Lowly’s Book Blog

I know that I am way behind my reading list when the CBC shortlist is announced and I haven’t read any of the list. I was at the launch of this book and bought a copy 12 months ago because it sounded interesting, but actually read it only yesterday.

The story is set in WWI, where three girls about 17 years old are attending a finishing school. Anne, daughter of a Duchess, Ethel, the daughter of a grocer and Midge, an orphaned New Zealander whose brothers are serving in the army. When Midge hears that Tim is missing at Gallipoli, she decides that she isn’t wasting any more time learning to balance books on her head, but rather go to France and see if she can find a soldier who knows what happened to her brother. Ethel and Anne come with her and together they set up a canteen at a railway station. But Midge’s skills are too valuable. Soon she is driving an ambulance between the aid station and the evacuation centre. Her search for her brother leads her to make friends with some soldiers, first a captain, and then eventually a private soldier. Midge works in France until her older brother is wounded and then she looks after him and they both return home to New Zealand.

The story is given a modern link in the person of Lachlan, who in 1975 is forced to push his grandfather in the annual ANZAC parade. Curiously his grandfather leaves a rose from his front garden at the War Memorial in town. Many years later, Lachlan understands why.

Jackie French did a lot of research before she wrote this story. In her speech at the book’s launch, she told us how she felt it was important to remind everyone of the important and dangerous work that women in France did to support the men fighting the battles. She certainly succeeded with this book.

A Rose for the Anzac Boys was riveting. I finished it in one sitting. It will be a joy to promote it to my classes next week.

Finally, I have reached the end of the series. And I am so glad that I waited to read the books until all four were available. Somehow the series seemed complete at the end of book 3. The love triangle was resolved, what more was there to say. I mean if she continued the series, Meyer may have to come up with an original plot. Is it possible?

Yes! The final book in the series is by far the most original and therefore interesting. The story opens with Bella and Edward’s wedding, honeymoon and other good stuff for the tween girls. But the plot takes a twist when the human Bella gets pregnant. How is it possible for a living human to carry and nurture a vampire baby? From here Meyer is in brand new territory which she handles with skill. 

I don’t want to go on much further because the summary will make absolutely no sense to anyone who has not read the first three books, and it will ruin the story for anyone still proceeding through the series.

Some Meyer fans have said that this book is just the publisher pushing Meyer to produce another best seller for purely financial reasons. They claim the book is boring and rambles on and on. I suspect they felt that way because the book is so refreshingly different. The story is much bigger than Edward and Bella. Not only is little Renessmee part of their lives, but suddenly the extended family and werewolf network is critically important. This book is much bigger than a simple love story, and I suspect the disappointed readers simply wanted more of the same.

Thank you Meyer for saving the best until last!

Very rarely do I have the time to read a prize winning book. This one arrived with the Vogel Award badge printed on it’s front cover. But yet it is a new release. Does that mean that the manuscript won the award? Very impressive.

 The book is about a dysfunctional family. George works at the local ten-pin bowling alley at a dead end job. His boss has him pegged, and he gets the garbage jobs, literally. His girlfriend has just left him and he is grieving for the relationship while trying to work out what went wrong, and even dreaming of putting things back together. He is clearly suffering from post traumatic stress after walking in on a home invasion. The details are sketchy, but that constant fear has a serious impact on his behaviour when a prowler is seen in the neighbourhood. His brother Matthew is seriously troubled. He was driving when in a moment of youthful silliness there was an accident and his girlfriend/fiancé was killed. Grief and depression overwhelm the young man who can only find solace in a fantasy relationship with Magda Szubanski. George is looking after his older brother while keeping an eye on sad-but-smiling Mum. Enter Stacey, who seems to provide easy comfort, but what does she really want?

 This book thoroughly deserves the award. The writing is surreal, but absorbing. The reader very quickly comes to care about this family. George’s narration is straightforward and sensible, very clearly indicating the responsible young man that he is. Matthew’s narrations are far more symbolic and literary, but still have a warmth and sincerity that holds your attention. I even liked Mum, clearly suffering from a mental illness, but her love for her sons is genuine.

 As is often the case, I do have a problem with the publisher’s marketing. The cover indicated that I could expect a humorous book. Admittedly everyone has a different taste in humour, but I found this book to be very clearly a family drama examining the nature of grief. Thought-provoking and powerful, yes. Funny, no.

I was very much looking forward to this second book in the Fine Mess series.  And I was not disappointed

Michael and Woody are two young boys who have a nose for disaster. The first book in the series opened with a trebuchet test that sent a brick through the stained glass window of the church in the middle of a wedding.  I was waiting to see what they would get up to this year.

And there was no disappointment. Are you curious about exploding fire trucks, exploding cows or even a willy-willy laden with sewage. This is a funny book guatanteed to delight the most reluctant and resistant reader.

I normally promote this book by asking for some sensible boys to borrow it, just to get it off the shelves so the troublemakers don’t get any ideas. That almost always works.

I will admit that I read this book quite a while ago. It didn’t really impress, and therefore this review has waited.

Murray wants to escape the boredomand frustration of his life on an Australian farm. He runs away to the army during WW2. He gets sent to New Guinea, and believing that the Japanese will never get that far, his story focusses on his friendships formed in his fighting unit. Then his arch enemy from home arrives in the same unit. Murray deserts, up the Kakoda Track, where he runs into another unit fighting those Japanese that were never going to get that far.

Palmer has told this story with great historical accuracy. He should because he has made a living making documentaries for the BBC. With all the media attention about sports stars and other celebrities ‘doing’ the Kakoda Trail, I believe it is important that children have an easily accessible way of finding out why that particular part of the world is so historically important.

Thank you Tony Palmer.

I suspect there is a special arts grant to encourage New Zealand authors to write ‘books for boys’. Certainly there have been many books reviewed here in the past months. This book is obviously the one that I have found most recently.

Josh is a young man whose life is falling apart. His father’s business has gone bankrupt and both the house and his grandparent’s were mortgaged to finance a ’survival’ package. Everything is gone. On their last Christmas holiday at the Grandparent’s property at the beach Josh’s mother volunteers him to teach another boy to surf. Combined with the fact that the school bully has also come to the same beach for a holiday, Josh is facing the worst summer holiday ever.

For the most part this book is very average. But then Scholastic specialises in average books for average kids. I did find the angry voice of Josh very convincing. At fifteen when your world appears to be falling apart, anger is going to be the most natural reaction, and here it is convincingly portrayed.

However, I do wish that someday a book for teens would provide a realistic solution to the problem of a bully. Somehow waiting until the bully is in a life or death situation and then rescuing him is not going to work for every kid.

Hey, I’ve been discovered!! There are readers out there.

 Check out the following http://www.middlemiss.org/weblog/matilda/ for reference to my review of The Ghost Child and http://egyptology.blogspot.com/2008/04/fiction-review-pharaoh-boy-who.html for a reference to my review of Pharaoh.

Celebrate!!

I am willing to admit it when I make a mistake. This week I handed Little Fur and A Fox Called Sorrow to a young friend who instantly fell in love with them both. She commented on Crow’s use of language and Little Fur’s committment to a cause.

So maybe it is a better publication than I thought.