My Thoughts: Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington

This book was a bookring from Bookcrossing, and this will be a very short book review as I really have very little to say about the book. This is a memoir about 3 aboriginal girls (aged 8-15). The girls are of mixed race, as a result the Austrailian Government decided that they should be taken from their homes and trained up for domestic labour. The girls soon realise what is happening and runaway, following the rabbit-proof fence hundreds of miles across Australia to get home. It should be good, right? This book is only 130 pages, it could have done with being longer so the whole thing didn't seem so rushed, just a few moments from the journey are picked out, and the author never manages to depict the girls suffering and determination.

Having said all this, I'm glad I recieved this book as the envelope came stuffed with postcards from all the different places across the world that this book had travelled in the last 4 years.

Challenges:

YA Challenge Book 13/12

Olympic Challenge: Australia

Fall into Reading 1/24

My Thoughts: The Famished Road by Ben Okri

This book about the life a a spirit-child, he struggles and fights for his chance to live, and at many times has to fight against the spirits who want him to return to the spirit world.

The book deals with many African political and social problems, including poverty, hunger, lack of stability and the dirty tricks and means used by politicians to capture as man votes as they can. The whole community is filled with spirits and their actions can affect the life of all, yet the boy is the person most affected. He moves between normal life, the spirit world and a time and space where they both converge.

I'll be honest and say that this book was a struggle, I'm sure that their were many references to folk tales, religion and cultural beliefs that I just didn't know enough about to recognise. However, this is a book that I wish I had had the opportunity to study when I was at university, it would have been great to learn about the influences, origins and context of the novel and to attend seminars and hear other peoples views about it.

Challenges:

2008 Booker Challenge: Book 5/6

Fall into Reading: Book 1

Olympic Challenge: Nigeria

Book Awards 2: Book 1/10

Other Reviews:

Jackie's

Trevor's Review

Short Story September: King Rat by Karen Joy Fowler

A Copy of this story can be found here

This short story is focused around a young girl, who is fascinated with the fairy-tales in a book given to her by a student of her father's. However, she is completely disturbed by the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Children follow the Pied Piper off into a castle of eternal happiness, yet she cannot accept that these children would be happy as they are seperated from their parents. As she tells this story we discover that the student who had given her the book, has a grown son now, who has gone missing and is never likely to be seen again, enforcing her emphasis on the seperation of parent and child.
This story is told in a lovely solemn tone, and is very moving in the final paragraphs

Short Story September: Closing Time by Neil Gaiman (and a wee nod to some bloggers BBAW style).

I think I love Neil Gaiman more and more everytime I read him. I just read this fantastic story while lolling in the bath and had to come and say a few words about it.

Closing time is another of Neil Gaiman's stories within a story. He starts out talking about an old club in London, one damp and misty night, 3 men are sitting in the bar recounting ghost stories, when the narrator announces he has a story of his own to tell:
"I'll tell you a true story, if you like. It's a story I've never told a living soul. It's true - it happened to me, not to a friend of mine - but I don't know if it's a ghost story. It probably isn't."

The story is about his childhood, and a meeting with a group of boys, possibly brothers, who seem out to spoil his innocent childhood. They show his naked pictures, tell him dirty jokes and teach him how to swear. Then one day they take him to the gardens of an abandoned, but very neatly kept, old house. In the garden there is a mock tudor playhouse. Its this playhouse that becomes the place of mystery and suspense, a dare leads to an unexplainable event, one the narrator fears he will never know the answer to.
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BBAW kicks off with an opportunity to let everyone know what your favorite blogs are and why. I'm going to name 3, all three contain great reviews of books that I'm interested in, interesting comments and they seem to make great challenge participants. I often visit these blogs looking for reviews and recommendations as they seem to be spot on, and match my taste. They are
A Striped Armchair
An Adventure in Reading
B&b ex libris

[TSS] My Thoughts: The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier

I didn't expect to get this finished at all today, but I sat down to a few chapters and the last 150 pages suddenly whirled past.

"She was called Isabelle, and when she was a small girl her hair changed colour in the time it takes a bird to call to its mate."

The story starts with Isabelle, a young girl with copper hair living in the 16th Century. When her hair first changes to the same colour as the Virgin Mary's she is given the nickname La Rousse, but as time passes and Catholicism and the Virgin Mary are shunned the name starts to become something of a plague. Isabelle soon becomes associated with witchcraft along with her mother, the local midwife.

Isabelle marries a local tyrant, moving in with a Christian family, who shun her because her past, and the red hair she constantly tries to cover. As time moves on the Tournier family are forced from their house moving away to Switzerland. Isabelle's marriage has become one of fear and violence, she lives with a mother-in-law and a son who despise her, always mistrusting her, constantly on the look out for signs of witchcraft. Her only sanctuary is her daughter, who is starting to find copper colour stands in her hair, and shares her mother's passion for the deep blue of Mary's robes.

