Guest Review: The Healing Art of Storytelling, by Richard Stone, reviewed by Steve

This is an excellent introduction to the importance of storytelling our mental and emotional health. Stone provides examples in the form of personal stories and explains how telling the stories helped him come to terms with issues from the past that continued to adversely affect the present. Mr. Stone also addresses the importance of stories told to teach a lesson. He explains how people learn from stories and why many spiritual teachers taught with stories and parables. The reader is also given a wide range of topics to begin telling their own story as well as encouragement to begin. Stone includes a section with cautions about what to avoid, and what to watch for. He points out that some stories are too painful and that sometimes one needs to speak to a professional if a story is too difficult for a friend to handle. I found this book to be inspirational and practical and would recommend it to anyone interested in emotional healing, storytelling, and teaching.

Nonfiction Monday, by Freaky

It's Halloween week, so we'll go with something in the fantasy realm that still qualifies as nonfiction. We LOVE Halloween, although it is hard to find little turtle costumes anywhere. Stores have whole sections for dogs and cats, but nothing for reptiles - what is up with that?

We recently received two books from Lerner from their "Fantasy Chronicles" series:



and:




Aren't those covers gorgeous? Different illustrators, both fantastic. A quick look online at the other titles in the series tells me these will fly off the shelves just on face appeal. (I could SO be a hydra, by the way - just use my shell as a base, add a few stuffed heads...I'm telling you, there is a huge, untapped market out there!)

The text is even better than the cover art. So many books of mythical creatures just go for the shock appeal and make a quick list with brief history. These give so much more history and background, including the reasons people may have started telling stories about each creature, lessons to be learned, etc. There are some great lines, like "That's when you realize that this is no Tinker Bell you are dealing with."

You'll want this series for your upper elementary, middle, or high school students!

Druscilla's Halloween, by Sally M. Walker, as reviewed by Freaky

Getting old stinks - or so I've heard:) According to this adorable picture book, before flying broomsticks came along, witches used to sneak up on people by tiptoeing. Unfortunately, Druscilla's creaky old knees make her tiptoeing anything but sneaky. With Halloween coming, what is a witch to do?



If it's a witch as determined and clever as Druscilla, there are a number of things to try - most of which don't work. Fortunately, while sweeping up one failure, Druscilla gets another inspiration, and the rest is history! You can tell kids there are several morals to this story: Never give up. Clean up after yourself. Don't count the old lady out! A fun lesson extension might be to have the kids think up and illustrate other solutions she could have tried.

We may just have to use this for story time next week - in addition to the easy craft project to follow up with, the pictures are engaging, and the text is Halloweeny without being "too scary" (I love one of the last sentences: "Druscilla successfully scared each child - only as much as he or she wanted to be scared - just as she had planned.")

A great addition to your library this season!

Tentacles, by Roland Smith, as reviewed by Atlas

I hadn't actually read Cryptid Hunters yet, the first book in this series - it just didn't seem like my type of book. I am very glad Tentacles ended up on our Fall Into Reading list, because it forced me to read both back to back - not that there was much forcing to do after the first few pages!



From the jacket cover:

"Wolfe's latest quest: to be the first to capture a giant squid alive. Before long, the trio sets sail, South-Pacific bound - and with a couple of dinosaur eggs incubating below deck. But their huge freigter may be haunted, and someone on board seems determined to sabotage the mission. If Grace and Marty follow the clues, will they get to the bottom of all this fishy business - or end up at the bottom of the sea?"

Sometimes you have to wonder if the people who write the jacket covers actually read the book. Not that anything in this description is inaccurate, but it really doesn't give a good description of the story line - which may have been why I wasn't initially interested in reading the first one. One would think an author of Roland Smith's caliber would rate a little more attention to detail. Like the fact that it isn't just the trio (Wolfe, Marty and Grace) on this adventure, but also some characters from the first book - most notably, Marty's friend Luther, and Laurel Lee. Noah Blackwood is, of course, also heavily involved. We know from the beginning there is no haunting, and that's almost a side issue, so its mention becomes rather misleading.

For the story itself, I have no complaints! Things may not have happened the way I wanted them to, but that is a sign of the reader's emotional involvement with the story, not a fault of the story itself. There is a lot going on, and the ending only sets things up for a lot more to happen in the next book - which we hopefully won't have to wait too long for!

Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur, as reviewed by Atlas

I read this on a day when I was already feeling depressed, and I definitely do not recommend that. Reading sad books while depressed, that is - the book itself I do recommend!



Don't worry, when I say the book is sad, I am not giving away anything you won't find out from the jacket cover or the first couple chapters. Aubrey (NOT Audrey!) is 11 years old, coping with the accident that killed her father and younger sister, and a mother who grows more and more withdrawn until one day she just disappears completely. Aubrey copes on her own for about a week, until concerned Grandma shows up at the door and quickly discovers Mom's absence.

