Archive | November 2009

Sunday Salon: Books Read in October, 2009

Children of God by Mary Doria Russell. In this sequel to Russell’s The Sparrow, ex-priest Emilio Sandoz continues to work out his salvation in fear and trembling as the fate of two cultures hangs in the balance.

Gateway by Frederick Pohl. Not recommended. Although both of Mary Russell’s sci/fi books (see above) have explicit sexual content that may make some readers uncomfortable, I thought it was both tastefully written and integral to the plot and theme of the novels. I can’t say the same for Gateway. The sexual content in this book was annoying and gratuitous, and the ending was forced and trying too hard to be philosophical and psychological at the same time. I was already nine-tenths of the way through the book when I realized that I didn’t like the story or the characters, but by then I did want to know what happened. I wish I had skipped the whole thing. For what it’s worth this one is supposed to be a classic in the genre.

A Thread of Grace by Mary Dorie Russell. Not science fiction. Not as good as The Sparrow or Children of God. However, this novel set in Northern Italy during the last year of World War II does have its moments. Either I was distracted or the changes in place and point of view are confusing. I had trouble keeping straight the various story lines and characters and events. The book did give me a perspective on World War II and The Holocaust that I hadn’t known before: I learned that many Jews and other fugitives fled Southern France and other places as it began to look as if the Germans would lose the war. Many of these fugitives came to Italy because Southern Italy had already surrendered to the Allies. Unfortunately the Fascists and their German allies remained in power in Northern Italy for another year while the Allies made their way slowly and painfully up the Italian peninsula. The Italians formed partisan resistance groups, hid many of the Jews and other on the German blacklist, and endured the German occupation as best they could —hanging on to a thread of grace.

The Texan Scouts by Joseph Altsheler. Semicolon review here.

Unsigned Hype by Booker T. Mattison. Semicolon review here.

Luke and the Van Zandt County War by Judith MacBain Alter. Semicolon review here.

West Oversea by Lars Walker.

The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg. Semicolon review here.

Cybils Reading:

Also Known as Harper by Ann Haywood Leal. Semicolon review here.

Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin. Semicolon review here.

The Year the Swallows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice. Semicolon review here.

The Beef Princess of Practical County by Michelle Houts. Semicolon review here.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. Semicolon review here.

Any Which Wall by Laurel Snyder. Semicolon review here.

Mudville by Kurtis Scaletta. Semicolon review here.

The Girl Who Threw Butterflies by Mick Cochrane. Semicolon review here.

Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies by Erin Dionne. Semicolon review here.

Neil Armstrong is My Uncle and Other Lies Muscle Man McGinty Told Me by Nan Marino. Bratty kid learns to say “thank you” but not much else. I didn’t care for this one much, but others may sympathize with the main character who is admittedly sort of a lost, neglected child in a dysfunctional family.

Sahwira: An African Friendship by Carolyn Marsden.

Carolina Harmony by Marilyn Taylor McDowell.

Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba by Margarita Engle. Semicolon review here.

My Life in Pink and Green by Lisa Greenwald. Semicolon review here.

The Kind of Friends We Used To Be by Frances O’Roark Dowell. Semicolon review here.

All the Broken Pieces by An E. Burg. Semicolon review here.

The Brooklyn Nine by Alan Gratz.

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick.

Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson.

The Dunderheads by Paul Fleischman. Semicolon review here.

The Problem With the Puddles by Kate Feiffer. Semicolon review here.

Dessert First by Hallie Durand. Semicolon review here.

Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur. Betsy-Bee and I discuss Love, Aubrey.

Anna’s World by Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin. Semicolon review here.

Wanting Mor by Rukhsana Khan. Semicolon review here.

Callie’s Rules by Naomi Zucker. Semicolon review here.

Leaving the Bellweathers by Kristin Clark Venuti.

Lincoln and His Boys by Rosemary Wells. Semicolon review here.

Solving Zoe by Barbara Dee

Nov7

In Solving Zoe by Barbara Dee, Zoe attends a sort of experimental school for gifted kids. It’s the sort of place that C.S. Lewis parodies in The Silver Chair; the school in Solving Zoe is something like the school Eustace and Jill attend. The teachers and the administration pretend that everyone at the school is gifted and allowed to express their talents freely, but when Zoe finds that her only passion is for pizza, she soon discovers that being an ordinary kid with no special talents or passions is not acceptable at Hubbard Middle School.

