After reading her debut graphic novel, Smile, I decided that she and fellow comic artist, Hope Larson, were probably Co-Patron Saints of Middle School Girls. Well, maybe Judy Blume retains some of that sainthood – who can forget Margaret Simon and crew? – but I think these two artist ladies are certainly picking up where Blume left off.

Telgemeier’s latest – Drama, available in September – gives us Callie, a purple-haired, excitable theater techie who juggles 7th-grade-caliber boy troubles with the upcoming spring musical – she’s painting the sets. The book spans the length of the show’s preparations, from auditions to closing night, and chronicles the many small dramas and social intricacies that inevitably arise during high pressure situations.

But all drama aside (ha), what I really liked about Callie is that although she was unabashedly and refreshingly young – her worries, her exuberance, her boy-craziness – she is also a bright, driven female character with interests and skills. She’s obsessed with theater in a way that only seventh grade girls can be (and I know of what I speak), and it’s this energy – energy  to learn, to do, to study old movies and collect soundtracks- that drives her decisions and her character growth, not what boys think of her.

Basically, Callie gets to run around and be a well-adujusted 12 or 13-year-old, hang out with her friends, and also kiss some boys. Awesome. If only my own 7th grade self could have been so self-actualized. I think I liked Callie and liked this book so much because after years of reading about the pain and misery and angst of middle school, Telegemeier has given us a book that makes junior high seem like fun. What a novelty!

You might think it strange that I, a young woman who is not married, not a mother, and not (I repeat, NOT) currently with child to read parenting books and articles and blogs with any sort of fervor.

To me, this is not strange at all, because I also used to read my mother’s parenting magazines and books with the same interest and fervor when I was ten years old.

I think when I was ten, I liked reading about how people were supposed to grow and behave and relate to each other. I liked reading about what I’d gone through – all the developmental stages – and looking ahead to see what was next (I remember being concerned to read that 11-years-old was to be a year with lots of vomiting.) Now, my interest in parenting dogma is an issue of values. What do we think is so important that it simply MUST be passed along to our children? Do we value discipline? Creativity? The parent-child relationship? Socialization? Stability? Flexibility?

After reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother last year and enjoying the heated conversations that sprung up around the author’s version of Eastern parenting – heavy on tough love, structure, and string instruments – I was excited to see Pamela Druckerman’s Bringing up Bebe offering another cultural perspective on child-rearing. This is a good, quick read – a mix of memoir, humor, and cultural observations Druckerman gleaned after birthing and raising three kids as an American in Paris. She does a good job of representing multiple perspectives, of tying together how parenting attitudes are supported or discouraged through political systems (i.e. French women maintain separate lives from their children better than American moms because it is cultural expected that French women will go back to work ASAP… but they can go back to work because they have generous maternity care, leave, and exceptional government subsidized childcare)

But for me, this book had more in common with a book like Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food than other hot-topic parenting manuals. Druckerman’s take on French parenting focuses on the fact that French families and French women have a different set of cultural values than Americans do, and many of those values support a certain parenting style. Not to say that American parenting is equivalent to the Standard American Diet, but thinking outside the American paradigm, I think, can be eye opening for everyone – not just parents.

Some take-aways that have already started to influence my own behaviors and thinking:

