koboldmaki

Book Title: "Die Falken-Saga"
Author: Rainer M. Schröder
Page Count: lots
First Published: 1989-1992
Summary: Four novels about Tobias, a seventeen-year-old boy from a good family, who gets thrown into an adventure with his fathers close friends Sadik and the fortune-teller Jana. Together, they travel across Europe and later the world to solve a riddle set by an old acquaintance of Tobias' father, try to escape the clutches of evil Graf von Zeppenfeld, and finally find treasure beyond their wildest imagination.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh - goatfood

I read the first part of this "Saga" when I was fourteen or fifteen, a friend lent it to me back then, and I devoured it, but I never got around to reading the other parts. I remembered this about two years ago and started to hunt for all four, and when they were complete, I obviously left them in my shelves for another year or so. Anyway. Now I read them, and I really enjoyed them. There were some lengths, and that Sadik kept on quoting proverbs got annoying after a while, but the ending, unrealistic as it was, made up for a lot with its breathless pace.

Book Title: "Dick und Dalli und die Ponies"
Author: Ursula Bruns
Page Count: 174
First Published: 19?? (Hey. If the book doesn't say, Wiki doesn't say, and the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek neither, how am I to know?)
Summary: A cousin from town shakes up the already exciting life of sisters Dick and Dalli who live with their aunt and grandmother on a farm that specialises in icelandic horses and shettys.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh - goatfood

Oh oh oh so wonderful. Much better than the movie, actually. So much greatness. And Horses. And I loved the descriptions of food. The style was sort of reminiscent of Kästner, in so far as Bruns directly addresses the reader and often makes slightly ironic remarks. Of course, I feel a little brainwashed now, Bruns is very convinced of the superiority of the pony. I want one :(

Book Title: "Emil und die drei Zwillinge"
Author: Erich Kästner
Page Count: 176
First Published: 1934
Summary: The second story of Emil and his detective friends. This time, they go to the seaside and have adventures with boats and circuspeople.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh - goatfood

I thought I wouldn't like it. As a matter of fact, I have thought that I would not like this book ever since I first saw it in the library, which must have been in the 80s, but I loved it, I really did. I never had rational reasons for disliking it anyway. The characters have grown convincingly older, the new story is vastly entertaining, and it still has the same quirky, today rather antiquated style I love about Kästner. Now if only someone could tell me what the hell "echter Karlsbader Zusatz" is. It must be some stuff you put in coffee.

Edit, 01.12.2009: Today, a friend of my mother's came over for coffee, and she came with gifts. She is still in the process of cleaning out her late mother's flat and tends to bring over stuff that she thinks we'll like. She brought handmade egg warmers in bright orange for me, she's that good. She also brought "Ich weiß alles", or "I Know Everything", a compendium of newspaper clippings with helpful hints for the modern housewife, in alphabetical order, from sometime - holy crap I was just looking for the date and hello, little Swastika in the corner. So, from sometime in the 1930s or 40s, I guess (though the paper quality makes me think early 30s)... anyway:
"Kaffeezusatz, wird aus Malz, Gerste, Feigen, Zichorie usw. hergestellt, dient dazu, den Kaffee zu strecken, beeinflusst aber erheblich den Geschmack, wenn ein gewisses Maß überschritten wird." So now I finally know at least what is in "echter Karlsbader Zusatz", though I shall never know the taste. Interestingly, "Karlsbader Salz" is a laxative.

Book Title: "Die kleine Hexe"
Author: Ottfried Preussler
Page Count: 127
First Published: 1957
Summary: The little witch is unfortunately only one hundred and twenty-seven years old, and none of the other witches take her seriously. But of she can't be a great witch, she wants to be a good one. With this decision, a big adventure begins.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh - goatfood

Wonderful children's book that will never age, what else is there to say. I took off points for the ending, I have to admit, it was rather unsatifying for me as an adult, but as a child, I think I cheered.

Overwhelming. The language was almost bombastic, and so many things happen that I wish she had made this book into two, but I guess three is just the way to go these days. Not too many people die and it is handled very well, but the ending is a little too open for my taste. I did enjoy the development of Gemma and her friends, though. They all are far too independent to be believed, but since they have magic at their command, I can give them the benefit of the doubt that they will actually achieve their plans.
Now. Alas. Not really a secret passage, no exploding from me, but there were more than enough motives to keep me happy.

