A youth book that we read in our international book club in April 2004.
This novel describes a little island in Washington state that has been blessed with perfect weather during all their baseball games. There is a reason for this, and the reader soon finds out that not only human beings inhabit this little piece of our earth and that there is more to our globe than what we call our world.
Fantasy mixed with a little sports and adventure, a perfect book for young teens and pre-teens who enjoy magic but also for anybody older who likes fairy tales and fantasy.
Read my original review here.
An alternative history novel. Instead of settling in Israel, Jewish refugees are sent to Alaska after World War II, especially after the State Israel was destroyed (remember: "alternative history"). They move to Sitka which becomes a Yiddish-speaking town.
Despite the negative background and the glum outlook on the future, the book is spiced with a lot of good humour.
Read my original review here.
I've actually never read any of Michael Chabon's books. Sad, I know. I kind of like the sound of Summerland. Maybe I'll give that one a try.
ReplyDeleteI've only read these two, Lark, and they were both very different but both very good.
DeleteThe first one sounds like it is good for baseball fans :).
ReplyDeleteYou are right, Eva, it might be. But I know hardly anything about baseball and am not a fan of fantasy or anything like that and still really enjoyed it.
DeleteGood to know because I am a hopeless case when it comes to baseball. I have zero interest in the game and find it quite boring. Jonathan played for a while when he was a boy, but once puberty hit, all the other boys got big and husky and he did not. It was actually getting quite dangerous and he got hurt because he was so much smaller. So we stopped baseball. The girls were never interested in softball, so we did not continue the sport at all. Peter used to play a lot and was even thinking about becoming a professional baseball player. His dad also played and was a coach.
DeleteChristoph's school once had a baseball tournament and since I always helped out, I did so on that occasion, as well. I was told to be a coach for one of the teams. LOL, me, a coach. I don't know anything about any sport, certainly nothing about baseball. The kids knew a lot more than me and helped me out. It still was fun and I know more about the game now. And it also helped me with cricket which I come across more often.
DeleteThat is funny, I would never be able to be coach. I have had "siblings" in one of my host families in Canada who played ice hockey. They explained the game over and over to me, but I did not get it. I guess I am just a hopeless case.
DeleteI tried to post a comment here, but I think it disappeared . . .
DeleteFirst of all, the post didn't disappear, only Blogger decided to have me approve all of them before they were published. I have a timeframe of two weeks, any post older than that needs my approval because I received a lot of spam on older posts. But new ones should go through right away. However, sometimes Blogger just does what it likes. I have a few problems with it at the moment and am seriously thinking about changing.
DeleteYeah, coaching. They were happy for any adult who would help and our main job was organizing, making sure the kids behaved, I guess. The reason I "got" it at least slightly, we used to play a similar game in school, Brennball in German, it is Scandinavian and the rules are similar. The same with Cricket. Since I did that "coaching", I understand that game at least partly.
DeleteI HATED Brennball! I guess teams are always desperate to get some parents to help with discipline. This is what our ballet teacher always needs during the big performances: Some parents are backstage to supervise the children who are not dancing, but waiting for their turn.
DeleteAh, thanks for the clarification about Blogger!
DeleteHonestly, we never had a big problem with kids misbehaving, especially not on sports days. There was the one or the other but it was more the organizing part. Or measuring how far they jumped or how fast they ran etc.
DeleteFunny, Brennball was about the only ball game I liked. LOL
Ah, good that there were no problems. I loved field hockey, but that was it.
DeleteThat's something we never did. Thanks, Eva.
DeleteOh! We played that a lot in the winter.
DeleteMust have been someone in your area who promoted it.
DeleteI guess I don't remember :).
DeleteThat might have been long before your time, as well. In our area, a lot of girls played volleyball but that was an after school event and not possible for me to attend because there was no train afterwards.
DeleteOh, we never played volleyball unless "ordered" in school. Too bad about the train! I never had to take trains to and from school, but busses and my bike.
DeleteWell, we were "ordered" it in school. And you were lucky to live in a place where you could go by bike. I had to take my bike and cycle to the station, then take the train and then walk through half the town (small but we had heavy schoolbags) to reach the school. There was only an elementary school in our village.
DeleteOh, that is complicated. We had no school in my village (except a Hauptschule and a Realschule), but it was easy to walk to the bus station to catch the bus to my elementary school and later to another bus station to catch the bus to my Gymnasium. The latter was on a high hill, so we did had to climb that hill! But when we moved to the north, we walked or rode our biked because the school was so close!
DeleteWe only had the elementary school. Anyone who went to Hauptschule afterwards would be taken there by bus directly from the Grundschule, everyone else had to get into one of the next towns and they could only be reached by train, at least at the hours we needed to get to and from school.
DeleteThere are big discussions in Germany that people should not use the car very often but if you live in the countryside, there often is no other option if you have to get to work, to school, or even go shopping.
True, that is similar to here: You cannot get anywhere without a car.
DeleteBut people who have a subway or a tram or even a bus stop more or less on their door step don't want to understand that it's different elswhere.
DeleteThey are too lazy to think about it, I suppose.
DeleteYes, but even if you tell them, they don't want to believe it.
DeleteSo true!
Delete