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books
07 May 2011

what we talk about when we talk about young adult lit

I love it when the New York Times publishes articles on children’s literature.

No, really! I do!

Most of the time, these articles are somewhat… um… problematic. Booksellers, librarians, teachers, bloggers and other Children’s Literature People threw themselves into a tizzy when the NYT talked about the death of picturebooks. When the mainstream media gets a hold of OUR literature, the claws always come out: something is always misrepresented, there is always some commentary to be made.

But normal, non-Children’s Literature People step in the fray, as well. I just wrote a rousing really awful paper on Julie Just’s 2009 article, “The Problem with Parents in YA.” Again, the article was problematic in and of itself – I spent almost 2,000 words examining those intricate problems two weeks ago – but what I found fascinating was the COMMENTS section. In case you don’t feel like clicking links, I’ll share with you the top comment on this article

I’m an old, old, person. And I don’t read young adult novels. To me, little can be more boring than a story designed for a child. Love the sinner, hate the sin.

And that right there is why I love when the New York Times publishes articles on children’s literature, and why I love studying it and am glad I am in this program and not some random other English MA program:

There is something about children’s literature, specifically, that gets under everyone’s skin,

and inspires EVERYONE to share their unexamined comments, opinions, prejudices, and random opinions.

Even if their response to a thoughtful, albeit slightly misguided article is the ever-useful, unapologetic observation that

“those books are boring.”

That is just a fascinating impulse to me. Compare these articles and responses to, say, a random book review for a new “literary” adult title by any unnamed author, or perhaps an article talking about classic literature. Nobody feels a need to jump into the conversation – they leave the literary discussion to the experts. Everyone assumes that the author of said article knows more about that kind of literature than they do. If the NYT posts an article about War and Peace, most people haven’t read it, or read it under duress, and aren’t interested enough to speak up. There’s also an unspoken understanding that just because you’ve READ War and Peace does not make you an expert on Russian Literature. You haven’t read War and Peace enough, read it in the right way, read enough other Russian Literature to speak about it.

There is something about children’s literature that makes EVERYONE feel like they are an expert.

This has various implications for the legitimacy or the perception of the study of children’s literature, but I love it. I love it! It is so INTERESTING to see these conversations going on in a public forum, and it’s a helluva nerdy-good-time watching everyone reveal themselves when they open their mouths.

The flavor of the NYT week is Lisa Belkin’s review of two new young adult novels about teen dating abuse.

Ms. Belkin opens her article with this little doozy:

“The purpose of young adult literature is often twofold: to tell a story, and to send a message, usually in the form of a much-needed lesson.”

Which, even reading it for the third or fourth time now incites the same reaction in me:

“Oh…… honey……”

There is so much going on, even in that first line, that is just ASKING for the Children’s Literature People to rally their forces. I really like Ms. Belkin’s Parenting Blog – I think it’s smart and relevant. But this goes to show – there is something about children’s literature that makes even smart, relevant people make unexamined, unsupported statements IN THE OPENING LINES OF AN ESSAY.

Can you imagine an article talking about Jonathan Franzen or Jennifer Egan’s new works opening with “The purpose of adult literature is often twofold: to tell a story, and to send a message?”

First of all, nobody ASSUMES that adult literature needs to HAVE a purpose, eh?

And, NOBODY would assume that even if there was a purpose, it would be to “send a message,” unless it’s some kind of religious or political propaganda, right?

Assumptions.

The article rolls out, assumption after assumption after assumption. In the first three paragraphs alone, Ms. Belkin seems to believe that:

  • Parents’ perceptions of the contents of a young adult novel are important to the discussion of the genre. (Parents appear in the article immediately after that zinger of a first line)
  • Teen books don’t appeal to adults. (Although she has at least that Julie Just commenter on her side…)
  • Teens like young adult fiction because it doesn’t appeal to adults.
  • Good young adult books do MORE than tell a story and send a message, but it is implied that they must ALSO do both of those things.
  • Bad young adult books feel like “after-school” specials.
  • “Where ‘Bitter End’ and ‘Stay’ fall short is more a reflection of the pitfalls of the genre than the talents of their authors,” seems to imply that even great, talented authors would have trouble writing a TRULY great young adult novel because the genre REQUIRES that AWFUL message to be there.

