Year 1991

For some reason I was under the impression that this week’s book, Maniac Magee was Year 1990 and would conclude another decade.  Alas, I was mistaken.  I’ve still got another week to dwell in the 90’s, so I’ll save my thoughts on how the decade has treated me for next week’s post.

Maniac Magee, which is by Jerry Spinelli, was the first Newbery I’ve read in a long time that I could easily picture a kid reading and loving.  In fact, when I started it Forrest told me he’d read it frequently as a kid himself.  The chapters are short and the print, in my copy at least, was on the larger side.  The story starts out lighthearted enough, if you ignore the part about Magee’s parents dying in a tragic accident when he was only a little kid.  He gets passed off to his aunt and uncle, and the household is basically devoid of any kind of love or fun.  During a school play Magee reaches his breaking point and runs away.  In fact, he spends the majority of the story running.  Hence the cover of the book:

The lightheartedness I was alluding to comes from a description of how Magee became a legend and came to be known as a Maniac.  It seems that anything put before Magee to do was done perfectly and left the people watching with mouths hanging open.  For example, he runs on a single railroad track, makes a touchdown while running through a high school practice game, hits a home run from a kid pitcher who is known for striking out anyone who steps up to the plate, etc.

But, back to seriousness, I think the issue at hand in this story is racial segregation.  There’s so much that really could be taken from this story but race is a big part of it.  Magee runs into a town that has an invisible line  drawn between the East and West end;  the blacks vs. the whites.  It raised in me a lot of anger at the way people, kids actually, treated each other, and it brought to the surface questions about my own racial outlook in life.  Do I look at or treat people of races other than my own differently?  If so, why?    Is it something ingrained in all of us since the Fall or do we catch it like a cold through the vehicles of fear and lies?

Another question that has lingered with me since closing the book last night was: why did Magee keep running through the entirety of the story, and why was it so hard for him to stop?  Was it because he didn’t feel like he fit in either on the white side or the black side?  Was it because he didn’t want to get too attached and lose someone important like he had experienced in the past?  I feel like I’m shooting out more questions than answers here and probably not giving a very good summary of the story.  There were so many story lines, vivid characters and life lessons in this story that I feel like I am grabbing at whatever I can to paint some kind of picture for you.  Bah.  Just read it.  That’s my advice here.

Till next time…

 

Year 1992

I love me some dog stories (pardon my inexcusable grammar).  Lucky for me, this week’s Newbery book was just that.  Meet Shiloh, a shy beagle whose owner treats him poorly.  Then meet Marty, an 11-year old boy who stumbles upon Shiloh in the woods and then can’t seem to shake him.  When I met these characters my pessimistic brain immediately thought: oh great. i’m going to get all attached and then the dog is going to die and i’m going to be heartbroken.  Actually, I am happy to report that I was 100% wrong.  Shiloh lives!

Stylistically speaking, I was a little disappointed when I started reading and realized it was one of “those” books.  You know, the one where it’s in the first person and the grammar is more “back woods” than anything else.  It’s hard for my brain to slip into this kind of writing, but once I’m a few chapters in I actually do enjoy it.  It kind of makes you want to talk like in that every day life because of its certain rhythm.

The relationship between Marty and Shiloh is really sweet, and soft-hearted as I can be at times all I wanted to do while reading this story was cuddle up to my own little “Shiloh,” or as she’s known around these parts, Fran.  But what draws the reader’s attention here is not necessarily the cute, cuddly parts; rather, it’s the struggle between telling the truth because it’s what right versus telling a lie because it protects someone you love.  I think we’ve all had the scenario presented to us: if your mom needed medicine but you didn’t have enough money to get it would you steal it?  She’d die unless you got her that medicine.  What is the more important virtue?  Saving a life or lying?  In Shiloh it isn’t as dramatic as all that, but Marty is faced with protecting Shiloh from Judd Travers (the abusive, neglectful owner) and in the process must start lying to his family, friends and people in town.  At first he tells himself that they aren’t really lies…just omissions of the truth, and he’s doing it to protect Shiloh.  But as the story progresses the lies grow bigger and Marty truly does dig himself a metaphorical grave.  Of course, everything turns out okay but I found it interesting that when his dad finds out about Marty hiding the dog this conversation transpires:

“There isn’t a word passed between us till we get home.  Once Dad turns the motor off, though, and I’m all set to get out, he says, “Marty, what else don’t I know?”

