My Book of Feelings by Tracey Ross

Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher! Note also not to confuse this one with My Book of Feelings by Desiree Kelley, which is evidently a book of poetry but which I have not read.

Here's a useful book for young children to have. The author explores and discusses what feelings are and how they might feel inside (fluffy or sharp), and what to do about them. I read this in the Adobe Digital Additions on a desktop computer, where it made me feel fluffy, and both on my smart phone and on an iPad. In both of those cases I used Amazon's crappy Kindle app and the book looked awful. My feelings about that were very sharp!

I haven't seen it as a Nook book, but my gut feeling about that is that it would be a lot better than what Kindle can do. But in absence of any real knowledge of that, I'd recommend buying this one as a print book to be safe. This kind of book is definitely not designed with the e-world in mind; they're designed for print, let's face it, and because of certain features in this particular one, a print book seems like the best way to go even if it's more expensive. Read on for more details!

The author begins by discussing what kinds of feelings you might have, and explains how you might get to feel that way. She also discusses the fact that you might have these feelings and not quite know why, or that you might have several mixed feelings. She then goes on to talk about what you might do to let feelings out in non-harmful ways. There's also lots of space to write down your own feelings and draw yourself experiencing them! That might be a bit hard on a tablet computer (unless your kid is unsupervised and has access to a Sharpie...), but in a print book it would be useful, and might even help a child to deal with those sharp feelings, too! I loved this book. It's a great idea, a useful tool, and is really good to look at except on the Kindle app!

Dojo Surprise by Chris Tougas

Rating: WORTHY!

This story was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher, and it's a little bit weird and off the beaten track, which is a good thing. I think that's why it appealed to me. it;s also part of a series of "Dojo" books, and I have to warn you that it did not look at all good on a smart phone, so you definitely want to read it on something else.

The kids of the Dojo Daycare want to throw a surprise birthday party for their rather nervous sensei, and their sneaking around does little for his mental health, but they succeed in creating the surprise using hard-won ninja techniques, and in the end have a great birthday party, and a much relieved sensei! I think it's fun and playful and very colorful, but be warned: it might put sneaky ninja ideas into young children's brains!

Abigail the Whale by Davide Cali

Rating: WORTHY!

This was a wonderful book which takes a positive-thinking approach to bullying. You can't control what other people do (although you can influence it for better or for worse!), but you can control how you see what they do and how you let it affect you.

Abigail is overweight and she loves swimming, and there, at the crux of these two contentions, is her problem: people make fun of her at the pool, and call her Abigail the Whale. She makes a big splash and it's not seen in a positive light by her classmates. I was tempted to wonder why the teacher didn't berate her classmates for their bullying and their mean 'fun-making', especially given that he's the one who turns around and introduces her to positive thinking, but I doubt young kids will be quite that analytical! It would have been nice had he said something to the other kids, though.

But this is about Abigail's problem, not the teacher's, and Abigail is smart and considers this new addition to her armory seriously. Once she tries it out and finds that it works, she embraces it whole-heartedly and starts to enjoy life again, and not just at the pool. I liked the way this book offered something for the child to do, and a way to think positively about herself. It's very simplified here, but maybe this will sow a seed or two which will grow, flourish, and blossom strongly later in children's lives. I love the illustrations by Sonja Bougaeva, and the book's overall tone.

I Am Josephine (and I Am a Living Thing) by Jan Thornhill

Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

"Inspired by science and nature writer Jan Thornhill's many classroom visits, this book is intended to help children recognize themselves as part of the natural world, with an emphasis on how all living things share similarities."

This was a great book which teaches a little taxonomy along with exhibiting a fun young girl who is the very embodiment of life. Josephine compares and contrasts herself with everything around her. Is she like this or different from that? In her comparisons and contrasts, we learn that she's a living thing (and definitely full of life!), and an animal, and a mammal, and a human being. We also learn what some other animals and plants are, as she skips and dances through her colorful world examining everything. The book is a joy to read and a delight to look at, and is educational to boot, with some interaction where young kids can search and count. All in all it's a great little book and I liked it very much.

Baba Yaga by An Leysen

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a familiar story since I read one similar to it not all that long ago. It's rooted in Slavic mythology and makes for a bit of a dire read for younger children given the threat of being eaten by a witch, though this isn't very different from quite a few of the better known and perhaps more beloved fairy tales, but it is worth keeping in mind when considering reading it to impressionable youngsters. On the up-side, it presents a tale of a self-possessed and brave girl who does what she has to, and wins out in the end.

