Also–leave a comment during the month of August and be eligible to win a copy of Mockingjay, the final installment in the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.

Read the reviews of Hunger Games and Catching Fire.

Language:  0

Violence:  1

Sexual Content:  0

Adult Themes:  1

Title:  A Whole Nother Story

Author:  Dr. Cuthbert Soup

Ratings Explanation

Violence: Captain Jibby’s hand was once eaten by a tiger (and was replaced by a Swiss Army Knife with multiple, useful tools.)  The “Coats”–referring to the men in suits chasing after the Cheeseman family–use guns to threaten Captain Jibby.  The Coats kidnap Ethan, the father, and his son Gerard at gunpoint.  A monkey accidentally shoots his spy partner in the leg with a banana-shaped gun.  Captain Jibby rams his bus into a chain link fence that one of the Coats is climbing.  Captain Jibby stabs a Coat in the shoulder with his knife-hand.

Adult Themes:  Mrs. Cheeseman was poisoned and killed by the evil men who want her husband’s time machine.

Synopsis

Ethan Cheeseman is a scientist/inventor who has developed a super-secret time machine.  The problem is, the secret got out and now a whole slew of dirty government spies and evil thugs all want a piece of it–or actually, the entire thing.  This means Mr. Cheeseman and his three children, who are all “smart, pleasant, witty, attractive, polite, and relatively odor-free” are constantly on the run, moving from city to city and barely staying in one place long enough to make any friends.  The evil “Coats” will stop at nothing to get their hands on the time machine, even poisoning Mrs. Cheeseman, who dies before the story begins.  But this clever family is resourceful and quick, eluding the Coats at nearly every turn, changing their names with each move (half a chapter is devoted to recounting their long string of hilarious pseudonyms) and relying on their trusty, hairless, clairvoyant dog Pinky, who warns the family when evil is near.  Along the way, they meet and make friends with the odd members of a traveling circus sideshow and a quirky cowboy poet.  The story is narrated by Dr. Cuthbert Soup, “founder of the National Center for Unsolicited Advice”, and–you guessed it–he doles out short tidbits of advice on everything ranging from tattoos (“avoid getting one at all costs”) to dealing with ghosts (“listen to them carefully”) to squash recipes (“eat doughnuts”).

We read this one as a family, and there were several places where I found myself laughing so hard that my kids had to wait for me to catch my breath before continuing!  An entertaining, offbeat, and clean adventure, one that everyone will heartily enjoy.  I hope this debut novel from “Dr. Soup” is not his last.

CONGRATULATIONS to Beth from Oregon! She is the winner of an Advanced Reader’s Copy of Matched.

Thanks to everyone who left comments. We love hearing your opinions and insights into the books we have posted. Stay tuned for more giveaways coming soon!

Comment on a book by Tuesday, 10 August 2010 and you will be entered to win an Advanced Reader’s Copy of Matched by Ally Condie.

Read Keri’s review of Matched .

Matched will not be available for purchase until 30 November 2010.

winner selected using www.randomizer.org

Comment on a book by Tuesday, 10 August 2010 and you will be entered to win an Advanced Reader’s Copy of Matched by Ally Condie.

Read Keri’s review of Matched .

Matched will not be available for purchase until 30 November 2010.

winner selected using www.randomizer.org

Language:  0

Violence:  0

Sexual Content:  0

Adult Themes:  2

Title:  Silas Marner

Author:  George Eliot

Ratings Explanation

Adult Themes:  Silas is accused of a theft he did not commit.  Squire Cass has two dishonorable sons; one drinks and steals, and the other is secretly married to a woman he does not love who has an opium addiction.  The men in town frequent the local pub (where amusing stories are told with a slightly tipsy narration).  A dead body is discovered lying at the bottom of a pond.

Synopsis

In this classic tale, a kind, gentle linen weaver named Silas Marner is accused of a theft he did not commit.  Framed by his best friend, who then steals his fiancee and ruins his reputation, Marner quietly leaves town and exiles himself to the tiny village of Raveloe, where his reclusive nature keeps him distanced from the other villagers.  He absorbs himself in his weaving and counts his gold each night, his only comforts.  In the same village live Squire Cass and his two sons, Dunstan and Godfrey, who have their own secrets to hide.  Dunstan is a dissolute young man who spends his father’s money and drinks to excess; Godfrey, who pines for the lovely Nancy Lammeter, is secretly married to a woman far beneath him in social stature and feels trapped.  Eventually, the lives and actions of the two Cass brothers become entwined in that of Silas Marner; Dunstan stumbles upon Silas’s unlocked cottage and steals his stash of gold coins.  The theft profoundly affects Marner, who loses the only thing in life he loved or valued.  Then one day an abandoned child inexplicably appears in his lonely cottage and reawakens inside him all that was missing from his life: joy, laughter, and love.

This is a beautiful tale of spiritual rebirth and redemption.  I enjoyed watching Silas’s transformation from lonely recluse to doting father; I particularly enjoyed Mrs. Winthrop’s commentary on religion:  “…there’s trouble i’ this world, and there’s things as we can niver make out the rights on. And all as we’ve got to do is to trusten, Master Marner–to do the right thing as fur as we know, and to trusten.”  An interesting fact:  George Eliot (the author) was actually a woman named Mary Ann Evans.

Language: 0

Violence: 2

Sexuality: 0

Adult Themes: 1

Title:  My Side of the Mountain

Author:  Jean Craighead George

1960 Newbery Honor Book

Ratings Explanation

Violence:  Sam and Frightful, his falcon, kill animals to survive. Hunters shoot and kill a deer.  Sam quickly hides the deer under foliage.  He then skins the deer and sews clothing from the hide to keep him warm through the winter.  Sam and Frightful feast on venison.

Adult Themes:  Sam hitchhikes from New York City to the Catskill Mountains.  (This book was written forty years ago, when hitchhiking was a more acceptable means of transportation.)

Summary

This book is written in diary form.  Sam Gribley, a teenage boy, leaves his family’s crowded New York apartment and hitchhikes to his great-grandfather Gribley’s unused farm in the Catskill Mountains.

Sam spends the year living alone in the mountains.  He does make an occasional visit to the library in town to research “roughing it”.  He specifically researches which plants to eat.  Sam matures as he quickly learns survival skills.  He captures a newborn peregrine falcon and names her Frightful.  Sam trains her and she augments his diet with meat.  Through Sam’s journal, we learn of the animals he observes and befriends; the Baron Weasel and Jesse Coon James.  Sam finds shelter in a giant hollowed out hemlock tree and makes it his home by building a chimney and further hollowing out the tree for more space to sleep.  Sam also creates clothing to keep him warm through the winter.

I read this book aloud to my children, 11, 8,  and 4 years old.  We were all enraptured by Sam’s adventure, a modern day Thoreau! 

©2009 The Literate Mother