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Books: 2nd Edition

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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby Warrior 4 Jesus » Sep 07, 2010 9:41 pm

As you're on the topic of children's picture books, here are a few of my favourites:

Math Curse - an interesting, humorous riddle book with great illustrations. I was never particularly good at Maths, so I related well with the protagonist (I discovered this book during a Maths uni workshop).
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The Discovery of Dragons - a great beastiary with illustrations of dragons from the four corners of the world.
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The Sign of the Seahorse - again, beautifully illustrated and cleverly-written. Some riddles and many opportunities for finding hidden items/characters/creatures etc.
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Where the Wild Things Are - paved the way for more intense, less preachy children's picture books.
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Wolves in the Walls - creepy fun.
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The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish - um. yeah.
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The Quinkins - a great Aboriginal Dreaming story
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby Adeona » Sep 07, 2010 11:16 pm

Ooooh! Graeme Base! My favorite of his is without a doubt:
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I could look through that book for hours (And have).

Thanks for weighing in on the Attolia ages, ValiantArcher! :)
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby Warrior 4 Jesus » Sep 07, 2010 11:28 pm

Awesome, another Graeme Base fan! I love that book. The Eleventh Hour isn't my favourite of his in terms of illustrations but it still has many great riddles and things to discover. The final coded message at the back of the book is great too but involves quite a bit of time and effort. My first book by Base was Animalia, followed by The Eleventh Hour. After those two, I pretty much read the books as they were released. Yay for Aussie author/illustrators!
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby Adeona » Sep 07, 2010 11:34 pm

Regarding The Eleventh Hour, do you think it is truly possible to discover the name of the Swan, or was that just a trick question?
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby Warrior 4 Jesus » Sep 07, 2010 11:43 pm

I believe the Swan's name was a trick question but maybe people with Mensa-like abilities can make something of it.
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby sweeetlilgurlie » Sep 08, 2010 7:14 am

I finished The Hound of the Baskervilles, and am now reading it over again because it's a book analysis book for school and I didn't read the guidelines for the analyses before I started the book. So now I'm reading it and looking for Sherlock Holmes's character traits and the "rising action" in the conflict between Holmes and Mr. Stapleton.

What a good read! I enjoyed it very much. It was not my first Sherlock Holmes mystery (I've read many short stories of the famous detective), but I haven't read any Conan Doyle for awhile and I'd forgotten how interesting a read his mysteries can be.

I think in the shorter stories, you're not as inclined to like Holmes as much. He's very stiff and it's often annoying how he just steps up after he solves a case and explains calmly how he was brilliant and how you were an idiot. :P But in a longer story like The Hound of the Baskervilles, I got to know him a wee bit more. I think he's a good guy and he's got heart-- he just hides it behind his awesome deducing skills.

The description was masterful. Wow. Just wow. I SAW the moor. I HEARD the hound howling. It positively gave me the shivers, and the villain was so cold and creepy! I never guessed that Ms. Stapleton was actualy MRS. Stapleton, and Mr. Stapleton's wife. Also, the way that Conan Doyle carefully spaced out the clues he gave to the reader was masterful. You never guessed the villain until Conan Doyle wanted you to be able to. It was not UN-expected, but it was like you were slowly learning with Watson. :D

I'm now on to re-reading The Last of the Jedi series by Jude Watson. I don't care if they're written for ten year olds. I like them. She's a good author. :P

I keep reading about The Hunger Games and Mockingjay on here! I think I need to get them out of the library....
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby Rising_Star » Sep 08, 2010 7:39 am

Don't forget the middle book Catching Fire, Sweeet! It comes between The Hunger Games and Mockingjay. (Obviously . . . I just said it was the middle book . . . gah, I'm tired. ;)) )

Valia, on Mockingjay:

It never said that Castor had died. I'm pretty sure you're just supposed to assume that he had when he wasn't there in the headcount.

