Month: February 2013

11 Feb 2013

blizzard of ’13

I moved to Boston in late 2009. Since then, some kind of apocalypse has been slowly afoot.

In just over three years, we have seen and survived…

An earthquake
Some tornadoes
Hurricane Irene
Hurricane Sandy
A flu epidemic
A blizzard that has a name but I can’t express to you how much I hate that naming non-Hurricane storms is like a thing now

Snow doesn’t scare me. I’m from Michigan. Snow just irritates me. I respond to this irritation by ignoring it completely, like a kid who’s acting up.

Work closed for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, which is just ridiculously unheard of and should have been a tip-off that this snow would not be ignored.

I sent The Boy to the store for weekend provisions, but didn’t bother to give him a list, assuming that by Sunday we would be back to our regularly scheduled grocery shopping. He came back with 50 Types of Carbs, of course, so we ate through two bags of pita chips and a loaf of bread while the snow fell and fell and fell and fell…

Somebody in this apartment was a rockstar and went out yesterday for protein and vegetables and dish-washing liquid, and also shoveled the steps and the sidewalk so I didn’t have to wade through 2 ft of irritating snow trying to get to work this morning.

Somebody else in this apartment stayed entirely sedentary for the long weekend and therefore did an impressive amount of reading.

So what’s next, nature? Any volcanoes in New Hampshire that might erupt? A tsunami? Acid rain? If I move, will a black cloud of disaster follow me to my new location?

book lists

09 Feb 2013

Newbery Awards, 2013

Award

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Animal stories. Never been a big fan. Well, I did read the Rats of NIMH a few years ago, which was pretty awesome, and there is always Charlotte’s Web. But on the whole, even as a child, they never really thrilled me. I’m a realism girl through and through.

However, there was a bit of critical buzz around The One and Only Ivan these past few months, I and I’ll admit – I was a bit intrigued. A caged gorilla narrator who likes to think about art? I could dig it.

Honors

Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz

Well, well, well, Ms. Schlitz. Two out of your last three books have earned Newbery nods. I liked Good Masters, Sweet Ladies well enough, but wasn’t quite sure what to make of it – I don’t read a lot of collections of dramatic shorts, especially those set in medieval England. I have heard that Splendors and Glooms is complex, long, and maybe not quite accessible to younger readers. But I’ve also heard on good authority that the writing is lovely and the effort rewarding.

Bomb: The Race to Build – and Steal – the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

What can I say about Bomb that I haven’t already said?

Bomb certainly cleaned up this year. Newbery Honor, Sibert Award, YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Award, National Book Award Nominee – could life be any sweeter for Mr. Sheinkin? We shortlisted Bomb for the Cybil’s MG/YA Nonfiction Award, so maybe next week will be yet another honor for a completely deserving book.

As always – three cheers for nonfiction in the major awards mix!!

Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage

Not super-suprised this book got a Newbery Honor, but let’s be honest, were we super-suprised by any of the above? Well, I mean, if you’d asked me in the 6th grade if I thought the author of Animorphs would win a Newbery Award, I would probably not have believed you, but there you have it.

Three Times Lucky, however, has a plucky heroine, a dynamic setting, a cast of interesting townsfolk, and a murder mystery, which makes for a crowd + critic pleasing read. Personally, I love reading books set in the South, so I might give it a read.

book reviews

08 Feb 2013

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

I am still working on Project Five Romances, if you can call reading five measly books a project. I read the Jennifer Smith, the Sarah Dessen, the Stephanie Perkins, and then hit a bottleneck of Waiting for Library Reserves to Come In. So I charged up my borrowed Nook and started reading my first Netgalley ARC – Eleanor & Park. Call it Project Six Romances.

Eleanor and Park are students at the same high school. Park is a Korean-American living in a white-bread Nebraska town, but he’s known everyone in the neighborhood and school forever so he’s got his own social agenda, even if he doesn’t quite fit in. Eleanor, on the other hand, is the new girl, and nothing about her fits in – her body, her crazy red hair, her thrift-store-because-that’s-all-she-can-afford wardrobe, how she shares a room with her four siblings and how her mom let her new husband kick Eleanor out of the house for a year. She’s “Fat Slut.” She’s “Big Red.” She’s the girl whose street clothes get flushed in the toilet during gym class, who couldn’t blend in no matter how hard she tries. Home sucks. School sucks. The only tolerable portion of the day is when she reads comic books over Park’s shoulder when they sit together on the bus.

