[bib-lee-on, meaning "little book" in Greek, is a little shop in the historic town of Lewes, Delaware, where guests can find a thoughtful collection of curated contemporary and antiquarian books, unique greeting cards & stationery items, literary gifts, and original art.]
Dear Reader - We made it! It's been two years since we took the paper off the windows and opened our doors, if softly. And from those first flu-wake days to these, you have been there with us - faithfully. Thank you.
These past couple of months have found me a bit subsumed in more transitional events in our homelife, which'll certainly tie into a later post. But, more relevant in the moment, the last few days have been taken up with something nearest to my heart: Miss C, in whose honor I added this window display this past week:
As you may remember, Miss C embarked on her own journey this fall, choosing a life in the wilds of boarding school. As she hoped, the experience has been an extraordinary one for her - a great fit for the kind of person that she is and wants to become. And though I miss her terribly from day to day, I'm contented to know that she is living and creating her dream.
Part of this creation has been fed by landing a role in the school's winter production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. As a freshman, she knew it was a long shot, so she was tickled to get to be one of the Mechanicals, Robin Starveling (best known for the Moonshine bit), who perform the hillarious "play within the play" (plus, she and a few of her fellow Rustics got to be fairies attending Titania in their spare time, too).
Some of you have known Miss C over the years, and you've seen what an expressive kid she's been from the very beginning:
Now I've limited myself to sharing more "vintage" shots of C's expressiveness, thinking that most anything more contemporary'd mortify her teenage self to near death; but suffice it to say that this trait did not end at the elementary school threshold. In fact, Rehoboth Elementary is where she found a gifted and dedicated teacher, Ms. Gray, who worked with some equally gifted and dedicated volunteers each year to put on a major production that engaged a huge portion of the school's third, fourth, and fifth graders. Miss C got to be a mouse in Cinderella, Lisle in The Sound of Music, and a formidable Miss Hannigan in Annie:
But when we all decided that the awesome, independent, and cozy Jefferson School was best for her middle school years, she had to shelve her more formal theatrics for a bit.
Lucky for her, her chosen high school has a splendid theater department, led by Harvey Doster, one of those teachers whose endurance for teenage theatrics is legendary at the institution (those of you who shared time with Mac with me at AHS can relate). Miss C was in actor's heaven. as evidenced by the photos that her admissions officer sent along from opening night:
But none of this - neither the pictures nor the past - prepared me for the scene that blew them all, and me, away: the performance of "Pyramus and Thisbe" at the end of the play. Oh my word, Miss C had only a few lines, but her physical, comedic acting was a stellar - a really, really funny contribution to an already really, really funny scene - a truly entertaining ensemble performance by all of the girls. Miss C was fully committed in a way that took me back to her never-met grandmother's theatrics. Those of you who knew Mac knew Mom, too - so you can extrapolate that Miss C comes by all of this honestly:
I can't wait to see where she takes it all - and where it all takes her. In the meantime, I'm just a happy to get to be in the audience. Vive la Shakespeare! - Jenny
P.S. There couldn't be any more fitting serenade for these ladies of my life than Ms. Merman:
Happily hitting the road with Miss C (who's almost fully packed: all hail the power of the list!)! - Jen
P.S. Miss C has very wisely chosen those wonderful, whacky brothers Davies for our first traveling music. So, in honor of her now-size-12 feet, which attest to the likelihood that she'll be taller than me 'n my size 10s by the time I see her next:
P.S.S. My sincere apologies to anyone who listened to the first Kinks recording that I linked to - I picked the vintage footage from Youtube when I was at the shop, but I was unable to listen to the audio (didn't wanna disturb the guests with conflicting tunage). The audio was disturbing - modulated keys like 20 times - lesson learned, dear Reader. I thought that this road trip footage seemed happy and fitting. - J
Dear Reader - I've been in a bit of a Miss C's-away-at-her-dad's-for-a-couple-weeks-and-I-miss-her-all-the-more-'cause-it's-much-too-close-to-when-she's-gonna-be-away-for-a-long-long-time funk.
Luckily, little biblion has been hoppin', so that has kept my fully occupied (my poor home is so neglected, though, that one of the dust bunnies in the living room actually grew to such maturity that it up and asked me when I was going to attend to it!).