It's a gorgeously illustrated book about this evil witch who flies around in a cauldron, eats little children, and lives in a cottage in the forest which sits on two chicken legs. The story was well written, and even when I was tempted to raise the issue of a man bereft of his wife being called a widow, which is the female form, rather than a widower, I realized that this is the very thing I rail against myself: why do men get to be called actors, that is, those who do the acting, but women are dismissed as actresses, which sounds more like something you sleep on? There are many genderist words like that, so I say, go for it! Widow it is!

The problem with this widow, though, is that he's been enchanted by Baba Yaga's sister who lures him into marrying her, and who holds him so entranced that he doesn't even see how abusive she is to his daughter who he loves and dotes on - or did. Olga's dad (mom isn't on the scene here, not in person, anyway!) falls in love under her spell, but his new wife doesn't want any step-children around. Why she didn't simply pick a guy who had no children goes unexplained, but the upshot of it is that she really doesn't like Olga's positive attitude and so sends her off to borrow a needle and thread from Baba Yaga, knowing that the child will be eaten, and she'll never have to be concerned with the little brat again.

What she doesn't know is that mom's love for Olga was so powerful that, like in the Harry Potter stories, it left behind a protection for her in the form of a nesting doll which mom bequeathed her daughter. This doll offers advice which might not seem valid at the time it's given, but which proves to be very useful when the right time comes. This doll is not about to let this child be eaten, and so with advice and guidance offered in this manner, Olga is able to survive and overcome the power of the evil stepmom.

Like I said, the story is a bit dire, but for feisty children of strong constitution, this tale will stir them to be confident and not fearful, and to be brave and resourceful. Hopefully! I liked it and I recommend it. Besides, the artwork is wonderful!

The Tale of Peter Rabbit By Beatrix Potter

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an unexpected delight. Peter Rabbit is the naughtiest rabbit ever - and naughty is precisely the correct term for him. He's off adventuring when he should be gathering berries with his sisters; he's getting into trouble with the local farmer; he's almost getting himself caught; and he's ending his day by losing all of his nice new clothes!

First published in 1902, this story has every ounce of quaint still clinging to it like a scent of pot-pourri, and it's not your modern bleached fairy tale either. It's also a best seller, having sold over a hundred fifty million copies, which isn't too shabby given that it started as nothing more than an illustrated letter aimed at cheering up the sick son of a friend. Based on an actual pet rabbit which Potter owned, and illustrated by the author quite charmingly, this tale is well worth a few minutes of any child's time - no matter how old the child is!

Sea Otter Rescue by Suzi Eszterhas

Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

"Sea Otter Rescue is the third in the four-book Wildlife Rescue series. Each book introduces a species of animal in danger somewhere in the world and profiles a rescue center that helps it."

This is my idea of what a non-fiction animal book for young people ought to be in contrast with the 'Tigers for Kids' book I also reviewed today. This book is more enjoyable, much more professional, and made for an educational, fun, and engaging read. Suzi Eszterhas is award-winning wildlife photographer, and not too shabby of a writer, too. She gets the facts out in front, gets to the point, doesn't ramble or repeat herself, and makes a great case for her cause. Some of the profit from this book will go to aid in sea otter rescue at the Alaska SeaLife Center which is the source of her information.

In simple and plain, but informative prose we learn how sea otters end up in dire straits and what's involved in rescuing and caring for them. The people involved get some of the spotlight, too. I recommend this for anyone who cares about our fellow mammals, especially ones which are threatened as some sea otters are. What you read here might surprise you! Some of it did me! Note this is not to be confused with Sea Otter Rescue by Roland Smith or with Seldovia Sam and the Sea Otter Rescue by Susan Woodward Springer and illustrator Amy Meissner, neither of which I have read.

This book felt professional, knowledgeable, and focused. It was full of interesting and useful information. It did not hurt that it was also full of pictures of the cutest mammals ever. Mostly young ones, of course, because these are the ones most often in need of help. You would definitely not want to mess with a full grown one. In fact you oughtn't to mess with them at all - leave them be and enjoy them from afar. If one looks like it's abandoned or in trouble, call animal rescue. The book has a host of information about that, too.

Sea otters are struggling in some places and among their major problems is big oil, and pollution of the ocean from irresponsible trash jettisoning. In short, it's the usual suspect: destruction of habitat by insensitive and selfish humans. This book discusses the life and natural history of the sea otter, how irresponsible people make their lives immeasurably worse, and what's being done by this little Alaskan rescue center to come to their aid.

I loved the way it was written succinctly, but sparing no important detail, and I adored the pictures. It was a pleasure to read and served a needful and useful purpose. You can't ask for more than that in a book aimed at young people. It was beautifully presented, with rich, color images and well-organized. I recommend it.