Book Title: "Harry Potter" Vol 1-7
Author: Joanne K. Rowling
Page Count: 3421
First Published: 1997 - 2007
Summary: Oh come on.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh - goatfood

Still brilliant. Honestly, it was so much fun to dive back into the world of Hogwarts, of magic and everything, I can't believe I didn't already re-read them last year! I can't even decide on a favourite part (I always said PoA, but now I'm not so sure), though I know it's not DH. It might even be OotP, despite the Bad Thing happening. I will now not dive into the differences and likenesses and I will also not write on every single book because, blah. I just want to say I wish that there was no part seven. In my head, things will always be different. The writing will be better, the plot will make more sense, and Snape's motivation will not be STUPID. I am almost convinced that JK wrote the last volume so abysmally bad on purpose. Out of pure goodness of heart. See, she had already made more money than she could ever have hoped, right? And could hardly get any more famous. What was left for her to gain (from writing HP, I mean)? So she decided that she would let all those people who she knew loved her series to the point of devotion, and who were devastated that there would be no more new books after the seventh, off easy. She would not give them an end that made them yearn for more, but one that made them glad it was finally over.

Book Title: "Malory Towers"
Author: Enid Blyton
Page Count: 906
First Published: 1946-1951
Summary: Six terms from six years of boarding school life in the 1940s in Blytonland.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

So after I read the first one earlier, I had to get all of them, obviously. And I loved them. They didn't get boring as quickly as the Famous Five did, so I finished all six pretty quickly. Of course Blyton repeats herself, and they're schematic, and there's the usual stereotyping, but on the whole, the characters are a lot more believable, and I actually got invested in their fates.
Now, as you may know if you read me at all, in Germany, there are a few more books about Darrell available, following her well into adulthood, marriage and motherhood. Blyton stops before university. But, what I did not know: The six original novels were significantly cut for the German market. Whole episodes, whole characters were new to me. Now where is the sense in that?
I also learned that what I thought were books the library didn't have are books that don't actually exist, because Blyton has a lot of stuff happening between books that she presents to the reader in one or two sentences (new girls, or girls leaving, for example).

Book Title: "First Term at Malory Towers"
Author: Enid Blyton
Page Count: 160
First Published: 1946
Summary: Boarding-school novel centered on 12-year old Darrell Rivers and the friends she meets and lessons (in life) she learns at her new school. 
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

I wish Blyton wouldn't stereotype so much. All thin-lipped people are mean. All fat people can't enjoy the sun. Blah blah blah. But I loved the atmosphere of Malory Towers and the details. In Germany, the whole set of books was lifted into the 1970s by translation (which is quite nice as well) so it felt like reading a whole new book.

Book Title: "The Remarkable Life&Times of Eliza Rose"
Author: Mary Hooper
Page Count: 334
First Published: 2006
Summary: (I'm giving away a lot of the story here, so beware.) Eliza is a girl from Somersetshire who is thrown out of her house by her stepmother. She travels to London to find her father, gets thrown into prison, is saved by a whoremonger (not, as spellcheck would like, a pyromaniac. What the...), works in several disguises, meets all sorts of famous people, discovers that her parents weren't her parents after all (and promptly decides that her siblings aren't her siblings either. Screw spending your whole childhood with them!), finds a temporary home with one of the King's mistresses, saves all sorts of people, has to be saved herself a lot, and finally finds her true family (who have been looking for her all the time of course!). Oh and this is historical and set in 17somethingorother.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

As I have mentioned before, sometimes I hate being all learned and stuff. I hate noticing little things. Because they bother me and I don't enjoy the book as much. Not that I did enjoy this book all that much to begin with. The story feels so forced and Eliza is just thrown from one improbable situation to another and of COURSE it ends just the way you thought it would AND there's a lovestory thrown in. Blergh. I did enjoy the writing, fluent and a bit mocking, and some of the characters, but I don't think that I'll touch another Hooper anytime soon. (Though if you're into that sort of thing, they all seem somehow connected, Eliza bought some sweets at "The Sugared Plum", which is the title of another Hooper, and she goes to the King's astronomer, who also plays a part in one (or more?) of her books.)

Book Title: "Vorsicht, Gespenster" ("Beware of the Ghosts", I'd say)
Author: Elke Kahlert, Amelie Glienke
Page Count: 184
First Published: 1987
Summary: Children's book about a haunted castle, a girl making friends with ghosts, and an abduction.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

Second to last stop on my trip down memory lane from earlier. This is the book with the girl eating chocolate on the swings (which is probably the most insignificant scene in the whole book. Shows that I've had a problem with chocolate from very early on, I guess), all that's missing now is the one with the living paintings.
It wasn't that good, by the way. I found out that it had an illustration inside that I copied as a child, though - an old, derelict castle. I sketched it on huge pieces of paper that I had stuck four together, hung it on my wall and pretended to live in it. That's the kind of person I was as a child - and actually am still.
But to talk of other things: Don't you love it when you buy used books and find stuff in them? This book had a note with a name, a phone number, and "bring 2,50 DM tomorrow - cinema" on it. Cinema for 1,25€, I wonder when and where that was.