In the alternate chapters we are introduced to Ella Turner/Tournier, she has moved to France with her husband, and feeling lost she decides to dig through the family history to try and help herself fell like she belongs. Soon her nightmares of the bright blue colour and a pray in French become entwined with her search for her family.

As her marriage breaks down, Ella comes to discover more about her heritage, and to feel like she belongs in this foreign country.

Chevalier manages to make the characters from both the 16th Century and the 20th feel alive and well rounded. I would have quite happily have read another 100 odd pages of this book.

Challenges

2nds Challenge Book 1 of 4

20th Century Project 1997

Other reader's thoughts:

A Self Proclamation

The Readaholic

If you have read this add a link to your review and I'll add you in

RIP III: Two in One

Two books read for the RIP challenge, one a graphic novel and one a kids book, I will get to a novel soon.

Three Shadows (Graphic Novel) ****

Back then, life was simple and sweet. The taste of cherries, the cool shade, the fresh smell of the river...That was how we lived, in a vale among the hills - sheltered from storms, ignorant of the world, as though on a island, peaceful and untroubled.
And then...
Then everything changed.

Three Shadows starts of with an idyllic family life, out marching in woods, picking fruit and warm nights by the fire. And, as we all know, idyllic family life never lasts. Upon the hill appears three shadows. Everyday the loom over the little family, some times a little closer some times a little further away, but still each day they are there, a threatening presence.
As it becomes clear that is is Jochaim's life they have come to take, the massive father decides to steal his son away, to escape the threat of death. But death is inescapable and will always follow.
The graphics are stunning, full of bright whites and deep blacks to reveal the ever present shadows in the distance. This is the first graphic novel I have read, where the text is fairly sparse, and at first I wasn't sure I was going to like it, but the pictures quickly grabbed my imagination.
Challenge: YA Challenge, RIP III, Olympic Challenge (France), Unread Authors Challenge

Other Reviews: Bart Shuffleboil

Varjak Paw (Kids book) ***

I was really looking forward to reading this novel, but it never quite grabbed me. I read a lot of YA fiction, and this book was aimed at children of 8-10 (I'd guess), which may have been the problem, it was just a little too young for my tastes. Having said that, I think it would be a great book to read to a child who relished scary tales.

The story is about Varjak Paw, a pedigree cat who has spent his whole life inside one house, as his family is believed too precious to risk letting outside. When their owner disappears (a trip to heaven) a man in black enters the house, with his two vicious black cats, Varjak warns the family of the trouble to come. Being the odd one out in the family, Varjak is ignored, so he goes on a hunt to find a dog to help him rescue his family.

Life outside has many lessons for Vajak to learn, some new things he is taught by his new friends and some as part of a dream sequence. The question really is, is outside more dangerous than the threat in the house. Outside you have to face gangs of cats and deal with the Vanishings. And Varjak also has to find and talk to a dog - with one big problem, he has no idea what a dog is.

The illustrations in the novel capture the story perfectly, and add to the scary tone.

Challenges: RIP III, YA Challenge, Olympic Challenge: Lebanon, Unread Authors Challenge

Sunday Salon: My Thoughts: Skin and Other Stories by Roald Dahl

Having to go back to work this week after a lazy six weeks holiday has meant that I haven't had a great amount of time to read this week, I did finish Roald Dahl's Skin, (see below) Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende, a novel I really enjoyed and I have decided to do the Olympic Challenge in time for London 2012, a challenge which has been going on over at the BookCrossing forum for the last few years, this challenge will mean I'll be checking out authors from far fling places across the Globe.
As for reading today, I hope to get finished reading the graphic novel, Three Shadows by Cyril Pedrosa however, I have an essay to type up and about 50 essays to mark, plus housework so that maybe wishful thinking!

I read this collection of short stories for the RIP III challenge, the Short Story Reading Challenge and for Short Story September, several of the stories I had read before at some point, but I really enjoyed the collection, it was perfect for picking up whilst dinner was cooking or whilst in the bath. I had included a mini review of some, but not all, of the stories in the collection
WARNING: I have tried to avoid saying what the outcome of each story is, but with short stories this is hard and in some descriptions I come pretty close to the end of the tale.

