Of course, this is an extremely pessimistic viewpoint, and I’m happy to report that Payah, the eponymous character of the story written by Margaret H.L. Lim is as impulsive and spontaneous as we all remember being as children. The 8-year-old girl is a member of the Kayan tribe, an indigenous peoples living in the northern interior of Sarawak, Malaysia.

Payah visits the local market one weekend with her aunt and grandmother. Whilst her aunt sells the produce harvested from the surrounding rainforest and family farm, and her grandmother haggles over a piece of sarong she already intends to buy, Payah explores the stalls and shops in the area. She soon discovers a bedraggled, injured hornbill inside a sundries shop, and entreats her grandmother to buy the bird so that it may be released from its captivity and nursed back to health.

The bird, which happens to be the state animal of Sarawak, is just one of the animals Payah and/or her family have taken under their wing, so to speak. Within a few pages, the reader finds out that they have also been nurturing a baby orang utan that has been orphaned by poachers and left for dead. Foraying into the nearby rainforest, the likable Payah also has encounters with wildlife of which most urbanites would never dream, but which is all part of everyday life for her and her family.

Su Jen Bucheim’s illustrations, which mix ink and watercolor and depict the carefree life of a young girl living in close proximity to nature, are charming in their apparent effortless artlessness. On the other hand, the text, though charming, is less about the ongoing adventures of a young girl in the rainforest than it is a series of barely connected episodes emphasizing the importance of respecting our environment and treating all creatures with compassion, which might leave the reader scratching her head at its disjointedness and abrupt end.

While the book’s story certainly is a journey through heartache and the effects of tragedy, it is not without its flaws. Instead of following just Oskar’s story, it tends to meander a bit, touching on three tragedies instead of just 9/11. It might have been the author’s intent to distance the reader a little from the very personal events of 9/11. However, doing so interrupted the overall flow of the story as some of the elements were forced into it.

The other seriously distracting thing was some of the photographs. It is also the reason why you really shouldn’t purchase this book on the Kindle or other reading device that isn’t as graphically accommodating. You kind of have to flip back and forth through the book to understand exactly what  photograph is referred to. It is more difficult to do this on the Kindle than with the hard copy of the book.

Despite its flaws, the book is still a heart-warming story and there are certainly some interesting characters along the way. You might get a few laughs and a few tears. For those who have lost loved ones in 9/11, it can be a very hard book to read just because of the emotional connection.

However, this book might not appeal to those who prefer a little more realism with their fiction. There is always the question of what mom would allow a 9-year-old to roam the streets of New York and meet all these strangers without supervision. It is these types of details that will turn some people off.

I would suggest going to the library or borrowing the hard copy if you want to read it. Stay away from the download version due to formatting and graphic issues with the photographs.

The Giver is the story of Jonas, a young boy living in what is originally presented as a utopian society. Everyone coexists harmoniously, spends the day going about their routines as expected, and even shares their feelings with their family at the dinner table. There is no violence, no pain, and no dissent within the community. As per tradition, when Jonas turns twelve, he and the other twelve-year-olds are assigned a job in the community that they will spend the next several years preparing for and the rest of their life fulfilling. While others receive typical jobs in the community such as Caretaker of the Old, Jonas is given a job that causes an unusual stir in the community, as it is one that is rarely given: Receiver.

Jonas’ training is done by the titular character, the Giver, who reveals a new world to Jonas. He begins transferring long-ago memories to Jonas, letting him in on secrets and knowledge: things like color, emotion, climate – all the things that are regulated and unknown to everyone else. Jonas begins to experience the things the community is kept from (true family, the feeling of a warm summer day), as well as the things the community is protected from (loss, and pain in the form of a blistering sunburn). Eventually, Jonas comes to the realization that the benefit of protecting citizens from the negative things in life does not weigh out the drawback of keeping them from the joys life has to offer.

The Giver has received a lot of praise, but also a lot of criticism because of some of the themes being explored in a children’s book. I’ll admit it’s probably a little advanced for most fifth-graders – I read it on my own when I was about that age, but it was done as a unit when I was in middle school. (Amazon.com describes its reading level as ages twelve and up, which puts a potential reader at the same age as Jonas.)

Towards the end of the novel, Jonas needs to decide: stay and remain oppressed, or leave and live free? What does he decide? What happens to him? The ending is ambiguous, so read it and decide for yourself!

As Singh travels off into the wilderness, she is forced to confront a great deal of her past, her choice to switch from obstetrics to pharmaceuticals, and her decision, at forty, to not have any children. Things are complicated by the fact that Dr. Singh’s lover is Dr. Fox, the deep pockets behind the on-going research, but also someone who the researchers hope to keep in the dark for as long as possible.

Patchett managed to keep me on the edge of my seat over and over again as she interspersed jungle survival stories of snakes and seventy year old women giving birth with limited medical supplies with Marina’s very personal search for self.

