Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007)

Invention of Hugo Cabret. Brian Selznick. 2007. Scholastic. 525 pages.

I hadn't really planned on rereading Brian Selznick's Invention of Hugo Cabret, but this year I joined the book to movie challenge. I'd been curious about the film, Hugo. This "review" will share what I thought about both the book and the movie.

I found the movie wonderful. I found it very compelling. I was drawn into the story--the time and place. This is a movie (and a book) where setting is just as important if not MORE important than the characters. Because it is set in a train station in Paris, France, in the early 1930s, because it focuses on such an intriguing orphan who is desperate to make sense of the world and fix what needs fixing, because it was a story with such a strong emphasis on friendship and making your own family, it worked for me. The book and the movie are different from one another. The movie adds characters and even gives them story-lines. The movie changes some of the relationships as well. But I thought some of the changes--at least--worked better. I liked the Hugo of the movie better than the Hugo of the book! While the novel's focus on old cinema was interesting, on film it meant SO MUCH MORE. This book was meant to be filmed.

I originally read the book in 2007. I watched the movie a few weeks ago and then decided to reread the book. I definitely preferred the movie to the book. But the book is a very quick read! It takes longer to watch the movie than it does to read the book!

© 2013 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

Whatever After: Fairest of All (2012)

Whatever After: Fairest of All. Sara Mlynowski. 2012. Scholastic. 170 pages.

Abby and Jonah are modern day children traveling--at least in this first book--through a magic mirror to the land of fairy tales.   Abby and her brother Jonah accidentally ruined the story of Snow White when they prevented her from eating the witch's poisoned apple. Now, they must come up with a way to set things right, and introduce Snow White to her Prince Charming (Prince Trevor). Of course, this won't be an easy task, but with a little teamwork, anything can be accomplished.

I liked this one. After reading heavier books like Sever and The Wall, it is nice to have something so deliciously light and completely non-serious.

Read Whatever After: Fairest of All

• If you're looking for a new series to introduce to young readers (age 8+)
• If you are looking for a new fantasy series for the youngest of readers 
• If you enjoy fairy tale retellings AND children's books (this is NOT a YA book; it is clearly a children's book.)

© 2013 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

The Sunday Salon: Reading Rainbow Valley (1919)

Rainbow Valley. L.M. Montgomery. 1919. 256 pages.

The Meredith children are struggling to raise themselves as readers will come to see if they read Rainbow Valley. Their father is a Presbyterian minister--an absent-minded minister; their mother is dead. There is an aunt that makes an effort to keep house, but her efforts don't always include keeping the children. So Jerry, Faith, Una, and Carl have plenty of time for trouble. Not that they seek it out, it just happens to find them time and time again. Like when Faith and Una accidentally get the days of the week confused, attend Sunday School on a drearily rainy Saturday and do their laundry and dirty work in full-view of the church-attending crowd on Sunday. (I believe Methodist.) The children are always do something to shock someone in the congregation or community. But their intentions are all good and honorable.

The Meredith children are best friends with the Blythe children: Jem, Walter, Nan, Di, Shirley, and Rilla. The two families love to be together: telling stories, playing together, imagining dream worlds together. Readers catch a glimpse of the Anne, Gilbert, and their children...but the story truly begins to all four Meredith children.

Another child in their group is the crazy and always unpredictable Mary Vance, an orphan discovered by the Meredith children and later adopted by Mrs. Elliot. She can be hard to take, even her closest friends feel this way at times. But she sure does keep things lively!

Rainbow Valley ends in a lovely romance. Mr. Meredith gets a second chance for love, as does a delightful woman named Rosemary West. The children help bring these two together--in a touching way.

There are also some haunting sections of this one as L.M. Montgomery foreshadows the coming Great War (World War I). This is the novel where Walter first gets a glimpse of the Pied Piper coming for them all...a theme later picked up in Rilla of Ingleside.

I definitely LOVED this one. Like Story Girl and The Golden Road, it captures the ups and downs of  day-to-day life through the eyes of children.

“It is never quite safe to think we have done with life. When we imagine we have finished our story fate has a trick of turning the page and showing us yet another chapter.” 

