I've had a really uneven experience with books by Sharon Creech. The Wanderer and Love That Dog were works of art, but Absolutely Normal Chaos was almost totally forgettable. (I'll be honest: I'm not even sure whether or not I've read Walk Two Moons or not. I think I have, but I'm not at all positive.) I was unsure, therefore, about Bloomability, but it looked interesting enough that I tried it anyway.
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| Nice cover, too. (Image Source.) |
I'm so glad I did.
The only thing I could have done without was the dream sequences. These came every chapter or so, and I really didn't feel like they added anything to the story.
Overall: This is a light and cheerful read that I highly recommend.
This is the fifty-fourth book I've read this year.
Dinnie Doone is "kidnapped" by her aunt and uncle and taken to Switzerland, to go to an American boarding school where her uncle is headmaster. She meets and befriends students from all over the world.
This is such a happy book. The characterisation was perfect. Guthrie, Lila, Keisuke - each one was real and memorable. The story was funny and beautifully worded. I loved the bits about learning languages, like this one (pg. 58 - 60):
Two days a week, we had conversation in Italian. We'd memorize dialogues and act them out. If you thought about what you were saying, you'd feel stupid, but if you just concentrated on the sounds and the rhythm, it was better. You didn't want to think that you were sitting there all morning saying, "I have a red pen and a blue pen. I have two pens. How many pens do you have?" If you thought very hard about what you were saying, you'd feel like a dolt.
According to my teacher, I had told her that I went to bed at seven hundred o'clock, and that I was three hundred and thirty years old. She said I'd just asked my classmate How much does the time cost? and I want six hundred potatoes, no thank you.
[...]
And then I'd wonder about all the foreign students in this American school - all the Japanese and Spanish and French and Norwegian and Indian and Saudi Arabian and Iranian and German and Dutch and Chinese - how could they study whole subjects like history and algebra and science in English, a completely different language from their own?
When they asked me "How to discover them gym?" or "Do you habit America?" they were making more sense in English than I was in Italian.Isn't that great?
The only thing I could have done without was the dream sequences. These came every chapter or so, and I really didn't feel like they added anything to the story.
Overall: This is a light and cheerful read that I highly recommend.
This is the fifty-fourth book I've read this year.
Mmm, a feel-good, a warm, buttery-bright book. Why is it they always have yellow/red/orange covers? The cover always sets the tone. When the cover doesn't match the inside it throws off the whole experience.
ReplyDeleteE.L. Konigsburg was like that for me. I loved "The View from Saturday" and "From the Mixed-Up Files..." but "The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place" and "T-shirts, T-Backs, Coat and SUIT" were disappointing.
I haven't read Sharon Creech much, but remember I didn't like Walk Two Moons.
I had to go back and comment on this when I saw it in your LinkWithin tool... I LOVE this book! Pure awesomeness! I should read it again and do a review on it. :)
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