Reconstructing Amelia

I love a good mystery. When the pieces all fall into place, it is such a satisfying reading experience (I'm looking at you Casual Vacancy).

Well-written mysteries have pieces that fit like a puzzle. But you know when you're putting together a 500 piece puzzle and you convince yourself that two pieces absolutely go together, so you hammer them down like there's no tomorrow? Sometimes that's what Reconstructing Amelia feels like.

Let me back up.  Reconstructing Amelia follows Kate, a single mother/attorney, as she copes after her daughter Amelia's alleged suicide.  Unwilling to believe that her daughter killed herself, Kate sorts through her daughter's electronic life and enters a terrifying world of bullying, hazing, secret clubs, and possible school cover-ups.  The perspective alternates between past and present day Kate, past Amelia, and collections of texts, Facebook statuses, and e-mails.

For the most part, I really enjoyed the book. It takes on a hot button issue (cyberbullying), incorporates other prevalent young adult issues (LGBT, popularity, identity) and presents a thoughtful critique of our online world(s). The teen voices are not forced and the blame for their actions isn't placed entirely on their shoulders. However, in what appears to be an attempt to create a lot of "gasp" worthy moments, some of the revelations read as if they're too hammered into place to fit.

But all in all, it's a satisfying read. If you're okay with overlooking a more farfetched conclusion and enjoy mysteries, I would pick up this book, preferably before the Nicole Kidman movie version premieres. Due to the subject matter, teens may find this an interesting reads, provided they're mature enough to handle the heavy amount of profanity, sexual scenes, and talk of cutting.

Gone Girl

It's hard to describe Gone Girl without revealing a major spoiler, however, that spoiler was part of a book blurb I read prior to reading this novel so I'm going to say it anyway.  I'll block it out so you can look at it at your own discretion : SHE ISN'T DEAD, SHE RAN AWAY AND STAGED EVERYTHING.

There.

Gone Girl is the story of a husband, Nick, and wife, Amy, who would seemingly be on the fast track to divorce city if Amy hadn't suddenly gone missing.  Soon it is widely suspected that Amy was murdered at the hands of Nick.  Readers follow the story through alternating chapters of Nick's narration and Amy's diary entries (and later narration), two voices clashing against one another to tell their tales of courtship and marriage and defend their past choices.

I'll be honest. For about a fourth of the book I completely despised it.  I kept thinking that the novel was only reaffirming my love for children's and young adult novels (as you know, that's all I typically read these days), because this novel is just dripping with passive aggressive attacks and pathological blame for parents, family, wives, friends, EVERYONE. No one took responsibility for actions.  It also has a healthy helping of the typical "there's no hope for future happiness now that I'm almost a middle-aged adult" tone that plagues adult fiction (in my opinion).  I hated it.  But my friend Bridget had insisted I drop everything and read this novel (which I didn't do, sorry Bridget!), and Lord knows she has read every YA book I've insisted she read (thanks Bridget!), so I kept on going.

I'M SO GLAD I DID.

Because then the twist happens and makes it totally worth it.  You find out that maybe Nick isn't the most deplorable character of the novel (he's still terrible - an incredibly misogynistic and passive aggressive man) and it turns into quite a thrill to see who will come out on top as the most psychopathic and who will get knocked down in the process.  Post-twist, the passive aggressiveness and blaming still exist in large quantities, but become much more palatable as they play a larger role in the plot.

I will admit that some of the language got tiresome, but that's a personal taste reflective of my preference for children's and YA lit (although they can get colorful with the language too). Was it all necessary to the plot? Mostly, so I'll let it slide.

All in all, extraordinarily developed characters and unreliable narration make Gone Girl a lot more than your standard thriller novel.  If you haven't already read it, do what Bridget advised me to earlier: drop everything and read it now.

Friday Five: Gun Control

In libraries, it's important to showcase books that start conversations.  As a result of the current gun control debate that is consuming the nation, here are some titles that focus on guns and school shootings.  Obviously, it's also important to not show bias (hardest part of my day), so I tried to include some titles that express pro-gun idealogies, but I don't have knowledge of many.  I threw in Lyga's Hero Type as an example of a book that, while focusing primarily on freedom of speech, discusses American rights in general. 

