Howling Frog Books

 Bushman Lives ! , and Adventures of a Dwergish Girl , by Daniel Pinkwater As long-time readers (if any) know, Pinkwater is a favorite of mine and in fact built large sections of my brain in my youth.  But these two are fairly recent, being only a decade or so old, and I had never gotten around to them -- largely because I was quite disappointed by one of his newer books in the late 90s and was cautious about reading more.  However!  A few months ago I happened upon a ranked list of every single Pinkwater book ever, which is over 100 titles and includes quite a few different genres, so not an easy list to rank.  Anyway, this guy thought Bushman Lives! was pretty great, so I thought I would give it a try somettime, and that time was now. Harold Knishke, disaffected high school student, lives in Chicago, and his coming-of-age story involves deciding to learn to draw, getting interested in art, and meeting all the strange people in the Chicago art scene.  Real...

 These are some bonus books I read in August.  They don't fulfill a single thing on my lists; they are not from other countries, or on my TBR piles, or anything; I just felt like reading them, which is the best reason of all.   The Way Home, by Peter S. Beagle: A short story and a novella set in the world of The Last Unicorn .  I only just got around to reading that, so I thought these would be good to read too.  They are both about Sooz, a little village girl.  In "Two Hearts," a griffin comes to terrorize the village, and eats not only sheep, but children.  Any knights who challenge it are killed, and Sooz sets off to see the king to convince him to come himself.  On the way, she meets Schmendrick and Molly Grue, and sees the king...who is Lir, now grown old and feeble.  Or is he?  Perhaps he's the only one who can challenge the griffin....and Molly tells Sooz to whistle a certain tune on her 17th birthday. In "The Way Home," Sooz kee...

 I think I'm a bit behind on my reading; if we count my Spin title, I've now read 14 books of summer and have six to go, which isn't terrible.  But I'm going to need to buckle down a bit in August.  And I had this month off!  In August I have to go back to work!  I've admittedly been rather lazy, pottering about, working on crafty projects, and watching too many YouTube videos (but stitching while I did so!).  I've also done some day trips and hikes, and enjoyed air conditioning a whole lot.  And I've been getting a bit involved with the local public library!   How has your summer been going? Summerbook #9: Notes From the Burning Age , by Claire North :  Centuries after the apocalypse, humans live in a carefully balanced world built from the ruins of the old one.  At some point during a destructive world war, chimaerical monsters -- kakuy -- arose from the depths and wreaked destruction upon humankind in revenge for their hapless de...

I had a nice time reading DWJ, and I read some other things too.  On the whole March was not a big reading month, which is a shame, but I got lots of other great stuff done. The Merlin Conspiracy : such a good one.  I paid a lot of attention this time to how intense Roddy is.  She knows she's got hold of something really important, and so she is intense about it -- which turns a lot of people off.  Some are inclined to dismiss her because she's so worked up, which isn't fair; but also Roddy in her turn dismisses anything she doesn't already understand, which also isn't fair.  The whole thing is a masterclass in how not to communicate. The Homeward Bounders :  I took this along on our trip!  So funny, and so tragic. The Crown of Dalemark : one of my favorites, so I read it more often than the other Dalemark books, but Spellcoats is another favorite. Minor Arcana , by Diana Wynne Jones: I mostly read this one for "The Master" -- one of the stranger sho...

 Samson's Hoard, by John Verney Here we have the apparently almost unknown fifth volume in John Verney's Callendar Family series!  It was published in 1973, 14 years after the first volume.  They go: Friday's Tunnel February's Road Seven Sunflower Seeds ismo Samson's Hoard and they're narrated by various Callendar children -- whoever is about 14-15 at the time of the story.  This one is told by Berry, who is also the narrator of ismo . Dad is retiring from his journalism job -- no really this time -- and it's time for the family to downsize and move into Querbury proper.  They purchase a nice older home with a constantly overflowing water cistern, everybody settles in, and Dad decides to run for a seat on the town council.  One issue at stake is what to do with the gigantic old maltings on the edge of town; tear it down for a new road, or preserve it and turn it into a community center?  This is the sane plot, all sane and normal. But there's a car bo...

 The Seventh Bride, by T. Kingfisher I've enjoyed a few of Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher's books before, such as Castle Hangnail and A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking .   This one just popped up as a Kindle offer for free, and the description sounded interesting, so here we are. Rhea, age 15, is a very ordinary girl.  Her family runs the local mill, and she spends most of her time helping at the mill, doing chores, and trying to fend off the swan that always steals her lunch.  She's not pretty, or talented, or rich, so why does this Lord Crevan want to marry her?  Maybe it doesn't even matter, because you can't say no to a lord.  Peasants who try to say no to lords generally end up homeless and out of work, at best.  So when Crevan orders Rhea to walk a certain forest path to his house, even though that's completely improper and there shouldn't be a house in the forest at all, she has to do it for her parents' sake. She arrives at a truly horrifyi...

