Swell Books!

I have a pile of books to flip through before April 21st, when once again for the 9th or 10th time, I will wax rhapsodic or grouse about the state of children's books at the Kutztown University Children's Literature Conference- at Kutztown University, Kutztown PA - just in case you wondered where it was.

YESTERDAY, I read, not one, but TWO, great books as different from each other as books can be.

Vincent and Theo: the Van Gogh Brothers by Deborah Heiligman had me in tears less than a third of the way into the book. I knew where this was all going to end up, still, I don't know how Heiligman does it exactly - she manages to imbue her biographical works with emotion.  Her writing never strays from fact, although she does ask the readers to imagine how the characters may have felt at certain times in their lives.  She uses short chapters, divides the book in sections by types of artwork, and gives a full sense of place and time.  I will buy this book.  I need to read it again.

Granted by John David Anderson is a middle grade fantasy about wishes.  Ophelia Delphinium Fidgets is a cobalt blue-haired fairy whose job is to grant wishes.  The "algorithm" (my word, not the book's word) that controls magic in the world has limited the number of wishes granted each day to a mere 12. Ophelia has never gotten the chance to grant one - UNTIL the wish of a girl whose bike was stolen falls from the Great Tree.
Wish granting doesn't sound hard.  You find the object used to make the wish and then you sprinkle the object with a little magic dust and say the four magic words. Easy peasy - EXCEPT for the planes, trucks, birds, animals, humans, trash, hunger, pain, feet, traffic, wind, humans and dogs...
When the wish object doesn't stay where it was tossed, when it travels from human to human, when Ophelia loses the ability to fly and has to depend on a sloppy, smelly dog - a sweet, adorable, smelly dog - to get around, when the wish object is used to ....  no, no, that would be telling.  This is one day Ophelia Delphinium Fidgets will never forget.

So, I started the day carried away with the sadness of the Van Gogh brothers' lives and awed by Vincent's talent and Theo's loyalty.  And I ended the day cheering on an imaginary creature whose mission was to grant a wish and grow magic in the world. 

I LOVE reading.

PS:  I'm reading Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor.  I don't know how I missed this one last year.