1. Give a Boy a Gun, by Todd Strasser

2. The Rifle, by Gary Paulsen

3. We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver

4. Hero Type, by Bary Laga

5. Columbine, by Dave Cullen

Any other suggestions, fiction or non-fiction?

Literary Themed Halloween!

Halloween is my favorite holiday.  Actually, the week of Halloween is one of the best in the year.  Days are filled with costumes galore and I'm a firm believer in a different costume per gathering.  I don't care if people see me in the same dress twice, but costume?! That's an outrage. This year, I've assembled my nostalgia-based costume of a Tamagotchi (I know, I'm awesome) and my simple tribute to everyone's favorite adorkable TV lady, Jess from New Girl.

Being a book nerd, I have to get some literary ideas out there for those of you who don't have costumes planned yet.  So here we go:

1. Miss Frizzle from The Magic School Bus Series

All you need is a purple dress with paper cut outs attached all over.  Of course, it helps if you have frizzy hair.

2. Katniss/Peeta/Gale from The Hunger Games

No more dressing up as Twilight characters (please!). If you're going for the love triangle angle, there's a new one around. Bonus points for spontaneously shouting "I VOLUNTEER" or making Sad Gale faces throughout the night.

3. Mr. Popper from Mr. Popper's Penguins

I think this works best if you have a pet or a small child.  Throw on a suit and dress your animal/child as a penguin.  HOW CUTE WOULD THAT BE? But if you can't procure an animal/baby, you can always grab a stuffed animal. 

4. Pippi Longstocking

If you have long hair and some wire, it is absolutely possible to get your braids to stick out like Pippi's and trust me, it will amaze everyone around you. There's a tutorial here. 

5. Hester Prynne from The Scarlet Letter

 

If you're not super creative, all you need for this is to stick a red A on yourself.  Bonus points if you have a baby! Or you could go as Taylor Swift with an A on for a complete misunderstanding of The Scarlett Letter. Or you could be Emma Stone as a better version of Lindsey Lohan.  The possibilities are endless.

6. Greek Gods/Goddesses - The Odyssey, Percy Jackson, Mythology in general

This one could be very fun.  Pick a god/goddess and play up what they represent.  Wear a Hawaiian shirt and go as Poseidon, wear a bunch of purple balloons and put a laurel on your head to be Dionysus, etc. etc.

7. The Whomping Willow from Harry Potter

You could always go as the obvious - HP himself - but try thinking outside the box.  Wear all brown, attach construction paper leaves to yourself, and grab some branches (but don't hurt anybody)! Bonus points for attaching a blue Ford Anglia to your head.

8. The Man With the Yellow Hat from Curious George

It's in the character's name, you really just need a yellow hat.  Except that's not true, you need a completely yellow ensemble.  And a monkey.  Stuffed animal or real.  Preferably stuffed animal.

9. Margaret from Are You There God? It's Me Margaret

Wear a nametag that says Margaret and attach a thought bubble to yourself stating the book's title question.

10. Janie - from The Face on the Milk Carton

If you're ambitious, make a giant cardboard milk carton complete with Janie's identifying details. 

Go nuts! Happy Halloween!!

The Casual Vacancy

About 20 pages in, I got worried that I wasn't going to like this book.  Obviously with her prior series being full of familiar characters and settings, it was never difficult to dive into a book.  But with The Casual Vacancy, it's a completely new world with a mess of new characters.  Really, it's like you're jumping into your first episode of a long-running soap opera, but a soap opera that is well-written and developed.  No offense to soap operas; we all know Passions was one of the greatest things to ever grace daytime television.

Once I hit page 50 though, I was in love. 

This novel examines the divide between the social and economic classes, races, generations and genders.  A friend remarked "so it's like every history textbook ever written?" Well no.  There are no history textbooks out there that have Rowling's knack for creating well-rounded characters and ability to weave storylines together with the tiniest of details. 

There's one scene in particular that had me floored.  A dinner party caught up in political storm shows the perspective of five different characters.  The way Rowling describes the thoughts of each of the characters made me realize that Rowling understands the cryptic ways women's brains work in social situations.  If you were to ever search for a manual on how to understand women, only bother reading it if Rowling is the author.  She also understands how poverty affects people.  While this book very clearly champions the idea that there should be assistance for the lower class, she effectively presents the other opinion through many characters and the reasons behind their views. 

