Wednesday, Reading

[pantryslut]

I thought for a while there I wasn't going to be able to post this today because I had a service outage in my neighborhood that was estimated to end about the time I have to leave to pick up the kids from school. But it's fixed now, so here I am. I finished "Out," which was great. I have some tiny, tiny reservations about the denouement, but they are miniscule writerly nitpicks that aren't even worth discussing here. I don't even mean style questions, I mean "if I were writing this book" thoughts, and, well, I was *not* writing that book, so really I should shut up already.

I've just started Michelle Tea's "A Mermaid in Chelsea Creek." Also (yes, there is a link here) I am looking for a book to read aloud to the kids. I think, after a rapidly-moving FaceBook discussion this morning, that it's going to be "Charlotte's Web," but I am still entertaining other suggestions for the future. Girl/women and POC protagonists prioritized; fantasy is great, scary is great, something that *I* will enjoy reading aloud is crucial, and I am actively trying to avoid "the usual suspects" (e.g. Harry Potter) mostly because of the lattermost point. Vocabulary/reading level is mostly irrelevant (although I don't think the kids are up for Dickens yet/still. They did fine with Alice in Wonderland, though, which is trickier than you might remember, and subtler too, at least if you're six).

Comments

[boxofdelights]

Have you tried The True Meaning of Smekday? Protagonist is mixed-race girl. Some scary, but not too much. Really funny. One fat joke. Not a usual suspect, but it ought to be.

http://smekday.com/

[pantryslut]

Thanks!

[boxofdelights]

Now that I think about it I have no idea why I said it was not too scary. It begins with our middle-school-aged protagonist setting off to drive across the country (figuring out driving as she goes) alone because her mother has been abducted by aliens who then invade. This would not be a good rec for kids who want a book that's not too scary.

[pantryslut]

That's OK, they are smack in the middle of the "scary is cool" phase.

[malka]

(I read your second paragraph as a request for recs. I apologize for the intrusion if I'm mis-reading it.)

Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles is great fun. The first book is called something like "Dealing with Dragons" (all the titles have the same general format, which makes remembering difficult) and starts with a princess trying the argument "Well, I'm learning Latin and I'm a princess, so it is too done by princesses." It's definitely fantasy. It holds up well enough for an adult reader that I voluntarily re-read it. It's mostly non-scary, although there are a few bits that could be played up if you wanted.

[pantryslut]

"I am still entertaining other suggestions" is definitely to be construed as a request for recs :)