Correct me if I’m off base, but I think Ms. Belkin’s central thesis is that YA lit requires both STORY and MESSAGE, but that somehow, these two novels she examines (Stay by Deb Caletti and Bitter End by Jennifer Brown) fail to do either well because the story gets in the way of a clear message and the message gets in the way of good characters and plot.

Two of the more popular responses to this article are from other young adult authors – Sarah Ockler and Bennett Madison – although I’m sure other Children’s Literature People will get their own 2 cents in soon enough.

Ockler and Madison’s beef is the assumption that young adult literature must have a MESSAGE.

Literature should be literature. Stories just stories. Nobody should try to impose a moral meaning on a text, nobody should expect there to be one, nobody should examine a book in terms of its “message” or judge a book on the quality of said message.

But I find even THAT to be another ASSUMPTION.

Perhaps slightly more examined than Belkin’s rampant assumptions (oh, that first line… you were just ASKING for it, Lisa!), but still an assumption.

I counter your arguments, Belkin, and your counter-arguments, Ockler and Madison with this genius piece by the one-and-only M. T. Anderson…

who surely needs his assumptions to be examined as well.

The central thesis of this post?

This is a never ending cycle and it will never cease to engage me.

There is something about children’s literature that gets everyone involved.

And I’d like to figure out what that something is.

book reviews
31 Mar 2011

March 2011 Reading Round-up

Even though I have a week off for Spring Break, March is usually a fairly light reading month for me. Maybe because a week off from school means a week off from my syllabus? But heck, who am I kidding, I am having trouble even attending to my obligatory 2-novels-a-week quota.

Ah, well. Some months are lean, some have books of plenty, their reading cups runneth over, et cetera. Take it easy, Jessica, it will all get read, in time.

1. Alice in Charge by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

I read my first Alice book in 5th grade, when Alice was a year ahead of me. Now, 10 years later, Alice is finally a Senior in high school, and Lester – her epically older, working on his Masters since I was in middle school, brother – just turned 24.

I am now the most epically old person alive.

Anyway, this year, Alice is going on (underplanned, heavily misguided) college visits, helping a friend report unsavory teacher-student relations, and investigating an undercover hate group that has targeted her friend, a refugee from Sudan.

But, most importantly, she’s pining over Patrick, who has started college a year early (what an idiot). Ah, sigh, Alice and Patrick, Patrick and Alice. Some things just don’t change in 10 years.

2. Real Live Boyfriends by E. Lockhart

I wrote about how much I enjoyed reading this book, but I didn’t go into much detail as to why.

Here’s the quick and dirty: E. Lockhart’s books, without fail, remind me of the sheer complexity of attempting to maintain a romantic relationship with another human being, the triumphs, the pain, the importance of keeping at it. They might be considered “romantic comedies,” but they never sell a single character or interaction short.

These books make me want to hug them. Like, actually hug.

3. Split by Swati Avasthi

Return of the Syllabus… but I really enjoyed this book. The novel begins with Jace knocking on the door of his older brother, who he hasn’t seen in a number of years and who isn’t expecting him for a visit, much less to move in and stay awhile. Christian is miffed, but he understands, since he ran away from the same home years before to escape the domestic abuse of their father… who is a District Judge. The story focuses on Jace adapting to a new life while trying to reach out to the mother he left behind, trying to relate to a similarly emotionally damaged brother, and dealing with a bit of a secret past that could come back to haunt him.

I found this to be one of those books that zips right along, the pages flying by for a few days and when you are done, you don’t feel floored (or prone to book-hugging) but just satisfied.

2010 Cybils Winner – Young Adult Fiction

4. The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin

We read this book for class alongside Split, which turned this class period into a Domestic Abuse Extravaganza!! (These books are pretty much all super depressing this semester)

This time around, we have a crazy, occasionally violent mother. Nikki has three kids from two different fathers, and this novel is a letter written from the oldest (Matthew) to the youngest (Emmy). Matthew and his sister Callie have done a great job of keeping Emmy safe from Nikki’s crazy outbursts and drunken rages, but Matthew still secretly hopes that somebody – a Knight in Shining Armor – will show up and save them all, even though he’s not sure that Nikki is really “all that bad.” Matt and Callie see a strong, kindly stranger in their neighborhood and decide that he is the One, and they hunt him down and find his name and address. However, Nikki finds Murdoch first and seduces him, and when their romantic relationship fizzles, Nikki turns her rage towards him.