The narration, along with the plethora of characters, might trip readers up.  There are no visual indicators that the narration is following a new character. It just flows seamlessly from one character to the next.  It takes some getting used to, but becomes very powerful by the novel's close.
 

The Handmaid's Tale

I'm still processing this book in my mind right now even though I finished it exactly one week ago.  So I'm not going to go into severe detail except to say that this novel by Margaret Atwood is a haunting dystopia where the focus is on women's rights.  If you like dystopias, read it.  Read it now.

The current political climate made this book all the more haunting.  The absolute insane crazy bananas statements about "legitimate rape" and female bodies being able to fend off evil sperm to prevent pregnancies are terrifying, even if they've since been apologized for.  Regardless, people still believe similar notions.  Reading this novel while these fights are going on was a chilling experience. 

I could rant about this to no end, but I'll leave you with this:

Review: Hope: A Tragedy

Imagine you move your family to a farm house in a town no one has ever heard of, hoping to start anew, and you find a 90 year old Anne Frank hiding in your attic, and it turns out that Anne Frank is kind of a bitch.  That's what happens to Solomon Kugel in Hope: A Tragedy, by Shalom Auslander.

To add to this pain, he has a mother who pretends she was a victim of the Holocaust as an outlet for her guilt over not being a victim.  This includes excusing every crazy action with "ever since the war," and handing her son a bar of soap in a velvet lined box and claiming it's his aunt ("Why does it say Ivory on it?").  She raised her son to be afraid of everything, resulting in him living in a state of perpetual panic and constantly updating a mental list of what he should grab in the event he needs to copy his new friend Anne Frank and hide in an attic (iPod, aloe, and credit card are among these items).  

This is an hilarious overview of cultural guilt.  Before the Kugels purchased the farm, a German family lived there and were forced to care for her because it would be awful if a German hurt Anne Frank some more.  Kugel is faced with the dilemma of trying to explain how being Jewish means he can't toss Anne out on the street.  It's great.  

The only thing I didn't like about this novel was the omission of all quotation marks.  I understand the stylistic choice: Kugel is mentally screwy, so there's a chance that the entire novel is taking place in his head.  Quotation marks are just a personal preference of mine.  I also could have used a little more Anne Frank, she's a riot.

This is technically an adult book, but I think a snarky and sarcastic teenager with a twisted sense of humor would adore this novel.  Check it out!

New Project!

Reading and commenting on 1001 children's books and other books that cross my path, ranting about various issues, and discussing library related topics isn't enough for me.  So I've come up with a new blog project idea that I'm really excited about.

Everyone always reminisces about books they used to read (guiltiest person of such behavior), but when you move on to bigger and hopefully better things, what do you select?  The same goes for tweens and young adults, they've just reached the end of that acceptable Baby Sitters Club phase, but aren't quite sure what they should attempt next.

So the plan is a recurring theme of "you used to read this, now read this" and it will consist of lists of books connected by subject matter, themes, prominent literary features, etc.  I'm actually using some of this work at a high school library where I volunteer, so, per usual, the selections will be a little young adult heavy.  But everyone needs a good YA read every now and then. =)

When you read, try to look like this guy.  Or maybe not.

#TheList, No. 748: Around the World in 80 Days

I did not expect to like this book.  For starters, it's a "classic" and that immediately makes me put up my shields against boredom, overratedness, racism, etc.  Yes, I'm biased against classics, it's a fault that I attempt to work on every now and then, but usually fail.  I also didn't expect to like this book because I was plagued with images of Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan, from the 2004 movie rendition which I didn't actually see, but I vividly remember the commercials for some reason.  I'm fine with Jackie Chan, especially when he's singing songs from Mulan in Cantonese, but picturing him as the lead character in this book just does not work.

But I really enjoyed this book.  It's funny, adventurous, historical, and includes a chapter that makes fun of Mormons (I'm still on a Book of Mormon kick).  Although, there is no hot air balloon in this book, despite an image of one appearing on many book covers and being featured in the film versions.  This was slightly disappointing to me, but that's really the only fault I had with the book and I can easily blame that on media influence. 

If this novel was used in an English, or even history, class, there is great potential for organizing a map/geography project in the library. You could even attempt to form groups of students and use electronic resources to plan out their own trips around the world (in less than 80 days, because c'mon, it's the 2010s) and see who can come up with the shortest trip that includes all locations in the book.  Fun stuff!

