Destined to Become a Classic

While I'm on my Patrick Ness Love Fest

2011-07-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

During my recent visit to my family in Newcastle Upon Tyne in the UK, I got in to a lengthy discussion about good literature with the young adult section book buyer at the Waterstones there. (Waterstones is kind of like Barnes and Noble but classier). Obviously Patrick Ness' name came up pretty quickly and she pointed me in the direction of his new title A Monster Calls. There is an interesting, heartbreaking, and ultimately heartwarming story behind the story. The original idea came from a children's writer Siobhan Dowd who died of breast cancer before she was able to write the book. Dowd's notes were handed to Ness to write the story. As Ness explains in his Author's Note, he never met Dowd but knew her from her books (probably best know in the US for The London Eye Mystery) "She had the characters, a premise, and a beginning. What she didn't have, unfortunately was time." (Ness, 2011).
Whoever the genius was that handed Ness those notes deserves a standing ovation. It's a haunting masterpiece of tension despite the fact the outcome is inevitable from the beginning. Ness does what he does best - lets characters be complicated, flawed, and yet still capable of great things. There is no black or white in the tales Ness weaves. Nothing is ever quite what it seems and no one can be defined as either one thing or another. As the monster explains to young Conor, who is trying to come to terms with his conflicted feelings over his mother's suffering "...human beings are complicated beasts...How can a queen be both a good witch and a bad witch? How can a prince be a murderer and a saviour?...How can a person be wrong-thinking but good hearted?" Conor feels guilty because in his heart he wants his mother to die so her suffering, and in many ways his own, can end. His guilt is tearing him apart. The monster has come to save him, and not his mother as Conor believed, by forcing him to speak the truth. "You do not write your life with words, the monster said. You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do."
What you need to do dear reader is get out there and read everything Patrick Ness has ever written. ASAP. Also, you will need a hanky for the last two chapters. I wept through them both.
The Guardian's Review of A Monster Calls.
Siobahn Dowd's Obituary from the Guardian

I Am the Circle and the Circle is Me

2011-07-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

Whooaaa. I just remembered I had a blog and why I have it. Picking up from where I left off...The Ask and The Answer turned out to be as equally amazing and full of surprises as the first installment of the Chaos Walking Trilogy. Ness left me once again at the edge of a precipice and I had to wait until September of 2010 to read the final book Monsters of Men (I preordered). This final installment is breathtaking in its ability to create characters both evil yet redeemable as well as force the reader to question their trust in characters believed to be on the side of right. I don't want to give the climatic ending away, but my heart went out to Mayor Prentiss; something I never thought would happen.
A Goodread friend of mine is going to "read" the Ask and the Answer in audible form. I am a little worried about this. One of the amazing things about this book is the choice the writer and (I presume) publishers made to visually express on the page what it must be like to be able to hear the thoughts of all around you. So, if you do decide to listen to these books, at least pick them up in a library or bookstore and leaf through.
On a more aesthetic note, I much prefer the US covers to the UK ones. The US versions are more foreboding and capture more of what the books are about. Let me know what you think.
One more thing...My daughter was recently "forced" to attend summer camp for the first time and was very, very nervous driving in. She kept repeating "I am the circle and the circle is me"!

Heroines that Could Kick my Ass

2009-12-30T15:56:00.000-08:00

I have been avoiding the frightening reality of working in public education by wallowing in a warm pool of alternative worlds and distant futures. I managed to get hold of several want-to-reads under the guise of buying books for my ten-year-old book worm. Buying books is easy, but getting them out of my daughters room is not so simple. She has a passionate desire to keep all the 'good books" in her room in case any one "messes them up". My friend Phyllis (who is older and much more reliable than me) has not yet been forgiven for returning Fire Bringer with a scotch-taped cover. I am no longer allowed to lend books to Phyllis, but where there's a will there's a way. I seem to have found my way in to a world where girls are tough and leave the boys behind in a cloud of indignation and embarrassment. The ones they don't kill have two choices - become embroiled in a complicated relationship and/or have their hearts broken. Excellent. Go girls.
I finally got around to The Hunger Games immediately followed by its sequel, Catching Fire. I am sure that most of you have read these almost instant classics by now, or read another review, so I shall spare you the details. (If not, here's Stephen King's review for EW and I agree with Stephen, Katniss is a hard name to get over.) We all have to wait until the summer of 2010 to find out if Katniss, the heroine, ends up with Peeta, heart-on-your-sleeve adorer from afar, or Gale, smoldering hunting companion/bestfriend. My friend Phyllis and I are wholeheartedly on the Peeta side of the fence.Luckily, Phyllis and I will be able to remain friends. There are, believe it or not, and I do, chat rooms dedicated to the Peeta/Gale debate.
The rights for the movie were bought by Lionsgate in March. If one is so inclined, and one was, you can go on Youtube and see fantasy cast lists for the movie. Brendan Gleeson would make a great Haymitch. Anyhoo, Suzanne Collins also wrote the The Underland Chronicles, which my daughter adored and Phyllis enjoyed, too (after checking them out from the library).
I moved swiftly on to Graceling by Kristen Cashore. I read it in a couple of days and will be reading the sequel Fire the minute I can pry it out of my daughter's iron grip. I smuggled Graceling out to Phyllis before winter break, so the jury is still out on her response. Thank goodness this heroine, Katsa, didn't end up in a love triangle. That would be too much to bare. She falls for and sticks with the lovely Prince Po. Thank you Ms Cashore. Both girls are tomboy heroines and both of them could kick my ass (which I'll admit wouldn't be difficult). Katsa, however doesn't have to learn to kill to survive. In Cashore's midievelesque alternate world, Katsa is a graceling - gifted with a "grace" and different colored eyes that signal her uniqueness (kind of like David Bowie). Unfortunately, her grace turns out to be more of a burden. She is a killing machine; a young girl capable of taking down the strongest of men with the flick of her wrist. Only until she escapes her evil uncle's influence and can use her grace for good does she realize that killing may only be one facet of her gift.

Phyllis suggested that Cate might like the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce. So, I checked a couple out from the library for me trying hard not to be put off by the cheesy covers of the Random House editions. Needless to say Phyllis is always right. I am now on book three of the four book series (qualogy?). The heroine is once again a girl with the strength of a man and the intelligence of a woman (great combination), who battles prejudice and puberty to become a knight. There's always a love interest and this heroine, Kel, develops a crush on a fellow trainee (he has floppy hair and green eyes - I imagine hime to be a better looking Hugh Grant with magical healing powers). As I am only on book three and she just turned fourteen, I don't know if the crush will come to aught or not.
While reading First Test I received a notice that my request for The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness had arrived at the library. Another trilogy, Chaos Walking, of which there are two so far. I gobbled this one up just as quickly as those aforementioned. The Knife takes place on another planet that has been settled by humans looking for a simpler and less crowded way of life. The hero (don't worry, a strong female character turns up pretty quickly) of the story, Todd, is the last boy in a town of men. The women, he has been told, all died of a germ spread by the native "aliens" who were then wiped out for their sins. The germ also left all men, boys and living creatures able to hear each others' every thought. So, life in the town is very noisy and keeping a secret requires mental agility. When Todd and his dog stumble upon a pocket of silence in the swamp outside the town, life changes dramatically and Todd is soon on the run discovering that everything he thought to be true is not so. The book is well written and moves as fast as your eyes will allow you to. The idea of others being able to hear every thought reminds me of standing in line with someone talking on their cell phone. You are trapped in their conversation whether you like it or not, learning things that more often than not are mundane. Imagine being surrounded by hundreds of people on cell phones twenty four seven. The publishers try to recreate this experience of "the noise" by strategically filling a page or two with thought scribble. The Knife leaves you hanging and there was a tense exchange at my local library when the next installment, The Ask and the Answer, was found to be "missing". Undeterred, I trudged down to the Central Library through freezing slush and over pee ridden snow banks. That copy was MIA, too, but the librarian sensing my rising panic agreed to "look in the back just in case" and voila! I left clutching the elusive volume to my chest.

Publishing Meets Marketing Meets Racial Politics

2009-07-26T07:25:00.000-07:00

I first read about this on the School Library Journa l blog by the prolific Elizabeth Bird. It seems that I am not imagining things when I notice that it is very hard to find books for my African American students with covers they can relate to. This is particularly true for the middle grades. This issue has come to light with Justine Larbalesiter's recent book, Liar. The US edition has a white girl on the cover of novel that is about a girl "who is black with nappy hair which she wears natural and short" despite Larbalesiter's objections. You can read all about it here.
So which books can African American students pick up and see a person of color on the cover? Pretty much anything by Walter Dean Myers, Sharon Draper, Jacqueline Woodson and Sharon Flake. Christopher Paul Curtis of course, although his characters are most often set in the past. There are more out there I know, and there are some great resources for finding books about students of color, but as The Brown Bookshelf put it "You can’t buy a book you don’t see on the shelf. And it’s awfully hard to buy a book you’re not even aware is available". The Brown Bookshelf spearheaded a campaign called 28 Days Later that showcased African American authors. There are lots of great suggestions from The Brown Bookshelf linked directly to Amazon.com. Click here for the middle readers page although I know most of my 5th and 6th graders would probably be more interested in the titles on the Poppin' Black Teen Books. Oh, dear. No classroom budget this year, but as a teacher I feel it is my duty to get as many of these books in my classroom as possible. There's always the tax rebate!

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

2009-06-29T03:55:00.000-07:00

This book is like a chameleon. Just when you think it's about one thing, it changes its colors and becomes another beast altogether. The narrator is Marcelo, a seventeen-year-old who is on the high functioning end of an autism-like spectrum. He has spent his school years in the safe environment of Paterson, a school for students like him. He is comfortable there, working with in the stable there during his summers. Marcelo's father, a high-powered lawyer, has decided that it is time Marcelo experience "the real world" and puts him to work in his law firm's mail room. The mail room is run by Jasmine, who is non too pleased to be landed with the job of babysitting the bosses son. Jasmine turns out to be like Marcelo in many ways and their friendship quietly grows. Marcelo, Jasmine and I could quite happily have spent the rest of the summer there, but Stork has other plans for Marcelo that challenge his sense of duty to his father, his need for friendship, and his relationship with Jasmine. Just like the "real world", the decisions Marcelo must make are clouded in shades of gray. In the end, things work out for Marcelo - almost too neatly. Stork's real world is a forgiving one, and all loose ends are tied in neat bows by the end of the last chapter. As a human I am glad because I love Marcelo and want only happiness for him. However, as a reader, I expected a little more ambiguity. Great books leave you with a sense of longing - with nagging questions and doubts. Without this Marcelo and the Real World stops just short of being great.

More information about Fransisco X. Stork and his other titles can be found here.

