MG Book Review: Pictures of Hollis Woods

Pictures of Hollis Woods, by Patricia Reilly Giff.  Read by Hope Davis.
Print book published by Wendy Lamb Books, 2002
Audiobook published by Listening Library, 2002
Source: Library (Overdrive)

Summary:
Hollis Woods has spent her 12 years in a long string of foster homes, and can't every seem to get it right.  She runs away from all of them after a while, even from the one home where she really wants to stay.  Now she's been put with Josie, a retired art teacher who's beginning to forget things.  For the first time, Hollis starts to think about what someone else needs, and tries to figure out how to make it happen.

Review:
I really enjoyed this quick read (even on audio books, it took only 3 1/4 hours, and I listened to the whole thing in one day, while doing my Saturday chores).  Hollis narrates her own story, and her voice is a mixture of defiant, self-absorbed, disheartened, and loving which I found authentic.  Her one carefully guarded wish is for a family, but her own sense of undeserving keeps her from grasping it when it's in reach.  It takes the time with Josie and her cousin Beatrice to teach Hollis a few important things: that she is talented (Hollis is an artist; thus the "pictures" of the title), that she is worth loving, and that she can love others.

To me the book had a feel of historical fiction, as though set perhaps 20 or 30 years back, but I'm not sure that's the case.  Maybe that just springs from a wish that the foster system might be less broken now than it was for Hollis. 

To an adult, the ending feels a little too tidy and happy to be realistic, but I think it's perfect for middle grade (and, frankly, I am a sucker for a happy ending, so I'm not really complaining).  The writing is polished and language well-chosen.  There was one glitch in the recording, which seems to be actually in the Overdrive file, as I downloaded it from two different library sites (which I realize come from the same central Overdrive source) and had the same problem at the same spot.  So I did miss a bit from the start of Chapter 17, but was largely able to fill it in, and in any case that is no fault of the book or the author.

One other note, in light of my recent discussions of middle grade books about kids without adults: this book is an "orphan book," of the variety where the orphan finds a family.  But the book is about the journey to that family, and during that time Hollis is more often in contention with the adults around her than relying on them.  Her distrust is completely natural and realistically developed and portrayed, including the ways in which her efforts to figure it all out for herself lead her astray.  I think that Giff has managed both to use the orphan motif to give her lead child character autonomy and to show her and the reader why it might have been better to talk to the adults, though clearly not to all the adults.

Recommendation:
Wholly suitable for kids from about 3rd grade up.  There is no violence to speak of, and no sexual situations.  The language seems accessible to younger readers.  The message of the book seems positive.


Full Disclosure: I checked Pictures of Hollis Woods out of the digital library and received nothing whatsoever from the author, publisher, or narrator in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed in this review are my own and no one else's.

Mystery Monday (Book Review: Crocodile on the Sandbank)

Crocodile on the Sandbank, by Elizabeth Peters.
Audiobook, read by Susan O'Malley
Text copyright 1975; audiobook by Blackstone Audio, 2007
Book 1 of the Amelia Peabody mysteries.
Source: library (Overdrive)

Summary:
Victorian spinster Amelia Peabody is en route to explore Egypt when she picks up a new companion, a young Englishwoman starving on the streets of Rome.  The two proceed to Egypt, where they stop at an archeological dig and stay first to help an ailing member of the team--and then to solve a mystery.

Review:
This is the first of the Amelia Peabody mysteries and serves as an excellent introduction to an enjoyable (though very outspoken and at times a bit cranky) amateur sleuth.  Told in the first person, the story moves pretty quickly, and there is plenty of humor and virtually no gore.  The mystery is not particularly mysterious--I had a pretty good idea from very early on who was behind the troubles at the dig--but it's really all about the characters, and they are worth getting to know.

The 19th-century setting and narrator has forced the author to deal with Colonial British racism, which I felt she handled pretty well.  Amelia isn't a 21st-Century woman with politically correct ideas, but she is a rather advanced Victorian, whose rebellion against the traditional roles (and dress) inflicted on women has perhaps given her a little more open mind to the possible qualities of  those who are not British.  The history and archeology are handled well, by which I mean that they are both accurate and well-blended into the story.

I listened to the Blackstone Audio version, and felt that the performance was top notch.  Susan O'Malley gave Amelia Peabody a voice in my head which will almost certainly remain as I read other books in the series.

Recommendation:
I recommend this book to anyone who likes cozy mysteries (i.e. largely non-violent mysteries with more focus on character than mystery), as well as those who enjoy historical fiction, always with a twist of humor.  If forced to give a star rating, I'd probably do about 3.5, as the mystery is a little too easy.  The book is no work of great literature, but it's a fun read, and some days that's all I need.

 

Full Disclosure: I checked Crocodile on the Sandbank out of the digital library and received nothing whatsoever from the author, publisher, or narrator in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed in this review are my own and no one else's.

