Reading Story

I've continued reading my plethora of books, although I let myself stick with anything I'm enjoying until I want to move on. The big reading event for me was attending FOOLSCAP, my favorite conventions, since it's about books. Well, books, art, and fancy hats.

Technically I don't read much during Foolscap, but I do talk a lot about reading and also pick up a bunch of books as well as a bunch of titles that I'd like to read. This time I even got to host my own panel, which was a little scary but also fun (Breaking the Rules -- what books break the rules of fiction/genre, and more important, which of these books are wonderful?). And I was on a panel about polite disagreement, during which I terrified the room by pretending not to believe in vaccination (as an example of someone holding a belief not supported by science, but I thought it was too crazy for people to take me seriously).

I'll go check in with Book Journey's weekly round-up of what everyone has read, is reading, and will read, and then, since most of my selections are children's books, I'll also check in with the kidlit version at Teach Mentor Texts. I still haven't got back into the swing of reviewing these books, so I'm afraid I'm a rather dull entry to both these lists, but I'm trying to jump back on the horse. In a mixed-metaphor kind of way, of course.

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• Dark Destiny, M.J. Putney (YA)
• Unclaimed, Courtney Milan (Romance, NOOK)
• The Azalea Assault, Alyse Carlson (Mystery)
• The Far West, Patricia C. Wrede (YA)

What am I currently reading?

• The Curse of the Wendigo, Richard Yancy. (audio) Argh, at least they are traveling towards some action now.
• Team Human, Sarah Rees Brennan & Justine Larbalestier. Rats in the school! Ick! My copy.
• Tales From Silver Lands, Charles Finger. Kids helping each other stories. Summer leftover.
• Phoenix In Flight, Sherwood Smith & Dave Trowbridge. (NOOK). The space battles continue. My copy.
• Unveiled, Courtney Milan. (NOOK) The first in the trilogy; I've read them in reverse order. Library book.
• Elfhome, Wen Spencer. (NOOK, reread) Kidnapped!
• Fire, Kristen Cashore. (reread) Fire is enjoying the capital.
• Foiled, Jane Yolen. From my TBR list. I like the graphics.
• Eternal Pleasures, Nina Bangs. For Felicia Day's book club.
• Inside Out and Back Again, Thanhha Lai. Book in verse.
• Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith, Deborah Heiligman. Interesting biography.
• Close Range, Annie Proulx. Dipping book. I'm tense with expecting things to end badly.
• The Borrowers Afield, Mary Norton. Another dipping book. The plot is about to start.
• The Catholic Church in the Modern World, E.E.Y. Hales. Interesting to read about America from outside.
• Honored Enemy, Raymond Feist. The girl helps fight off the bad guys.
• Smart But Scattered, Peggy Dawson. Currently on building emotional regulation. Good stuff.
• Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey. Paused.

Challenges:

1. Cybils: 66/73. No change. Nominees for next year's books start soon.
2. Global Reading Challenge: 15/21. At least Tales From Silver Lands is set in South America. 
3. Where Am I Reading?:  35/50. I bought a Tennessee book this weekend.
4. Science Book Challenge: 3.1415/3.14159. 
5. Reading My Library:  Have on in my bag.
6. Eclectic Challenge: 10/12. No change.
7. Best of the Best: 31/25. No change.

What Am I Reading?

Ah, it's nice to be settling back into a routine of reading a bag full of books at once, letting myself either move from one to another at intervals or zooming ahead with one if it's particularly gripping. In a few weeks the library list will come tumbling down on me, but in the meantime I'm enjoying the calm that a brief spell of sanity at the end of the summer granted me.

So, I'm reading a book to satisfy my book challenges, a book from my shelves, a book I grabbed for fun from the library, a reread, and a leftover book from this summer's reading fun. Oh, on my NOOK I'm reading one book from my library, a reread, and a new one that I bought. And there's an audio book in the car for the rare occasions that we're all in there together.

