Savvy by Ingrid Law
Savvy by Ingrid Law
ISBN: 978-0-2037-3306-0
As if being a teenager and dealing with all the complications of adolescence and puberty weren’t bad enough, this family has another reason to anticipate and fear the onset of the teen years in their children. On the thirteenth birthday, something remarkable happens. Their “savvy” or special talent, wakes up and as the back cover says
“What if your grandpa moves mountains, one of your brothers causes hurricanes, another creates electricity, and now it’s your turn?”
Mibs Beaumont is waiting eagerly for her 13th birthday and the chance to find out what her savvy will be, however everything changed with the ringing of the phone. Her father is in trouble, and she has to face the onset of her savvy without the guidance of her parents. Determined to help her father, she sets out to find him by any means necessary, which results in a heap of trouble for her, her brothers, and some new friends they meet along the way.
I must say I really enjoyed reading Savvy. I think that this is just a great time for young adult fiction – so many great works coming out these days. This story of a young girl coming of age is so different from what is often found on the book shelves. Instead of concerns over the mall and television, you have a character with depth and determination. When I was middle school aged, there was so little out there for me to read or identify with that it was hard to get engaged in books meant for adolescent girls. I was reading my father’s science fiction and fantasy because it was far more interesting to me than what was offered in my age level, though often what I read was probably not age appropriate.
Though I wasn’t necessarily concerned about strange powers awakening, I think any teen can identify with the idea of being a bit different and standing out, and the process of coming to terms with it. Unlike so many other stories, Mibs doesn’t give in to other people’s expectations in order to find happiness, but becomes more comfortable in her own skin.
I am glad to have gotten the opportunity to read this book, and will be using it in my classroom. I work with middle school students and I really think they will enjoy this book as much as I did.
Thanks Ingrid, for making sure I got a copy of the book!
The Lace Reader
The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry is perhaps one of the most intriguing novels I have read this year. Her characters are richly detailed and easily come to life in your mind. The ending is surprising, and it leaves you stunned. I wanted to go back and re-read it immediately to try to catch more details. This story is so full of tiny details and hints that you could probably pick out something new every time you read it, no matter how many times you read it.
I wanted to read this novel when I heard about it because I used to work in Salem, MA. I worked at the Salem 1630 Pioneer Village, so was very familiar with the stocks that Cal displayed his young “confessed witch” in. I have a picture of my little sister in those same stocks. She captured aspects of life in Salem so well, it sent me on many a trip down memory lane as I read through the novel, yet it just added to the book instead of taking away from it. It made the characters more real to set them in so well to this familiar setting.
This story centers around Sofya Whitney or Towner as she prefers to be called. She comes from a family with a long history of women who could read the future through images they pick out in patterns of lace. I am not 100% sure that this describes an actual practice or not, but given the number of things that the human mind can distinguish patterns in, I would not be surprised if it is an actual tradition either. What matters for the story though, is that it is richly described and meticulously detailed and is the mechanic that moves the plot in new and interesting directions, and informs the reader that all is not as it appears.
Rafferty, a detective that befriends Eva, the matron of the family, tries to get close to Towner and is one of the people in the end who is most successful in helping her through her many ordeals. The high praises that Eva gave of Towner conflicts with the town’s opinion that she was plain crazy, and causes him to dig deeper to solve the mysteries of her past. Towner narrates chunks of her past as you read through the book, but as you read, you learn that her memory has holes, and after all, she is a self confessed liar.
This book contains mysteries within mysteries, what really happened to cause Eva’s disappearance? Who was behind it? What lays behind Towner’s aversion to reading the future hidden in lace, or to being read herself? Though Towner desperately wants to leave Salem and never return, all her hopes, fears and past history lay in these streets – what is she running from? Once I started reading it I was unable to put it down. To find out all of the answers to these questions, run to the nearest book store and pick up a copy!
Contest for Kushiel’s Scion
Check out http://www.bloodofthemuse.com/search/label/giveaways for a contest for a signed copy of Kushiel’s Scion. Or wish me luck winning it because I am a huge fan.
Thanks Kamilla Reid! And the winners are….
First of all I would like to thank Kamilla Reid for taking the time to stop by my blog and answer people’s questions. I really enjoyed our email exchanges, and I am avidly looking forward to future sequels. 🙂
Thank you also to all of my readers who read my reviews and especially to those who entered the contest. I enjoyed reading the questions and the answers to them.
And now for the moment some of you have been waiting for!
Both BunnyB and Allison have won bookmarks, thanks for participating!
The grand prize (autographed even – I just discovered that when I got home) a copy of The Questory of Root Karbunkulus goes to Ruth of BookishRuth!
I will get the prizes in the mail this week!
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