bookshelves of doom

Poetry Friday.

They're baaaack:

It is your trump,
It is your hateful little trump,
You pointed fiend,
Which shakes my sudden blood to hatred of you:
It is your small, high, hateful bugle in my ear.

My Life Starring Mum -- Chloe Rayban

Hollywood Bliss Winterman is the daughter of super-famous pop-star Kandhi.  She doesn't see much of her ever-on-tour mother until Kandhi suddenly pulls her out of private school and moves her into the plush Royal Trocadero Hotel with the vague explanation that there was some sort of security risk. 

At first, she's upset about leaving her friends and her school, but she's excited about the prospect of spending time with her mother. 

She quickly realizes that life at the Royal Trocadero is Not For Her.  When she needs to talk with her mother, she has to schedule time with Kandhi's PA -- and she's lucky if she gets twenty minutes.  She can't go anywhere without a hulking bodyguard, and when she does go out, she has to wear hideous spandex clothing from Kandhi's teen line.  When Holly asks for a tutor so that she can keep up with her schoolwork, her mother gets her a voice coach and a dance instructor.  That's the first clue that her mother might be making plans for her future without consulting her.

I did a complete 360 on this one.

0 degrees:

Oh, God.  Yet another Hollywood/spoiled rich girl book.  Why even bother?

90 degrees:

Hey, this isn't so bad.  Holly isn't actually spoiled, her life as the daughter of mega-star Kandhi is actually sort of nightmarish.

180 degrees:

Yeah.  I'm liking this.  Holly is smart and funny...

270 degrees:

...and a total doormat.  The secondary characters are mostly two-dimensional.  Also, it's kind of dull -- which is upsetting and surprising, considering the plot possibilities.

360 degrees:

Oh my GOD, it IS a typical Hollywood/rich girl book -- it's just that the rich girl is Holly's MOTHER.  She's AWFUL.

Fans of rich-girl books might (MIGHT) like this, if they don't mind the lack of action and Holly's doormattishness.

Eeeeeeek!

Again, I say:  Eeeeeeeeeek!

Robie Harris has a new book coming out!

But not everyone's happy about it.

Dude, COME ON.  Is it really necessary to write an article warning people about the dangers of this book?  It's called It's Not the Stork!  WTF do you THINK it's about?

Not to mention the fact that -- obviously -- no one is forcing you to read it to your kids.

(It hasn't been challenged yet -- it's not out until late July -- but I'm sure it'll take about .5 seconds for someone to officially freak out, so I'm preemptively putting this post in the Challenged Books category.)

Never Mind the Goldbergs -- Matthue Roth

Hava Aaronson, in her own words:

...when you're a seventeen-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl with purple-and-burgundy-streaked hair, ripped denim skirts that come down to your ankles, and death rock T-shirts -- you don't look like you're holding back.  I had this friend last year who decided that she didn't believe in G-d.  She ran away from her parents' house and lived in a squatter house with a pack of hippies, eating ninety-nine-cent bags of potato chips and beef jerky.  She came back a month later, still atheist, just not as loud about it.

That wasn't me.  I still believed in G-d.  I just didn't believe in other people.

I mean, some days, I felt like G-d was the only one who believed back at me.

Just before summer break begins, Hava is offered a spot on a new sitcom about an Orthodox family.  She trades her neighborhood in New York for a soundstage in Los Angeles, a community where almost EVERYONE is Orthodox for a community where almost NO ONE is Orthodox.  Because, you see, she's the only actor on the show who is even Jewish, let alone Orthodox.

I wanted to like Never Mind the Goldbergs so much more than I actually did.  The beginning showed so much promise, but then it just sort of... devolved.

It has some very strong points -- Hava is truly a believer, she loves and takes comfort in her religion and way of life WITHOUT being overly pious, judgmental about others, a hypocrite, or any of the other unattractive characteristics that often pop up when religion is dealt with in YA literature.  The time she spends at the Blue Hebrew House, where she finds her real soul-mates, is particularly joyful.  It was a nice change from the typical stories that deal with religion and belief.

I love the cover.

Her voice is original, sarcastic and smart.  She swears like a sailor.  I took to her immediately. 

But it wasn't enough.  The book plodded.  It was far too long, things happened too randomly, there wasn't much in the way of character development.  Her relationship with Evie made NO sense.  Lots of stuff happened, but it all felt pointless.

For example:  Her best friend, whom she's known since they were crawling, comes out to her.  Okay.

A) Hava's pretty perceptive.  I don't buy it that she wouldn't have had any sort of inkling. No clue?  None whatsoever?  And the reason that he was forced to tell her?  You don't put the moves on your best friend -- sober -- without obsessing about it long and hard first.  There's too much to lose.

B) There was no reason for it in the plot.  It just felt thrown in, maybe to show that Hava's down with homosexuality?  I don't know.  I realize that there are random events in real life, but if it does nothing to further the plot or to flesh out the characters in a book, it just seems extraneous.  As I said, the book was already too long.

But my major problem was The Producers.  What was that scene all about? 

After:

• filming the whole season,

• almost being fired,

• explaining that no, she can't and won't hug the actor that is playing her father because she's shomer negiah,

• arguing for permission to leave early so she can get home in time for Shabbos -- well, she doesn't really argue, actually, she just leaves
• and after waiting for weeks for the caterers to include kosher meals on set,

she is finally called to the inner sanctum to meet The Producers, where, shocker of shocks, she discovers:

Behind a bookcase, I saw a pudgy, bearded Santa Claus-like face peek out.  The head was framed in a black hat.  Hasidic side curls poked out from beneath his hat.  He did a double take when he saw me. 

The Producers discuss her as if she isn't there -- not her acting, but her faith.  It all felt very much like the whole experience was a big test.  Which made me almost hate the book.  I'm sorry, but as far as I know, TV producers are concerned with the Bottom Line.  Not with bringing random Orthodox girl in from New York to test her faith. 