“What?” I ask.

“You keeping Judd’s dog up there on the hill–got a place for him all built, never letting on.  What else you keeping from me?”‘ (Shiloh, 93)

Even if Marty had only told one lie his father was right in having a hard time believing anything he had to say.  That’s what sucks about lies.  Even if it’s just one you almost immediately become discreditable in the eyes of those around you.  And building trust after it’s lost, as we have probably all experienced, is long and painful.

Anyway, I loved it.  Anytime a well-written children’s story has a strong moral issue running through it that invites questions during or after the reading is a-ok in my book.

In other news Forrest and I are vaccinated from the swine flu and my hypochondriac mind can take a somewhat sigh of relief.  (Somewhat because is a hypochondriac’s mind ever at rest?)  Last weekend we took a trip up to Hood River, OR and drove what’s commonly known as the “Fruit Loop” and took in breathtaking views of fall colors, Mt Hood, and country living.  We also bought some apple cider, pear wine, pumpkins (which will be carved today), and apple butter.  Tonight we are planning on handing out candy to any kids who dare come to our door and hopefully scare the wits out of them.

Happy Halloween and Happy Fall from our house to yours.

Till next time…

 

Year 1993

The other night I made my own calendar in order to put in writing which Newbery book accompanies which week, month, and yes, year.  If I stay true to my goal by reading a Newbery a week I won’t finish until the last week of Febrary 2011.  Whew.  I have doubts as to my own dedication but I’m willing to give it a shot.

Actually, in the last two weeks I’ve gone a little Newbery crazy and have checked out more books from the library than I know what to do with.  The 2010 Newbery medal is announced in January and in the months preceding there are debates regarding which book will be chosen.  A blog that I follow rather closely, http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/560000656.html facilitates such discussions and gives suggestions of books that might be in the running.  Well, needless to say I have a good chunk of those books sitting on my desk at the moment.  How will I read my Newbery book a week plus some?  Who knows.  But it sure is fun trying.

Speaking of fun, it is amazing how doing what you are really passionate about makes the rest of life good.  My last post was, in a few words, about having the courage to step out and embrace beauty, which is what I’m trying my best to do.  What that entails for me is volunteering at the library once a week, reading a wide range of children’s literature, writing here every week and attempting to publish a short work of children’s fiction.  It’s scary and a bit time-consuming but I love it.  Wholeheartedly.

And speaking of love, I loved Missing May.

It was an incredibly short read but extremely heartfelt and worth the few hours commitment.  Summed up it is a book about grief.  The main character is Summer, a 12 year old girl who had been taken in by her older relatives Ob and May when she was 3.  When May dies it leaves Summer fearful of losing Ob as well because of how hard he takes the loss.  An unexpected friend, Cletus, appears on the scene and brings with him a sense of security and hope.  He’s weird and Summer doesn’t like him at first but I think that Cletus is part of the reason that both Ob and Summer are able to grieve in the way they need to and ultimately move on and choose life.  Here’s an excerpt from the story regarding how to grieve:

“Seems once people bring in outsiders who make a career of bereavement – undertakers, preachers – their grieving gets turned into a kind of system, like the way everybody lines up the same way to go in to a movie or sits the same way in a doctor’s office.  All Ob and me wanted to do when we lost May was hold onto each other and wail in that trailer for days and days.  But we never got the chance, because just like there are certain ways people expect you to get married, or go to church, or raise kids, there are certain ways people expect you to grieve. …People wanted us to grieve proper” (pg. 36).

