A home for foundlings / Marthe Jocelyn
I was really curious to learn more about London’s Home for Foundlings, but this book isn’t terribly well written and leaves out the sociological information I was hoping to find. Overall, the whole thing sounds quite awful, even though the alternative for most of the time was being left for dead on a garbage heap. One star.
Dead High Yearbook
Remember that show on the HBO, Tales from the Crypt? How everyone met grisly and sometimes ironic ends, then there was that punning Cryptkeeper Puppet? This is like that, but without the puppet. A class-worth of dead high school students get to retell their horrifying ends in the process of putting together the yearbook. Quite fun, though not the best graphic lit ever. Three stars.
Will and Abe’s Guide to the Universe, Groening
A collection of the comics about Groening’s kids, Will and Abe. I like that they are chronological so you can see how Will and Abe’s interactions mature over time. Kinda reminds me of me and my brother.
The lightning thief, Riordan (Y)
Percy Jackson turns out not to just be a kid with trouble sitting still, he’s a half-blood, a child of an Olympian. Very well-paced and plotted, a fun read without being a guilty pleasure. Four stars.
Hollow earth : the long and curious history of imagining strange lands, fantastical creatures, advanced civilizations, and marvelous machines below the earth’s surface, Standish
A history of the idea that the earth is hollow and that people live inside, through early scientific ideas to literary explorations to semi-crazy people. Very well organized, has good summaries of the novels mentioned, and the author shines through the material with a wry sense of humor. I really enjoyed it. Four stars.
21 Proms (Y)
Anthology of prom-themed short stories for teens, by high profile teen authors, to benefit the sex-ed organization Advocates for Youth. Most of the stories are really good (though the reason I picked it up was for Ned Vizzini’s story, which was one of the few clinkers). I really liked John Green’s story, which makes me want to try harder to get to An Abundance of Katherines on my to-read list. Good. Four stars.