• Babies should fit into your schedule, into your life. This is a major undercurrent in Druckerman’s perception of French parenting. French babies sleep through the night, French parents have more sex, French parents continue to dress up and dine out and go on dates because they don’t bow down to the baby in their life in sacrifice of all else. This might seem harsh, but side effects are Happier Parents, Happier Marriages, Well-Rested Babies, and a childhood that includes boundaries, limits, and routines, which is a good thing. I think this resonated with me because my yet-childless peers and I are at the point where we at least consider the practical implications of introducing children into our lives, and it’s very frightening to think about making a big decision that might bungle up everything you’ve worked for. French families just don’t think that way, and it doesn’t turn out that way, end of story. It’s comforting.
• You should eat four times a day – breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner. I am not sure why this is so revolutionary to me, but ever since I started experimenting with reducing my sugar and carb intake, I’ve been paying closer attention to how my body works on different foods. One thing I noticed is that when I have a lot of carbs, I get hungry faster, being hungry feels worse, and I am more “snack-y” all around. It almost feels like I become enslaved to food, constantly planning different snacks and thinking about what to eat and trying to put off eating just a bit longer so I can ration what I have. I eat at irregular times and eat more. The French way of eating has one “official” afternoon snack each day – “le gouter.” Somehow, this term has slipped into my mental vocabulary in the past few weeks, especially since I have been working a lot of evening work shifts – having “le gouter” before work keep me from being ravenous for dinner or starving on my late bus home.

Druckerman lays out all sorts of benefits for children and parents who stick to these schedules, too, but again, parenting books aren’t just about technique, but about re-evaluating and discovering your own cultural values. Why treat your kid’s life with any more (or less) care than you give your own life, and if it’s important enough to teach your kids, why not do it now? How French of me…

As I’ve alluded to around these parts, I am trying mightily to be a better reader of fantasy and science fiction. I don’t think I am likely to ever swoon over world-building and magic-wielding like so many of my friends do because, well, I didn’t grow up on it. But I can build up a tolerance, I can find what I like and assess what teens and other readers like, and I can give books a fair chance no matter the genre. Acknowledging one’s biases. Book equality. Broadening horizons, etc.

I want to say that I picked up Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone with a spirit of equanimity, but I didn’t. I knew this book was special because my roommate told me about it. She knows I don’t like fantasy, so she doesn’t tell me about all of them. And then Janssen at Everyday Reading – who is also generally anti-fantasy – not only raved about it, but gave it to her husband. As someone who carefully doles out YA books to her own not-so-fictionally-inclined male partner, I know the weight of that move. It would have to be an exceptional read to pass along something so fantasy-y.

Now, months after the buzz has died down, I pick up this book and completely fall into the story. The heroine, Karou, is a teen living in Prague, studying art. She has her own apartment. She has tattoos. She has blue hair. She has a nasty ex-boyfriend. She has an assortment of artsy friends and a macabre, divey restaurant where they all like to sit around a coffin and eat borscht. I was suprised by how normal and likable these characters were, despite the novel’s unusual setting and the heroine’s unlikely living situation. The real-ness of the characters was put even further into relief when we learn that Karou is an orphan who grew up in a magical workshop of sorts, inhabited by creatures who are kind, protective, and obviously love Karou, despite the fact that they are very clearly not human. Karou’s “father” – Brimstone – runs the show, dealing in a sort of magic that requires a steady supply of teeth – human or animal; when she’s not sketching in her notebook, she’s off on Brimstone’s errands, traveling around the world to meet up with teeth traders, and she is paid with wishes.

The “otherworldliness” here is complex, but what keeps the story interesting is that we never know more than Karou knows, and she’s been kept in the dark regarding this magical business for her entire life. As she uncovers the secrets of the teeth, the wishes, the chimaera, and Brimstone, we too discover another layer to this fantasy. And yes, there is a boy – an angel, actually. About halfway through the book, this story does become more of a paranormal romance (yeuch…). When Akiva starts following Karou around, I was like “oh great, you’re falling in love with an angel, please gag me now), but Taylor weaves this romance into something that is more than just attraction, more than a vague, unconvincing “We Are Meant to BE!”, but something wound up in the rest of the book’s mysteries, a love that is entangled with war and memories and mysticism. At the end of the book, I was swooning, I was convinced.

And the ending! This was what I remember my roommate raving about – the ending. It’s a series, yes, but the ending combines satisfaction, surprise, and a cliffhanger – it makes you certain you will read the next book without feeling cheated.

In other words: yes, this book made me forget that I don’t like fantasy. And yes, I will be passing it along to my own man-partner. It is that special.