 The Girl and the Ghost, by Hanna Alkaf  This is a lovely (and exciting!) story for, say, middle grades and YA, that not only features a lot of scary ghosts, but also explores the meaning of friendship and love, and the very complicated feelings around them. The ghost is an evil spirit who works for a witch, but the witch is dying.  He can only belong to someone of the same blood, so he searches out the witch's daughter and granddaughter.  The little girl is just five, and welcomes her new friend.  Of course, he needs a name, so she names him...Pink.  Because she's five.  Pink watches over little Suraya, who is a curious and active little girl, and he saves her from myriad dangers. Pink can't save Suraya from other kids, though.  Somehow she just doesn't fit in.  And when she goes to a fancier school in town, it gets much worse.  Pink's dark nature makes him long to exact revenge on the other girls.  Then a new girl, Jing, moves in ...

 Gods of Jade and Shadow, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia In a remote Mexican village in the 1920s, Casiopea Tun is the poor cousin, made to skivvy for the rest of the extensive household run by her autocratic, though frail, grandfather.  Cousin Mart í n, the heir apparent, is especially nasty to Casiopea since she isn't servile enough to suit him.  And then she notices an old trunk in her grandfather's room, and opens it.  Inside is a pile of old bones, but once freed, they assemble themselves into... Hun-Kam é, Lord of Xibalba, the Mayan god of death. Hun-Kam é recruits Casiopea to his quest -- to find and reclaim his missing pieces, and to defeat his younger brother, Vucub-Kamé, who imprisoned him and usurped the Xibalban throne.  Well, maybe not so much a recruiting...although Casiopea is up for an adventure, she also has to go along.  A splinter of Hun- Kam é's bone lodged in her hand, and soon it will kill her.  Likewise, while her drop of blood revive...

 The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle I've had a vague intention to read The Last Unicorn for many years.  The main thing that stopped me was that any time I see the words 'last' and 'unicorn' together, the theme song from the movie starts playing in my head and doesn't stop for days.  So in order to read the book, I had to mentally prepare myself for hearing that song for at least a week.  It's a very nice song, but it's not that nice! In the end, I even went and dug up other songs from the movie, which I have not seen in many years, but which I must have watched a whole lot as a kid, since it's evidently buried deep within my brain.   I remembered the songs, the voices, and much more.  I should really watch the whole thing, because now I'm curious about how various book events were translated (or not) to film. OK, so: a unicorn has lived in her forest for centuries, until she hears a hunter say that all the unicorns were driven away by the Re...

The Things She's Seen, by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina Here's my title for AusNovember!  I've been excitedly waiting for it to wend its way through the library process so I could check it out.   This is a new YA novel by a brother and sister team.     Beth is dead, to begin with.  The only person who can still see her is her dad, who was so devastated by her death in a car accident that she stuck around in hopes of helping him get back on his feet.  He's a policeman -- a detective -- and he's been asked to investigate a house fire in a tiny country town that left one unidentified person dead.  A simple case for a guy who needs easing back into his job. Or perhaps not.  Beth is sure there's more to this than meets the eye.  The house was a group home for foster kids, run by an administrator and a nurse, but nobody ever saw the kids out and about.  The single witness to the fire is a girl who will only communicate what she kno...

 The Shape of Thunder, by Jasmine Warga I saw this recommended recently, and was intrigued, so here it is.  This is a middle-grade novel, and I actually read it in one sitting, during which I sniffled and got teary a lot.  Prepare to have your heart broken. Cora and Quinn have been next-door neighbors and best friends for their entire lives, but for almost a year now they haven't spoken at all.   Last fall, Quinn's big brother took a gun to school and shot several people before killing himself, and one of those people was Cora's big sister.   On Cora's 12th birthday, Quinn leaves a box on her porch -- it's full of her plan to go back and fix everything.  She's read that time travel is theoretically possible, and she needs Cora's scientific mind to put it all in action.  Surely, together they can make it so it never happened. The two girls' family lives and friendships are beautifully evoked, and the story is heartrendingly real.  But make sure you...

 Blood Secret, by Kathryn Lasky I've long admired Kathryn Lasky's work (though I only just now realized how very much she's written, my goodness).  She's written quite a few historical fiction novels for the middle grades, including the first "Dear America" book, and this one is also historical fiction, but I think it's pretty unusual. Jerry has lived much of her life in various Catholic orphanages, wondering if and when her mother will return for her.  Now that she's 14, Jerry is going to live on the outskirts of Albuquerque with a great-great aunt she's never met -- Constanza, who lives in an old adobe and bakes bread for a living, and doesn't seem to mind that Jerry hasn't spoken aloud in years.  Down in the cellar of the house, Jerry finds an old trunk filled with pieces of part of her family's history.  In a series of dream-visions, she learns about her ancestors' secrets, the persecution that followed them, and the tattered re...