Tigers for Kids by Kim Chase, John Davidson

Rating: WARTY!

This book was a free special on Barnes and Noble, and I can see why. It was not very well written and rather sloppily edited in places. It read more like fan-fiction than any serious attempt to interest young children in tigers. A lot of it was repetitive and felt, at least, like it had been taken from some online source and the rest made-up. A lot of it actually read like it was a middle-grade essay. It was free, so you can't complain too much, but caveat emptor! Or in this case, cave-cat emptor?!

While the book gets a lot right, it's also a fount of misinformation. For example, on page 7 (the page number on my tablet in the Nook reader - the book itself has no page numbers), we're told the modern tiger is a descendant of the "saber tooth tiger" but that's not true. Tigers and their closest relatives, snow leopards, broke away from other cat species some three million years ago and are not closely-related to saber-toothed cats (not tigers!) at all - no modern cat is.

One of the things the introduction promises, is to explain why tigers have stripes, and it comes up with the obvious answer that tigers are better camouflaged with stripes than if they were all orange or all black or white. What this book doesn't tell you is that the basic reason for the coloration is that the tiger's skin is that color! If a tiger were shaved, it would not look as pretty, but it would still have the same stripes, and probably would be a lot cooler in the daytime heat!

But the thing which isn't addressed at all is that the tiger tends to be a crepuscular and nocturnal hunter, plus, it sees prey and prey sees it in ways it is hard for us to imagine with our sight, so the tiger's camouflage and hunting habits have to be pictured in a world of poorer daytime vision, better nighttime vision (be it greyscale), and a world inhabited by odors which we cannot even begin to imagine with our amateur and dysfunctional noses!

It's not true to say the tiger can see as well as a human during daytime. It can see as well as it needs to, but it doesn't have the acuity humans have for the simple reason it never evolved in tigers: it wasn't necessary for them to be able to conduct their business, which is hunting, and which is conducted at twilight or at night. During those times of day the tiger can capture six times more light (not "six time greater" as the book has it) than humans because they have six times the number of receptor rods in their retinas - just like your domestic cat does. They also have, like a domestic cat, a tapetum lucidum - essentially a mirror behind the retina which reflects light back onto the retina so they can 'double-dip' as it were. The cost of this is that they have poorer daylight vision - both domestic cats and tigers - and see color poorly if at all as compared with humans.

The "six time greater" spelling/grammar error is repeated in other places in the book in different ways, such as when I read on page 15 that "their black strips...hide them", when it should clearly have read 'black stripes'. There are awkward constructions such as "One form of verbal communication used by tigers is roaring. Other tigers from as far away as two miles can hear the roaring of other tigers." Another instance was "It is not uncommon for there to be a dominant or leader among the cubs."

Contrary to what the book tells us, that "Our current day tigers evolved into a subspecies that existed 25 million years ago," modern tigers have existed for less than two million years. About three million years ago they existed only as an ancestor species that eventually split into snow leopards on the one hand and tigers on the other, so I have no idea where the '25 million' figure comes from, and the book offers no references whatsoever to check.

In conclusion, if your kids absolutely adore tigers and can't get enough of them, and you can get this book free, then go for it, but I can't in good faith recommend it as a useful book on the topic. You should read my other non-fiction review posted today to see how a book on animals should be done.

Malala: Activist for Girls' Education by Raphaële Frier

Rating: WORTHY!

This is an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

On National Wonder Woman Day I'm not going to get into the dire gender politics and hypocrisy of a UN which proclaims a woman's day whilst rejecting a bunch of female candidates for secretary general, but it seems only right we should celebrate the spirit of this day by looking at a real-life wonder woman. Back in August of 2015 I positively reviewed I am Malala, and this version of her story, aimed at a much younger audience, is a worthy read, too. It zeroes in on the facts of her life, what she did, what happened to her, and how she survived, without going into exhausting detail. The images are colorful and enticing, and bring the reader into the story, which is an important one, and a potentially tragic one which fortunately had a happy ending.

This book even looked good on a smart phone, with the images large and the text legible. It tells of Malala's early childhood, and the conditions in which she lived, which deteriorated dramatically after an earthquake that idiotic religious flakes decided was some god's wrath! You’d have to be a complete and utter moron to worship a god which is as capricious and childish as that, and you would have to be criminally fraudulent to try to argue that this god generates cruel earthquakes, but this is the kind of extremists these people are, and this is what they were promoting. They take power not because they are right, or respected, or admired, or favored by the majority, but because they can get guns and threaten people. These are no disciples of any god of love.

