The pounding is the pounding of the heart...

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano: But She Does Love Being in Recitals Peggy Gifford

Moxy's back! She's playing a "Heart and Soul" duet with her sister Pansy at the big piano recital. Of course, first she has to put fake ermine trim on the cape she's wearing and practice bowing with her crown on, and she should probably warm up in case she's also asked to sing.

What Moxy *actually* needs to do is practice stopping with the song is done instead of continuing on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

While it retains much of the spirit and humor of the previous Moxy books, this one falls a little short. Moxy's schemes are a little less madcap and the crazier ones (like wearing a cape) aren't really hers at all (yes, Moxy comes up with how to add the fake fur trim, but Granny George was the one making the capes in the first place.) Most of the craziness isn't Moxy's special brand of craziness, but kinda standard for precocious 10-year-olds.

What I did really like was the way Gifford uses text as illustration, such as when talking about how the dog keeps barking and barking and barking and barking and barking and barking and barking and barking (and on and on) all of those "and barking"s are arranged to look like a dog.

While it's not the strongest title in the series, I do think fans will like it.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Post Holiday Whatever

Well, some big changes here at Biblio File. Well, not here at Biblio File, but in my life. After three years I am no longer a "Counterfeit Librarian, Beltway Bandit and Femme Fatale Extroidinarie" and am instead a "Coffee addict, torch singer, and librarian ninja."

2 years ago, we moved and I stopped driving 1/2 around the beltway to get to work, but I still had to do large amounts of beltway driving to get to school, but, my dears, last Sunday, I finally graduated from University of Maryland's iSchool, so I'm now a big L Librarian. The only real change this makes in my day-to-day life at this point is that I no longer have to drive 1/2 way across the metro area to get to class 2 nights a week, no more papers to write, and I have to start paying full price ALA dues. I'm already working as a children's librarian, so I'm saved a job search. Yay!

Although, I will point out that is NOT my diploma. They will mail that to me next month. That is a poster of the University of Maryland, because well... I don't know why they gave me that. But they did.

In the mean time, my family was all here for graduation/Hanukkah/Christmas but they have all gone home now and the house is quiet and I'm wondering what to do tonight, as our box of Hanukkah candles was 1 candle so there will be some sort of improvisation.

Cybils short lists are coming out next week, which has me VERY excited, because I'm on the judging committee for middle grade/YA non-fiction and I can't wait to see what's nominated.

AND! I got a most fantastic handmade book from my secret santa. (My camera's being weird, so there are no pictures.) BUT! Secret Santa! You did not tell me what blog you blog on! I would love to know! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

In the mean time, let's talk books, ok?

First up, as it's time for such things, is

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank-you Notes Peggy Gifford

Moxy's back! It's after Christmas and Moxy has to write 12 Thank You notes before she can go to California to see her father, whom she hasn't seen in years. Moxy does not want to write her thank you notes and 12 seems like a huge number. Luckily, she has an amazing beyond amazing plan to churn out her thank you notes lickity split and then she will be off to Hollywood to see her dad and be discovered.

Of course, it involves her step-father's brand new photocopier that she's been forbidden to touch. And some spray paint. Of course, it doesn't go to plan and unbelievable hilarity ensues.

Even better than Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little! This has some bigger issues and a little more meat, without getting bogged down or depressing. It's still hilarious and kids (and maybe some adults) will identify with writing Thank You notes as being the most horrendous chore ever assigned. Plus, there's spray paint. You can only imagine Moxy and spray paint...

Also, I spent Christmas Eve Day and Christmas Day reading

Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances Maureen Johnson, John Green, and Lauren Myracle

Do you know how unfair it is that 98% of the country had a huge blizzard and there was a huge blizzard in my book and it was like, 65 degrees out? Frustrating doesn't even begin to cover it!

Anyway, enough of my whining about the weather. This books is three stories that all take place in the same town during the blizzard of the century. Jubilee's parents are arrested and she's shipped off to spend Christmas with her grandparents, only to have the train get stuck. She gets off, wanders into the Waffle House across the highway and meets Stuart, who takes her home. Normally she wouldn't go, but a bunch of cheerleaders ALSO got off the train with her and are also at the Waffle House.

Meanwhile, Tobin and his friends are having a James Bond-a-thon when their friend who works at Waffle House calls and says there are cheerleaders demanding Twister. So they are off into the blizzard, trying to beat other guys to bring Twister to the cheerleaders.

