From: Susan Patron <spatron>
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 09:54:41 -0800

Thanks to John Peters for his lucid, interesting choices.

I don't think anyone has mentioned Adaline Falling Star by Mary Pope Osborne (Scholastic) a vividly realized novel about the real daughter of Kit Carson and his Arapaho wife. Osborne uses the present tense to give immediacy and intimacy to this historical fiction.

In a very different mood, I found Roddy Doyle's Giggler Treatment
(Scholastic/Levine) to be great fun. The open format, with sprightly illustrations by Brian Ajhar, must be tremendously welcoming to unsure or shaky readers--with chapter headings that play with the convention of chapter headings and a glossary that's funny all on its own. Doyle writes with enormous serious impact about childhood in his adult novels and that quality is not in his Dahl-esque Giggler Treatment; however, it's a light, amusing read.

Susan Patron
Received on Mon 11 Dec 2000 11:54:41 AM CST