The Raucous Royals by Carlyn Beccia

2009-05-14T07:19:00.000-07:00

There's nothing better than a bit of juicy gossip about royals. It's what makes history interesting and probably why I find most American history pretty boring. Never mind the fact that they slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people, spent money lavishly while their subjects starved, and went around taking over other people's countries. The point is royals of yore dressed fabulously while doing it. Those good old days are gone, though. I haven't seen an outfit yet on Elizabeth II that doesn't make her look frumpy (though I will admit, she knows a good hat when she sees one).
Beccia brings those jaw-dropping royals back to life in her deliciously illustrated new book. The rich colors echo the ostentatious luxury of royalty and her portraits seem as though they came off the gallery of some 16th Century castle with a dubious past.
Beccia chose a true or false approach to her subject and it serves her purpose well. Readers get a lesson in detective work and untrustworthy sources as well as tasty tidbits of information. My 5th and 6th graders nearly threw up after reading a typical menu served to Henry VIII - mind you, I did add the part about people making themselves sick at banquets just so they could cram more grilled beaver tail or roasted peacock down their throats. This led to an interesting discussion that I shall not elaborate on here. Suffice it to say that every page of Beccia's marvelous book sparks a myriad of topics for conversation - not many of them suitable for the dinner table, which of course kids love!
The Raucous Royals is Carlyn Beccia's second book. The first is Who Put the B in Ballyhoo.

Nation by Terry Pratchett

2009-04-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this one is going to join my very hard to get on to "Absolute Favorites" tag. I only have one other book there, so, yeah. I know Terry Pratchett is a hugely successful author, but his more fantasy oriented books have left me cold., and I like fantasy. This, however, I read in one day and mourned when it was over.

My nine-year-old who reads everything couldn't get in to Nation and so that tells me what I already knew - this is more of a cross-over novel and you have to be willing to go a few chapters before you're hooked. You have to understand (or at least be aware of) the history of colonialism, and you have to have the vision to see that this is about so much more than boy meets girl on a post-tsunami deserted island. And yet...it is still a wonderful story of (unconsummated) love and a story of hope for mankind that leaves you mad at the author for not making it all OK. It's kind of like Titanic the movie - but really much better- except the boat doesn't sink- it lands on a forest.

'Nuff said. You really have to read it.

Red Sings from Treetops: a year in colors by Joyce Sidman and Pamela Zagarenski

2009-04-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

I have been inspired by Joyce Sidman to get back to what I love doing best - reading brilliant children's literature and raving about it to any unfortunate who happens to become snared in the dense thicket of the kid-lit blogging bush.
There are a lot of poems about color out there and I am sure that practically any elementary-aged child in the English-speaking world has had to write one. It's pretty easy and has a low-risk level (unlike my cat - long story). However, like most things that are pretty easy to do, they are really hard to do well.
I have spent many an early morning and late evening in my yard trying to think of an opening line for a poem about a cardinal. When you live in the northern regions of this fair land, the sight of a cardinal's scarlet plumage against eye-searing-white snow is sometimes the only hope you have that the world is still turning and you're not stuck in this frozen wasteland forever. Don't get me wrong, winter is beautiful when it first comes and everything is clean white,
"White dazzles day
and turns night
inside out."
But, at a certain point, you need to see green.
Luckily for me, Sidman knows this, too and she's got a magical touch with words. It's like she got inside my heart - because, truly, that's where poetry germinates - and translated it in to these beautiful poems - because, truly, that's what the poets you love do.
"And Red?
Red beats inside me:
thump-thump-thump."
Sidman is frugal but never meagre with her words. They take on the exact shape, smell, and feel of the season's passing colors. The verses are short but complete and leave pleanty of room for the stunning art work of Zagarenski. Verse and picture blend seemlessly together. Zagarenski never tries to "outcolor" the poems, and her palate is rich and delicious just when it needs to be. Zagarenski also illustrated Sidman's This is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness and the same crowned and whimsically dressed figures run through these pages. The cardinal is ever present with his own crimson crown and a dog follows along, too. Each page tells a story and I discover something new every time I read the book.
Luckily for us, Sidman and Zagarenski know how to make a simple thing look and sound stunningly difficult.

There Was a Man Who Loved a Rat and Other Vile Little Poems by Gerda Rovetch and illustrated by Lissa Rovetch

2008-08-16T16:56:00.000-07:00

At the age of 83, Gerda Rovetch has published her first book in collaboration with her daughter. The poems are a short four lines each and resemble a limerick with their jaunty rhyme and humorous subject matters. Limericks were made popular by Edward Lear in the 19th Century and in later years were often associated with bawdy humor. Rovetch stays true to the spirit of Lear’s nonsense poems. Her characters find abandoned kidneys, stuff sardines down their pants, and attack people with lobsters. The illustrator’s art work complements the poems beautifully and is reminiscent of some of Edward Gorey’s illustrations. Gorey also illustrated for Lear and another great nonsense master, Hilaire Belloc. The original art was done on paper plates and the poems and illustrations are “served” opposite each other on round white circles with colorful backgrounds. I can imagine everyone from kindergarteners up enjoying these silly verses. Older students – and their teachers—might have fun trying to write them.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

2008-08-15T04:15:00.000-07:00

Gaiman, famous for his creepy and often scary tales, Coraline and The Wolves in the Wall, has created in his new novel something that is neither despite its chilling first chapter and spectral cast of characters. This is a story about the power of family -whatever form it comes in - and the potential of a child who is raised with love and a sense of duty. Nobody Owens (Bod) is adopted by a couple of ghosts after narrowly escaping death at the hands of the mysterious man who murdered the rest of his family. After much debate he is granted the Freedom of the Graveyard by its long dead inhabitants. His guardian Silas, neither dead nor alive, brings him food and ensures he is educated in the ways of the dead and the living. Of course, life for young Owens is not all plain sailing. There is the ghoul gate and the ancient force that waits in the oldest grave and the mysterious man who still searches for the boy he failed to kill. The story of an orphaned boy being hunted down by a secret society and protected by magic sounds familiar but while the story of Harry Potter resonates here, the sympathetic, flawed and ultimately very human character of Bod saves this from being merely a reshaping of Rowling’s epic tale. In fact, Gaiman's title is an homage to Kipling's The Jungle Book- a story with a similar theme. I can’t help thinking, however, that this novel should be the first in a series. There are too many questions unanswered. While I never really believed that Bod was ever in any real danger in the graveyard, a boy who sets off in to the world of the living with his “eyes and heart wide open” can only be headed for uncertainty.

FYI Coraline the movie is slated to be released in 2009. Click here for a sneak preview.

Neil Gaiman has a groovy website.

Poetry Friday

2008-08-15T02:03:00.000-07:00

I love it when I find a new poet. I invariably do so through the New Yorker, Garrison Keillor or Poetry Friday! I found Matthew Dickman in the Aug. 11 New Yorker (the other poem, by John Ashbury, that week was incomprehensible to me). I was stunned after I read it. I love the way he mixes the cataclysmic with the mundane in the poem and the ending lines...You can read another of his poems Grief here. He's a relatively newcomer to the published poets field and his first full-length collection, All American Poem, won the 2008 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize in Poetry.

Dickman hails from a white working class suburb of Portland, Oregon. An area he has written about in some of his poems. In November 2007 Major Jackson for the Boston Review described these poems as "melancholic portraits of impoverished white teenagers that dazzle me into the always painful, yet easily forgettable, awareness that many people suffer psychically under the knife of American prosperity. Outside the frame of these poems lurk the children of female-headed homes; parents who work two or more jobs; teenage moms who live in “Drug-Free Zones” and “Urban Renewal Zones,” unkempt neighborhoods whose parks are normally full of drugs; teen addicts slumping toward oblivion; and fathers for whom the closest thing to therapy is domestic abuse."

Dickman has an interesting story. He was a manny for a young boy whose father was dying of brain cancer, a story you can read about here at American Public Media: The Story. I found more of his poems (and advice to writers) on the website From the Fishouse: an audio archive of emerging poets.

Trouble by Matthew Dickman
Marilyn Monroe took all her sleeping pills
to bed when she was thirty-six, and Marlon Brando’s daughter
hung in the Tahitian bedroom
of her mother’s house,
while Stanley Adams shot himself in the head. Sometimes
you can look at the clouds or the trees
and they look nothing like clouds or trees or the sky or the ground.
The performance artist Kathy Change
set herself on fire while Bing Crosby’s sons shot themselves
out of the music industry forever.
I sometimes wonder about the inner lives of polar bears. The French
philosopher Gilles Deleuze jumped
from an apartment window into the world
and then out of it. Peg Entwistle, an actress with no lead
roles, leaped off the “H” in the HOLLYWOOD sign
when everything looked black and white
and David O. Selznick was king, circa 1932. Ernest Hemingway
put a shotgun to his head in Ketchum, Idaho
while his granddaughter, a model and actress, climbed the family tree
and overdosed on phenobarbital. My brother opened
thirteen fentanyl patches and stuck them on his body
until it wasn’t his body anymore. I like
the way geese sound above the river. I like
the little soaps you find in hotel bathrooms because they’re beautiful.
Sarah Kane hanged herself, Harold Pinter
brought her roses when she was still alive,
and Louis Lingg, the German anarchist, lit a cap of dynamite
in his own mouth
though it took six hours for him
to die, 1887. Ludwig II of Bavaria drowned
and so did Hart Crane, John Berryman, and Virginia Woolf. If you are
travelling, you should always bring a book to read, especially
on a train. Andrew Martinez, the nude activist, died
in prison, naked, a bag
around his head, while in 1815 the Polish aristocrat and writer
Jan Potocki shot himself with a silver bullet.
Sara Teasdale swallowed a bottle of blues
after drawing a hot bath,
in which dozens of Roman senators opened their veins beneath the water.
Larry Walters became famous
for flying in a Sears patio chair and forty-five helium-filled
weather balloons. He reached an altitude of 16,000 feet
and then he landed. He was a man who flew.
He shot himself in the heart. In the morning I get out of bed, I brush
my teeth, I wash my face, I get dressed in the clothes I like best.
I want to be good to myself.

Roundup is at Big A little a this week.

Benjamin Dove by Fridrik Erlings

2008-08-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

Benjamin Dove is described as a "canonical treasure" in the author's native Iceland. It won the International Board on Books for Young People Award and has been made in to a feature length film available in the UK. It doesn't seem to have made much of a stir since its journey over the Atlantic last year.

It's an old fashioned story of friendship, jealousy, bullying and betrayal. There is pointless violence and ultimately a tragedy, but the story is human and so there is also forgiveness, understanding, and redemption. Benjamin, Jeff and Manny are three friends who play together on "the Ground", a sacred space protected from the town bullies by its unofficial yet unopposed guard Grandma Dell. Jeff is the kind of boy who sees everything as a competition and a chance to prove himself the fastest, strongest, or most skillful of the three. His inability to accept defeat often leads to violent outbursts that begin to wear on his two friends, particularly Manny, who is the youngest, and often bears the brunt of Jeff's frustration.
Enter Roland, a new boy in the neighborhood whose bedroom resembles a scene out of King Arthur's legend. Roland believes he is descended from Scottish kings and stands up to the two town bullies, putting himself in physical danger. However, it is Grandma Dell, not Roland's new friends, who comes to his rescue and she ends up paying a terrible price for her intervention.
The boys, led by Roland, create knightly personas for themselves and vow to avenge the wrong done to Grandma Dell. With the creation of The Order of the Red Dragon the stage is set for a battle of good against evil. Unfortunately, as in real life, the line between the two is not always easily discernible and seemingly righteous decisions or careless choices can have unexpected consequences.

