Review: Little Blog on the Prairie by Cathleen Davitt Bell

Little Blog on the Prairie
by Cathleen Davitt Bell
May 11, 2010
Borrowed from Library
Goodreads Page
Amazon Page
Grade: A

Synopsis (from Publisher): Gen's family is more comfortable spending time apart than together. Then Gen's mom signs them up for Camp Frontier--a vacation that promises the "thrill" of living like 1890s pioneers. Forced to give up all of her modern possessions, Gen nevertheless manages to email her friends back home about life at "Little Hell on the Prairie," as she's renamed the camp. It turns out frontier life isn't without its good points--like the cute boy who lives in the next clearing. And when her friends turn her emails into a blog, Gen is happily surprised by the fanbase that springs up. But just when it seems Gen and family might pull through the summer, disaster strikes as a TV crew descends on the camp, intent on discovering the girl behind the nationwide blogging sensation--and perhaps ruining the best vacation Gen has ever had.

---

So this book?  Totally adorable.  I don’t usually stay up past my bedtime to read a middle grade book, but that’s what happened the other night as I raced to finish and see what the ending was going to be.  If you ever watched Frontier House or just dreamed about what living on the prairie like Laura Ingalls might be like, you’d probably enjoy this one.

I really liked Gen as our narrator.  She moaned and complained like any thirteen year old girl, but her complaining never slipped into ‘just grow up already’ territory or got on my nerves.  It probably helped that she had a lot to complain about - I’d complain too if I were dragged to a summer long farming experience without being able to brush my teeth or check my email, and I’m into historical interpretation!  She’s smart and observant and manages to find the humour and absurdity in her own situation - trying to pump herself up by singing Beat It to the corn or accidentally peeing on her stocking because she can’t make herself use the outhouse.  Which is where the blog comes in, of course, as Gen texts her observations to her friends back home using a smuggled in cell phone and one of them (they never appear except by text so I can barely distinguish between them) posts her texts on a blog for her computer science summer school class.

Gen’s family is also a well-developed combination of characters.  At first I was a little concerned because her father’s defining characteristic seemed to be being afraid of bears and her mother’s was a determined cheerfulness in spite of all reality.  But as the book continued - and Gen matured a little and began to see more clearly - her parents emerged as three-dimensional characters in their own right.  Gavin, her ten year old little brother, became one of my absolute favourite characters with his epic fishing prowess and attachment to the family chickens.  I really enjoyed watching Gen and Gavin’s relationship develop from one of benign neglect into a real partnership and friendship between the siblings.

Camp Frontier itself made me stare and mutter things like “there is NO WAY their insurance company would allow this.”  When the campers arrive, they’re fed a communal supper by the camp owners and then bundled off to their separate farm plots with no training, no instructions, just a “go to, cook on the wood stove, farm that corn, and kill those chickens!  Here’s some cornmeal and possibly rancid salt pork!  And, oh, by the way, you’re being graded!”  Obviously the book’s scope wasn’t to question the insane decisions (or insurance premiums) of the insane owners, but I kept wanting to tell them that if they attached a week of instructions on how to actually perform the tasks being asked, the families would probably have a much better time of it! 

The other camp families (there are four total) were an amusing combination of survivalists, a newly blended family trying to coalesce, and parents trying to give their little girl the vacation of her dreams.  We don’t get to know the other families as well as Gen’s of course so they’re mainly sketched in, but the narrative manages to make them all seem real as they struggle with similar issues of farming and feeding their families with limited provisions and a woodburning stove.  The other children become more major as Gen and Gavin bond with them over the insanity of the camp and their attempts to perform 19th century chores.  I also enjoyed the sweet developing relationship between Gen and Caleb, the hot felt hat-wearing neighbor boy.

This review sounds overly gushing, and I suppose that it is, but it was a very cute book that never pretended to be more than what it is while portraying a very different type of summer vacation from the more normal beach reads.  Gen grows up a lot over the course of the book, and the reader gets the pleasure of seeing how this changes her and her relationships to her family and community.  I’d definitely recommend Little Blog on the Prairie.

Those Books I Did Not Finish

For some reason, I’ve been running out of steam with some books lately.  Usually no matter how much I’m not enjoying a book, I will try to finish it both because I’m a completist and, well, I want to know how it ends.  Which is saying the same thing two ways.  I also refuse to turn off a hockey game before it’s over no matter the score.  It’s a weirdness, I know, but so it goes. 

I’m going to talk about a few of these books in this post partially because I want to know if any of you feel that I really need to finish them and partially because I don’t want to pick another copy up later and be really confused about why it seems familiar.  I actually did that this summer except that I finished the entire book before thinking ‘huh, this seemed so familiar.  Oh yeah, I read this book about ten years ago!’  It was an embarrassing moment.