Liking this book makes me excited to read Jules Verne's other works included on The List, Journey to the Center of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  So maybe 80 Days is a potential gateway into lking and appreciating classics?  I would say yes.

Adults Judging Childrens Books: Complexity

Whenever I tell people that I'm close to reaching my goal of reading 110 books this year (6.5 to go!), I tend to get a response along the lines of: "But those are easy books. Those are way beneath your level. So why bother?"  Putting aside the obvious problems of them taking the liberty of knowing what my level is and assuming I'm not reading books that I actually enjoy, who is to say that children's and young adult books are beneath anyone's level?

While some "grown-up" books may not be appropriate content-wise for young'ns, readability statistics for some of the most popular adult fiction is right on target for a children's audience.  The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level ("FKGL") test is a readability test that measures total number of sentences, sentence length, and syllables to assign a grade level to a selection of writing.  If you're a student, you're most likely familiar with this test from seeing it after spellchecking your papers in Word (...and then furiously hitting shiftF7 to use the thesaurus to find longer words, yeah don't deny it).  Obviously assigning grade levels is making an assumption about where each grade should be, but let's experiment.

Read this:

"'All your old drinking habits, too. Chewing Excedrin. Wiping your mouth all the time. Cranky in the morning. And you haven't been able to finish the play, yet, have you?'"

According to the FKGL, that's at a 2.8 grade level.  It's also a quote from The Shining, one of the most popular "adult" books of all time.  That quote isn't even as bad as this:

"The wedding. Her father had been there. Her mother had not been. She found she could live with that, if she had Jack. And then Danny had come. Her fine son."

That has a 0.0 rating.  Seriously. 

Now this:

"'From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork.'"

Yes, that's right.  Dumbledore speaks at a 13.2 grade level.

While the subject matter of Stephen King novels may not be appropriate for a second grader (depending on how liberal you are), they can definitely read it.  So should second graders deem you lazy for reading something way below your level?  I mean, it's a pretty easy read, so why bother?

Okay yes, obviously I picked specific quotes that would prove a point.  But if you put The Shining as a whole up against this test, it averages out at about a 7th grade level.  You know what else does? The Harry Potter series.  So stop judging people for reading things "beneath their level" because guess what? Chances are, so are you. 

Day 15 – Favorite male character

Edward Cullen.  Hahahaha yeah right. 

My favorite male character is a sissy though, just a less sparkly sissy.  Major Major Major Major from Joseph Heller's Catch-22.  Major is his rank and all of his names, he bears a striking resemblance to Henry Fonda, avoids doing work by signing every document he receives as either Washington Irving or Irving Washington, and keeps from talking to people by jumping out of his window whenever they approach.  Hilarity.

Day 10 – Favorite classic book

Now I hate most classics.  I just don't care about them.  I respect them, but that doesn't mean I need to pretend they're my favorite things in the world.  I love the people who only read (i.e. Sparknote) classics so they can reference them in conversation and sound impressive.  Me? I don't care about Jane Austen or her Pride and Prejudice or even the Zombies that followed.  But, I digress.

My favorite "classic" is hands down The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Yes, I love that emo Holden Caulfield and his hatred of all things phony. I ate that angst stuff up freshman year of high school and wrote the best essay ever on symbolism because of it. 

I loved the Catcher in the Rye.  It's one of the few classics I read in school that I quite willingly read once I started.  I didn't know what to expect, because the title pretty much means nothing until the end of the novel.  Like Uncle Jesse in that episode of "Full House" when he has to do a book report on Catcher ("You guys could try the Gibbler method. Rent the movie" "Kimmy, that's a teribble idea. And I checked, it's not on video"), I didn't want to read it at first.  I just assumed it would be boring.   But the guy runs away to NY, meets a prostitute, gets beat up by her pimp, and complains a lot.  What's not to love?  And oh, the symbolism! 

This book is actually on "The List" (YES) so I'm goin to stop now and get back to it some other time.  Maybe recopy that amazing essay on symbolism.  I recall talking about the ducks a lot.  A lot. 

Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like, but ended up loving

I tend to hate girly things.  Well, maybe hate is a strong word, but when given the option I tend to favor the non-girly choice.  On Thanksgiving, I do everything in my power to stay out of the kitchen and be near the designated football watching area.  And yet, I love to bake. I also love sparkly things and boybands so maybe I do like girly things.  I don't know.  Either way, romantic sappy chick lit is not my cup of tea. 

