Elijah David

When I was in fifth grade, my teacher read a number of books to the class. Stuart Little. Maniac Magee. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Number the Stars. But one that sticks with me the most is Louis Sachar's Holes. Though I remember the other books being part of that year, Holes is the one I remember whole passages being read in my teacher's voice. When the movie came out, I remember loving that the story was presented so faithfully (something I attribute to Sachar's screenplay more than anything). This story has fixed itself firmly in my imagination like few other books from that period of my life. Recently, inspired by some posts raving about the movie adaptation, I picked up Holes  again and reread it for the first time since it was read to me almost 20 years ago. (And if you want to feel old in a hurry, just realize that a book you thought you hadn't read for 10 years is really from 20 years ago. Not that I speak from experience or any...

I'm picking this tag up from Paper Fury , who picked it up from other blogs. Chocolate Chip: Classic Book That You Love Dracula, Treasure Island, Pride and Prejudice, The Hunchback of Notre Dame Thin Mints: A Hyped-Up Book You Want To Read The Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner, Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak, the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik Shortbread: An Author You Can’t Get Enough Of C. S. Lewis, Jim Butcher, J. R. R. Tolkien, Naomi Novik, Megan Whalen Turner  Samoas: An Emotional Rollercoaster A Monster Calls  by Patrick Ness, Changes by Jim Butcher, I Don't Want to Kill You by Dan Wells Oreos: A Book Whose Cover Was Better Than The Story The Golden Compass  by Phillip Pullman Gingerbread Cookies: Where The Story Was Better Than Its Cover Till We Have Faces  by C. S. Lewis, The Secret of NIMH/Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH  by Robert C. O'Brien (I have the movie tie-in edition and it's not...

I can remember when A Conspiracy of Kings was gearing up for release. Everyone I knew who'd read the first three Attolia books was on tenterhooks because we were finally getting Sophos back into the story after two books and lots of unhappy hints in The King of Attolia . Sadly, this is the last of these beautiful covers, since Greenwillow changed the styles for Thick as Thieves . Then the book came out, and we all felt a little let down by it. Not that the story wasn't good; it just felt a little flat after the brilliant intrigue novel that was KoA. On this reading, I went in knowing that it was a slower book. A book that wasn't meant to be filled with court politics in the same way as its predecessor. Instead, ACoK is a character novel. Not a character novel in the sense of many "literary" novels that follow a character's "growth" and generally bore the public to tears (something they'd never admit to their book clubs). A character no...

After finishing The Queen of Attolia last week, I picked up its sequel, The King of Attolia almost immediately. The twists and turns of QoA's finale left me craving more, and boy does KoA deliver more. The King of Attolia picks up where its predecessor left off: with the marriage of Irene (Queen of Attolia) and Eugenides (Gen, Thief of Eddis, now King of Attolia or Attolis). After offering glimpses of the wedding night from various parties within and without the Attolian capitol, the story moves to Costis, a young squad leader in the Queen's Guard. He's in trouble, you see. He punched Gen for baiting Teleus, the Captain of the Guard. By rights, Costis should be executed. But Gen has other plans. He makes Costis a lieutenant and assigns him to be Gen's personal guard and sparring partner. It makes Costis' life difficult, but his brothers in arms support him in his trials. No one in Attolia likes Gen, except his wife. Everyone sees him as a buffoon...

Welcome back to the bookshelf tour. No lengthy intro, just more and more books! This first picture is not from the alphabetical order. It's the short stack of books that's set to replace books from the bedroom shelf as they're read. Riddle-Master is a reread, as is Beauty . The rest are books I just need to read. The Ns, from Kim Newman to Mary Norton. (Notice the complete, chronologically ordered Old Kingdom/Abhorsen series. I still need to read Nix's Keys to the Kingdom.) Also, there's Charlie Bone still to be read in there. So many series I've yet to start. All of the Borrowers books, along with the Firebirds anthologies and the Dragonlover's Guide to Pern . Again, I still need to read most of these. Uprooted , Robert C. O'Brien, and more. No, I haven't been tempted to reread Uprooted a half dozen times since I read it. Why do you ask? The Crossroads trilogy, Auralia's Colors , and Ovid. The Magic and the ...

I'm starting off the read/watch marathon with the book that started me on this kick and inspired the film(s) that alerted me to O'Brien's work: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH . Before I get into my thoughts on the book itself, I want to take a minute to talk about my copy of the book, pictured below. I'd actually like to get a better copy, maybe a hardback. This one's a former library copy (hooray book sales!) that's in decent shape, although the front cover is being held on by library-grade book tape. More than that, it has the wrong title because it's a movie tie-in for the Don Bluth film (which I'll take a look at next week if all goes well). It does at least feature the original title in parentheses, but it doesn't have any of the requisite "8 pages of stills from the movie!" inserts. I'll try to avoid any more mentions of the film and its changes to the story in this post because that's what the movie post is f...

Apparently, the classic sci-fi novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH  is getting another adaptation, this time as a  live-action film . Hearing this news has solidified a nebulous idea I have been toying with: rereading and rewatching the original book and film in order to share my thoughts on both with you all. Why? Because  The Secret of NIMH  was the first  sci-fi/fantasy film I remember encountering as something new. I had seen Disney films, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones at home. They were staples of my childhood. But one night during a sleepover at my aunt's house, we watched  The Secret of NIMH and I became enthralled. When I later discovered it was also a book, I checked it out from the school library. At the time, it was too long for me to finish in the initial checkout limit and it became the first book I had to renew. I remember staying up late in order to keep reading (this might have been my first up-later-than-is-advisable book as well)....

This was originally going to be a Top 10 Tuesday, and then I realized I didn't quite have 10 books for the list, so it's a special Monday Musings where I anticipate the books I'm most looking forward to being released this year. Beren and Luthien by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien This one's not new in the sense of being new material so much as it is collecting all the previously published material on this iconic couple into a single volume. This makes me very very happy because The Silmarillion is amazing as a whole, but Beren and Luthien's story is one of a handful to actually get several mentions in The Lord of the Rings . Even Sam knows about Beren taking the Silmaril from Morgoth. Just saying. Releasing May 4 The Heart of What was Lost by Tad Williams This is a bridge novella to set up the trilogy The Last King of Osten Ard and follow-up the original Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn . I loved the original trilogy, and I've been waiti...