#Cybils reads: Oyster War


imageBlood’s Haven, Maryland, post-Civil War. The oyster trade makes for booming business, and watermen all across Chesapeake Bay are keen on cashing in on this lucrative business. Regulations have been drawn with regards to oyster harvests, but oyster pirates, a small but vicious group led by the nefarious Treacher Fink, have not only been harvesting oysters without a license; they’ve also been using destructive oyster dredges that would render the bay barren within a few years.

To curtail the pirates’ activity, the governor and town mayor establish an Oyster Army (with Commander Davidson Bulloch and his motley crew aboard the Layla) to deal with the pirates once and for all.

From the time the Cybils finalists were announced, I was immediately drawn to Ben Towles’ “Oyster War” because of its cover art – it seemed to promise a great maritime adventure, and I must say it did not disappoint. I thoroughly enjoyed this graphic novel.

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The Spook’s Apprentice

I’ve had a copy of Joseph Delaney’s The Spook’s Apprentice for a couple of years now, and only remembered it last week, when I was digging through my shelves of TBR books for some books to read for Halloween. I remember I looked through a list of books that other Harry Potter fans were reading post-Harry Potter, and this book, the first in a series called The Wardstone Chronicles, came highly recommended.

I hadn’t planned on a Halloween theme for the 24-hour Readathon, but I got home late that day from seeing the Galeón de Andalucía at the South Harbor and had no time to pre-select books for the Readathon. Since the pile of scary books was already sitting on my desk, I just grabbed a bunch of them so I could sign up in the nick of time.

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Scary stories: not so scary anymore

I remember how I loved scaring myself when I was a kid. I read all the Goosebumps and ghost story books I could get my hands on; I watched all the Halloween / All Souls’ Day horror specials on tv in between my fingers; and my classmates and I told ghost stories dared ourselves to go ghost-hunting whenever we had our annual camp-out on our school grounds (which, as all schools in this country are reported to be, was once a wartime burial ground, therefore it is haunted!)
In high school, I’d moved on to Christopher Pike and R.L. Stine’s Fear Street, and even the Spirit Quest Chronicles, but after that I don’t think I’ve ever went for any horror books. Yeah, I enjoy Gothic novels, or suspense thrillers, but I seem to have either a) lost the fascination for reading books for the intention of scaring myself silly (except for when I had to read The Historian again for a book discussion *shiver*); or b) less things have the power to scare me silly (okay, I am officially giving myself a headache thinking this through).

Anywaaaaay, the reason I brought this dilemma up is because I dug out this book from the bargain bin: Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones, collected from folklore and retold by Alvin Schwartz, drawings by Stephen Gammell (Book #49 for 2009).

The book looked familiar; I think I must’ve read this (or one of the previous volumes) back in grade school. There are over 25 stories in the book: some ghost stories, some urban legends, some just strange tales.

If I were much younger, I’d probably have enjoyed this book and I’d have “chilled my bones” as the book earnestly promises.


On a positive note, what’s nice about this anthology is that there’s a whole section in the back devoted to references for the adaptations — whether it’s oral tradition, a news article, or a reported recollection. One of them, An Appointment in Samarra, even appears in the last book I read (The Eight by Katherine Neville).

I also like the pen and ink wash illustrations of Stephen Gammell (Caldecott Medal awardee for The Song and Dance Man by Karen Ackerman, and Caldecott Honor awardee for Where the Buffaloes Begin by Olaf Baker), I think they’re even more scary than the stories, and if I was the young reader perusing this volume, they’d have been set the right mood for bone-chilling. :)

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My copy: a worn paperback, still good for many readings, now in my bookmooch inventory.

My rating: 3/5 stars