Book Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

This Cinderella story takes place in the future after 4 world wars have ravaged the Earth and a plague is running rampant over the Earth. Cinder is the best mechanic in New Beijing. She works at a stall in the market and brings in the only money her family (which consists of one nice step sister, one evil stepsister and an evil stepmother) lives off of. Cinder is also a cyborg. When she was younger she was in a horrible accident and she was rebuilt with machine parts. When Peony (the nice sister) gets sick, Cinder's step mother volunteers her for the cyborg draft, where each day a cyborg is sent to test plague antidotes. Then she meets Dr. Erland and her whole life changes as Cinder learns more about both her body and her past and gets to spend more time with Prince Kai.

Over all I really liked this book. Cinder is a great character and I loved Iko and her malfunctioning personality chip. Kai is also a pretty interesting prince.  He comes across as smart and interesting and not as overly vain as one would expect. There were some things I figured out fairly early (it is Cinderella after all) and there were other twists that I was never expecting.  

I listened to this as an audiobook and I really enjoyed it.  I thought the narrator did a good job getting the different personalities and feelings to shine through with her voice.  I am hoping that when the next volume in the trilogy is released it will be available on audiobook at the library and that it will have the same narrator.

Story Time: Monsters

This was my second story time and I felt so much more prepared than I was the first time.  Again one of my coworkers had preset up a craft for me.  She printed some monster clip art, cut the middle out of a paper plate and had the children glue their monster pictures to the paper plates.  We then punched holes in the top of the paper plates and thread yarn through so that the kids could hang them as mobiles or wreaths.

Again I selected books that went with the preselected craft. I chose:

My Monster Mama Loves Me So by Laura Leuck

If You're A Monster and You Know It by Ed Emberley (I had the kids pretend to be monsters and treated it like the song, they really seemed to enjoy it.)

The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone 

Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems

In addition to the Hokey Pokey I changed the Five Little Monkeys song to Five Little Monsters with some fabulous monster finger puppets made by my friend Anne from mymonsterhat.  When I described what I wanted to do she shipped out for me specifically for this story time.  The kids loved them!

This felt much more successful than my first story time.  I also had a lot more fun than I did for my first story time, which I can only hope means the kids were having fun too.  

Book Review: Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon

This was also part of the Omnibus phase I was talking about in my previous book review post.  I read about this run somewhere (I wanna say DC Girls Kicking Ass) and I love most of what Joss Whedon has done. I was also a huge fan of the X-Men way back when so I saw no bad here (This was the omnibus that started it all). It was a great read and I couldn't put it down. I was up until 4 am reading it.

There is a great intro in the beginning that catches you up on the history of the X-Men to this point, which was really useful b/c I am clueless about Emma Frost, the destruction of Genosha and the virus. 

A small group of X-men reform the superhero team and run the school. This one is less about the team as  students and more about the adults. The four story lines I thought went incredibly well together. 

Standouts for me:  I am a huge fan of Kitty Pride and Colossus separately so the two of them together was definitely awesome. I do wish they hadn't killed Kitty Pride off b/c I felt like she was a great character for girls to relate to, particularly young girls, although as evidenced through Colossus very few characters stay dead in the comics. I also really liked this version of Beast, both artistically and his evolution/de-evolution. He is still probably one of my favorite characters. 

I also actually loved the art style of the entire volume.  I'm thrilled they stuck with the same illustrator for the duration.  A worthwhile read for any X-Men or Joss Whedon fan. 

Crafty Kids: Decoupage Frames

One Tuesday a month I run an evening craft program.  It is essentially a drop in although we do have a sign up for it.  It's listed as open to kids in first through fifth grade, however I am not terribly rigid with those rules.  If parents want their younger children to participate they are expected to stick around and help their younger children with the craft and if sixth graders want to do the craft they are expected to be respectful of the little ones.

For December's Crafty Kids (originally it was called Third Tuesday since it usually takes place the third Tuesday of the month, however after a scheduling mishap I suggested a name change) I decided to have the kids decorate frames that they could either keep for themselves or give to someone as a holiday gift.  Since attendance at this program varies greatly from month to month I wanted to use supplies that could be re purposed if they weren't all used up, so I had the kids decoupage their frames with origami paper, but you could also use old magazines or scrap booking paper.  Whatever is lying around that's pretty or cool.

Supplies
1 Frame
Modge Podge
Foam Brush
Origami Paper
scissors
ribbon (optional)
Instructions

1.  Each child gets a frame, some modge podge in a cup, foamy brush and at least two sheets of origami paper (you need minimum 2 sheets to cover an entire frame, if the child wants to use more than 2 patterns then they will need more than 2 sheets)

2.  Have the child plan out what they want to do and cut the origami paper into appropriate sized pieces.  They will want to cover the front and the edges.