If it had turned out to be a reality show, it would have worked.  Maybe.  But it wasn't and it didn't.

Dude.

I haven't even read Flanimals and I'm jazzed about this.

(I'm less jazzed that they got Ricky Gervais' name wrong in the headline, but still.)

Am I the only person who didn't know about this?

And is it wrong that I'm feeling a bit skeptical?

Bunch of savages in this town...

So, I just spent WAAAAAY too much time erasing the notes some jerk made in our copy of Breakfast at Tiffany's.  Not to mention un-dog-earing what seemed like every other page.

WHAT DON'T YOU PEOPLE GET?

These aren't your books!  They belong to the entire community!  Would you borrow a book from your neighbor and write in it?  No, of course not.  Well, newsflash, assmunch.  It's the same thing.

That all goes triple to the person who's been ripping entire articles out of This Old House.  I hate you.

The Loud Silence of Francine Green -- Karen Cushman

Karen Cushman's books are always good, but some are better than others.  Personally, I rate them like this (Tier One being the BEST):

Tier One:  Ballad of Lucy Whipple; Catherine Called Birdy
Tier Two:  Midwife's Apprentice
Tier Three:  Matilda Bone; Rodzina

Don't get me wrong -- even the Tier Three-ers are better than average.  But Lucy Whipple and Catherine Called Birdy are my definite faves.  (I still think MA won the Newbery more on the merit of CCB than anything else.  But I also don't remember what else was up that year.  And I'm rambling.  Sorry.)

For the uninitiated, Karen Cushman writes juvenile historical fiction that doesn't feel like juvenile historical fiction -- in her best books, she immerses her reader in another time period without making the experience seem educational.  Her characters are real people -- they aren't just there as an excuse to dole out a history lesson.  It's an impressive talent.

You know what?  I've been sitting here, trying to describe The Loud Silence of Francine Green for about thirty minutes.  Maybe I'm hungry (probably) or maybe there's just too much.  Either way, I give up. 

It's 1949, Francine is thirteen, she lives near Hollywood and goes to Catholic School.  Just think about all of the stuff that fits into that time frame -- nuns, air-raid drills, The Bomb, Communism, the blacklist, and freedom of speech.  And that's on TOP of the finding-her-voice piece of the story.  It's funny (her imaginary scripts of dinnertime conversation made me laugh out loud) and touching and realistic. 

The cultural division that Francine comes to see and understand is very relevant now -- it will resonant powerfully without feeling preachy.  Because the book is set only fifty or so years ago, adults who lived through it will enjoy it and kids will be able to talk to their parents or grandparents about living through it, which is a neat aspect of historical fiction that isn't taken advantage of NEARLY often enough.

It totally, unreservedly is a Tier One book. 

What a happy coincidence.

Just yesterday, I explained to a co-worker how books aren't only banned by super conservative right-wingers -- that sometimes, they're actually banned by uber PC liberals.

From The News-Times:

NEW MILFORD – After about an hour of debate, a school board subcommittee Tuesday agreed with a local couple who wanted a book to be taken off the kindergarten through third-grade reading list because it contains an ethnic slur.

The board's Committee on Learning voted 4-2 to recommend the 12-member Board of Education vote in August to remove the book, "Baseball Saved Us" by Ken Mochizuki, from classroom use.

You totally thought I was over obits, didn't you?

From the Telegraph:

Aaron Spelling, who died in Los Angeles on Friday aged 83, was the most successful and prolific television producer in history, responsible for inflicting upon viewers such series as Charlie's Angels, Dynasty, Starsky & Hutch, SWAT, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Melrose Place and Beverly Hills 90210, all of which epitomised trashy glamour and were inordinately popular.

...

The master bedroom was the size of a basketball court, and two rooms (out of 123) were reserved by Mrs Spelling for the sole purpose of wrapping presents; one Christmas truckloads of snow were brought in to cover the lawns. "Big?" Spelling said. "I'm still trying to find the bathroom."

Holy crap.  His life story ranges from soap opera-esque -- his mother's first husband was a wrestler who was killed in a knife fight -- to something straight out of Fitzgerald -- he had a nervous breakdown at age nine and spent a year at home reading.

Don't forget to read The Dead Beat.  And -- don't miss the on-going Aaron Spelling tribute at Go Fug.

A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl -- Tanya Lee Stone

You know those parents who get all freaked out by the very, very (veryveryvery) gentle and nice sensuality in What My Mother Doesn't Know?  Yeah, don't give them this one.

Whew.  A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl is STEAMY.  Steamy and excellent.

It's a verse novel, told from the perspective of three different girls who are duped by the same Bad Boy.  The girls, Josie, Nicolette and Aviva, all make very different choices in regards to how they handle the unnamed senior. 

A copy of Judy Blume's Forever figures in heavily:

If would be nice
if there was some manual
some little book where a girl could look up
what to do
what not to do
and who not to do it with.

I'm not sure how Stone managed to seamlessly blend a celebration of young love and sexuality with a warning about the dangers of Bad Boys -- but she did it, and did it well.  Highly recommended for fans of verse novels, teen romances and high school stories.

This -- this is just awesome.

From the Guardian:

One of the most passionate couples in American literary history were reunited yesterday when the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, was laid to rest alongside him in New Hampshire after an extended British detour lasting nearly 150 years.

Read the whole article -- the real fun is in the details.  The nuns who interpreted a falling tree -- it was a hawthorn -- as a sign, the actual transport of the bodies, the joint journal that Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne kept...  It's all pretty darn romantic.

Harry, Harry, Harry.

See, I really thought I remembered JK saying that Harry, Ron and Hermione would all make it through the series alive.  But maybe I just imagined it.

From The Guardian:

"The final chapter is hidden away, although it's now changed very slightly," she said in a rare live television interview with Channel 4's teatime chat show hosts Richard and Judy. "One character got a reprieve, but I have to say two die that I did not intend to die."

