Reviews=Great Reads for you! Now, Manga Reviews!

[sutoyou]

We are really lucky! We will be posting book reviews for your reading pleasure. Adult and Family books will be reviewed and entered into this thread...so let's find a good book, and check it out.

[.Mystery.Woman.] has agreed to post reviews for us each month. Send her a thank you PM, sometime. heart

sara-ane has volunteered to review Manga for us...I am so excited that we now have Manga reviews to add to our Book Reviews. Thank you sara-ane!

Read other books and want to Review them, well they may also be submitted for consideration. susie  

[sutoyou]

smile Welcome to our first book review smile Reviewed by [.Mystery.Woman.]

Sing Down The Moon
by Scott O'Dell

On a spring day, a young Navajo girl named Bright Morning and her friend Running Bird are taking their sheep up into the hills above Canyon De Chelly, Arizona. As they are climbing up to the high meadow, they see strange men coming towards them. The two men on horseback, turn out to be spanish slavers. They kidnap Bright Morning and take her to a southwestern town, where mostly mexicans live. She is sold to a mexican family, as a slave. At that house, she meets another slave girl the who speaks the Navajo language. Bright Morning is told how she can escape and geet back to her people. After a long and dangerous journey, she returns to Canyon De Chelly. When she gets back, instead of finding the peace she has longed for, she finds that the U S Army known as "long knives" by the indians, and led by indian scout Kit Carson have taken over the village. They force the Navajo to walk 350 miles from Canyon De Chelly, Arizona to the Bosque Redondo, near Fort Sumner, New Mexico. This period in history is known as the "Navajo Trail of tears." Along the way, many Navajos die, as the forced march to the New Mexico reservation, is very harsh. All this is seen seen through the eyes of Bright Morning.

This book by Author Scott O'Dell has won many awards including: Newbery Medal Honor book, 1971 - Booklist of Contemporary Classics for Young Adults, 1984 - Phoenix Award Honor Book, 1990 (Children's Literature Association)

Bosque Redondo (the place of the cottonwoods), instead of this place being good for the Navajos when they forced to go there, it was a terrible location, where the Navajo couldn't raise sheep or farm, this took place in 1866.

Canyon De Chelly sounds like ( de shay) It is one of the most beautiful locations in Arizona.

Look up the life of Kit Carson. See how he effected the Navajo people.  

[[.Mystery.Woman.]]

Dean and me: a love story
by Jerry Lewis
I decided to review this book because of Labor day and the Jerry Lewis telethon. When I read the book about six months ago, I didn't know what to expect, from this work. Being raised in the 1940s and 1950s, I watched Martin and Lewis on early television and in those very funny movies, in the 50s. But like most almost everyone during that time period, the only thing I knew about them, was that they had an very bad breakup, and the famous reuniting during one of Muscular Dystrophy telethons. This book tells much more.
As the title shows, Jerry thought of Dean as a brother, and like any family there is always conflict. Dean and Jerry met when Dean was twenty and Jerry was a nineteen year old high school dropout, who was trying his hand at show business; his father Danny Lewis was an established comedian and song and dance man, working for opening acts like Bing Crosby, Milton Berle and many other famous artists who worked vaudaville.
Dean and Jerry hit it off as both artists and friends, immediately. They became very successful over a period of a few years. Jerry pulls few punches when he expresses how he took over the act and Dean mostly allowed that to take place. Dean was as laid back as he appeared in television and movies. Because of that Jerry says that he started to think that he was the most important member of the duo. As the great sums of money started to roll in, Jerry says he wanted more for both of them, and manipulated the act for that purpose. And eventually that one-sided control caused Dean to break from Jerry. But according to Jerry, Dean and he did not have the terrible breakup that the press said had happened. Jerry talks about how Dean and he met in an elevator after their very last performance, and they both cried before they went their separate ways.
This book surprised me because of the frank way Jerry talks about Dean and how Jerry finally realized that Dean was the most important part of the act, and how much he loved Dean. In this day and age when men talk about loving another man, we think altered thoughts about their sexuality, but in past times it was nothing out of the ordinary for men to state their love for other men. This was the way Jerry meant it towards Dean, as a brother and friend.
This is solid biography. I would suggest it to anyone who remembers that time right after ww2, when the world was looking for something funny, and along came Martin and Lewis.  