Malala was lucky in having a family which supported educating girls, but the Taliban fears women, and detests equality. They're not the only whack-jobs who do so. There are many nations where women are treated in this same way, although 'treated' is a bad choice of word to describe it. Not all of these nations are condemned as they should be. Some are close allies of the USA. These people have no concept of fun and relaxation, and none of equality or parity. They are control freaks and bullies who fear women garnering any sort of power for themselves, and they started bullying everyone, not just women, but women in particular. People like this are so disempowered that they can only be 'men' when they have 'their women' as the phrase goes: barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen - and uneducated in order to keep them that way. This is something my wife joked about some years ago when she was actually barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen! It’s no joke when it’s real life though.

Malala started a blog to speak out about the problems they faced, and she soon became a local spokeswoman and representative. The Tailiban were pushed back but not far enough, and when they resurged, they cracked down just as hard, and they decided that this little girl was emasculating them. They proved this to be actually true when the only response they could engender was to shoot her three times, but she proved stronger than they, and she resurged herself to become a more effective opponent of their bruitality and cluelessness than ever she had been before. This is an important story which needs to be heard, and children are never too young to start hearing about female heroes. This little book is a great start. I recommend it.

Livia Lone by Barry Eisler

Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I enjoyed this novel very much. Normally I'm not a fan of flashbacks, but though the ones here were extensive, they were done well, and were integral to the story rather than filler or back-story for the sake of back-story. The entire novel moved quickly and determinedly. There was no fluff here and no time-wasting, and no young-adult-style first person, for which I personally thank the author! This is a book for grown-ups and will make even those feel uncomfortable. Events were credible (even when they were incredible!) and organic to the story, and the main character - Livia - was amazing: believable, endearing, demanding empathy, yet not pitiful. She was a woman with a mission and she never let anything get in the way of it, yet she did not ride roughshod over others to get what she wanted. She was patient and determined and in the end her dedication paid off, yet the ending was neither sentimental nor clichéd.

I grew to like this character from the start, and only admired and rooted for her more as the story continued. She was my idea of a strong female, and not necessarily in that she was physically tough - although in this case she was. She had more than that, though: she had spine and grit, both of which she direly needed after what she'd endured, but endure she did, never letting life get in the way of being a human-being no matter how single-minded she was in service to her cause. She had a habit (nicely not over-done) of saying "Yes, that!" which both evoked her non-English past, and made her at once endearing and sad. I found myself adopting that phrase in my mind from time to time when I was just going about my daily business, it made such a warm impression on me.

Her personal story was horrible. Sold by her uncaring and impoverished parents into sex slavery, thirteen year-old Livia's only concern was for her younger sister, who was sold with her in Thailand. Only one of them arrived in Portland, USA, and for the next two decades, Livia spends her time struggling to survive what befalls her and at the same time stay alive no matter what, so she can find out what happened to her sister Nason.

Just when her path looks like it will become straight and narrow, it meanders into serious problems, but upholding her silent promise to her sister, she keeps on going, true to herself, and eventually works her way into a position where no man can overwhelm her and take advantage of her again, and that's not simply because she becomes a police officer. As a law-enforcement officer however, she can now try to track down her sister, but after all this time, will the trail have gone too cold to follow? That life and that mission is what this story is about, and it was excellent from start to finish.

The story was told well, with sufficient detail and technical knowledge to make it believable, but not so much that it looked like the author was showing off, or you felt like you were reading a technical training manual rather than a novel, which is how Tom Clancy's novels sound to me. Whether in the US or Thailand, it felt real and it entertained and engrossed, and it lived and breathed. I loved the ambiguity of the title, which sounds a bit like 'leave ya alone'. Definitely my kind of phrase! So all in all a great book, and well worth reading.

The Baker's Dozen by Aaron Shepherd

Rating: WORTHY!

This is an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Beautifully illustrated, this Christmas story (actually set on and around Saint Nicholas's Day, which falls in early December), tells a highly fanciful tale of how a "baker's dozen" came to be thirteen rather than the actual twelve there is in a dozen. In fact it's because bakers in the past (as early as the eighteenth century if not before) didn't want to be fined for shorting their customers so they added one more to their 'dozen' (a term which comes from the French) for good measure. No one is going to complain about getting something for nothing, right?

In this story however, a rather gluttonous woman puts a curse on the baker for giving her only twelve "cookies" (a term which actually derives from a Dutch word koekje) when she'd requested a dozen. The baker's business falls into a disastrous decline until he decides to give thirteen instead of twelve for a dozen, whereupon his business flourishes! I don't know if this is the reverse of the real spirit of Christmas in our capitalistic age, where less is more - profitable!, or if it actually embodies it!

