Fran: W is for Ward

I really wanted to like The Fantastic Family Whipple by Matthew Ward. 

It seemed like a great set-up: a family of record breakers with 12 extraordinarily ridiculously gifted children and Arthur, the child who cannot break any world records.  There's their coterie of unusual servants, including Sammy "the Spatula" Smith and Phoolendu Mahankali--the Panther-Man of Pndharpur, and the challenges by the ominous Goldwin family with their huge number of record breaking children (and Ruby, their ordinary child not interested in record-breaking).  There are even evil clowns, dangerous dwarfs in league with grim giants, and a sinister plot--perhaps even a curse. 

The book's enjoyment in record-breaking faded fairly fast for me and the complications of plot do not arise fast enough.  But the main problem however was that the real motion of the book doesn't hit speed until the last 40 pages (2 chapters) of the book and then there is conspicuously no resolution so that we will be all jazzed up for book 2: War of the World Records.

Unlikely that I will read the second book.

I would be interested to know what my daughter Brynnen thought of the book, as she read it also.  Perhaps she will blog it for letter W or she'll comment on it here...(HINT, HINT).

Fran: D is for De Los Santos

Love Walked In, a novel by Marisa De Los Santos, was not quite the read I was expecting.  I don’t know what I was expecting exactly but I think it was a more straight-forward romance.  Between the beautiful barista who loves movies and the man who looks like Cary Grant.   

It ended up being a much wider book about loves—between Cornelia and her best (female) friend, between Cornelia and her best (male) friend, between Cornelia and her own family, between Cornelia and the family she draws close to her.  It was also a book about love between a child (Clare) and her parents, as they change and she grows up, and between Clare and the family she finds (Cornelia).  The movie references were fun but sometimes intrusive. De Los Santos writes the characters well, though I often felt that there was perhaps too much perfection…too many nubbly interesting bits that you were supposed to like, but maybe didn't.   

But that’s a part of the romance of a book like this—to be drawn to the world where even the rough edges of our lives fit together and move in mechanical wonder with the rough edges of someone else.

 

Max: E is for Egan

I read Dodsworth in Paris by Tim Egan.

In this book, the main character is a mouse named Dodsworth; he has a duck for a pet.  Dodsworth likes to travel so he went to Paris.  At a restaurant, they forget they don't have euros yet, so Dodsworth goes to the bank and leaves the duck behind.  The duck saw a mime and imitated him and so people threw euros at Duck.  Then they went to the Eiffel Tower where disaster struck! Duck started making paper airplanes out of his euros and threw them to see how far they would go.  If you do this, you run out of money!!  When Dodsworth goes to the Louvre, he sees the Mona Lisa and makes a painting of Paris; no art gallery will buy it but overnight, it was drizzly which blurred the painting.  Then an Impressionist came along and bought it for 100 euros.  So then Dodsworth and Duck had money for riding a balloon to celebrate.

I liked that Duck made a beret out of a nut! Duck was a big troublemaker and that was good (though I also liked that he helped too).  The pictures are really good.  I would recommend it to someone learning to read because it's fun and the words are pretty easy (even the words in French!).