I actually wouldn't be devastated if Harry died.  Fred or George, yes.  Hagrid, yes.  Snape, yes, though I'm pretty positive that he's going to die no matter what.  Lupin, but I'm pretty sure he'll die, too.  But the worst -- THE WORST -- will be if Neville dies.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle that. 

Sorry, Lauren.

I LOVE robots.

Just in Case -- Meg Rosoff

If you've read How I Live Now, you will not be surprised to hear that Just in Case is not your average YA novel.

After averting what could have been a terrible, tragic accident, 15-year-old David Case decides that he is Doomed.  That’s Doomed, with a Capital D.  He decides that Fate is Out to Get Him.

His only chance was to remake his life one step at a time, starting with his name. And if he managed to be different enough, well, perhaps Fate would forget about David Case and pass on to the next pathetic victim.  Hound him to death.

He stepped out his front door and off the curb, causing a cyclist to swerve in front of a delivery van, and changed his name to Justin.  Justin sounded suave, coolly ironic, hard-bodied, rigorously intelligent.  More competent than David.  Less vulnerable.  Justin Case was the sort of character who could cope with danger.

The screech and the sound of the impact stopped him momentarily and he watched with interest as the cyclist flew off his bike and into the air.

He changes his name on his own, but a chance encounter with a young woman named Agnes in the local charity shop results in a change in his look.  The meeting is also the beginning of an odd sort of friendship -- or could it be love? 

Justin has a dog, an imaginary greyhound called Boy.  There's a strange thing about Boy -- some people, some people other than Justin, are not only able to see him, but are also able to interact with him. 

His little brother, eighteen-month-old Charlie, can think circles around his big brother and his parents.  He tries to communicate, but is regularly frustrated by their lack of understanding.  His mother is so concerned with not overstepping her bounds, with not being one of “those” parents, that she may as well be absent.

The book is narrated by Fate, which leads one to think that there may be more to David’s situation than mere adolescent angst or hormonal paranoia.

Just in Case is completely different from How I Live Now.  Completely: The style, the voice, the characters, the world. (Yes, it’s our world, but as far as I can tell, not the same version that Daisy exists in.)  Rosoff plays with style, sometimes repeating words to create a certain rhythm, sometimes letting Fate take a break from his (its) omniscient narrator role to speak directly to the reader.

The language is a treat – words like incipient, guyline, syncopation, phrases like ‘philosophical vertigo’ and sentences like: “The boundary between reality and fantasy wobbled dangerously.”  Her description makes visualization effortless.  Not because she overdoes it –- in most cases, the description is actually pretty spare –- but because her word choice is so precise.  (I suspect I especially enjoy her writing because I'm always so long-winded and circular in my description, whereas she can just say what she wants to say in a sentence or two.)

And it’s funny.  (Sort of.  In parts.)  For example at one point his mother (in one of her few moments of active parenting) suspects that she knows what might be bothering Justin:

Justin lifted his spoon and pondered the question.  Milk dripped off it as it hovered, loaded, in midair.  Homosexual?  It hadn’t really occurred to him.  He supposed it was possible.  Anything was possible.

“Not that I know of,” he said finally.

His father exhaled impatiently and returned to his paper.  “Well, that’s a relief,” he snorted.  “Life’s complicated enough without having a poof for a son.”

Well, funny in a somewhat depressing way.

I liked it quite a lot.  I’ll probably be re-reading it again soon.  But I have absolutely NO idea who to recommend it to – maybe fans of Freewill, though the books are completely different in style and tone.  It could appeal to fans of magical realism.  I was also reminded a bit of Kafka.  And strangely, some of the druggier sixties books, though I couldn't say exactly which ones or why, as I haven't read any of that stuff since high school. 

Has anyone else read it yet?

Hey! Come visit me!

And while you're at it, support my library.

So... They couldn't have really needed the information all that much, right?

From the Boston Globe:

"First the government abandoned the gag order that would have silenced four librarians for the rest of their lives, and now they've abandoned their demand for library records entirely," said Ann Beeson, associate legal director of the ACLU. "While the government's real motives in this case have been questionable from the beginning, their decision to back down is a victory not just for librarians but for all Americans who value their privacy."

Granted, it's about Enid Blyton.

But it's still really interesting.

In the Company of Crazies -- Nora Raleigh Baskin

Everything was pretty okay in Mia Singer’s life until middle school.  Then she dropped off the honor roll and stopped hanging out with her friends.  She started skipping school and developed a shoplifting problem.  Her parents argued all the time, trying to decide what to do about her.

After a while, she got tired of teetering on the edge of becoming a juvenile delinquent and decided to get her life back on track.

Before she could, a classmate of hers was killed in a freak car accident.  The tragedy put Mia over the edge:

It wasn’t just the shoplifting that got me sent away, but funny it would turn out to be the Mountain Laurel School for Alternative Education. Because when my mother searched Mountain Laurel on the Internet and found out that it had once been categorized as a school for “emotionally disturbed adolescent boys” she was a little hesitant, to put it mildly.

Well, forget for a minute that I wasn’t a boy—I was an adolescent, I’m often accused of being too emotional and my parents are completely disturbed.  So put it all together and you have a perfect match. But did it really matter at that point anyway?

Fans of the group-home aspect of Last Chance Texaco will probably enjoy In the Company of Crazies.  Mia’s narration (I loved her voice, by the way -- she frequently made me smile.) is interspersed with brief entries and doodles from her Mountain Laurel journal.  The ending felt rushed to me, but other than that, I have no complaints.  It’s a mostly quiet and introspective book -- there is plenty of yelling, but not a lot of action -- about Mia’s transformation back to her own brand of normalcy and about the relationships between the people at Mountain Laurel.

Fly by Night -- Frances Hardinge

Oh.

So that’s why everyone’s been raving about Fly by Night.

I was so enthralled that I didn’t even take any notes.  I started it this morning, shooed Josh out of the house so he’d stop distracting me, and didn’t stop until I was done.  I did get hungry about halfway through, so I blindly rooted around the fridge with one hand while still reading.  I loved it.