 The Defiant Agents and Key Out of Time (Time Traders 3 and 4), by Andre Norton I got so into the Time Traders books I read in January that I went ahead and got the next two, which kept up the excitement.   The Defiant Agents : Travis Fox, Apache rancher and accidental time agent, has gathered a whole team of tribal members for an expedition to explore the planet Topaz.  It was once part of the now-vanished alien empire, but nothing else is known about it, except that they're trying to beat the Russians there.  Everyone in the ship will be put into suspended animation, and the explorers will be given a new treatment that will awaken genetic memories from the past, rendering these scientific experts more skillful in survival and teamwork.  Plus they have enhanced psychic wolf companions! They do not beat the Russians to Topaz, and so the ship is shoved off-course and crash-lands.  Travis Fox and his teammates awaken with little idea of what is going on, but ...

 The Left-Handed Booksellers of London, by Garth Nix I fell behind again.  But I've been reading a lot, which has been very pleasant.  And I made a skirt I've been meaning to make for years, and I got my fancy big project quilt in for quilting!  Sewing the backing was a lot of work. This novel has been making people's lists lately, and I happened upon it at the library, so I thought I'd see what the fuss was.  I've actually never read Garth Nix, though of course his name is familiar as one of the juvenile fantasy writers who gained popularity in the last 20 years.  Plus I'm always a sucker for a London story.  So: it's 1983 (and a slightly alternate universe), and Susan Arkshaw has just turned 18, and is off to London to make her fortune -- and find her father.  Her dreamy, will-o'-the-wisp mother has dropped hints here and there, but has never identified Susan's father by name.  Susan just has a collection of vague clues and names.  So ...

 I started March off right, with Power of Three , as I planned.  I love this story, which is probably familiar to most DWJ fans.   At first, it seems like a fairy tale set in a different place.  Adara and her people live in mounds, have swords, and use magic words, and they have two enemies: Dorig (who live in water) and Giants.  Only gradually do we realize that this story is in our own world, and we are the Giants; there are three races of people.  There are also three siblings at the center of the story, and it's up to them and their new friends to try to make peace between the three races, who at the moment can only see each other as aliens and enemies, even though the consequences of that enmity will be terrible for all of them. Two of the human races can work "green gold" and wear it as collars -- what we call torcs.  The gold has to be worn and exposed to sunlight, or it turns back into crumbly black ore. DWJ's unfortunate dislike (ingraine...

The Time Traders, by Andre Norton  As we found out last year, I am pathetically ignorant of Andre Nortons's works.  I didn't know what the Time Traders were or anything; I just had this book.  I lucked out -- this is the first volume in a long series of time-travel intrigue books!   It was published in 1958. Ross Murdock, hardened juvenile delinquent, figures he can outsmart anybody, but he got caught this time.  To his surprise, the judge offers him a choice: jail time or volunteering to be part of a government experiment of some kind.  Ross picks the mystery experiment, assuming he can easily escape.  But the next thing he knows, he's in the Arctic, living on a base and learning new skills.  What are these people even up to, anyway? Ross discovers that time travel is possible, and that the US is playing a giant game of spot-the-spy-bases all over pre-history.  The Soviets are up to something , and they want to find out what it is....

  There's Something About Sweetie, by Sandhya Menon Hey, I'm back!  I've still been working on pulling out of my November reading slump, but I think I'm getting there.  And....I got a long-overdue blog makeover!  I love how it looks.  The images were done by Kat of Waffley Cute Designs , and I'm pretty thrilled.  On to the books -- I've enjoyed several of Sandhya Menon's fun and romantic YA stories now, and I say that as a not-very-into-romances person.  I barely put it down for hours!  This is actually a follow-up to When Dimple Met Rishi, and there is a third book as well, which I haven't read. Sweetie Nair is a track athlete, a talented singer, and also on the sturdy side.  In a world that places a huge value on being slim, she tries to proudly claim the title of fat athlete, and mostly succeeds -- except with her mom, who is forever harping on the need to slim down so that the good things of life will come to her.  Ashish is a baske...

  A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking , by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) I only recently discovered Ursula Vernon at all, when I read Castle Hangnail in September.  After that, I kept seeing this book pop up on Amazon, but I didn't connect any dots until Redhead explained it all in her review and convinced me that this was a must-read.   So: T. Kingfisher is Vernon's pen name that she uses when she writes for adults.  I'd call this a YA book, but apparently publishers didn't quite know how to deal with it, so she just published it herself. Mona is 14, and a baker.  It's her job to get things started at 4am every morning at her aunt and uncle's bakery, and she is good at what she does.  Like quite a few people in her town, Mona has a minor magical talent -- hers is bread.  She can persuade muffins not to burn and make gingerbread men dance, that sort of thing.  And one morning, she goes into the bakery, and there's a dead body on the floor....