Wednesdays with David: Marvel Super Heroes Storybook Collection

Marvel Super Heroes Storybook Collection

Marvel Press September 2013

304 pages

From the library

The story: This story collection includes the origins and adventures of your favorite super heroes, including the Hulk, Iron Man, Spiderman, the Black Widow, and more.

Mama opines: This storybook collection is perfect for the little guy in your life who dreams of shooting spiderwebs out of his hand or won't take off his Iron Man mask. It's extra fun when you can surprise your little one with your own knowledge of the super heroes.

Thoughts from David: Marvel Super Heroes Collection was just exactly as I had hoped it would be. It included a ton of the heroes, including Hulk, Iron Man, Spiderman, the Wasp, and She-Hulk. I never knew so much about all of these super heroes. I never knew that Daredevil was blind or that Wasp was friends with Henry Pim.

This is more than a better than good book. Wolverine, Wasp, Ant-Man, Black Widow, Iron Man, Spiderman, Thor, the Fantastic Four - they just seem so fantastic. At first, when I first got it, I thought it was just regular heroes because I didn't really like Marvel back then. But then when I started to read it. I found out so much more about the super heroes than I originally knew. Now I play Marvel all the time. But I do spend time with my sis and do, you know, other things.

Favorite part: All of the super heroes

 Well, let's get down to the jokes. What did the villain do when the super hero ran in? He Marveled at how fast the super hero was!

Well, see you next time!

Happy Reading!

Review: Us

Us

By David Nicholls

Harper October 2014

392 pages

Received for review from TLC Book Tours and the publisher

Douglas Petersen knows that change is on the horizon for his small family. His only son Albie will soon leave for college and Douglas and his wife Connie will have readjust to a quiet house. The Petersen family is scheduled to embark on a European tour when Connie drops a major bombshell: she is considering leaving him. They decide to go on their trip anyway. While his wife sees it as one final hurrah for the Petersen family, Douglas is determined to win back his wife and keep his family together. 

There are many books about the beginning of relationships - the butterflies before the big date, first kisses, and the phone calls that last for hours. It's harder to find a book about the moment when you still love someone, but you have fallen out of love with them. Us gives us a complete picture of a family by showing them at various points during their lives together. As Douglas tries to save his family, he thinks back to meeting his wife, their early days of dating, and the years they have spent raising their son.

Douglas is really clueless about a lot of things, particularly when he tries to wrap his scientist mind around the artistic leanings of his wife and son. But he does have a delightfully wry sense of humor. When Douglas and a friend discuss a statue of Ursula, the virgin saint, we get this exchange:

'The moral is, don't go to Cologne,' said Freja.

'I went to a conference in Cologne. I thought it was a charming city.'

'But were any of you virgins?'

'Well, we were all biochemists, so yes - almost certainly.'

The frustrating thing about this story is just how long it takes each family member to really try to connect with the others. While Connie and Albie are close, Douglas has trouble understanding them and they make little effort to connect with him. I wanted better for all of them and I wished that they had taken the time before their European getaway to make an effort. Each one of them are irritating with their selfishness but their inability to articulate what they need seems all too easy to understand. 

David Nicholls has a unique ability to truly immerse readers in the lives of his characters. By the time you close one of his books, you feel as if you know these people inside and out. The writing is lovely and Us perfectly combines the story of love, commitment, and family with an entertaining jaunt through Europe.

Want some more opinions? Check out other reviews at TLC Book Tours.

Bittersweet and We Were Liars: The Same Book?

As I read Bittersweet in October, I was struck by a lot of similarities between that book and the YA summer juggernaut We Were Liars. Both feature families who have a long history of luxury and prestige.The stories take place during the summer when aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins descend onto giant and opulent estates; expecting that their every whim will be met. Both the Sinclair and the Winslow families have dark secrets that come to light.

So is it worth it reading both books or is one a better read than the other?

         

The protagonists in these novel are similar in age - Cady is a high school student and Mabel is a freshman in college. But they are very different people.  Cady is a member of the charmed Sinclair family and while there may be family disputes, she knows that she will be provided for by her grandfather's fortune. Mabel, on the other hand, has a family that owns a dry cleaning business and struggles to make ends meet. When she meets the carefree and enigmatic heiress to the Winslow family, Mabel is astounded that Genevra considers her a friend. While both girls have to come to terms with big secrets, Cady will have to confront the decisions of her past while Mabel has to make big choices about her future.

The two stories are very different in tone as well. We Were Liars reads like a young adult book, with a consistent focus on Cady and what she is feeling. Cady is prone to hyperbole and it may take readers by surprise when she says she was shot but really means that her heart was broken. Bittersweet is a more grown-up story with frequent allusions to Shakespeare and Milton. That doesn't mean that it feels highbrow though. Bittersweet feels like a soap opera in places with forbidden romance, mysterious deaths, and a race to find the truth about the family's history.