8-year-old Mosca Mye’s aunt and uncle grudgingly took her in after the death of her father.  While they distrusted her due to her ability to read, they did see the merit in gaining a free bookkeeper.  Her next four years were not happy ones.

At age twelve, Mosca runs away from Chough accompanied only by a homicidal goose called Saracen and a smooth-talking con man named Eponymous Clent.  To Mosca, who treasures language, who saves words by scratching them into pieces of bark, the verbose walking dictionary otherwise known as Clent is someone she needs to follow, regardless of the fact that he swindled most of the people in her town.

What follows is an adventure that involves spies, double-crosses, warring Guilds and political factions, floating coffeehouses, murder, an illegal printing press, a Battle of Beasts, a secret school, book burnings, highwaymen, ballads, a pistol duel and a massive jailbreak.

In Mosca’s world, people fear the printed word.  Any piece of writing that isn’t approved by the Guild of Stationers is destroyed -- and often, so is the person who wrote it.  Words are dangerous and powerful -- people fear them.  They fear reading the wrong words by mistake because their own history has taught them that reading can and will will cause madness.

Fantastic. Obvious, if you are a lover of language, read it.  Fans of Joan Aiken’s Wolves Chronicles, for sure, should also read this.  Fans of Leon Garfield, too.  There are some aspects that Diana Wynne Jones’ fans will appreciate as well – this isn’t a fantasy novel, but some of Hardinge’s adult characters were quite DWJonesian.  Also, in another reality, Dirk's flock of aggressively cantankerous geese could easily be Saracen’s descendants.

Hardinge has created a whole world, convincing and fascinating in language (complete with different dialects and slang), politics and religion. Mosca is immediately likable, both for her intelligence and her pluck.  While Clent is clearly untrustworthy, his ability to spin tales makes him impossible to dislike.  And Saracen – well, obviously he’s just The Best.

A couple of random quotes, just because I liked them:

“It is a very terrible thing to be far smaller than one’s rage.”

…

“Ordinary life did not stop just because kings rose and fell, Mosca realized. People adapted. If the world turned upside down, everyone ran and hid in their houses, but a very short while later, if all seemed quiet, they came out again and started selling each other potatoes.”

I teared up when the book ended, not because of what happened, but because it was over. Those of you who have read the book will understand when I say this:

I want more story.

Not book related.

But kid related. 

AND WEIRD.

Poetry Friday.

So.  Josh and I spent the better part of a week down in the D.C. area, right?  You'd think we'd have come home with some great souvenirs, right?  I mean, Annapolis was FULL of pirate junk.

So what did we come home with?  A vintage Smurf glass and a Brainy Smurf figurine from the 60s.

It's Friday.  Enjoy some of Poet Smurf's fab poetry.

Oh, Alan Moore. What ARE we going to do with you?

From Reuters.uk:

"Lost Girls", by British writer Alan Moore, portrays three fictional heroines -- Wendy from Peter Pan, Alice from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" -- in a work its publisher calls "erotic fiction at its finest".

Moore insists on calling the work "pornography", while Publishers Weekly, in an article earlier this year, said it involved "fetishism, incest and even a touch of bestiality, as well as a whole lot of sexual activity involving minors".

The article doesn't mention it, but Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review.

Smartypants strikes again.

One of the many reasons that I love Lauren.

Also, I really want that t-shirt.  (Size M, please.)

White is for Magic -- Laurie Faria Stolarz

Substitute vomiting for bed-wetting and pretty much everything I said about the first book stands:  If you’ve read everything Lois Duncan has written and are still desperate for more, this is the perfect series to read next.

The kids in White is for Magic come straight out of movies like Urban Legend, except these kids JUST WON’T DIE.  No matter how much you want them to – PJ and Amber are hideously annoying, Chad is the MOST BORING BOYFRIEND EVER and Drea totally deserves him – except for the main character, no one gets attacked, let alone killed.   It’s quite frustrating.

And yet – I’ll probably end up reading the third one.  It's rather sad, but occasionally, my idea of comfort reading is the literary version of a really good bad movie.

You will never, ever guess what book got challenged in North Carolina this year.

Never, never ever.

See if you can guess which title made me howl:

From ABC News:

"The Chocolate War," by Robert Cormier
"Cassell's Dictionary of Slang" by Jonathon Green
"Reluctantly Alice" by Phyllis Reynolds
"In the Night Kitchen" by Maurice Sendak
"Junie B. Jones and Some Sneaky, Peaky Spying" by Barbara Park

Chocolate War, no surprise there.  Everyone and their mom challenges Cormier.  Same goes for the Alice book.  Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, I would assume, contains profanity.  In the Night Kitchen contains a drawing of a naked child.  Regardless of the completely non-sexual nature of Sendak's illustration (Cripes, the Superman billboard is more offensive -- do you think it was a coincidence that they have him flying over an outline of the only state that happens to be shaped like a huge penis?  Get it?  Because Superman is so MANLY?), someone feels the need to freak out about it every so often.  So no surprise there either, sadly.

But JUNIE B. JONES???  I've never thought she was anything but lame and completely inoffensive.  Ye gods, what is this world coming to?

Best Quote Ever.

Okay, okay.  I know I say that a lot.  But COME ON:

From Planetout.com:

One trustee at Monday's meeting, Bruce Skaug, made a motion to remove the "The Joy of Gay Sex" completely, but the motion was not seconded. "I'd rather my 9-year-old take up smoking than see the pictures in this book," Skaug said dramatically.

Maybe he just really doesn't like his 9-year-old.