Book Title: "Das Geheimnis der Wölfe"
Author: Christopher Ross
Page Count: 251
First Published: 2004
Summary: YA Romance set in Alaska. Jessica is nineteen and works in a nearby hotel, Joey is 20-something and is sent on a holiday by his ad-agency in L.A., he's a bit of an ass, she's the wholesome country girl who changes him, and then there's a backstory about a bankrobbery and wolves are saving the day.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

See, I didn't want this book. I wanted the one next to it on the shelf that looked just like it, but that was set in the 1930s and had more of a pioneer-feel to it. I must have had both in my hand and put the wrong one down.
So this isn't a book I ever would have read otherwise, but I enjoyed the few hours I spent with it. The narration was a bit bumpy, the author often uses idioms in German that are not directly translatable, but there's a flow to the narration, and you don't have to read every word, and the characters were likeable, if a bit flat. There are follow-ups with the same characters I don't think I want to read, though.

Book Title: "The Master of the Fallen Chairs"
Author: Henry Porter
Page Count: 384
First Published: 2008
Summary: 13-year-old Kim comes to live with his uncle at the family estate of Skirl when his mother dies and his father has to try and take care of their farm in Kenia. Skirl is a house full of secrets and spooks, and there are people who have evil in mind when it comes to Kim. When a distant relative from Africa comes to visit shortly before Christmas, he and Kim must discover the secret of the fallen chairs before it's too late.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

Look at that cover. A penguin! (Actually, an "auk"). And look at that first sentence. Doesn't it promise a good story full of secret passages and excitement? This story had so many things that showed promise. But then it went in the direction of fart jokes and Dan-Brown-like (Dan-Brown-esque. Dan-Brown-ian.) "tension". Such a disappointment. This book is part of a series and ends on a cliffhanger, and I still have no interest in picking up the next volumes, that's how bad it was.

Book Title: "Der kleine Vampir" ("The Little Vampire")
Author: Angela Sommer-Bodenburg
Page Count: 160
First Published: 1979
Summary: Anton is a nine-year-old boy who loves scary stories. When a real vampire flies into his room one day, he isn't so much scared as intrigued. The two soon become friends, the little vampire, Rüdiger, introduces Anton to his way of life and to his little sister, and Anton introduces the two to his parents.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

Don't care if it's the pink mist of nostalgia, TEAM RÜDIGER all the way (or Team "Rudolph" as his name is in the english translation. Can't blame anyone for the change, I guess.). Much better than I remembered, too. Maybe I remembered too much of the very 80s TV-Series. Now I'm afraid I'll have to re-read ALL of the little Vampire novels. All 20. Well, I think I never read the last three, so that'll be a brand-new experience. Tempting. Very, oh so very tempting.

I just wikipedia-ed "The Little Vampire" for the english name, and I stumbled upon the soundtrack for the 2000 movie. Wow. The A-Teens. Baha Men. Aaron Carter! What the hell kind of a movie was that?

Book Title: "Die Moorgeister"
Author: Angela Sommer-Bodenburg
Page Count: 151
First Published: 1986
Summary: Timo, a young boy used to being bullied at school, is sent to spend the summer holidays with his aunt in a little village by the moor. On the train, he meets a strange man who tells him a story about how he sold his dreams and can't sleep since. He meets Lydia, a girl his own age, who has red hair, like he has. She teaches him that this is something special, because only red-haired people can see ghosts, spirits and other magical beings, and she also teaches him that sometimes, you just have to be brave to get by.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

Oh. Oh oh oh. So awesome. Last part of the nostalgia wave in reading, I think - not really, but I can't for the life of me remember or find the title of the last book spooking about in my head. It's about talking pictures and ghosts and a girl eating chocolate on the swings. That's all I know. It's sad. But back to this book: It was so good! So scary, too. I used to love scary, gruesome, macabre stuff as a kid. When other kids built sandcastles at the beach, I built burial grounds. No kidding. Well, I still love this stuff, but as a kid, it's weirder, right ? But this book was right up my alley. It has the scariest ghosts. Carrying their souls in their hands, wandering across the moors, taking those who travel at night with them ... I'm shuddering just thinking about it. The writing was sometimes stilted, I have to say, but it didn't bother me much. I want to go out and give this book to all the kids I meet in the streets.