[[.Mystery.Woman.]]

The Palace Diaries:The true story of life behind the palace gates
by Sarah Goodall
The Palace Diaries is a light-hearted and funny look at the life behind the gates, where the British royals live.
Sarah Goodall spent 12 years working as the personal clerk for Prince Charles, from 1988 to 2000. She saw first hand the breakdown of Charles and Diana's marriage, and the media frenzy that swirled around it. She was there when Diana died, and saw the hurt and heartbreak that Charles, William and Harry felt during that terrible time.
But I wouldn't review this book if it was just another tell-all, because that idea has been run into the ground. This book is more than just another recollection of Charles and his life. Ms. Goodall talks about her niave and accident prone young womanhood and how she became a confident woman and a friend as well as an employee, to one of the most important men of his time.
The fairy-tale type employment came to a crashing halt in 2000, when she got on the wrong side of Camilla Parker-Bowles, the future wife of Prince Charles. Parker-Bowles so manipulated Charles, that when Sarah Goodall had one final encounter with the Prince, even though Charles would have kept her on, the axe fell on her job anyway.
I would recommend this as light reading that will keep your interest and give you a giggle or two. This book is on the current New York Times best sellers list.  

[[.Mystery.Woman.]]

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
by J.K. Rowlings
I am going to review the book and show some of the symbolism. I am not going to review the whole book, so it is important for anyone who cares about the book to read or reread it.
Harry Potter as a character in a book, has become an international phenomen, the likes of which hasn't been seen since possibly Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the chocolate factory."
The widespread acceptance by millions around the world says alot for this well written, exciting fantasy. It has made all of its readers richer for the experience. Incidently the author J.K. Rowlings became fabulously wealthy. She came from humble and poor beginnings to become the second richest woman in England, only Queen Elizabeth the 2nd is wealthier.
The success of Harry Potter is in no small part do to the adult readers as well as the young. In this first blockbuster of the series, people of all ages can connect with the diminutive little wizard to be, who is small in stature but big in smarts and heart. Harry vanquishes far larger and tougher foes then he is. It is a format that works well, as smaller creatures use wit and cunning to best the bigger, meaner foes: Br'er Rabbit is just one example.
Harry Potter's life among the "Muggles" (non magical humans) and especially the Dursleys, Harry's very cruel relatives, will remind many of James and his mean aunts in Dahl's book "James and the giant peach."
The Dursleys hide letters sent to Harry from Hogwarts School of Witchcrat ans Wizardry. When a mysterious giant named Hagrid comes to the Dursleys house to find out why Harry hasn't responded to Hogwarts letters, Hagrid and Harry find out that all the letters have been intercepted by the Dursleys. Needless to say, Hagrid is furious. He takes Harry to Hogwarts, right there and then.
To get from "muggles" reality to occult fantasy reality, Harry must get to train platform nine and three quarters, where the Hogwarts express train is located. He wanders the "muggle" train station seeing platforms nine and ten but no nine and three quarters. Just as he is about to give up, he sees a plump woman sending her boys through a wall and they disappear. As Harry gets to where they went through the wall, the last of the boys whose name is Ron Weasley shows Harry how to enter onto the Hogwarts platform, where Harry enters a dimensional portal.
At Hogwarts, Harry finds out that his parents were powerful witches. They were killed by an even more powerful witch named "Lord Voldemort." Harry discovers he has generational witchcraft in his background, which means he can be a wizard if he studies hard at Hogwarts.
One important note about the book as I see it is that the author depicts "muggles" as really dumb, boring, and having a foolish lives. The Dursleys who are opposed to wizardry are shown as stupid, ugly and mean spirited. In both the book and later the movie, the Dursleys"muggles" are non sympathetic characters.
Rowlings uses vivid colors in her story line; green, black, purple and scarlet, to symbolize good and evil. In the movie "The Wizard of Oz," when Dorothy is in Kansas the screen is black and white, but when she is thrown into Oz, the screen becomes technicolored; the same idea applies in Harry Potter.
Remember quiddich and the curse on the broom, mirrors and what they mean, see what the sorcerer's stone actually does, take a look at the unicorn killing, and draw your own conclusions about Lord Voldemort.
I hope that this book review helps to stimulate you to take a look at what has become an reading infatuation with many in the world.