Journey Between Worlds -- Sylvia Louise Engdahl

Engdahl had me from page one:

I never wanted to go to Mars.  So many girls plan to be flight attendants, or ship’s technicians, or if they’re going to get a degree, they hope to land a position in the Colonies just as soon as they can qualify; and not only because of the fabulous salaries.  I was never like that.  In our senior year, we used to talk about college and jobs, and all the things we wanted to do with our lives—though of course we knew that for most of us, Europe or Africa or maybe Tahiti would be the extent of our travels.  Even then, what I wanted was to live in a house overlooking the bay, with the sparkling blue water in front and dark trees behind, near the town where my mother’s folks had always lived.  And since teaching was a career that would let me do that, I did not intend to let anything stand in the way of getting my Oregon teaching credentials as soon as I possibly could.

Yet here I am in New Terra.  There are times when I still can’t believe it.

Recent high school graduate Melinda Ashley is looking forward to a summer with her longtime boyfriend (and secret fiancé), Ross, when her father gives her a surprising graduation present: A trip to Mars.  At first, she plans to decline, but her desire to spend time with her father combined with Ross’ idiotic reaction to her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity act to change her mind. 

On the way there, she meets a second-generation Mars colonist named Alex.

On the whole, I had mixed feelings about the book.  I’ll begin with what I really, really liked.  I loved Melinda’s voice -- it was fresh and original and genuine.  Sometimes I wanted to strangle her, but I never wanted to stop reading. 

Sylvia Louise Engdahl makes an excellent argument for space colonization.  As I’ve always been firmly in the We-Should-Deal-With-Our-Problems-Here-Before-We-Go-Spreading-Them-Around-The-Galaxy-Or-Even-Further camp, I consider myself to be an especially hard sell.  But she did it.  She responded to pretty much every argument that I could come up with, and even some that I hadn’t thought of.  That isn’t to say that her vision of colonization doesn’t include problems – people on Earth tend look down on colonists, and as the colonists aren’t yet self-sufficient, the Earthers are constantly complaining about their tax-dollars being spent on what they see as a useless enterprise – but by addressing the problems, her argument is that much more convincing. 

My one complaint on this front is that the only character who disagrees with the colonization of Mars is extremely unlikable, so it feels like Engdahl set her up just to knock her down, rather than actually attempting to explore both sides of the issue.

Journey Between Worlds is a reprint – it was originally published in 1970, and had been out of print for some time.  A lot of times, I find that older sci-fi sounds dated – the science, the jargon (real or created), the dialogue.  For the most part, this one didn’t strike me as such. It wasn’t terribly science-heavy, and while major scientific advances have clearly been made, Melinda’s world isn’t all that different from ours.  I found it easy to relate to her.  And to her world.

My main problem, though –- and this is a big one, considering that this book is a romance –- is that I never really bought either love interest.  I didn’t find either one convincing, and I didn’t find myself rooting for Melinda and Alex to work it out.  That may have been because Melinda tells the reader what ultimately happens within the first few pages.  Then again, I know exactly what happens between Jane and Mr. Rochester, and I root for them every single time.

Ross is a total loser-jerkface.  I can deal with that.  But Alex, whom I assume the reader is supposed to like, comes off as condescending and unattractively self-righteous.  It bothered me that he told Melinda that her friend was a bad influence –- she was, but I felt it wasn’t his place to do so –-

A) Melinda would have figured it out eventually, and

B) If you are interested in someone romantically, it is SO not your place to act parental. That’s just icky.

I would have liked him more if he had let Melinda had come to her own conclusions about Mars –- he was always trying to show her the error of her ways, rather than let her find her own way.  (That isn’t to say that I didn’t agree with him.  In most cases I did, which made my feelings all the more frustrating.)  As much as I liked Melinda, I never understood where Alex’s attraction to her stemmed from –- if it was that she has ‘potential’, that would make him even more obnoxious than ever.

Mostly, I wished that she had stayed on Mars because she loved Mars AND Alex, rather than just loving Alex and being resigned to being on Mars. (Think of The Blue Sword – half of the romance in that book is between Harry and Corlath, sure, but the other half is between her and Damar.)

Regardless of my mixed feelings, I’m totally going to read Engdahl's other books. I’m especially excited about Enchantress From the Stars, so I bumped it up a bunch of slots in my TBR pile.  Hopefully I’ll get to it soon.

Bye, kids.

I'm off to the D.C. area for a funeral.  I'll be back Thursday or Friday.

I hope everyone participating in the 48 Hour Challenge has a blast -- I'm SO jealous of you all!

Poetry Friday.

Not a poem, but a POET.  And Elmo.

Also, Google Shakespeare was unveiled yesterday.  It's rather cool.

Oog.

From the Chicago Tribune (via Bookslut):

Chicago police are investigating a fire in a Chicago Public Library branch on the North Side that damaged about 100 books, most of them in the gay and lesbian collection.

Book Thief optioned by Fox.

From ComingSoon.net:

Fox 2000 has optioned best-selling young-adult novel The Book Thief, by Australian writer Markus Zusak, for Karen Rosenfelt to produce.
 

Parents angry that students took an interest in their schoolwork.

From the Rolling Meadows Review:

Mark Dickman, a parent of two Elk Grove High School students, said the May meeting provided a voice for only one side of the issue. Added Itasca resident Don Mitroff, "I'm appalled that a filibuster on the part of the students was the result of that meeting. We will not be silenced."

BookSense Summer Picks.

As always, some I agree with wholeheartedly (Dairy Queen, Brief Chapter, Just Listen, Sea of Monsters, King of Attolia, King Dork, Nick and Norah, Nothing but the Truth), some I have in my TBR pile (The Book Thief, Fly By Night) and a few (okay, one) that I wouldn't recommend to my worst enemy (Small Steps).

(I'm sorry, but did ANYONE actually like Small Steps?  I mean, apparently someone did, because it's on the list, but I still think that the only people like it is because they feel obligated or something.)

Metamorphoses -- Ovid, Translation by Charles MartinIntroduction/Translator’s Note/Book One

I supposedly read Ovid’s Metamorphoses in college, but the truth is that I just read bits and pieces and skated by on my memories of Roman mythology from 6th grade.  (I did just fine, which says something a little sad about the class.)  After reading The Lightning Thief and Sea of Monsters, I decided it was time to Go Back.

