I heart libraries.

I love libraries. I even love how I paid off my heinous (sp?) overdue charge there, even though it burned because fifty dollars hardly even exists in my bank account vocabulary. I am almost completely finished all of the books I took out last week -- all of the graphic novels except a manga comic called "Death TV", Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" and a handful of paperbacks I'm seriously reconsidering reading (Kelley Armstrong's "Industrial Magic", Tamara Thorne's "Bad Things".)

I was going to do this whole fabulous entry about graphic novels, but I'll save that for later. For now, I wanted to blog about the a children's lit book I read recently, courtesy of my new best friend the Library.

Levine's "Ella Enchanted" is an incredibly charming, quick read about a girl "gifted" (cursed) from birth to be ever obedient. What I loved about this book is that its not a quick fix -- an answer that seems to be the easiest, for sure outcome at the beginning is later thwarted. I hate when things get predictable, so I loved that the aspect of "Big Magic" versus "Little Magic" often times didn't work in Ella's favour.

The novel has more than a passing resemblance to "Cinderella", but is so many shades different and modern that you're really reading a completely different tale. Please note, I would totally not recommend the film -- I love Anne Hathaway, but I remember being massively disappointed when Alicia and I watched the cinematic version a while ago.