Poetry Friday

2008-08-01T16:26:00.000-07:00

Roundup is at The Well-Read Child today.

A rather sad poem. We've all, well maybe most of us, have at one time experienced that awful realization that our affection is not returned quite the way we thought or had fooled ourselves to believe it was. Collins put his finger right on that sore spot.

The Breather
by Billy Collins

Just as in the horror movies

when someone discovers that the phone calls

are coming from inside the house

so too, I realized

that our tender overlapping

has been taking place only inside me.

All that sweetness, the love and desire—

it's just been me dialing myself

then following the ringing to another room

to find no one on the line,

well, sometimes a little breathing

but more often than not, nothing.

To think that all this time—

which would include the boat rides,

the airport embraces, and all the drinks—

it's been only me and the two telephones,

the one on the wall in the kitchen

and the extension in the darkened guest room upstairs.

From Volume 192, Number 4, July/August 2008

The Fire Thief Trilogy by Terry Deary

2008-07-31T12:51:00.000-07:00

British writer Deary is well know for his irreverent take on history in his Horrible Histories books - "history with all the "nasty" bits left in". He doesn't think much of the formal education system, "I wouldn't have schools at all," says the Sunderland author. "Nowadays people assume schools are essential, but they're finished; they cannot cope with the demands of the modern world, but they spend £50 billion a year failing." He describes his writing for page and stage as "educainment". "Whether it's writing books or theatre shows, that sums up what I've been doing, because first you have to engage people and a good way to educate them is to entertain them," he reasons.
Deary's approach to "educainment" is popular with the kids. He has sold over 20 million copies worldwide and completes a book, on average, every six weeks. He has even turned several of his Horrible Histories in to plays and is working on a TV series for the BBC.
I did enjoy the first in his trilogy The Fire Thief but I had to get past the irritating footnotes and addresses to the reader at the beginning of each chapter. Deary's cynicism starts to drag you down after a while too, but luckily it is a fast paced story with believable elements of danger and surprise as well as a good dose of humor. The story is based on the Greek myths centering around Prometheus, half god/half Titan, who has been chained to a rock for 200 years as punishment for giving fire to the human race. Each day he is devoured by a ferocious raptor,the Fury, and left for dead only to come alive again the next morning. Aided by his friend Hercules, Prometheus escapes his bonds but is immediately caught by Zeus. Zeus offers him a chance at salvation if he can find a human hero. So Prometheus' quest begins.
A faster and less dense read than the Lightning Thief I think this series would be good for reluctant readers who need to be plunged immediately in to the action of the plot. I believe it may have been the one book one of my reluctant readers actually read the whole way through last year.

Titles in the series: The Fire Thief, Flight of the Fire Thief, and The Fire Thief Fights Back

If you like the humorous style of Deary, you may want to check out Terry Pratchett's books.

A Prolificness of Podcasts

2008-07-25T05:29:00.000-07:00

I just discovered two new podcasts about children's books from NCTE that everybody else probably already knew about. If you are neophyte like me, check these out!!!
Chatting About Books (for younger readers) and Text Messages (for pre-teen and teen readers).
Of course, there is also the fabulous Just One More Book podcast.

Poetry Friday

2008-07-25T03:21:00.000-07:00

Roundup is at A Year of Reading.

On returning from a six-week absence to my garden, I was greeted with the wild jungles of Borneo (my husband being completely useless anywhere past the back steps). So I have spent many a happy hour amongst the weeds - most of them taller and more stubborn than I -hacking away. I am fascinated by all the little creatures that live in my yard and will quite happily waste half an hour or so just watching one doing its thing. I try not to kill them unless they are eating something to death.

I don't think that I have ever consciously read any Roethke. Something about the name made me feel I wouldn't understand him. However, this poem is alive and squirming. Every word is a picture. I am a Roethke fan from now on.

Elvers are young transparent eels in post larval stage -FYI

The Minimal
by Theodore Roethke

I study the lives on a leaf: the little
Sleepers, numb nudgers in cold dimensions,
Beetles in caves, newts, stone-deaf fishes,
Lice tethered to long limp subterranean weeds,
Squirmers in bogs,
And bacterial creepers
Wriggling through wounds
Like elvers in ponds,
Their wan mouths kissing the warm sutures,
Cleaning and caressing,
Creeping and healing.

Poetry Friday

2008-07-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

The new Poet Laureate was announced yesterday and ignoramus that I am I had, of course, never heard of her. Thank goodness for poets.org. What I have read so far I like very much- short and punchy. This poem speaks to me as I recently had to exercise patience and it wasn't so easy and was, indeed, wider than I had envisioned. Patience is something people have a hard time with. My nine-year-old has none and I am trying hard to teacher her the joys of delayed satisfaction. Needless to say, I have little patience for this process!!!

Patience

by Kay Ryan
Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant
ranges and
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest
relish by
natives in their
native dress.
Who would
have guessed
it possible
that waiting
is sustainable—
a place with
its own harvests.
Or that in
time's fullness
the diamonds
of patience
couldn't be
distinguished
from the genuine
in brilliance
or hardness.

Round up is at Reading and Ruminating

Non-Fiction Monday

2008-07-12T23:19:00.000-07:00

Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations

by Georgina Howell

I could not put this book down once I got past the first few opening chapters. This woman was born at a time in England when women of her class were schooled to be wives, mothers and hostesses. Gertrude ended up unmarried, fiercely independent and a major player in middle-eastern politics during and after World War One. She helped give birth to the independent Arab nations of Iraq and Saudi Arabia after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire's control despite the British government's unwillingness to fulfill this promise. She spoke fluent Arabic and knew the political and social alliances of all the tribes in the area after having travelled extensively, often at great risk to her life.
This is also the story of a flesh and blood woman who is brought to her knees by a passion for a man she cannot marry and with whom she cannot give herself physically. Instead, she sets off on a desert voyage through what is now mostly modern-day Iraq that had meant the demise of most (male) travellers before her. This dangerous voyage is her homage to the man she cannot have. It is a defiant act of stubbornness and a breathtaking read!

This book is also a must read at this time as it explains the intricacies and complexities of tribal and religious alliances in the Middle East as well as the role of the West in the making of nations with which we now find ourselves inextricably connected.

This, obviously, is not a children's book, but I think her tale could be of interest to students and the accounts of her run-ins with Bedouin tribes could be read out loud. It certainly is an inspiring book for girls!

There is a complete online database of her photographs, letters, and diary entries at The Gertrude Bell Project.

Rating Children's Books

2008-07-12T22:38:00.000-07:00

The question about limiting access or somehow flagging books in our classrooms that may not be appropriate for certain children often comes up in discussions between teachers and bloggers. Here is an article from the British newspaper The Guardian about the proposal to rate children's books by age appropriateness. This has already begun to happen in the UK but there is much opposition from children's authors.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/childrenandteens/story/0,,2290537,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=10

Poetry Friday

2008-07-04T09:14:00.000-07:00

I'm back with an original inspired by my recent travels in South Carolina. I have missed Poetry Friday tremendously.

Spanish Moss
by Nicola Turner

There is no meaning
in the coming
and the going
of waves on the shore, they are automatic
But, the tern dives
with such precision
And the pelicans perform
breathtaking summeraults
My thoughts are weighed down by you
lightly
like lace curtains, or Spanish moss on live oaks
Beautiful in their mourning veils
filtering the sunlight

Round up is at http://insearchofgiants.blogspot.com

Poetry Friday

2008-04-18T05:09:00.000-07:00

Writer2b featured a poem a few weeks ago that several of us puzzled over. This made me think about the importance of "interpretation" in poetry, and the reason for reading a poem. Last week she posted a poem about poetry, The Secret by Denise Levertov, which got me thinking even more. This week I am offering up a poem by Don Paterson, a Scottish poet. He seems to be speaking directly to my thoughts.

"I would say that the poem exists in a space somewhere between the reader and the author, and in a sense belongs to neither, and both." -Don Paterson

Poetry by Don Paterson

In the same way that the mindless diamond keeps

one spark of the planet's early fires

trapped forever in its net of ice,

it's not love's later heat that poetry holds,

but the atom of the love that drew it forth

from the silence: so if the bright coal of his love

begins to smoulder, the poet hears his voice

suddenly forced, like a bar-room singer's -- boastful

with his own huge feeling, or drowned by violins;

but if it yields a steadier light, he knows

the pure verse, when it finally comes, will sound

like a mountain spring, anonymous and serene.

Beneath the blue oblivious sky, the water

sings of nothing, not your name, not mine.

Roundup is at The Well-Read Child

Basho

2008-04-17T17:06:00.000-07:00

Yeah! We have started poetry in 4th grade. We started with an "author study' of Douglas Florian, poet and illustrator. This proved to be a great hit. Florian doesn't use a lot of metaphor and simile; his poems are down to earth and short. As my students noted, some make you laugh, some make you sad, and some make you go "hmmm".

We turned to Joyce Sidman to go a little deeper. The class loved her mystery poems in Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow. I registered their enthusiasm for the guessing game (and the fact it really makes them pay attention to the words) and put up a poem each day without the title and asked "Who am I?"

For fun I've been reading Scranimals by Jack Prelutsky. They love it so much they almost stormed the classroom of another teacher on learning that it was locked in their classroom. No self-respecting teacher should be without this book. You don't need sub plans if you have Scranimals.

Today, we tackled Basho. My collaborating ELL teacher has a thing about haiku and brought this wonderful picture book to share with the class Grass Sandals : The Travels of Basho by Dawine Spivak and illustrated by Demi. This is a great introduction to the ultimate master of haiku. It tells of his travel by foot across Japan and how he was inspired to write his poems. It includes haikus by Basho and his successor Issa.

hibiscus flowers

munched up in the horse's mouth

eaten one by one
-Basho

winking in the night
through holes in my paper wall-
moon and the Milky Way
-Issa

Poetry Friday

2008-04-11T02:09:00.000-07:00

I was looking for a poem about sunflowers because it is April 11, and we have a Winter Storm Warning in Minnesota (six months of winter and counting), and spring break is gone, and testing begins next week. Yesterday, as the sleet shot at my windscreen, and the windshield wipers worked overtime, I tried to describe a field of sunflowers in France to my daughter.
Anyway, as you will see, I did not find that poem this time (though some of you may be able to point me in the right direction). I was intrigued by this title. Mostly because doing laundry reminds me of my mother, who loves nothing better than to hang white cotton sheets out to dry on the line on a windy day. This may be a well known poem but it is my first encounter and I am warmed by it. So many beautiful images. But best of all, the last two lines describes what I would like to be able to do.
Roundup is at A Wrung Sponge

Doing Laundry on Sunday
by Brigit Pegeen Kelly

So this is the Sabbath, the stillness
in the garden, magnolia
bells drying damp petticoats

over the porch rail, while bicycle
wheels thrum and the full-breasted tulips
open their pink blouses

for the hands that pressed them first
as bulbs into the earth.
Bread, too, cools on the sill,

and finches scatter bees
by the Shell Station where a boy
in blue denim watches oil

spread in phosphorescent scarves
over the cement. He dips
his brush into a bucket and begins

to scrub, making slow circles
and stopping to splash water on the children
who, hours before it opens,

juggle bean bags outside Gantsy’s
Ice Cream Parlor,
while they wait for color to drench their tongues,

as I wait for water to bloom
behind me—white foam, as of magnolias,
as of green and yellow

birds bathing in leaves—wait,
as always, for the day, like bread, to rise
and, with movement

imperceptible, accomplish everything.

