Not Just a Witch by Eva Ibbotson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I wanted something a bit lighter, since my life right now has been "challenging", and this fit the bill for this, but the story didn't quite make it for me.

The characters are the main attraction, but somehow, I just didn't find out enough about them to make a real connection. For example, you don't really get to know Heckie and her friend Dora, before they have a big fight and stop talking to each other. You don't care enough about the friendship to feel its loss until much later in the book.

And some of the characters, especially the other witches and the children, seem uni-dimensional. One wizard wants to make cheese walk. This could be a great joke, but it isn't developed enough to help me understand him - to feel his quirks and sympathize with him. It is just a one-line joke, until it comes in handy later in the story. You do find out a lot about some of the villains, but what you find out is mostly there to convince you that Heckie's plan for them (turning them into animals) is justified.

I don't think children would mind these flaws, but for me, it keeps the book from being a classic. Enjoyable, but superficial.

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Review: The Complete Funky Winkerbean 1972-1974

The Complete Funky Winkerbean 1972-1974 by Tom Batiuk

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think the author of this book and I are of a similar era, so this retrospective was, for me, a walk through my past as well. The difference in the humor of that era to the current one is minor, but it seems to me that it is a bit gentler. There is a long-running gag about Les getting turned down for dates. The difference is that he largely puts himself down and the girls that he asks don't put him down cruelly, they just say no. One even says yes, but he is so focused on accepting a negative answer that he doesn't even notice.

That said, I think his writing didn't venture too far from the stereotypes of the day. The football hero is stupid; the feminist is abrasive; the cheerleaders are "hot". Funky and Les are better developed than the other characters, but most of the minor characters are rather one-dimensional.

There are a couple of minor characters that are intriguing; Crazy Harry is a favorite of mine. He is an underachiever and satisfied with confronting the norms through passivity. The school counselor, Mr. Fairgood, a couple of the teachers, and the principal, all give the strip a chance to poke at the cluelessness of some of the adults.

I enjoyed the book. I have a relatively large collection of cartoons and comics (though not the standard comic books) and I am happy to add this to my collection.



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Review: The Last To Know

The Last To Know by Melissa Hill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Unabashedly chick lit, but page turning. A good summer read.



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Review: May B.

May B. by Caroline Starr Rose
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was good, but the blank verse didn't work as well for me. It made the story a bit too sparse for me - and too short. I am not a big fan of short stories and this read, to some extent, like a short story.

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Review: Nerd Camp

Nerd Camp by Elissa Brent Weissman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I would actually give this 3 1/2 stars, if that were allowed, but I am rounding up, due to this being about nerds. The book is a fairly standard tween type book, with one kid wondering if his nerdiness will keep his new stepbrother from liking him, but at the same time really enjoying his nerdy summer camp. The nerdiness questions get a little old after a while, but I think they have to be there.

As an interesting aside: this is one of the few American books I have read, where relationships to family and other adults are portrayed really positively. I give it a plus for that, even though, at times, the positive feelings border on sugary. In fact, there is a bit of the too-positive throughout the whole book - another reason for the 3 1/2 stars.
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Review: Flying Solo

Flying Solo by Ralph Fletcher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This book worked better than I thought it would, just from reading the blurbs. There is a lot of thinking crammed into a short-ish novel. In fact, it reads a little bit like a series of short stories - short vignettes tied together by some common threads. But it comes together surprisingly well.

I wasn't completely satisfied with the ethics of the resolution, but then I am a substitute teacher and I am perhaps biased by my experiences with 6th grade classes.



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Review: The Snow Queen

The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I like the illustrations for this, but I didn't love the story as much as I had hoped.



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