3.  Coat a section of the frame in a thin layer of modge podge, then place the origami paper onto that section and smooth out any wrinkles or creases before that section dries.  Then move on to the next section.

4.  Once the entire frame is covered in the origami paper paint another thin layer over all the paper to seal the frame. (See optional step 5) Then let dry.

5. (Optional I've only done this step when I was running the program with teens and tweens as a drop in as it feels a little bit finicky for smaller fingers.) After you have painted a thin layer of modge podge all over the paper, take a piece of ribbon and wrap it around the edges of the frame. Paint another thin layer of modge podge over the ribbon and let dry.

Book Review: New X-Men Omnibus by Grant Morrison

So as often happens I go through phases with my library requests.  Earlier this year I went through a crazy graphic novel omnibus phase.  While this was not actually the book that I requested I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway so it wasn't such an issue.

Most of the story arc's flowed easily one into the next and I found a lot of the characters very interesting and different then other incarnations. The U-Men and Cassandra Nova were particularly terrifying incarnations of villains and I really liked the idea that ***spolier***being Xorn had begun to affect Magneto.***end spoiler***

I liked the students that we met, however I really wish we had been allowed to get to know them better. I often wonder if Marvel wouldn't benefit from doing a storyline on the students. Not the traditional X-Men as students but "nameless students" that will not necessarily go on to join the team with only passing mention of the X-Men as teachers; sort of like how DC does the Gotham Central books that are just about he precinct where Batman is only an incidental character sometimes or maybe just as a series of one shots.

I was very confused by the final story arc that took place in the future. I didn't quite understand how Hank became Sublime. I'm not sure if it was explained and I didn't understand or if they just never bothered to explain it and considered Jean being reborn as the Phoenix enough to keep it connected to the previous story lines in the omnibus. 

There's a lot of interesting extras here as well.  Morrison's proposed outline for the series was probably one of the most interesting. I found it intriguing to see where changes were made and found it a little bit funny that someone who claimed to have read all the X-Men trades wasn't aware of some characters deaths. I also thought that it was intriguing that he was very focused on having it be a series that new readers would have an easy time with however I often felt that some previous story lines were weaved in (such as the Shi'Ar) that without previous knowledge were confusing. (i.e. I know who the Shi'ar are but didn't remember enough to understand Lilandra and Charles relationship.) There are also some scripts and lots of pretty covers. 

As with most omnibuses where the artist's are not kept the same throughout the entire series the artwork was at times downright ick and at other times it was phenomenal, making allowances for my personal taste of course.

My First Story Time Ever

For my first story time ever my coworkers already had a very simple craft for selected for me.  My coworkers printed out pictures of pirates and princesses from microsoft clip art, had a page cut them out and handed out construction paper and glue sticks.  The kids made collages by glueing down the pictures.

From the get go my story time was something of a disaster.  The story part lasted only 10 minutes long.  Due to a large number of children arriving substantially late for many of the children there was technically no story time.  I also forgot the words to Mary Had A Little Lamb about half way through the song (when all the late arrivals showed up) and cut the rest of my planned songs in sheer panic.  I went back and forth about what books to read and how many.  I chose to read books that fit the craft theme:

Bubble Bath Pirates by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

Not All Princesses Dress in Pink by Jane Yolen & Heidi E. Stemple

Do Pirates Take Baths? by Kathy Tucker

In retrospect I should have had a fourth book ready just in case. In the future I would add The Paper Bag Princess by Robert N. Muncsh if I did a Pirate/Princess story time again.

I also realized after the story time that I have very specific feelings about princesses and how they should behave.  I also since then have made it a point to learn to let things like lateness fluster me less  and I have practiced all my children's songs.  The other librarians all told me stories about their first story times which were apparently also a disaster.  So if your first story time is a disaster, know that it will get better and that apparently almost every librarian's is!

Book Review: Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey

Violet's mother is a fake medium and she uses Violet help have fake seances, so no one is more shocked then Violet herself when Violet actually starts seeing ghosts and spirits while on a visit to a wealthy estate for her mother's grand rising up in the world. Violet begins seeing the ghost of a girl who was murdered a year ago and starts to investigate which is difficult in a world where proper behavior and corsets rule the drawing room.

I should have read this such a long time ago as it's been sitting on my shelf for probably a year or more at this point. Harvey is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. I loved all of the details on how seances were faked and the slang of the day. Violet was definitely a kick butt heroine who knew to take help when it was needed. While I wasn't expecting the murder I do have to say that I felt Violet barked up the wrong tree for much too long. I also loved Colin. I like Harvey's romances a lot. Yes her characters fall in love but they don't get so lost in each other that the rest of the plot feels lost, which I really appreciate these days in a YA book.