But, there're just too many fun things going on over on Second Street. Tomorrow night, Friday, August 3, we're welcoming one of our most popular local authors, James Schneider, for a little book signing from 5-7:
Jamie's mystery, based in Lewes and Reho of the 60s, In the Shadow of Silver Lake, was a huge hit last summer:
We had several guests come back and comment on how much they enjoyed this fun, beach read of a book. And Jamie was surprised and delighted when he received notice in the mail of the unsolicited, independent publishing awards that it'd won (hence his title of "award winning" in the flier that he produced)!
This year he's done another suspense novel with some local flavor, legal intrigue, and romance tossed in the mix:
Come and join us for a little glass of something, meet Jamie, maybe hear about his charity, and have him personalize a copy of his book(s) for you! What a happy way to start a Friday evening!
Dear Reader - I'm not quite sure how it came to this; but, somehow or another, we've ended up with a perception of "real" that connects most tangibly for many of us to the ethereal world of the digital. Things aren't really real unless we feel like we can touch them all the time, no matter where our fingers lie.
Now our little shop is situated on the main street of what's too often called "the first town in the first state." There's a whole'lotta tangible going on here in Lewes. But there's a whole'lotta ethereal, too, what with our grip on history and legend and tradition. biblion skitters around the edges of all that. We live in the only Italianate building here in Sussex County (per Lewes's leading historian, Hazel Brittingham) - a building where a myriad of beloved businesses set up shop, where members of the Coast Guard took their meals during WWII, where the Brittinghams fed Lewes's teenagers in the 50s, and where pre-teens hid behind St. Peter's walls and threw odd things at the bigger kids as they went to hang out at Mitchell's in the 70s (per Ed and Dickie). History happened here - big H and little h.
(photo by Mike Mahaffie)
But mostly we embody the whole present tense, "bricks and mortar" thing. We're all about the magic that can only happen when we're physically together in a space - together with each other, together with books, together with ideas. The five of us who work here see it every day. Magic.
As Ricky Ricardo would say, I've got some 'splainin' to do: it's been a long, long while since I've given much attention to this ethereal, digital world. But I didn't realize just how much our online presence was missed 'till two things happened: I stumbled across our first "review" on the Internet (which kindly apologized for our pathetic Web presence and said that we were cool anyhow - thank you Leah, K, for your kind words and for taking the time to share your thoughts!), and I had a guest all but beg me to come back to blogging (not really sure what I could've been saying that'd warrant that, but it was nice to know I was missed). These encounters made me realize that I'm ready to be "real" on the Internet yet again.
So where have I been? I've been riding through what has turned out to be my 13-year old daughter's last year at home. You see, Miss C is heading off to boarding school next year for her freshman year (or 3 as she'll be known at her high school).
You don't often think of going through the "empty-nest" thing at 13, but here we are. Miss C had an amazing year visiting schools, taking her SSATs, getting into schools, and choosing the one that was most C-like. She's in heaven. And I'm in heaven for having chosen to drop out of everything non-essential (even the things that I thought were essential, like musical performance) and having spent the year with her - mostly doing "nothing" together. Heaven, indeed.
She "graduated" from The Jefferson School a couple weeks back and is spending this week at her other home in Brooklyn, so I have a bit of elbow room to get back into the groove of writing to you. So much has happened and is going to be happening - so much fun, so much good. We're blessed, and I'm looking forward to sharing it all with you.
Commencing (with Miss C) - Jenny
P.S. And in honor of Miss C's grin at her photo-snapping mama and just 'cause we can't help but share some of the tunes that we love to play at the shop (and I've been playing the heck outta his album), here's some tunage via Mr. Rawls . . .
Dear Reader - Well, it's been an interesting week, with a wee bit of extra texture to add to the girl-starting-new-business-while-running-old-one-and-gearing-up-for-the-large-special-event-that-she-runs energy!
Here is the lion's share of the texture:
Miss C and I have named her Spot. Why?
When I was driving back from (the awesome) Canterbury Used Furniture in Felton with my new filing cabinets last Sunday, I was cutting over Fourth Street between New Road and Burton, heading through a little stretch of woods. A bit of movement drew my eyes to the right, and there I saw a tiny black spot hopping into the dense undergrowth:
A kitten! A kitten that appeared to be all alone!
I quickly pulled over, put on my hazards, and went to peer into the woods. Sure enough, there she was. Not a minute later, a Lewes PD car stopped by to ask if I was okay, I explained that I'd just seen a little kitten, thinking maybe the fellas'd help me find her, but they just nodded and went on their way.
As the kitty had hunkered down in the brush, looking pretty darn terrified and not the least bit interested in my heeere-kitty-kitty-kitties, I decided not to lumber after her into the woods, sensing that that'd be counter-productive. As I crouched at the edge of the woods, a few more cars slowed as they passed, some folks warily asking me, "are you okay?" I explained about the kitten, watching her sink further into the woods with each encounter.
