Book Review: Chime by Franny Billingsley

Star Ratings Characters: **** (4 stars) Character Development: **** (4 stars) Plot: ***** (5 stars) Writing : ***** (5 stars) Overall: ****1/2 (4 1/2 stars) Age range recommendation: 13 + Nancy Werlin recommended Chime to me way back in the fall when I met her at the Boston Teen Author Festival. I was one of

Some St Patrick’s Day Reading Suggestions

Way way back in 2011, in honor of Bloomsday (even though I couldn’t actually finish Ulysses) I listed three examples of good Irish books to read.  Well, I figure it’s about time I expanded that list a little.  There are probably hundreds of Irish books I could recommend for the occasion, and even more which are

Reading vs. Research: Pirate Edition (and a reading list)

This is yer Captain speaking.  We’ll be taking a quick break from the folklore and fairy tales for this very important compendium of pirate and nautical literature I compiled a while ago.  I’ve attempted to make clear the distinction between books I read for fun and books which are research, but those lines keep crossing

Archived Review: My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me

(I originally wrote this little review for a magazine at my University, back in Feb 2012.  I’m cross posting it here because I’ve been thinking about fairy tales a lot, lately, and seriously recommend this collection.  It’s still in print, too, unlike some of my other favorite anthologies.) I was a little wary when I

Book Review: Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi

I often wonder if I’m in danger of becoming a fairy-tale villain. I don’t like little children. I’m greedy, I’m selfish, and I occasionally think about cursing people into small amphibians or enchanted sleeps. Like Boy, the main character in Helen Oyeyemi’s new novel, I spend an awful lot of my time looking in mirrors.