Tik-Tok of Oz by L Frank Baum

Title: Tik-Tok of Oz

Author: L Frank Baum

Pages: 271

Finished: August 29, 2017

First Sentence: "I won't!" cried Ann; "I won't sweep the floor."

Summary: Queen Ann of Oogaboo decides to raise an army and take over Oz, but when Glinda the Good finds out about this, the sorceress works some magic so the Oogaboo army ends up somewhere else. Meanwhile, Betsy Bobbin and her mule Hank find themselves shipwrecked in the land of the Rose Kingdom where they meet the Shaggyman and the Rose Princess. Also, Polychrome dances on the ground for too long during her father's visit to the land and finds herself stranded on the ground. When they all finally meet, up, they decide to save the Shaggyman's brother from the Nome King.

Thoughts: I remember this book. This is the one where the Shaggyman forgets he ever met POlychrome before! Right. The edition I read had an editor's note in here discussing how Baum wanted to write a play based off Ozma of Oz, but because he sold the rights to his characters to movie studios, he couldn't use them. Thus he made new characters for that play and called it TikTok of Oz. Betsy Bobbin was written as a stand in for Dorothy, and Queen Ann was originally written as a stand in for Ozma. When his fans wrote in for more Oz books, they asked for some of those characters to show up, and thus this story was born.

This does explain some of the massive continuity issues such as Shaggyman forgetting he ever met Polychrome when they traveled together in The Road to Oz (though I feel that should have been found and ironed out). However, some of his rules are still inconsistent. Obviously Betsy Bobbin and Hank were in Fairyland the minute they ended up in the Rose Kingdom, but Hank couldn't speak. Contrast that to Billina, Eureka, and Jim the Horse from their respective books. Even more obnoxious, Baum even goes so far as to explain that Toto actually can talk but refuses to!

Also, how does one pronounce Tititi-Hoochoo's name?

I feel like Guph was different than he was before. Of course, that could be explained by the forgetfulness that happened in one of the previous books, but Ruggedo (formerly Roquat) seemed just as nasty as he had been before.

I have six books left in this challenge. One a month isn't too bad, but they are definitely getting more and more difficult to read.

Read for The Wizard of Oz Read Along.

A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Title: A Night Divided

Author: Jennifer A. Nielsen

Pages: 317

Finished: August 22, 2017

First Sentence: There was no warning the night the wall went up.

Summary: Gerta's father and brother travel to West Berlin just before the Berlin wall goes up, effectively separating the family for years. Gerta, her oldest brother, and her mother live on the East Berlin side of the wall. It's a world of want, spying on your neighbors, and wanton propaganda. Gerta thinks she'll never see her family again when she sees her father on a viewing platform, miming the act of digging. Now it's a race for her to dig her way under the wall before her brother is conscripted into the army.

Thoughts: The Cold War is a history I've read very little about, and what I know is primarily from the American side of things. It amazes me that conditions were like this so late in the game. By the time I was old enough to be aware of anything, Germany was a unified country again (though the wall came down in my lifetime). 

This year, the vast majority of the books on the Caudill list seem to be working to make kids aware of the situation at hand in our world. Books about kids who have no money, or are in bad situations and can't get out of them. Books about fascism. Books about racism. This one takes a historical look at a fascist country where people who are different are a threat. Definitely a world I don't want to live in.

Read for the Caudill Challenge.

Back to the Classics Wrap Up

Final wrap-up for Back to the Classics 217 challenge.

1.  A 19th century classic : The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. finished 12/19  
2.  A 20th century classic: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - finished 8/17
3.  A classic by a woman author: Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell - finished 3/14
4.  A classic in translation.  Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne - finished 9/14
5.  A classic published before 1800: The Odyssey by Homer - finished 9/25
6.  A romance classic: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen - finished 12/10
7.  A Gothic or horror classic: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier - finished 1/18
8.  A classic with a number in the title. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - finished 8/1
9.  A classic about an animal or which includes the name of an animal in the title: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling - finished 2/7
10. A classic set in a place you'd like to visit: The Once and Future King by T. H. White - finished 10/16
11. An award-winning classic: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell - finished 5/30
12. A Russian classic: Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev - finished 6/15

Favorites: Rebecca, Wives and Daughters, The Once and Future King, Northanger Abbey

Least Favorites: The Jungle Book, Fathers and Sons, Journey to the Center of the Earth

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Title: The Bell Jar

Author: Sylvia Plath

Pages: 273

Finished: August 17, 2017

First Sentence: It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't even know what I was doing in New York.

