Kate's Tales of Books and Bands

The Valiant by Lesley Livingston Ancient Rome has always attracted a lot of interest from historians and nonfiction writers, because it holds a lot of fame for its government and, most importantly, its Games. Chariot races, gladiator fights, animal fights, animal hunts, and even water games and fights were all stages in arenas like the colosseum for the Roman people to enjoy. Nowadays, people look back on this and can't even think what it would be like- to see people fighting to the death right in front of you. But in The Valiant, a novel by Lesley Livingston, you get not a view of what the games might have been like to witness, but what it might have been like to have fought in them- with a twist. Even though this book, unlike the majority of its predecessors, is fictional, it still contains the context and detail of Ancient Rome,although from the point of not a male gladiator (as it was historically), but a female one. In this novel, Fallon, the daughter of a Celtic king, is part...

The Singing Bones Illustrated by Shaun Tan Foreword by Neil Gaiman        A brand new outlook on the Brothers Grimm Tales, Shaun Tan provides inspiring and thought-provoking images to correspond with each story. Each tale has an excerpt from the original story, and Shaun uses objects that are so realistic and primitive-looking that you can almost feel them through the picture. Each object looks worn and touchable, tempting you to reach into the page and hold it, stroking the material while you read the story. Each picture embodies the story- it is not just a single snapshot from a scene in the story- it embodies the entire thing. Shaun Tan uses lighting and color to draw your attention to certain details and focus the aesthetic of the art. The foreword by Neil Gaiman is very attractive to any reader who knows his works, and the foreword itself is well written and causes the reader to gain interest in the artwork, as well as the artist. I think that this is a really i...

The Passion of Dolssa By Julie Berry A young woman in 12th century provincial France preaches to her people, and performs miracles that could only come from the divine. The Catholic Church, fresh from the crusades, seeks to “purify” the soul of christendom, and secure their hold on Europe. This young woman, Dolssa, refuses to be silent, and is branded a heretic. The Church hunts her across the land until Botille, a matchmaker in a small seaside town finds Dolssa on death door, nurses her back to health and hides her. However, with the Church bearing down on them, they only have so long, and the more time Dolssa spends in this town the more the Church will likely damn it. Julie Berry weaves a tale of feminism, religion, and the thin line between being a saint or a heretic in medieval Europe. The prose of the novel is gorgeous, littered with Provincial French, and the characters are captivating. Botille and her sisters are outspoken and feminist in a time when women had few...

By: Eunsun Kim At eleven years old, Eunsun Kim wrote her will.  She thought we was going to die and there was nothing she could do about it.  Her mother and older sister had left to find food and didn't come back for days.  When she was finally giving up her mother and sister returned -- without a single bite to eat.  The famine in North Korea had already claimed Eunsun's grandparents and father.  Despite the overwhelming belief in their eternal president, Kim Il-Sung, and dear leader, Kim Jong-il, Eunsun's mom decided there was nothing left for them in their North Korean town and they had no choice to but leave.  This started Eunsun's nine year journey to South Korea, despite the risks: imprisonment in a labor camp or death.  Throughout her journey Eunsun and her family live homeless, get caught by North Korean police, fall into the hands of Chinese human traffickers, and eventually make it to South Korea.  However, A Thousand Miles to Freedom , ...

By Monica Ropal Cass is convinced that everyone will leave her. Her father is gone and now her mother is married to some random rich guy she doesn't like and she has to go to a random private school. Cass is determined to stay out of the spotlight and stay in the background. However there is a cute boy named Cooper whose locker is next to hers. Although Cass doesn't want anything to do with him, they just click. Then all of a sudden Cooper is murdered. When Cass' friend is accused of killing him, Cass has to be the detective and find out who really killed him, because obviously Gav is being framed. Honestly I really did not like the book. It wasn't very well planned out and the only thing I was even remotely interested was Mattie, who of course is the love interest in the end. The book starts off when Cass goes to a new private school that has nuns and she just wants to blend in. Cass isn't your 'typical girl' she's a skater girl, and she has other skate...

By E.K. Johnston Ignore the cover.  Ignore the summary.  Go straight for the first page of this book and start reading because this is the single most amazing, beautiful, heartbreaking, hilarious, emotionally compromising, pulchritudinous, SOUL TEARING sequel I have ever laid eyes on in my long history of laying eyes on books.  Or better yet, read the first book.   Prairie Fire finishes the tale of Siobhan McQuaid and Owen Thorskgard started in The Story of Owen , where Siobhan becomes the bard of Owen, a dragon slayer.  The world building in this series is phenomenal.  Set in an alternate universe shaped by the existence of non-magical, carbon-consuming dragons, everything is pretty much the same as our world, but tweaked for the allowance of dragons.  For example, the United States is half the size as it is in our universe, Canada claimed all the extra land, and the Sahara Desert was created through an environmental disaster caused by a dragon war. ...

By Kerry Wilkinson Despite the extreme popularity of the Hunger Games trilogy there were some serious flaws.  This book, Renegade , played into several of them.  One of my biggest problems wight his book was the extraordinary resemblance to Catching Fire , the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy.  In order to fully explain my problems with this book I will be giving away part of the ending.  So there will be SPOILERS. Ok, I'll start at the beginning.   Renegade is the second book in the trilogy.  I read the first one, Reckoning , probably over a year ago.  I found it extremely similar to the Hunger Games when I read it for these reasons.  There is something called the Reckoning where everyone takes basically an aptitude test that nobody really understands how it works.  They get a status as a result of this test: Elite, Member, Inter, or Trog.  That's not the important part though.  Then, there is the Choosing.  It is basi...