I then decided that food might be the key. So I told her I'd be back, hopped back in my Pilot, and headed around the corner to get some food at the house. I dumped all my stuff in the entryway, grabbed an old plastic Chinese takeout container, filled it with some of Midnight (Miss C's kitty that Santa told her to rescue in first grade) and Sinai's (the "transitional object" that Miss C's dad and I rescued in 1993 or 4 [I can never remember]) food. I headed back over, shook the food bowl while reciting my heeere-kitty-kitty-kitties, and the placed it at the edge of the woods.
I proceeded to plop onto the sidewalk, keeping my distance and giving Spot some calm space and time to approach the bowl. I sat there for awhile, fielding the inevitable "are you okays?" that came my way. And then I glanced up and saw what appeared to be someone walking their little Yorkshire Terrier straight down the sidewalk in our direction.
"Crap!" I thought. "That's not gonna help get this kitty outta the woods at all!"
But then I did a double-take and realized, while I initially hadn't seen the dog-walker, I assumed they were obscured behind one of the trees along the sidewalk:
But in that double-take I realized: that darn dog was walking down the sidewalk all alone! I looked over at the kitten, creeping toward the food bowl, I looked over at the dog, blithely walking our way. "Really?" was the only thing that went through my little head. Utter dismay.
I hopped up and headed for the pooch, immediately motivating it to pull a u-turn and head back down the other side of the street. I moved quickly down the street after it, trying not to send it in to an all-out freak-out mode by running madly. I did however, start to flag down the cars heading towards us, not wanting them to squish the little doggy. The first car stopped and the woman in the passenger seat hopped out.
"I have no idea who's dog this is," I cried out. "Oh my gosh!" she replied. We proceeded to corral the dog, and she grabbed her. "We're just on our way back to D.C.," she said. So, of course, I took the dog, glancing wistfully back toward the cat, wondering what in the heck I was gonna do. I asked a few other folks out for walks if they knew the dog, to no avail. Then I pushed the food bowl a little further into the brush, so that a passing dog wouldn't get at it, and the dog and I hopped into the car.
The "what the heck am I gonna do" thought went through my head again, as I knew that my vet's office wouldn't be open to check if the dog was microchipped. Then it hit me: we keep an extra kennel at the shop for Nellie, so I decided to head there. I stepped on the gas and drove in that direction, swerving around one of the out-for-a-walk ladies that I'd seen earlier who was stopped chatting on the side of the road with a passing pickup truck.
And when I was about make the next turn it dawned on me: "I bet those people were asking her about the dog!" I swung back around and gunned it back to the woman, swerving over to the side of the road and asking her, "Were those people looking for the dog?" (the dog snugly tucked under my left arm). She said, "Yes! I just sent them back to where I saw you last!"
Off I went, the dog and I driving like mad women after the truck. We finally managed to get their attention. I hopped out the car, running up to ask them, "Is this your dog?" "Yes!" the man cried! "Her name is Precious!"
The man's name was George, and, being a very kind man, he immediately wanted to help me with the kitty. I was a little concerned, remembering how she cowered with each additional visitor, and, sure enough, she kept sinking deeper and deeper into the woods. I tried for quite awhile, and then I mentioned maybe giving it a break. George had a super suggestion: just leave a little food for the kitty, in the hope that it'd return for more. So I shook a few kibbles out into the lid of the container and took off for home, realizing that Miss C'd probably be pretty worried by now. I'd been gone a long time, and my cell phone was sitting in the entryway being of no use.
I stepped in the house and told her all about it. She, of course, wanted to come and see. We gave it a few minutes, and then we headed back over: Miss C watching from the car, so as not to further spook the kitty, and me with my food-shaking and my heeere-kitty-kitty-kitties on the sidewalk. We tried a couple more times to no avail, and then we went home to feed our pets and hang out for a bit.
At 9:00 I headed over to the shop to close'er up (at some point in the earlier process, I don't even remember when now, I also ran over to the shop to get the extra kennel, thinking we could put the kitty in it, if we caught her - Grace was already there for her shift, so I told her about the kitten, and then I ran into the our beneficent landlord, Mr. Ted, at his liquor store [I felt that the occasion warranted a glass of something interesting] - he said that he might know someone who'd be interested in her [to my great relief]).
