The first book Your Humble Blogger read in 2010 was Islands of the Blessed, the final book in what has turned out to be a trilogy by Nancy Farmer. Well, I hope it’s the final book.
And it probably wasn’t the first book I read, if you are going to count picture books. In which case the first book may well have been A Visit to the Sesame Street Library, by Deborah Hautzig, in which Big Bird and Grover listen to LPs through headphones the size of two gophers on a rack. The Youngest Member has been on a visit to the Library, the Zoo, and the Aquarium so far. The Zoo is clearly the best as a book; the Aquarium is the worst (needs more Bert). The Library is kinda OK, but the highlight is the turntable.
Anyway, the first book that I read to myself in 2010 was the Nancy Farmer. Now, I wasn’t knocked out by either The Sea of Trolls or The Land of the Silver Apples. They were OK, but not as good as The House of the Scorpion or particularly The Ear, the Eye and the Arm. Anyway, there I was, far from home, in a strange library, and there was the latest in a series that was perfectly good if not great, by a writer who is terrific, so I went for it.
And, you know, I enjoyed it a lot. There are still some annoying or irritating things about the series as a whole, but it’s possible that this third one is my favorite of them. Certainly, when it came time to return home, I made an effort to finish the book before I had to give it back.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.