Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Pet Peeves

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

As anyone who reads a million books a year, we are bound to have a few pet peeves that crop up every now and then. Some of ours, in no particular order:

1. Science fiction that is sketchy on the science. Now, we are not brainiacs, and we don't need detailed theorems and chemical equations. We are also willing to come in with a reasonable "suspension of disbelief". But, it needs to make sense. If we, with our "C" average in all science classes, can spot problems, you have some serious polishing up to do.

2. Cover art that doesn't match the characters. Would the people who design the books please READ THEM first?! recent example: We Hear the Dead. Who exactly is that supposed to be? Demure, ladylike Maggie, or young, innocent Kate? And we won't even start on the whitewashed covers.

3. Extraneous love interests. Nothing wrong with a good romance, if that is actually part of the story. Too often, however, authors/publishers feel they have to throw one in, ruining a book that was just fine on its own, just because said book is for teens. Author Liane Shaw jumped twenty points in our esteem with her comment on this post, and we are still awaiting news on her next title, still scheduled for this fall we hope...

4. Overly hyped books that don't live up. (Across the Universe - need we say more?) Sometimes, dear publishers, your resources would be better spent on editing than on publicity.

5. Book merchandise. Now, this isn't meant to be a sweeping dismissal of all book-related products - after all, our youngest reader's room is decorated in storybook characters, complete with Curious George wall quilt and stuffed Berenstain Bears. Nothing gets our hackles up, though, like reading a Charlie and Lola book in storytime, and hearing someone (usually a parent) exclaim, "Oh, they made a book out of the cartoon!"

6. Permabound books. Not to disparage the company, but you know the covers we mean - the boring, bumpy, usually beige covers that seldom include artwork and retain dirt like a three-year-old. For some reason, a generation of librarians decided these were a much better option than buying a new copy when things wore out. A subsequent generation of readers was less than impressed, and they are slowly being weeded out (we can't even move them off the book sale cart!)

7. Clothing descriptions, especially in 'contemporary' fiction. "cause, guess what? In three years, your book is no longer contemporary. You shot any chance of kids relating to your characters down the road when you spent a paragraph discussing how her leggings matched her headband. Plus, too much focus on clothing = shallow character = I don't care what happens to her.

8. Stupid main characters. I like to feel a little smarter than the protagonist, but not too much. If I figure out who the bad guy is on page three, I'm not going to read past page ten. (Pleasantly surprised by Virals, btw, which I should be reviewing tomorrow).

9. Fact checking. Does that go without saying? If we are publishing nonfiction for kids (or for anyone) can we please make sure the author knows what he/she is talking about? That the pictures match up with the text? That the grammar is better than that of a third grader?

10. Celebrity authors. For every Julie Edwards (loved Mandy!) there is a Madonna (ugh) or a Jamie Lee Curtis (moralistic obvious blech) or a (cringing-at-fingernails-on-chalkboard) Maria Shriver (speaking of books I can't move).

Whew. Looks like we reached ten just as we were getting a little too snippy. Your turn now! What pet peeves do you have about books - covers, illustrations, storylines, anything? Snipe away, and we'll return with a more positive post tomorrow:)

Top Ten Tuesday and Contest Reminder

Yesterday we hit 10,000 visitors to our blog! We had to go back and look a couple times - that's really 10,000, not 1,000? We got so excited, we decided to do what every book blogger does when she gets excited - give stuff away! For the rest of this week (up until midnight Sunday), for every post you comment on, your name will be put in a drawing for a goodie pile (list and picture to be posted later today). Only posts from this week (starting with Monday's) count, so if we get off our collective turtle rears and post every day, that will give you seven chances. Or, if we post twice in a day (like the goodie post later), there could be more than seven chances, so keep checking in! Winner will be announced on Monday.

Once again, we are joining The Broke and the Bookish for their Top Ten Tuesday. Today's theme: top ten book to movie adaptations. This was hard, because

a) We are turtles. Going to movie theatres just doesn't work well for us - we can't get the stupid folding seats to stay down, and even if we could, we couldn't see over the backs of the seats in front of us. So, we have to sit in the front row and crane our little turtle necks way back, and then if we lean too far back the seat flips up again and sends us sailing into someone's popcorn.

b) Thus far, Miss Ami has neglected to install a TV/DVD combo in our tank. She doesn't even have cable in her own home, so she doesn't think we are missing out on much. Phooey!

We did manage to come up with a few, though, so in no particular order:

1. The Princess Bride. Okay, we lied, this one is definitely first on our list, and always will be. Perfect casting, and absolutely faithful to the book, even to the point of the conversations between author and grandfather. Hands-down favorite.

2. Holes. A very close second. Again, perfect casting, and we still cry at the end when it rains.

3. Harry Potter. Yes, they changed things/left things out, but hello! The books are 8,000 pages long! We would have liked to see more of Dobby - and is Hagrid's half-brother just not important? Whatever. Still well-cast, and faithful enough to make us happy.

4. The first two Chronicles of Narnia movies. Finally, a lion that doesn't make you laugh when he appears! We just wish Hollywood hadn't felt the need to mess around with the third (evil green haze? Wha????). Guess there aren't enough folks there able to recognize moral lessons when they see them, so the book as written didn't make sense to them.

5. Lord of the Rings series. Miss Ami was in love with Aragon when she read the books as a teen, and the casting there did not disappoint her. Oh, and all the other parts were good, too.

6. Pride and Prejudice (the one with Keira Knightly). It can be hard to faithfully produce a book with less-than-modern speech and still make everything understandable to those not familiar with the books, but they did a marvelous job.