The real joy of this story though, apart from the happy ending, is Wendy Edelson's gorgeous illustrations in full color, which hark back if not to a Dickensian Christmas age, hark certainly back to a Rockwellian one. Beautifully done in great detail and in rich earth tones, ornamented with Christmas reds and whites, the images are a joy, but you cannot enjoy them at their best in electronic form unfortunately. This is very much intended as a print book, and the tablet version breaks up the images in unfortunately and uncomplimentary ways. This is the really the kind of book you have to buy in the print version and leave on the coffee table over the holidays! And perhaps that's just as well. A little old fashioned never hurt anyone at Christmas, now did it?

Ian at Grandma and Grandpa's House by Pauline Oud

Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this is an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher!

This is the story of my trip to my grandparents' house. Kidding! But I can't not review a book about a character who shares my name right? Ian is off to the grandparents for the weekend, and he packs his favorite book and his green gingham bunny. I want a green gingham bunny! He gets to his grandparents' house, which he is thrilled to visit, and he waves a cheery goodbye to mom.

Ian gets cake as his first meal. Does mommy know this is how they feed him?! Hopefully he'll have a good solid meal later and this is just a snack treat. At any rate, he gets to run it off in the park when they take curly for a walk. I'm not sure why the short-haired dog is called curly, but let's roll with it. Maybe his tail is curly? After the enjoyable walk they come home and make soup with fresh veggies! Yes, I knew there was more to this than cake! Ian gets a bedtime story and a nice nap. This is the way I like life! I wonder how the author knew?

This was fun, cozy, easy reading and a nice bedtime tale to put the little ones to sleep with. I recommend it.

Star Light Star Bright by Anna Prokos

Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher!

Illustrated nicely by Dave Clegg, this is one of an educational series for young kids. This particular volume is about planets in the solar system. Others in the series are about dinosaurs, Antarctica, volcanoes, seeds, and your own back yard!

Jackson and Wyatt wish upon a star, and find themselves in a cozy spacecraft with their dog pal and a license to explore the solar system. Starting with the baking heat of Mercury, they fly ever outwards, growing ever more chill, but learning some fun facts about each planet as they go. But don't worry, they return safely and get to bed on time!

The story is simple and straight forward, with brief interesting facts about each planet, snappy enough to command attention without overloading young brains. It's got adventure and a tiny bit of danger, and is a worthwhile read for young kinds to learn about how fascinating and alien our solar system is. There's a little index at the back, along with suggested further reading, and a short fact file. Great illustrations bring the planets home to young minds and hopefully stimulate a bit of a scientific interest for later in life.

A Gefilte Fishy Tale by Allison and Wayne Marks

Rating: WORTHY!

This might sound weird (then anyone who knows me will know this is par for the course), but a couple of days ago the term 'gefilte fish' was going through my brain. I know not from whence it came. Not on that day, but a few years back, I saw a greeting card in a store that featured 'gefilte fish' as part of a nonsense good wishes recital and I blame that for originally fixating it in my brain where it's been lodged comfortably ever since.

I know at some point - and assuming I live long enough - that it's going to come out in a story. All this, anyway, to indicate why I thought it was a good idea to read this young children's book beautifully illustrated by Renée Andriani, and rhymed to perfection by the Marks brothers, er, husband wife team! Although frankly, it might have been written by the Marx Brothers.

Bubba Judy buys a jar of gefilte fish, and all is well until they get it home and find they cannot get it open. This also turns out to be jar for the course as they resort to an assortment of friends to help undo it, and all of them fail. What's to become of it? Well you'll have an interesting time finding out. In addition to the story, you get recipe for gefilte fish mini muffins, which frankly sounds disgusting to me, but maybe they're nice. There's also an original song by Wayne Marks, Margie Blumberg, and Gavin Whelehan, and a very welcome glossary for the Yiddish-challenged, which includes me most of the time, although fans of Mel Brooks movies might recognize some of these words. I recommend this one for a fun read for kids and an educational experience!

Change of Life by Samantha Bryant

Rating: WARTY!

Errata:
"the flange of a Ouija board"? The planchette, not the flange!
"experimenting on the populous" Populace, not populous!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This is the sequel to Going Through the Change by Samantha Bryant, which I reviewed very favorably back in August of 2015.. I have to say up front that I was much less pleased with this one for a variety of reasons which I shall discuss shortly. The story is that of some mature women who undergo changes which equip them with superpowers when all they expected was menopause or a quiet retirement. I enjoyed reading a story about more mature women for once. Such stories are rare, and well-told and engaging ones rarer still. In the first book, Patricia O'Neill grows scales on her skin. Jessica Roark discovers that she can fly - or at least float. Helen Braeburn learns that she can create fire - and survive it - and she becomes the villain of the piece. Linda Alvarez changes, rather abruptly, into a man with very unusual strength.