And then they fall in love.

Oh, they fall in love.

I don’t even want to make this Romance #6 because it’s so different than the kind of romance I was going for when picking the first five. No offense to the contemporary light YA romance, but all five of the selected titles adhere to a rough pattern, a bit of a formula. Reader meets girl. Girl has problems. Girl meets boy. Problems complicate boy. Girl solves problems. Girl gets boy. It’s a formula I like, but it could not be further from Eleanor & Park. Eleanor is a girl with problems, but they are problems too big for any teenager to “solve” on her own, with or without the help of a boy. Park wants to help, but Eleanor won’t let him all the way in, and even when she does he can’t help her either.

They fall in love anyway.

And that it why I liked this book so damn much – because when you are a teenager and you fall in love, it’s rarely easy. You feel victimized by adults with power, by your peers. You can’t say what you want, what you are feeling; communication breaks down suddenly and with consequence. You know in your heart of hearts that you aren’t going to be together forever, even if you want to, really really badly.

But you fall in love anyway.

This book reminded me much of Pete Hautman’s The Big Crunch, but with a closer, more intimate narrative. Like Wes and June, Eleanor and Park get alternating chapters, and while Eleanor is the true protagonist, I believe, it was all about Park for me. He was just the sweetest boy trying to fit in and stand out, to follow the crowd and follow his heart, to find out what it means to him to be a man.

I didn’t cry, I didn’t swoon, I didn’t rush through the last pages in anticipation that The Boy and The Girl would finally end up together. It’s not that kind of romance.

But I loved it anyway.

books

07 Feb 2013

your personal canon

If you are my friend – or even just an acquaintance – I would like to read your favorite book.

Or at least a book that you really, really liked. I know it’s hard to pick favorites. I want to read a book that changed your life. Or maybe not changed your life, exactly, but clicked something on in your brain, turned a switch, changed some small aspect of the way you view the world.

This is an introvert’s way of getting to know someone without having to actually, you know, speak. But it’s not just because I want to get to know you. I mean, you’re a nice, interesting person, I probably do want to get to know you. But I’m selfish. I want to find books that I’ve never heard of that are amazing. I want to change my own life. I want to add to my personal canon.

I imagine that everyone has their own criteria that must be met in order for a book to enter into the upper echelons of their psyche. For me, I hold onto fiction authors whose talent is steady and enduring, that keep writing and rarely disappoint. I give great respect to books that I found as a young person and read and read and read until the words have worked their way into my subconscious. I revere works of fiction that speak to some higher truth regarding how we humans interact with one another, how we love each other. I love nonfiction that incites a sudden and severe change in the course of my daily actions – the way I eat or move my body or spend my days or speak to other people. Some of these books I read once and that’s enough; one experience will stay with me forever. Others pop up cyclically, every six months, every year. Some I pick up when I’m in a certain place in my life, a time of unrest, when I need reminding of something or need comfort. Most, I read and read and read again, because I am a re-reader.

This is why I tend to write about the same books and authors over and over again. My canon is part of me, my life, and how I judge and read other books. I can practice being objective, yes… but to what extent, ultimately?

And anyway, I love these authors, these books. I love re-reading them. I love writing about them. I read every book hoping that I can add another to the bookshelves of my soul, or whatever. I’m going to think about these books until I die, and I’m going to write about them until they stop changing my life.

So if you ever add a book to your own canon, let me know; I want to read it.

life maintenance

05 Feb 2013

hello, iPhone

I just wanted to tell you that after years of smack-talking smartphones, after managing to get a library job without one, after throwing away my iPad, I finally got an iPhone.

