Terry Pratchett's Nation

Nation by Terry Pratchett

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
My favorite book of the last year just won the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for teen fiction.Hurray for the Horn Book and whoever voted! This is a wonderful true myth with death and wonder and knowledge and hope--life in an alternate Earth island chain after a tsunami. This is the first book he's written since his Alzheimer's diagnosis and I believe it should have won every award it was nominated for; there's really no way that Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book (see my review) is better. It should certainly have been nominated for a Hugo. Comparing theses two books is like comparing Rowling's Harry Potter series and Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials. The latter has a depth the former lacks, despite its popularity. Gaiman is Rowling and Pratchett is Pullman in this instance. And it's usually Gaiman who's dealing with the mythic! At any rate, Nation in its way is as perfect a book as Sherri Tepper's Beauty. Read! Read!

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For Use in the Classroom with Young Poets

Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets by Naomi Shihab Nye

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wonderful book of poems by young poets taught by Nye in school visits. It's a great resource for teaching--my only wish is that the poet's ages or grade levels were included. It's very handy to be able to tell a group of kids--"If a second-grader wrote that, you can write a poem, too!"


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Donna Leon's new novel About Face

About Face: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I like spending time with the Brunetti family and I always want more of Signorina Elettra, too. The "mysteries" are always background in these novels to me. I've enjoyed every single novel in the series. Reading about Brunetti's work life, kids, Paolina's academic life, the Conte e Contessa, corrupt business & government... is it all so different? I disagree with Tolstoy, I think we are all alike in our pain, sin, and desperation. Perhaps we are all alike in wanting to be happy. Anyway, I enjoy peeking at the happy Brunetti family-this and the character of Venice and the great writing is what keeps me reading.


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