This novel picks up not long after the first one finishes, with the girls moving on with their lives as best they can now their secret is out. Sort of. The story begins with Linda Alvarez, now officially renamed Leonel - although why that name rather than say, 'Lyndon', is not explained. Neither is it explained why she adopts a man's name given that her thought processes are very much a woman's at this point, since she's literally a woman occupying a male body. She apparently never heard of a boy named Sue! 'Lyndon' is a boy's name with a similar sound, although it doesn't mean the same as 'Linda' does (Spanish for beautiful).

Most names which mean 'beautiful' are female names, so Linda would need to be named something like Hermoso or Bonito, neither of which have quite the same feel. How about Bo, short for Beauregard? It's just a suggestion. Fortunately, Leonel still has the love of her husband who is conveniently bisexual (at least she hopes she still has his love), and meanwhile she's training to be an agent with the government, along with Jessica, and trying to track down the villain of the previous volume.

This volume introduces a new villain, but for me, the problems with the tale too many to really enjoy it. This volume did not have the original and inventive feel of the first; there was very little action in it; it was overly long for the story it told, and it consequently moved very slowly. On top of that, we learned nothing about how or why the women changed the way they did, so there was no more depth added there. Worse, the ending was very dissatisfying, with the villain escaping, so now it's become like an annoying episodic TV series with a seasonal arc. In short, the novel embodied what I like least about series and why I do not favor them, except for a very few rare and treasured instances.

Some parts were very entertaining. I particularly liked Jessica in this one whereas I think I preferred Linda in the first. Jessica was bouncy and energetic and I enjoyed her scenes, but these were the only ones I really enjoyed. The problem as that Jessica never got to show her stuff. She was always on a leash and neither did Linda nor Patricia get let-off the leash for that matter. It was like they were being held back, and this is fine in order to build expectations in the beginning of the story, but at some point you have to let your super heroes loose, and when they're held back for the entire story, all you do is engender disappointment and irritation. At least that's how it is with me.

Overall, the pace in this volume was lethargic, and the contrast between this volume and the last, and between Jessica's scenes here and the chapters featuring other characters was very noticeable. Talking of bouncing, there was a lot of bouncing around between characters too. I felt a bit like a pinball! While the novel is commendably not told in first person, for which I thank the author, the short chapters got me invested in one character's story only to find I was quickly ripped away from that into another character's world, where I would start to get settled only to be ripped away again. It made for a choppy and unpleasant read for me.

There was a lot of telling here rather than showing as well, and some of the characters I couldn't get invested in because reading about them felt more like this was a daytime TV show than ever it was a super-hero story. I'm very much in favor of writers who offer a different take on a given genre, in this case super powers and the people imbued with them. This is why I liked the first book in this series so much, but I don't like soap operas, and this had that feel to it, and it cropped up far too often for my taste.

The story was also rather deceitful in some regards, because all these internal monologues gave the superficial appearance of delving into a character's feelings and relationships, yet in the final analysis, we never really got to see those relationships in action. Linda, for example, was fretting about her husband, who had been the dominant stereotypical male (which makes me wonder what Linda saw in him in the first place).

In this story, we learn that he's not dealing with this role-reversal, as Linda takes up a career and he feels like he's being nudged into a back seat. The problem is that all we ever get is Linda's take on it. We never get her husband's views except through Linda's mind. It's like men have no role to play in this story unless they're a problem, or a character who seems to be there solely as a love or flirtation interest. Frankly, it felt genderist to me.

The ending was the biggest disappointment because the whole story had these two women, Jessica and Leonel, training like they were building towards some big showdown with evil, yet in the end, the story fizzled and the villain escaped not though any great villainous power or devious plan, but through sheer incompetence on the part of the very operatives who had been training supposedly so diligently and capably!

Leonel was sidelined completely at the end, and Jessica and Patricia were effectively hobbled, so there really was no showdown and no real super hero moment, let alone a real team effort. I was truly disappointed having gone through a very long build-up for an ending that was significantly less than thrilling. I wish the author all the best with this series but it's not one I want to continue following, and I can't in good faith recommend this as a worthy read. I think I would have enjoyed it more had the first story been complete in itself, and this second novel been set in a new location with a totally different group of characters who underwent, perhaps, something similar to the first set. Instead we have a second volume that felt less than the sum of the first.

