Book Review Club: Little Books About Iceland

Over the summer I read two “Little Books” about Iceland to prepare for my upcoming trip. As you read this, I will be touring Iceland.

A note to my review club friends: I will be in a remote area of Iceland today, so please don’t be offended if I fail to comment on your own excellent reviews! I promise to make up for it next month.

Little Book of Tourists coverThe Little Book of Tourists in Iceland: Tips, tricks, and what the Icelanders really think of you by Alda Sigmundsdottir
Little Books Publishing, Reykjavik, 2017

Essays about the effects of the tourism boom on Iceland, what Icelanders really think of the tourists, and what you should and should not do as a tourist.

I’d especially recommend this book for independent travelers. People on a tour should have a professional who can educate them about the country and keep them out of danger. But there are a lot of pitfalls for independent tourists who rent a car or hike around the countryside, oblivious to the dangers of an extreme northern climate. You learn things like don’t jump on ice floes (duh!), beware of rip tides if you swim in the ocean, and don’t leave your car parked half off the road while you gawk at the northern lights. That’s a good way to cause a car accident. And if you go to a thermal spa, like the Blue Lagoon, or swimming pool, you have to take a full, naked shower before going in. (No chlorine in the water.)

Blue Lagoon Geothermal Spa

The Blue Lagoon geothermal spa is located in a lava field in Grindavik on the Reykjanes Peninsula, southwestern Iceland – Photo by igorot, license from Deposit Photos.

Little Book of Icelandic coverThe Little Book of Icelandic: On the Idiosyncrasies, Delights and Sheer Tyranny of the Icelandic Language by Alda Sigmundsdottir
Little Books Publishing, Reykjavik, 2016

I set out to learn a little Icelandic before the trip, but quickly realized I was in over my head. Icelandic is a seriously difficult language, and this book explains why that it.

Alda Sigmundsdottir  is a native Icelander who lived for a while in Canada, which makes her a good person to explain Icelandic to foreigners. Basically, if you didn’t grow up speaking Icelandic, and don’t have a year to learn it, don’t bother. Most Icelanders speak English anyway.

I did enjoy the section on idioms. A few examples, translated, of course:

Everyone has their own devil to drag (or cross to bear)
Walk slowly through the door of mirth (Have fun in moderation)
To splash from your cloven heels (Kick up your heels)
Peeing in your shoe won’t keep you warm for long (Don’t count on short-term solutions)
Stupid is a child raised at home (expand your horizons)
Beached whale (windfall)
And my favorite: Blind is the man who has no book

I’ll post a blog about the trip when I get back.

Linda

As always, click on the graphic below for more great reviews in Barrie Summy’s Book Review Club.

Click icon for more book review blogs @Barrie Summy

Book Review Club: Magical Books for Kids & Adults #reviews

For the October meeting of Barrie Summy’s Book Review Club I decided to review two juvenile books I read this summer. Both feature magic which seems appropriate for Halloween month.

Girl Who Drank the Moon cover

The Girl Who Drank the Moon
by Kelly Barnhill
2017 Newbery Winner
Fantasy / Fairy Tales
Audio book narrated by Christina Moore

This middle grade fantasy book reads like a fairy tale. Once a year in a land called The Protectorate, the youngest child in the village is sacrificied to an evil witch who lives in the forest. What the inhabitants don’t know is that there is no evil witch. What the Elders who rule the Protectorate don’t know is that there is a good witch named Xan who shows up every year to rescue the baby and take it to the Free Cities on the other side of the forest to be adopted by a loving family. Along the way Xan feeds the baby on starlight.

One year things don’t go as planned. Xan is so enamored of this baby that she accidentally feeds her moonlight which enmagicks her. Xan decides to keep this special child whom she names Luna. Xan is 500 years old. She lives in the middle of the forest with a tiny dragon named Fyrian and a large swamp monster who quotes poetry and is older than magic named Glerk. Xan, Glerk and Fyrian raise Luna, who is so full of magic she can’t control that Xan has to cast a spell to contain her magic.

Meanwhile, back in the Protectorate, a young man named Antain, nephew of the High Elder, watches what is going on with horror. He is present when Luna is torn from her mother’s arms. Her mother subsequently goes mad and is locked up in the tower of the Sisters of the Stars, a paramilitary order of nuns led by the evil Sister Ignatia.

When Luna draws close to her 13th birthday, at which time the spell containing her powers will be released, everything comes to a head in the forest during a volcanic eruption.

The review in the New York Times said the book “educates about oppression, blind allegiance and challenging the status quo while immersing the reader in an exhilarating story full of magical creatures and derring-do.”

The whole book is absolutely delightful, and I can see why it’s the 2017 Newbery winner. I loved the characters, esp. Fyrian, who is actually 500 years old but acts like a child. I loved the voice the narrator used for him. He’s such a cute, endearing character. Highly recommended for both children and adults.

Splendors and Glooms cover

Splendors and Glooms cover

Splendors and Glooms
by Laura Amy Schlitz
Juvenile Literature

Schlitz is also a Newbery winner but not for this book. It’s a Victorian Gothic fantasy and rather dark in the later Harry Potter tradition. There are three children in the book: Clara Wintermute, the only living child of parents who lost the other four to cholera. Clara escaped because she refused to eat her watercress. The family is still mourning four years later. Clara sees Gaspare Grisini and the two children who work for him, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall, do a play with marionettes in the park and loves it. She begs her father to hire Grisini to perform at her birthday party with disastrous results. The next morning Clara is missing and Lizzie Rose and Parsefall find a new marionette who looks just like her. They all end up in the Lake Country at the home of a dying witch who needs the children to release her from a curse.

I found the book very interesting and some of the characters, esp. Lizzie Rose and Clara, endearing. Parsefall, a workhouse kid, provides some comic release. Grisini is the real villain of the book, though the witch is a mixed blessing to the children. Well written and engrossing.

Click on the graphic below for more great reviews in Barrie Summy’s Book Review Club.

Book Review Club Button

Linda

Dear FCC: I bought the Audible copy of The Girl Who Drank the Moon, and I borrowed Splendors and Glooms from the public library.