people come to rise about their station.

Let's get the negative out of the way first.  Even though Boyce has a strong story-telling presence, we have some time issues here.  It's kind of like being on a sight-seeing tour where we spend six hours perusing a park and then we spend five minutes perusing the next park, followed by an hour at the next park.  Assuming all of the parks are the same size and have the same amount to see, this causes a bit of a flow issue.  In the long run, this might actually be pretty important.  Since this is the first book in the series, some of the information that we digested my become critically important later.  Right now though, I felt like I was being detained at one park and rushed through another.  I'm hoping that this is done on purpose so that later everything will balance out.  We'll keep you updated as we get our hands on the rest of the series.  Stop whatever you're doing right now, Nathan, and go write for us ;)

There's so much to discuss here, but I want to start with the Roh'Darharim.  It's a secret society of protectors.  They have unusual and harsh rules, but I found that captivating.  I don't like horses.  I don't make a secret of that.  However, the way that Boyce portrays the Darharim as well as their link and relationship with horses was interesting and adventurous rather than the usual 'I don't care' that I would normally feel.  The Darharim are an intricate society and I think he did a great job of creating them and beginning the sorting process on paper.  As readers, we get an idea of what they're about, but I'm sure there's still a lot we haven't figured out.

The story actually centers around five main characters.  Some of them we don't realize are main characters until near the end of the book.  Boyce does a great job of making them realistic and flawed while at the same time extending them each a hero quality.  We take turns following them through their own personal story until the time where they 'temporarily' come together as a group.  Don't worry...that's not a spoiler.  Each one has an ugly and cruel life with serious obstacles to overcome.  It's easy to get lost in each person's life.  I think the spacing in this area was about perfect.  Since we switch back and forth, sometimes authors tend to get lost in one character and then forget the others exist.  We have a long time with one character and then a short time with the next.  Instead of that, what I found was that I was happily reading along and lost in one person's story, and at the point that I was beginning to wonder about someone else, that's when the chapter ended and the next person picked up.

If you enjoy dark fantasy, this is one that you'll want to check out.  There's extensive world building without hours of boring detail.  We have finely tuned characters as well as social structures.  Most of the story-telling is brisk and keeps you on edge.  At the end of the book, you're anxious to get the second in hand.  (I've been informed that it's nearly finished!)  I think this is going to end up to be an amazing dark fantasy adventure along the lines of Falconer's Legacy of Skur.  Most of the first book seems to be setting the stage for what is to come.  Don't get me wrong, it's not boring scene-setting.  It's fascinating and fulfilling and I can't wait to get more.