The Wives of Henry Oades by Johanna Moran

Johanna Moran's father brought home an abstract he found in a law journal about a man in the early 1900's who was tried three times for bigamy, and Moran has spun the details of the abstract into a fast-paced novel that's very hard to put down.

Really, The Wives of Henry Oades is a strange, heart-wrenching tale (though if there were laws and precedents, maybe it wasn't so very strange at the time) about a man whose family is kidnapped by the Maori of New Zealand and he's compelled to presume them dead, so he moves to San Francisco and slowly starts a new life--which eventually includes a new wife. Except that his family isn't dead, just captive, and when the escape, they come to find him.

You can imagine the circumstances of his being charged with bigamy. In Moran's telling, Henry is a dairy farmer and when his first wife and their children show up, the self-righteous Bible-thumpers in town take up arms. And though I know of zealots of the time who would have persisted in their persecution of Henry and his wives with the same fervor with which they preached temperance, after all was said and done with the story, I did feel that something was missing. Henry was too likeable.

When I explained the premise of the story and the not-one-but-three bigamy charges and ensuing harassment of and threats against the family, he said, "Who do you suppose he pissed off?" Which totally makes sense to me--it's hard to believe that kind of relentlessness being pitched against the kind soul Moran describes.

I really enjoyed this book, but in the end it feels a bit sugar-coated. Things just couldn't have been that simple, and I wouldn't have minded a more complex book that detailed more of the setting and gave perhaps a less rosy presentation of the characters.


Many thanks to HarperCollins for this ARC.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane approaches a familiar period in history--the Salem witch trials--with a different slant: What if there really were witches in Salem?

Howe has clearly done a lot of research to write this book, and the way it's presented (through the perspective of a history grad student about to embark on her dissertation) may grate on the nerves of some readers, but for this reader (who's been missing grad school), it's geekishly satisfying.

Unfortunately, the story affords no surprises. Everything is heavily foreshadowed, the characters are all stock and the writing occasionally feels a little graceless; some scenes are filler, unoriginal or poorly executed (especially compared to the writing Howe proves elsewhere in the story she is capable of offering).

I do appreciate the ease with which Howe's story flows between the historical periods and the modern (1991) setting. And did I mention that I really admire not only the amount of research Howe must have done, but also that a research process is incorporated into the story? (I am such a geek.)

Bottom line: I enjoyed this book, but not as much as I'd anticipated.


The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane will be available June 2009.

Maggie and the Chocolate War by Michelle Mulder

Maggie and the Chocolate War is the kind of book I would have read and reread as a kid.

The setting is Victoria, British Columbia (Canada) in 1947, when war rations have been done away with, but the cost of all varieties of foodstuffs are skyrocketing, resulting in most families being worse off than they were with the rations. Maggie, our main character, is trying to earn enough money to buy her friend Jo a chocolate bar for her tenth birthday, but the cost of chocolate bars hikes up to eight cents right before Jo's birthday. Kids are furious, because there's no way they'll be able to afford their favorite treat when the cost nearly doubles overnight. So, inspired by a lesson they learned from their favorite teacher, they decide to protest. They even march on the legislature.

Maggie is a surprisingly complex character who has to consider various points of view; her dad is a shopkeeper selling eight cent candy bars, so the protests could affect their family's income and cause them to have pare down their budget even more. Maggie has to make decisions about how her actions are going to effect those around her, and she has to deal with the myriad emotions that accompany those decisions.

One of my favorite features of the book is that instead of illustrations, the images in the book are copies of real newspaper articles and pictures of the boycotting kids. There's even an ad in which a chocolate manufacturer tries to explain why the cost of candy bars had to go up. Extra kudos to the author (assuming it was the author's decision) for including these copies of primary sources.

I will be holding on to this charming and empowering book for my own kids to read someday, and I'll probably be sending my niece in the States* a copy, too, for when she's able to read on her own. (She's two weeks old.)


Many thanks to Emma at Second Story Press for sending me this book!

*If you're in the States reading this with your kid(s), you might want to have a map of Canada and a map of BC handy for a light geography lesson.

Guernica by Dave Boling

Reading Guernica took me three weeks--not because I've been extremely busy, but because I had to motivate myself to pick it up and keep going every time I put it down.

I know almost nothing about the history of Spain (except for a little from this book and a little from reading The Last Queen), and Boling didn't really help me to understand the politics at work, so I had no idea whose motives were what. Boling may have had pure motives for that; he says in his notes that he "tried not to tax the reader with elaborations on the complex and volatile politics at work at the time," but I would have been grateful for some help in understanding the bigger picture.

Though he creates some interesting characters (many based on historical figures), those characters are too perfect--the graceful, beautiful women who make perfect wives; the strong, considerate men who make perfect husbands; the charming children who become one of the aforementioned. Even characters who started off with alleged weaknesses (Miguel couldn't talk to women) turned out to not really have those problems they were assigned. Not only that, but there were too many characters to keep track of; I couldn't keep them straight, which gets frustrating.

Also frustrating: the book was predictable. I'm not a person who tries to guess the plot ahead of time, but with this book what's going to happen is so obvious. And I'm not just talking about the destruction of the town, but of pretty much the whole plot.

I know some people who have read this really liked the inclusion of Picasso amongst the characters, but I only found him, at first anyway, annoying--another character to keep track of. In fact, I thought the whole first part of the book could have been left off, the pertinent details included elsewhere. I was, however, fascinated by the description of the painting of Guernica, which Picasso painted after the German attack on the town. I'd never seen it, so I had to look it up.