Skin
"I want you to paint a picture on my skin, on my back. Then I want you to tattoo over what you have painted so that it will be there always."
As a young man Drioli admired and loved another man's art, so-much-so that he begged this artist, to tattoo a portrait of his wife on his back. He taught the artist to tattoo, and ended up with his whole back as a portrait of his wife's face.
Years passed, 2 World Wars have caused Drioli's tattooing business to fail, and he is left a poor old man. Walking through the streets of Paris he sees a picture by Soutine in the window of the gallery. Going in to admire the art he ends up revealing an early work by Soutine, his tattoo. A poor man he may be, but he is a walking talking masterpiece, the gallery owner wants a piece of him. Just how far will he go to get it?
The African Story
When the Second World War started a young man joined the RAF as he loved to fly. On his first mission his flight failed and he spent two nights at a lonely, desolate farm. There, lived alone an old man who relished the pilot's company. The old man shared a strange story with the pilot, which the pilot later recorded "not in the old man's words, but in his own words, painting it as a picture."
The old man's tale tells of a relationship with his employee, a man with who gets obsessed by repetitive noises, the noise of his masters dog chewing leads him to kill his masters beloved dog. The man's tale tells his story of revenge.
Galloping Foxely
A regular commuter, used to the routine of his daily commute is suddenly struck with horror when a stranger appears and spoils his daily commute, having the audacity to share his carriage. Not only does this stranger upset the daily commute but he also recognises that face as the school bully who tortured him through his days at (a very stereotypical) boarding school. How does he react?
The Wish
A lovely and very short story about the imagination of a small child trying to make his way across an immense carpet of red hot rocks and black child eating snakes.
The Surgeon
In the surgeon, one mans ordinary day as a surgeon ends up turning his life upside down as he saves the life of the Prince of Saudi Arabia. He is given a rare, rather large diamond as a gift of thanks. With no way to store the diamond safely it is locked away inside the freezer in a bock of ice. He returns to find his house destroyed and the diamond missing, yet it turns up again in a rather strange and unfortunate place.
The Champion of the World
When I saw this title my first thought was Danny, but this has nothing to do with that small boy. I'm sure I've read this story before somewhere, maybe when I was at school. The Champion of the world is about Pheasant poaching, all the ways and means of doing it, slyly without the park keepers catching on.
A pair of men believe they have found the ideal way to poach these birds, and having come up with this method they can't just leave it at poaching a few birds, they go to the extreme and get over a hundred birds. But, as we all know, sinners never win.
Lamb to the SlaughterThe husbands annoying you, home late, expecting dinner on the table, he's got quite boring in his old age, and you just want out. Most people would just walk away, but not this lady. A quick smack to the back of the head and she no longer has a husband to worry about anymore, but she does have the small matter of covering up the murder to deal with. What better way than to ensure the the poilce remove all trace of the crime themselves.

My Thoughts: A Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende

A Portrait is Sepia has made me want to devour the rest of Isabel Allende's work. The novel tells the tale of a young girl's life through to adulthood. Aurora is born an orphan, her father had disowned her whilst she was still in the womb and her mother died within hours of her birth. But Aurora will never be alone, she spends the first five years of her life in the constant care of her grandfather Tao. Not for one second can a girl child be left alone in Chinatown, there is too greater risk of a kidnapping and a life in training as a prostitute. For five years Tao is her world.

When he dies she is taken by her grandmother and left with her paternal grandmother; a woman she has no recollection of meeting, a business woman in a world where women stay at home, a women with a huge ornate golden bed. Aurora's grandmother, Paulina, is one of the richest women in San Francisco, a vast number of business deals have left her with a mansion, a cheating husband and lazy, unloving sons. She is not used to caring for anyone, when suddenly this small and emotionally demading child enters her house, a child wracked with shyness and nightmares.

As time passes Aurora becomes used to her new grandmother, and used to the lavish lifestyle that she grows accustomed too. The family move back to Chile, surrounding Aurora with a whole host of relatives, many of whom are ahead of their times: Nivea, who learnt sexual seduction from novels and uses it to bring her husband from the brink of death, and the politcally led men and women who live within her grandmother's house.

Still suffering with her shyness, Aurora develops a passion for photography, which she uses to see the truth about life, a passion which in later life reveals the reason why her husband is so unloving towards her. When she marries she moves away and starts a new life, yet the marriage is short lived she is soon back in Chile, living the life of a seperated woman, with a secret lover in tow.

Allende fills this novel with strong powerful women, women who defy the demands of society and fulfill their needs and wishes. This maybe a feminist comment yet Allende's women are only capable of loving one person, sometimes to the detriment of their love for their own children. The men on the otherhand vary between the saintly, who worship the women they are with to those less desirable types who are too self absorbed. It was like Allende reversed societies judgements, normally powerful man are praised but powerful women are not trusted, but not in this novel.

A Portrait in Sepia contains characters, and descendents of characters from some of Allende's other novels, as I'm fairly new to Allende I had only read one of these novels, but even if I hadn't read any this would still be a fantastic book, because the history of what has gone before to influence their lives is explained in the novel.

Challenge:
The Olympic Challenge: London 2012

Others responses:

I Me My

If you've reviewed this novel please leave a link in the comments and I'll add it in here.