Archive for March, 2009

Seekers #1: The Quest Begins by Erin Hunter

ISBN: 0060871229
320 pages
published in 2008.

From Erin Hunter, who wrote the Warriors series, comes a series about bears (instead of cats). Although the format is somewhat similar, the world these bears inhabit is portrayed as vastly different. This book follows the stories of Kallik, a polar bear; Lusa, a black bear; and Toklo, a grizzly bear. Each chapter is from one of their points of view, and you learn about these cubs lives up until the point where their stories start to twist together. Kallik is a polar bear who lives on the ice with her mother and brother until her mother is killed by orcas and she loses her brother and goes on a quest to find him again. Lusa lives in the Bear Bowl in a zoo, but longs for a life out in the wild. Toklo is traveling with his mother and his slow, sickly brother who he resents for holding them back. Legends and myths play large parts in the lives of all three cubs and seem to wrap them together into one story.

The folklore and bear-view of the world made this a really interesting book. Parts of this book were extremely sad and alarming, and I was surprised at the content for a children’s book. There was a LOT of death, and some of it was over the top a bit, which disappointed me a little, but it moved the story ahead and gave a lot of depth to their backgrounds. It was just very depressing in parts. By the end, you really want to see these cubs make it, so I’m eager to read the second book, which just came out and I recently picked up at the book store. So, we’ll see where their story takes us!

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

ISBN: 0393978508
174 pages (and from there, up to page 384 of additional material.)
published in 1817.

This is the first Jane Austen novel I’ve ever read, and I was pleasantly surprised. While Jane Austen had often been passed off to me as “chick lit”, I don’t think it was ever properly explained to me the sort of writing style and subject matter that Austen dealt with, and therefore I don’t really feel like I was ever given the opportunity to give her a chance. However, this was a required text for the Intro to English Studies course I’m taking right now, and I’m really grateful that it was. I’ll be reading Sense And Sensibility very soon and I actually suspect that I’ll enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed this one.

Northanger Abbey concerns itself with the story of a young girl, Catherine, who is whisked away to a visit the city of Bath from her modest home. There, she encounters a variety of people of the likes that she has never dealt with before. Although she is no typical heroine (as the author states in the very beginning of the novel) she is very preoccupied with Gothic novels, and the castles and dark matters that they deal with. Throughout the novel we see her grow in very specific, interesting ways, as she falls in love with a young man named Henry Tilney, deals with an assortment of unfavorable characters and learning how to interact in a world that she had never been in before. This is a satirical novel in many ways, and Austen’s biting wit is really evident throughout the entire story.

This book has encouraged me to check out some of the old Gothic novels that inspired it, so I’m in the middle of a few good ones right now. I feel like this book opened up so many doors for me in literature. I’m so excited about so many things now and I’m really indebted to my professor for having introduced me to them. Yay!

Um. Still Alive.

I’ll be posting again soon. I’m reading a ton. Look here:
http://diprotodontia.livejournal.com