Summary: Esther Greenfield talks about the summer she descends into madness and how she gets out again.

Thoughts: I will admit when I picked this book, I wasn't fully excited to read this. It's one I missed out on somehow, but people referred to it as the female Catcher and the Rye. I hated Cather in the Rye. But I wanted to try this.

I loved it. I read it in the span of 24 hours and probably could go again to get a better idea of what I read because I was reading so fast. I couldn't get over Esther's decent. How effortlessly Plath took us through the whole journey that went from, "Hmmm, Why is she so off?" to "Holy shit!" It was so accurate (and from what I've seen is semi-autobiographical). I'm so glad I added this too my list.

Read for the Back to the Classics Challenge

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Title: Ready Player One

Author: Ernest Cline

Pages: 372

Finished: August 14, 2017

First Sentence: Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.

Summary: 2044. Economic collapse. Large amounts of unemployment. Large amounts of overcrowding. Really the only place anyone wants to be is in the OASIS, a virtual reality where one can be whomever they want. When OASIS's creator dies, he leaves his legacy in an Easter Egg, a giant contest. The winner gets his fortune and propriety of the game. And five years later, Wade Wilson finds the first clue. A clue that puts him and everyone else who finds it in danger.

Thoughts: I honestly knew nothing about this when I picked it up other than the fact that Wil Wheaton liked it. But we had to read a dystopia for a work book discussion, and I wasn't really feeling 1984 or The Giver. And while I want to reread Handmaids Tale, now's not the time.

So I picked up this, and boy am I glad I did. I immediately fell into the world of the OASIS. Now, I'm a 90s child, but my parents did try to show us some of the 80s stuff. So I really did enjoy the things they discussed. I enjoyed the storyline. Nice bit of speculative fiction.

Not part of a challenge.

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier

Title: Wildwood Dancing

Author: Juliet Marillier

Pages: 400

Finished: August 9, 2017

First Sentence: I've heard it said that girls can't keep secrets.

Summary: Jena and her sisters go dancing every full moon in the fairy realm located in the woods behind their home. When their father leaves for the winter to hopefully avoid the cold and get healthy again, he leaves two oldest sisters in charge with help from their cousin. When their cousin takes over the household and threatens to bring down the woods, it's up to Jena and her sisters to figure a way out of their situation. Part Twelve Dancing Princesses, part Dracula, and part Frog Prince, this is a very interesting story set in Transylvania.

Thoughts: The book took a little while to hook me. Cezar was intensely unlikable, to the point where I actually threw my book across the room in anger at him. The gaslighting was intense and very uncomfortable.  I did really appreciate a fairy tale set in Romania. I don't know my Romanian folklore so well, and I'm really looking forward to studying it more. In the end, I really did like the book, and I'm glad the bad guy got what was coming to him. I also really enjoyed the fact that the dancing was what the girls wanted to do rather than something they were forced to do by a malicious spirit as so many of the retellings talk about.

Read for my retelling challenge.

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson

Title: Roller Girl

Author: Victoria Jamieson

Pages: 240

Finished: August 5, 2017

Summary: Astrid discovers Roller Derby and decides she and her best friend HAVE to sign up for Roller Derby camp this summer. Sadly, she and her best friend have a falling out, and it turns out she's really not that good at roller skating. She spends the novel trying to figure out her own identity.

Thoughts: I really liked how the kids acted their age. They're fifth graders going into sixth grade, and they felt like that in this book. I really liked the idea of roller derby too. Such a neat sounding sport. A solid middle grade graphic novel similar to Raina Telgemeir's work.

Three Bluestems

Crossing Niagara by Matt Tavares

This is a non-fiction picture book talking about the Great Blondin crossing the tightrope across the Niagara Falls. Would be really fun to read to Kindergartiners through second grade probably. Full of terrifying tricks to make an adult's stomach drop at the thought of doing them!

