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I told you in my last entry that I was rereading Die Medlevinger by Kirsten Boie. As some of you may know, I spent four years in France. I didn't have many friends there, and therefore I spent a lot of time in the school library, on my own, trying to find a book there I hadn't read already. Books have always been my friends, but during that time they were my best friends and I cherish all of the things I read in France a lot. Among those things were, for example, The Lord of the Rings, Torture the Artist, Das blaue Mädchen, and Die Medlevinger. Which is of course the reason that prompted me to snatch it from my sister and reread it, to get that fuzzy feeling of meeting an old friend again.
Die Medlevinger is the story of Johannes who lives with his mum Britta. One day, two small people, Nis and Moa, enter his world through a tunnel in the flower-bed in the backyard. Nis and Moa are looking for Nis's dad, who just disappeared shortly before Nis's 13th birthday, a great day for every Medlevinger, the day he comes of age, which Vedur wouldn't have missed at any cost. It turns out that he, along with another Medlevinger, Antak, has been kidnapped by the Cain, the Medlevingers' archenemy, who won't let his prisoners go until the Medlevingers bring him the one from among them that can turn anything into gold - Antak's own son.
I loved the book. It's a children's book, and those are usually pretty intelligent. That's the case with this one; it's witty, fast-paced and full of adorable characters. The most awesome thing is, that although I'd already read it once, I didn't know who the Cain was for a long time. I caught on eventually, but it took the characters a bit longer, and my nerves were close to snapping because HOLY CRAP, it got so suspenseful at the end. It was brilliant how Kirsten Boie had hidden in clues from the very beginning, but so astutely that you didn't notice them at all until you got to the chapter where they were relevant, and then you would be frantically leafing back to the beginning to check whether you'd read those clues correctly.
And there are also some awesome women/girls in there! Johannes' mum, she raised her son on her own, she never finished school because she had him so early and is doing that now and working as a waitress. But she's not stupid and she has a sharp tongue. Then there's Line, Johannes' best friend, who likes to talk about girl stuff with the girls from her class, about pop singers and nail polish. And she likes to show Johannes that he can't just boss her around when he wants to talk to her, but she's there for him when he really needs her. She also thinks like a criminal and would make a brilliant detective. And theeeen there's Moa-Belle who's destined to be a fairy when she's older and not at all thrilled by the prospect. (All the purring and floating about and being generally embarassing... nah.) She's really brave and snarky at times and vulnerable and cute.
Best of all - the girls are not Mary Sues, and the boys are just as awesome. Nis, who's easily scared but horribly curious and always jumping to conclusions, Thomas, Line's dad and Johannes' father figure, and of course Johannes himself, who can be an incredibly annoying teenager at times, but is usually pretty sensible, determined and intelligent. And I almost forgot to mention Thoril, who's willing to sacrifice himself for the others, and who's just so clever. Oh, I just love them all.
I also love Glee now, for that matter! I was bored today and clicked through my folders to see if there was anything unwatched in there, and then I stumbled across the Glee Pilot. I have no idea how that even got onto my computer, but since there wasn't anything else, I decided to watch it. And then I fell in love. <3 Will have to hunt the rest of the series down on the internet. In other musical news, I sang I Dreamed a Dream in singing lesson today. It was my second try; the first was one and a half years ago and didn't go over very well, and I realised that I'd gotten much better. It really wasn't perfect, but that was to be expected, especially since my tonsillitis is not completely gone. But the faith in my voice is growing, and I'm starting to get more and more self-confident! Still don't know what to think of my new singing teacher though, but we'll see!
Die Medlevinger is the story of Johannes who lives with his mum Britta. One day, two small people, Nis and Moa, enter his world through a tunnel in the flower-bed in the backyard. Nis and Moa are looking for Nis's dad, who just disappeared shortly before Nis's 13th birthday, a great day for every Medlevinger, the day he comes of age, which Vedur wouldn't have missed at any cost. It turns out that he, along with another Medlevinger, Antak, has been kidnapped by the Cain, the Medlevingers' archenemy, who won't let his prisoners go until the Medlevingers bring him the one from among them that can turn anything into gold - Antak's own son.
I loved the book. It's a children's book, and those are usually pretty intelligent. That's the case with this one; it's witty, fast-paced and full of adorable characters. The most awesome thing is, that although I'd already read it once, I didn't know who the Cain was for a long time. I caught on eventually, but it took the characters a bit longer, and my nerves were close to snapping because HOLY CRAP, it got so suspenseful at the end. It was brilliant how Kirsten Boie had hidden in clues from the very beginning, but so astutely that you didn't notice them at all until you got to the chapter where they were relevant, and then you would be frantically leafing back to the beginning to check whether you'd read those clues correctly.
And there are also some awesome women/girls in there! Johannes' mum, she raised her son on her own, she never finished school because she had him so early and is doing that now and working as a waitress. But she's not stupid and she has a sharp tongue. Then there's Line, Johannes' best friend, who likes to talk about girl stuff with the girls from her class, about pop singers and nail polish. And she likes to show Johannes that he can't just boss her around when he wants to talk to her, but she's there for him when he really needs her. She also thinks like a criminal and would make a brilliant detective. And theeeen there's Moa-Belle who's destined to be a fairy when she's older and not at all thrilled by the prospect. (All the purring and floating about and being generally embarassing... nah.) She's really brave and snarky at times and vulnerable and cute.
Best of all - the girls are not Mary Sues, and the boys are just as awesome. Nis, who's easily scared but horribly curious and always jumping to conclusions, Thomas, Line's dad and Johannes' father figure, and of course Johannes himself, who can be an incredibly annoying teenager at times, but is usually pretty sensible, determined and intelligent. And I almost forgot to mention Thoril, who's willing to sacrifice himself for the others, and who's just so clever. Oh, I just love them all.
I also love Glee now, for that matter! I was bored today and clicked through my folders to see if there was anything unwatched in there, and then I stumbled across the Glee Pilot. I have no idea how that even got onto my computer, but since there wasn't anything else, I decided to watch it. And then I fell in love. <3 Will have to hunt the rest of the series down on the internet. In other musical news, I sang I Dreamed a Dream in singing lesson today. It was my second try; the first was one and a half years ago and didn't go over very well, and I realised that I'd gotten much better. It really wasn't perfect, but that was to be expected, especially since my tonsillitis is not completely gone. But the faith in my voice is growing, and I'm starting to get more and more self-confident! Still don't know what to think of my new singing teacher though, but we'll see!