It’s true that we do live in a society where we’re expected to act, feel, grieve a certain way.  Cynthia Rylant, author of Missing May, shows Ob and Summer acting like people think they should but then swinging to the opposite extreme when they attempt to have a spiritualist contact May from the dead.  When that doesn’t work, oddly enough, the true grieving, and as a result the true healing, takes place.  For Ob grieving meant putting someone elses wants and needs before his own and for Summer it meant sobbing her eyes out until she had no tears left.

I’m thankful this book exists because as depressing as the topic of death and grief is, it is a reality we all have to face.  Unfortunately, even kids have to face it sometimes.  And though I haven’t read all the kids books out there dealing with grief this is one I’d definitely recommend to a young individual going through just that.

I did make the mistake of directly after finishing this book picking up and finishing another that is a possible 2010 Newbery contender called, When the Whistle Blows.  Forrest came upstairs to find me crying as I was finishing it, and when I saw him I said through tears, “why do children’s books have to be so sad??”  It is a topic I’m interested in discussing if anyone is interested.  Oh, and even though it was sad it was also a good read.

Till next time…

 

Year 1994 (finally)

This weekend Forrest is out-of-town.  I was nervous that I would be afraid to be in the house by myself, especially at night, or that if there were spiders I wouldn’t be able to kill them on my own.  But since his departure on Thursday I’ve actually been just fine.  I miss him, of course, but none of my fears have become realities.  Ironically enough it was a storm this morning coupled with the last few chapters of The Giver that made me quake in my boots.  Who knew this book was so creepy and why didn’t I remember that from my first read-through a few years back?

I will admit that despite the creepiness and my previous apathy toward this story I was deeply moved this time around.  For those who have never read Lois Lowry’s 1994 Newbery winner (her first Newbery award was in 1990) the story is about a community that is governed by strict rules and a suppression of individuality.  The protagonist is an 11-year-old boy named Jonas who is about to turn 12, which means an assignment, or job, will be chosen for him by the Committee of Elders.  Jonas is surprised when he’s chosen to be the Receiver of Memory, the most distinguished position among the Elders.   During Jonas’ training the current Receiver takes on the role of the Giver, transmitting all the memories from the past that he has kept over to Jonas.  Some of the memories are pleasant and others are painful.  The position is honored because the Receiver holds all the memories so that everyone else won’t be burdened by them.  He carries both the weight of remembering love, joy and beauty as well as pain, death and grief so that everyone else in the community can live in blissful un-awareness.  For the community there is no color, no real feelings and no love because with those things come the potential for great pain.  It’s startling to think of a world without color, without music and especially without love, and as Jonas is introduced to them and begins to grasp them during his time with the Giver he experiences profound loneliness since no else has the capacity to understand.

What makes the story creepy?  From the start of the book there is something called release that happens when a baby isn’t growing like it should, when an old person reaches a certain age, when someone is no longer useful to the community or when a person has disobeyed the law three times.  It’s funny that I really didn’t remember exactly what ‘release’ was, but I had an inkling that it meant those people were disposed of and not sent to another community like everyone in the book believes.  It isn’t until a scene near the end of the story when Jonas witnesses a release that the true definition is given.  Twins are born and one of them is to be kept (the one who weighs more) and the other is to be released.  Jonas watches, unbeknownst to his father, as the defective twin is injected with some kind of serum and dies.  With this knowledge Jonas takes action to leave the community.