I'll go check in with Book Journey's weekly round-up of what everyone has read, is reading, and will read, and then, since most of my selections are children's books, I'll also check in with the kidlit version at Teach Mentor Texts. I haven't really gotten back in the swing of reviewing these books, so I'm afraid I'm a rather dull entry to both these lists, but I'm trying to jump back on the horse. In a mixed-metaphor kind of way, of course.

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• Ghost Dog Secrets, Peg Kehret. For the elementary book club.
• Dragon Ship, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. I really enjoy their books.
• Chronicles of the Red King: The Secret Kingdom, Jenny Nimmo. For the elementary book club.
• Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, Sarah MacLean. Fun in spots, but too inconsistent to really enjoy.
• Batman, The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller. A classic of the comic book world.
• Alvin Ho: Allergic to Camping, Hiking, and Other Natural Disasters, Lenore Look. For Reading My Library, and because I like Alvin.
• Two-Minute Drill (Comeback Kids), Mike Lupica. For the elementary book club.
• Masters of Disaster, Gary Paulsen. Last book for the book club!
• Rufus M., Eleanor Estes. Catch-up for the summer book club. Lots of fun.
• The Code Book, Simon Singh. For my evening book club. 
• I Am Not a Serial Killer, Dan Wells. I read it as a companion to I Hunt Killers, and it was interesting in a very different way.

What am I currently reading? I left some in-progress books at home during my gallivanting, and I cherry picked from my options to things I thought I'd enjoy.

• The Azalea Assault, Alyse Carlson. For my Where Am I Reading challenge. I find the motivations occasionally baffling; it feels almost like a mid-series book.
• The Curse of the Wendigo, Richard Yancy. (audio) We think the action will start any minute now.
• Dark Destiny, M.J. Putney. Fun book about time-traveling psychic teens who find true love while fighting to save Britain.
• Team Human, Sarah Rees Brennan & Justine Larbalestier. Rats in the school! Ick!
• Tales From Silver Lands, Charles Finger. Leftover from this summer.
• Phoenix In Flight, Sherwood Smith & Dave Trowbridge. (NOOK) . At page 100, and I think I've got most of the characters sorted. It helped that a lot of them just died.
• Unclaimed, Courtney Milan. (NOOK) The male virgin romance that helped me discover Milan.
• Elfhome, Wen Spencer. (NOOK, reread) Time to uncover the conspiracy.
• Fire, Kristen Cashore. (reread) Archer is the jealous type.
• Close Range, Annie Proulx. Dipping book. I'm finding the stories very depressing.
• The Borrowers Afield, Mary Norton. Another dipping book. The plot is about to start.
• The Catholic Church in the Modern World, E.E.Y. Hales. Now to read about the heresy of Modernism.
• Honored Enemy, Raymond Feist. Yes, the badder guys just showed up, in time to save the alliance of good guys and bad guys.
• Smart But Scattered, Peggy Dawson. Currently on building emotional regulation. Good stuff.
• Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey. Paused.

I abandoned one book, Knight of a Trillion Stars by Dara Joy. When a romance book has a sex scene, it should not include the line "If you touch me it will be rape" before the characters get it on. That's a bit too Alpha male for me. It didn't help that she was still upset about the brain surgery he had forced on her after she declined it.

I've also got a pile of unfinished summer reading books, which I'll probably work through in the next few months:

• Pinky Pye, Eleanor Estes. I bought a bunch of Estes at one time. I'm not sure I've read this one before.
• The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode, Eleanor Estes. See above.
• Ecstasia, Francesca Lia Block. I find her mythic stories harder going than her Weezie Bat books.
• Bob, Son of Battle, Alfred Ollivant. I'm not liking the dialect, and I think the guy I hate is supposed to be the hero. Oops.
• Tricksters, Margaret Mahy. I have no excuse for not finishing this yet.
• Tessie, Jesse Jackson. The author makes me giggle.
• Puddleby Adventures, Hugh Lofting. I had too many Dolittle books back-to-back.
• The Avion My Uncle Flew, Cyrus Fisher. I lost this while reading it, but now I know where it is.
• The Eye of the Warlock, P.W. Catanese. Mixed-up fairy tale.
• Redskin and Cowboy, G. A. Henty. Waiting for the boy to run away from home.

