Book Review - Wingfeather Saga (Books 1-4)

I have heard a lot about the Wingfeather saga, and 99% of it has been glowing.   I have read people comparing it to Narnia, claiming it was a favourite story, calling themselves 'fangirls' over this thing.  I'm almost always disappointed when I get around to reading hyped-up books, but when our family friends said it was their favourite family read aloud and even the teens in the family were obsessed with it and they named their cats after characters. ..okay.  Okay, I will buy the books.  I got the first two, NEW IN HARDCOVER so I couldn't not read them because I'm very cheap, and here we go.

On The Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness is book one.  Various people, apparently including the author himself (I have not verified this - it is just hearsay), say that this is the weakest book.  It is, I'm just letting you know, very weak.  The writing is amateurish and very long-winded and there are many little rabbit trails that lead nowhere.  It is also full of potty humour.  References to 'snot' candles, people peeing themselves, etc.  While I liked the cover art, the interior illustrations were at the caliber of your friend's 12yo who is 'super talented!'.  It's a little painful.  The entire story is just chock-a-block full of silly words, bumbling, jovial characters, and nonsense.  And the footnotes!  They almost did me in, guys.  Sometimes up to a third of the page filled with obscure details of the fantasy realm and the items within.  All, again, using as much made up and silly language as possible.  The same adjectives and verbs used to describe the same people - the red faced, one-legged sailor is always roaring, the little girl is always squeaking and squealing...it is very, and I mean very, tiresome.

Also a warning, besides the potty humour and the bad writing and the stock characters - there is also a lot of violence in this book.  People getting cracked across the skull by the butts of spears and such.  

My kids thought it was okay.  They didn't ask to hear me read it, but they didn't fight it or groan when I pulled out the book.  No one seemed particularly invested in the story, which follows the three Igiby children - Janner, Tink and Leeli - through their world of Skree, infested a few decades past now with giant lizard people called Fangs.  Who are obviously evil and also venomous and fat and stupid and lazy and greedy.  Obviously.  It's so nice when evil is just so easy to recognize. 

I was, and it is hard to overstate this, not keen to keep going.  But I was told there was a certain scene in book two that I absolutely had to read to.  So, fine.

North! Or Be Eaten is the second book.  I like the title, and I like the cover.  (Actually, this is my favourite cover of the four books.) So fa, so gud.  Going on the promise that the first book is not indicative of the series as a whole I went ahead and ordered the third and fourth books to finish my series and force myself to read to the bitter end.  Friends - people said they cried over the ending of this series.  Cried.  

Book two had the advantage over book one in that the storyline of the Igiby's fate had already started in book one, so we didn't need to repeat the 30-odd chapters of prequel type writing.  It moved preeeeeeetty slowly in the first half, though.  By chapter 29 [134 pages in] the family had still not reached the first village they were heading to on their journey.  As the book progressed, the story started to move along faster.

The writing did not initially improve; Peterson needed an editor very badly.  In some cases the same adjective was used in two consecutive sentences, which made reading aloud cumbersome.

The formulaic characters continued, and I started to actively dislike the two main adults.  The grandfather, Podo, who had seemed protective, blustering and weighed down by a heavy past in the first book, was much more antagonistic, irrational and angry in this book.  The mother, Nia, who had been caring and motherly but pretty unimportant to the plot of book one, was now essentially completely unnecessary in book two except to reinforce archaic feminine stereotypes.  I also feel like I need to repeat how incredibly violent and sad these stories become at times - there is a lot of punching, kicking, and blood.  A child is whipped and then locked in a coffin as punishment, feet are run over by carriages, children are forced into servitude and their parents into madness and extreme poverty, characters die in very dramatic ways; it's not an easy story to read aloud.

However, my children liked this book much better!  Bad guys chasing good guys, good guys making daring escapes, excitement, deception of dear friends and then intrigue!  And about two thirds of the way in the story really started to pick up and appeal more to me as well.  Also, fewer insane footnotes.  By the end of the book we were really engaged.

 

The Monster In The Hollows is book three.  In this book we finally have the family away from Skree, where they were living before, and 'safely' housed in the Green Hollows, where the mom character was from originally.  Before she married the king.  Anyway, if you thought the previous two books were violent and depressing, you're going to Not Like This One Very Much!  At this point pretty much everyone is mean to everyone else.  The girl character, Leeli, and Grandfather Podo, are both essentially absent from the story.  Nia, the mom, is just sort of...well she's just sort of there.  She doesn't seem to show much of any real growth in any of the books up to and including this one - she's the 'mourning' mom, the 'strong, silent queenly mom', and the person who does a lot of cooking, I guess.  