I sent Grace home, since she was feeling a little punk, and I had folks 'till 10:00, so I didn't get back to the woods to check on the kitty 'till pretty late. I called and called. No sign of kitty. I climbed back into my car, pointed it toward home and stopped dead as I saw the little black spot, hopping at the edge of the brush - I tried calling her again, she meowed in reply, but she stayed put. I finally gave up for the night.
Monday morning I woke up to pouring rain. My first thought: Oh no! The kitten! I grabbed the little dish of food and headed over straight away. I got soaked through, calling out my kitty-kitty-kitties, and fielding a few "are you okays?" No sign of the kitten - no sightings, no meows, nothing. A woman walked by, asking if I was okay, and when she heard about the kitten being out all night said, "You live in this neighborhood, right? And you know how many foxes we have?" Images of little tufts of black fur being left behind on the floor of the woods came to mind. I was crushed, thinking that I may have given up on her too quickly the night before. But I couldn't dwell on the possibility: it was a work day, and I had to head back home to get Nellie and myself ready.
When the clock struck 5:00, I dropped Nellie home and headed back. What did I find? A little spot curled in a ball next to the little food bowl! I brought the new food out to her, shaking it gently and trying to coax her further out of the woods. She made it all the way to the bowl a few times, but she was far too wary to let me get anywhere near her, basically inhaling the kibble just a quickly as she could.
I heard a car pull up behind me - a husband and wife on their way out to dinner with friends. We chatted for a couple about the kitten, and then the woman said that she had a no-kill trap. She said she'd get it to me on Tuesday, to which I said, "Thank you! But I'm kinda concerned about the foxes . . ." She replied, "We'll be right back."
Her name was Jackie, and she brought a little wire cage/trap, some newspaper to line it, and a can of food to entice her in. It didn't take but a minute or two for the trap to do its job. And the poor little kitty was terrified. I quickly snatched her up and popped it in the car with me. She looked at me with fear and accusation in her eyes - she'd just started to sorta trust me, and I'd completely betrayed her. I took her back home, got her situated with food and water and a litter box in a spare bath.
As you can see from this picture, dear Reader, it didn't take Spot long to learn to trust me and Miss C again:
She was particularly magical with Miss C as she removed over 20 ticks from her little skin-and-bones frame. The poor little thing. She just lay there, still as a stone, purring away, letting Miss C do away with one tick after another.
I came to learn that Jackie was actually the person that Ted had in mind for the kitty, since she's a leader in the active cat rescue movement in Lewes. She has provided us with milk for the kitty, as well as her worm medication, and an offer to "fix" her at next to no cost and provide her shots. Jackie's been a Godsend. She also told us a series of horror stories of folks who've abused cats (some intentionally, some unwittingly), cautioning us to be very careful about finding her a new home.
We're looking - figuring that her right home will find us soon (Miss C's conditions are the she get to visit Spot and be her catsitter). Until then, we love Spot. Truly - Jen
I go there pretty often on Sundays when I’m at the shop, and I need lunch (I love them – they are my favorite restaurant in Lewes). The other day my mom and I went there after closing our shop, and I got: 1. the calamari 2. the bistro steak and 3. a couple of scallops from a tapas that this lady (that my mom knows [her name is Grace, per Mom]) gave to me because she couldn’t finish them.
The scallops were good but the cream base made them a little heavy for how nice and warm the day was. The sear on them was good and the texture was not as disgusting as it is possible for scallops to be. Note that if you do get a chance to try the scallops it will be only on a Friday, because I am fairly sure that they are only on the ‘Seafood Friday Special’ menu for the Tapas.
I have loved calamari for as long as I remember, and I am pretty sure that I have tried calamari at every single restaurant that I have ever been to and that has had it on their menu. I must admit that I was fairly disappointed when it came out of the kitchen with a big glob of some kind of sauce. I’ve never liked a single sauce that has ever been served with my calamari and this sauce was sitting on a lot of the pieces, but I gave those to my mom. It was topped with chunks of pepper, which I pushed to the side. I am sure that some people might like to have that on it, but I do not. The squid had a very good texture, because very often calamari is chewy, or stringy, but this one was very good. The breading on the meat was perfect, if I do say so myself. It wasn’t greasy, which you have to watch out for with the breading, and it had just enough salt that I every bight you had a wonderful little kick. The calamari is in the Tapas section of the menu.