I saved my pennies to buy the 5 instead of the 4. I found some extra money in the budget to accommodate the larger phone bill. I applied all of my subtle (or not-so-subtle) persuasion skills to present the idea favorably to the person who brings home the other 50% of the family bacon.

And there you have it. I am now part of the 21st century. And I got a surprise 18% off my bill for working at the library. Heck yes!!

So far, I enjoy…

Watching Netflix, since my laptop’s external speakers haven’t worked in many months
Creating little schedules in Google Calendar that buzz my phone when it’s time to switch tasks
Using Reminders to do my grocery list instead of Post-it notes, which I am inclined to lose
Paying for my coffee with the Starbucks scanner, since I lost my golden Starbucks card
Taking pictures of the insides of books using Evernote instead of copying down quotes

My favorite apps are Goodreads, Sudoku and Sleep Cycle. I may be addicted to Sleep Cycle. I don’t know if it works, or if I am just excited every morning to wake up and look at my sleep charts. But I fell asleep last night listening to the sound of rain falling on a car roof, so who cares?

Oh, also: Instagram. If you want to see 100 pictures of my cat a day, follow me! Here is one shot for free:

Don’t worry. Plenty more where that came from.

links

04 Feb 2013

links i love

What Should Children Read?

I realize that complaining about the Common Core is SO last year at this point… but wow, it is SO WEIRD. This New York Times opinion piece is a good primer of how the Common Core standards interact with children’s literature, and how maybe that isn’t an awful thing. As someone with a soft spot for quality children’s nonfiction, I’d love to see more support for writers and researchers to keep up their good work, and the author of this piece agrees!

Sketchbook Project – Filling my Bookshelves

One of my random passions – looking at the sketchbooks and schedules and handwritten ephemera of strangers. The Sketchbook Project is a collaborative art effort where folks submit their sketchbooks to share with the world. Awesome enough as it is, but librarian Sally Gore took it to yet another awesome level: in the style of Ideal Bookshelf, Ms. Gore used her sketchbook to draw her year’s reading, arranged by topic. Love, love, love it.

10 Year Plan

I have had a three year plan, plenty of one year plans, and zillions and zillions and zillions of one month, one week, one day, one hour plans… but never a ten year plan. In this entry from the Blogher book club, Karen Ballum reviews Kate and Dave Marshall’s My Life Map: A Journal to Help Shape Your Future and although Karen is intrigued but skeptical, I am completely interested. I should probably not read this book unless I have a few weeks of free time, because I can only imagine how obsessed I might get in creating such a document. Ten years… can you imagine?

The Art of Writing

Nina Lindsay’s essay is on the topic of “What Makes a Book a Newbery Book,” but could really be read as “What Makes Art Art.” She talks about the inherent struggle of writing, of critiquing and comparing books, in how she hopes that one day a Newbery-winning author’s retirement is covered by the New York Times. I liked this quote the best: “If I can see the author’s struggle in a work, then it’s probably not distinguished. If I can see that the author didn’t struggle: it’s certainly not.” Truth in a contradiction.

Rights and Responsibilities for That Girl That is Desperate To Be Married

It is hard being a girl who wants to be married: the world agrees that yes, you probably should get married, but don’t want it too bad, don’t pressure, don’t have a timetable. Just sit pretty and wait. Frustrating. This is an article I wish I could have found three or four years ago.

Impromptu Thanksgiving Makeover

I read a handful of home decorating/design blogs, and I’ve always wondered what happens to these bloggers once the projects are all finished, when their entire house is done. You can keep tinkering with room layouts and upgrading furniture, but at some point, do you just get the urge to move out and start over? Daniel at Manhattan Nest finds the fun happy medium – visit your relatives over the holidays and force-redecorate a room! This makeover was even more fun because Daniel is redecorating his partner’s teenaged bedroom, so while he paints and rearranges and designs, he’s also getting a peek into a previous life.

The Daily Routines of Famous Writers

Like many pseudo-writers, I have a little bit of jealous fascination for the daily routines of authors, like somewhere in these habits that holds the key to genius and success. This collection is top notch, and reminds me of something important: that creativity and practice and writing looks different to everyone who attempts it. If one routine isn’t working, there are others that might better suit your temperament. Stay flexible, stay hopeful, etc.