Despite the jungle setting, the main characters in Patchett’s book are strong women – Dr. Singh, who spends most of the book questioning her decisions, and Dr. Swenson, the 73-year-old woman leading the jungle research. Dr. Swenson is a tough character who has the upper hand in the jungle and manages to instill fear in the hearts of pretty much everyone she meets.The two women are strong contrasts to each other, but also play against each other well to illustrate very effectively their strengths and weaknesses.

While there were times I had to hold my breath because the scene was so exciting, there were also times when the book seemed slightly over constructed. Everything in the book seems to illustrate a very important point the author is trying to make, so much so that it sometimes gets a little bit much. Many characters seem to be constructions to fulfill a point, rather than solidly developed characters.

Overall though, I would give A State of Wonder 4/5 stars. It is well worth a read, and it really is strong writing and a fascinating story. Patchett is a gifted writer and one who is well worth giving a test drive.

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice is bored and ends up following a rabbit and falling down a rabbit hole into an alternate universe.  As she runs through Wonderland, she encounters several different obstacles, from a mad tea party, to a game of croquet with the evil queen.

In Through the Looking Glass, Alice is playing with her cats and is curious about what happens on the other side of mirrors.  So she goes to look in one and practically falls through it.  Where she lands is a total opposite universe; before, it was winter and snowing outside, and now it is a gorgeous summer day in a garden.  She eventually comes upon a giant game of chess, and that is what most of the book is about, her playing her way through the giant, life sized chess game.  When she finally grabs the Red Queen, she unknowingly puts the Red King into “checkmate” and is allowed to wake up.

Now, you may be thinking, “This isn’t Alice in Wonderland, I saw the movie and it was nothing like this.”  Well, the newest movie (which came out in 2010) is almost like a third part to the series.  In the movie, Alice is 19 and well,  it is fairly similar to Alice in Wonderland, but in the movie Alice slays the Jabberwocky.  Which didn’t happen in either book.  In Through the Looking Glass,  Alice reads a poem about the Jabberwocky and someone killing it, but never does herself.

Both these fabulous books are by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, most commonly know by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll.  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was written in 1865, as one book.

As with the 19th-century novel, the book’s eponymous character is orphaned at the age of 10. Gemma travels from Iceland to live with her kind uncle in Scotland. Unfortunately, he dies, and she becomes the ward of an aunt who is anything but pleased to care for the girl. Gemma is sent away to boarding school soon enough as a “working pupil,” where she is to study but is also treated like a servant by the school authorities.

As in Jane Eyre, Gemma has a friend at the school, and the school gets its eventual comeuppance. Her formal education completed, Gemma takes a job as an au pair in the Orkney Islands, where her ward is the disobedient niece of an aloof banker named Hugh Sinclair. It is as this point where, as one reviewer noted,  Livesey’s story differs most clearly from Brontë’s, but also less convincingly so.

Livesey’s ability to write a, well, lively story is undisputed, and lovers of the written word will find plenty to enjoy as she weaves wit, precision, lyricism, and sympathetic insight into the tale. Rather than painting villains and benefactors in pure black and white, the reader is compelled to acknowledge that people sometimes do bad things because of bad things that have happened to them.

Despite being described as “delicate,” Gemma has the will of iron that readers would expect in a heroine like this, allowing the writer to cast her sharp eye on the human consciousness, laying bare every idiosyncrasy that mankind can conjure through writing that is deft and incisive and, in the author’s own words, stealing from (her) own life.

I read A Long Way Down one summer while working at a golf course. I’d be sitting by the snack shack, ready to give golfers fuel in the form of hot dogs and beer, and they’d inevitably ask me what I was reading. When they questioned the plot, I always hesitated slightly: “It’s a story about four strangers who meet when they all decide to commit suicide on the same night,” sounds a little deranged, but it’s true. The novel is told in alternating viewpoints of the characters – an 18-year-old girl with a penchant for drama, a single mother of a disabled adult son, a struggling American musician, and a former morning show host shamed by a sex scandal – as they decide to put off their suicides and meet three months later to reconsider.

My first introduction to Hornby was through How to Be Good, a novel I read as an assignment in my introductory literature class freshman year of college. Since I had spent high school being forced to read books I didn’t particularly like (with a few exceptions), I was blown away to be reading material I actually enjoyed for an academic class. How to Be Good explores what it means… to be good. Go figure, huh? It focuses on a family of four’s reaction to the father suddenly enlisting the help of a spiritual leader and renovating his life to reflect “good.” This means giving away his children’s toys, inviting homeless strangers into the home, and other extreme behavior. His wife, a physician, struggles with understanding the actions of her “new” husband and tries to decide for herself what “being good” really is.

