FINISHED:

Appelt, Kathi. (2008). The underneath. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

[So... it wasn't HORRIBLE, but I won't vote for it to be on the 2008 Distinguished Books list. I just found it to be needlessly repetitive and kind of pretentious. There where MANY times where there was an endless string of animal or tree names/types that made me think, "Great, you did your research... but you didn't have to put ALL OF IT in the book." In essence, this is the story of a dog, 3 cats, a horrible man, a 1000 year old snake (we are reminded AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN that she's been around for 1000 years...) trapped in a jar, the snake's daughter, the daughter's hawk husband, and their little girl, told moving back in forth in time and among their intertwining stories. It all didn't really come together for me, and I found the brutality REALLY off-putting. Really, thinking back, not a whole lot even happened. It just went on and and on and took forever to get to... well, not much.]

STARTED:
Horvath, Polly. (2008). My one hundred adventures. New York: Schwartz & Wade/Random House.

[Again, heard some great things about this one and thought that I would weigh in myself.]

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