It’s a big-ish book, and I don’t want to spew about it all in one go, so I’m going to space out my posts.  This will probably end up reading more like notes than a review, so feel free to skip the whole thing.  (Not that you all feel obligated to read anything I blather about, I’m sure, but you know what I mean.)

Introduction:

I usually make it through introductions, but not without my eyeballs glazing over a few times.  This time, that didn’t happen. 

Bernard Knox’s introduction was engaging and readable – his comparison of three different translations (Ted Hughes, David Slavitt and Charles Martin) of the same passage was especially interesting.  (It was the passage about Diana turning Actaeon into a stag – I’m sorry, but I’ve never liked Diana. She’s just such a BITCH. He saw her by mistake! And don’t even get me started on her treatment of poor Callisto. Beware: My tendency to treat classic works as episodes of Days will probably be in full effect throughout.)

Note on the Translation:

Martin includes three of his own versions of the same passage discussed in the introduction, showing his own personal progression and how different the same few lines can be, even translated by the same person.  This is where my inherent nerdiness really starts shining through, because I found the whole thing fascinating.  And again, accessible and readable to someone without any Classics training.  So, Yay, You! Charles Martin.  Good job.

Book One:

Martin breaks the first book down into sections -- Proem; The creation; The four ages; War with the Giants; Lycaon’s feast; The great flood; Deucalion and Pyrrha; The second creation; Apollo and the Python; Apollo and Daphne; Jove and Io (1); Pan and Syrinx; Jove and Io (2); Phaethon

• I’ve always liked creation stories (maybe because they’re all so different but also kind of the same).  The first time (pre-Jove’s-flood), either “the framer of all things” created us “out of his own divine substance” OR Prometheus took up a “clod”, mixed it with water and molded it into the shape of the gods.  (Later, a race of men was created by Mother Earth out of the “gore” left over from the War with the Giants, but that was somewhat minor.)  The second time around, after everyone but Deucalion (Isn’t that Scales' real name in Dark Lord of Derkholm?) and Pyrrha bite it in the Flood, Themis tells them to chuck rocks behind them, so they do and the rocks transform into people.

This bit is from the first go-round:

And even though all other animals
lean forward and look down toward the ground
he gave to man a face that is uplifted,
and ordered him to stand erect and look
directly up into the vaulted heavens
and turn his countenance to meet the stars;
the earth, that saw so lately rude and formless,
was changed by taking on the shapes of men. (118-125)

• Pre-Jove’s-flood, man is described as “securely indolent” (140), which I especially liked.

• Again, very accessible to the layperson.  Ovid makes a lot of references to politics in his time -- which I know NOTHING about, I only know that because Knox mentioned it in his introduction -- but Metamorphoses can be read without any knowledge of them.  At least, this version can.  I don’t know about other translations, but it seems like the references would just act as inside joke on another level for people who know the history -- kind of like how Shakespeare in Love is hysterically funny for people who are very well-versed in their Shakespeare history.

• The gods are always excellent at prioritizing -- this is in response to Jove’s plan to wipe humans out and start over again:

Nevertheless, all of them were saddened
by the proposed destruction of the human race
and wondered what the future form of earth
could possibly be like, without men on it:
why, who would bring the incense to their altars? (339-343)

• In my notes, my only comment on the next passage was “Apollo = Jerk”:

“What are you doing with such manly arms,
lascivious boy?  That bow befits our brawn,
wherewith we deal out wounds to savage beasts
and other mortal foes, unerringly:
just now with our innumerable arrows
we managed to lay low the mighty Python,
whose pestilential belly covered acres!
Content yourself with kindling love affairs
With your wee torch—and don’t claim our glory! (634-642)

Dude.

A) Don’t mess with Cupid, because he’ll just make you miserable -- as evidenced by what happens next with Daphne -- although, as usual, the human involved had nothing to do with any of it and was just a victim in the whole thing. (But really, if I mention that every single time it happens, I’ll never stop typing.  So just assume that the human is getting a raw deal in pretty much every story.)

B) Jove doesn’t even (at least so far) talk about himself in the third person.  If Apollo was in a John Hughes movie, he would totally be James Spader’s character in Pretty in Pink.

• Again, I don’t know about other translations, but it seems like Martin is really playing Jove for laughs -- which is fine with me. His interaction with Io (up until he rapes her) is really funny -- he starts bragging about himself, trying to convince her to “come find some shade”, and he has to cut off his speech because she runs away in the middle of it.  Then, later, when he’s trying to convince Juno to turn Io back into a woman (she turned her into a cow – you know, because it was HER fault that Jove raped her, but whatever, I said I wasn’t going to do that anymore…), he says:

“In future,” he said, “put your fears aside:
never again will you have cause to worry—
about this one.” (1017-1019)

Visit to Cuba banned in FL school.

Looks like this one got rather ugly.

From the Ledger:

Appeals to a previous school board ruling keeping the book in the school's library were amended to ban the book in all 33 schools in the district. Superintendent Rudy Crew had suggested parental consent be required for borrowing the book, or that a sticker on the cover advise parents of the book's weaknesses.

"We are rejecting the professional recommendation of our staff based on political imperatives that have been pressed upon members of this board," said board member Evelyn Greer, who opposed the ban.

Board member Robert Ingram said he only supported the ban out of fear for his family's safety and to invite a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"There's a passion of hate," Ingram said. "I can't vote my conscience without feeling threatened - that should never happen in this community any more."

The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice -- Wilkie Collins

One of my co-workers holds me responsible for picking the majority of her reading material. I gave her The Moonstone last week, which reminded me that The Haunted Hotel had been sitting forlornly on my bookshelves, as yet unread, for ages and ages. Poor thing.