While we get some good-sized glimpses into how Aubrey's mother and grandmother are working through their grief, most of the focus is on Aubrey. Some wise adults and a new friend help her work through her feelings about both the deaths of her father and sister, and her mother's abandonment. Sometimes the adults are a little too perfect in knowing just what to say, but that may be just the ticket for a child dealing with the same issues. For some reason I had a hard time reading the letters Aubrey wrote to various people - they seemed somehow overly sentimental. Logically, they worked with the story, and of course they would be sentimental, so I'm not sure why I didn't like them - maybe it was my mood!

While sentimental doesn't appeal to me, we all have those readers who actually come to us looking for sad stories, and this is just the ticket. There is a satisfyingly realistic, if somewhat surprising ending. For those readers either dealing with grief themselves, or wanting to understand someone who is, LaFleur does an excellent job of showing the ups and downs up the process, and the ways seemingly innocuous events can trigger strong emotions. A good start for a new author, and I look forward to seeing what she comes out with next.

Nonfiction Monday - geography and biography, reviewed by Yoda

I am definitely memory-challenged. I meet new people and read new books every day, and I forget names and titles about three seconds after I hear them. I use my status as the oldest as an excuse, but it is a little frustrating at times, so I was especially interested in the "Adventures in Memory" series from Millbrook Press (division of Lerner).



Lerner was kind enough to send us the above title to review. While learning the original 13 colonies might not directly help me with kids' names, studies have shown any work with mnemonics can help in other areas. According to the AMA, exercising your brain can make it stronger at any age, so there is hope for me yet!

This edition had a nice mix of mnemonic devices, from anagrams to songs to silly stories. It also gave tips on adapting some to make them easier for you to remember them personally. In some places it had a little too much information - for example, while I would certainly recommend reading Anansi stories if you were doing a unit on Africa in school, it really doesn't relate if I'm trying to memorize basic facts about the continent. I'm also not sure that word scrambles are a helpful mnemonic device, especially when the scrambled word is so unrelated, you would have a hard time remembering that one, too. Finally, they missed some simple tricks that I learned back in school a million years ago - i.e., LONGitude lines go the LONG way down, lATitude lines show how fAT the earth is. I'm not sure I would remember the banana and watermelon thing.

Then again, everyone's brain is different, so what doesn't work for one reader or student may be just the ticket for another. While it's not their best offering, it may be handy to have around the classroom.

Also received from Lerner:



We definitely do not discuss politics at work, but there is no denying the public's interest in the First Family at any given time, and it has been encouraging to see more books offered about the Presidents' wives over the last few terms. This one had more information than some others I've seen about Michelle Obama's childhood, which children may find more interesting - what types of toys she played with, what her chores were, etc.

Typical of most children's biographies, there is only one paragraph in the whole book with any negative information, summing up her "proud of her country" gaff and other tidbits reported throughout the campaign. This is, as I said, typical of children's books, and not necessarily a complaint. Overall it was very readable, both entertaining and informative. A good addition to any library.

To order either book, click on the cover above. If you order through the link, we receive a very small percentage, which is used to purchase more books or materials for our public library.

A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck, as reviewed by Atlas

You just have to love Grandma Dowdel. She does what she wants, and she does it with style. Not the kind of style you'll see on the cover of a magazine, but the kind you'll remember. Someone told me once of a beauty pageant contestant who, for her talent portion, gutted and skinned a raccoon while chatting cheerfully with the judges (she won). That young lady would have earned a nod of approval from Mrs. Dowdel, even if the latter wouldn't have much use for beauty pageants in general.




We of course met Grandma Dowdel in A Year Down Yonder and A Long Way from Chicago. If you haven't read those yet, you'll still enjoy this book, but not nearly as much. She doesn't feature as heavily in this book as in the other two, but everything that happens is flavored or influenced by her. She has mellowed out a bit, letting her kinder side show without losing any of the gruffness. I thought her age was given at one point, but I can't seem to find it now - at any rate, she is now a great-grandmother, so has to be in her eighties at least. While she has always been portrayed as a tough old bird, I did find it a little unrealistic to see no physical slowing-down.

That was my only beef with the story. I know there has been some controversy about the Kickapoo Princess episodes, but to me that's like being offended by racism in Huckleberry Finn. It's part of the flavor of the times, and you could just as easily be offended by half the other events in this book. We had a 22-year-old Kickapoo friend read chapter 6, but she was laughing too hard at the sorority girls to tell us whether she was offended or not.

Grab it for Christmas and read a chapter a night with your family. In addition to being constantly in stitches, you may find yourselves getting into the true spirit of the season more quickly than with any of the schmaltzy tales that usually come out at this time.