The Witch's Guide to Cooking with Children (audio)

Sol and Connie move to a new town with their father and stepmother and meet the old lady down the street whose dog is playing with a very strange bone.  When Sol identifies it as a human bone, it leads the siblings down a very strange path.

This was a very cute, fun book.  It's an updated reimagining of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale.  Sol is very clever although lacking in confident after a failed science project and Connie is a typical little sister, although not unsympathetic to Sol.  They are stuck with their dim father and his new wife in a new home.  And when Sol discovers the bone of the neighbor's dog, they follow a path that readers will recognize from the Hansel and Gretel story.  I really liked it.  It only took a couple of hours to listen to and it was so much fun.  I would recommend it to kids or anyone who likes children's book and fairy tales.

This Lullaby (e-book)

Remy doesn't believe in love after watching her mother marry five different times.  She has rules about how relationships should go and in what order.  Now she is getting ready to leave for college and she doesn't want to have any attachments before she goes.  That is until she meets clumsy, adorable Dexter and she wonders if she might have been wrong all along.

I had no illusions about love anymore.  It came, it went, it left causalities or it didn't.  People weren't meant to be together forever, regardless of what the songs say.  p.48 e-book

I feel really bad.  I liked This Lullaby, but I didn't love it.  It was okay.  It was good, not great; it was sweet, but not affecting.  I think I'm too old for this book.  I don't say that a lot about YA, but I think I would have loved this book when I was 16.  It was a sweet book, very predictable.  There was nothing surprising about it for me.   I wish that it had expounded more on some of Remy's real issues like what happened to her at that party and the fact that her mother never really explained her father to her.  I think it was missing a few key plotlines.  For me, it was like listening to a teen conversation and wanting to say "No. No.  This is how it works,"  but you can't because they have to find out for themselves.  There was a distinct lack of adults in Remy's world to help her which is the source of her problems.

But like I said, I liked it, but I didn't love it.  16 years ago though, I would have thought it was brilliant.

Hogwarts: Muggle Studies
What's in a Name
Library
YA

The Year of the Flood (audio)

Told in alternating voices, The Year of the Flood is the story of Wren, Toby, and the Gardeners before and after the "waterless flood" strikes down most of humanity.  We learn how they survived lived their lives and how they survived.  A sequel/companion to Oryx and Crake, we learn the backstory for some side characters and what happens after the flood.

I didn't read Oryx and Crake first.  I meant to, then didn't, then got The Year of the Flood not realizing it was the second one.  I don't think it matters.  This book fills in information not given in the Oryx and Crake and gives a different perspective of the end of humanity as we know it.  I don't know if it would have made a difference or not.  I am intensely curious though about it and it's next on my list of audio books.

I am extremely impressed with Flood.  The individual stories of Wren and Toby are so intriguing and I became deeply invested in their stories.  The story of their lives with the Gardeners, an eco-vegetarian group, and then how they each survived the flood was brought out at just the right measure.  Both women were sympathetic characters who each survive some disturbing things.  The world they live in has desexualized sex and sex is sold as if it were nothing along with drugs and other commodities.  They are the corps who control all the goods and services and the privileged people who work for them and live in their compounds.  And then there is everyone else who live in the pleeblands, the commoners.  It doesn't really get into how the virus that kills off most of the people is made (I think that is mostly in Oryx), but it tells how some people survived.

The audio was narrated by three people, Bernadette Dunne, Katie MacNichol, Mark Bramhall, and they did an excellent job providing voices to Wren, Toby, and Adam One.  I really like their voices and how they were so solemn.  There was even recorded versions of the hymns they sing in the book so that was neat.  It was a very well done audio version of an excellent book.

Hogwarts: Defence
Dystopian
Library

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (e-book)/Wicked (audio)/The Wizard of Oz (movie)

Amazingly enough this was the first time ever reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  I don't know why.    I found it to be a very sweet, simple story although with more parts than the 1939 movie.  Dorothy lands on the Wicked Witch of the East and collects the Silver Shoes (not ruby) and is off to see the Wizard of Oz.  She meets her iconic friends, The Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion along the way.  They see the Wizard who tells them to kill the Witch of the West, Dorothy accidentally melts her (although she throws the water because she is mad) and then they all go back to the Emerald City.  The three companions get what they already had (their wishes) and Dorothy gets to go home with the aid of the shoes.  It's a classic story that I know I would have liked when I was little.  The characters are very simple, Dorothy is about 10, I think, and it has some good adventures.


Hogwarts: History of Magic
e-books
Another Chance

Wicked is the story of Elphaba, the girl with the green skin and how she became the Wicked Witched of the West.  From her birth in Muchinland to her childhood in Qualding country, her education at Shiz University and her rebellion against the Wizard and finally her exile to Winkie country, here is the story of the Wicked Witch of hte West.

I've read Wicked before, a long time ago.  I remember it being very tedious in the beginning and good after Elphaba gets to Shiz University and meets Glinda.  My memory was right for the most part.  I decided to listen to Wicked this time around instead of reading it.  The thing about audio books is that they are not forgiving of tediousness.  And I forgot how many philosophical questions are apart of Wicked.  And how Gregory Maguire will use 50 words when 5 would do.  So frankly what I probably skimmed over when I read it, I was almost forced to blunder though in the audio.

But it really is a good book.  I like Elphaba's story even if she, herself, is a hard character to like and I feel sympathy for her.  Glinda is what you would expect and the entire thing is a surprise and a very grown-up take on the old childrens classic.  It is full of conspiracy and adultery and death, of political intrigue and oppression and dictators.  My big problems is that I'm always waiting for Dorothy.  But she is such a small part of this story, almost not worth mentioning except for that bucket of water.  But I would read it instead of listen to it.  It's not the narrator's fault.  He does a fine job.  This just does not lend itself to the audio format very well, in my opinion.

As far as how it relates to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the events work out closer to the book, with her sending out her familiars, but for different reasons in each book.  There are also a lot of story elements borrowed from the musical too.  The Witch doesn't enter the story until close to the end.  I listened to Wicked before I read Wizard of Oz and kept picturing what I heard in Wicked as I read Wizard.  It's worth it to have both books on hand to do a comparison reading.  It is very interesting how Maguire took a simple children's book and created something as deep as Wicked.

Hogwarts: Charms
Another Chance
Library
GLBT

I decided to round this all by re-watching the 1939 musical with Judy Garland.  I haven't seen this movie in so long.  I remember when it would be an event when TBS would play it and we would make cookies to watch it.  Good times.

The music is so great with almost every song being a classic.  "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is one of my favorites.  Did you know that Shirley Temple was originally offered the role of Dorothy but her studio wouldn't let her go so it went to Judy Garland?  How different this movie would have been.  Temple was actually closer to Dorothy's age, but she wasn't the singer that Garland was. 

It is still a beautiful movie.  Everything is so brightly colored and amazing.  The story is changed from the book to be Dorothy's dream instead of really happened like in the book.  So there is a long introduction before the tornado, all done in sepia.  The Witch is in the story more instead of only appearing at the end and the events of the book are condensed.  Still it follows along with the book fairly well and is a good adaption of it.  Of course, I might be a little biased.

 Read the Book, See the Movie