Mosque by David Macaulay. Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
The intro is sort of dry, but the melding of fiction and nonfiction with fascinating detail on construction held my interest to the end. Yet why was there such a need for bathing? (I know it’s ritual bathing, but the text doesn’t tell me this.) There’s a ton of info on engineering, but not much on culture. The how is thorough; the why is underdeveloped.
This book was made up of poems from different points of view and usually in differing and discernible voices all telling one story.
The plot, though ... the story seemed to end at the wrong spot. It ended with...
The power of a great opening: Pullman’s The Golden Compass begins, “Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen.” We see a bit of each method of creating conflict. We know...
Lowry opens The Giver with a description of fear and immediately cements the unusualness of the world she’s created as well as giving us insight into the young protagonist, Jonas. She also is so deliciously good at creating a Utopia that seems wonderful, at the start, and only slowly...
The intro is sort of dry, but the melding of fiction and nonfiction with fascinating detail on construction held my interest to the end. Yet why was there such a need for bathing? (I know it’s ritual bathing, but the text doesn’t tell me this.) There’s a ton of info on engineering, but not much...
Lear was the youngest of 21 children and was brought up by his sister, who cared for him until he was nearly 50. He was an eternal child with “invincible boyishness,” according to the editor. This collection...
The style is hysterically understated and plays off stereotypes of the grumpy farmer and meddlesome wife. I found...
This is a Charlotte Zolotow book, which is no surprise. Such lovely language, metaphor, all the poetic devices one learns in school. I don’t read music, but this reads like I imagine music to be read...
Rich and fun fantasy. Ibbotson starts off with quaint Brittishisms, ghosts, and secret doors to other worlds. What’s not to love? Loads of fantastical invention and a heavy dose of political correctness. Atmospheric with a distant 3rd person narrator, similar in voice to others like...
Would it be admitting ignorance to say I don’t like poems I don’t understand? I mean, I sort of understand “The Perceiving Self,” but I mostly don’t. It makes me wonder...
Rebecca has been writing since childhood, her first book about a kitten published between homemade cardboard covers in second grade. Although she studied religion and philosophy in university, she continued writing, earning an MFA from Hamline University and publishing multiple picture books (no longer with homemade covers) and a collection of poetry with a variety of New York and independent publishers. She has also published a wide array of fiction, essays, and poetry in magazines and journals and photographs for Getty Images. She balances writing with homeschooling the younger of her six children, launching her young adults, church activities, and overseeing a small flock of chickens in rural West Michigan.
In honor of a very special day, I thought I'd revive this old post about a book I found, um, intriguing, with some interesting asides...