I’d read this book a few years ago and I definitely enjoyed the re-read, but unlike say, Split, the end of the book felt a little scrapped together, a little disconcerting. Well, the whole book was a bit disconcerting, but I didn’t close the novel feeling resolved – I left feeling a little lost, a little confused… and all the more glad that I have a pair of mentally balanced parents.

2006 National Book Award Finalist

5. Stolen by Lucy Christopher

I’ll say this first – this book has me all sorts of riled up, for a number of reasons.

I feel like I don’t want to spoil much, but I’m going to anyway. In chapter one, the narrator – Gemma – is drugged and abducted at the airport and flown against her will and her knowledge to the remote deserts of Australia where her captor has spent years building a little homestead for the two of them to live.

The novel has two storylines, then:

1) Gemma tries to escape

2) Gemma falls in love with her captor

The second story line bothered me, but it mostly bothered me because it was really obvious that the story line was SUPPOSED to bother me.

I don’t like feeling manipulated…

but I suppose it DID make me think, right? And also we talked about Colonialism in class – Stockholm Syndrome = the oppressors tricking the oppressed into wanting to be oppressed – which I thought was crazy-interesting.

So I’m torn.

2011 Printz Honor

6. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

It was a BPL miracle: this book was getting a lot of hype in the media/blogosphere, I went to put a hold on it, I WAS NUMBER FOUR IN LINE.

Anyway, last week when I was recovering from my terrible illness, I missed out on 12 hours of work on Thursday and thought I would go onto campus and do a little extra on Friday. But first, I had to walk to the library to drop off my overdues and pick up my holds.

The bags were really heavy, though, and I forgot my caffeine in my fridge, and walking a mile was a little exhausting. I did not make it to work on Friday – I made it back onto the couch and read through this book in the span of an afternoon.

I found the book to be not much at all like the media portrayed it – it wasn’t a parenting polemic, it was a memoir. It wasn’t a “This is How You Should Raise Your Kids,” this is “This is How I Raised My Kids and It Kind of Worked and Kind of Didn’t.”

The book revolves around her two daughter’s music lessons and skills – they are both highly advanced musicians because Ms. Chua lorded over their hours-a-day practicing and arranged for them the best lessons available – so I naturally handed this one off to my boyfriend.

However, I didn’t expect him to eat it up like he currently is…

more about THAT later…

books
08 Mar 2011

pleasure reading

Grad school has been sucking away at my will to read.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. Actually, grad school makes me want to read 40 hours a week; there are SO MANY books that I haven’t read that I simply need to, and SO MANY books coming out, every day, to keep up with.

But reading the Books I Should Read and keeping up with the Books That Everyone Is Talking About on top of reading the Books On My G.D. Syllabus,

kind of sucks away my will to read the Books I Used to Live For.

New books by Laurie Halse Anderson, John Green, M.T. Anderson, Maureen Johnson, Megan McCafferty, Sarah Dessen, David Levithan, E. Lockhart… used to get me to Walden Books on my way to work, used to get me going to the gym to read, used to get me excited with my little release date calendars…

now, I can’t seem to scrounge up the money or energy to get myself to place an Amazon order.

But a few weeks ago, I found myself at one of those Borders that is being closed… and everything was 20% off.

And even though I didn’t think I would read it, I picked up the last book in E. Lockhart’s Ruby Oliver series. I have the other three in hardback and wanted a complete set… even if the publishers had the audacity to CHANGE the cover-style on the last book. Jerks.

It sat on my desk, looking pretty for a few weeks, and then a grad school miracle happened:

I got a little ahead in my reading, and the other book I have to read was still waiting for me at some library.

I literally didn’t have any of the books I needed to read…. so I HAD to read something not on a syllabus.

Whoa.

AND I’M SO GLAD.

Even though I am a failed children’s literature grad student who is seriously behind in her required reading, and hasn’t yet read Heidi or The Secret Garden or The Yearling or maybe not even Harriet the Spy…

Even though I have dozens of Christmas and Birthday books lining my shelves, spines uncracked.