First up:

Sean Griswold’s Head
by Lindsey Leavitt

After a couple of reviews around the blogosphere, I seriously wanted to read and love this book.  The heroine sounded charming, and I always like to find another good contemporary read to pass on.  And it’s true, the heroine was charming; I adored her best friend.  The only problem is that I somehow missed that Payton’s issues - and her fixation on a certain head - are rooted in her dad’s diagnosis of MS.

And...no, I just can’t do it.  My dad died after an out of the blue diagnosis, and while it was a good while ago, I still have a really hard time reading about fathers getting ill.  I tried to push through it but between that and the fact that Payton’s really close to her dad...yeah, not going to happen.  I’m disappointed though and slightly annoyed with myself for letting this keep me from reading what seems like a good book!

Everlasting
by Angie Frazier

I waited for months for this book to finally arrive on inter-library loan.  I was excited about the historical setting plus Australia plus ships and magic and fiesty heroines.  What happened here is that I got bored.  I’m not sure why!  A secret map plus a shipwreck and treasure and a handsome boy should be enough to keep me going, but for some reason, I just couldn’t connect to Camille’s character and so about halfway through, I set the book down.

Should I keep going?  Is the end amazing?  I know its gotten a lot of love, and people whose opinions I usually agree with liked it a lot.  I’m frustrated that it’s not keeping my attention after I wanted to read it so badly!

The Mysterious Howling (The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place #1)
By Maryrose Wood

This book fell victim to my lack of time over the past few weeks, and the return date to the library arrived before I managed to read more than a hundred pages.  But I’m pretty sure I’ll be checking it out again.

The narrative style of this charming book felt like a cross between Lemony Snicket and the narrator of Miss Austen’s Northanger Abbey...which admittedly is a weird comparison, but it really does!   I was amused by the very dry and slightly mocking tone of the narrator while enjoying the ‘gothic’ set up - a (very) young governess traveling by herself to a lonely mansion filled with taciturn retainers, a mistress who’s concealing a secret, and an odd howling from the outside...

Before Versailles: A Novel of Louis XIV
by Karleen Koen

I’m still telling myself I’m just stalled on this book.  I’ve adored Koen’s earlier books especially Through a Glass Darkly and Now Face to Face which were about 18th century England, the Court of George I and II, the American Colonies, Palladian architecture, and such a gorgeous love story.  I’ve read Through the Glass Darkly at least 10 times - and since the 18th century was my major period of focus in my history degree, I’m picky about my 18th century fiction.

But Before Versailles seems to lack a certain joy that Koen’s previous books contain.  Perhaps it’s the framing device that tells us what’s going to happen before it does or perhaps its that each of the characters seems like a stock figure - a doll picked up out of a box and set in a gilded dollhouse.  They’re all gorgeously dressed dolls for certain, but other than the King himself, none of them seem to have much of a spark of life.

It’s disappointing!  It feels more like the author thought ‘and now I should write my book about Louis XIV’ instead of really being inspired to write in his time period and court.  I was really looking forward to a book about a young Louis XIV and Henrietta Stuart, Charles II's baby sister.


So there's my list of shame: those books I haven't managed to finish over the past few weeks.  My other list of shame would be longer (those books I haven't written a review for yet), but I'm still looking at that as a "to do" list.

Have any of you read these?  Should I make a point to pick any of them back up?  What do you guys do when you get to a book that you're just not enjoying?  Is life too short to keep reading?

Review: Reel Life Starring Us by Lisa Greenwald

Reel Life Starring Us
by Lisa Greenwald
September 1, 2011 
Received ARC from NetGalley
Amazon Page
Goodreads Page
Grade: B-

Synopsis (from publisher): Rockwood Hills Junior High is known for the close-knit cliques that rule the school. When arty new girl Dina gets the opportunity to do a video project with queen bee Chelsea, she thinks this is her ticket to a great new social life. But Chelsea has bigger problems than Dina can imagine: her father has lost his job, and her family is teetering on the brink. Without knowing it, Dina might just get caught in Chelsea’s free fall.

Filled with honest truths about status and self-confidence, as well as the bubbly, infectious voice Lisa Greenwald mastered in her breakout, My Life in Pink & Green, this book is sure to charm tween readers everywhere.

---

I’ll be upfront here. I hated middle school. High school (once I got over the “holy crap, I just moved to a new school in the sticks”) was fun, but middle school for me was the worst of all the high school cliches. I’m sure it didn’t help that I carried books like Leon Uris’ Exodus around with me everywhere. So maybe I’m slightly amused about the idea of a tale about people in middle school recognising each other’s individuality and learning to respect it.