Sadly enough it is when Zoe is suspended from school and when she is doing her afternoon job babysitting a friend’s pet lizards that she learns and grows and seems to come alive. Her school doesn’t inspire much learning on Zoe’s part, even if the students do call the teachers by their first names and even if Zoe’s math teacher, Anya, tells her that she is free to explore, to just enjoy the numbers. “Numbers are sort of like toys. Try to play with them a little. You know, relax and mess around. Don’t worry about being right or wrong. Just have some fun with them, okay?”

Then, on the same page, Anya tells Zoe that she’s about to fail math because she’s drawing numbers and coloring them instead of doing “actual work.” I can’t figure out whether the author is making fun of the hypocrisy and sheer silliness of a school like Zoe’s, or whether Zoe is really supposed to learn something in such a confusing environment. The most confusing part of the book for me was the part where Zoe is suspended for two weeks to think about her life and about whether or not she really wants to attend Hubbard School, and she decides that she really wants to go back! She spends the two weeks in the library, learning about codes and ciphers and at her lizard-feeding job, learning lots of valuable lessons in responsibility and observation skills. And she seems to enjoy her two weeks of freedom. However, she can’t envision any other alternative than to return to Hubbard, meekly, and try to fit in with her schoolmates who have falsely accused her of a relatively minor “crime” and then blown the nonexistent offense up out of proportion to get Zoe kicked out of school in the first place.

This post isn’t so much a review of the book, which is a decently written story about friendship and about finding your own areas of giftedness. It’s more a biased homeschooler questioning: why would anyone want spend five days a week being given mixed messages and inadequate teaching in a school like Hubbard? And pay money for it?

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This book is also nominated for a Cybil Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own.

Jemma Hartman, Camper Extraordinaire by Brenda A. Ferber

Nov6

Girls of a certain age do this friend ranking thing. They have “best friends,” and they get jealous if their best friend spends too much time with another girl. They write notes that ask “am I still your BFF?” and try to figure out body language and sub-texts to conversations, and it’s all kind of sticky-icky sometimes. For most girls it’s all part of growing up.

I have noticed that boys don’t mess with this kind of relationship/friendship stuff. Karate Kid (age 12) has nineteen or twenty best buds; he plays with all of them, hangs out, generally just enjoys whoever is around. He always has. I can’t imagine him or any of his friends getting mad because Joe is spending more time with Pete than with with Karate Kid. KK would just figure that they were doing something, so he’d find someone else to hang with for a while. Or he would go do something with the group, including Joe and Pete. BFF is just not an issue with most boys.

Why this division in behavior occurs, whether it’s nature or nurture, I’ll leave to the psychologists and sociologists. At any rate, Jemma Hartman is a girl book about girls being girls at a girls’ summer camp. I thought it was well written, especially from a psychological point of view, and that the author, Brenda Ferber, captured the voice of an eleven year old girl in a friendship crisis quite well.

I gave the book to Betsy-Bee, who has experienced her own friendship crises, and she is enjoying it. She did say that she thought Jemma’s erstwhile BFF was “mean.” I think when BB finishes the book we’ll talk about the difference between actual “meanness” and changes that happen in friendships as girls become older and as they, possibly, grow apart. It’s a hard lesson to learn.

Wanting Mor by Rukhsana Khan

Nov5

Afghanistan is in the news almost every day, and those children who hear about the war there have questions about the people of Afghanistan and the culture there. Wanting Mor by Pakistani author Rukhsana Khan could serve as an introduction to a country that has become, for better or for worse, a preoccupying subject for Americans and for the world.

When Jameela’s mother, Mor, dies, her father decides that he and Jameela will move from their village to Kabul to start a new life. Unfortunately, Jameela’s father is a self-centered and cruel man. In a story that reminded me of Hansel and Gretel, Jameela’s father acquires a new wife, and then decides that Jameela, with her cleft lip and general uselessness, is an impediment to his new life.

The points that interested me the most in this book were those where cultures and ideas intersected. Jameela’s father and his new wife are typical of city dwellers in many third world and Muslim countries who are becoming Westernized and losing their loyalty to traditional customs and religious laws. Jameela herself finds comfort and strength in the traditions of Islam, particularly the head covering or chadri (also called a burka), that serves to protect Jameela from prying eyes and from the embarrassment that she feels over her cleft lip. The orphanage where Jameela ends up living is dependent on the charity of Americans and of other wealthy Afghanis and foreigners, but the attitude that children and the management of the orphanage have toward these benefactors is sometimes less than respectful or even grateful. This conversation between Jameela and another of the orphans shows the difficulties in such a relationship and perhaps could clue us in to how the Muslim world in general might feel about Americans and other westerners a lot of the time:

“What do you think of this new donor lady?”
I shrug. “She seems all right.”
“They all do when they first arrive.”
“What about the soldiers? They didn’t do anything wrong.”
Suraya scowls. “They’re invaders. They want to control us. They won’t be happy until they change us so we’re just like them.”
“They fixed things. You should be grateful.”
Soraya stands up and paces around our small room.
“I’m tired of being grateful.”