I love steak even more than calamari. It is the best thing on the face of the planet. The steak was a bit too thick in taste for an early Spring meal, it seemed like it would fit much better in January. They had a nice sear on the outside, but it was still nice and juicy on the inside, just how I like it. It was served with two brocolinnis which I though were a bit over seasoned. They also had mashed potatoes laced with herbs. Personally I like the sharp taste of plain potatoes, but it was good, though you might not think so when you first saw the visual texture. It had small chunks of potato and seemed crusty, yet not crusty. But once it’s in your mouth it’s creamier than most restaurant-made mashed potatoes.
And now, for your listening pleasure, The Wiggles sing about digestion:
ce.
[P.S. from Mom, who wants to chime in here just a tad, at the risk of diminishing your Wiggles experience: While Miss C and I really like many of the restaurants in Lewes, we love Azafran. The food, as she mentions, is terrific (creative, fresh, well-executed, and accessibly priced); but what makes me truly-ruly love them is their community-mindedness. Azafran's the place that everyone seems to go to connect (can't tell you how many mini-committee meetings I've had there), and you're always bound to run into folks that you love when you open their door (we sat next to three St. Peter's grande dames on Friday night, saw a retired friend from the bishop's office that I hadn't seen in a couple years, and made new friends with a visiting couple from NJ who was at the table next to ours). What a blessing to have a hometown joint like this in our midst! Look for them on the block of Market between Second and Front Streets. - J]
Dear Reader - One of the most fun parts of my job is listening to guests crack up at our cards. It never fails to happen every single day. And it inevitably seems to have a certain infectious effect, particularly if the "laugher" is in a sociable frame of mind.
Well, today I was working on ordering cards for the spring holidays (like Passover, Easter, and Mother's Day) as well as re-ordering a few (an awesome "problem" to have after being open less than a month!), and in the course of looking up the model numbers I realized that two of our most popular card lines also sport magnets. And after watching how much folks've enjoyed those cards, I just knew they'd love the magnets, too.
Miss C's favorite card line is called Redefined. They take a word and then come up with a new, clever definition. And while their cards are fun, the magnets are even "funner," as they have an immediate gratification factor that having to open a card doesn't allow. All that funny's just right there for us to giggle over. And for "word nerds" like me and Miss C, the Redefined magnets turned out to be a certain slice of heaven.
So I set about choosing enough to fill the display. The problem is that I kept cracking up - which turned out to be a little distracting to the husband and wife who'd happened into biblion at the time. Luckily, they were good sports about it and allowed me to share some of the choicer bits.
The first I shared with the husband, as he happened to be in closer proximity to me and my laptop and was also an unwitting subject: "testosterone, noun. A hormone that makes it impossible for men to cry, enjoy figure skating or buy the right g__d___ duvet cover."
Then, I stumbled upon the most perfect for my nubile blogger self, and I lost all self control and had to share it with the wife (who subsequently chuckled as I shared my card with her, letting her know that I was keeping a blog for the shop):
Ah, dear Reader, it's a good day when you can be humbled by your own (soon-to-be) merchandise.
Bloggingly yours - Jen
P.S. Two new CDs arrived for the shop today. One is _Satch Plays Fats_, Armstrong's tribute to Waller. It's a treasure, as this sweet duet with Velma Middleton demonstrates:
Dear Reader - Please let me start by admitting that posts like the one to follow could quickly devolve into one of those oh-dear-heavens-Jenny's-gonna-start-doing-mind-numbing-stuff-like-showing-us-endless-pictures-of-her-kid-or-her-last-trip-to-Poughkeepsie kind of scenarios:
But I promise you that I ain't gonna let it get to that.
You see, Miss C likes to write. She started songwriting in second grade, then she moved on to chapter books a year or so later, and she's currently dedicated to her latest novel. She also discovered that she's kinda fond of poetry over the last two or three years. (Confession: One of my prime motivations for opening biblion is to add to Miss C's literary world - giving her more opportunities to steep her reader/writer self, giving her more platforms and tools for exploring what this part of her is all about.)
I became a major fan of her imagery when she put up a series of "love is like" statements on the fridge with our magnetic poetry in fifth grade. My favorite was "Love is like . . . a moment seeing only beauty."
In addition to her school work, Miss C does a correspondence course for her writing. She digs it, and she wrote some cool stuff for her assignments last semester - I was, once again, a fan. I mean, who could help but find the relations and politics of kindergartners compelling with a passage like this from her story A Cookie?
