Skip to main content

November 2015


CROW COUNTRY (KATE CONSTABLE)

I tried, I really did.  It has a CBC Council Shortlist medal on it and everything.  But I just couldn't make it to the finish line.

It was a good concept, mother and girl move out to the country, girl discovers old Aboriginal site of significance and is mystically and magically drawn into the stories that the land has to tell - as told by the crows.  She is also drawn back in time to witness a crime against the people of the land many, many years ago - and she must decipher what it is the crows want, so the same mistakes aren't made again (or something along those lines - like I said, I didn't make it to the end!).

I am not sure why this story didn't hold my attention.  I really wanted it to.  Perhaps the plot didn't move fast enough?  The main character, Sadie, wasn't really all that interesting?  The crows weren't quite a strong enough feature of the narrative?  None of these reasons seem to really hit the nail on the head for me.  I just know that when I thought about picking it up to finish it, I simultaneously thought... "meh".  And that pretty much sums it up.

I really enjoyed Kate Constable's Cicada Summer (see my previous review), so I was a bit disappointed with Crow Country.  Maybe it just wasn't the right book for me right now, but if you want to try it out for yourselves - go ahead!  I made it about two thirds of the way through!!








Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Using librarian skills to uncover a network of dodgy shopping sites!

In all my posts over the years I'm not sure if I ever mentioned I am an avid steampunker.  Like many of my quirky fellow librarians, I love a good dress up and recently found myself searching for a great pair of boots to go with the Steampunk Aviator Superhero costume I'm assembling (trust me, it will work!). One evening whilst idly thumbing through Pinterest I found a picture of these undeniably AWESOME combat-boot style boots.  I followed the link to the website ( www.chichola.com ) and although it didn't look dodgy and offered PayPal, I am a cautious online shopper and always check the customer reviews first.  They were 1000% abysmal.  Like the kind of reviews that say SCAM, THEFT and CAN I LEAVE 0 STARS.  So despite loving the shoes, I was definitely not parting with my money on this occasion. Fast forward a couple of months and I see an ad for Victorian-style cosplay boots in my Insta feed.  Did I mention that I am an avid steampunker? ...
24 comments
Read more

Academic vs. Public

For those of you who have followed my story from the beginning (yeah, just me!) the whole idea of The Ambidextrous Librarian is that I am a newbie librarian working two jobs; one in a public library and the other academic.  I try to blog about my experiences and provide a bit of insight into each library environment, maybe provide other newbies with a bit of an idea what each is like.  My version of worldly wisdom and all that! But enough intro - I'm sure you're dying to hear my thoughts. Since the beginning of the year I have been getting a lot of shifts at the academic library. These were very welcome, not just for the extra bucks but because the job gave me interesting things to do - long term projects that require me to plan and create and research and present things. I've made it sound all very high-brow but let's not get too excited, it's basically just a Digital Literacy learning plan for struggling new tertiary students.  Still, I was part of a ...
2 comments
Read more

The Trials of Youthful Exuberance

Attracting youth to the library is such a THING. Endlessly discussed across the ages, we as librarians want to connect positively with this elusive subset of the population - draw them in with our smiles and our warmth, instill in them a lifelong love of reading and be that “third place” that everyone was waxing lyrical about a wee while back. If only we could get them to start talking to us, if only we could get them to read a book or two, if only we could get them to see that we’re actually really cool! (and that my friends, is the problem right there 😆). Our library's youth space was about as inspiring as cold, one day old oatmeal, so we recently underwent a total revamp.  We now have funky chairs and bookend art, traditional games, gaming consoles and colouring stations - all these things have merged to create a much better vibe in that area, but has it attracted youth? Well yeah, but it's sort of attracting everyone at the moment because it's such a nice area ...
1 comment
Read more