What stands out to me in all of this is the picture Lowry paints of people doing things without knowing any different.  To Jonas’ father it is not out of the ordinary to kill a baby because he had been made to believe that was just the way of things, especially because it was in the best interests of the entire community.  They didn’t miss having colors in their black and white life, or the sound of music or depth of emotions because they had no knowledge that those things even existed.  It leaves me feeling a variety of things about my own life.  First of all, do I live a certain way, aka in the black and white because I’m fearful of the pain that might accompany living in color?  Do I shy away from stepping out of my shell because I don’t want to get hurt?  Do I do things without questioning the validity of them but accept them because that’s just the way they are? Would I, or do I have the courage of Jonas to accept a different view of reality and leave the comfort of my own familiarity?  These questions are all in the abstract but to bring it home I am thinking of my own propensity to do what is safe (whether physically or emotionally speaking) for fear that stepping outside of that boundary might result in getting my knees scraped or my heart broken.  By reading this story and becoming convinced of its beauty (despite its creepiness) I still want to stay in my cocoon of safety, but now desire the courage to step out a little more than I’m used to.  All this is not to stay that I don’t live a very lovely life of deep love, music and color.  What I’m trying to say is that I play it safe much too often and am afraid of taking chances that could leave me crippled and hurt.  But maybe it’s worth the risk?

“All of it was new to him.  After a life of Sameness and predictability, he was awed by the surprises that lay beyond each curve of the road.  He slowed the bike again and again to look with wonder at wildflowers, to enjoy the throaty warble of a new bird nearby, or merely to watch the way wind shifted the leaves in the trees.  During his twelve years in the community, he had never felt such simple moments of exquisite happiness.” (The Giver, pg. 171)

May each of us choose color no matter the fear of pain that might come along with it.

Till next time…

 

Down to Business

To those who read my blog (mom and missy) I think it’s time I got down to business and resumed the quest.  It has, sadly, been pushed aside but I’m taking it up again with renewed zeal and zest (-fully clean?).  I’ve decided to read a Newbery book a week (gulp), which might not be wholly realistic considering my current work load is about as heavy as an anvil (remember in Gilmore Girls when Lorelai wants to know where all the anvils have gone? i just watched that episode so anvils are on the brain), but I want to give it a go.  This week I am re-reading “The Giver” and even though I know it’s not necessary I really do want to.  So, I started it today and will henceforth give myself a week to finish, ponder and write about those ponderings.  Check back here in exactly one week and a bright and shiny new post will be…uh…posted.

Till next time…

 

“Lisztomania”

So a very good friend of mine, let’s call her ‘Missy’ for now, mentioned this evening that I needed to start blogging again.  I said that I hadn’t been because I’m still dragging my feet with The Giver and when that excuse didn’t hold up I said I was taking a break for the summer.  Well, break officially over!  And, nope, I’m not going to talk about The Giver yet.  Not gonna.  Instead I would like to give you a list (one of the great loves of my life) of the things that have made summer 09 so beautiful.

1. A French band called Phoenix. Forrest and I first heard their song Lisztomania on Saturday Night Live and I definitely have a voice crush on the nerdy lead singer.  Oh man.  Forrest knows so it’s okay.  We bought their cd Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix last night and it is, in a word: brilliant!

2. Camping.  Forrest and I celebrated our one year anniversary last Friday at Frog Lake and it was amazing.  I froze most of the time but the camp fire was warm, the coffee soothing and the company the best in the whole world.  I learned two valuable lessons though: 1. kids are really annoying and parents even more so, and 2. don’t ever forget to bring a warm hat when you’re camping.  It doesn’t matter if it’s August.  Bring it and you won’t be sorry.  I forgot and I was sorry.

3. Books!  Oh the books I’ve read.  It’s hard to believe what a fantastical journey I’ve taken through the written word starting in late May.

Ahem..

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was AMAZING.  Beyond my expectations in fact.  I was sad and frustrated to have it end because I wasn’t ready to say good bye to the characters.  I’d grown too accustomed to watching their lives unfold and I wasn’t too keen on the idea of just letting that go.  (I know I’m a nerd so there is no use in telling me.)  I really should have a whole blog dedicated to this brilliant piece of work but this space will have to suffice.

Ignatius MacFarland : Frequenaut! was real cute.  I definitely enjoyed it.

The Van Gogh Cafe was pretty cool.  It was very poetic.  I read it in probably an hour but am thankful for the story that I now have shelved away somewhere in my brain.

The Lightning Thief as well as books 2,3 and 4 in this series. WOW. These ones really are good and suck you in quickly.  I definitely love me some Percy Jackson.

