Taking Sides

Title: Taking Sides

Author: Gary Soto

Summary:   Lincoln is a star basketball player for Franklin Junior High, a tough school in a bad neighborhood.  Then he moves to a nicer school district and goes to Columbus Junior High.  When he has to play against his old school, he doesn't know if he should play hard and seem like a traitor to Franklin or be easy and seem like a traitor to Columbus.  In the end he realizes that he's not like the Columbus kids.  He's a Franklin through and through, wearing a Columbus uniform.  He plays for himself and for the love of the game, not worrying about who wins.  

Stars:  7.  Not one of my favorite genres, but Gary Soto's writing is really realistic.  

Violence:  6.  Fighting is discussed, but never described in detail.  Lincoln has a toe injury and a knee injury, and both are described (the injuries, not the acquiring of them).  

Romance:  6 for discussion of boyfriends (come on, I mean, they're in eighth grade, but still . . .) and minimal hand-holding.  

Language:  0

Appropriate for:  junior high/middle school

Other:  This was a good exercise of my Spanish.  For the words I didn't know, there was a glossary in the back (which I never found until I was finished . . .).  I liked the culture intertwined in this book (for example, the tortillas at all meals and speaking Spanish at home).  

The Secret Adversary

Title: The Secret Adversary

Author: Agatha Christie

Summary:   Tommy and Tuppence, two young people who had survived the war, get together and try to make some money.  A case comes up at once:  a man wants Tuppence to assume a false identity and live in France.  When he asks her name, she decides that she had better not tell him, so she takes one that Tommy had told her about the other day, Jane Finn.  The man starts up and begins getting scared.  This all leads into a quest for the real Jane Finn, who had been handed important papers by an agent at the sinking of the Lusitania.  These papers, if published, could begin the overthrow of the English Government.  Some people want these papers to publish them.  The secret society is headed up by a criminal genius who goes by "Mr. Brown."  With the aid of an acclaimed KC and an American millionaire (cousin of Jane Finn), they try to track down the leader.  The person who turns out to be the criminal is - as always with Christie's novels - extremely unexpected.  (Except . . . I expected that he/she was the criminal halfway through the book.  Either it wasn't that unexpected, or I'm very perceptive.  I'm tempted to believe the latter, but common sense tells me that Christie wasn't at her best in this novel.)  

Stars: 8.  Definitely not one of Christie's best novels.  The coincidences were a little too much for me.  

Violence: 5 for threatening people with firearms and whacking people on the head with heavy objects.  Oh, and old knocking people out with the stuff in a handkerchief (they inhale it, and they get knocked out).  

Romance: 5 for several proposals - at least three.  No graphic physicalities.  

Language: 6, for h--l and related expletives.  

Appropriate for:  Teen/adult

Other: 

Perelandra

Title: Perelandra  (Space Trilogy, #2)

Author: C.S. Lewis

Summary:  Dr. Ransom returns, and this time he's got to go to Venus and save that planet!  The Oyarsa of Malacandra (referred to as Malacandra from now on, since there's an Oyarsa of Venus [Perelandra] and a twisted Oyarsa of Earth [Thulucandra]) sends Ransom to Venus in a coffinlike structure that melts upon his landing.  Perelandra is a land of floating islands that move in relation to one another.  Ransom meets a green Lady, who is the equivalent of Eve.  Weston suddenly arrives on Perelandra, trying to convince the Lady to live on the fixed land (which Maleldil had strictly commanded her not to do).  It's only Weston's body, though.  It is someone else inside.  The sleepless creature, Un-man, persists in his flattery and persuasion.  Eventually Ransom, with the support of Maleldil, physically wrestles with the Un-man.  Though hurt, Ransom pursues the Un-man to the fixed land.  There, he vanquishes Un-man - or so he thinks.  He's gotten into this chimney kind of structure by swimming through a crack in the rock, but he can't do it again.  So he climbs up.  Eventually the Un-man finds him again, but Ransom pushes him into a fire pit.  Un-man dies (and doesn't come back this time).  He is met at the top by the Oyarsas (Oyarsae?) of Mars and Venus, Malacandra and Perelandra.  The Lady and her King are also there.  The Oyarsas send Ransom back home in another coffinlike structure.  

Stars:  9.  The description, if possible, was even better than in Out of the Silent Planet.  

Violence: 8.  The fighting of the Un-man and Ransom was violent.  It wasn't graphic.  It just stated the wounds, and that in and of itself was bad enough.  They were pretty bad wounds.    

Romance: 6; the Un-man suggested that there was something between Ransom and the Lady, since they were both naked in all their associations.  However, that kind of relationship was apparently foreign to Perelandra, and it wasn't really even a wish in Ransom.  

Language: 0-1

Appropriate for:  Older teen/adult

Other: Its allegory was great.  Loved it.  However, it was a bit deep and tangled.  I have the feeling that in a couple of years or so I'll understand it better.  

An Old Fashioned Girl

Title: An Old Fashioned Girl

Author: Louisa May Alcott

Summary:  Polly goes to town to stay with Fan and Tom.  While there, she contrasts her plain dresses with the rich girls' fancy ones.  She also notes a man who manages to be both fashionable and courteous.  His name is Sydney.  
She returns later to teach music in town.  Sydney falls in love with Polly, but she doesn't return his affection.  She nips the romance in the bud.  Then Fan and Tom's family hit hard times.  Tom gets a job out west, and from his letters Fan and Polly believe he loves another girl.  But Polly loves Tom.  Turns out, Tom loves Polly, too.  Sydney and Fan get engaged, and it's a general "happily-ever-after" ending.  

Stars: 5

Violence: 3; Tom tumbles off his velocipede and consequently gets injured.  His injuries are not graphic.  Alcott, no doubt writing for girls in her time period, probably thought girls would have no interest or business with a scene of that sort.  

Romance: 7.  Heh, romantic concerns must encompass over half this book.  Nothing inappropriate for 19th or 20th century girls, so certainly nothing shocking to 21st century readers, except for maybe the barefaced modesty and conservative view of romance.   

Language: 0, I'm pretty sure, but I might have missed one or two words.  

Appropriate for: Young adult/teen

Other: I've noticed a pattern in Alcott's books.  I've made a Google Docs spreadsheet for you all to check out, since it's easier to understand in that format.  The three books I used are An Old Fashioned Girl, Rose in Bloom, and Little Women.  Spreadsheet
Also, I think the picture of Tom at the end spoiled it for me.  He looked old, ugly, and weird.  To my mind, he looked like Bhaer (from Little Women).  It didn't fit Tom.  Here, I'll post a picture.