7. Little Women (with Winona Ryder).

8. Vampires S***. Being a little facetious here - we enjoyed the Twilight novels, but not all the hype, and the bits we've seen of the movies are terrible. This movie was juvenile and awful, but made a lot of great points - in a very juvenile and badly written way!

Hmm...still not 10, but we had some collections in there, so we'll call it good. tell us what we missed in the comments section, and get your name in our drawing!

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Literary Characters I Would Name My Children After

So, we completely forgot the Top Ten Tuesday last week. We hear it takes 72 times of doing something before it becomes a habit, so long about 2013 we should be all set. Today we remembered, however, and it's a very timely topic as Miss Ami is expecting and has yet to settle on a name. Gender is unknown at the moment, making the process a little more difficult. We do hope that, as appropriate as "Freaky" might be for a turtle, she comes up with something a little kinder for a newborn baby.

Her choices, in no particular order:

1. Elizabeth, from The Paper Bag Princess. This is actually her daughter's middle name, and was a no-brainer. Who wouldn't want their daughter to grow up as competent and fun as Robert Munsch's Elizabeth, with the same healthy sense of perspective? Coupled with her first name (Sheridan), we have a name that means "Wild Gift from God." Perfect.

2. Meg, from A Wrinkle in Time. Perfect ugly duckling story - bright, caring, underappreciated young lady grows into beautiful, loving, wise mother.

3. Katniss, from The Hunger Games. Except there are probably a million little girls being named Katniss these days, so we'll let that one go. Still - great character! Do you see a trend in strong, intelligent females here?

4. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Timothy, David, Daniel...all the great "Bible names". Except, various cousins and so forth have already used those, and naming a baby "Ishtob" could be likened to naming him "Freaky".

5. Jeremy - as in Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher. Great kid, great book. Miss Ami says she would love to have a son with a heart for animals (and people) who is also capable of standing up for what is right, willing to do the right thing even when it doesn't give him what he wants for himself.

6. Ella - as in Enchanted. See #s 1-3.

7. Jack - A good, solid name, with so many possible literary connections. Heck, in desperate times, we could even call him "Jack-Jack", as in the baby in The Incredibles who scares the babysitter away.

8. Stephanie, as in Plum, a la Janet Evanovich. Miss Ami used to want to be Stephanie Plum when she grew up. Now she wants to be Grandma Mazur.

That's all we've got right now. Of course, #4 would put us over 10 if you counted them all. Miss Ami and her husband do have one girl's name they've tossed around, Cheyenne, but we can't think of any literary characters to connect that with. Anyone???

****Note from Miss Ami: So, I mentioned to my husband that the most popular name from the other bloggers' lists seems to be Atticus. He immediately piped up with, "Hey, Jack Atticus!" You didn't have to read that out loud to groan, did you. Sigh. No, that is NOT a name we will be using. I did forget another great girl's name/character: Ronia, from Ronia the Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren. The cover art by Trina Schart Hyman (who I adored) is exactly how I pictured my youngest looking, and the attitude/ability to wrap a big old hairy man around the little finger is how I expected her to be. Well, she turned out blonde and blue-eyed somehow, but the other part? Oh, yeah!

Top Ten Tuesday

What a fun idea! We love lists, and the folks at The Broke and the Bookish host a weekly meme called "Top Ten Tuesday" - in which they offer a topic, and bloggers post their personal top ten. Make sure you click on the link to see what other bloggers have posted.

The topic this week is: the ten books you wish you had read as a child. This is tough, because Miss Ami read EVERYTHING when she was younger. Her family lived way out in the country, and she always checked out the max of 50 books whenever she got to go to the library. She would often read 2 or 3 while standing in line, and have to go grab a few more at the last minute. There were a few that escaped her notice, though (or just weren't published yet), so here are her picks:

1. The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Always a nature-lover, I would have swooned over the idea of helping a garden regenerate itself. Kid walking, father home, blah blah, whatever - but I would have been madly in love with Dickon.

2. The Pink Refrigerator, by Tim Egan. I was painfully shy for much of my childhood, and this might have eased me into trying new things sooner.

3. Christmas Tapestry, by Patricia Polacco. I would have loved the tear-jerker aspect, and hopefully would have absorbed the all-things-work-together-for-His-purpose message.

4. Wabi Sabi, by Mark Reibstein. Hmm - many of these are centering around concepts I wish I'd understood and embraced much earlier in life - like the ability to find the beauty in the ordinary.

5. The Araboolies of Liberty Street, by Sam Swope. I 'discovered' this book in a workshop as an adult, and immediately squeed and paired it off with The Big Orange Splot, by Daniel M. Pinkwater. That one I did read when I was younger, and adored.

6. 101 Questions Children Ask About God (and its sequels), by David Veerman. Simple, straightforward, nondenominational answers to questions I didn't know I necessarily had, and wouldn't have known who to ask them to.

7. Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, by Bruce Coville. I would have read this one to pieces. Our library has three copies, and a giant stuffed dragon named Tiamat.

8. Any Small Goodness, by Tony Johnston. A world I was unfamiliar with, as a small-town Ohio girl. Brilliant book, satisfying ending.

9. Squire's Tale series by Gerald Morris. Excellent introduction to King Arthur, characters that don't have to be all good or all bad, and absolutely hysterical. The fantasy aspects would have hooked me, and I would have absorbed a lot about human beings that would serve me well later.

10. The Thief series, by Meghan Whelan Turner. Because it took me too long to get to them to begin with. Sigh.

So, what's your top ten? Post it here, or join the group at The Broke and the Bookish!