My edition STINKS though. The dangers of buying used books online, I tell you. It's gotten a lot better since I received it, I put it with coffee and let it stand next to the books that smell pleasant - smoke gets out really well this way - but it smells like old cellar and mould. Well. Fitting, really, but still gross.

Oh, and it has great illustrations too! Really grey and dark and spooky, capturing the mood perfectly.

Book Title: "Lakenludwig und die Gauner"
Author: Evelyn B. Hardey
Page Count: 122
First Published: 1988
Summary: Second part: Blackstone Castle is now famous, people keep coming, and the inhabitants are annoyed. Thieves. The ghost in love.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

I'm so tired. But you don't care for that. So this is the book I read as a child - but not the one I remember. It's weird. I thought it was about living paintings and stuff. No I don't mean Harry Potter. But it was just the one ghost and thieves. Now I still have to look for that book I remember with the paintings ... not that I didn't like this one, though. It was a much quicker read than the first, more interesting, more engaging. It has an open ending, though, so I suspect it didn't do too well in stores. So I'd probably not give it to anyone to read, because open endings without sequels suck... oh, and it had the Purple Lady as a ghost. She rules, obviously, being purple.

Book Title: "Mr. Popper's Penguins"
Author: Richard&Florence Atwater
Page Count: 139
First Published: 1938
Summary: Mr. Popper, who decorates houses in the summer and dreams of the Poles in the winter, gets a penguin. Hilarity ensues.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

You know how some people steal? This book was stolen from me when I was still in school. Well, I gave it to a "friend" to read and she never returned it. But that is stealing too! She stole loads of things from me over the years and I never got wiser. But this book was actually my mother's so it was a bit worse than the other things.
Anyway.
It's not that brilliant. I'm sorry, it's not. It's also dated and misogynist and I cannot believe this is apparently still read in schools in the U.S.. The jokes were a bit lame, and the morale questionable. It ends with Mr. Popper spontaneously going to the North Pole, leaving his wives and kids behind, and her all being "That's all right dear it'll be easier to keep the house clean." No kidding.

Page Count: 157
First Published: 1987
Summary: Karin, a 14 year old girl from Sweden, is adopted. A comment her mother makes without thinking brings her to think about her real parents, and makes her wonder where she belongs.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

Part two of the Nostalgia Wave.
This book marks my passing from the children's section of the library to the young adult shelves. An important step, I'd say.
And it's good! Not just nostalgia-saturated sweet goodness, no! And I'm surprised, because I thought it would be girly crap, to be honest. But the language was beautifully simple, the characters were real and close, the dynamics believable, well, the story was a bit much at times, but not very. I'd forgotten all of the dramatic parts and only remembered the boring stuff, so there was a surprise. People almost die and everything. 

Author: Evelyn B. Hardey
Page Count: 162
First Published: 1985
Summary: A Storm causes the old tower, home of the castles ghost, to collapse. The ghost moves in with the neighbours and takes care that the movie that is being made about his grandfather is accurate.
Rating: superfunk - golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

Major nostalgia attack. I read the second part of this novel for children some time in the late eighties, borrowed from the library, of course. Mother dearest and I got talking about children's books and vague memories last week, and so I found this in my brain, and several others, and I ordered them used online. I didn't really like it. It was so short and flat, and not funny enough. This is for the same age group as Harry Potter is, or Krabat, or so many other books with better plots and fuller characters. Maybe the second part will be better. 

Book Title: "Fünf Freunde und..." ("The Famous Five")
Author: Enid Blyton
Page Count: 3969
First Published: 1953-1963 (German edition)
Summary: 21 stories about Julian, Richard, Anne, George and Timmy, the dog. The cousins go on adventures, find treasures, why am I telling you this, you know.
Rating: superfunk- golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

I'm going to write something long and deep about them soon, I'm sure. For now, let me just say I DID IT I DID IT I READ THEM AAAAAALL. Thanks.

Book Title: "Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch"
Author: Michael Ende
Page Count: 237
First Published:  1989
Summary: On New Years Eve, a vain, fat cat and an old, grumpy raven save the world from an evil sorcerer and and evil witch.
Rating: superfunk- golden - sweet - blah - superblah - blergh

I just googled the "first published" date and found out the author is dead since 1995. I thought he was still alive! What the hell! He was - well. He is. One of the best authors for children in Germany. The Neverending Story, Momo ... but I never actually read a book by him. One of these days I'll have to tell you about my sad childhood, bookwise. I listened to this story as an audiobook, though, and have loved it ever since, and this year, since I didn't feel like leaving the house on New Years Eve, I decided to read it again. I can't believe how many hidden things for grown-ups are in it. Allusions to Sex and everything. Quite shocking. But enjoyable, nevertheless.