Poetry Friday

2008-04-04T08:54:00.000-07:00

I am in Kentucky for Spring Break, so I thought a Wendell Berry poem would be appropriate. There are so many great lines, "Love someone who does not deserve it", "Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees", "Be joyful though you have considered all the facts".

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something

that won't compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

Listen to carrion - put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.

Lie down in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn't go. Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

Roundup is at Becky's Book Reviews

The Power of the Series

2008-04-02T07:25:00.000-07:00

My 8 year old is a series junky. Whenever I suggest a new title to her, the first question out of her mouth is, "Is it a series?" The second one is, "Does it involve animals and/or fairies?" If the answer is no, there is a high probability the book goes unread and she misses out on some fabulous fiction. She is currently reading books from five different series: Harry Potter, Warriors, Guardians of Ga'Hoole, Rainbow Magic, The Fairytale Detectives and she's waiting impatiently for the new Percy Jackson and the Olympians fourth installment. On a recent trip to the bookstore she picked up book one in The Faerie Wars Chronicles. I read series too when I was younger but they never had the same staggering number of titles e.g. Dark is Rising, Chronicles of Narnia. Even the Potter series at seven books is a lightweight compared to the others. There are currently 63 titles in the Rainbow Magic series, 15 Warriors titles (plus guides and graphic novels), and title number 14 comes in October for the Guardians. The problem is that it takes my daughter about thirty minutes to read a Rainbow Magic book and a day for the Warriors and Guardians. So, obviously there is some compelling story telling going on there but is there much else? Mind you, I did learn that there is such a thing as burrowing owls when she read me a chapter.

I have noticed this trend with my sixth graders, too. We've got the Eragon Trilogy, Artemis Fowl, Maximum Ride, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Clique, Uglies Trilogy (which has a fourth book????), His Dark Materials Trilogy , Ranger's Apprentice, The Underland Chronicles, The Twilight Saga, The Looking Glass Wars, Charlie Bone, The Bartimaeus Trilogy and need I go on?

Serial success is so abundant that writers that already have one start others. James Patterson is following on the success of Maximum Ride with The Dangerous Days of Daniel X. The three ladies who write Warriors have a new series Seekers about bears. Other writers, flushed with success, suddenly find the fact that they originally declared their series a trilogy rather inconvenient, so they have to call the new books something else. Philip Pullman is writing a prequel to his series about young Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison called Once Upon a Time in the North and in 2003 he wrote a "stand alone novel" Lyra's Oxford. Pullman calls these "amuse-bouche—you know, those little French hors d’œuvres served at the beginning of a meal to whet the appetite. Each one is a short story, really, intended to divert and entertain." He also plans to write more stand alone novels about Lyra the next is The Book of Dust.

Publishers also know they are on to a good thing. You can count down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the next book in your favorite series come out (see widget). Then there are the websites. Some of them are really fun. I found out what clan I would be in if I was a Warrior Cat, which house I'd be in at Hogwarts, and what my daemon would be if I lived in Lyra's world. I think that this topic will have to be a separate post.

It's hard when you come to the end of a book you love. You mope around for days and there's a big hole inside. Today's youth don't have to deal with that pain. There's always another book in the series, the trilogy turns out to be five books, or the characters turn up in another series. Even if they're not great literature (excluding Pullman of course), they've got kids hooked. Even with all the other distractions - I spent two hours on my daughter's Nintendo DS today trying to light a virtual fire with virtual twigs -they're reading!!!! I really think JK Rowling, much as I hate to admit it, started a mini-revolution. She's worth more than the Queen of England, and that is a revolution in itself.

Poetry Friday

2008-03-28T17:42:00.000-07:00

This was read at my grandmother's funeral. My family comes from a northern shipbuilding town on the North Sea. Every weekend, every vacation was spent at the beach. I'm not talking lounging around in bikinis. Our beaches, though sometimes balmy, are usually windswept, lonely, and breathtaking. The water is freezing cold and the color of precious jewels. The sand is a million shades of gold and the air cleans your lungs and blows away petty human worries. The last time I spoke to my grandmother was at the beach. She died unexpectedly at seventy, having survived depression, an abusive husband, a controlling mother, and World War II. I still cannot read this without weeping.

I Must Go Down to the Sea by John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Round up is at http://cuentesitos.blogspot.com/

Falling from Grace by Gail Godwin

2008-03-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

I got in to the bath with this book and emerged one and a half hours later wrinkled and cold. So, definitely a page turner. Two sisters, Annie and Grace, are spending the winter at the beach and their favorite game is a more complex version of hide and seek called tracking. The sisters get separated from their father and the weather and the tide turns on them. Annie makes it up the cliff to safety but Grace slips and disappears. Meanwhile, fourteen-year-old Kip gets caught in the storm too and finds the girls' backpack floating in the bay. He answers the girls' cell phone and becomes caught up in the frantic search, becoming a suspect himself as the days go by and no body is found. The same night a young boy disappears in to the churning seas and a drunk has-been rock star haunts the beach. Godwin spins a suspenseful tale that asks questions about what kind of people we trust. Godwin hails from Australia and is an editor of children's books. This is her first teen novel.

Poetry Friday

2008-03-21T05:28:00.000-07:00

Roundup is at Wild Rose Reader this week.

It's been a week of poetry chez moi. I forced my sixth graders to memorize Jabber woc ky by Lewis Carroll (we originally read it as an exercise in parts of speech). They moaned and groaned and tried to find "brillig" in the dictionary. "What is a mome rath?" In the end they loved it and could be found reciting it to each other at recess. They want to memorize another one- with the stipulation that it make sense.
It is snowing again in Minnesota, and I feel like peonies will never flower this year. I love the juxtaposition of the images in this poem. I didn't expect the broken cake at the end.

Pink and White

by Deborah Garrison

Peonies are the only flower I care for

and when I saw them from the bus window

yesterday, tumbled and heavy along

a fence, fully exploded, nodding

at the ground, hanging their heads but not

yet spoiled, I remembered

a summer (maybe seven years

ago, or was it ten?) I wasn't sure

our love would come again

and here I am, almost

kissing the grass like that,

bursting and rich, cracked

all over like broken cake-

makes you cry but still sweet

Living Life on the Edge (of my sofa)

2008-03-18T04:01:00.000-07:00

I have been living dangerously this past week and experiencing some events I hope never happen. I know its so cliche, but I am once again reminded of why we read. Jane Yolen and Bruce Coville took me up a mountainside with a millennialist sect, hoping to be saved by God from the fire that would end the Earth. Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life as We Knew It raced me around a supermarket frantic and scared as the moon, knocked out of orbit, unleashed tsunamis and played havoc with power supplies. All that and conferences, too!

Armageddon Summer is supposed to be a love story among other things. Two teenagers, Marina and Jed, come together as they watch the world around them fall apart but not because of God's wrath. Rather, it is human nature - fear, doubt, selfishness, and self-righteousness- that sparks the tragedy on the mountainside and leaves twenty dead. For me, the romance seemed superfluous to what was really a fascinating journey in to the hearts and minds of a group of people desperate to believe in something that would wipe away the mess of their worldly existence so far. Marina's mother's marriage is falling apart and Jed's mother recently walked out on both him and his father. These disillusioned adults find something to trust and believe in in the form of Reverend Beeson and his Believers. "I stood by you all these years and believe me it hasn't been easy," Marina's mother writes to her husband. "But there's a hole inside me. I want to believe in something. Something bigger than me. Once it was you I believed in. That's a long time gone." Ironically, by giving themselves up to Beeson's Flock they abandon the people who need them and believe in them the most - their children. The end of the novel was quite a shock for me. The believers barricade themselves in to their mountain retreat using electric fences and guards with guns. As the appointed day approaches, panic stricken "outsiders" demand to enter the compound and the day of judgement ends with death and disillusionment for the Believers. I would have liked to see where the authors would have taken the story if simply nothing had happened on that day. No fire and brimstone; no saving or cleansing. What then?

Life as we Knew It is a slow burn. It begins with the catastrophic alteration of the moon's orbit and life never gets back to normal. Miranda and her family are spared the tsunamis of the coastal states and the earthquakes of the mid west, but they must struggle daily to survive as food, gas, oil, and water become increasingly sparse. Family and its survival become the number one priority. This is not a story of a community coming together in times of crisis. It is Darwin's theory of survival made real. Would this be the reality? I didn't love this book but I appreciated its honesty and simplicity.

Poetry Friday

2008-03-14T04:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry, no Dylan. I'm going to put my neck out and give you an original poem. It's not quite Dylan, but there is a little protest in there. However, I can give you a list of my Dylan connections: I live in Minnesota; I have seen both Bob Dylan and his son play live (separately); my daughter is named Cate after Cate Blanchett, who played Bob Dylan; wind is my favorite element.

Roundup is at Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup

I went to war and all I got was this lousy license plate

Driving home I see
The car before me has a license plate
P.O.W
And I wonder what could possibly
Make up for all that
CRAP
No waiting on aisle five
Served first at the bar
The first snowdrop and the last leaf to turn
The comfortable chair and the unrestricted view
Tuscan summers
Peeled grapes
Meteor showers and lunar eclipses
Bread straight from the oven
Upgrades and special offers
The parking space closest to the door
Belgian chocolate
Uninterrupted sleep
Wireless Internet and a big ol’ flat screen TV
Unconditional love
Heck, I don’t know
How do you prove it at the DMV
Show them your emotional scars
I can’t even imagine

A New Generation of Writers

2008-03-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

My district long ago adopted writing and reading workshops championed by Lucy Caulkins and Katie Wood Ray. The cornerstone of the writing workshop is that it is grounded in personal experience. For the most part I am in total agreement with this philosophy. However, I cannot wholly commit to an idiology that would have quashed the following story arc as related to me by my 8 year old daughter:

Daughter: So, Jade is writing this story about a cat that is missing one leg.
Me: Really. How did the cat lose its leg?
Daughter: Well, it had this thing hung around its neck. You know, those things on the top of cans.
Me: Pause Ring pulls?
Daughter: No, you know, you use that thing and you take off the top of the can. What is that?
Me: Kinda' getting it but still thinking rationally You mean the cat has a can top hanging around its neck?
Daughter: Yeah, and it has jagged edges.
Me: Still trying to remain in the land of logic So who put it there? Its owner?
Daughter: No. The cat is a stray. It just liked the can top so wears it.
Me :Trying to imagine how a cat would punch a whole in the can lid, put it on a string and then tie a knot in it And...
Daughter: Well, the cat was walking and a car came by in the road and knocked the cat to the ground. The tin can top rolled over her body and chopped her leg off.
Me: Wow, really? That is a really interesting plot line.

