38. Charlie Bone and the Hidden King by Jenny Nimmo

This, the 5th book in the series, starts out with an "unnatural" snow storm and all the animals in London leaving in a mass exodus because of something evil. Later Charlie meets 2 new endowed girls and the father of the current evil headmaster of Bloors while trying to find out where the animals went. Again I really liked this book. This time Charlie's nice grandmother is frozen alive (though not killed) and her mother is taken over by an enchanter. Usually these two are Charlie's stalwart supporters, so he, his uncle, and all of his friends must find out what is going on and fix it. Charlie also continues his search for his father. These books are always unexpected and interesting and pretty quick reads. I would definitely recommend it.

37. How to Cross a Pond: Poems about Water by Marilyn Singer

This was a really cool poetry book. It felt less like children's poetry than the other two I read, more like adult poetry. The poems were also accompanied by some really cool Asian-style water color pictures. It really was a beautiful book and the poetry was very vivid and imaginative. I just thought it was amazing and peaceful. You really should check it out. It only takes a few minutes to read.

Here's one of my favorites:

What Water Can Be
A furrow that's filling
Water, collective
Your face in the puddle
Water, reflective
A network of rivers
Water, connective
Your boat drifting downstream
Water, directive
A storm in the city
Water, objective
One drop on your eyelash
Water, selective

36. Mary Had a Little Jam and Other Silly Rhymes by Bruce Lansky

This is a fun book to read, especially with kids. My girls and I sang through the whole book. The rhymes are new words put to the old nursery rhymes like "Mary had a little jam" instead of "Mary had a little lamb."

Here's my favorite:

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

I wish they'd had super glue way back then---

they could have put Humpty together again."

35. I Scream, You Scream: A Feast of Food Rhymes by Lillian Morrison

This month at Kate's book club the theme is poetry so I read three different books because they're all short and fun. This first one is a collection of rhymes about food (they're not poems the author has written just rhymes she's heard). They're fun. There are lots of good ones but here's one of my favorites:

"I was always religiously inclined,"

Said the oyster as he slid down

The minister's throat, "but never

Did I dream I'd enter the clergy."

It made me laugh and only took about a half hour to read.

34. Christy by Catherine Marshall

This is probably one of my top 10 favorite books ever--right up there with Jane Austen and the Anne of Green Gables series. Every time I see the movie or TV series reruns, I have to read the book again. This time I listened to it and I loved it again. It's one of those books that John says I obsess over. He's probably right. I first read Christy in 9th grade English and even though it was a little heavy for me I still liked it. It's got a little romance (very little actually), but most of all it is just about a girl coming of age and discovering what she really believes and also about these impoverished but great people that she met. The story is based on the author's grandmother's experiences as a young woman in the mountain country of the Tennessee Appalacians. It's moving and it really makes you think about a lot of things. However, it is definitely an adult book, or at least upper teenage, because there is some semi-graphic violence, a rape scene, and some sexual discussion. But I'm very squeamish about stuff like that and I think everything is handled very well. Anyway, I loved it for like the tenth time. (Funny story, at least twice I have wanted to read it so badly after seeing it on TV that I have gone out and bought it. The second time I found my other copy about a week after I finished the book. That might tell you a lot about my memory.)

33. Latter-day Saint Heroes and Heroines: True Stories of Courage and Faith by Marlene Bateman Sullivan (1999 edition)

This book is a compilation of stories about heroes in LDS history. I picked it up to help get me in the mood for the upcoming trek. I really enjoyed it. I'm not sure how historically accurate it is, but it is really fun and inspiring to read (It did have a bibliography). Some of the stories I have heard before, but many I have not.

The one I liked the best is about a man named Ephraim Hanks who felt that he was needed in SLC. (He was in Utah Valley at the time.) He started going toward there and stopped overnight in Draper. While sleeping that night he had an angel appear to him 3 times asking him if he would help the handcart pioneers. Finally, after the third visit, he promptly left where he was staying and continued on his journey in the middle of the night. The next morning he ran into a messenger in Salt Lake that Brigham Young had just sent to get him. He immediately went to President Young and joined the rescue party. Later, Ephraim refused to give up looking for the handcard companies, even though many thought they had missed them. Eventually he found them and miraculously ran into a herd of buffalo and brought the starving company lots of meat.

Anyway, there are lots of little stories like this one that are very inspiring. And each chapter is a stand alone story so it makes it easy to just pick it up every once in a while and read one. The stories are also very simply written so even children will understand and enjoy them. I think there are several newer versions but this was the one the library had. I would definitely recommend it.

32. Talking to Dragons by Patricia Wrede

This book is the fourth and last book in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles (although there is a volume of short stories that takes place in the Enchanted Forest). This is probably the silliest and wackiest of the four. That is probably why my little girls like it so much. This time the story is told from the viewpoint of Daystar, the 16 year old son of Mendenbar and Cimorene. The story takes place about 17 years after the last one in order for Daystar to grow up. Daystar goes on an adventure in the Enchanted Forest not really knowing who he is. He doesn't know that Mendenbar is his father, or even that Mendenbar is king of the Enchanted Forest. He has the sword, but he doesn't know what it is really. Along the way he meets a fire witch, a talking lizard, wizards galore, a teenage dragon, and lots of old characters from the other books. His mission is to find out why he is on the adventure and what he is supposed to do. Like the ones before, it is funny and pretty fast paced. It plays on lots of fairy tale stereotypes and is pretty clever. Kate used to say that it was the best story she had ever heard so I would highly recommend it.

31. Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors by Jenny Nimmo

This the fourth book in the Charlie Bone series. Again the story is very original. Several of Charlie's friends have troubles, and Charlie finds out a few more clues about where his missing dad might be. New endowed children come to the school including a little boy who has a "magnetic" personality in more ways than one. A new sinister teacher shows up who seems to have several personalities. Charlie's friend Billy finally gets adopted, but it is not quite what he expects. And finally Charlie finds out about the castle of mirrors and can't resist going to visit and unraveling all of the mysteries surrounding him. It's a quick, fun read and I really enjoyed it. I just wish poor Charlie could find his father. Maybe in the next book.

30. Calling on Dragons by Patricia Wrede

This is the third installment of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. This time the book is told from the perspective of Morwyn the Witch. She's friends with Kazul, Cimorene, and Mendenbar from the previous two books. It's about 18 months after the last book takes place and Cimorene is pregnant. Of course the wizards start causing trouble again. They steal Mendenbar's magic sword, the sword of the Enchanted Forest. So Cimorene, Morwyn, Telemain, Kazul and a few other new and colorful characters (one of them is a blue donkey with wings) have to go and get it back before the Enchanted Forest is sucked dry of all of its magic by the greedy wizards. Again, it is funny and quirky and a quick read. I actually listened to it and the production is really good. My girls love this series, especially to listen to. This one also has a lot of cats who talk. So if you like cats and dragons, this is the book for you.

29. Giants of Science: Leonardo da Vinci by Kathleen Krull

This was the book that Kate chose to read for the book club this month. We read two different ones and then swap and read each others'. That is why I read a picture book. Anyway, this was a pretty good biography of the scientific side of Da Vinci's life. It hardly touched on his art at all but it says up front that it's not going to. It was very interesting. One thing that surprised me was the author's treatment of homosexuality in the book. The author makes it pretty clear that most people think that Da Vinci was homosexual and then explains why they think that. I guess it surprised me that in a book geared to 9-12 year olds the subject needed to come up at all. She handled it pretty well. I wasn't really offended but I wondered if Kate knew what homosexuality is. She probably does. I'm pretty sure, however, that when I was a kid, that issue would never have come up in a children's book. This book made me realize that the only things I really knew about Da Vinci were gleaned from Star Trek: Voyager where he was a reappearing holodeck character. Now I know more. Oh yeah, Kate's comment was, "I think it was disgusting that he boiled human eyeballs so he could disect them." There you go.

28. The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley, illustrated by Brian Selznick

This is the book I chose to read for the Mother-Daughter bookclub this month. The topic was biographies and I needed one that I could read quickly. So this fit the bill. It is a picture book and has beautiful illustrations. It took me about 20 minutes to read but was incredibley interesting. It was a story I had never heard before. It told the story of Waterhouse Hawkins, who was the first man to make a model of what a dinosaur looked like. Before him, they just had bones, but they really couldn't picture what the animal looked like. He lived in the mid to late 1800's when they were just starting to discover dinosaur bones. He was a great sculptor and he got together with a scientist and they were commissioned by Queen Victoria to make huge life-size models of what a dinosaur would look like. And what they decided is pretty much what we think dinosaurs look like today. This was before they had found a complete dinosaur skeleton so it is really amazing. This book would be great for little boys or girls who like dinosaurs. The pictures are great.

27. Searching for Dragons by Patricia Wrede

This is the second book in the Enchanted Forest series. This time the story is mostly told from the view point of Mendenbar, the king of the Enchanted Forest. He is in his early twenties and getting worn out fast. His steward is always bugging him about finding a wife but he doesn't have any time and he hates princesses. He thinks they're airheads. He finds some strange things going on in the forest and he thinks the dragons are involved. He decides to go and visit the King of the Dragons (Cimorene's dragon Kazul). When he gets there, he meets Cimorene and finds that Kazul is missing. He agrees to go with Cimorene to find her and the adventures begin. I'm sure you can guess how it ends, but it's pretty funny and interesting. They run into giants, defective magic carpets, and rumplestiltskin's grandson. This is a fractured fairy tale at its best.

26. Charlie Bone and the Invisible Boy by Jenny Nimmo

In this, the third book of the series, Charlie's friend Emma finds out about a missing boy named Ollie Sparks from her art teacher, the boy's older brother. Charlie and his friends then begin investigating and find that the boy has been turned invisible and imprisoned in the attics of their boarding school. Consequently, they seek to get him out and visible. Meanwhile, Charlie's Uncle Peyton, who usually saves him, goes missing as well, and when he finally returns, he is not much more than a walking corpse. Finally, Charlie's grandma and aunts are really on top of their game, or so they think. Charlie and his friends are on their own and they do pretty well. It was a good book and another quick read. I'm still liking these books. They're really fun to read and very original.

25. Dealing with Dragons by Patricia Wrede

This is another great fantasy series. This is the first book of 4 in the Enchanted Forest series. The main character, Cimorene, is a very unconventional princess. In fact she is bored to death being a princess at all. In an effort to escape marrying a dim-witted prince forced on her by her parents, she runs away and volunteers to work for a dragon as her princess. Dragons' princesses have a lot more fun. She cooks, cleans, organizes, reads--all things her parents would never let her do at home. Eventually she also helps the dragons unravel a devious plot by the neighboring wizard society to take control of the dragons. It's super funny and interesting. And Cimorene is as spunky and witty as they come. I first discovered these books when I was a young women leader years ago, and two of my young women would not stop talking about these books. I read them then and then got them on cd for the girls. I think for a whole year Kate listened to the fourth book of the series everywhere she went. She loved it. This is a quick read but definitely worth it if you like fractured fairy tales. And the book on cd is awesome. It is a full cast production. I would highly recommend it.