And at first I didn't think that Prim was a target, just that she was a casualty. But then I also wondered along with Katniss why a 13-year-old would be put in the front lines. So I'm pretty sure Coin let her go/killed her so that in the grand scheme of things Katniss would blame Snow for her sister's death, which would give her more incentive to kill him (since Katniss wasn't nearly as ruthless as Coin wanted her to be, I'm pretty sure).

I'm pretty sure Katniss said 'yes' to the Hunger Games to throw Coin off. She wanted to make sure Coin thought Katniss was on her side so that she wouldn't see it coming when Katniss shot her. Otherwise, if she'd said 'no', I'm pretty sure Coin wouldn't found a reason to lock Katniss up somehow. Because she was afraid of Katniss not being on her side, because then the people wouldn't be, just like Hyacinth (that's his name right? I forget how to spell it . . .) said. Katniss was a threat to Coin as long as Coin thought Katniss would disagree with her.


I hope that made sense! ;))

On the subject of 'judging a book by its cover': I prefer a pretty book cover, but if I know I like the author and/or it's part of a series I like and/or I've read and liked the synopsis, then I'll check it out. But I'll admit that it's the pretty covers that catch my eye first and cause me to pick it up. Or if I recognize the author.

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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby johobbit » Sep 08, 2010 9:03 am

Lady Haleth wrote:I don't have the book with me right now, but I think The Children of Hurin has one of the best covers ever.
High dittos, Lady Haleth! Alan Lee's painting are so mood-oriented—very evocative. Wonderful!

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Another favourite of mine is this edition of A Little Princess:

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Any of Ernest Shepard's book covers are just simply ♥. Not that this cover, itself, is anything particularly special in its design, but I do so enjoy Shepard's illustrations.
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~Anything Narnia by Pauline Baynes; some editions of the Space Trilogy, which I don't have time to find now ...

And this cover
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one of Ted Nasmith's well-known drawings depicting Gwaihir's rescue of Gandalf from Isengard (Nasmith fan that I am). :)

I do have more, oooh yes, precioussss, but will stop for now. ;;)

Whoa! Graeme Base's illustrations are awesome!

Yes, W4J, many of Dekker's covers are intriguingly fantastic.

Shantih, I remember reading through Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee—such a heart-wrenching and hard book in so many ways—so very well-written. Seeing it again brings back those memories.
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby AJAiken » Sep 08, 2010 10:15 am

*is unable to resist joining the cover conversation*

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I have fallen in love both with the book and this cover. I think this is my favourite as it was drawn by Christian Birmingham who also worked on a version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

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This book I don't like so much, but I think the bright, stylised cover is wonderful!

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You can't really see it here, but the texture in the drawing is gorgeous! I love the soft colours and beautiful detail. What I particularly like about this one is that it wraps right round the book.

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And again with the design ... I just really like nicely illustrated covers. Photographs just don't excite me as much, I guess!

And on reading books ... it's really interesting to see the old That Hideous Strength cover as I have finally bought myself a set of Lewis' Cosmic Trilogy! Yesterday I read the whole of Out of the Silent Planet. It was wonderful. One of the best things about it was hearing Lewis' voice again - I still adore the Narnia Chronicles, but reading this book was much more of a challenge than re-reading those. It was like experiencing Narnia for the first time, rediscovering the wonder I had when I was younger. Wow! I don't think I've ever read a book to compare to it; in fact the closest thing I could come up with was - rather oddly - Phillip Pullman's trilogy. However, while I found Pullman's books rather depressing throughout, Silent Planet uplifted me and made me joyful. I've already started Perelandra and I don't think it will last very long!
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby DiGoRyKiRkE » Sep 08, 2010 10:38 am

I was handed a copy of my Mom and Dad's AARP monthly magazine, which comes free to them. In the back, is a list of books that school libraries have banned from their shelves.

Included were some of the most classic works of our time:

The Scarlet Letter: Too sexual
Harry Potter: Irreligious
The Lord of the Rings: Irreligious
Uncle Tom's Cabin: Too Political
Animal Farm: Too Political
The Biography of Benjamin Franklin: Too Risque

The ones that really struck me were LOTR and The Scarlet Letter. While I've never read LOTR, and didn't exactly "fall in love" with The Scarlet Letter, I don't think that they should be banned books. Especially for the reasons of banishment that are given.