Poetry Friday

2008-03-07T03:34:00.000-08:00

Roundup today is at the simple and the ordinary.

Macneice was an Irish poet and contemporary of W.H. Auden.

"Poetry in my opinion must be honest before anything else and I refuse to be 'objective' or clear-cut at the cost of honesty."

Prayer Before Birth by Louis Macneice

I am not yet born; O hear me.

Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.

I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me

With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me

For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me, my treason engendered by traitors beyond me, my life when they murder by means of my hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me

In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom and the beggar refuses my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,

Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me

With strength against those who would freeze my humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton, would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with one face, a thing, and against all those who would dissipate my entirety, would blow me like thistledown hither and thither or hither and thither like water held in the hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.

Otherwise kill me.

The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch+

2008-03-04T16:06:00.000-08:00

Maybe Pseudonymous Bosch was just shocked by my age, but it took a long time for me to be trusted by the UK website for The Name of This Book is Secret. I actually sat there and thought of all the reasons I might not be trusted as the little, blue, pulsating oblong at the bottom of the screen inched toward completion. I mean, I can be trusted, right? I didn't lie about my age. Has modern technology come so far that it can tell just by the way I type that I am actually totally useless at keeping a secret?

So it seems is the narrator of The Name of This Book is Secret. At first I thought it was all a bit gimmicky. The first chapter is Xed out completely and then you get a pep talk on how dangerous the book is and do you really want to venture forth blah, blah, blah. However, once there was actual plot, I was hooked. This reads a little like a Lemony Snicket book. Personally I find Snicket annoying, interrupting too much and trying overly hard to be clever. Bosch is less intrusive.
The plot is fast moving and not all that predictable. Cassandra, a survivalist and doomsayer (thus the name), often hangs out with her adopted (gay?) grandfathers in their antique shop. A real estate agent who specializes in clearing out and selling the houses of the recently deceased brings in a pile of junk from a magician's house. Needless to say the magician died in mysterious circumstances, and Cassandra soon finds herself mixed up in a dastardly plot to uncover a terrible secret that will, should Pseudonymous Bosh not be pulling our legs, change the reader's life forever.

I could relate to Cass. Her favorite weather condition is wind on a sunny day, as is mine. She is growing up without her father, who was struck by lightning. Mine wasn't struck by anything but probably could have benefited from an electrical charge or two. Max Ernst's (Cass' diminutive and verbose sidekick) parents are so divided that their house is split in two, with Max's bedroom straddling both sides. I found this a rather apt image for the way that many divorced parents insist on dividing their child equally between them, thereby making their child in need of therapy for most of their adult life. Bosch does a nice job of fleshing out his characters with these details and saves his book and its heroes from becoming Snicketesque.

Other reviews of The Name of this Book is Secret: Book Kid Reviews, Kidsread.com, Seeing Indigo

Slice of Life Story Day 4

2008-03-04T15:44:00.000-08:00

Please note I skipped day 3. As a woman who has always known her limitations, I hereby resign from the Slice of Life Challenge and admit defeat. I don't see the point of writing "blah" and I don't have the time to write "wow". I don't know how you all do it.

Slice of Life Story Day 2

2008-03-02T16:28:00.001-08:00

I decided to make Steak and Kidney Pie today without the kidney. I ate it often growing up in the UK but always skirted around the kidney. Now that I am 38, I am able to make the radical and almost heretical decision to leave the kidney out. No kidneys! I am making steak pie. So, I am a rather haphazard cook. I forgot to buy an onion and so spent a very frustrating twenty minutes trying to individualy peel sixteen button onions that I found ferreted away in my pantry. The green thing in the picture is an ingenious device that peels garlic. Button onions are also small and covered in layers of fine papery skin, so I thought it would work. Mmm hmmm. Feeling a little pressured ( I didn't bother to read the recipe beforehand and so discovered that I had left and hour and a half to make a pie that takes three), I totally forgot the leeks (which aren't in the original recipe, but did I mention that age has made me bold?). I know I should have washed the leeks thoroughly because of dirt and grit, but time was my enemy. After a frenzy of slicing, leeks with grit went in to the pot. Next came herbs. To my delight, I discovered that the thyme I had bought was still attached to the soil it was growing in. Super! I dashed outside and collected my potting materials from the shed. So now I am potting plants and cooking at the same time.

Next came the pastry, which was really the whole reason I decided to make this in the first place. I have fond memories of the delicious crust on my Nana's rabbit pies and, for some strange reason, my mother sent me my weight in shredded suet along with my last shipment of tea bags (but that's another story). The crust went pretty smoothly and before long I had a fairly normal looking steak pie in the oven. Hurrah. Now I just have to persuade the rest of my British-cusine-phobic family to eat it.

Ferret Island by Richard W. Jennings

2008-03-01T14:24:00.000-08:00

I think that Jennings and I may have the same sense of humor. He sounds like the inside of my head when he writes. However, I don't think that a story about giant ferrets has ever entered my conscious or subconscious mind, and in that sense, Jennings and I differ greatly.

This book is so weird that it is hard to describe. I fear that if I tell you it is about a runaway stranded on a sand island in the Mississippi who discovers a plot to destroy McDonalds by a one-eared famous writer and a hoard of giant ferrets, you will be put off. Unless you are a certain kind of 10-14 year old boy, who, I imagine, would be rivited.

So, yeah, that is what it is about. If you are happy to willingly suspend your disbelief, then you can sit back and enjoy the absurd adventures of a fourteen year old boy called William Alexander Madison Lee Cooper Finn. You can also learn a lot about ferrets. For example, if needed, a ferret can be worn. When ferrets steal Will's clothes (ferrets are mischevious), he has to quickly improvise.

"It's ironic, but "thinking fast" doesn't involve thinking at all...Perhaps this explains why, when Julia walked into the bedroom, she found me dressed in floppy tennis shoes and a weasel. The long furry Jim was draped around my neck like a feather boa, his tail clasped securely between his teeth. "

Slice of Life Story

2008-03-01T13:10:00.000-08:00

There's been a bad smell following me around the house for several weeks, and it is always accompanied by the clitter clatter of nails on hardwood floors. My dog, Thisbe, needs a bath and I seem to have lost the battle of wills against my husband, meaning I am going to have to do it. So, I quietly tiptoe up to the bathroom and start the water. Thisbe is in her usual place on the upstairs sofa oblivious to the traumatic experience just around the corner. She starts to shake the minute I lift her. The shaking continues all through bath time. When wet, she resembles a drowned weasel and her eyes become brown pools of endless suffering and sorrow. Her tail, normally so perky, limply curls under her. Her once fluffy beard hangs like torn curtains.

Thisbe is not happy.

I lift her up and shake her a little to get rid of some of the water. She stares in to my eyes with a look of resigned humiliation. Et tu, brute?

Now comes the fun part. Once the bath is over, Thisbe and I perform a sort of modern dance with towels. She is bent on shaking herself to the point that my bathroom walls become covered in a thin layer of wet hair. I am determined that she will not. So begins our duet. Thisbe is a caped assassin, slipping through my legs and making for the door. I am the clumsy pursuer, pirouetting on wet linoleum.

Finally I judge it safe to release her, and Thisbe emerges from her cocoon of towels with a mischievous glint in her now sparkling eyes. All is forgiven. I am loved again. Game on. She hurtles down the stairs almost taking out my daughter who turns and follows, whooping with joy. Thisbe rounds the corner in to the dining room with the grace of a thoroughbred and dashes in to the kitchen, does a 180 degree turn in mid air and exits the kitchen, rocketing past me and leaps from one rug to another in her sprint to the living room. Three times she does this circuit, followed closely by my amused eight year old, who has been part of this running of the bulls since she could toddle.

Finally, Thisbe is ready for one on one combat. I crouch low and appease my sin by being gently nipped by the damp smelling hairball that is my dog. The hand to jaw fight could last for ever, so I signal my surrender by prostrating myself at her paws. Not yet satisfied that I have paid dearly enough for my betrayal, Thisbe turns her back to me. Scratch it and we'll call it quits.

Want to find out more about the Slice of Life Challenge? Head over to Two Writing Teachers.

Poetry Friday

2008-02-28T16:39:00.000-08:00

Poetry Roundup is at Writing and Ruminating this week.

This is one of the most erotic poems I know and sends a shiver down my spine every time I read it.
Duffy is one of the most famous modern British poets and was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1955. The poem is dedicated to Judith Radstone, whose 2001 obituary described her as a "radical bibliophile devoted to the worlds of poetry and protest". The poem came from a conversation the two had about the tradition of ladies' maids wearing their misstresses pearls in order to improve their lustre.

Warming Her Pearls
for Judith Radstone

by Carol Ann Duffy

Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
bids me wear them, warm then, until evening
when I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them
round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,

resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering
each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.

She's beautiful. I dream about her
in my attic bed; picture her dancing
with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent
beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.

I dust her shoulders with a rabbit's foot,
watch the soft blush seep through her skin
like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass
my red lips part as though I want to speak.

Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see
her every movement in my head...Undressing,
taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching
for the case, slipping naked into bed, the way

she always does...And I lie here awake,
knowing the pearls are cooling even now
in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night
I feel their absence and I burn.

Butter Sculptures, Sexy Coral, and Ibsen

2008-02-23T14:13:00.000-08:00

I don't normally write about goings on in my daily life, naturally assuming you would have no interest. However, today you will be subjected to a snapshot of my exciting life because it involves no gossip-obsessed preteens massacring the English language, and only my mother-in-law reads this any way. I must have done something deliciously good in a former life because today I got to be in the same room as four writers I adore. Two of the writers were headlining the 2008 Annual Hubb's Children's Literature Conference. The other two just happened to be there. I was standing in line to register and the person behind me was Joyce Sidman, author of many fabulous poetry books, including the Cybil award winner This is Just to Say. She was genuinely shocked that I recognized her. When I got in to the auditorium John Coy was there. He wrote one of my absolute favorite books, Two Old Potatoes and Me. First of all Jane Yolen gave a talk with her son, Adam Stemple, on collaborating. Despite the fact one of them lives in Minneapolis and the other in Scotland (sometimes), they have written several children's books together. Today they talked a lot about the process of writing Troll Bridge. They both had very different view points about how they arrived at the story of a boy-band being kidnapped by trolls in northern Minnesota. The story ended up being a mixture of Norwegian folklore and Minnesotan kitsch (see butter sculpture, which is only weird if you don't live in Minnesota or Iowa). This all had the feeling of deja-vu for me as I had spent three hours the previous evening watching Peer Gynt at the Guthrie (see troll, which is what you look like after sitting through three hours of Ibsen). The second author was Lisa Westberg Peters, author of one of my other favorite picture books, Our Family Tree. Today she talked about writing science poetry. She shared several of her poems from her collection of geological poems, Earthshake. During her talk, Peters put up an article about how coral reproduces during the full moon and challenged us to write a poem. Yolen, who is apparantly a workaholic, just whipped one up right there and then. I was in kidlit heaven (see bug, which is what you get when you google the image "kidlit heaven").