Even though I have sat through lectures maligning the literary attempts of the same authors I used to love so very much.

I still love this series.

I still love characters like Ruby Oliver.

I still love smart books about the intricacies of trying to relate to the opposite sex.

I still love writers like E. Lockhart.

I am super, super sad that this was the last book in the series.

And I’m glad I was able to pull my head out of my syllabus for a few days and remember this kind of pleasure.

book reviews
02 Mar 2011

February 2011 Reading Round-up

All-syllabus, all the time.

At least I’m getting more reading done than I was last year at this time, what with The Semester of the Picturebook weighing me down. And I’m actually caught up with my reading to the point that I *gasp* picked up a JUST FOR FUN book yesterday! And I might have time to finish it! Yowza!

1. Trash by Andy Mulligan

This book is much more action-y than I usually like, but I did like this book. It has a strangely dystopian-feel, but maybe that’s because the kids in the book make a living digging through the trash of the rich and selling what they find. It seems hard to believe that kids like this really exist in the world, that communities like this exist, but they do. These kids get in and out of a fair amount of trouble when they find some trash they shouldn’t have, and they end up doing the whole Fighting Off the Evil Opressors! thing throughout the novel. Really engaging.

2. Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Saenz

I love me a good addict memoir, but this fiction is just as good. Alex is in rehab, but he doesn’t remember why. Actually, he just doesn’t want to remember why, so he doesn’t. But if he wants to leave, wants to stay sober, wants to return to the real world, he has to work with his therapist, with his friends, and with himself to figure out what’s worth remembering from his past and what’s worth returning to.

3. Boy Toy by Barry Lyga

I read this book when it first came out, a few years ago. I thought it was pretty good, whatever. Read it again, and suddenly, I felt like a big fat creep. This could be because I’m currently enrolled in a graduate program, that besides from being freaking AWESOME, it also requires that I think about what it means to be an adult who wants to read about teenagers, and the inherent creepiness about the whole process. ANYWAY, the book is about a 13-year-old kid who has affair with his 24-year-old social studies teacher. Five years later, he’s 18 and she’s being let out of jail on parole, and he’s finally forced to dredge up the past and figure out what exactly happened in seventh grade.

The difference between my two readings of the book? When I first read the book, I was 22. Now, I’m older than his teacher.

Insert squeamish faces and noises and feelings in the pit of your stomach.

4. Fell by M.E. Kerr

This was one of my favorite audiobooks as a kid. Yeah, I listened to a lot of Books on Tape while I played with my Legos… what’s it to you? Anyway, I’ve heard this story a lot, but I’ve only read it a couple times in print. This time around, I was surprised that there was a lot that my mind had inflated – I knew the story so well, I was sure of this EPIC nature of the book, that scenes went on longer, that the plot moved slower. Nope. This is a lean, fast read. It’s about a boy, Fell, whose girlfriend stands him up at Prom. Angry, he backs out of her driveway too fast and runs into her neighbor’s car, an accident that ends up changing his life when the neighbor offers to get him out of his struggling single-parent home and take a place at a prestigious boarding school under a false name. I also wrote a paper on this book…. which was probably not very well executed. Urgh.

5. Surrender by Sonya Hartnett

I brought this book home in the summer, thinking it looked like a nice literary, edgy read. I never got around to it… THANK GOODNESS. It popped up on my syllabus, and I first found it…. dense. A lot of description. It wouldn’t have been what I wanted to read over the summer…. and then, close to the end, it becomes completely horrifying. I don’t even want to get into it, but jaw-dropping, eye-covering, horror. 2007 Printz Honor.

6. Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers

No offense intended to Mr. Myers…. but how can you write a book like Monster and then KEEP writing books about kids in prison? I can’t read a single book about a kid in prison without comparing it to Monster… much less another book written by Walter Dean Myers.

So it was good, fine, yes. But no Monster. 2010 National Book Award Finalist.

7. Nothing by Janne Teller

Just when I thought I couldn’t be more horrified by a book (See: Surrender), more horrifying books come along!

