Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba by Patricia McKissack

Nzingha Warrior Queen of Matamba by Patricia McKissack(Cover picture courtesy of The Flying Librarian’s Hideout.)

First Month of Mbangala:

The Season When the Grass is Burned

So here I am in the garden, writing…if these words have magic, then I will use them to plot and plan a way to drive the Portugese from our land.  And maybe one day my pages will tell others that I, Nzingha, First Daughter of Kiluanji, was a Mbundu, one of a powerful people who are free and unafraid to fight for our beloved homeland of Ndongo in the Kwanza River Valley.

Later the Same Evening

My sisters found me.  Kifunji cannot resist teasing.  She gives a big laugh.  “Writing is good for you, sister.  To see you sitting quietly is such a rare pleasure.  Isn’t it better than hurling a spear, or wrestling some boy to the ground?”…I am accused of being independent.  It is true, I suppose, for I would rather be kept in an open basket than a lukata—a box.

Now here is a woman who absolutely deserves a book in The Royal Diaries!  And the sad part?  I had no idea she even existed until I read it a few weeks ago.

By all accounts, Nzingha was a very strong leader in her later life and we see hints of that in her ‘diary’ as a girl of thirteen.  She’s also not perfect, something everyone can relate to, making a false accusation in front of the whole court, which turns out to be baseless.  Unlike a lot of the princesses in The Royal Diaries, Nzingha grows wiser as she grows older and we see believable flashes of the woman she would become.  Her mistrust of the Portugese, but also her prowess as a warrior make her an enjoyable, believable character.

The plot is fairly fast-paced, but I was dismayed that Patricia McKissack changed some history to make things more dramatic.  When Nzingha went to meet with the Portugese, she sat on one of her warriors so as to be equal with the leader at age 13.  However, in the Historical Note we learn that this did not happen until way later in her life.  Sometimes history doesn’t need to be changed to be more exciting and this is one of the cases.  There’s nothing wrong with telling it as it really was!  I think part of it was that McKissack had to add not just more exciting events, but more events period because it is a very short book.

I give this book 4/5 stars.

Amazon*     Barnes and Noble*

*Only available used.

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff

When you see the cover of The Replacement, you’ll understand why I picked it.  But was it right to judge the book by its awesome cover?  Head on over to The Streetlight Reader for my guest post today.  And while you’re over there, check out some of Savindi’s awesome reviews.  Guaranteed you’ll find new books to add to your reading list.

What I Hate About YA

Obviously I love the Young Adult genre.  I wouldn’t be reading it and focusing my blog around it if I didn’t.  But YA as a genre has its flaws and there are some things that consistently appear in books that drive me mad.  What are some of these things?  Read on!

Relationships

1.  The girl always gets the guy (or vice versa).

I won’t claim I’m an expert in matters of the heart, but I do know one thing: You don’t always get the person you want.  Seriously, why is love in YA books always requited?  It doesn’t happen like that in real life.  In real life, when you have a crush on someone, there’s a good chance they don’t feel the same way.  And it sucks.  Yes, fiction is supposed to be uplifting to a certain extent, but can’t it be a little more realistic? Continue reading →

What Book Reviewers do in Their Free Time

Carrie Pictures 2012 287What I am holding in this picture is a latch hook.  The basic idea is that you have a ‘mat’ that’s a grid.  On nearly every little square, you tie yarn on to make a pattern.  No, you don’t have to create a pattern yourself (thank goodness).  When you buy a latch hook, you’re supplied with the pre-cut yarn and a pattern to work off of, so it’s not that difficult.

Now, ‘not that difficult’ doesn’t mean that doing this was easy or quick.  There are 91 columns and 131 rows, meaning that in order to complete this, I stitched in 11, 921 individual pieces of yarn over a period of less than two months.  Yes, this is an incredibly big latch hook as you can tell by the size comparison in the picture.  No one could accuse me of being tall, but that is one big latch hook.

This has absolutely nothing to do with books or book reviewing, but we book reviewers are people who have different hobbies besides reading.  Mine just happens to be doing latch hooks.

Spotlight: The Journey by John Heldt

Spotlight is my new regular Saturday feature in which I highlight a book I really enjoyed or am eagerly waiting for.  This time, it’s The Journey by John Heldt, a book I got very emotional about.

The Journey by John Heldt

Seattle, 2010. When her entrepreneur husband dies in an accident, Michelle Preston Richardson, 48, finds herself childless and directionless. She yearns for the simpler days of her youth, before she followed her high school sweetheart down a road that led to limitless riches but little fulfillment, and jumps at a chance to reconnect with her past at a class reunion. But when Michelle returns to Unionville, Oregon, and joins three classmates on a spur-of-the-moment tour of an abandoned mansion, she gets more than she asked for. She enters a mysterious room and is thrown back to 1979.

Distraught and destitute, Michelle finds a job as a secretary at Unionville High, where she guides her spirited younger self, Shelly Preston, and childhood friends through their tumultuous senior year. Along the way, she meets widowed teacher Robert Land and finds the love and happiness she had always sought. But that happiness is threatened when history intervenes and Michelle must act quickly to save those she loves from deadly fates. Filled with humor and heartbreak, THE JOURNEY gives new meaning to friendship, courage, and commitment as it follows an unfulfilled soul through her second shot at life.

I love the way John Heldt handled the whole time travel angle of his second book in the Northwest Passage trilogy.  In his books, time travel isn’t the important thing and the characters themselves aren’t scientists, so it doesn’t take a prominent position.  But, what does take its place is the characters and the incredible writing.  John Heldt pays so much attention to all of his characters that they are three dimensional and interesting, even the secondary ones.  You will love both Michelle and Shelly (Michelle’s younger self) and the ending will both tear you to pieces and give you some hope.

The Journey has the perfect amount of romance, suspense and heartbreak and I absolutely love how John Heldt solved the time travel paradox.  You see, Michelle isn’t some passive time traveller who leaves things be.  No, she wants to change her younger self and prevent her best friend’s tragic death.  But what happens if Shelly actually changes?  Does Michelle disappear into nothing?  Does she herself change suddenly?  I didn’t think he could pull it off, but John Heldt came up with a great way to solve the paradox.  This is a man who can write himself into a tiny corner and get himself out again in fantastic style, so go on and get The Journey!  You won’t regret it, I promise.