Marcelo in the Real World was so awesome! It’s about a boy with Asperger’s syndrome and it was fascinating to see the world the way he did.  This one brought out some pretty strong emotions for me, such as, anger at the injustice done to those deemed less intelligent.  I also found some kind of security in the orderly way that he processed life.

Bone: volume 1,2,3.  I’m not much of a graphic novel person.  My familiarity with comics pretty much all has to do with Archie, Betty and Veronica.  But this graphic novel is delightful to say the least.  The colors are amazing and the story even better.  There are nine volumes all together and I can’t wait to read them all.

To name the last few: Alice in Wonderland, Diary of a Wimpy Kid #3, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet (currently reading.)

There’s my summer folks!  A few other highlights: Arizona Adventure, berry picking, Audubon society, Johnson family reunion, spider terrors and heat wave.

(as a disclaimer: not ALL kids and parents are annoying. the family camping next to us with the child screaming from somewhere else in the camp for her mom while the mom didn’t do anything was pretty annoying, as was the kid waiting ouside the bathroom while I tried painfully to poop saying “come on! i gotta go! i can’t hold it!”)

 

Summer Reading List

Summer is really here!  This last weekend was the hottest it’s been this year and even though cooler weather has returned for a spell it still feels like summer.  Going into the season I knew I wanted to tackle one monster of a book (in size not harryness) and get lost within its pages.  Typically when I am reading kids books I can breeze through one a week, but for the summer I really wanted to spend some quality time with the characters of some book and get lost in the story for awhile.  The book I chose just happens to be Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.  It is a three volume book and just monstrous enough to suit my taste.

Here’s the thing: I’m already on volume three and halfway through at that!  So, today I started to create a towering list of fantastic books all reserved for me at the library!  After doing some internet searching to see what books are all the rage right now I realized that I am curious to hear what everyone else is reading this summer.  What is your summer reading list?  What have you read or are reading or want to read? I’d love to hear!

Here are a few of the other books on my list of books to read before the summer draws to a close:

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork

Ignatius MacFarland : Frequenaut!  by Paul Feig

Peak by Roland Smith

The Van Gogh Cafe by Cynthia Rylant

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

Your turn…

 

year-less

this space is meant for books that have won the newbery award. if you’ve been reading previous posts this is something you know to be true. but this particular post is going against the grain. honestly, i just haven’t gotten the gumption up to write about the next winner…The Giver by Lois Lowry. i feel like a decent re-read through is in order before i lay it all out there and i am dragging my feet for this particular project. in the meantime, enjoy the randomness forthcoming…

heavy thoughts have been weighing heavily on my mind lately. i usually get like this around may/june because for the last three years this is about the time where i pack my bags – all of them – and move to a new spot. usually it’s to a completely new part of town and this year is no different. forrest and i are embarking on a moving adventure in just under three weeks to the cutest little yellow house known to mankind. while i can’t wait for the 7th to hurry up and get here i can’t help but feel a little bit of sadness as i let go of our current apartment. probably understandable because it’s been our first apartment as newly married’s and in it has held a lot of hard and precious things.

the other heavy thing weighing on me is obituaries and/or death. at work we often have donor’s call or notify us of loved ones passing and we have to search for that person’s obituary online and then mark them as deceased in their record. since i specialize in data entry i get to do a lot of these and more so in the last few days. this has prompted a very solemn realization that life is really short. today as i was putting in a woman’s birthday and then deathday i wondered about the person who would eventually do the same for me. i don’t want to dwell on death too much but it’s definitely been a regular thought floating in my brain.

third, and actually having to do with literature: i finished this book which was recommended by amy wood called The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. i was extremely moved, horrified and disgusted with it. most of it centers around the idea of people, adults, watching other people, kids actually, kill each other as entertainment. there is a lot more to it than that but for the sake of length we’ll leave it there. i was horrified by the characters in the book but almost more so by my own fascination in the story. i could not put the book down. i read it on breaks at work, on the max, during my volunteer hours at the learning center, before bed, while making dinner – well, you get the picture. the thing is, i want everyone to read it. it’s too thought-provoking of a book to read alone and i want to talk about it with you without spoiling anything. it raised a lot of questions for me about the philosophy of life and, as most good books do, gave me a chance to see a side of humanity that i don’t regularly give much thought to.