Challenges:

1. Cybils: 66/73. No change. I've got two graphic novels waiting for me.
2. Global Reading Challenge: 15/21. At least Tales From Silver Lands is set in South America. Where would I count a book in Puerto Rico?
3. Where Am I Reading?:  34/50.  Still reading a Virginia book.
4. Science Book Challenge: 3.1415/3.14159. The code book is science!
5. Reading My Library:  Another one down, and the next batch stacked up at home.
6. Eclectic Challenge: 10/12. I think it would be cheating to count Bat Man as a classic.
7. Best of the Best: 31/25. No change.
8. Summer Reading Goal: All over but the cleanup. My bare shelf is filled up again, but two boxes have disappeared from my living room.

Dance Your Troubles Away: The Grand Plan To Fix Everything

Uma Krishnaswami's small book The Grand Plan To Fix Everything offers a light travel itinerary and cosy little problems with cute solutions to the elementary crowd.

Dini, the main characters, has cute problems but doesn't seem to feel things deeply. She's sad when her planned Bollywood dance summer camp visit with her best friend is canceled, and a bit disconcerted to learn that her family is immediately moving to India for two years, but she accepts it as the way things are. She is delighted to learn that her favorite Bollywood movie star is also likely to be in her same village, and naively plans to meet her immediately. She clearly recognizes what kind of book she's in, because of course their paths do cross.

The side plot with the poor but enthusiastic postal deliverer, also a fan of filmi star Dolly, links them first with the chance to deliver the poorly address fan letter, and then unites them in a vacation to the same small Indian town. Everyone's problems (from the loneliness following a drastic move to the broken engagement of Dolly herself) has a quick fix that Dini can fit in her planned movie script of real life. It's a lightweight but warm hearted story that doesn't offer much to an adult but should work well with third grade kids (Dini is eleven, but reads as a few years younger to me).

Seismic Shift

I'm moving my library day to Saturday. This is big news for me, since usually I like to exploit my stay-at-home status and avoid the crowds. But I also like to drag bring the kids with me to the library, and after-school events are now pervasive.

Sadly for me, as I make this transition I accidentally sorta went to the library three times this week, picking up a few extra books each time. Oops. Just when I had this reading thing under control, I overload again.

Ignoring all the extra trips, on Saturday I came home with four books from the hold shelves:

• The Birthday Ball, Lois Lowry. From my TBR list. I like to keep a book and a spare around.
• Master and Apprentice, Sonya Bateman. Sequel to a book I read last week.
• The Magnificent 12: The Key, Michael Grant. 3rd in series popular with my kids, and enjoyed by me. I just bought one of Grant's YA books, which the 8th grader has been devouring.
• Cyborg, Patricia, Frederick, & John McKissack. Sequel to a book I'm doing with my elementary book club.

I also got three CDs, chosen in haste without looking at the covers. I'll surprise myself in the car with them.

This left me with 52 items out on my card, a large step over my age. I grabbed a large stack of books for my geographic challenges, and I also got the next batch of my Reading My Library quest books in one of my sneak-trips. It's time to put myself back on a strict diet.

I'll go share my Library Loot at the event co-hosted by Claire from the Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader, where all the library addicts compare their treasures.

Historical Nooks: Infamous Scribblers

I know the basics of American history, although not nearly as much as my BIL, who will soon in fact be a history teacher. (He's student teaching now.) But I had American history in school, and I read Johnny Tremaine and My Brother Sam Is Dead, and then I had it again in college to learn about the dark seamy side of history and I read John Jakes books, and I've taught it to my first grader which involved watching a few Dear America movies.

But I only know the highlights, so it's interesting sometimes to take a journey into someone's particular interest, looking at the nooks and crannies of history on the tails of a passionate researcher. Eric Burns turns his focus on newspapers and journalist in Infamous Scribblers, which traces the first newspapers in America through the scurrilous and furious Federalist/Republican feuds. I hadn't really thought about how newspapers made money, or even ink, in the days before comics, so I liked reading the early chapters following the first editions which showed how information moved around in the days when social media meant passing the broadsheets around the local pub.