November Fox by Esther Bertram

Rating: WARTY!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I had to DNF this novel because it made no sense and was not well-written in my judgment. It employs two voices, one of which was first person which I typically detest. Why authors do this I do not know, because very few of them do it well. I can see no rational for it here, when two third person voices would have been better. The ending (which I skipped to in order to confirm I had correctly divined it) isn't original and is telegraphed pretty well from very early in the novel so it comes as no surprise. When the ending is known, there needs to be an interesting journey toward it, but here there was not. I was bored and found myself skipping sections in order to find an interesting bit. The problem was that those became increasingly scarce the further I progressed.

The story felt like it was being told by a stalker in some regards which did not sit well with me. Erica, the narrator, is watching November Fox, a pop diva, on what appear to be TV monitors spread across a city. This was another annoyance to me, because there was zero world-building here, so I found myself very confused most of the time about what exactly, was happening, and where, and how! I started losing interest and lost it altogether when a talking elephant arrived in the cast. The elephant spoke German, so we got bits and pieces of German which was then tediously translated for us. I hate that in novels. I think if you're going to have a character speak a foreign language you need to have the character speak English and indicate the foreign nature of the tongue with a brief description up front and then an occasional reminder through the rest of the text in some form or another.

The way it was done here made it seem like we had a condescending Disney character, and it was truly annoying and felt insulting to Germans. German is an intriguing language with a fascinating (at least to me) mix of harshly masculine and endearingly feminine tones to it, and it can be beautiful to hear, but that's not how it came across in this novel. I didn't get at all why German was its language! Elephants do not hail from Germany. If it had spoken some Indian or African dialect, it would have made more sense to me.

I concede that it's certainly possible for an elephant to be born in Germany, but to have one simply show up speaking German with no explanation for it was far more of an annoyance than ever it was of interest to me. Its frequent spitting out of "Ja ja!" actually did jar and made it sound like a yahoo in terms of how brutal it was on the senses. I felt it demeaned the language, and I really didn't like this character. It was this that constituted the final straw for me, and I quickly lost all interest in trying to plod on through this book.

I wish the author, who is evidently a composer, a musician, and a producer as well as a novelist, all the best in her endeavors, but I cannot in good faith recommend this one at all based on what I read of it.

Octavia E. Butler by Gerry Canavan

Rating: WORTHY!

Note that this was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I consider this book to be a worthy read, especially for those who are already fans of science fiction author Octavia E. Butler, but I have to confess some slight disappointments in it. Let it be said up front that I have never read anything by Butler! I was interested in this book because I thought it was a biography initially. Since so few women and so few people of any color other than white are active in the sci-fi genre, I thought it would be an education to read of someone who was both female and African American, and it certainly was. I have no complaints there at all.

What I had hoped for though, was more about Butler herself - her youth, her method of working, and so on. As a hopeful author myself, I must confess to selfish reasons for reading about other authors! Maybe I can learn something about how they work, where their ideas come from, how they get through the writing process of growing an embryonic idea into the finished novel - or why they fail to do so. In many ways this book did not disappoint, which is why I favor it. If you want to learn about Butler's books and her triumphs and failures, then this will reveal a lot because of the very approach which was employed, but I felt myself hungry for more about Butler herself, about what was in her mind, and how she went through the creative process. She wrote on a typewriter, and not even an electric one, which sounds primitive and frankly boggles my mind, but it was all she had in the seventies and eighties.

She was lucky to even have that, growing up as impoverished as she did. It makes a heart break to think of how many other such children there are out there who could be enriching our world with their creativity, yet who will never do so because they will not get even the sparse yet good breaks Butler had to somewhat offset the bad. This is a real tragedy. Butler had four older brothers who all died before she was born, and her father also died when she was a child. Please don't ever limit your child's imagination and creativity. Never block their horizon. Butler refused to let her own horizon be dimmed and we're better off for it, but it's sad that she's one of few instead of one of the many that there could be.

The irony of Butler's life is that it was her mother, who didn't even rate her as an author and wasn't supportive, thinking her dream was nothing but frivolous, who was the one who got that typewriter for her. She was also the one who destroyed her comic book collection when Butler was away from home on a writing course. That really struck a resonant chord with me, because my own parents did the same thing with my school books when I was out of the country for an extended period. I never forgave them for that. They did it without warning and without asking, deeming those things to be junk to be disposed of, and I lost a piece of my childhood that I would have liked to have shared with my own children, but now cannot. It was barbaric and cruel. Fortunately, life goes on in other ways.

As far as this book is concerned, in some ways I felt like I lost sight of Butler behind her novels, in a case of 'can't see the author for the trees' (in the form of print books!). So this felt more like it was a biography or an exegesis of her novels than it was of Butler herself. While looking at her through the lens of her books was a...dare I pun and say novel approach?!...I confess to a little disappointment that this method seemed to camouflage her as much as it revealed her.

