You Can't Run From the Truth

My Rating: 4/5

Review: This is one of those stories that's mainly just about people. Particularly one Taylor Greer, her illegally adopted Cherokee girl named Turtle, her mother who's tired of a husband that does nothing but watch tv all day, her boyfriend who's desperately in love with her, Annawake Stillwater who wants to do right for her people, and several more characters scattered hither and tither. Kingsolver seems to have a magical gift for describing ordinary things. She has such a way with analogies that I have found myself re-reading a sentence just to relive it's beauty. She's awfully good with people, too. I know every single one of her characters as if I have met them in real life. There's no big action scenes here, no wild car chases or serial killers on the prowl. It's just a woman desperate to hold on to the little girl who came into her life by chance and a nation of people who have suffered so much that each child they lose to the world outside their own is a devastating blow. Simple, raw, and oh so good.

Book Description: When 6-year-old Turtle Greer witnesses a freak accident at the Hoover Dam, her insistence on what she has seen leads to a man's dramatic rescue. But Turtle's moment of celebrity soon draws her and everyone in her life into a conflict of historic proportions.

Witch on the Run

My Rating: 4/5

Review: I enjoyed Rachel Morgan's banter, and the crazy situations she gets herself into. I actually started this series with the third book, Every Which Way But Dead, for some reason. I'm glad I have now gotten the background information of Rachel, and how she got started in her own "running" business. She is a tough witch with an even tougher female vampire for a room mate, and a feisty pixy for a partner. Well, really, they are all partners, and have all left the I.S. (a magical form of the F.B.I. that takes down magical creatures who have broken the law) at the same time. Rachel's leaving has caused her to have a bounty on her head, and she has to track down a very bad guy to get her name cleared and her contract paid off. It's a magical wild ride full of interesting creatures, including a very nasty demon she will have to owe favor to. I'll definitely have to collect this series.

Book Description: All the creatures of the night gather in "the Hollows" of Cincinnati, to hide, to prowl, to party ... and to feed.

Vampires rule the darkness in a predator-eat-predator world rife with dangers beyond imagining -- and it’s Rachel Morgan's job to keep that world civilized.

A bounty hunter and witch with serious sex appeal and an attitude, she'll bring 'em back alive, dead ... or undead.

I've Got a Golden Ticket!

My Rating: 4/5

Review: This is the first chapter book that I read to my son, so it will automatically hold a special place in my heart. I've seen the movies, too, of course. I have to say that Tim Burton's version was definitely more faithful to the book. I still like Gene Wilder's Wonka, though. Back to the book. It was wonderfully fun to read, and it held my son's attention to the very end. In fact, he wanted more. Good thing I have the sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

Book Description: The gates of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory are opening at last . . . and only five children will be allowed inside.

A Determined Teacher

My Rating: 5/5

Review: So beautiful and dramatic! I was completely drawn into this wonderful play based on the real life struggle between teacher and child. What must have been like for Helen Keller to be born deaf and blind. There is no pity needed, though, because we all know that she turned into a magnificent, strong, and independent woman. Of course, her teacher, Anne Sullivan, is a big part of that. I admire her determination and patience. My goodness, what a little hellion the young Miss Keller was at first. The moment when all that struggle becomes worth it, when that little girl finally got what it all meant, was such a powerful moment. I remember seeing the play as a young adult, and it moved me like no other. I'm so glad that I saw it back than, and I am so glad that I read it now.

Book Description: Immortalized onstage and screen by Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, this classic tells the story of Annie Sullivan and her student, blind and mute Helen Keller. The Miracle Worker dramatizes the volatile relationship between the lonely teacher and her charge. Trapped in a secret, silent world, unable to communicate, Helen is violent, spoiled, almost sub-human and treated by her family as such. Only Annie realizes that there is a mind and spirit waiting to be rescued from the dark, tortured silence. With scenes of intense physical and emotional dynamism, Annie's success with Helen finally comes with the utterance of a single, glorious word: "water".

Cold Makes the Wolf

My Rating: 5/5

Review: This is yet another fabulous book that grabbed me right away and didn't let go for a second. I could actually feel the coldness of the dark woods behind Grace's house. I could imagine it's bitterness seeping into my bones. The wolves were creepy, yet beautiful. Sam is perfection. His sensitivity, his sweetness, and his love of books made him very appealing to me. I loved the longing portrayed here. The wolf as a protector, Grace falling in love with the wolf without even realizing it, and the final realization that Sam and the wolf are one and the same. Everything was beautifully played out, even the inevitable end of their romance, however brief it may turn out to be. What can possibly be done with the sequel? I am so very anxious to find out.

Book Description: Grace and Sam met six years ago when she was attacked by werewolves. Sam changed from a yellow-eyed wolf to a yellow-eyed boy and carried her home. Although bitten, Grace survived and did not change, the only werewolf victim ever to do so. She has a more developed sense of smell, improved hearing, is stronger physically, but she is still a girl, only now a girl connected to a wolf, her guardian who watches her every winter. When Grace finally meets Sam again in human form, it is in the fall of her seventeenth year. Sam, attacked and forcibly changed when he was seven, has grown up spending his winters with Beck, his werewolf mentor, running through the woods with the pack, and his summers in human form, learning how to read, write, and become a man. The chapters have temperatures for headings because these werewolves are turned, not by a full moon, but by the cold, and there is plenty of cold in Mercy Falls, Minnesota. Also the number of times they can change is limited, and this change may be Sam's last in human form. After the wolves attack a local teenager, Sam is shot and winds up in Grace's arms, literally. She saves him, but the days are getting colder and the nights longer. Neither can bear the thought of being separated, but one cannot argue with Mother Nature.