Benjamin Franklin gets his own chapter, from his apprentice days and anonymous letters that tricked his brother into giving his annoying family member his own series through his own paper in his new city. And later on Franklin's grandson becomes one of the most hated editors with his own scurrilous journal. The final chapters involve a lot of scandal, because the newspapers all had axes to grind and had no compunction about making things up, but even more glee when reporting things that actually happened, such as Hamilton's torrid affair or Jefferson's use of his slave, Sally. I learned to heap shame of the politicians who either encouraged papers that attacked their opponents but then recoiled when the same tactics turned on them (Thomas Jefferson especially comes out badly in this instance).

Anyway, it's written in a clear if not compelling language, and mostly carries along the non-specialist reader (me) without assuming I remember more than a smidgen of my history. It's a good look at the development of journalistic ethics, something that few of the publishers back in the Founding Father's day would recognize.

Fanfiction: Jane

April Lindner's Jane is a legal fanfiction AU (alternate universe) of Bronte's Jane Eyre, with Jane as a freshman in college left penniless while Rochester is a wild rock star planning his comeback tour. Although Lindner's Jane doesn't have quite the fire of Bronte's, the story still works for me as a thoughtful homage placing many of the same themes in our modern world.

Lindner skips most of Jane's childhood, choosing rather to start as Jane leaves college to find work as a nanny. Her cultural blinders help her -- Rathburn has specifically requested someone who is not a fan. From here on the parallels to the original keep right on track -- the kindly housekeeper, the sweet child with French interests, the strange drunken woman on the forbidden third floor, even the Bianca woman making a play for Rathburn.  A few differences appear -- there is no question that the child is Rathburn's, Jane's uncaring relatives are her siblings, not her cousins, and the saintly St. Johns are not distant relatives.  These were fun to read as I wondered how Lindner would echo the plot; the celebrity rock star status works well as a social divide, and there's a subtle difference in the ploys of a successful photographer (modern Bianca) versus a marriageable heiress (real Bianca).

It's a fun experiment for fans of Jane Eyre, although clearly there isn't much suspense since we know how the story will go. Apparently Lindner is now writing an homage to Wuthering Heights, which isn't quite as tempting since I didn't really like the original. On the other, she did interesting things with Jane Eyre...

I wonder if this counts as literary fiction? It takes place in Connecticut, which I need for my Where Are You Reading challenge.

Otherworldies

The cover of Otherworldies amuses me because it has nothing to do with the contents of the book.  Well, maybe it's a picture of what the protagonist will look like in five or so year; it sure doesn't look like the twelve year old girl in the story. It also promises a lot more vampire than Jennifer Anne Kogel's text delivers. It's especially funny compared with another Reading My Library Pick, Izmaylov's Galacterian Legacy, which had a cover picture of a girl five years younger than the protagonist. Good thing I picked out both books; they average each other out.


Otherworldies is about Fern, a girl who is horribly bullied by her peers at school, because she is sickly, sunburns easily, and prefers wearing her brother's hand-me-downs to designer clothes. She has a twin brother who loves and tries to protect her, an older brother who also loves her, and a hyper efficient single mother who expresses her love through high expectations and constant protectiveness. Oh, and she's also a vampire, but she doesn't figure that out for a few hundred pages (no one shows her the picture of her older self from the cover, I guess).

What makes this story interesting is the realistic stuff -- the mean kids at school, the vindictive teacher, the worried mother, the frustrated brother. But if the paranormal extras weren't there, it would be too easy to get impatient with whats-her-name; the fact that her problems stem from her extreme otherness keeps her more interesting and sympathetic. I admit that I wasn't expecting to enjoy this book; I had it pegged as an almost-YA vampire book, but its firm roots in kidlit kept the focus on character, danger, and plot rather than silly romances, so I ended up quite liking it. I'll see if my 7th grader wants to plow through it before he leaves for vacation (he's got two days left!).

Well, actually I'm posting this long after he returned from vacation, and I couldn't get him past the cover, which screamed "vampire love triangles" at him. Too bad, he would've liked it.

