Comments for On My Wishlist: January 29, 2011

The Odyssey by Gareth Hinds (Recommended by the1stdaughter)

It was on the long list of Cybils nominations.

World Cat description:

Retells, in graphic novel format, Homer's epic tale of Odysseus, the ancient Greek hero who encounters witches and other obstacles on his journey home after fighting in the Trojan War.

Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook by Sarah Schmelling (Recommended by Booknaround)

When humorist Sarah Schmelling transformed Hamlet into a Facebook news feed, it launched the next big humor trend-Facebook lit. This hilarious book is the first to bring more than fifty authors and stories from classic literature back to life and online. Schmelling uses the conventions of social networking-profile pages, status updates, news feeds, and applications-to retell everything from The Odyssey to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Lolita.

Every day 150 million active users of Facebook log on to reconnect with old classmates, add pictures, share quizzes, and post news stories, notes, and videos. In Schmelling-s network, Satan and Beelzebub connect using the fiend finder, Don Quixote vows vengeance against Superpoke, Jane Eyre listens to Jay-Z-s -Hard-Knock Life- on repeat, Ernest Hemingway completes the -Are you a real man?- quiz, and Oedipus works on his family tree.

A loving spoof of the most-trafficked social networking website in the world and a playful game of literary who-s who, Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don-t Float will have book lovers and Facebook addicts alike twittering with joy.

The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter (Recommended by An Abundance of Books)

Life in a small town can be pretty boring when everyone avoids you like the plague. But after their father unwittingly sends them to stay with an aunt who’s away on holiday, the Hardscrabble children take off on an adventure that begins in the seedy streets of London and ends in a peculiar sea village where legend has it a monstrous creature lives who is half boy and half animal. . . .

In this wickedly dark, unusual, and compelling novel, Ellen Potter masterfully tells the tale of one deliciously strange family and a secret that changes everything.

The Long Skeleton by Frances Lockridge (Recomended by My Reader's Block)

Remember Mr. & Mrs. North — one of the all-time favorite detective teams? This time the action starts when they check into a hotel to escape the fumes from their freshly painted apartment — and find a corpse in their room! The murdered woman is a famous television personality, and the Norths are prime suspects; and they even face a libel suit as a result of their sleuthing. Then the trail leads to the hills of Arkansas and to a nerve-tingling climax.

Pop's Bridge by by Eve Bunting and C.F. Payne (Illustrator) (Recommended by Kinderbooks)

The Golden Gate Bridge. The impossible bridge, some call it. They say it can't be built.

But Robert's father is building it. He's a skywalker--a brave, high-climbing ironworker. Robert is convinced his pop has the most important job on the crew . . . until a frightening event makes him see that it takes an entire team to accomplish the impossible.

When it was completed in 1937, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge was hailed as an international marvel. Eve Bunting's riveting story salutes the ingenuity and courage of every person who helped raise this majestic American icon.

A Little Fruitcake: A Boyhood in Holidays by David Valdes Greenwood (Recommended by Michelle / The True Book Addict)

Ah, the sweet memories of Christmas. Gifts under the tree. Cookies for Santa. And, of course, the annual fruitcake.

For young David Valdes Greenwood, the indomitable “little fruitcake” at the center of these tales, nothing is sweeter than the promise of the holidays. A modern-day Tiny Tim, he holds fast to his ideal of what Christmas should be, despite the huge odds against him: Sub-zero Maine winters. A host of eccentric relatives. And his constant foil: a frugal, God-fearing Grammy who seems determined to bring an end to all his fun. A book that’s “fa-la-la-licious” (Louisville Courier Journal) and filled with funny, charming Yuletide memories (from building a Lego® manger to hunting for the perfect Christmas tree), A Little Fruitcake will inspire even the biggest Grinches around.

Strange Men in Pinstripe Suits & Other Curious Things by Cate Gardner (Recommended by Freda's Voice)

Zombies, robots, and dragons, oh my! A collection of strange, surreal, and magical short fiction from Cate Gardner.

8. Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'Brien (Recommended by In the Next Room)

After climate change, on the north shore of Unlake Superior, a dystopian world is divided between those who live inside the wall, and those, like sixteen-year-old midwife Gaia Stone, who live outside. It’s Gaia’s job to “advance” a quota of infants from poverty into the walled Enclave, until the night one agonized mother objects, and Gaia’s parents are arrested.

Badly scarred since childhood, Gaia is a strong, resourceful loner who begins to question her society. As Gaia’s efforts to save her parents take her within the wall, she herself is arrested and imprisoned.
Fraught with difficult moral choices and rich with intricate layers of codes, Birthmarked explores a colorful, cruel, eerily familiar world where one girl can make all the difference, and a real hero makes her own moral code.

See What I See by Gloria Whelan (Recommended by Amanda's Books and More)

Kate Tapert sees her life in paintings. She makes sense of the world around her by relating it to what she adores—art. Armed with a suitcase, some canvases, and a scholarship to art school in Detroit, Kate is ready to leave home and fully immerse herself in painting. Sounds like heaven. All Kate needs is a place to stay.

That place is the home of her father, famous and reclusive artist Dalton Quinn, a father she hasn't seen or heard from in nearly ten years. When Kate knocks on his door out of the blue, little does she realize what a life-altering move that will turn out to be. But Kate has a dream, and she will work her way into Dalton's life, into his mind, into his heart . . . whether he likes it or not.

Meanwhile, Sean's first boyfriend has taken off to Mexico and she has no idea exactly where he is. But a girl has to follow her heart. Sean leaves Beverly Hills determined to find her lover, even if it means joining a traveling circus and getting lost in a world of drum rolls and lions and Mayan glyphs. Even it means having knives thrown at her for a living, and facing a loaded machine gun in the hands of her rival. Somehow, she will find Frank, even if means going deep into the jungle, just in time to view a total eclipse, on the back of her favorite elephant.

Refresh, Refresh by by James Ponsoldt, Benjamin Percy, Danica Novgorodoff (Recommended by Schuyler Esperanza)

Fathers, sons, and the war that comes between them.

There's nothing Josh, Cody, and Gordon want more than their fathers home safely from the war in Iraq — unless it's to get out of their dead-end town. Refresh, Refresh is the story of three teenagers on the cusp of high school graduation and their struggle to make hard decisions with no role models to follow; to discover the possibilities for the future when all the doors are slamming in their faces; and to believe their fathers will come home alive so they can be boys again.