Flash Fiction Friday: On a Distant Island, Far From Home

This week's flash fiction challenge from Chuck Wendig involved a list of 20 settings, and a random number generator.  Write a story set in that setting, 1000 words max (I hit 880) .  Totally straight-forward. I liked several of the possible settings (I may come back to "a Starbuck's during the Apocalypse").  I got lucky.  The RNG gave me:

A Distant Island, Far From Home

Xavier Xanthum, Space Explorer had been reading.  Not much was happening in his sector, and the Wanderlust's computer held every book written in human space.  So Xavier'd been wandering blissfully through what the computer called "adventure narratives of Earth's pre-space century."  Treasure Island, Shipwrecked, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson.  The list was long, and most of them seemed to involve islands in a warm sea.

So when he found the little moon off of SLVD 3246, what Xavier saw was a little Island paradise.  The Wanderlust scanned the databanks and the moon itself, and told him it had warm oceans, sand beaches, a breathable atmosphere and no intelligent inhabitants.  Everything he needed for a holiday, though some faint hint of caution lingered, no doubt put there by Larry, the disembodied telepathic eyeballs which were the computer's manifestation in his own head.  Larry always was the cautious part of the crew, as well as best at repairs in enclosed spaces.

Xavier ignored Larry's worries and sent the boss a hyper-space message to say he was taking some vacation days.  Then he set the ship down.

For the first day or two he lived his dream.  With no treasure map and no storms or cannibalistic natives, Xavier enjoyed his island more than most of the characters in the books he lay on the beach reading.  He didn't have a robot, so he had to go into the ship for the little drinks with umbrellas that his historic guide to the island of Fiji, somewhere on Earth, indicated were necessary to the proper enjoyment of a beach, but aside from that minor inconvenience it was perfect.

The first signs of trouble, or at least annoyance, came on the second day.  The little furry creatures--odd that they would be furry, like Earth squirrels, in such a warm place--found him where he lay on the beach and began scampering all over him.  One stuck its nose in his drink.

"Hey!  Geddoutahere!"  He brushed them away, laughing.  They kept coming back, but they were kind of cute and didn't bite, so after a while he ignored them and went back to reading.

It was the third morning that he discovered that the little creatures weren't just cute and furry, and that the scanners were wrong when they said there was no sentient life on the  little moon.  That was when Xavier came out of his ship after breakfast, armed with coffee cup and reader panel (connected wirelessly to the ship's computer, of course, so he could go on reading that endless supply of Earth novels) and caught one of the critters hauling off something that looked suspiciously like a chunk of his right retro-thruster.

"What?  Hey!  Put that back!"  The little fur-thing gave him the sort of look that said he was in trouble, and kept right on going, back to the distant clump of vegetation he'd been too indolent to explore.  Xavier started to follow, thought better of it, and went back into the ship.

"Larry, are all systems operative for take-off?"  The computer was silent for a long moment, which Xavier considered a bad sign in something that thought at more or less the speed of light.

"No, Captain Xanthum."  The computer managed to sound apologetic.  "I regret to report that the retro-thrusters are non-responsive."

"That's because some kind of local rodent has hauled them off! Can we take off without them?"

"No."

"Well, dammit, you'd better think of something, because while I enjoyed reading about Robinson Crusoe, I have no desire to spend the rest my life on a desert island!  I want to go home!"  It didn't matter that the ship was all the home Xavier had.  It was the principal of the thing.

Offended, the computer fell silent, and Xavier went back outside, leaving Larry to himself.  Larry couldn't function outside the ship, anyway.  What had gone wrong with the automatic perimeter defense?  Had the nasty creatures hauled that off, too?

There was only one thing to do, and Xavier did it.  He went back inside.  "Ship!" he commanded.  "Another pina colada!"

Six little umbrellas later, Xavier Xanthum knew what to do, and had the means to do it.  He had managed to keep the furballs away from the remaining retro-thrusters, and tracked them to their lair. Definitely intelligent, and so much for the computers, scans, and everything else that had promised an uninhabited paradise.

Armed with a bottle of tequila and a handful of shallow dishes, he headed for the grove of trees where the creatures had their base.  An hour later, Xavier emerged, weaving slightly, but carrying the parts purloined by the local inhabitants.  Behind him, the fur-covered natives slept the sleep of the inebriated, as Xavier crawled under his ship and reinstalled the essential parts.  His head throbbed by the time he finished, and he cast a quick look in the direction of the trees.  No movement yet.

Climbing back inside, he addressed the computer.  "Get us out of here, fast.  Before they wake up."  He didn't take his eyes off the grove of trees until they were out of sight.  Those furry things had appreciated the introduction of alcohol into their lives.  He just didn't think they would be as appreciative when they discovered the hangover.