Lonely White Girl: Something To Hold

I picked up Katherine Schlick Noe's Something To Hold from the library's children's section of new books mainly because it takes place in Oregon, although in the time between check out and actually opening the book I read a different book set in Portland. Oh well, I still enjoyed this one.

Noe's book recalls her childhood spent on various Indian reservations in the early 1960's. Her father worked as a forester for the Bureau of Indian Management, just as main character Kitty's father does, and the author's note explains how much of the book was based on her own experiences. The past setting is specified by both details of their shopping and by society's expectations -- only boys play baseball or ride in the parade, for example. Kitty and her family are among the few white children at the local school, and they face uncomfortable times and find outsiders even more clueless about the lives of their friends.

Kitty makes a credible journey from the basic assumptions of her time ("everyone's family comes from somewhere) to an understanding that her classmates did indeed come from here and to notice some of the prejudice and misunderstandings faced by her friends. But she also struggles with making friends, worrying about the dangers faced by both her father and her friends, and has adventures ranging from sneaking into a work site to facing down a forest fire.

I've read a bit about how American Indians feel about literature about their lives (see Oyate.com) and Noe does a lot of things right -- she's not writing about Native Americans, she's writing about kids who are Wasco, Paiutes, or Warm Springs tribe members. I think they'd wish for more books that placed the tribe member at the center, but this story is clearly the one that Noe had to tell. She even gives Kitty her own name (Schlick) to underline how personal this novel is.

Normal Again

Well, I'm almost back to a normal reading program after spending the summer starting a book a day, and then avoiding that book because pressure gets me down. Now I'm back to just reading whatever I want. And I want books that are on my lists. You know that Facebook thing where there's a word find and LOVE, FAMILY and FRIENDSHIP are spelled out horizontally to make them easy to find? Well, I missed them completely and found LIST going diagonally down the side. That's where my OCD heart lies.

So, I'm reading a book from my online TBR list, a book to satisfy my book challenges, a book for a book club, a book from my shelves, a book from my library's shelves, a book I grabbed for fun from the library, and a leftover book from this summer's reading fun. Oh, on my NOOK I'm reading one book from my library and one book that I own. And when I switch books, I cleanse my reading palette with a few pages of a book from my TBR bookcase. And this insanity makes me deeply happy.

I'll go check in with Book Journey's weekly round-up of what everyone has read, is reading, and will read, and then, since most of my selections are children's books, I'll also check in with the kidlit version at Teach Mentor Texts. I haven't really gotten back in the swing of reviewing these books, so I'm afraid I'm a rather dull entry to both these lists, but I'm trying to jump back on the horse. In a mixed-metaphor kind of way, of course.

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• The Clone Codes, Patricia McKissack (and family). For my elementary school book club.
• Master of None, Sonya Bateman. On of Felicia Day's Vaginal Fantasy bookclub picks, although I think they switched this one out for not having any romance. Well, any sex.
• Wild Girl, Patricia Reilly Giff. Another elementary book club pick. I was supposed to read these over the summer.
• Trial By Desire, Courtney Milan. NOOK. Fun little romance about a woman hero and a man with mental illness. 
• Buffy and the Heroine's Journey, Valerie Frankel. Interesting literary essays on my favorite vampire series.
• Stink: The Ultimate Thumb-Wrestling Smackdown, Megan McDonald. Another elementary book club pick.
• One Crazy Summer, Rita Williams-Garcia. There were a lot of these elementary book club books. I've been meaning to read this one anyway; it won all the awards.
• The Fall of the Amazing Zalindas: Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars #1, Tracy Mack. I'm finally getting back to my Reading My Library plan.
• Sassy #1: Little Sister Is Not My Name, Sharon M. Draper. Elementary book club choice, and it's by a famous YA author.
• Year of the Tiger, Alison Lloyd. This is for the third L shelf in my library's kidlit section.
• The Lions of Little Rock, Kristin Levine. This is the 2nd L shelf. And it's a book I've heard about.
• The Woodshed Mystery (Boxcar Children), Gertrude Warner. This was the last book for my summer reading sprint. Whew!
• Taken At the Flood, Ken Catran. Book-a-day pick at the end of the summer reading sprint.
• The Snow Pony, Alison Lester. For my Reading My Library quest, chosen because I like her picture books.
• Warp Speed, Lisa Yee. This is a Cybils pick.