The Art of Video Games

I am not quite a gamer, but I am a nearly 28-year-old woman and I still do love video games, I do, and I love the idea of video games as art. With HD and advanced consoles, I’ve seen video games that look more like movies than movies, video games that get trailers at feature films, but there is something artful about older, less visually-impressive games, too. Ever played Katamari Damacy? This game is just as abstract, surreal, and irreverent as any contemporary visual art piece I’ve seen at a museum. The Boy and I visited MoMA and they were in the process of building this video game exhibit; we may have to visit once it is up and running!

Romancing the Writing

I seem to have adopted Sara Zarr as my Patron Saint of Creativity/Writing/Life. Her blog, especially, is just the kind of thing I like to read about writing – honest, straightforward, sometimes questioning or doubtful, but absent of fluff or filler. Zarr takes her writing, her practice, seriously. This post ruminates on this quote from writer/director Scott Derrickson – “It’s ingratitude that destroys that romance” – that seems to apply to writing, relationships, religion, the way that we all live our lives. I don’t know if I will ever be a person who can keep a trendy “gratitude journal” or box or jar whatever else is going around Pinterest, but this article reminds me that the small act of being thankful can change my attitude, my worldview, my life. Be grateful, be grateful, be grateful.

book awards

02 Feb 2013

Michael L. Printz Awards, 2013

Awards!! Yay!!

What better a way to spend an hour on Monday morning than tuning into the livecast? Last year, I was commuting during the announcements, but this year I saved some special, boring data-related work tasks to do while I watched, and then BAM it was lunch – morning well spent.

Congrats to Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina for taking home the William C. Morris last week. Commenter Sarah pretty much insisted it would win, so I put it on hold, and then it won and I felt like a prescient rockstar, even though it wasn’t my idea at all. Shall we continue our ALA Youth Media Award Blitz with a little more YA? I think so…

Award

In Darkness by Nick Lake

Have I mentioned how much I love awards? I do love awards, I do! In Darkness is one reason why I love awards – because even when you read and read and read and follow the buzz and there are books you just know are going to win… well, that awards committee is reading books that you’ve never even heard of. And those invisible books are awesome, so they win.

I had not heard of In Darkness, but I think I saw the phrase “drinking blood to survive” in a review, so I’m guessing intense, crazy, and awesome.

Honors

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Well, well. We meet again. This winner was the one that excited most of my friends and colleagues – I can think of two folks who read it between Monday and today, work book-club picked it for next month… and I’m thinking about how I renewed it five times and it sat on the floor by my bed, unread for all five renewals.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Well, no surprise here! I haven’t read this. I need to read it. It is sitting within my arm’s reach right now. I could reach over and read it, I could! But I’m not, because I am writing this post and watching Girls for the umpteenth time and I don’t always make great decisions with my time. There you have it.

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

I also love awards because the books and authors that are New! and Flashy! and So-Good! often obscure those authors that have chugged along, writing books that aren’t full of flash, for years and years and years and continue to do so. Like Terry Pratchett. I’ve only read Nation – which also won a Printz honor – and I liked it; long, wordy but not dense, playful, funny. Dodger apparently stars both Charles Dickens and Sweeney Todd, which sounds like madcappy fun.

The White Bicycle by Beverley Brenna

The dark horse of this year’s Printz. This is the third in a series, which means if you want to read it, you’ll have to get a hold of two other books first. And by “you” I mean “me” – maybe you are not such a series purist. This series is about a teenage girl with Aspergers, and in this installment, she travels to France on a babysitting job… which sounds like a book that I would love, so maybe I’ll start hunting down books one and two?

books

01 Feb 2013

define our terms

“An inexpensive paperback book from a reputable publisher is a small, rectangular, boxlike object a few inches long, a few inches wide, and an an inch or so thick. It is easy to stack and store, easy to buy, keep, give away, or throw away. As an object, it is user-friendly and routine, a mature technological form, hard to improve upon and easy to like.

Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”

Jane Smiley – 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel