Back to Books With a Sigh of Relief

SO...

...let's talk about books and reading and similar, enjoyable topics, shall we? We've had enough of sobering topics for one week, God knows.

Tonight, while meandering about the blogosphere, reading other people's posts and commenting here and there, I found a book list that fascinated me. Thanks to a post by Kristen M of The Estella Society, I discovered "Top 100 Chapter Books," composed through a survey by Elizabeth Bird from the School Library Journal. When I saw that the book that dominated my childhood, Charlotte's Web, tops this list, I knew I had to write about it. There are several lists for other categories of children's and YA books available on the SLJ site, as well, so you can pick your favorite type to design a reading challenge for yourself if you'd like.

I'm sure I don't have to tell my regular readers that I'm in no position to take on this list as a reading challenge right now--though I hope to do both it and the Nobel Prize-winners for literature when I regain some normalcy--so I will content myself for now with noting how many of the top 100 I have already finished. Those I've read are listed in red type. I will try to come back periodically and update it if I manage to complete any more of them.

Total read (as of 2/15/2014)=34

100. Love That Dog--Sharon Creech
99. The Boxcar Children--Gertrude Chandler Warner (My 2nd-grade teacher read this one to the class.)
98. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire--J.K. Rowling
97. The Diamond in the Window--Jane Langton
96. The Horse and His Boy--C.S. Lewis
95. The Little Prince--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
94. Ramona and Her Father--Beverly Cleary
93. Journey to the River Sea--Eva Ibbotson
92. Flipped--Wendelin Van Draanen
91. Pippi Longstocking--Astrid Lindgren
90. The Children of Green Knowe--L.M. Boston
89. The Mouse and the Motorcycle--Beverly Cleary (My mom read it to my brother and I.)
88. The BFG--Roald Dahl
87. The Strange Case of Origami Yoda--Tom Angleberger
86. Peter Pan--J.M. Barrie
85. Ella Enchanted--Gail Carson Levine
84. The Long Winter--Laura Ingalls Wilder
83. Ozma of Oz--L. Frank Baum
82. The Cricket in Times Square--George Selden
81. The Witches--Roald Dahl
80. The Four-Story Mistake--Elizabeth Enright
79. The Egypt Game--Zilpha Keatley Snyder
78. Ballet Shoes--Noel Streatfield
77. My Side of the Mountain--Jean Craighead George
76. Diary of a Wimpy Kid--Jeff Kinney
75. The Saturdays--Elizabeth Enright
74. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret--Judy Blume
73. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever--Barbara Robinson
72. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon--Grace Lin
71. Each Little Bird That Sings--Deborah Wiles
70. Walk Two Moons--Sharon Creech
69. The Ruins of Gorlan--John Flanagan
68. The High King--Lloyd Alexander
67. A Long Way From Chicago--Richard Peck
66. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate--Jacqueline Kelly
65. Wonder--R.J. Palacio
64. The Twenty-One Balloons--William Pene du Bois
63. The Great Gilly Hopkins--Katherine Paterson
62. Clementine--Sara Pennypacker
61. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory--Roald Dahl
60. Bud, Not Buddy--Christopher Paul Curtis
59. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane--Kate DiCamillo
58. Swallows and Amazons--Arthur Ransome
57. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase--Joan Aiken
56. A Little Princess--Frances Hodgson Burnett
55. All-of-a-Kind Family--Sydney Taylor
54. Half Magic--Edward Eager
53. The Graveyard Book--Neil Gaiman
52. Betsy-Tacy--Maud Hart Lovelace
51. The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread--Kate DiCamillo
50. Number the Stars--Lois Lowry
49. My Father's Dragon--Ruth Stiles Gannett
48. The Bad Beginning--Lemony Snicket
47. Little Women--Louisa May Alcott
46. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle--Avi
45. Island of the Blue Dolphins--Scott O'Dell
44. Okay for Now--Gary D. Schmidt
43. Jacob Have I Loved--Katherine Paterson
42. Gone-Away Lake--Elizabeth Enright
41. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz--L. Frank Baum
40. Maniac Magee--Jerry Spinelli
39. The Invention of Hugo Cabret--Brian Selznick
38. Frindle--Andrew Clements
37. The Wednesday Wars--Gary D. Schmidt
36. The Witch of Blackbird Pond--Elizabeth George Speare
35. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing--Judy Blume
34. Where the Red Fern Grows--Wilson Rawls
33. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH--Robert C. O'Brien
32. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry-- Mildred Taylor
31. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland--Lewis Carroll
30. Matilda--Roald Dahl
29. The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy--Jeanne Birdsall
28. The Golden Compass--Philip Pullman
27. Little House on the Prairie--Laura Ingalls Wilder
26. Winnie-the-Pooh--A.A. Milne
25. The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963--Christopher Paul Curtis
24. Ramona the Pest--Beverly Cleary
23. Hatchet--Gary Paulsen
22. The Dark is Rising--Susan Cooper
21. The Phantom Tollbooth--Norton Juster
20. Because of Winn-Dixie--Kate DiCamillo
19. Little House in the Big Woods--Laura Ingalls Wilder
18. The Book of Three--Lloyd Alexander
17. Harriet the Spy--Louise Fitzhugh
16. Tuck Everlasting--Natalie Babbitt
15. The Secret Garden--Frances Hodgson Burnett
14. The Hobbit--J.R.R. Tolkien
13. The Thief--Megan Whalen Turner
12. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban--J.K. Rowling
11. When You Reach Me--Rebecca Stead
10. Bridge to Teribithia--Katherine Paterson
9. The Westing Game--Ellen Raskin
8. Anne of Green Gables--L.M. Montgomery
7. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler--E.L. Konigsburg
6. Holes--Louis Sachar
5. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe--C.S. Lewis
4. The Giver--Lois Lowry
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone--J.K. Rowling
2. A Wrinkle in Time--Madeleine L'Engle
1. Charlotte's Web--E.B. White