Poetry Friday

2008-02-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

I discovered Mary Oliver in the New Yorker. Why hadn't I heard of her? Her meticulous attention to the smallest things in nature spoke directly to me and, I don't know why, but she seemed "British" in this respect. She is for me an American Ted Hughes with the added advantage of being less obtuse. She is one of the few poets whose individual collections I have actually purchased. Right now, with the temperature at -11 with a -29 wind chill, I need to see roses and trumpet vines and the frantic beating of exotic wings.

Hummingbird Pauses at the Trumpet Vine
by Mary Oliver

Who doesn’t love
roses, and who
doesn’t love the lilies
of the black ponds

floating like flocks
of tiny swans, and of course, the flaming
trumpet vine

where the hummingbird comes
like a small green angel, to soak
his dark tongue
in happiness -

and who doesn’t want
to live with the brisk
motor of his heart
singing

like a Schubert
and his eyes
working and working like those days of rapture,
by Van Gogh in Arles?

Look! for most of the world
is waiting
or remembering -
most of the world is time

when we’re not here,
not born yet, or died
-a slow fire
under the earth with all
our dumb wild blind cousins
who also
can’t even remember anymore
their own happiness

-Look! and then we will be
like the pale cool
stones, that last almost
forever.

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean

2008-02-18T05:04:00.000-08:00

Geraldine McCaughrean has won just about every award for children's books there is except the Newbery. She was also given the honor of being selected to write the official sequel to Peter Pan, Peter Pan in Scarlet. This year she was awarded the Printz for The White Darkness, a book I almost gave up on after four chapters. I am so glad I didn't. In fact, after chapter five, the book never left my hands. I finished it in one sitting (it helped to be bed ridden with a cold at the time).
This is the story of an extremely plucky fourteen year old girl, Sym. She has an obsession with Antartica encouraged by her "uncle" Victor, who has plied her with books and documentaries on the "The Ice" since she was a child. Sym is particularly mesmerized by the story of the doomed 1910 British expedition of Captain Scott. This is not necessarily so outlandish. It is a well known story to British school children. Personally, while feeling sorry for the men who all perished in the attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole, I have little admiration for their sacrifice. What was supposed to be first and foremost a scientific expedition became a pride-fueled race to plant a British flag on the frozen wastes before a rival Norwegian could claim the honor. Scott was accompanied by a man named Captain Laurence "Titus" Oates, who is attributed with the famous line, "I'm going just going outside and may be sometime," as he exited to his death. Oates was heralded as a hero; he was very ill and was slowing down the party, so he committed suicide in order that his teammates could go on without him.
Sym has taken the heroic figure of Oates and combined him with the handsome figure of the actor who portrayed him to create an imaginary friend who fills the emptiness in her heart left by her father's messy death and her own social awkwardness. Oates fills the pages of McCaughrean's book, too and it is a tribute to her skill as a writer that he is as real to us as he is to Sym. In fact, he and Sym end up being the only real characters in a novel full of people who are not who they say.
Uncle Victor, for me, was a phony the minute he stepped in to the story and the clumsy bait and switch of the first two chapters was what nearly had me giving up. Victor gives an innocent enough invitation to a free weekend in Paris to Sym and her mother, but mother discovers her passport is missing just as the train doors close, and Victor and Sym leave without her. In Paris, however, Victor is not interested in any of the usual sights and suggests they travel on, "I thought somewhere a bit farther afield. A jaunt. Now that we're here. What say?" His jaunt turns out to be a trip to Antartica on a package tour for the thrill-seeking rich--only Victor is seeking something more than a thrill and Sym is part of his delusional and dangerous plan. After Victor drugs the entire tour group, blows up an aeroplane, and steals an all-terrain vehicle, Sym finds herself heading on to the Ross Ice Shelf, "Did you know: Some of the ice is half a mile thick? Except where it isn't". In the vehicle with them is a Norweigen filmmaker and his son. Except that they aren't.
What follows is a series of life-threatening and breathtaking adventures. Once Victor starts the engine and heads out in to the unknown, there is no way you can put this book down until the ride is over two hundred and twenty pages later. McCaughrean leads us in to the cold, blinding beauty of Antartica and we experience through Sym's mesmerized gaze, "the immensity of wrinkled whiteness stretching east to the edge of forever".
Just FYI: There are a couple of veiled references to sex in the book. Sym wonders what it would have been like to make love to Oates and Sym is worried about one of her friends who claims to have met a thirty-year old man on the internet.

Bone by Bone by Bone by Tony Johnston

2008-02-14T15:16:00.000-08:00

I have had a hard time coming up with an opening line for this review. Usually these lines come to me in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. However, despite the abundance of sleepless nights, no witty/poignant/shocking opening line has surfaced. I think that it is because this story is so rich and evokes so many reactions and questions that it is hard to settle on one angle. Set in small town Tennessee during the 1950s Jim Crow era*, this is the tale of a truly beautiful friendship between two boys of the same age but different skin colors. It’s a story that is part “Long Way from Chicago”, full of colorful stories of the goings on of the town's inhabitants, and part “To Kill a Mockingbird”, riddled with injustice, hate, and a painful loss of innocence.

Both boys, Malcolm who is black and David who is white, are idealistic and uncompromising in their love for one another. David in particular takes a long time to fully understand the unmaleable nature of the society he lives in and the mine field that he creates for himself and his best friend. David doesn’t hesitate to insist that Malcolm try out for the local all-white little league baseball team; it is a hard learning curve. "What's wrong?" David asks the crestfallen Malcolm. "Coach wouldn't let me try out. Told me, 'Git off this field, nigger.'" Malcolm had to learn early the realities that David can't accept, "Niggers don't get to do what white boys can," he said. "you knew that." "I didn't! Honest!" shouted David.

David's father barely tolerates his son playing with Malcolm but knows he cannot stop him; however, he instutes a "No-Nigger" rule and swares that he will kill Malcolm if he as much sets foot on their front porch, "He formed his words with such calm, I knew he'd planned this, cold as ice". When Malcolm is attacked by a group of men, David's father is among the crowd.

David's father can be cruel and calculating one minute and loving and understanding the next. You hate him, then think he’s charming all in the same paragraph. He is extremely complex and well written and then sometimes not quite believable. Needless to say, he’s based on a true person. The author, Tony Johnston, addresses the reader before the story begins:

Though some people may be offended by it, I do not apologize for the raw language used in this book. It is my father's language and reflects his way of thinking that has troubled me my whole life.

In a River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean wrote that he was "haunted by waters.' I am haunted by my father.

David's father will not have a person of color in his house but was raised by a black mammy, whom he adores. This is the one part of the story that I had a hard time with. Tinney, the mammy, arrives at David's front door and is brought in and even embraced by his father. I know that racism is never a simple thing. Blacks and whites grow up in the South together in small communitites and their relationships are often compex and puzzling, but the intense hatred for blacks the father expresses at other times is so venomous this one exception stands out. There are even veiled hints throughout the book that the father may actually be involved in the Klan.

This book would still be a good read, but a harder one, without the comic relief. The matriarch of the family, Gold Ma is no Grandma Dowdel; however, the scene where she insists on being carried in her bed to a wake is hilarious. There's also the mysterious Civil War arm that David and Malcolm hunt for and the wedding with The Great Toaster Shoot. In the end though, this novel is about choice. Choose to stay and accept the status quo or choose to leave in the hope that there is a better way. David, being white, has that choice. Malcolm does not.

I leave you with the dedication to the book which sums up the complexity of the issue:

For Daddy.

Some wounds never heal.*

Interesting aside: Tony Johnston is the author of many children's books including The Quilt Story, The Barn Owls, and The Worm Family.

Poetry Friday

2008-02-12T15:15:00.000-08:00

I tried to find some information about the poet for this entry, but it seems that Naomi Lazard is a mystery. When googled, she turns up as a translator for Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a celebrated Pakistani Urdu poet. The first part encapsulates the frustration I feel when governement, states, or school districts suddenly decide they are going to get rid of what is working and try a new program.

In Answer to Your Query
by Naomi Lezard

We are sorry to inform you
the item you ordered

is no longer being produced.

It has not gone out of style

nor have people lost interest in it.

In fact, it has becomeone of our most desired products.

Its popularity is still growing.

Orders for it come in

at an ever increasing rate.

However, a top-level decision

has caused this product

to be discontinued forever.

Instead of the item you ordered

we are sending you something else.

It is not the same thing,

nor is it a reasonable facsimile.

It is what we have in stock,

the very best we can offer.

If you are not happy with this substitution

let us know as soon as possible.

As you can imagine
we already have quite an accumulation

of letters such as the one

you may or may not write.

To be totally fair

we respond to these complaints

as they come in.

Yours will be filed accordingly,

answered in its turn.

The Entertainer and the Dybbuk by Sid Fleischmann

2008-02-09T14:06:00.000-08:00

It has taken a long time for Fleischmann to write a Holocaust story--long enough for him to write more than sixty other books. I can understand his reluctance. I lived in Poland for almost a year a short train ride away from Auschwitz. I never visited. The train would stop there on the way to Krakow, and I would watch that notorious building glide slowly past the window as we neared the station. The ghosts of the Jewish dead are everywhere there. I felt the horror of it on my skin and in the air I breathed. I visited the Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter in Krakow where Schindler's List was filmed. I read Elie Wiesel with tears streaming down my cheeks. But to Auschwitz I could not go.
Fleischmann does not set his tale in the death camps or the crowded ghettos but in recently reopened entertainment halls found in the skeletal remains of post-war European cities. A second-rate ventriloquist finds himself possessed by a dybbuk, the spirit of a murdered Jewish child. The dybbuk makes the ventriloquist famous, becoming the voice of his wooden sidekick. As Europe tries to forget the war -"The war's history. Yesterday's newspapers" protests the ventriloquest - the dybbuk has unfinished business, "Not for me. I placed a want ad. Let me look at the audience". The dybbuk is using the ventriloquist's rise to fame as a vehicle to hunt down the SS officer who killed him.
Despite being a short book, The Entertainer is funny, tragic, and thought provoking. The dybbuk is a self-assured, witty, and intelligent boy who does not play the role of pathetic victim. He cries at night and calls the name of his murdered sister, but he hunts his prey with a shrewd and unrelenting determination. He is much stronger than the almost hapless Freddie he possesses.
Freddie learns more about the world and himself through his friendship with the dybbuk. He is "dimly aware" of the atrocities commited by the Nazis, but like many, Freddie cannot comprehend the extent "But so many?". He learns that the dead boy once saved his life but still cannot allow himself to be possessed by a Jew, "When I was growing up, I never saw a Jew. I thought they all wore horns and tails". When the dybbuk refuses to perform on Friday nights and Saturdays, people begin to think he is Jewish. His fiance is let down when he tells her he is not actually Jewish, "How disappointing! Polly exclaimed. Can you imagine me dragging a Jewish husband home to Alabama. Wow!". A Jew for her is an exotic being complete with charming accessories, "Don't you think we'll look heavenly under the canopy thing?". Freddie moves from being an uninformed anti-semitic to someone well versed in Jewish life. When he mets Polly's uncle, the well-known racist of the family, Freddie is surprised to find himself offended when the uncle refuses to shake hands.
Fleischmann was finally ready to write his story of the Holocaust when he discovered a way to incorporate the Jewish sense of humor through the dybbuk and thus a glimmer of hope. However, for me, it is Freddie's slow dawning of friendship, admiration and understanding for the dybbuk which allows Fleischmann to let in "the occasional shaft of sunlight" to yet another dark chapter of man's inhumanity to man.