This story focuses mostly on the relationship between the two boys, Janner and Kalmar.  And it's a weird one, I'm not going to lie.  Janner has always been frustrated and short-tempered with his brother, and Kalmar is consistently immature and irresponsible.  It was like this in book one, book two, and now book three!  Again, no character growth.  Kalmar is depressed and self-sabotaging, and Janner is somehow expected to just act like he doesn't deserve to have things he loves.  The boys get to go to 'school', (Nia is not at ALLLLLLLL supportive.  It's sort of like 'well, make people like you.  Enjoy fighting!' Then just ignoring their bruises when they come home) which in the Green Hollows appears to consist of being beat up.  I'm not exaggerating here - this is school.  The boys join the Durgan Guild class (Janner doesn't want to, but no one cares what Janner wants to do with his life) and they spend a lot of time fighting.  There are bullies.  The teachers are weird and ugly and unsympathetic.  

Oh, and I don't want to totally ruin the book, so I won't spoil the story completely, but something happens at one point in the book that makes me realize that Nia is in the book solely to provide a sacrifice, one way or another.  

My children reacted to this third volume similarly to volume two - they were interested in the story - I mean it IS a story written with children in mind, odd as that may sound with these reviews.  We finished it, and they haven't asked for book four to start, but at this point, we're finishing the series if it kills us!

The Warden and The Wolf King is the fourth, and final, book in the Wingfeather Saga.  Review to come when we've finished it!

The salvaged plants

As children my sister and I learned quickly that one of the most exciting days of the week was garbage day, because you never knew what treasures would appear on the curbs of our middle-class neighborhood.  If you were especially fortunate, there would be a mostly dead plant.

I say fortunate because my mother loved nursing those dying little green things back to life and she was skilled at it.  We lugged home a potted palm once that remains, in my memory, a giant of a tree; my mother repotted it and it lived very happily for years behind my sister's kitchen chair - the receptacle for all the things she didn't want to eat for supper.

Mom couldn't resist the charm of needy plants, or even potentially needy plants.  Once I discovered a grocery store booklet on a shelf that explained how to grow a luscious indoor jungle out of food scraps and seeds.  At the time, this booklet was utterly captivating and made me think of lemon trees in the house and cucumber vines pinned along the ceiling, dripping fruit.

One does not simply grow out of the joy of sticking bits of your lunch in the dirt!  And this mild insanity much be hereditary since my middle daughter has joined the ranks of the afflicted.  Our windowsill holds three grapefruit trees and my Northern Ontario porch contains an enthusiastic mango tree( all courtesy of my daughter's penchant for making a hole and popping in a seed.

I can't point a finger, though, since alongside those grapefruit trees is an Aleppo pepper, a rosemary bush growing from a grocery store sprig, and a two foot tall avocado, all of which are my fault.  I'm also to blame for the African violet, which I was plant-sitting for a neighbor who said I may as well keep it since she didn't have luck with plants.  (Is there a sentence more likely to rustle the savior complex of the devout plant enthusiast?)  I couldn't let it go home to die, I insisted!

The little, unnamed succulent was salvaged (at $2.99!  What a bargain!) from the sale rack at the grocery store.  Oh, that we could all save a life for such a reasonable price!  The miniature orchid was carried hospital-bound as a gift, but the patient had been released, and the orchid just...never moved on from my shelf.  The spider plant was a cutting, and so was the other spider plant (And the third one, as well.  Shhhhh, hush now; it's fine, everything is fine.)

It spreads outward, this leafy desire of mine, into the garden filled with bulbs plucked from spoil heaps and peonies my father didn't want anymore and sweet peas grown from dried peas handed to me in a Ziploc bag from a friend.  At one point I had lettuce growing in the lawn, which is what happens if you don't pick your lettuce in time and it goes to seed and then you refuse to mow it down.  Lettuce makes such pretty lawn.

I have no logical reason for this.  I can't think why I do it, besides the tiny thrill of joy that comes from one, perfect, new leaf.

The Hundred Dresses

Estes wrote this Newberry Honor story in 1944, and it stands the test of time, remaining a heart-rending, yet child-friendly, look at the big issues of bullying, poverty, inequality, immigration and prejudice.  Although the story centers around the treatment of Wanda, a motherless Polish immigrant who lives in a shack in the rough end of town, in reality it's the story of Maddie, who realizes that while Wanda suffered at the hands of Peggy the bully, she stood by doing nothing.