Given that situation, I was actually impressed by how much I enjoyed Reel Life Starring Us. The setup up is that the new girl in town, Dina, gets paired up with Chelsea, the most popular girl in the eighth grade for a video project. Greenwald alternates between the girls’ perspectives to portray them both trying to handle fitting in, friendships, their family, clothes, and all the drama of a middle schooler’s life. It’s a nice device to show both girls having their own insecurities, that even the most admired person isn’t perfect, and that no one’s life is as great as it might look from the outside.

My favorite thread was the underlying theme of judgment - Dina desperately wants to be friends with Chelsea because she and her friends are the cool group, and so she judges the girls she sits with at lunch as ‘Acceptables’ - good enough until she can drop them to sit with Chelsea. Chelsea is intrigued by Dina and wants to be friends, but her friends can’t see the point of hanging out with the weird ‘new girl’ and pour scorn on the idea of any public overture. Both girls and by extension, all their classmates are missing out on possible friendships for fear of crossing those invisible social lines. Which...I think we can admit happens all the time.

The action leads up to an heavily messaged ending where the eighth grade class comes together to realise everyone is valuable, the girl gets the guy, and Dina and Chelsea become great friends. But for all the heavy handedness on the message, the writing is engaging and Dina and Chelsea are fun heroines who really do illustrate the pressures and worries tween girls from every clique deal with every day.

I think this might be a book that older elementary readers might enjoy more than preteens. Most preteens are going to be too sophisticated to be taken in by a message this obvious - even when it is a good one. But for an older elementary reader who might be worried about moving on to middle school and is confused about why her friends are suddenly starting to change on her, it’s a good reassuring read.

Many, many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, Amulet Books, for allowing me to read a galley for review!

Review: The Daughters Trilogy by Joanna Philbin

The Daughters/The Daughters Break the Rules/The Daughters Take the Stage
by Joanna Philbin


Synopsis (from publisher): The only daughter of supermodel Katia Summers, witty and thoughtful Lizzie Summers likes to stick to the sidelines.

The sole heir to Metronome Media and the daughter of billionaire Karl Jurgensen, outspoken Carina Jurgensen would rather climb mountains than social ladders.

Daughter of chart-topping pop icon Holla Jones, stylish and sensitive Hudson Jones is on the brink of her own music breakthrough.

By the time freshman year begins, unconventional-looking Lizzie Summers has come to expect fawning photographers and adoring fans to surround her gorgeous supermodel mother. But when Lizzie is approached by a fashion photographer who believes she’s “the new face of beauty,” Lizzie surprises herself and her family by becoming the newest Summers woman to capture the media spotlight.

In this debut young adult series tailored for younger teens, author Joanna Philbin explores what it’s really like to grow up in the thick of the celebrity world. As Lizzie and her two best friends (and fellow daughters-of-celebrities) juggle normal high school events with glamorous family functions, they discover the pitfalls of fame and the importance of friendship.

---

I wasn’t going to review each of these separately, but I wanted to have a word about the trilogy as a whole. Written by Regis Philbin’s daughter, the series is about a trio of best friends, all daughters of major celebrities, all living a wealthy and extremely privileged life in New York City. They are most definitely a label-dropping, wish-fulfillment, Gossip Girl-influenced set of books.

They’re also oddly touching with a good deal of heart. Rich girls in Manhattan books are one of my guilty pleasures (see also: rich girls in London or Paris) so I picked up the first book, The Daughters, looking for something totally fluffy to read on the beach that afternoon. I got what I was looking for, but also I was charmed by the story of Lizzie, supported by her two best friends, trying to find herself outside of the shadow of her supermodel mother. I requested the other two books from the library and found the same charming touch in each.

The plot is formulaic as each of the girls go through their own identity crisis and coming of age, but each book is elevated by the themes of loyalty and friendship between the girls. The books are sweetly moral as the girls learn important lessons about staying true to themselves, living their own lives, and being faithful to friends even in the face of new relationships. The girls themselves are high school freshman, and their adventures are fairly tame especially by the scale of the CW or Gossip Girl. But I don’t think that the morals are too obvious, and the sweet nature of the books and younger age of the protagonists would definitely appeal to a middle grade reader struggling with the challenges of starting to grow up.

ETA: I just saw that another Daughters book is coming out in November so I guess it's not a trilogy! The new book seems to introduce a fourth girl to the current trio so I'll be sure to pick that one up and see how it goes.