Hornby’s books tend to be quick reads with a lot of dialogue – not surprising, considering he writes a lot of screenplays and that his books are frequently adapted into movies. Despite addressing bizarre or extreme behavior some of the time, the characters are given backgrounds that make them feel familiar. When I get a chance (or an e-reader for my upcoming birthday… hint, hint!), I’m going to track down some other Hornby novels to give those a try too!

In those days, there was no literature addressing the issue of cancer and the threat of death that loomed over the patient, not to mention how those who were left behind should deal with the loss. Recently, I came across A Monster Calls as I wandered through the local bookstore. Written by Patrick Ness and illustrated by Jim Kay, it’s categorized as a children’s book, albeit those aged 12-15 years (it should really be a young adult book, then, shouldn’t it?), but had been shelved in the Horror section.

Ness worked with the notes author Siobhan Dowd made before her premature death in 2007 to spin the tale of Conor, a 9-year-old boy dealing with life after his mother is diagnosed with breast cancer.

Between having breakfast on his own and possessing the ability to bring conversations in school to a dead halt by just coming into view (no one knows what to say to him), Conor must also deal with a monster that has formed from a yew tree in the garden, and who promises Conor that it will get him. Call it a giant, an elemental, or just a talking tree, this monster is different from the one that plagues Conor’s nightmares; it wants the Truth from the boy.

In reading the book, I could see why the employees had shelved it where I’d found it. Like many others who read it, I found A Monster Calls hard going, but also supremely difficult to put down.

P.D. James’

At the end of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet wed Mr. Darcy. James’ novel begins six years after the presumed marriage took place. The couple has had two sons, with a third on the way. One stormy and sinister evening, an unexpected carriage abruptly arrives at Pemberley, carrying Elizabeth’s sister, Lydia. She bursts out of the carriage claiming that her husband George has died. In the previous novel, Lydia married the notorious womanizer and deadbeat George Wickham. Immediately the Darcys send out a search party and discover Wickham deep in the ancient woods, drunk beyond the point of functioning. Beside him is the lifeless body of his good friend, Captain Denny. Wickham is only conscious enough to exclaim what sounds like a confession, but no more. However, the Darcys find it very hard to believe that Wickham was capable of murder. This is where James begins weaving the tale of mystery and suspense.

P.D. James is easily described as quite possibly the greatest living British writer of crime fiction. Her talent bursts through in this latest novel. James decided not to closely follow the style of Austen’s 19th-century prose, but almost effortlessly creates a modern version of Austen’s quintessential style. Critics have noted that it took James a lot of nerve to attempt a sequel to such a classic novel, but took even more talent to pull it off, which James did successfully. Occasionally, in Death Comes to Pemberley, James mirrors the style of Austen perfectly. For example, in the prologue James writes this popularly quoted passage: “A family of five unmarried daughters is sure of attracting the sympathetic concern of all their neighbors, particularly where other diversions are few.” And the odious Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Darcy’s aunt, makes a characteristic appearance, declaring: “I have never approved of protracted dying. It is an affectation in the aristocracy; in the lower classes it is merely an excuse for avoiding work.” For fans of the literary style and technique of Jane Austen, James will clearly not disappoint.

One of the few criticisms of the book has been that the once sharp and sassy character of Elizabeth Bennet has become quite dull while living at Pemberley. Maybe the stress of housework and childbirth has caused Elizabeth to become more modest. Also, compared to James’ other novels, the mystery is not nearly as deep or as complicated as usual — but it still manages to captivate readers. For fans of Jane Austen, Death Comes to Pemberley is the perfect addition to your library.

Patterson just might be the world’s best-selling author. His books have sold more than 180 million copies to date. Recently, his novels have sold more copies that those of Dan Brown, Stephen King, and John Grisham, combined! He holds the Guinness World record for the most bestselling hardcover fiction titles (63), which includes 19 consecutive #1 New York Times bestselling novels. His newest novel, Private, currently rounds out the top 10 bestsellers at Barnes & Nobles. (The Hunger Game Series currently dominates that list.)

We all probably have a few questions for someone like Patterson. Luckily, at least 10 questions have already been answered in an interview conducted by Time in July 2010. I found one of his most interesting responses to be the one that answered the question, “What do you say to critics like author Stephen King who say you are not a great prose stylist?” It must be tough to have Stephen King question your legitimacy as an author. Luckily, Patterson took the question in stride, agreeing that he simply is not a great prose stylist. “I’m a storyteller,” he explained. And that’s what the majority of the population is looking for, so it all works out quite nicely for Patterson in the end.

One of his major goals is to simply ignite a lifelong passion for reading across the population. This is evident from his Web site ReadKiddoRead, which makes some fantastic suggestions for young readers. You’ll see titles of some really fun books, such as The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles. Of course, Patterson has the right to include some of his own hits such as the Maximum Ride series. Patterson is perhaps best known for his series geared towards adults, particularly the Alex Cross series, but has made quite a successful crossover to young adult literature. This is partly due to the fact that he has his own young teenage son to inspire in reading; what better motivation can there be?