Ryan's Journal

There's a bookcase of young people's literature in our living room (there are also two taller bookcases crammed full of other literary selections; housemates with reading related occupations are exciting). I had some spare time the past couple of weeks to sift through it. The moral certitude, didactic nature, and general ease of reading are a nice alternative to heavier reads. Two-sentence reviews of the kid lit.

Stargirl gives us a wonderful portrait of a youth unfettered by social expectation and the young man who might be able to love her rightly. The happiness stones were just one memorable flourish on an excellent story.

Love, Stargirl is the unnecessary sequel wherein the mystery lent to Stargirl by external observation is punctured through relating her own internal monologue. This isn't a bad book, it just doesn't meet its predecessor.

The Book Thief plays with words and toys with the heart, following its band of characters through the turmoil of World War II era Germany. Heart rending and poetic.

The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass deserve more commentary on subject matter but make for a fantastic read. The poetry of the name "Lyra Silvertongue" danced in my head all on its own for a week.

Boy Meets Boy envisions an enviable world where one generation manages to surpass the failings of its precedents. All with a delightfully biting sense of humor as the venerable love story is retold in modern terms.

Loser is lovable. For anybody who got the short end of the stick when the world got framed up as a win-lose proposition and didn't end up a winner.

The Thief of Always is Hellraiser for children and probably most adults. Disclaimer: I've never seen Hellraiser.

Inkheart started so poorly I stopped in the middle of an early chapter and put it away. Everything about this book should be appealing to me, so I may try again on a bored weekend.

Eragon and Eldest greedily consumed everything possible in the fantasy genre and defecated its under-digested waste all over these stilted, poorly, just badly written pages overflowing with misplaced "big words" I can only surmise were offered as alternatives for smaller, better words by either a computer or a person with no sense of rhythm or flow. Two books remain in this series, and I will never read them.

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