This is one of those books that you’ll find yourself trying to explain to every person you meet. It starts off with a bunch of seventh graders, one of whom decides that life is meaningless, climbs up a tree, and proceeds to harass everyone that walks by, screaming at his former friends for continuing to live when there’s really nothing to live for. So the rest of the gang want to prove him wrong and shut him up: they start to gather a pile of things that have meaning, to show their friend. Only, the things they put on that pile…. oh my good Lord. This book was so disturbing, but I do feel I’ll have to read it again, someday, when I’m done being horrified. (And want to be re-horrified?). 2011 Printz Honor.

8. Punkzilla by Adam Rapp

No one in my class seemed to like this book, but I was quite fond of it. Punkzilla is a fourteen-year-old runaway who has gone AWOL from military school. He’s living a questionable, drug-laden, crime-driven lifestyle in Portland when he finds out his older brother – also estranged from their parents – is dying of cancer, so he sets off across the country to see him before he dies. The novel, however, is told in letters. Letters Punkzilla sends to his brother, which may or may not have been sent, while he’s on the road. Letters he’s received from his parents and family and friends. Letters that are non-chronological, unreliable, and hard to decipher. What really got me was the last letter – after an entire novel about this really troubled, confused kid, the last letter is an older one, sent right after he left military school: Punkzilla – or Jamie, which is his real name – used to be a totally normal, kid with normal-league problems. WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM IN PORTLAND? Gah! Also, I’m fairly certain this was edited by my internship supervisor at Candlewick. *smile* 2010 Printz Honor.

9. Inexcusable by Chris Lynch

I heard about this book a lot, but never actually read through it until it -duh- appeared on my syllabus. The premise: the narrator, Keir, has raped his friend Gigi. The rest of the book: him explaining himself. So based on that, I thought the novel would be pretty salacious, pretty ridiculous, pretty over the top, whatever. But it wasn’t. I was reading, feeling like there would be some revelation at the end of the novel, that there would be some explanation that would make Keir’s actions make sense. But there wasn’t. So the whole book becomes, then, Keir trying to figure that out for himself – that there’s no explanation. Some things are inexcusable, and not just things that people do to him, but things he’s done to others. It’s a bit of a mind-trip, and really compelling. 2005 National Book Award Finalist.

10. Sorta Like A Rockstar by Matthew Quick

My roommate kept asking me if this book was any good. I kept answering “Yeah, it’s okay. It’s more like something we would actually read for fun.” I’m still trying to figure out what that means, exactly, other than 1) Not so literary 2) Kind of silly/fluffy 3) Not so depressing. Well, I mean yes, the book is depressing, and I *may* have shed a tear at the over-the-top Hollywood ending, but it’s nothing like.. oh… Nothing. It’s basically the story of a really plucky homeless girl who is really into Jesus and befriending the kind of people who nobody wants to befriend, and whether or not true tragedy can or should break your faith in God or the goodness of life or your eternal optimism. A nice way to round out the month. I flew through the last half of the book.

book lists
31 Jan 2011

January 2011 Reading Round-up

There was a lot of reading going on this month, 95% of it Required Winter Break Reading of Young Adult Classics.

Wait a second. Make that 100%.

What does this mean? That I should have been keeping a Death Count. Seriously, people are dying/going crazy/trying to kill themselves all over the place in historic YA!

1. Forever… by Judy Blume

I forgot how much I FREAKING LOVE this book. It’s 200 pages of amazingly raw first romance, gratuitous drama, and of course, sexy-sex. RALPH!!! Judy Blume is my hero.

2. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

I was assigned this book for my Reading class in 7th grade… and I remember very clearly not finishing it on time and failing a reading test because I didn’t know what happened with some fire at the end of the book. I felt a little better when, 13 years later, I still didn’t quite understand what happened with that fire. I mean, I get it now, but it took me a few read throughs. Other than that, I was disturbed by how annoyingly didactic this novel is. “If you just go to school and save your pennies, you can rise out of poverty and racism and oppression, kids!” “Be one of the GOOD black people (Logans), children, not the BAD black people (T.J.) 1977 Newbery Medal.

3. Unleaving by Jill Paton Walsh

Rich, pages-long descriptions of the ocean. Thick, pages-long conversations between professors and students about the meaning of life and morality. If that’s what you’re into. Titled after one of my favorite poems. 1976 Boston Globe- Horn Book winner.