Wanda's troubles start well before the incident of the hundred dresses - in truth she's never 'fit in'.  She is relegated to the back of the classroom, she has no friends, she stands alone in the schoolyard, and while no one is physically cruel to her - they don't have to be.

And then one day Wanda, desperate for attention, lies to the girls.  She claims she has a hundred dresses in her closet, all lined up.  Peggy finds this hilarious, and teases Wanda mercilessly, since it is obvious that Wanda has only the single, raggedy dress she wears everyday.

Children might relate to Maddie, who illustrates so many of us who hurt others simply by standing by and allowing injustice, but who pride themselves on never being the perpetrator.  Or they may relate to Peggy, who is a kind person at heart, who loves animals and is a good friend, but who teases Wanda because she thinks it is funny - who has no concept of Wanda's reality.  Or they might see themselves in Wanda, outcast, alone, trying clumsily to fit in.

I read this title to the 8yo and 6yo in one go.  It's a bit long for an easy bedtime read, but I think it's important to finish this story all at once to get the full benefit from it.  There's a lot to unpack in the book, and it can be a beautifully illustrated story of being a good person to those who are less fortunate, or it can be a jumping off point to deeper topics, depending on how you choose to use it.

Reading Notes - June

Still catching up on my backlog of notes.  Let's see if I actually wrote down what I read in June!  Ah, it looks like I only accomplished three adult books and the rest were read-alouds for the children.  Never mind, here they are anyway.

Four Girls At Chautauqua - Pansy (aka Isabella MacDonald Alden)

A ubiquitous Pansy book, one of a series set in or around the Chautauqua Christian Camp.  Did you know that Alden was Grace Livingston Hill's aunt?!  Apparently Hill continued some of the storylines.  I found the book in a junk shop years ago and finally picked it up last month to see what it was about.

Sometimes The Stones Are Very Lively - Jean Shaw

Terribly funny 1970s style Christian humor.  If you liked Adrian Plass, you'd like this.

Confessions Of A Common Reader - Anne Fadiman

One of two Fadiman books I bought myself as a birthday gift after having stared at them for ages online.  Her essays are little jewels and should be read by book lovers everywhere.

Reading Notes April and May

I kept picking up books to read, and then drifting off them, sometimes within a short sprint to the end.  I couldn't seem to stay on track, and I hadn't finished a book in weeks.  To counteract this decision fatigue and ennui I picked a bookcase, and a shelf, and just read from left to right.  No choices, no decisions, just books.

So, here we go!  I guess this is the April reading notes, then...and May

 I'm read the second shelf on the blue bookcase in my bedroom.  Book #1 is The Piano Shop on The Left Bank: The Hidden World of a Paris Atelier by T.E. Carhart.

Ah, I remember buying this book!  Actually I picked it up somewhere and then later bought it all over again because I couldn't remember if I'd bought it the first time.  Now I had two copies of a book I still hadn't read.  Sounds like me.  Apparently this is Carhart's first book, let me just look here and see when it was published...2000!  Has he written anything since?  Ah, yes he has - apparently a memoir and a historical novel.  There you go.

This nonfiction look into the secretive world of the atelier - the purveyors of pianos - is focused on a single dusty shop in Paris but Carhart stretches to bring us into the off passages of the instrument's history.  It's very light, a little whimsical, an excellent start to the shelf and I'm glad I finally read it and can give away my extra copy.

And the next unread book on this shelf is...The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald.  A novel!  Fun!  Well, it wasn't...FUN... exactly.  I did laugh aloud several times, especially at the ridiculous traditional Oxbridge style college (so reminiscent of my own dysfunctional college education).  But, oh, there was sadness.  And a horrifying ghost story before Fitzgerald brings you back to the possibility of the closed and barred doors in our lives opening to some hopeful future.  She never gives us the 'happy ending', though.

Right next to the Fitzgerald we have the next unread title - My Invented Country: A Memoir by Isabel Allende.  Oh, this one was such a good read!  I think it was around this time I started recording little videos about my books on Facebook, actually.  Having only read one Allende title before, and that many years ago, I was surprised at how FUNNY and relevant she was and how appealing and cozy her writing style came across.  It was like a very interesting and vibrant friend and I were sitting down discussing fascinating things together and she was telling me all the stories about Chile.

Okay, now the next one is...The Voice of Matthew by Lauren Winner.

Well.  What a disappointment.  It wasn't a Bible study, it was some sort of odd artistic Bible translation that, really, didn't do very well and it looks like many of the other books were scrapped.  I bet Winner wishes she could sweep this title under the rug.