People do get tired of being grateful. And somehow we will have to find a way to leave Afghanistan, and Iraq, with a sense of mutual respect and cooperation. At least, I hope we can.

And I hope we can find a way to help girls like Jameela without taking away their cultural heritage or their self-respect.

I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have To Kill You by Ally Carter

Nov3

For me, the last panel discussion of the day on Saturday at the Texas Book Festival was a discussion with four children’s/YA authors about writing series fiction. The title was something like “How To Write Characters That Go the Distance: Writing Books in a Series.” The authors were Derrick Barnes (Ruby and the Booker Boys), Ally Carter ( The Gallagher Girls, beginning with the book that gives its title to this post), Pseudonymous Bosch (The Name of This Book Is Secret and sequels), and James A. Owen (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica). The only one of the four whose books I had read was Mr. Owen, but I thought all four authors were interesting and some insightful things to say. Mr. Bosch was a bit, well, secretive. He wore sunglasses and looked like a sort of leftover hippie type with wild hair. I’ll let you know what I think about his Top Secret Book as soon as I get it from the library.

James Owen started out as an artist and comic book writer, and he illustrates the books in his seriesas well as doing the writing. I have enjoyed the first three books in the Imaginarium Geographica series (Semicolon review here), and I’m looking forward to reading the fourth book, just out, called The Shadow Dragons. Mr. Owen says there are seven books planned for the series, and he already has all seven (loosely?) plotted out and planned. He seemed to be a mild-mannered, stereotypical author type, very sweet, and and a bit bemused at finding himself at a book festival in Texas of all places. I was fascinated by his answer to an off-beat question posed by one of the children in the crowd: where did you go to college? He said that he took college classes while he was still in high school, but that when he was fifteen (or maybe fourteen?) he started his own art/design studio and as it was thriving when he graduated high school, he simply continued doing what he loved to do and never went to college. It sounded like a homeschool story, but as far as I know he wasn’t homeschooled.

Mr. Barnes said he learned a lot of his craft while working as a copywriter for Hallmark cards. He got a book deal, started writing the Ruby books, even though he has three sons and no daughters, and as of now he already has ten (or more?) of the series books written and waiting to be published. The fourth book in the series was published in March, 2009 and is one of the nominees for the Cybils Middle Grade Fiction category. I checked out the first book in the series a couple of days ago, and I’ll again let you know what I think.

And last but not least, I was so impressed with Ms. Carter and her coterie of fans who were there to cheer her on that I found the first book in her Gallagher Girls series at the library and read it today. I wish the second and third books had been on the shelf, too, because now I’m dying (get it, dying) to read them. Ms. Carter told the story of her agent calling her to say that YA chicklit was selling well these days and could she come up with any ideas in that genre? Ms. Carter, starving artist that she was, immediately made a list, but her agent said her ideas weren’t good enough. So the author proceeded to watch Alias. Something on the TV show gave her the idea for a spy school for girls, and the Gallagher Girls were born. I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have To Kill You is pure fun. Lots of high-tech spy stuff, a girls’ boarding school, secrets galore, espionage at its finest. And it has no sex and no bad language that I noticed. There is a little kissing and a lot of boy craziness, but again it’s all in fun. The other two books in the series are Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy and Don’t Judge a Girl By Her Cover. The latter (book three in the series) is nominated for the YA Fiction category in the Cybils. Ally Carter said, by the way, that she writes for “immature teens” but I’m thinking that most teen girls would enjoy these as just low effort entertainment. Three cheers for fun!

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Elizabeth Berg and Amanda Eyre Ward

Nov2

One of the sessions I attended at the Texas Book Festival in Austin this past weekend was an interview/discussion with authors Elizabeth Berg and Amanda Eyre Ward. I had just finished Ms. Berg’s book, The Year of Pleasures, and I read Amanda Eyre Ward’s Forgive Me a few months ago, so I thought hearing them speak about their writing lives would be fun.

And it was.