Read Rainbow Valley

• If you love L.M. Montgomery
• If you love classics, children's classics, cozy historical novels
• If you love good storytelling 
• If you're looking for stories about preacher's kids 

© 2013 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

Week In Review: March 31-April 6

Anne's House of Dreams. L.M. Montgomery. 1917. 227 pages.
The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop. Kate Saunders. 2013. Random House. 304 pages.
Bliss. Kathryn Littlewood. 2012. HarperCollins. 374 pages.
A Dash of Magic. Kathryn Littlewood. 2013. HarperCollins. 384 pages.
Sever. Lauren DeStefano. 2013. Simon & Schuster. 371 pages.
The Wall. William Sutcliffe. 2013. Walker.  304 pages.
Altar Ego by Craig Groeschel. February 2013. Zondervan. 240 pages.
The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected. Nik Ripken. 2013. B&H. 384 pages.

© 2013 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

Library Loot: First Trip in April

New Loot:

• Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien
• Shades of Earth by Beth REvis
• Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
• Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat
• The Tutor's Daughter by Julie Klassen
• Secret Agent Mater by Melissa Lagonegro
• Gordon's New View 
• Race Around the World by Susan Amerikaner 

Leftover Loot:

• Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart-Lovelace
• The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman
• Cross My Heart by Sasha Gould
• The Bookends of the Christian Life by Jerry Bridges and Bob Bevington
• Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley
• The Essence by Kimberly Derting
• Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther by Roland H. Bainton
• The Great Race by Rev. W. Awdry
• Secret of the Green Engine

  Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

© 2013 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

The Wall (2013)

The Wall. William Sutcliffe. 2013. Walker.  304 pages.

The Wall is a thought-provoking coming of age novel. What is missing from Joshua's life is peace. He HATES his step-father, and readers learn there is good reason for this. But it isn't just family turmoil leading to his uneasiness. Perhaps it all starts when Joshua discovers a tunnel that goes under the wall, a tunnel that he explores. He visits the other side of the wall, he walks the streets, sees the "enemy" up, close, for the first time perhaps, and realizes that there aren't really any discernible differences. The way Joshua's father RANTS about them, he expected the "them" to be obvious threats, but that isn't the case. In fact, one of "them," a pretty young girl, risks her life to help him get back to his own side (he becomes lost). He can't forget the girl he met, can't forget her kindness and her needs. He feels he can help her, but is it the kind of help she'd welcome? That her family would welcome? The Wall gives readers an opportunity to see a boy's social awareness awaken. Joshua begins to think, deeply think about the world around him, to test what he's been taught, to make his own decisions about what is right and what is wrong.

Read The Wall

• If you enjoy thought-provoking coming-of-age stories

© 2013 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews

Sever (2013)

Sever. Lauren DeStefano. 2013. Simon & Schuster. 371 pages.

Sever was certainly an intense read. If I had to describe it in just one word, I'd say it was bittersweet. This is the final book in the trilogy which perhaps explains why to a certain degree.

The novel opens with Rhine recovering, Linden and Cecily are determined to care for her. Linden may not believe the "outrageous" claims about his own father that Rhine is sharing with him and his oh-so-young wife. But. He still cares what happens to her. And since Rhine is so unwilling to go back to the mansion, and since she isn't strong enough to leave on her own, he comes up with an alternative arrangement. He has a mysterious uncle, an uncle that his first love, Rose, adored; Rhine can go to stay with him until she's ready to leave. Rhine is still determined to find her twin brother.

This allows Rhine time to contemplate how she feels about Linden, to decide if she really wants to annul her marriage with him, to make plans on how to find her brother and possibly stop him from traveling down a dark and dangerous path. While there she begins to learn more about who she is, who her brother is, who her parents were. Her parents apparently have a reputation in the scientific world--a legacy. And some of what she learns changes her...

The world Rhine has lived in has always been ugly...and Sever is a balance between hope and despair.

Read Sever

• If you have read the first two in the series (Wither; Fever)
• If you enjoy dystopian thrillers
• If romance isn't the most important element in your science fiction!

© 2013 SukaYuka.com of SukaYuka's Book Reviews