Reading Like A Kid, Part 3

I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak

Not just for kids! This was one of the best things I've read recently. Underage cab driver foils robbery by mistake; later, gets playing card messages sending him about Australian town to intervene in lives of strangers and friends.

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Sort-of historical fiction with magic, and teen cutting issues. I was OK except for too much magic.

The Kite Rider by Geraldine McCaughrean

Chinese boy attempts to avenge the death of his father by strapping himself to kites and joining the circus. Later he meets Kublai Kahn.

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

People are attached to animal-soul things, except when the evil parents of the main girl try to cut them off. So she finds a bear and a blimp flier and more. You don't need a lie detector to know that I wasn't so into this book.

An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1763 by Jim Murphy

Very readable history for kids should probably be read by adults too.

Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie Tolan

Rebel poseur has to join an artist colony/family after expulsions and the incarceration of his pot growing parents.

Stuart Little by E.B. White

He's maybe not actually a mouse. Well, technically, according to the text. I read it to deal with this article:Species Trouble: The Abjection of Adolescence in E. B. White's Stuart Little .


Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

A nice picture book biography about a guy who liked to take photos of snowflakes.

Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky

Pictures are pretty, and it's an interesting compilation of sorts of the Rapunzel tale. Although I see this one so much more often than other versions (probably due to its Caldecott Medal) that it seems likely that it will become standard.

Golem by David Weisniewski

Really neat pictures, despite it having won the Caldecott I'm not totally sure of the audience for this one. Probably for older kids who have some background, yet are willing to appreciate the picture book format.

Mirette on the High Wire by Emily Arnold McCully

OK, I wasn't that into it. Doesn't seem too 1992, which is when it won the Caldecott. Just seems kind of quaint, although it's pleasant enough.

I've actually read a whole bunch more in the past couple of days, but need to process those things a bit more.