No Spoilers, No Spoilers, No Spoilers....

I finished The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman, recently, and I loved it and think everyone should read it. But I have an issue with the very last chapter, the ending, that I can't discuss because I will spoil it for everyone. So I'm going to sit here silently on the subject and, in fact, tease you all with this little post.

I also just finished Deep and Dark and Dangerous, by Mary Downing Hahn, who wrote one of my fifth-grade-self's favorite books, Wait Till Helen Comes. Deep and Dark is pretty much the exact same book in many ways, though there are interesting lessons in the behavior of the adults in the book. They pretty much do not have their crap together, any of them. I guess this is often the way in a YA book--otherwise how would the kids be dealing with problems that are way beyond them? but the flawed adults in this book added a really nice layer of depth to what was otherwise an almost painfully predictable ghost story. I mean, really--if I was 13 I would totally have figured out the identity of the irritating neighbor who keeps showing up when there are no grown ups around.

I'd also like to point out that any member of the Babysitters' Club would have handled that situation so much better than the main character. Ali kept yelling at the annoying kid, buying into the dynamic she set up, instead of taking charge like a good babysitter does. Kristy Thomas would have wiped up the floor with that brat, make no mistake.

I'm reading The Queen of Attolia now, which is the sequel to The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner. I've only read about 40 pages, so I can't really spoil it, can I? I mean, is it spoiling to tell something that happens in the first 40 pages? Because I really want to tell. I mean, it's Eugenides vs. the evil Queen, and something shocking happens, and....okay. I'm restraining. I don't even want to ruin the first sequence for you, the first five pages, which is a wicked chase scene and you should really read it, really.