And these are from the week before:

• United Tates of America, Paula Danzinger. Summer reading book.
• Turn Homeward Hannalee, Patricia Beatty. Summer reading book.
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor. Best of the Best pick.
• The Cow-Tail Switch, Harold Courlander. Summer reading book.
• Esperanza Rising, Pam Munoz Ryan. Summer reading book.
• Three Stuffed Owls, Keith Robertson. Summer reading book.
• A Child's Delight, Noel Perrin. From my TBR list.
• The Ghost Belonged to Me, Richard Peck. Summer reading book. A reread.

What am I currently reading? I left some in-progress books at home during my gallivanting, and I cherry picked from my options to things I thought I'd enjoy.

• Ghost Dog Secrets, Peg Kehret. This is for my elementary book club. I have about four to go.
• I Am Not a Serial Killer, Dan Wells. I got this to match with I Hunt Killers, the other YA book about a boy worried that he might be a serial killer. It's my library free choice book.
• The Azalea Assault, Alyse Carlson. First in a murder mystery series, and it takes place in Virginia! Which I need for my Where Am I Reading challenge.
• The Code Book, Simon Singh. This is for my primary book club, the real-life grown-up one.
• The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller. Book from my shelves. Well, technically, from my brother's shelves.
• The Heart of Christmas. NOOK. I got this for the Courtney Milan story, but I'll try the others as well.
• Dragon Ship, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller. NOOK. I bought the next Liaden book directly from Baen. Their no-DRM policy is very appealing.
• The Curse of the Wendigo, Richard Yancy. (audio) Another Best of the Best audio finalist. The boys both like it so we only listen when we're all in the car.
• Team Human, Sarah Rees Brennan & Justine Larbalestier. Started on the plane last July, but the onslaught of past-due library books made me pause it.
• Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey. I'm stalled on this one too. I think I'll try it again on my NOOK.
• Phoenix In Flight, Sherwood Smith & Dave Trowbridge. NOOK. I paused this one because  I wanted my Liaden fix.
• Close Range, Annie Proulx. Dipping book. I'm finding the stories very depressing.
• The Borrowers Afield, Mary Norton. Another dipping book. The plot is about to start.
• Knight of a Trillion Stars, Dara Joy. Too rapey to be as much fun as the cover predicts.
• The Catholic Church in the Modern World, E.E.Y. Hales. I'm finding the American history through this lens fascinating.
• Honored Enemy, Raymond Feist. I think the badder guys are about to show up again.
• Smart But Scattered, Peggy Dawson. I read a chapter to reward myself for finishing something.
• Fire, Kristen Cashore. I'm rereading this to celebrate reading Bitterblue.

I've also got a pile of unfinished summer reading books, which I'll probably work through in the next few months:

• Rufus M., Eleanor Estes. I like the innocence of their problems and solutions.
• Tales From Silver Lands, Charles Finger. These are better a few at a time than all at once.
• Pinky Pye, Eleanor Estes. I bought a bunch of Estes at one time. I'm not sure I've read this one before.
• The Tunnel of Hugsy Goode, Eleanor Estes. See above.
• Ecstasia, Francesca Lia Block. I find her mythic stories harder going than her Weezie Bat books.
• Bob, Son of Battle, Alfred Ollivant. I'm not liking the dialect, and I think the guy I hate is supposed to be the hero. Oops.
• Tricksters, Margaret Mahy. I have no excuse for not finishing this yet.
• Tessie, Jesse Jackson. The author makes me giggle.
• Puddleby Adventures, Hugh Lofting. I had too many Dolittle books back-to-back.
• The Avion My Uncle Flew, Cyrus Fisher. I lost this while reading it, but now I know where it is.
• The Eye of the Warlock, P.W. Catanese. Mixed-up fairy tale.
• Redskin and Cowboy, G. A. Henty. Waiting for the boy to run away from home.

What will I read next? The rest of the elementary book club books, then my real life book club book, and then Team Human. Those are my priorities.