"The other kids turned to me, sulking next to the Pepto-Bismol pink plastic table, my brown eyes dark with sadness; their faces wore expressions of disgust. You see, we kindergartners had an honor code, sort of, so whenever one of the kindergartners hurt someone else, everyone shunned them, which was exactly what happened to me right then. Everyone turned away and went back to what they were doing before Jena and I had caused the distraction, which was mostly eating up their own plates of cookies. Some looked back and stuck out their tongues, most just walked away with their noses in the air, like the pompous brats they were. I sat down in a plastic chair and put my head in my hands."
And one of my favorites was how she kicked off her poem, The First Snow of Winter. I, in my I-know-I-don't-got-no-objectivity kind of way, loved these images, too; and - particularly as I'm hoping that our most recent snow was our last - I thought you might enjoy reading it here as we step toward Spring together:
The First Snow of Winter
A silvery-white disk,
Cold as the lips of the dead,
Drifts down,
From the graying sky,
To land,
On the outstretched branch,
Of a birch’s skeleton,
Then,
A frozen rain,
Plagues,
The dead land,
The never ending white,
That covers the landscape,
Like a newly cleaned sheet,
Full of the sorrows and woes,
Of Mother Nature herself,
It causes,
All of the tired,
And helpless beings,
Of the world,
To crawl back,
To their lairs,
To the flickering light,
Of a dying fire,
The starched sheets,
Of a four poster bed,
Then come the marks,
The small holes,
That are born into the world,
Destroying the soft perfection,
Of the white landscape,
The next step,
Of its destruction shall be,
The brown slush,
And slick ice,
The woes,
Of many a weary traveler,
Then our nurturing Mother Nature,
Shall restart the cycle,
But never shall it be,
Remotely close,
To the caliber,
Of the first snow,
Of winter.
Copyright 2011, Miss C
Oh! And speaking of 2011 copyrights, our pre-ordered Collapse into Now was waiting inside our mail slot yesterday. This is significant relative to Miss C, 'cause she discovered when I got her some REM two Christmases ago that she kinda loves them - a lot - particularly Bill Berry (sorry, folks, we still miss Bill Berry here at Casa J&C). Anyhow, I'm digging the new tunage so far. I love that we've taken a turn back to rock, and I particularly love that we're back to largely unintelligible lyrics (or intelligible ones that leave us looking quizzical and scratchin' our heads). Enjoy (note: the graphic says it's "Oh My Heart," but it's a live version of "That Someone is You" - happy!)! - Jenny
P.S. Thanks for your indulgence of mine, dear Reader. - J
P.S.S. Darn Youtube: Somehow or another the video of "Oh My Heart" that I'd linked here got switched out to a really cruddy recording of an earlier REM fave. We've rectified the situation with another lovely live recording with a little "interview" with Michael at the beginning. Sweet.
Dear Reader - Miss C (who has hereby expressed her displeasure at being known in this way in Blogland, despite the fact that I call her Miss C_____ in corporeal life every single day [she told me on the way to school the other day that she'd prefer to be known as "Steak" - though she's chosen a single, non-meat-related image to be her signature here]) has decided that she's going to contribute some thoughts about books from time to time. Enjoy! - Jen
Hey! I’m ‘Miss C’ (my mother chose it without my consent : ( ) and from now on I will be writing reviews of books in the preteen-young adult area. For my first review, I will be writing about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
This book could be described as dystopian, drama, action, romance, fantasyish, sci-fi, and probably a lot of other things, but personally I think it’s one of the most amazing fantasy-like books that I have ever read. It all starts with Katniss, living in her minuscule house in the coal-black district of 12 in Panem, the future of America.
If you have been born in the poor District 12, then you most likely won’t get out by the time you die, but Katniss breaks free when she takes her younger sister's place in a “game” organized by the government, where one boy and one girl from twelve to eighteen from each district (Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12) are thrown into an arena where they have to fight for their lives. Last one standing wins.
Once Katniss enters the capitol (the center of Panem, where all the rich people live), she is thrown into a whirlwind of political strife, heavily muscled teens with swords and spears, and a love interest, since apparently every teen book needs some complication involving love.
This story is good for both boys and girls, and can be introduced at any age, really, though I suggest not before the age of nine, but it also depends on what you, or you child, or your grandchild, like in a book. I guess this wasn’t really a review; but a person can’t really review a book and tell someone about it, unless that someone is themselves, because everyone has different tastes in books, so it would be hard for a book to appeal to every single person, so that’s my take on it.
The song that girl sings below is a song that Katniss sings to a friend of hers while said friend is dying from a spear in the stomach. It’s not really sung by Katniss, though, because Katniss isn’t real, and they haven’t made a movie…yet.