4. I Am The Cheese by Robert Cormier

Did I tell you that Robert Cormier’s daughter works at my school… and last semester, she worked withe ME for a few weeks? How bizarre, how bizarre. Much like this book! A psychological thriller with two competing timelines. I’m not sure I figured out what was going on by the end of the book.

5. The Language of Goldfish by Zibby ONeal

Really enjoyed this book. It’s a short, delicate story of a stressed out 13-year-old girl, a budding artist, who can’t figure out how to grow up and may or may not be going crazy. I wish I had time in my busy reading schedule to give this one another read-through.

6. Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson

Read this one during my hellish day of air transportation. A certain classmate of mine *cough* Kristina *cough* hated it and called the main character silent, self-pitying, and self-loathing. I suspect this particular classmate is not an oldest child with gorgeous, spoiled younger sisters. 1981 Newbery Medal

7. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

Love, love, loved this book. I wish that 95% of people writing mainstream, heterosexual YA romance/high school stories right now would read this and take extensive notes. It’s really pitch perfect.

8. Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid

A literal coming-of-age novel. Each chapter is an unfolding of Annie John’s life in Antigua, beginning with early childhood memories of idolizing her mother, through the social challenges of high school, and ending when she boards a boat for college off the island. Pretty readable, but I wasn’t in love.

9. House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

I read this using my patented, completely ineffective method of Wii Reading. Meaning – Read 10 pages, play one level of Donkey Kong Country Returns, Read 10 pages, play one more level. Consequently, I don’t remember much about this one.

10. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

This is a book about teenage soldiers in the Vietnam War. I expected it to be vaguely horrifying. It was. But I did not expect to actually enjoy the story. I did.

11. Remembering the Good Times by Richard Peck

Okay, there wasn’t anything WRONG with this book, plot-wise, content-wise, whatever. It was fine. However, all three main characters suffered from acute Dawson’s-Creek-itis, constantly waxing poetic about the Difficulty of Life, the Strength and Duration of their Friendships, the Horror of Growing Up. The three main characters are constantly running around talking about how close a friendship they have, how the three of them grew up together and have an unspoken bond of eternal trust. However, all three characters seem to have forgotten that A) They met A YEAR before the book’s main plot takes place and B) THEY ARE FOURTEEN. THEY ARE TOO YOUNG TO BE TALKING LIKE THEY ARE 50 YEARS OLD. /rant

12. Stotan! by Chris Crutcher

I forget that I like Chris Crutcher’s books so much… but there you have it. I do. Teen male camaraderie at its finest, and sports so well-rendered you’ll forget you hate sports.

13. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Yet another case of the I-Swear-I-Read-This-Book-But-I-Really-Can’t-Remember-Anything-About-It. I was dutifully impressed, however. So impressed, I would prefer not to write a paper on this book. Unfortunately, the syllabus begs to differ.

14. I Hadn’t Meant to Tell You This by Jacqueline Woodson

Ever read a book whose plot relies on some character revelation midway through the novel, and then you read it again and catch all the foreshadowing you missed in the first half of the book? Yeah, that happened here. Such a sad, sad book.

15. A Step From Heaven by An Na

Lyrical prose, vignette-style narration, depicting the suckiness of family life as a new immigrant. 2002 Printz Winner.

16. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Reading this for the umpteenth time, still tickled by Anderson’s wit and Melinda’s survival tactics. Will be spending a significant chunk of the semester thinking and writing and presenting about this novel… 2000 Printz Honor.

books
20 Jan 2011

get used to it

Four days, four books.

Ah, such is life such is life.

Semester starts in three… two… one…

book lists
05 Jan 2011

Best Reads of 2010

 

10. Making Mischief: A Maurice Sendak Appreciation by Gregory Maguire

9. The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

8. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

7. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith

6. Push by Sapphire

5. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

4. The Catcher in the Rye

3. Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert

2. The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp

 

1. This Is Not The Story You Think It Is by Laura Munson

 

 

books
09 Dec 2010

strange things are happening to me

1. I just realized that in 2011, my youngest sister will get her driver’s license.

2. The judges kicked off the flippin’ Whiffenpoofs last night!

!!!! !!!!!!!!!!

I am majorly offended and am considering retracting my previously pronounced love for The Stupid Sing Off.

I reacted by impulse-buying their latest CD on iTunes.

