Book Review Of The Month: June: Chicks With Sticks: Knitwise June 21, 2008

Avid fans, we have come to the end of the Chicks Trilogy.  In the final installment of the high-school saga, the four friends are “staring down the end of high school” and wondering (or at least Scottie is) if this will be the end of their quartet.  The book begins at Movies In The Park, where we learn that Scottie is making a memory quilt… Will the Chicks survive the new principal, venomous quilters, Bella’s search for a seinor service project, Tay’s new joint custody , Amanda’s debutante duty, and Scottie’s college fears?

Personally, I thought this book was pretty good, the best of the Chicks. (exept for a few pages I skipped.  Call me a wimp,  but I will not read that stuff!)  I thought the author tied up the loose ends that confused me in the first and second books.  If you read the first two, you have to read the last one.  I especially liked Scottie’s college woes and her service project, along with the French Fry Bus, Amanda’s designs, and, well, I always just plain enjoyed reading about Tay.  Don’t worry if you’re sick of chick lit, ’cause next moth will be a very different story!  (Pardon my pun! I couldn’t resist.)  Well, I hope you had fun with these books.  I sure did!

TTFN,

Wildwool (a.k.a. Lily)

 

Book Review of the Month: Chicks With Sticks: Knit Two Together May 21, 2008

The second installmant in  the Chicks saga is not for the un-boy-crazy.  Unless, like me, you despise the kissy-kissy parts, and are reading this book to find out what happens to our favorite four teenage knitters:  Scottie, Amanda, Bella, and Tay.  That said, you’ll probobly love this book if you are boy-crazy.  Anyway, Knit Two Together is about Scottie’s struggle to get herself a boyfriend, while still keeping her friends and her love of knitting.  She has a really hard time!  Things climax at YarnCon Chicago, a knitting (and mostly girly) festival.  She almost loses her friends, and, strangely enough, it’s the day before Bella’s b-day.  Scottie goes home in the middle of the festival, makes things right with the guy she likes (who lives in the same building), then goes to sleep.  She sleeps the day away, and, after seeing one of her mom’s paintings, she goes to Bella’s sleepover…. Well, I can’t tell you the rest, but I think you’ll like the end.  More later!

TTFN, Wildwool a.k.a. Lily

April book review: Once Upon a Marigold April 10, 2008

Once Upon a Marigold is, to quote the front cover, part comedy, part love story, part everything-but-the-kitchen sink.  And the cover is absolutley right!  I loved this book, exept for a little bit at the end where it’s set up for a sequel.  This book doesn’t need one!  It will be hard for the sequel (if there is one)  to live up to the original.  Anyway, I thought this book was fantastic.  It’s about (predictably) a boy, a girl, and a kingdom.  The boy, Christian, (or Chris)  was found in the forest at the age of six by a troll.  Not one of your “Shall we squash them, bake them, or fry them?”  trolls, but a nice troll who lives in a cave I think he must have rented from Merlin.  He has two dogs, an anti-tooth fairy campain, and a collection of found items.  Chriistian is an inventor, and a good one.  So good that, by the age of seventeen, he’s invented a whole new way of communication, (p-mail - read the book and see!) which also happens to be the perfect way of introducing himself (shy guy, isn’t he?) to the lonley and cursed Princess Marigold.  I’ve told you what Chris and Ed (the troll) have, so this is what Princess Marigold has:  A curse, a loving father, three dogs, a truly awful mother, three older, happily married sisters, a whole lotta unwanted suitors, and Chris’s letters.  When Chris takes a job at the palace, things start heating up.  No, not literally - there’s no boiling oil in Once Upon A Marigold.  But be prepared for dungeons, an evil plot, a jealous gaurd, a flirty dairy maid, two botched weddings, and a failed flying machine.  Buckle up, daring readers!

 

TTFN,

Wildwool 

March Book Review: Shiva’s Fire March 14, 2008

SHIVA’S FIRE is about a girl named Parvati, who has an extrordinary gift for Indian classical dance, and has strange things happen to her.  She discovers that she has the “Magic of Possibilities”  (however you spell that!) .  The main location of the book is a dance school in India, where Parvati grows up away from her family, finds (and loses) her best friend, and, for the second time in her life, becomes an outcast among people who fear her gift.  Most of the other students fall into this catagory.  I really enjoyed SHIVA’S FIRE because the characters are so real and human that I couldn’t help getting sucked into the story.  I look forward to reading more by the author!

 As Tigger tells the world, TTFN from Wildwool, teen book reviewer.  More later!

January Book Review: Chicks With Sticks: it’s a purl thing by Elizabeth Lenhard January 13, 2008

Chicks With Sticks : it’s a purl thing is the story of four teenage girls who knit.  The main character is Scottie, who is grieving over the death of her favorite aunt.  Basically, her life is a mess.  Her best friend has become the most popular girl at the high school, and left Scottie behind, her mom has become an semi-famous in Chicago’s art world, and left Scottie behind, and her dad hopped right on board with her mom, (you guessed it) leaving Scottie behind.  And then she learns to knit.  At this point, she makes two new friends and gets her best friend back, and it’s just too good to be true.  Elizabeth Lenhard’s characters must live in Stereotype City, not Chicago, because they are as follows- the angsty teen who thinks she’s a nobody, the popular girl with a deep, dark, secret, the  tattooed, pierced, sk8r grrl in black cargo pants, and the weirdo yoga nut, who’s head is not only adorned with dreadlocks, but who also meditates daily, and doesn’t have an ounce of normalacy.  At any rate, the four friends become tied to eachother, and also to the fabulous local yarn shop.  They also pull off some amazing stuff with their sticks, including an utter impossibility - knitting a pair of booties in an hour.  I hereby challenge any knitter who thinks they can equal this feat to try it, and see for themselves just how impossible it is.  Anyway, good stuff about this book.  Elizabeth Lenhard has great discriptions, and she does think up some characters and situations that are fun to read about, even if they are steroetyped and predictable.  For boy-crazy readers, the Chicks books (or at least the other two) are heaven.  Non boy-crazy readers can still enjoy the books, if they’re not completely grossed out by kissing and talk about boys.  If you’re a boy reading this review, do not despair!  We hope to get a male knitter for the site very soon, who will be able to post non-girly stuff.  But, for now, sorry, boys.  I won’t tell you how Chicks With Sticks ends, but I will say that the ending is great. 

Wildwool, a.k.a. Lily