This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn

Author: Aidan Chambers
Published Date: 2006
Letter Grade: A++++

This book was too good for a mere A+. That's really all there is to it.

Another find that led to sitting in Borders (and Barnes & Noble) and reading it before buying it. I read the first 99 pages this way before finally buying it. This still left the majority of the book, of course. It's 808 pages long.

The Daily Telegraph called it "A huge book in every sense" and quite frankly, I have to agree with their assessment.

The book is about Cordelia Kenn, obviously, a nineteen year old mother-to-be, compiling things she had written down in her "pillow book" ("A pillow book is a notebook or collection of notebooks kept in some accessible but relatively private place, and in which the author would from time to time record impressions, daily events, poems, letters, stories, ideas, descriptions of people, etc."-Ivan Morris, notes to The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagan, as quoted on the back cover) and the sorts of pearls of wisdom one can only receive from hindsight.

The book can be summed up in this word: Brilliant. Or, because it takes place in England, Bloody Brilliant.

It's separated into six "pillow boxes": Red, Green, Orange, Black, Yellow, and Blue. Each one's as different stylistically as could be. (The Green one's a little confusing, because it's as if she (Cordelia) is telling two stories at once, connected but at the same time not at all connected. You get the hang of it, and then, when you get to the Orange Pillow Box, you have to get used to it being normal again.)

It's difficult at times to separate the older Cordelia from the younger, but sometimes it doesn't really matter. The only thing that annoyed me (aside from the initial reaction to realizing the way the Green Pillow Box was set up), really, was in the Black Pillow Box, when the break in the action (also frequent in the others) came at points when I would have much preferred to continue. But it was a small annoyance at best.

At any rate, in this book, it seems that nothing is sacred--all is open to debate. From poetry (and blatant Shakespeare-loving, you can imagine how I felt about this) to breasts to sex. And especially, a description of Ms. Kenn's first time, though I don't know how much a kid is going to want to know about his/her mother's sex life. Personally, I prefer to believe what Annie believed in "Annie's Song": Fairies bring the babies. No intercourse required.

Or, at least, as far as my parents are concerned.

Anyway. I can't seem to escape the wonders of Shakespeare, even when not trying to seek him out. If anything, the book has just made me want to read him more. Which takes a lot of time, because, although I adore Willy Shakes, I am not that quick to understand what he means. I have that deplorable poetry reader's habit that Mrs. Mills always hated Freshman year: liking a poem because it sounds nice. An unforgivable crime, I'm told. For an honors student, anyway.

So, yes, the mention of Shakes (and I'm happy to tell you that Ms. Kenn refers to him thusly as well) helped my opinion of the book in no small measure. But it would have been brilliant on its own anyway. Just maybe with 2 +'s and not 4 after the A.

Still a worthy grade, to be sure.

It does go on about religion a bit, though I don't agree with most of what was said. This, however, is not essential to me loving a book.

The Pillow Book, in short, was one of those books that has stuck with me, even after I finished it. It has joined the ranks of such noteworthy books in my esteem as The Andalite Chronicles and the Kissed by an Angel trilogy. A worthy addition, to be sure.