I picked up The Friday Night Knitting Club because I have a problem leaving a used bookstore without buying something (alright, I am a girl) and because my reference professor told us it was a smart move to acclimate ourselves to other genres.  I assumed I would have to struggle through it and that it would be all sappy and tear-inducing forced drama tied together with a weak attempt of using the knitting club as a mechanism for knitting the women's lives together.  I was right.

But I loved it and I have no idea why.  The whole time I was reading the book I was thinking YAY KNITTING!  It's like how watching "American Ninja Warrior" makes me want to be all athletic.  The book tries to overly force the idea of knitting being a pro-feminism hobby and throws in just about every cliched horrible thing that can happen to women in there, but it works somehow. 

Day 08 – Most overrated book

I know I'm part of the minority here, it being an international bestseller and all, but I think The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is just godawful.  In my reference class, we were told that reading recent and popular books across all genres will help us when we're put on the spot to help someone.  Naturally I figured it was a good idea to try this book out before America attempted its own film version.  I read it just in time.

Now I knew going in that the author had passed away before finishing what was supposed to be a ten part series and that the books lacked any significant editing, but uggghfhguhguhgug.  The first 200 pages felt like I was suffering through a business class without the reward of a high paying job after graduation.  The rest of the book felt like I was reading an episode of Law and Order SVU.  The marathons on USA already scare me enough that I want to develop agoraphobia and never go outside where the crazies are waiting, I don't need to read about them too.  

I can semi-see the appeal of these books, though I only read the first, and yeah, there's got to be some stuff lost in translation, but yeeeeeesh, when I think about this book I can just hear the call of BC Superfans chanting "Ov-er-ra-ted" to a team that will proceed to kick their butts. 

#TheList, No. 964: Troy

I was legitimately surprised when I saw that this was on "The List."  I had picked up this book in high school because I was semi-obsessed with mythology and needed to study for a national mythology test (I got a medal...).  Because I rarely read the back covers of books, I never realized that this was such an award-winning book.  Adele Geras' Troy was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book, a Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book of the Year, and many, many more.  Granted, being an award winner doesn't necessarily mean it's any good, but for some reason I was under the impression that this wasn't a known novel.  

Basically, Troy details the end of the Trojan War with a little bit of extra love affairs mixed in for good measure.  Geras conjures up a love rectangle set against the whole Hector-Achilles-Paris-Trojan Horse debacle.  She uses the Greek gods as characters; they appear constantly throughout the novel, interacting with the mortals to offer explanations of what is going on in the war and how the gods are helping each side.  In the novel, the characters forget these interactions immediately, fitting because the purpose of the god characters is primarily to give uninformed readers a clear image of mythological background.  

So I already loved this book for the mythology prior to The List Project, so this time through I read it through a high school/young adult librarian to see what I thought the book could be useful for.  My thoughts:

-Great book to have out if a librarian ever made a mythology display in the library.  Not everyone wants to read the Odyssey, Iliad or the Aeneid and instead prefer concise, clearer, explanations of mythological events.  This book is perfect for this audience.

-Any history or language arts teacher doing a unit on the Trojan War or Greek mythology could definitely use this as a teaching tool.  I might not use it to teach from, but it could definitely offer insight  on the topic when paired against the traditional classics.  

-Students struggling with the topics could benefit from reading this book.  The love story wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but I loved everything that surrounded it and gave me a new perspective of the Trojan War.  The integration of the gods into the romance are great for learning opportunities. 

#TheList, No. 719: Inkheart

I was taught that reading aloud to someone else or being read aloud to is one of the greatest gifts a person can give or receive. In the case of Cornelia Funke's Inkheart, it's a gift and a curse.  

In Inkheart, there are people who have the ability to make words literally come to life when they read stories aloud.  Their words can pull out items, beautiful creatures, and of course, villains.  Meggie and Mo, a daughter/father team, work with their knowledge of literature to rid their lives of villains and regain what disappeared into the books they read. 