Six degrees of separation.

Recently I've been thinking about taking a course.  I do this periodically - think about going to school for various subjects and then gently laying the thoughts aside when life seems like it wouldn't be conducive to the female adult taking a break, or to one person spending so much money on themselves, or whatever.  Anyway, I've been looking at this course and turning it over in my mind a bit and it occurred to me that I could probably talk to someone in the field to get an idea of what it would really be like to practice this skill.  And over two days the following situation slowly unfurled...

Oh, here's an organization that does that thing...interesting...bet they don't have an ABC department, though.

Oh, they do, and there's a guy who works in it!  I'd probably feel better talking to a wo-

Oh!  He also has a female colleague who does MORE of the work I would be interested in learning about!

I wonder if I could contact HER and just...ask about how the course work would translate into her field?  Just out of curiosity.  

 I left it at that and went to bed, and didn't think much about it to be honest.  The next day I woke up and put out a message asking for advice on the situation - would it be strange to invite her to lunch if I were in her area?  Would a Skype call be something I could conceivably do?  Is this weird?  Is it weird to ask someone about their career?

Unanimously the answer was no, this was not weird.  And one person said "Maybe you know someone who knows her.  Six degrees of separation!"

Well now that does put a different spin on it, doesn't it.  This person is fairly public, with a podcast, and a recently published book, and mentions in her online bio that her husband is a minister.  It is not inconceivable that I DO know her.  Feeling a little odd, but not enough to actually stop, I Googled her husband's name and found the church he ministered at.

My friend Mary attends that church!

A quick verification and yes, yes indeed Mary's pastor is the same man, and she knows the minister's wife, and of course she will introduce me.

All in two days.  

Things we've found to occupy ourselves

Let's be honest, school, life...nothing's been going well.  So here are some of the things the children and I HAVE been doing copious amounts of recently!

YouTube/Video Games/Online Comics - Our internet/computer rules are s.t.r.i.c.t.  You can only use a device with permission, Dad or Mom have to know what you're looking at, you must use the device in a room with an adult, you may not hide the screen from view, you may not navigate away from your page...so, you know, the computer isn't a free for all.  But the kids still enjoy stuff!  Here are some of the creators we love:

Mr. Maker - do you remember this guy from ages ago?  He's just the right level of craftiness for the soon-to-be-six year old, but the eight year old is so artistic that she does all of the crafts, too.

Simon's Cat - A funny little cat cartoon for my cat-loving 10yo.  Many of them are 'shorts' of under 10 minutes, but there are a fewer longer full-length cartoons.

Half-Asleep Chris - We like this guy's cat videos as well!  Now, he also has other videos on various topics, and while I can't picture him discussing anything inappropriate I haven't actually watched all of them so, preview if it matters to you.  But he's very family friendly.

Breaking Cat News - a really funny online comic.  Cats are big around here these days.  If you haven't noticed.

Prodigy Math - I've talked about this before!  My children love the online Prodigy Math Game.  It's free to play, although there are upgrades, which we don't bother paying for.  Children are little good wizards who solve math problems to progress through levels and fight bad guys.  There's no gore or unpleasantness at all.

TVOKids.com - Ontario's public broadcasting children's network.  You can play educational games online at a preschool or school age level (Really, nothing above maybe grade 6 level).  There are no ads.

Jacquie Lawson English Garden - If you've liked her e-cards, and you've taken my advice to buy her Advent Calendar, then you might like this game, as well.  She has an interactive English Garden one, and also a Curio Shop one!  Each game slowly unfolds over twelve days, and then is available forever for you to play.  The girls especially enjoy planting gardens and cleaning the greenhouse and what have you.

America's Test Kitchen - Let's Get Cooking.  Very popular DS game with the 8yo mini-chef, let me tell you.  She made maple glazed pork chops for us from the instructions on here.

Puzzles, of course.  At the beginning of quarantine we did essentially every single puzzle in our house.  So we were a little puzzled out.  But we just picked up a new one so I have a feeling we're about to ramp up puzzle time again.

And speaking of puzzles, adult-level paint-by-numbers are a thing!  I thought I wouldn't like them because I couldn't stand adult colouring books but surprisingly I LOVE THEM.  Here's the one I'm doing right now:

They take quite a while, obviously.  But I think the reason I'm enjoying it so much is that unlike colouring pages, these require absolutely no thinking.  I just put the numbered colour in the numbered square.  Sometimes you need mindless.