Assorted Titles

Some books are fine but don't meet my needs. Looked at (but did not read entirely) four fantasies aimed more at girls last night. Since I have plenty of those, I think I'll pass on:

Coombs-- The Runaway Princess. Maybe for elementary collections, where girls are enthralled with princesses. The princess in this is atypical-- brave and boisterous-- but I prefer The Enchanted Forest Chronicles for that.

Levine-- Ever. Love this author, but not this one. High fantasy with completely made up world, lots of made up words (for stuff like mother and father, which just irritated me), and then people peeing on the grass. Lost me about there.

Selfors-- Saving Juliet. Time travel is almost impossible to sell, and I have at least two other time travel back to the time of Shakespeare books (one is by Susan Cooper). I would like it, but it would gather dust in my library. Great cover, too.

Wilce-- Flora Segunda. Liked the title and the premise, but it was a bit too self-consciously quirky for me.

Terhune--Lad, a Dog. Mine is an anniversary edition; the original is from 1919. Considering how old it is, it reads pretty well, and I'm always short on dog stories. If modern books were bound this well, I wouldn't be gluing 20 books a week back together. I will keep for texture.

Swift-- Gulliver's Travels. Not a big circulator, but I do have the occasional student who wants a challenge, and this is pretty interesting as, again, older things go. I have a weird Whitman-like binding printed in Romania, but again, will keep for texture.

Stevenson-- The Unprotected Witness. Sequel to Bones in the Cliff, which I liked a little more, but this was an easy to follow mystery that will appeal to students who read the first book.

I think that R.L. Stine is the next big frontier in my alphabetical reading, and as all the books come back I will make sure I have read everything before that. There are a couple of sequels that I have missed as they came in, since students were waiting so eagerly for them.