i think that’s it for now. i probably won’t venture here again until we’ve moved because my time will most likely be filled up by packing. it’s the only time i kind of wish we didn’t own so many books…

 

Year 1995

One of the most beautiful stories I’ve read in a long time is Walk Two Moons. It was a story that I had difficult time putting down and was sad to see end. Something about it resonated deeply with me, and I wish I had a copy of the book with me right now so that I could pull out some of the more powerful sections and talk to you about them. But, I don’t own a copy, and I read this one a few months ago so it is already back on its shelf at the library or in the hands of some other lucky reader.

Even though I don’t have the book in front of me I do have some of my initial thoughts that I jotted down (in a bulleted list of course) about the story.

First of all, the book felt like a story within a story within another story. Three plot lines are all going on at once with the main character, Sal, who is a young teenage girl, guiding you through them.

Second, there are several proverbs sent as messages from a mysterious stranger to one of Sal’s friends. Somehow they seem to apply to the story as a whole and left me thinking about them even after I set the book down.

Third, I wrote in my notes: “The way that the story is written makes you feel like you are experiencing what is going on firsthand. The author does this effortlessly.” So much of the time I felt like I was Sal and was feeling and experiencing everything that she was. To me, this is one of the true marks of a good writer…someone who gives you the privilege to walk around in someone else’s skin and see the world a completely different, or sometimes comfortingly similar way.

Fourth, I love Sal. Pure and simple. She is one of my favorite characters found in a book and if she was real I would want to be her friend. (Just like how I feel about Kristin in Biggest Loser.)

Fifth, there is a random romance in the story that, surprisingly, doesn’t come across as cheesy or fake but beautiful. I have found in teen books especially that the romance on the page often makes me want to roll my eyes or shudder from the sheer embaressment of it all. But in this story, for some reason it just makes sense.

Sixth, and lastly, the characters are all really honest. I’m not entirely sure what I meant by that when I jotted it down other than you kind of feel like you could run into any of these characters in real life and they would be familiar and understandable. The grandparents in the story, who are precious, could just as easily be your grandparents or mine.

This is a must read. I firmly believe that this award was well deserved, and I hope at least some of you will go out and read it.

On a different note altogether, I am rather proud of myself this weekend because for the first time in my life I made granola. Everyone who knows me knows I love me some cereal and now I know how to make it from scratch! Thanks to Molly Wizenburg for putting up the recipe, which you can find here. Here is a picture of my beautiful granola. (I burned the first batch but the second batch is so good it made up for it!)

 

Year 1996

In answer to your inevitable question: yes, that is my actual copy of year 1996 and my actual cup of coffee and my actual tabletop. Now that I’m finally getting to the books I’ve either read recently or own myself I want to post a picture of the edition I’ve read. And, I’m real excited because I found a program online that lets you download a “polaroid” camera to your hard-drive (for FREE) and take any pictures you have and turn them awesome-polaroid. I think I’m in love.

Beetle (formerly known as Brat) is the heroine of Karen Cushman’s The Midwife’s Apprentice. She is a homeless young girl who ends up becoming, you guessed it, a midwife’s apprentice. The story, although short, is a really tender picture of what it is to fail at something, give up and then try again. It is also pretty significant to notice the importance of names in this story. She starts out with the name Brat and then comes to be known as Beetle. Both of those names obviously don’t inspire a lot of respect or self worth. In choosing her own name near the end the reader witnesses a transformation in confidence. Unfortunately, because of the book’s length I found it difficult to get really invested in the story line. I liked it but didn’t love it.

Sorry this one is so short but there’s a Blazer game going on that needs my attention. Until next time…