That said, I found myself oft fascinated by this examination and apart from a piece here and there that I skipped, I was much more often interested in reading through and learning a bit about her thought processes, influences, and setbacks. The author of this book knows his stuff and has researched extensively. The book is packed with insights and observations. He was the very first researcher to dig into some of this material and has some very interesting things to say about it. The book also has an index, a glossary, and extensive reference end notes.

If I had a serious disappointment, it would be that the book seemed very much aimed at academics, especially judged by the language employed here. As such I feel it did a disservice to girls who are growing up in the same circumstances as Butler did: young African Americans who might have been inspired to follow in Butler's footsteps were the book written in a tone more accessible to them, but who may well be put off by the language employed here. Maybe that book still has to be written. Until then, this is what we have, and I recommend it for its worthy and needed exploration of an important author and her work.

A Fish Called Blackbeard by Gillian Rogerson

Rating: WORTHY!

This was another charming young children's/middle-grade book from an author who is growing on me! Note that this is a text book - no pictures here - so while you can read it to young children, there's nothing for them to look at. Lilly desperately wants a pet, and her only hope is to win a goldfish at the fairground even if it uses up all her allowance. She finally wins with her last shot, she picks the more active of the two remaining fish. She notes a black ring around the fish's eye, she decides to name it Blackbeard after the pirate.

So far so good. But the thing is, she discovers the fish can talk, and when she talks to it, she discovers he's depressed. The other fish at the fairground was Blackbeard's girlfriend and now he's heartbroken to be separated from her! Can Lilly help her new friend? This story reveals all! I liked it. Written lightly and amusingly, it was different, fun, and inventive. It's exactly what you need to stimulate a young person's mind, and I recommend it.

Wandering Koala Rides the Phantom Coach by Jeff Thomason

Rating: WORTHY!

This is a weird and wonderful comic book done in reds, blacks, grays, and white, with fairly minimal text. The artwork is engaging, and the coloring really attracts. It begins with a way overly dominant guy leading his girl out of the movie theater before the ending because he knows how it ends and he doesn't care that his girl wanted to watch it to the end.

He tries to play up the delight of finding an early bus which is largely empty as opposed to the crowded one they would have had to ride had they stayed in the theater, but the girl isn't convinced at all. The thing is that this bus is rather unusual, as they discover when the driver, who now looks like cross between Jack Skellington from Nightmare Before Christmas, and The Scarecrow from the Batman comics and movies, will not let them off the bus. Before long, ghosts start to materialize on the bus, and this normal couple now looks to be trapped in a nightmare that seems like it will hold them prisoner until Christmas, if not longer.

I enjoyed this because of the art and the weird plot. The only complaint I had was that the images did not occupy the full screen of the tablet in my Nook app. The page occupied only about three-quarters of the screen, and if you tried to enlarge it, it became a static image which you then had to close before you could swipe to the next page. Not ideal at all, and Nook app is usually a lot better than this. It's certainly a generation ahead of the crappy Amazon Kindle app, but this makes two comics now that I've had this annoying issue with. I recommend the comic, though.

True Grit Mean Business Graphic Novel

Rating: WORTHY!

Based on the Charles Portis novel which I reviewed favorably very recently, this is a promotional graphic novel put out by Paramount Studios, and is a free download from Barnes & Noble and perhaps other online sources too. Paramount released an updated version of True Grit in 2010, this time starring Jeff Bridges in place of John Wayne, Matt Damon in place f Glenn Campbell, Hailee Steinfeld in place of Kim Darby, and Barry Pepper in place of Robert Duvall. I watched both movie yesterday and while the earlier movie was slightly more humorous, the updated version (which cost as much to make as the original made in receipts!) was definitely the better movie, and adhered more closely to the novel despite being a Coen brothers vehicle.

I guess the copyright was coming to a close, and if they didn't put out a new version of it, paramount would lose the rights to it. The art by Christian Wildgoose is very well done, although being in comic book format, it ill fits the screen on my tablet and enlarging it doesn't help because then it becomes a separate image which you cannot swipe to get to the next page - you have to close the image and then swipe! Naturally the text is too small which is frequently a problem with =e-comics. Normally I like my Nook app - it's far better than the crappy Amazon Kindle app, but it too has issues. The art is black and white line drawings.

The comic is very short and tells the story recounted by Marshall Cogburn in the courtroom at the beginning of the novel, of the slaughter and robbery at the spotted-gourd ranch. It's worth a read, especially since it's free, but I would have enjoyed a longer one more - especially if it had been the whole novel.