Bittersweet is a somewhat traditional thriller while We Were Liars is slightly more experimental. Both books are compelling reads as the characters grapple with truth, love, and commitment to their families. Each of them will make you consider the power and limits of wealth and prestige and what kind of legacy we pass on to those who will come after us.


Have you read either book? Did you read both? What do you think?

It's Monday and I'm trying to catch up!

Geez Louise, this has been a hectic couple of weeks. I feel like I am running in place trying to catch up on book reviews, house cleaning, and prepping music for our praise team at church and my music students. If you need me in the meantime, I will be frantically running around like a crazy woman before I head out of town on Friday for a very overdue visit to my best friend.


Read This Week:

Stone Mattress: Nine Tales
By Margaret Atwood


Posts from this Past Week:
It's Monday
October Wrap-Up
Review of Persepolis


Reading Now:

Us
By David Nicholls


Up Next:

Dear Committee Members
By Julie Schumacher



What are you reading this week?

Review: Persepolis

Persepolis

By Marjane Satrapi

Pantheon June 2004

160 pages

Borrowed from my sister

Persepolis is a graphic novel that details one girl's experiences during the Islamic revolution in Iran during the 1970s and 1980s. Marjane recounts the juxtaposition of growing up in the home of Marxist protesters in a nation where having a divergent opinion was enough to get you killed. She lives with the threat of prison or death for her parents and for their friends. This book shows the reader both the terrible costs of repression and war and the way that life continues even under the most unimaginable of circumstances. 

The author made a great choice to first show the reader Marjane as a child and then as a young woman, which allows us to learn right along with her. Her first notion that something has changed in her country is the day that she must wear the veil to school. Her parents educate her about what is happening and we get a mini history lesson too. As she gets older and forms her own opinions, her parents become fearful. Marjane is outspoken and passionate and her parents grapple with the difficult decision to allow her to stay in her home and face the danger there or leave the country and find safety.

Reading Persepolis opened my eyes to two things. First, I realized just how little I know about modern history in nations other than my own. It's easy to stop with your school-mandated history and your knowledge of the Renaissance in Europe or the terrible toll of the world wars. But it takes effort to remain informed about the things happening around the world in your lifetime and what happened during the decades before you were born. I also found out that I had a sort of skewed understanding of the kind of stories you can find in a graphic novel. I expected that most comics involved superheroes or retellings of popular science fiction stories. But many writers, including Marjane Satrapi, use comics to bring their own personal histories to life. Graphic novels are a unique way to convey a story and it gives the storyteller a different set of tools. In Persepolis, Satrapi showed the bleakness of living in Iran by creating images in solely black and white.

Persepolis is both universal and specific. Those of us living in the US have no idea what it is like to live under a repressive regime. But we do know about growing up and deciding which things we want to keep from our parent's teaching and which things we forge our own opinions about. Marjane Satrapi picked a powerful medium to convey her memories of becoming her own person in a dangerous time and place. 

What is your favorite graphic novel?

October Wrap-Up

source

Adios, October! Hello to November.

I have to confess that I'm having trouble holding off with starting the holiday merriment. I think part of it is planning Christmas music for the church already and part of it is the eggnog already living in my refrigerator. I'm trying to keep my Christmas Pandora Station quiet for the next few weeks, but I'm just not sure I have the will power.

October was a good month for reading. I read some really diverse stories: I went on a magical journey to the Caribbean in Land of Love and Drowning, witnessed the advent of printing with Gutenberg's Apprentice, and spent the night in a terrifyingly haunted big box store with Horrorstor.


Books reviewed in October:10
Pages read: 3,597
Fiction/non-fiction: 9/1
Female authors/male authors: 8/2
My books/library books/books for review: 1/6/3
Most-read October review: Broken Monsters
Favorite October read: The Empathy Exams

What was the best book you read in October?

Happy reading from these crazy kids!

It's Monday and it finally feels like Fall!

Wow. This has been a crazy week. David got sent home sick from school on Thursday, so he missed school on Friday and I had a fun time trying to keep the two kiddos separated for the day. His fever broke during the day on Friday, so we went out trick or treating that night with one ninja and one princess.

Then I taught a few music lessons on Saturday and spent some time that evening cooking and baking. Sunday was our church's anniversary so we had a luncheon after the morning service. I feel like I need a day or two to try to get organized again!


Read This Week:

The Book of Strange New Things
By Michel Faber



Everything Beautiful Began After
By Simon Van Booy



Bedtime Reading This Week:
     
The Magic School Bus Rides The Wind for D
Where Is Baby's Pumpkin? for BG


Posts from this Past Week:
It's Monday
Reviews of Land of Love and Drowning, Divergent, and Horrorstor


Reading Now:

Stone Mattress
By Margaret Atwood



Up Next:

Us
By David Nicholls


What are you reading this week?