Separate is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh

I really appreciated this book. Separate is Never Equal is a nonfiction picture book about the Mendez vs the Board of Education case in the 1940s to desegregate schools in the California area for primarily Latinx families. I had never heard of this fight for desegregation. I thought this book laid it out nicely for early elementary children, and the author's note at the end gave more information that could be used as an jumping off point for more information. 

The Most Amazing Creature in the Sea by Brenda Z Guiberson

This non-fiction picture book posits the question what is the most amazing creature in the sea, then procedes to talk about various candidates. The various creatures range from really neat to absolutely disgusting, to terrifying. Definitely a fun read for early elementary school.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Title: Fahrenheit 451

Author: Ray Bradbury

Pages: 158

Finished: August 1, 2017

First Sentence: It was a pleasure to burn.

Summary: Following the general plot of any dystopia, man discovers life could be different and then things go to hell. In all seriousness though, Montag is a firefighter, though in this novel, firefighters are responsible for burning books. He meets a neighbor girl who seems to be a bit off. One day, he steals a book from a fire in which the woman who owned the books commits suicide. From there his whole life changes and he freaks the hell out and causes a huge ruckus.

Thoughts: This will contain spoilers. Oh boy. I don't really want to go into censoring books. I'm a librarian and of the opinion that censoring books is dangerous. I was unimpressed with most of the characters. The only one I liked was Clarisse and she only lasted a few pages. I found Beatty's use of the published word to bully so intensely uncomfortable. Also, I'm not quite sure why he had it out for Montag from the beginning. I get why later, but he clearly had something against Montag from the start.

Wasn't a huge fan of how women were portrayed. This is actually something I'm noticing in all the books I'm reading. When women write books in these time periods, there's at least one capable female character. Or if she's not she becomes capable. Etc. I've seen little enjoyable about the women in the books written by men.

Didn't understand the whole war at the end. Spent most of the novel thinking that it was fake, but then the bombs dropped for real and the city was wiped out. I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out if it was the Russians or the US.

The one speech I thought was interesting was the one Beatty gave about how the world is where it is because of the people's own doing. It basically describes our political climate in the US right now to a T. I will say the book was compelling. I wanted to keep reading and read it pretty darn quickly. So, glad I read it but won't reread.

Read for Back to the Classics Challenge.

August Reads

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - Back to the Classics (Not Pictured)
Crossing Niagara by Matt Tavares - Bluestem 

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - Back to the Classics

The Most Amazing Creature in the Sea by Brenda Z Guiberson - Bluestem

A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen

The Odyssey by Homer - Back to the Classics

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - For Work

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson - Bluestem & Caudill

Separate is Never Equal by Duncan Tonatiuh - Bluestem

Sunshine by Robin McKinley - Personal Challenge Quit Book

Tik-Tok of Oz by L Frank Baum - Wizard of Oz 

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier - Retellings

Slade House by David Mitchell - Personal Challenge

Three of these are picture books and will probably be reviewed in one entry. One is a graphic novel. One was thrust upon me when I got to work today and has to be read by August 21st. So twelve but really eight or nine. So not so bad.

The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L Frank Baum

Title: The Patchwork Girl of Oz

Author: L Frank Baum

Pages: 364

Finished: July 29, 2017

First Sentence: "Where's the butter, Unc Nunkie?" asked Ojo.

Summary: Ojo and his Unc Nunkie visit the Crooked Magician just before taking a trip through the rest of Munchkinland when misfortune befalls them. While trying to bring a Patchwork Girl to life with his Powder of Life, the Magician accidentally turns his wife and Unc Nunkie to stone with his Liquid of Petrification. It's up to Ojo, Scraps the Patchwork Girl, and Bungle the Glass Cat to find all the parts to the spell to bring them back to life.

Thoughts: I will freely admit it's getting harder and harder to get through these. I feel like some of the geography was off in this one from previous books, but then continuity is not Baum's strong point. He mentions Dorothy's pink kitten Eureka. Last I remember Eureka was normal cat colored and went back to America with Dorothy because she wasn't very welcome in Oz. And they mentioned the Tin Man being careless with his ax again instead of the ax being enchanted to cut off his appendages as was told in the first book.

Also, this is the first book where I didn't really remember anyone other than the cat who has pink brains. You can see 'em work. :eyeroll:

Read for my Wizard of Oz challenge.