What do you guys think about banning books from a library?
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby Valiant_Lucy » Sep 08, 2010 11:15 am

On the subject of banning books--I don't think any books should be banned. Seriously. I can only see myself wanting a book banned if it was something like, a picture book for babies, with tons of swearing or something...
To me, books are for learning, and for freedom of speech and what-not. Banning books because they're too "political" is completely...pointless, imho. If you ban all controversial books, how will people think outside the box? Ugh!

Catching up from the previous pages...I love, love, love seeing all the book covers! :D
Aly, the JS&MN cover is also one of my favorites, I forgot to post it :ymblushing: And AJ, I love the cover of The Thief Lord :D

Valia, on the previous page you asked the differences between Bluebeard and Fitcher's Bird. In Bluebeard, the evil Bluebeard marries a girl, tells her not to look in a certain cupboard, he goes away giving her all the keys, she looks in the cupboard, sees the previous wives, murdered, the key drops in the blood and the stain won't come off. Bluebeard comes home, finds out, plans to kill her. While she's saying her prayers, her brothers come and rescue her. Yay.
In Fitcher's Bird, there are three sisters. The first one marries Bluebeard, is given a egg instead of a key. She looks in the forbidden closet and drops the egg. It gets stained. Bluebeard comes home, finds her, and kills her. This happens to the second sister as well. Then the third sister is married off to Bluebeard. He tells her he's going away, she must not look in that cupboard, here are all the keys, oh, and she must keep this egg with her at all times. As soon as Bluebeard leaves, what does she do? She goes to her room, puts the egg in a safe place, then goes to explore the castle. She finds her murdered sisters in the forbidden room, "magically" "puts them back together" and they're okay again. Bluebeard returns, finds the egg intact, and pronounces her his bride. She then manages to cunningly sneak her sisters off to their fathers house, and the story ends with her locking Bluebeard up in his castle with all his evil friends while she sets it on fire. :P

Hm, I really should have saved this for the Fairy Tales SF when it comes about, yes? But, I hope that answered your question!
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby Shantih » Sep 08, 2010 11:29 am

I'm the same Val_Lu, I don't believe in ever banning books. There's plenty of books out there with stuff I don't agree with in, so I just don't read them :p

Jo - I think that's why I like that cover so much - I find it really evokes how I felt when reading Bury My Heart.
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby DiGoRyKiRkE » Sep 08, 2010 12:15 pm

I agree with both of you. If a child is mature enough to understand (I mean really understand) the content matter of a book, then he's old enough to be "allowed" to read it. Chances are the people that banned some of these books. . . never even read them and are merely going off of preconceived notions about the authors or the books. I mean, come on! I've never read LOTR, but even I know that they're not "irreligious."
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby Rising_Star » Sep 08, 2010 12:23 pm

Ditto to both Shantih and Val with the issue of banned books. I don't believe in ever banning books, especially on the ridiculous excuse that I don't agree with them. Honestly, it's written by someone who's not me so to ban them on that grounds is just silly. What happened to freedom of speech and freedom of the press? If you don't like what someone is saying, don't listen. If you don't like what someone has written, don't read it.

It's as simple as that. :P

Sorry, I can get a little heated on the subject. I just think it's really, really, really unfair.

I do find it hilarious though that The Biography of Benjamin Franklin is considered too risque. :))

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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby sweeetlilgurlie » Sep 08, 2010 12:52 pm

What? Are you serious? Those books being banned seems ridiculous! Maybe it's because the teachers can't teach the material in the books well enough and the kids get weird ideas. The books seriously have good messages and life lessons.

I can kind of understand it, because it's a school library-- but seriously. I read two of them for school and (while I hated the books as stories :P) they were classic works and worth reading, even if it didn't particularly suit my style.
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Re: Books: 2nd Edition

Postby Liberty Hoffman » Sep 08, 2010 1:02 pm

I love the Underland Chronicles covers


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