Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Midnight Comes for Charlie Bone

Midnight Comes for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo copyright 2002

For those who enjoyed the magical/suspense adventures of Harry Potter, this might just be a series you can escape into to get those same feelings of excitement. I just finished reading this first book in the Charlie Bone series with my nine year old son. He loved it! We were recommended this book by my 11 year old son who is now working on the fourth book in the series. Now the fact that both of my older boys enjoy this book makes it awesome. The first is an avid reader and the second a reluctant one. The protagonist, Charlie Bone, is 10 or 11 (I can't remember which). He discovers he has a special power to the great delight of his father's family, and to his own consternation. The story revolves around the battle of good and evil, but intriguingly the battle lines are drawn within families, and the reader often questions whether a character is truly good or bad. First impression don't always let us know the truth, as Charlie has to discover. The themes of loyalty, friendship, doing what is right, sacrificing for others and bravery in the face of danger are all present. Overall, a delightful read. It is children's fiction, but I think reader's of all ages can enjoy this one. I look forward to reading Book Two!

Friday, January 2, 2009

Camilla

Camilla: A Biography of Camilla Eyring Kimball by Caroline Eyring Miner and Edward Kimball copyright 1980

This book was in a stack of a few that I inherited from my grandmother a number of years ago. I read it back in 2005 and really enjoyed it. I love biographies anyway, but I'd always heard what lovely, talented, intelligent woman Camilla Kimbal was and was interested to learn for myself of her goodness.

A lot about Camilla surprised me. She was a very resourceful, gracious woman. I found her early history of living in the Mexican LDS colonies and her family's "sneaking out" of the country fascinating. She devoted herself to her family always. I know many may find this way of thinking old-fashioned, but she truly was always concerned about her family first. She was the ultimate frugal homemaker making the most of everything she had. Certainly lived by the "waste not, want not" principle.

I think that I had hoped she would be a "superwoman" kind of gal, but really, she was just as human and normal as the rest of us. In fact the last sentence of the cover blurb sums it up very well. "The woman who emerges is shy but warm, bighly intelligent, refreshingly candid, deeply faithful, independent to a fault, unswervingly loyal, and reassuringly human."

This book might be out of print, but I'm sure that Utah local libraries will have a copy in their collections. Worth the read.