An OBOB break

As an avid reader, and the only reading pug in my family, I volunteer to help OBOB get ready for the upcoming season by creating questions from the books that become part of the battles for the coming year. So, you will experience a short break in my blogging as I tend to those wonderful duties! But keep reading, please, and I'll rejoin you in a week or two!

https://www.oregonbattleofthebooks.org/2019-2020-obob-book-titles/

Lifeboat 12, by Susan Hood

The first middle grade novel by author Susan Hood, and a historical fiction book, which you know I love! This is the story of a boat filled with children, leaving from England just as Hitler's forces were getting ready to invade England during World War 2. The children were being relocated to Canada, in the case of Lifeboat 12, but to other places in the world, too, as the British tried to get as many kids as possible out of the way of approaching Nazi forces. The story in this book is one about a boat that is sailing to Canada but is attacked by a German submarine. The boat sinks, and one group of survivors ends up in Lifeboat #12, which floats around in the Atlantic Ocean for over a week. It is overfilled with people, with very little food and less water, braving the elements as they drift about hoping to be spotted by someone and rescued. A fascinating story, to be sure!

Hood tells this story in verse, which I usually enjoy, but in this case I don't think it worked very well. The story overall is an important one, and I found myself rooting for the people on this small boat. But the total package of story line, writing style, and effect on the reader was a little less than I think it might have been had she written in a more standard format. Just my humble pug opinion. Still a good story, worth reading, but not as strong as some other historical fiction books are. 3 paws.

As Brave As You, by Jason Reynolds

One of my favorite authors, but not his newest book. This one was published in 2016 but I could never get around to it. And if someone had handed me this book without telling me who wrote it, I would bet two days of dog food on the author being Christopher Paul Curtis, author of Bud, Not Buddy. That's not a bad thing, rather a really good thing, but As Brave As You is much more of a character development kind of story than an intense street lit-type book, like Long Way Down is. In fact, although Reynolds writes great characters, this is the book least like his others that I have read so far...and I've read 4 or 5 of them!

In this story, two brothers are taken to their grandparents house for a few weeks in summer, while their parents take a vacation intended to help save their marriage. The boys barely know the grandparents, and although the younger family lives in Brooklyn, the grandparents live in Virginia, in the country, and about as far from the city as the boys could get. Reynolds writes each character with depth and interest, but this isn't an "action" story, per se. The characters, and what does and doesn't happen between them, is the story. And it's a really good one, just unlike the others by this author that I have read.  If you like Jason Reynolds, especially Ghost, for example, you'll probably like this as well. If you like Christopher Paul Curtis, you'll love this! 4 paws!

Amal Unbound, by Aisha Saeed

A new release this year by this author of one other book, Written in the Stars. Amal Unbound is receiving high praise from all around, and with good reason! This is a well-told and important story of indentured servitude, happening now in places like India, where this story takes place. Saeed tells us at the end of the book that such capture occurs around the world, even in the United Stated, which should not make it any more important of an issue, but definitely as close to home as things can get, and something that warrants much more attention. In this book, the main character Amal speaks back to a man who hits her with his car. Unfortunately, this man owns her village, and the people in it, through methods of "loans" that result in owing favors as well as money, debts that are created so that no one can ever pay them off.  This man insists Amal come and work in his home to work off her poor manners, but Amal comes to discover quite quickly that in reality, people in her situation never return to their families...they are servants for life. The conclusion to the story is as satisfying as it can be, given the reality of this type of problem around the world, but Amal is a strong female character with a lot of bravery, and her story is one everyone should read.  The book is written in a easy-to-read and follow format, although occasionally elements of the story are implied and it takes some other events to help me understand what has happened. But a good book, an important issue, a worthy read! 4 paws!

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The Journey of Little Charlie, by Christopher Paul Curtis

As a pug, I read a lot of books. I'm home most weekdays, lounging in my dog bed, in my dog kennel, with only the occasional outside noise to bark at - other dogs barking, the mail person, a UPS truck...you know. So, I read a lot of books, and keep this blog. Now, a lot of the books I read are pretty good, and only occasionally is there a stinker thrown in. But mostly the books are pretty good. Then, sometimes, a book is better than pretty good. It is really good. I know the difference when hours or days or weeks after I finish a story the characters and plot are still mulling around in my mind. Yep, dogs have minds. Sometimes, I don't "mind", but I always have my mind! Anyway, The Journey of Little Charlie has a fairly unattractive cover, and even though author Curtis is really good - winner of the Newbery for Bud Not Buddy and The Watsons Go To Birmingham, 1963 - the cover made me not read this for quite a while after it was released.

Now, I'm happy to say, I have read it. And it's better than just pretty good! The characters are still dancing around in my brain, and as soon as I finished I was happy to have read this story, and wished it had continued. Not continued like a series, just that I didn't have to leave the characters behind. You know, "the end".

This is realistic and historical fiction. It's a story about a boy from South Carolina during slave times who finds himself accompanying a slave owner's devil, for lack of another description, to recapture two adult runaway slaves from 10 years past. This journey, Charlie's journey, takes him to Detroit, Michigan, and into Canada, where blacks are free and the community supports them staying that way. The entire story doesn't take place over more than a few weeks time, but the storytelling is so rich and deep that you feel like you are Charlie on this journey.

A great story, and I'm sorry I haven't kept up with Curtis's other recent books...I will do so now and recommend you do the same! 5 paws!