Which was probably not the best idea for my finances, and reinforced my indignation.

Bah humbug!

~

3. I finished reading a book yesterday that left me with that “No, no, no this CAN’T be the last page! Let me savor you a little longer!” feeling.

I’d forgotten about this book, and I’d forgotten about that feeling.

~

4. This morning, I ran out of money for Christmas shopping.

My bank account isn’t at zero, but 69 dollars will not go particularly far when I still have gifts to purchase for Dad, Best Friend, and Boy friend. Not to mention my weekly intake of caffeinated beverages, impulse purchases of mp3s, and the fact that payday is still a week away.

I started to brainstorm: baked goods, combined birthday/Christmas gifts, praying to the USPS gods to send me my replacement credit cards posthaste, an offer to Clean My Dad’s Car (he seems to like this better than presents).

My mind wandered. “Is there anyone who owes me money?” I thought. “Am I waiting on any checks that I’ve forgotten about?”

This was silly, obviously. There are Christmas checks from the Grandparents to look forward to, but no guarantee they’ll be here in time to shop, and what’s sadder than spending your own Christmas gift buying presents for other people?

I sighed.

And then three hours later, remembered that yes, somebody does owe me money. Somebody owes me A THOUSAND DOLLARS and if I don’t get it by the end of next week, shit’s going DOWN!

(Somebody = my school. I’m not a loan shark, people!)

When does that happen? Ever?

books
12 Nov 2010

19th Century Children’s Literature

It looks like I might make it to 100 books this year, despite the lack of novels on my class reading lists.

I’m not complaining, but every semester spent reading 7,000+ picturebooks (Spring) or 7,000+ page 19th century novels (Fall) takes away time from the Read A Giant Mountain of Books objective. Last fall, I was reading at least 600 pages a week, but those pages were divvied up over three or four titles instead of crammed into one Long, Long Book.

This is my first exposure to the glory that is 19th Century Children’s Literature. And this includes some obvious titles: somehow, I lived almost 26 years without reading Little Women or Tom Sawyer. How did that happen? I have no idea. I was probably too busy reading The Babysitter’s Club.

Anyway, I’m growing more accustomed to the 19th century cadence of language, the Boy Book and Girl Book paradigm, and the sheer force of will power required to make it through a phonebook sized novel with the tiniest words still visible to the naked eye, and I’m finding myself strangely fond of some of the stories.

Our professor told us that, at some point during our semi-chronological reading list, a book would click in our head, telling us “Oh, this is a book for children!” You see, in the 19th Century, children reading novels was A) not widely possible because a lot of kids were illiterate or too busy being poor or working on a farm, B) not enough of a money-maker to warrant a whole genre to themselves, and C) kind of anti-Christian and immoral. So those 700 page monsters were not really written for children, but for women who didn’t mind reading about a child protagonist.

This week, I’m reading What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge, and even after one chapter, I knew exactly what my professor was talking about. THIS was a book for children, and I was enjoying breezing through it this week, even while nursing intense homework assignments and other mental-breakdown type situations.

However, I am not quite accustomed to the 19th Century Children’s Literature Horror: the moment when you are reading when you realize exactly what craziness is going on between author and reader, child and adult, and society as a whole.

I’m breezing along with Katy and her appealing younger siblings. Katy is a freewheeling, Jo March type tomboy, who will obviously need some discipline over the course of the novel. I get that. So she gets on this tree swing, after her curmudgeonly Aunt Izzie tells her not to. Alright, so something bad is going to happen, since the narrator told me that the swing is broken. She’ll fall off, get punished, and then move on to the next chapter-long trial of her character.

I should have seen it coming, but I was completely BLINDSIDED when Katy flies off the swing and blacks out, waking up to find out she is at risk for some kind of SPINAL CORD INJURY, and must now submit to the 19th Century Medical Treatment of Laying Down in Bed, Immobile.

Of course, the doctor says 2 weeks, but the 19th Century Horror keeps her in bed for TWO YEARS.

Moral of the Story:

To discipline an unruly (albeit well-meaning) young woman, you must simply hobble her until she learns the patience, humility, and grace of a complete invalid.

Oh, Contemporary Realistic Young Adult Fiction, you are calling my name…. See you in January of 2011!