First though, I’ll tell you something about my enjoyment of Ms. Berg’s book. Elizabeth Berg is a wonderful writer. By that I mean, she writes beautiful sentences and paragraphs and descriptions. She made me slow down and pay attention to the prose itself, something that not all authors can do. The book itself, The Year of Pleasures, is about widowhood, about investing yourself and your life into one person and having that person taken by death. What do you do? How do you survive?

Ms. Berg’s protagonist, Betta Nolan, answers those questions by starting on a journey, a roadtrip from Boston to the Midwest. And when she reaches the small town of Stewart, Illinois, near Chicago, Betta finds, not exactly answers nor comfort, but a place to start living again. She does things that look from the outside to be crazy, that could be disastrous. She buys a house after looking it over for fifteen minutes. She reconnects with college friends that she hasn’t seen or spoken to in almost thirty years. She lets neighbors and chance acquaintance into her home and into her life. All of these steps toward life lead to stumbles and to near-falls, but also to a sureness and confidence that Betta can live a life even after the death of her beloved John.

I enjoyed almost every minute of reading A Year of Pleasures. I won’t hesitate to pick up another of Ms. Berg’s novels; in fact, I’m looking forward to it. However, I must insert a little warning; in one scene in the book Betta decides to date a man she meets and then decides that she “needs” to have sex with him. And then we get to see the results of that rather unwise decision —in detail. I wish the author had left the details out, but Elizabeth Berg’s writing is all about the details. I can see how she would feel compelled to tell us about Betta’s disastrous date. I just don’t enjoy reading about someone else’s sex life. Certainly not details. ‘Nuff said. Most of the book is not about sex.

At the Book Festival, Elizabeth Berg came across as both charming and distinguished, a writer about my age, a beautiful lady, who has spent quite a bit of time thinking about and working on her craft. She said she had no idea after college what she wanted to do and tried quite a few things. Then, one night she had an epiphany: she would become a nurse! So she went to nursing school and did become a nurse. She said of that era of her life, “What I learned from being a nurse is that the ordinary is everything.”

That’s what I meant about Ms. Berg’s celebrating the details. She also said something to the effect that “writing is acting on a page.” In other words, the characters she creates are not exactly herself, but she is acting them out as she writes. I thought that was a delightful metaphor, although perhaps she she got it somewhere else. I don’t know.

Amanda Eyre Ward is a younger writer with fewer books to her credit than Elizabeth Berg, but she, too, seems to have thought carefully and deeply about what it means to be a writer. I enjoyed her personality, and her quizzical answer to many of the interviewer’s questions, (insert rambling but interesting thoughts), then “It’s confusing!” I read Forgive Me in August, and here’s what I said about it then: “I didnâ€™t manage to review this novel, set in New England and in South Africa. It was readable, but I found it hard to connect with the characters.”

After having heard her speak, I’m ready to try another of Ms. Ward’s novels, but since her latest is a book of short stories, Love Stories in This Town, I’ll have to go back and try one of her earlier novels. Any suggestions?

Oh, Elizabeth Berg said her favorite of her sixteen or so novels is her first, called Durable Goods. (She also said not to tell the other books.) I like the title of one of Ms. Berg’s books: The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted. But I got the idea that it’s a book of short stories.

I don’t read short stories. Is anyone else a fan of either of these writers?

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Advanced Reading Survey: The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Nov2

I’ve decided that on Mondays I’m going to revisit the books I read for a course in college called Advanced Reading Survey, taught by the eminent scholar and lovable professor, Dr. Huff. I’m not going to re-read all the books and poems I read for that course, probably more than fifty, but I am going to post to Semicolon the entries in the reading journal that I was required to keep for that class because I think that my entries on these works of literature may be of interest to readers here and because I’m afraid that the thirty year old spiral notebook in which I wrote these entries may fall apart ere long. I may offer my more mature perspective on the books, too, if I remember enough about them to do so.

Author Note: (See last week’s post on Adam Bede.) In her novels, George Eliot often drew from her early life in Warwickshire where she grew up in an ancient red brick house as the daughter of a carpenter. This particular novel, The Mill on the Floss, was first named Sister Maggie, and later the name was changed.

Characters:
Tom Tulliver
Maggie Tulliver, Tom’s younger sister.
Philip Wakem, Maggie’s childhood friend.
Stephen Guest, fiance of Maggie’s cousin, Lucy.
Lucy Deane, Maggie’s and Tom’s cousin.
Tom’s and Maggie’s aunts: Aunt Moss, Aunt Glegg, Aunt, Deane, and Aunt Pullet.
Mr. Tulliver, Tom’s and Maggie’s father.
Bessy Tulliver, Tom’s and Maggie’s mother.

