Oh no. Ohhh no. Oh no.

My son has said his first word!  And it wasn't "ball!" as he crawled around after a ball, or "mama," as he gazed at me lovingly, or "doggie," as the neighbors' dog sniffed him.  No, my son's first word is "oh no!"

"Oh no!"  Which he then repeats several times in a row.  "Oh no!  Ohhh no!  Ohh no!"  I'm not sure what this says about our parenting that our little 10 month old son crawls around fretting like a housewife trying to remove ring around the collar.

I could not put down Special Topics in Calamity Physics.  This was a book I stayed up late to read and also read a paragraph or two at pretty much every opportunity throughout the day.  It was SO good.  The main character, Blue, is a 16 year old girl who gets caught up in a murder mystery.

Blue, however, behaves a lot like my little son.  Sure, she tries very hard to solve the mystery and unravel what is going on, but there is a LOT of handwringing.  I'm not going to give away too much of the plot because this book should not be missed and I don't want to ruin it for any prospective reader.  But I came away feeling like there was maybe a bit too much "oh no!" going on and not enough good old fashioned sleuthing.  But that is just a minor criticism (and I also need to take into account that the main character IS 16, and is probably behaving exactly as a 16 year old would - even if I wanted her to be more proactive about certain things, it is probably more plausible the way the author has written it).

This book is creative, clever and fun and I loved it.  I'm SO glad I read it.