Overall, the book was mediocre, but the research was impeccable. History buffs will likely enjoy it far more than I did. If you are not a history buff and want to give it a go, I'd highly recommend that you at least read up a little on the Spanish Civil War--on Wikipedia or some other (more reliable) reference site--beforehand.

The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner

I didn't know this: Spain had a queen, daughter of Isabel and Ferdinand, called Juana la Loca (sister of Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII) who never officially took the throne--she fell victim to the power-hungry men around her and was eventually locked away while her father ruled in her stead.

In The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner, she is finally given a voice in the form of historical fiction. Following in the footsteps of writing narratives of other little-known people who played important roles on the royal scene (Philippa Gregory comes to mind), Gortner creates a convincing story for this mysterious Spanish princess Juana.

Like Philippa Gregory's works, The Last Queen transported me to the setting--16th century Spain & Austria. I dreamed as though I were one of Juana's ladies. I didn't wake up feeling I should be dressed in silks or brocades or whatever the ladies wore, but instead I felt the distress and uncertainty of serving this woman who was used as a pawn all her life, often treated as a prisoner, and refused the right to her own inheritance.

Was Juana really mad? (There are indications of psychological issues in her family.) Or was she locked away as a woman getting in the way of men? Either way, this story has sparked my interest--I'll be trying to locate a biography, maybe the 1939 book on Gortner's list of references. Recommended to people who like historical fiction and/or are fascinated by stories of royalty. (The princess locked in the tower isn't a fairy tale.)

Thank you to C.W. Gortner for arranging to have me sent a review copy.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I think there was only one thing that bugged me in this book, and that's because I took four years of German in high school. (I wasn't particularly delighted with the integration of basic German into the characters' dialogue when the rest was in English.) I just thought I'd get that out of the way, because otherwise, I really liked this book.

Death, the narrator of The Book Thief, doesn't have much of a sense of humor. I'm not sure he saw much to be humorous about in the 1940's; as he keeps pointing out, he was pretty busy. But he loves colors and figurative language. And he loves Liesel, the book thief of Himmel Street. He doesn't seem great at suspense--he keeps telling readers what's coming five chapters ahead, but it never happens like you think it's going to happen. Well, almost never.

The book is set in Germany during World War II, but though there are Nazis, they're more on the fringe than part of the story. Death first sees Liesel as she's on her way to a foster home, but he encounters her several more times before the end of the war. (Of course people die--it's a war. And yes, if you're inclined to cry at sad movies or books, you will cry during this book.) I especially liked the formatting of the section pages:

Part 6

The Dream Catcher

featuring:
death's diary--the snowman--thirteen
presents--the next book--the nightmare of
a jewish corpse--a newspaper sky--a visitor--
a schmunzeler--and a final kiss on a poisoned cheek

I also appreciate the way that moments and thoughts were highlighted within the chapters, set aside in bold text and centered:

* * * HE SURVIVED LIKE THIS * * *

He didn't go into battle that day.

Sometimes they let readers know what was about to happen and sometimes it's just a reflection of something that had happened. Either way, it's very effective. I suppose those are Death's asides.

Like the cover--someone about to push over set up dominoes--the book is rushing toward disaster. I think Death at one point called it "beautiful destruction" (tongue-in-cheek). Despite the perpetual threat of annihilation, the beauty of the story is Death's being drawn to this good person in the middle of the war and making a point of telling her story, which he finds impossible to forget.

The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen

I bought this book several years ago on the recommendation of another teacher. She said she liked it better than Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. I have very fond memories of Number the Stars, having read it several times in my own junior high years; I really can't compare the two, having read The Devil's Arithmetic so much later and knowing so much more about the Holocaust now than I did.

Yolen's story is similar to other YA books I've liked--a frame story in which the protagonist goes back in time (somehow) to experience for themselves the horror of what "it" was like. For as complicated as the Holocaust was, Yolen manages to compress a considerable amount of the horror into these pages meant for readers of 10-12 years of age. I found the experience of the boxcar horrible enough, and it was just a few pages representing four days.

While adult readers may find themselves questioning the timelines and factuality of the events in the story (some parts seemed too sudden) and finding it lacking in the punch of everything that happened in the Holocaust, I think younger readers will be engrossed by the terrible things humans have done to each other--especially if they realize that similar atrocities are still being committed elsewhere in the world. An excellent book to use for teachers of Holocaust history, especially at the 4th, 5th or 6th grade level as an introduction to this particular part of the past.

The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff

Pam Jenoff has created a story that you won't want to put down. I love the cover--that alone would have been difficult for me to resist. The characters are, for the most part, well developed, and Emma's/Anna's involvement with the Jewish resistance makes for a driving plot.

At times, I confess, I found the internal dialogue feels tedious--she keeps having the same argument with herself. But this conflict is actually part of what makes it readable. How often do you have an argument with yourself about a major decision just once?

One problem I did have was Anna's insistence that she "had no choice" throughout the last half of the book, when her aunt-in-law Krysia made it very clear in the beginning that there's always a choice. I don't know if it's that I think she needs to be called out for the choices she's made, or if I just didn't like her refusal to acknowledge that these were her decisions, for which there would be consequences.

The only character who was underdeveloped was the Kommandant himself, but I'm not sure that we would find his so irresistible otherwise.

An intense and enjoyable book. If I rated on a five star scale, I'd give it four stars.