Summary:
Maggie Tullliver, an intelligent and highly introspective young lady, is imprisoned by the expectations of society and of her family. As Maggie grows up all of the men in her life are obsessed with various goals –revenge, money, status –and they thwart Maggie’s growth as a person and her ambitions.

Quotations:
These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.

Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed all her life and nothing had come of it but evil tempers.

In natural science, I have understood, there is nothing petty to the mind that has a large vision of relations, and to which every single object suggests a vast sum of conditions. It is surely the same with the observation of human life.

The religion of the Dodsons consisted in reverencing whatever was customary and respectable.

She thought it was part of the hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of larger wants than others seemed to feel, –that she had to endure this wide hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was greatest and best on this earth.

Maggie: One gets a bad habit of being unhappy.

Confidences are sometimes blinding even when they are sincere.

Philip: You want to find out a mode of renunciation that will be an escape from pain. I tell you again, there is no such escape possible except by perverting or mutilating one’s nature.

Other bloggers:
Chris at Book-a-Rama: “Maggie grows into a gorgeous dark-eyed woman, receiving attention for being an exotic beauty but misunderstood because of her intelligence. Maggie finds herself trying to choose between two lovers.”

Ready When You Are, C.B.: “Mrs. Tulliver and her three sisters, their husbands and children all make up a very entertaining group and provide George Eliot ample opportunity to show off her skill at creating wide ranging characters.”

Bookish: I didn’t enjoy George Eliot’s (Mary Ann Evans) The Mill on the Floss (1860) as much as other books she’s written – this one was decidedly more Victorian, and what with watching Friday Night Lights and reading this (and living in the world), I’ve just about had it with patriarchal societies.

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Callie’s Rules by Naomi Zucker

Nov1

Some of Callie’s Rules:
A family is not a democracy. Even when your father’s a lawyer and talks a lot about rights, it’s still not.

Listen to your father. The things he tells you might be useful sometime.

Monks have the right idea. If you never open your mouth, you get into a lot less trouble.

If everybody liked their Coke the same way, the world would be a pretty boring place.

I read this book about diversity and The Town That Tried to Cancel Halloween on just the right night, Friday night October 30th in my Austin motel room while I was preparing to attend the Texas Book Festival on Saturday, Halloween. In the book some busybodies decide that Halloween is Satanic and dangerous and harmful to young psyches. Unfortunately, the head busybody is also the wife of the town banker, and Mrs. Van Dine has more influence with the Hillcrest Town Council than Callie’s weird family does. The Jones family is made up of a lawyer father, and artist mom, and seven children, each with their own unique personality. (Callie’s little sister plays and naps in a cage.) Callie’s caught right in the middle of this weird family, and she’s not sure she can ever be like her mom, who doesn’t care whether people think she’s weird or not.

The minor characters in this novel are somewhat cartoonish, Mrs. Van DIne and her snooty daughter Valeri, the obtuse Town Council members, Callie’s wishy-washy best friend Alyce, but it’s still a good exploration what it feels like to be in middle school, desperate to fit in and yet wanting to be true to one’s own passions and beliefs. Callie loves Halloween. She enjoys the “weirdos”, the metal sculptures that her mom makes every year to display in the front yard of their home at Halloween. She doesn’t want to celebrate a healthy, insipid Autumn Fest, the substitute that Mrs. Van Dine has dreamed up for Hillcrest’s children. But she also doesn’t want anyone to think she’s weirder than they already think she is.

Callie’s dilemma, the fitting in and being yourself at the same time, is the dilemma of almost all middle school students. Callie navigates this perplexing middle school conflict with grace and humor. I’m thinking this would be an enjoyable Halloween read for young people who are caught in the same quandary. They might find some of Callie’s rules quite useful. Oh, and fans of Jane Eyre will also find a kindred spirit in Callie since Charlotte Bronte’s classic is Callie’s comfort book.

Comfort books, books that the protagonist reads over and over for solace and support, seem to be a theme in several books I’ve read lately, and that re-reading is also something my own children do. I don’t remember ever becoming that focused on one book or one set of books, though I do re-read favorites sometimes. The girl in Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me loves Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Brown Bear Daughter has been reading and re-reading Twilight and its sequels for about six months now. I read them once and found them entertaining, but I really don’t see that there’s enough there to go back to the well more than once. And Drama Daughter has been, dare I say, obsessed with Harry Potter for about three or four years now. Do you have a “comfort book” —one that you read again and again and that serves as metaphor and key for your life’s events?