And then, finally, Addie messed up with her boyfriend Jeb, and he stood her up when she tried to apologize. (BUT! the reader knows Jeb. He was on the train with Jubilee and is trapped at the cheerleading Waffle House) It's the day after Christmas and she's at work at Starbucks, trying to figure out how to fix things with Jeb, how to not be so self-centered, and trying to get a pig for her best friend.

So while we have three seperate stories, they are entwined and main characters in one story become minor characters in another. Each author took a story, and I enjoyed them all. I wish I would have been at all the planning sessions for this, because that sounds like fun.

I liked all three stories. I can rank them in order of which I liked them, but I won't because I did really like all of them and think they worked really well together to make up the whole.

I'm working on my end-of-the-year retrospective--which books were my favorites, how much I read, and what I should try and read next year.

Spunky Girls

Well, I didn't win the challenge. Sigh. Now I know what the standard of competition is-- y'all better watch out next year, is all I'm saying.

I liked the challenge of it though, so I'm having a self-challenge. Feel free to play along. The challenge is this:

Read all the books I have checked out and borrowed. Don't check out or borrow anymore books until the end of the challenge. Read a as-of-yet determined amount of books that I OWN. I currently have 19 books checked out and probably about 8 that are borrowed.

I buy books that I think I'll want to own. I can't help it. But, they often get waylaid because dude, the library books have to go back. So the books I wanted so much that I bought them languish on the shelves, unread. Time to change that.

But here are some library books:

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker

Clementine always pays attention, despite what her teacher says. She's just paying attention to what's going on outside the window.

Here we have heroine who is all heart, but doesn't always know how to show it. When perfect Margaret tries to cut glue out of her hair, all Clementine was trying to do was even it up. But then she's not allowed to play with Margaret anymore. Clementine knows Margaret's sad about having no more hair, so Clementine cuts all of her hair off, just to make her feel better. Why doesn't anyone understand this?

Marla Frazee's pen and ink illustrations make this story great, as does Clementine's pitch-perfect voice:

And then Margaret went all historical, and the art teacher went all historical, and nobody could think of anything to do except the regular thing, which is: send me to the principal's office.

Clementine is spunkier than Ramona and not as annoying as Junie B. Her voice is captured perfectly. It's hard not to fall in love with Clementine, which is why I squealed for joy when this came in:

The Talented Clementine by Sara Pennypaker

I think this one might be even more hilarious than the first one. The school is having a talent show, but there's just one problem-- Clementine doesn't have a talent.

I like this one partly because a lot of the adults that were flat characters in the first book (because, let's face it, in a kid's eye, most adults are flat characters) round out a bit more, especially the principal.

I really just want to cut and paste a bunch of quotations, or possibly the entire book, but you just read it yourself. I will leave you with this:

But he ignored me, which is called Getting on with the Day when a teacher does it, and Being Inconsiderate when a kid does it.

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little by Peggy Gifford

I'm not entirely sure who is narrating this tale, but the breathless excitement that comes across in punctuation-less run-on sentences leads me to believe it is one of Moxy Maxwell's fellow 9-year-olds.

But that is not part of this story and will sidetrack us and we must move on if we're ever going to get to the darkness now descending on Moxy's horizon.

See, Moxy has a bit of a problem. She has been carrying around her copy of Stuart Little all summer so she can read it during her in-between times, but, see, she didn't have many of those this summer. So, here it is, the last day of summer vacation, and she hasn't read it yet. This is a problem because there will be a test on it tomorrow, the first day of school.

So Moxy is going to go straight up to her room and read the whole thing before the daisy routine water ballet tonight. But, of course, she should probably clean her room first. And then she needs some food, for energy. And then, because the day has been such an emotional roller coaster, she should probably lie down. And then, she has a fabulous, stupendous, near-genius idea that must be set into motion immediately.

Of course, when the best idea Moxy has had in her life leads to an drowned, exploding dahlia garden, can she find a way out? And will she ever read Stuart Little?

This is a funny look at a kid trying to get out of doing her summer reading assignment. Perhaps not quite as funny as Clementine, but still funny and will appeal to the same people. Another thing I want to draw attention to is that Moxy's twin brother, Mark has been studying photography over the summer and his photographic illustrations (really those of Valerie Fisher) add a lot to the tale.