A Resurrection of Magic Book 1: Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey

2008-02-09T11:43:00.000-08:00

One of my absolute favorite books of 2007. It was a finalist for the National Book Award but got beat by Sherman Alexie's equally-fantastic-in- another-way book. After I read it, I looked up Duey's other titles. She's known for the early chapter book series, The Unicorn's Secret (which I immediately went out and bought for some of my struggling 4th grade readers). I'm thinking this is a big step in another direction.
The story moves between two main characters, Sadima and Hahp, separated by generations but connected by their involvement with two wizards and the academy they create. This is no Harry Potter wanna be - trust me. Duey created a world in which apprentices master magic or die. Frightened and forgotten boys starve to death slowly in an underground maze, unable to conjur the food they need. Hahp has talent and manages to survive, but he must watch others consistently fail and grow thinner until they finally no longer appear for class. Sadima, generations earlier, becomes housekeeper to two young men who are attempting to bring back magic that was long ago outlawed and whose language exists only in the oral stories and songs of a few people. These two men, Somiss and Franklin, are the wizards who create the hellish academy where Hahp is trapped. The first is a sadistic fanatic who will stop at nothing to resurrect magic, the second is an idealist who thinks he can be the reason to his friend's extremism (think George Bush and Tony Blair). As the book progresses, and we realize that the apprentices really will be allowed to starve to death, it becomes clear that Franklin has failed in his mission to temper the cruelty of Somiss. In the earlier narrative, Sadima stays with the increasingly terrifying Somiss because of her growing love for Franklin. Both men are instructors at the academy Hahp attends but gentle Sadima is nowhere to be seen. The affection between Franklin and Sadima is the only warmth in a dark and disturbing narrative written with fierce restraint. In Sadima's final chapter she makes a chilling discovery that must surely destroy her faith in Franklin. Duey almost destroyed my sanity as I realized I would have to wait until she wrote the next book to see if I am right. I immediately insisted that some of my sixth graders read it so we could suffer together. We're still waiting.

Poetry Friday

2008-02-08T05:52:00.000-08:00

This is one of my mother-in-law's favorite poems. She's a workaholic.

To be of use
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museumsbut you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan

2008-02-02T14:11:00.000-08:00

I should have brushed up on my Greek mythology before plunging in to this, but even with a vague memory of my reading of The Greek Myths by Robert Graves, I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in the trilogy, The Lightning Thief. A sixth grade student introduced me to these mythical adventures, and now they’ve gone the rounds of all the discerning fantasy fans in the class. My third grade daughter hasn’t put it down since she picked it up.
Percy Jackson is a sixth grade student who has moved from to school to school. A victim of Attention Deficit Disorder and dyslexia, trouble seems to follow him wherever he goes. He’s trying hard to make it work at his latest school when his math teacher turns in to a shriveled hag with claws and yellow fangs and tries to kill him. Now, there are probably a few of my students who would like to claim the same has happened to them-but that’s another story. Percy must go on his own odyssey in order to find out who he is and why half the monsters of Ancient Greece are trying to kill him. Percy is a likeable character, and I appreciate the message that Percy’s problems at school are the result of his demi-divinity. Wouldn’t it be great if that were true ! There is a strong female heroine in the story too, Annabeth, daughter of Athena and a good person to have on your side on a trip to the Underworld.
You learn a lot about Greek mythology when you read this. However, I would recommend keeping some kind of reference book handy (or this great website The Theoi Project) as Riordan seasons the story with more gods and monsters than my mother-in-law puts salt on her cereal, and trust me, she uses a lot of salt.
Other titles in the trilogy : Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth (5/08)
Interesting aside : Riordan has been hired to develop a new series by Scholastic that will be they hope will be the successor to Harry Potter.
Click here to go to Riordan's blog.

Epic by Conor Kostick

2008-02-02T07:54:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across this book on an Amazon list and put it on a wish list. If you have children who love to play those live fantasy online games like World of Warcraft, or even kids who would like you to let them play (I've got one of those), this is a must. I am going to force my brother-in-law to read it. He's a guild leader, whatever that is, but it seems to involve staying up late at night and arguing about guild colors with people from Alaska. Who knew? Kostick was a designer for one of the first live fantasy role-playing games. Now you know who to blame for the fact your friends/child/relatives spend all their time in a world where riding around on jabberwockies and battling dark elves is as normal as going to the supermarket.
The premise is that the human race, having destroyed their own planet, now live on a new Earth in a medieval like existence. However, there is neither king nor aristocracy but a system of government which pits individuals against a central Committee in a fantasy computer game that determines everything called Epic. Violence is illegal and all conflicts and disagreements are resolved with virtual battles. In order to survive in the real world, players must do so in the game world. Citizens of New Earth spend most of their free time hooked up to the game trying to increase the worth of their player so that they can compete for better jobs and basic necessities in the real world. It sounds like a plan, but as is often the case with good plans, human greed and thirst for power eventually subvert the original intention of the system. The Committee becomes an inflexible group of cronies reviving a system of privilege and entitlement. Their players in the game amass so much wealth, weapons, strength and magic spells that they are unbeatable.
I know you're supposed to root for the destruction of Epic and see it for the true evil it is, but I am afraid I was rather sad to see it go. I was seduced by the fantastical world it offered and began to understand the allure of World of Warcraft. I mean, wash the dishes in real life or ride around wielding the Bastard Sword of the Moon scaring wood elves in a fantasy world. Hmmm...let me think.
Sequel: Saga (5/08)

Poetry Friday - Bloody Men

2008-02-02T06:27:00.000-08:00

This has always been one of my favorite poems and describes, I believe, many a woman's experience. The simile has always stuck with me, and I admire its simplicity and lack of pretence.
"I don't set out to write humorous poems it's just sometimes my sense of humour gets into them - well quite often. As a reader I suppose I laugh when I recognise something - I think laughter often is when you recognise something is true but you'd never actually allowed yourself to think that or you'd never heard it put quite so well." Wendy Cope

Bloody Men!
Bloody men are like bloody buses
You wait for about a year
And as soon as one approaches your stop
Two or three others appear.
You look at them flashing their indicators,
Offering you a ride.
You're trying to read the destinations,
You haven't much time to decide.
If you make a mistake, there is no turning back.
Jump off, and you'll stand there and gaze
While the cars and the taxis and lorries go by
And the minutes, the hours, the days.

Beowulf adapted and illustrated by Gareth Hinds

2008-01-15T12:56:00.001-08:00

There’s a Beowulf frenzy going on right now. I blame Angelina Jolie. My local children’s bookstore, the Red Balloon, has part of a shelf devoted to it. Apparently, anything with five or more books constitutes a “section”. I rummaged through the various versions, including the one with a big shiny sticker proclaiming, “Now a major motion picture!”, and settled on Gareth Hinds’ beautifully illustrated and satisfyingly gory graphic novel (the ladies at the Red Balloon still say comic). Text is kept at a minimum and is based on the 1909 translation by A.J. Church. This is irrelevant to me as this is my first Beowulf, but it may matter to someone out there in the ether. Although scarce, the words have not been emasculated. Kids are still going to have to grapple with sentences like, “Of savage and merciless temper was she, and now she was wrought to fury by the woe of her son”. I’d be more motivated to tackle words like “liegeman” and “burnish” on a page full of beheaded soldiers and torn limbs, wouldn’t you? This thousand-year-old narrative is expertly told in both pictures and words,
“There the tide washes in and sprays the forests with its brine. Clouds shroud the waters and wet winds wail through the trees.”
Any male middle grader hoping for a glimpse of an Angelinaesque beauty in tight fitting robes is going to be sorely disappointed. For the ladies, however, you see a lot of Beowulf. Not all. But nearly. On a more serious note, there is an image of pre 9/11 New York that suddenly appears when King Hrothgar is lecturing Beowulf on the danger of too much pride and power after Beowulf has successfully slain Grendel and his monstrous mother. “Come in what shape it may, death will subdue even thee, thou hero of war.” Which, of course, it does.

If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period by Gennifer Choldenko

2008-01-14T10:58:00.001-08:00

This is the new one from the acclaimed author of Al Capone does my Shirts (which I haven't read). I wasn't "felled" (sorry) by it, but I read it in one sitting. It's the story of a couple of misfits, Kirtsen and Walk, at an expensive white private high school in San Fransisco. Kirsten is white and rich but overweight and therefore not a member of the "in" crowd. Walk is Black and attending the school on a scholarship.

A couple of things brought this up short for me. First, I have a problem with the femme fatale of the book who seems too cliche for me. This is Brianna, the rich, beautiful, blonde and popular clique leader. Her mother is big on the PTO and at one point cancels the school's talent show because her daughter cannot take part. During lunch, Brianna askes Kirsten, who she knows to have an eating disorder, to lift up her shirt so they can compare stomachs. When she leaves, she pushes her half finished pizza toward Kirsten, "I think Kirsten is too thin...So here...Fatten up" (90). Maybe it has been too long since high school for me but, really, that mean? Brianna actually goes out of her way to torture Matteo, whose mother cleans house for Brianna's family, because she knows she "owns" him.

My other issue is that there are too many messages in this book: eating disorders, divorce, infidelity, honesty, and more. At times, I didn't know which message to focus on.

However, these can be overlooked because the novel does one thing well - race. This novel asks a lot of questions of young readers. What does it mean to be a low income or even middle income kid at a school swamped in over-privaleged white kids? How do you create authentic friendships with these students when your mother tells you, "Race doesn't matter...except for every hour of every day" (37). It also asks the reader to question stereotypes, even ones people have about members of their own race. Walk has a cousin, Jamal, who seems to be going down the wrong path. Jamal arrives at Walk's apartment in a black SUV, pulling a suitcase, "Got some product to show you," Jamal tells Walk. "Really fine stuff." Walk assumes the worst and replies, "I don't do this stuff, Jamal" (60). It turns out he is selling laundry detergent to make enough money to attend the same school as Walk. "Isn't anybody doesn't need soap. It's the American dream, man, right here. I've been to a weekend. They told me all about it" (61). The heartbreaking thing - and I admire Choldenko for not making everything work out OK in the end - is that Jamal gets in to the school but cannot make enough money to supplement his scholarship. The only students of color at the school have either a full scholarship or are being subsidized by a white person. Will kids be savvy enough to see that the American dream doesn't work for everyone, especially those who most need it to be true? I wish Choldenko had made this the central message instead of making it difficult to find among all the others.