According to the back of the book (I love Dover editions), this book was Collins’ “last lucid effort before ill health and opium drained his powers”.  Originally serialized in 1878, The Haunted Hotel is the story of... well, it’s complicated.  I’ll give it a try:

Lord Montbarry jilted Agnes Lockwood to marry the Countess Narona. No one in Montbarry’s family approves of Narona, and his younger brother, Henry, is especially unforgiving -- he refuses to even speak to his brother.  (That may have more to do with the fact that he’s in love with Agnes, but so be it.) Montbarry and his new wife gallivant around on their honeymoon, eventually meeting the Countess’ brother, Baron Rivar (who many people suspect is not her brother, but actually her secret lover) and moving into a Venetian palace.

Shortly thereafter, Lord Montbarry dies.

What’s not to love?  There’s a Days of our Lives plot and characters, two haunted rooms – complete with hidden chamber, mysterious smells and ghostly head – and lines like this:

What lurking temptations to forbidden tenderness find their hiding-places in a woman’s dressing-gown, when she is alone in her room at night!

Agnes is a bit of a Rowena – she’s far less interesting than the Countess, and it’s hard to imagine why anyone would be madly in love with her – but the story itself is super fun and genuinely spooky.

Am I wrong?

Or is this magazine cover the tackiest thing ever?

Well.

This is EXACTLY what we all need.

SDQ Interview with Justina Chen Headley.

Justina Chen Headley is the author of the super-fun Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies).  She's got a new book coming out in 2007 and she's working on a third right now.  She's the founding member of the Kung Fu Kick Ass Club.  And as if that isn't enough, she's running an essay contest for a $5,000 college scholarship -- check out the details here.

Book Currently Reading:

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro:  amazing, disturbing, humbling, haunting. 

CDs Currently in Rotation: 

Well.  I know this is going to sound incredibly weird, but here it is.  I've started my third novel, and when I'm in the "discovery" draft, I need loud, jarring music.  If I were to psychoanalyze myself, maybe that's the only thing that drowns out the critic inside my head?  So anyway, right now, I'm heavy into KEXP, a local station that plays eclectica.  When I head into revisions, I'll hit up my agent for a new playlist.  He's done a great job setting me up with music-to-revise-by for the last two novels! 

Last Movie Viewed: 

Perfection, a short by an up-and-coming filmmaker, Karen Lin, starring Ming-Na.  Karen is definitely someone I will watch eagerly to see what she does in the future.

Literary Crush (real or fictional): 

Mr. Darcy, the once and always romantic hero, with or without portrayal by Colin Firth.

Pet Peeve: 

People who clip and file their nails in public.  Need I say more?  OK, I will.  Ick.  Grooming should take place in a bathroom, door closed preferably.  Who wants to be nailed (pun unintended) by a stray, flying clipping?

Current Obsession: 

Green tea frappuccinos--but only if it's made Tokyo-style.  So here's how to order bliss at Starbucks:  tell them to hold the syrup, double the matcha, and no whip.  Yes, you'll sound very high-maintenance, but who cares?  Your taste buds will salute you.

Guilty Pleasure: 

See above.  Green tea frappuccinos, I'm telling you:  calorie-worthy.

Irrational Fear:

Huntsmen spiders.  Well, given that they are basically the size of a paperback, I suppose it's not an irrational fear per se.

Favorite Word: 

Syzygy.  I just came across that one while researching planets.  It's the term to use when the sun, moon, and earth line up, which is cool in and of itself.  But also, check out the three y's in that single word.  Amazing, yes?

Theodora Twist -- Melissa Senate

Goodness.  There seem to be a lot of Hollywood-themed books lately. I have at least two others in my TBR pile.  I wasn’t sure if I should read them all in one fell swoop or spread them out.  (I decided on spreading them out.  That way there’s less chance of me getting irritable.)

Theodora Twist is a pretty standard she said/she said fish-out-of-water teen comedy drama.  I found it hard NOT to imagine Theodora as Lindsay Lohan. Even though the physical description doesn’t match, the rest is pretty spot-on:  She’s a teen star who has become prime tabloid fodder due to her wild-child exploits (which include being photographed skinny-dipping, smooching (and more, but the photo didn’t show that) two pop stars -- brothers -- at the same time).

In danger of losing her endorsement deals, a three-movie contract with Disney, and all of her “tween-appeal” (because let’s face it – that’s where the money is), Theodora’s agent gives her an ultimatum: Participate in a reality show designed to show that Theodora is Just Another Teenaged Girl -- or the agent walks and Theodora's career crumbles.  Theodora doesn’t want to lose her agent OR her career.

Enter Emily Fine.  She’s a Good Girl.  Her life is normal with a capital N.  She also was friends with Theodora (briefly) just before T's Big Break, and just happens to live in Theodora’s childhood home. What with the new baby and all, her family is a bit strapped for cash, too.  It’s a perfect match.

So Theodora moves into Emily’s room, her school and her life for a month.

It was cute.  There is some pretty frank talk about sex, so be aware about that when dealing with protective parents, but the book provides two very different points of view on the subject -- Theodora has been sexually active (very, very sexually active) since she was thirteen, whereas Emily is Not Ready and pretty okay with that. I can see it being popular with the Gossip Girl girls.  Parents and booksellers might feel better about handing this one out -- it’s better written, the characters actually have some depth, and fame/fabulousness is viewed (at least by the end) as double-edged, rather than Something to Have at Any Cost.

Hit the Road -- Caroline B. Cooney

I haven’t read a book by Caroline B. Cooney since...  when?  Middle school, at least. 

Hit the Road didn’t disappoint.  I read it in one sitting, giggling throughout the first half, then squawking at Josh whenever he tried to talk to me during the tense second half.

Brittany Anne Bowman (her friends call her Brit) only had her driver’s license for eleven days before getting dumped at her grandmother’s house for two weeks with no car while her parents head off for an Alaskan vacation. So much for summer vacation.