This book is fairly well-written, but relies heavily on prior knowledge of classic classics and modern day classics.  Each chapter begins with a quote from one of these classics, my favorite being The Princess Bride, that sets up what's about to unfold.  If you're familiar with these tales, then it's a fun little reference, but if not, then they become somewhat of a nuisance.  It could be easily skipped over, but the references don't end with the quotes.  They are constantly brought up within the story itself.  Characters from classics become part of the Inkheart tale and specific classics situations are suggested throughout as options to emulate.  

This book is definitely one to pair with one of the classics referenced throughout.  If a student enjoyed that book, s/he may enjoy this one as well.  But Inkheart isn't for a novice reader; it's definitely geared toward one who, like Meggie, reads into the late hour of the nights and is familiar with all of the references. 

Review: The Magicians

Quick summary of Lev Grossman's The Magicians before I start complaining about it:  It's about a college for magicians, and not the kind of magicians that do illusions (not tricks because "tricks are what whores do for money" - I miss Arrested Development), but the magicians who can alter elements and such.  These socially awkward magicians go through five years of classes while pretty much hating the world they live in.  They realize that there's really no point to life, even with the powers they possess.  Nothing can really make them happy.  Even traveling to the assumed ficional world Fillory, setting of a book series they all loved as kids, can't bring them happiness. 

It's such an uplifting story. 

I liked the book for the most part, because it was more about the characters than plot, and the existential element was interesting.  But there were too many moments when I wanted to throw the book against the wall, something I haven't felt since I read Breaking Dawn when I actually did throw the book.  Characters just disappear without notice.  They assume a large role and then *poof* they're gone for 100 or so pages without explanation.  It's very annoying.  Or to me it is.

But the thing I hated most was how it tries so hard to remind the reader that it's a completely different story than Harry Potter.  I'm fairly certain that the fact that the title does not include the phrase "Harry Potter and the" made it clear to whoever picked it up that it was not part of the HP series.  But the HP series is constantly referenced and it gets old fast. 

But if you like existential novels, then you'll probably really enjoy The Magicians.  There's also a sequel coming out this summer, so there'll be more opportunities to discuss how pointless life is.  Huzzah!

#TheList, No. 946: The Golden Compass

Woo!  After having this on my shelf for over 10 years, I finally finished The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman.  I've tried reading this book a few times since my Uncle gave it to me as a gift in the 7th grade, but could never quite get past the first chapter.  I think it's because I hated the word "daemon."  You know how some people hate the word "moist?"  Well, I have that reaction to "daemon." 

 

So I finally plucked it off my shelf because I knew I'd have to read it eventually, it being on The List and all.  I almost had a heart attack when I double checked The List halfway through and couldn't find the book anywhere.  Turns out, The List has it by its European title Northern Lights and I wasn't reading this book in vain.  But the heart attack seemed justified because recently every book I've started to read thinking that it absolutely had to be on The List, I'd find out later that I was completely wrong.  It's been pretty upsetting, especially since I'd been basing my assumptions off of fellow librarian and librarian wannabes' recommendations for great children's books.  And the books they're recommending are great and should certainly be included over some not-so-great-and-highly-overrated (*cough*Love You Forever) books that are included.  But that's a rant for another day.

I liked this book.  Had I possessed the strength to get over my hatred for the word "daemon," I might have really loved this series as a child.  Anyway, the story is incredibly complex, but basically involves a girl trying to save a bunch of children from the wicked things that adults do.  Pretty simple premise buried incredibly deep in a complicated, well-organized world Pullman creates.  It can get pretty dull and/or confusing at times, or maybe I was just too focused on judging the people around me who were judging me for reading The Golden Compass in public.  But aside from the dull moments, there's a ton of adventure and some pretty witty badass remarks from the heroine (Girl Power! woo!).  It's definitely capable of being a boys book even though boys stereotypically stay away from anything featuring girl characters or written by female authors (which is why J.K. Rowling used initials).  How could anyone not love a heroine who can come up with this blatant lie about her father to avoid a probable child molester:

"'I told you, he's a murderer.  It's his profession.  He's doing a job tonight.  I got his clean clothes in here, 'cause he's usually all covered in blood when he's finished a job.'"

While I didn't love The Golden Compass, it's only because it's not my favorite of the genres.  It's definitely well-written and great for kids.  Plus, the female lead character is always a plus.  Librarians could do a lot of work with ELA and History teachers on this book.  The Tartars a brought up a ton.  History lesson potential!!