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

2008-01-14T09:38:00.001-08:00

Now isn’t that a great title! I’ve wanted to read this book for a while. Not because I read great reviews but because of the title and the tag line, “Fantasy just declared war on reality”. The cover is funky, too- Dune meets Lewis Carroll. This is Alice in Wonderland on some kind of illegal substance. Alyss is a tomboy princess and heir to the throne of Wonderland. Her birthday celebrations are ruined by the assassination of both her parents by her evil aunt, Redd. Alyss escapes death by traveling through the Pool of Tears with her bodyguard. Unfortunately, traveling through puddles turns out to be as fraught with error as changing planes in Chicago O'Hare and Alyss finds herself alone in Victorian England. We now enter a kind of Oliver Twist narrative that turns in to a version of Annie when Alyss is adopted by the affluent Liddell family. Alyss becomes Alice Liddell (for whom Alice in Wonderland was written) and in another fairytale twist of fate ends up as Queen Victoria’s youngest son’s fiance. This is not as great a leap of fantasy as one may think because the real Alice Liddell was acquainted with the real Prince Leopold. Meanwhile Redd has turned Wonderland in to a futuristic version of Maoist China where children turn in their parents to the authorities and “Reddisms” are broadcast from three-dimensional holographic billboards. As you can imagine, the stage is set for Alyss to return and reclaim her rightful place.
Definitely a page turner and my fantasy fans will love it. I just hope they have read the classic before they pick this one up so they can appreciate the inventive reworking Beddor has accomplished.

Other books in the series: Seeing Redd (second in the trilogy), Hatter M (graphic novel), Princess Alyss of Wonderland (scrapbook)

http://www.lookingglasswars.com/

the mysterious edge of the heroic world by e.l. konigsburg

2008-01-06T18:00:00.000-08:00

Before I begin, I must allow myself a short rant about book titles devoid of capitalisation. It makes the already hard job of teaching 9-11 year olds "the rules". You can hear the satifaction in their voice as they wave their little hands at you and proclaim, "But it's not capitalised on the cover."

Anyway, back to the book. I went through this novel like a hot knife through butter, but I'm having a hard time putting my finger on what exactly I found so compelling. The story follows young Amedeo as he helps clean out and catalogue the eclectic contents of his elderly neighbor's mansion. While doing so, he finds an original drawing by Modigliani given to Mrs Zender by her husband as a wedding present. The drawing, in an all too convenient twist of fate, turns out to have a fascinating and tragic history connected to Nazi Germany and Amedeo's godfather. We learn that Modigliani, as part of the Modern art world, was labled as a Degenerate artist by the Nazis and his work was outlawed. Many Degenerate pieces were confiscated and found their way in to underground collections. The piece that Amedeo finds was used for both good and evil. For me, however, the true source of fascination in the novel is Mrs Zender herself. I adored her and despised her at the same time. A one time very minor European opera star, she now floats around her treasure stuffed mansion drinking chilled champagne, dropping the names of famous artists and writers-friends whose work she neither read nor admired, "I haven't read a book in years . Every now and then I read a review in a magazine at the beauty parlor, and sometimes I think I would enjoy reading and entire book, but I allow the thought to pass."(149) Her connection to the Modigliani is a somewhat sordid tale. Konigsburg has created one of the most intruiging characters I've encountered in young adult literature lately. Mrs Zender is a bully, a diva, and a lonely soul all at the same time. Tennessee Williams could have created her.

The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School by Candace Fleming

2008-01-05T16:29:00.000-08:00

If you are a fourth grade teacher and have any concern at all for the happiness of your students, you should already be in possession of this book. If not, get it! I am not even stretching the truth a little when I tell you that I had three parents tell me that my reading aloud this book in class inspired their child to voluntarily pick up a book for the first time. By the second week of the read aloud (and second week of school because it is a perfect opener) three had bought a copy and two others had checked it out of the library.
So what's so great? It meets fourth graders at their humor level, and it's all about them! The fourth grade class have the worst reputation in the school. The principal is at her wits trying to find a teacher when lo and behold the mysterious Mr Jupiter enters. Each chapter that follows focuses on one or two children in the class and their in-school exploits while illustrating a moral from the famous fables. The budding romance of Mr Jupiter and the librarian, Paige Turner, creates a somewhat cohesive narrative that both delights and totally disgusts fourth grade readers at the same time. But it's not just written for laughs and affords the teacher and the class reading it a chance to discuss some of the issues of being 9 years old without anyone really noticing. For example, my class had a wonderfully frank discussion about cultural bias and the human body after reading the chapter where two boys get caught snickering over back issues of National Geographic. "They're so immature!" scoffed my oh-so-above-it-all boys. Mmm hmmm.

The Glitch in Sleep by John Hulme and Michael Wexler

2008-01-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

My best-of-lists savvy husband gave me this for Christmas, and I can't wait to introduce it to the Eoin Colfer fans in my class. Becker Drane, the twelve-year-old hero of the novel, is a Fixer in The Seems. The Seems is the secret alternate world, ruled by The Powers that Be, responsible for making our world work according to The Plan. Unluckily for Becker, his first Mission as a Fixer involves a Glitch, and a Glitch is no ordinary mechanical failure.

While being a fun read, the book does raise some age-old questions. If the world is working to a plan, how come some people have such terrible lives? What kind of power would deliberately incorporate pain and suffering? As an adult reader, I can't help but compare the doctrine of 'trusting in The Plan' adopted by The Powers that Be with the dogma of our own organized religions. However, the often incredible situations in The Glitch in Sleep - it is simply impossible that every human in the world would have a custom made dream delivered every night- make it hard for me to reconcile these two disparate attributes of the book. Then again, I haven't actually finished reading it yet, so perhaps reconciliation is yet to come.

The Shadow Children Sequence by Margaret Peterson Haddix

2007-12-23T13:13:00.000-08:00

My 4th graders can't get enough of this book. They whine. They plead. They sulk if we don't read it.
Luke is a third child in a resource-scarce society that allows only two children per family, so he spends his days in hiding. Officially, he does not exist. He has met no-one except his mother, father, and two older brothers. When the woods that surround his house are cut down to make room for an upscale housing development, Luke is forced further in to isolation no longer allowed even to eat at the family table for fear of being seen through the window. However, the new houses bring an unexpected gift to Luke when he discovers another "shadow child" living nearby. Only this third child has no intention of remaining hidden, and Luke must decide if he is willing to step out from the shadows. This is the first book in a series of six.

Barkbelly by Cat Weatherill

2007-12-15T09:53:00.000-08:00

I passed my new favorite book Barkbelly a few times before I actually checked it out of the library. I was intrigued by the title and drawn by Peter Brown's cover illustration, but I wasn't sure that I wanted to read a book about a wooden boy. Pinocchio was one of my least favorite fairy tales growing up. The third time I saw it I felt as if the book gods were trying to tell me something, so I gave up. Thank heavens! Cat Weatherill is a master of word craft. Her inventive imagry is breathtaking. Literally.

" The land fell away into an immense floodplain, ringed by mountains. A river shimmered through it like a dropped necklace." (79)

Weatherill's background is in performance storytelling and the book is surely meant to be read aloud. Her language flows like a river of rainbows from your tongue.

Barkbelly is a flawed hero with a wooden chest but a heart of gold. The world he moves in is alive, much like our own, with an array of good, evil and inbetween characters but with more interesting names like Candy Pie, Taffeta Tything, and Samovar Rubek.

Snowbone is the sequel.

Afterword

I never actually completed this book. However, I would still have it in my library if only to be able to whip it out when I needed examples of really good writing.

An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy

2007-12-01T05:57:00.000-08:00

I just started reading this with my 6th grade class, a very discerning audience, and they are hooked. Well, I wasn't exactly taking risks when I chose this because, as you can see from the cover, other discerning audiences think it is good too.
This non-fiction reads like fiction and Murphy does all the things good fiction writers do. The opening chapter transports the reader to Philedelphia and we are surrounded by the sights, smells, and sounds of 18th Century urban America. This chapter ends with the image of Yellow Fever as a silent and deadly stalker roaming the streets of Philadelphia. Ooooh, sixth graders love that stuff!
Murphy deftly mixes social and political history without losing his narrative flair and, therefore, his audience. Murphy's advice for non-fiction writers is, "Whatever you do, write visually!" and realistic descriptions of open sewers and bowel movements certainly stick in the reader's mind. His genius in writing for younger readers is his ability to bring this major historical event down to a personal level where the choices of one person can be seen to affect the course of history itself.
If you wanted to pair and compare An American Plague with a fictional account of the event, the riveting Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson is a great choice. It tells the story of a 14 year old girl whose family runs a coffee house in ill-fated Philadelphia. Anderson's book is well researched and uses many of the same characters and events as Murphy's.

Night of the Howling Dogs by Graham Salisbury

2007-11-23T16:07:00.000-08:00

With my usual lack of attention to detail, it wasn't until I finished reading this compelling tale of survival that I realised it was a true story. Salisbury's cousin was a member of a scout troop that found itself engulfed by a Tsunami while they camped on a deserted beach on the Big Island of Hawaii. In real life, not everyone made it back from the camping trip. You'll have to read it yourself to find out if the same is true in the novel.

Salisbury foreshadows this catastrophic event with the tension that exists between the narrator Dylan, a white middle-class boy, and older Louie, part Hawaiin whose parents have almost forgotten he exists. Dylan had witnessed Louie being beaten up and in his humiliation, Louie turned on Dylan. Louie keeps Dylan nervous with his menacing looks and constant teasing but their mutual dislike becomes irrelevant in the events that follow.

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver

2007-11-23T07:26:00.000-08:00

What impresses me most about Michelle Paver is how she manages to mix ancient mysticism with fast-paced adventure and deliver a fascinating history lesson at the same time. Set 6,000 years ago, The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness follow Torak, a young spirit walker, his faithful companion Wolf, and Renn, an accomplished huntress. Torak, who can talk to wolves, is an orphan of the Wolf Clan and Renn, a girl with the powers of a mage, a daughter of the Raven Clan . Together they escape danger and death in the form of hungry ice bears, enraged wild boars, menacing social outcasts and their own inexperience. Grudgingly they come to accept their destiny - to defeat the evil Soul Eaters who plot to unleash demons on the many clans in order to rule them all.
The growing bond between Renn, Torak and Wolf lends these breathtaking adventures a human quality that transcends millenia. In many ways we children of the 21st Century are almost unrecognizable as the descendents of our ancestors who lived in awe of nature and survived by taking only what they needed. Of course, this doesn't mean that I want to start rubbing seal blubber on my face and swallowing still-warm guillemot livers. However, there is a tiny part of Renn and Torak in me tucked deep, deep down which makes me look at my processed meat in its cling-film wrapping and wonder.

Books in this series: Wolf Brother, Spirit Walker, Soul Eater, and Outcast (May 20, 2008)
Fans of the series have their own website The Clan.