Here at the End of All Things

Home is behind

The world ahead

And there are many paths to tread

Through shadow
To the edge of night

Until the stars are all alight

Mist and shadow
Cloud and shade

All shall fade
All shall

Fade

~~Lord of the Rings

Review of "The Dragons of Chiril"

Let me just say up front, I take my hat off to publisher Waterbrook Multnomah for truly meaning it when they say that they want only honest reviews in their Blogging for Books program.  Obviously, they gave me a free copy of this book.  When I told them the book was so bad I couldn't finish it, offered to pay the shipping to mail it back to them and just forget the whole thing, they insisted that I should post my review, anyway, because they value honesty in their reviewers.  Kudos to them all the way, and now, please don't think I'm being rude when I have to write one of the most scathing reviews you've ever read.

The Dragons of Chiril by Donita K. Paul is perhaps the worst book I have ever attempted to read in my life.  To lay out a few parameters, let me just say that I enjoy good fantasy fiction now and again; this just wasn't good fiction of any kind.  Also, I admit I was a bit suspicious of the idea of Evangelical Christian fantasy from the outset, not to mention annoyed that many Evangelicals who used to denounce Harry Potter as being of the devil have now gotten onto the fantasy bandwagon and seem to be trying to produce the Evangelical Harry Potter.  Thus far, they have failed astoundingly.  However, I decided I was letting my prejudices get the better of me, and when I saw this book available for review, I requested it, determined to give it a chance and stop prejudging things so harshly.  After all, I love C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Madeleine L'Engle, and they certainly wrote fantasy.  Unfortunately, the big difference is that they could all write.

I've never read anything else by this author, so this may be an early work, or not representative of her better abilities.  I must say that in all fairness.  Neither did I finish the book, so I will not be giving it my infamous Dorothy Parker Award, on the slim possibility that it got better at some point.  In all things, let us at least attempt to be fair.  Nevertheless, here is a succinct list of the shortcomings the book evinced in the 70-odd pages I managed to struggle through.

* It is incredibly derivative of better works.  There is a magic pathway between two different continents on the same planet; would you like to guess where that gateway is located?  If you said, "In a closet?", you would not only be correct, but would also be familiar with C.S. Lewis' Narnia, I'll wager.  Clearly, this author is.  There's also a brilliant but somewhat daft and occasionally absent-minded wizard--Dumbledore, anyone?

* Maybe it's just me, but I don't consider a fantasy novel the appropriate place to debate evolutionism vs. creationism, in part because I read fantasy to get away from the everyday, mundane, and ridiculously highly charged matters of life such as politics.  When the phrase "designed intelligently" actually appeared on the page, I knew I wasn't going to make it through this book.

* A little tip to would-be fantasy writers everywhere: If all of your place and character names are more than four syllables long, and one of them rhymes too closely with the word "macaroon," you're going to annoy your audience, or amuse them in ways that don't encourage them to keep reading.

* This was the only time in my life that I felt sorry for a character who was obviously meant to annoy me--namely, the heroine's mother--because she was trapped in the hands of an author who wrote her so very poorly.  Her irritating qualities went beyond even cliche and achieved simply absurd.

* The final straw for me was when the Dumbledore-like character and his faithful lackey started missionary work among the natives on the other side of the world.  There's a story that after reading some of Lewis' Narnia, J.R.R. Tolkien pointed out that he greatly disliked allegory.  I never really understood why, since some of the elements of Tolkien's own Middle Earth could be considered strongly allegorical (though he'd hate me for saying so), and I felt Lewis' allegory only added to the richness of his stories.  Now, I finally understand.  When done badly, religious allegory is so thinly veiled that even a lifelong Christian like me can feel like I've been mentally violated by someone else's religious agenda.  This isn't a novel; it's a sermon that makes John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress look subtle and oblique in conveying its message.

The publisher's representative asked me if there was any group of readers to whom I can honestly recommend the book.  Truthfully, I can say that if your primary criterion for enjoying a book is whether or not it holds unwaveringly to a specific set of religious values, regardless of plot or character development, and if you have not read the works from which the author so unsuccessfully borrowed, then you will probably like this book.  Otherwise, I strongly advise you to skip it.