Or.  So.  She.  Thought.  (You can insert some creepy/foreboding horror movie music here, although it isn't really that kind of book.  But a line like that just calls for it.)

Brit doesn’t even make it into her grandmother’s house before a rental van pulls in -- turns out that her grandmother has big plans for the next week or so.

Briefly, the plan is:  Drive from Connecticut to Long Island, pick up a college friend, drive to Massachusetts to break another one out of a nursing home who says she’s been put in against her will, then swing up to grab the fourth college buddy and head on up to Maine for their sixty-fifth college reunion.  (There’s also a plan to stop off at a lawyer’s office to change the will of the incarcerated woman -- she says that her son faked the power of attorney documentation and that no, she does not have Alzheimer’s.)

It doesn’t take long for them to figure out that while it’s illegal, it’ll be a whole lot safer if Brit does the driving:

Nannie braked.  But the pressure of one toe was not enough to stop the Safari.  And she didn’t have the strength, a second time, to stand up on the pedal.  Tugging at the wheel, Nannie thrust her little mauve shoe at anything on the floor.  There was not time for Brit to slide her grandmother out of the driver’s seat and take over before they ended up in the middle of traffic and got smashed to death, not an optimal first day of vacation.

It’s a great road trip book -- funny and rambunctious with a lot of heart.  But that's not all.  This is a Caroline B. Cooney book, after all. There's loads of suspense, multiple kidnappings, a car chase, threats of life-ruining and violence and jail time.  Brit is able to keep in touch with -- and get help from -- her friends due to cellphones and a laptop.  (It occasionally felt quite Veronica Mars-y, though Brit is an amateur.) 

The introduction of Alzheimer’s into the mix makes the suspense especially effective.  Patients have a tendency towards paranoia, so for quite some time, Brit isn’t sure who is telling the truth -- Aurelia or her smooth-talking-BBC-commentator-voiced son.

There’s also an important message about ageism in the book – but it doesn’t feel like it’s there just for the sake of being there.  (In other words, it isn’t a Frying Pan book.)  It comes out as the characters and relationships develop, so it doesn’t feel forced or awkward or like anyone is doing any speechifying.  (I stole that word from Bennett Madison.)  Maybe I'm a bit more sensitive about the topic because of recent events in my own life, but I found myself tearing up occasionally.  But then the action/suspense portion of the book would kick in again and everything was a-okay.  Way fun, perfect summer reading. 

Blow Out the Moon -- Libby Koponen

It’s funny how you can hate something in one book and embrace it in another.  I’ve been pretty blunt about my feelings regarding the Newbery winner Criss Cross (or at least about the fact that it won the Newbery), and I specifically remember especially disliking the illustrations.  I felt they were distracting and gimmicky.  Blow Out the Moon has illustrations, too.  But they actually add to and support the text – there are photos from the author’s childhood, inset definitions and explanations of British slang and customs, reproductions of letters sent home from Libby to her family.  It’s a nicely put-together book.

It’s also funny what a difference a little truthfulness can make.  Blow Out the Moon is described as a fictionalized memoir. Libby Koponen explains things even more in her acknowledgments, and oftentimes in the picture captions. (You hear me, James Frey? That’s all you needed to do.)

It’s just a nice little story about an American child going to an English boarding school.  It isn’t action-packed, although Libby is an extremely active child (both physically and imaginatively). It would make a good, gentle read-aloud for kids who like old-fashioned stories.

This is a strange one.

In one corner we have the local favorite, Freedom-of-Speech.  In the opposite corner, we have the up-and-coming Freedom-to-Call-Down-Curses-Wherever-and-Whenever-You-Want.  (Which, by the way, seems like a mighty Christian thing to do.  Good going, Pastor Sabbath!)

From the First Amendment Center:

The incident occurred when Pastor John Sabbath of Liv-In Christ Christian Center in Chino got up to speak during this week's council meeting. Sabbath was upset that the city did not give funding to his organization after a request he made several years ago.

He said he was placing a curse on City Manager Greg Devereaux, Devereaux's wife and his family.

Anderson asked City Attorney John Brown to examine how city officials could stop speakers whose comments stray too far from city business. Brown said he believed it possible to do that without violating the First Amendment.

Most councils have rules of conduct to avoid time-wasters, etc.  The Ontario City Council probably just hadn't realized that they needed to specify "curses" on the Skip-It-While-We're-In-Session List.  Silly them.

Hey, give her a break.

She's raising awareness about an important problem, and she's bringing the fight to the state level.  (Cue uplifting music here.)

From the Atlanta-Journal Constitution:

Mallory, who has three children at J.C. Magill Elementary, argued the Harry Potter stories promote and glorify witchcraft. She said Monday that appealing the board's decision to the state "was the right thing to do."

"I hope to raise awareness regarding the overwhelming content of witchcraft and the occult that is being marketed to our children," she said.

Because Harry Potter is a much bigger problem than living in a state that is ranked 8th highest in the nation for teen pregnancy (as of 2004) and 7th highest for murder rate (as of 2004).  But maybe that was all caused by witchcraft.

Another reason to love Found Magazine.

Look!  I'm not the only librarian who loves finding strange things in books. 

My computer monitor is covered in my precious finds.  (By precious finds, I mean a random Magic card, a religious calendar from 1992, some odd little construction paper people, a cut-out photograph of some poor girl that someone drew a moustache and beard on, and a homemade bookmark that says, "Say No to "Dog Ears"".  Among other things.)

Ann Coulter's book challenged.

Now, let it be known that I have no love for The Pointy One. 

But her book should not be banned.

(Although -- the title is rather misleading.  Judging from the press release, it doesn't look like they're technically trying to BAN it.  It looks more like they want to boycott it.  Either way, Quigley and Stender are shooting themselves in the foot -- controversy always sells more books.)

Eeeeek.

I KNEW IT.

GROSS.

Gotta love the Guardian Top Ten Lists.

Especially when they focus on "the darker side of adolescence"!  YAR!