Challenges:

1. Cybils: 66/73. I think I'm in good shape for finishing by Christmas.
2. Global Reading Challenge: 15/21. At least one of my current books is set in South America. And one book took place partly in Mexico, so I may count that.
3. Where Am I Reading?:  34/50.  Currently reading a Virginia book.
4. Science Book Challenge: 2.1415/3.14159. I'm not sure I reviewed the last one, though.
5. Reading My Library:  Finished four, reading to march forward again.
6. Eclectic Challenge: 10/12. I need literary and a classic. Still.
7. Best of the Best: 31/25. Inching slowly along; I'll see how far I get before next year's lists come out.
8. Summer Reading Goal: All over but the cleanup. My shelf look bare! Now I can unload the books in boxes onto it!

Buffy and the Literary Establishment: Buffy and the Heroine's Journey

Librarything sent me an Early Reviewer copy of Buffy and The Heroine's Journey: Vampire Slayer as Feminine Chosen One, by Valerie Estelle Frankel, but unfortunately it got buried under my Summer Reading Program and I've only just finished. I always like reading critical essays on Buffy; it combines the halcyon days of college English class essays with the pop culture phenomenon of a Whedon epic. Frankel's book does a good job of taking both these communities seriously.

The chapters do a good job of explaining the classic steps of the Heroine's Journey, one that differs in many respects from Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, with an eye to the different expectations for a woman. I wish it spent more time locating these expectations in specific cultures rather than assuming that these definitions of feminine and masculine strengths and weaknesses were universal. Also, the Buffy story spans a movie, seven years of television (plus a spin-off) and then a year of comics, so that I never worried about how Frankel would find an example to support almost any thesis she wanted to defend. So the essays had the feeling of undergraduate strength rather than completely persuasive texts. 

I appreciated Frankel's clear language and limited use of academic jargon. It's a book I'll give to my eighth grader if he wants to get a sense of what his essays should start looking like, and since he's a Buffy fan, he'll probably appreciate these examples more than ones on Pride and Prejudice or Moby Dick.

New Library Year

I returned a satisfyingly heavy pile of books today, although I admit one was unread. I'm getting back into balance after this summer's forced march through a large chunk of my unread books, discovering that I'm not very good at reading what I've ordered myself to read, but that I'm usually right and should just read them.

I came home with five seven books. (I almost forgot about the two that my eighth grader absconded with, to my warm fuzzy joy.)

• Eternal Pleasure, Nina Bangs. The Vaginal Fantasy alternate pick, apparently about men who transform into dinosaurs and the women who love them. X says that if I like it he'll try it.
• Oracle's Moon, Thea Harrison. I think this was last month's alternate pick.
• Super Human, Michael Carroll. The next book in the Best of the Best list.
• Alvin Ho: Allergic to Camping, Hiking, and Other Natural Disasters,  Lenore Look. Part of my Reading My Library Quest, which had been mostly suspended over the summer.
• Commander Perry In the Land of the Shogun, Rhoda Blumberg. I think this is the last of Perrin's suggestions.
• Foiled, Jane Yolen. From my TBR list. Already confiscated by X.
• Zita the Space Girl, Ben Hatke. The next Cybils book. Also confiscated. 

I also got two CDs, one by Robyn and one I forget.

This left me with 38 items out on my card, WAY under my age, so I can go buy a book if I want. In fact, I did -- Gone, by Michael Grant, although X probably will read it first. But I'd still like to get that number down into the twenties.

I'll go share my Library Loot at the event co-hosted by Claire from the Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader, where all the library addicts compare their treasures.

Library Confessions

Again this week I returned two books unread, and now I have about five to finish before next week. Also, one is due but I'm only 100 pages from the end, so I'll sneak it in tomorrow. Whew!

I talked my sons into accompanying me to the library, but then they said they only meant into the parking lot, so I went on my own. I had two books on hold (both titles from Perrin's A Child's Delight, a collection of essays about overlooked children's books), but since I was on my own I paused to see if any of the Quick Pick books were from states missing from my read-across-America challenge.

Eight books later they sent a search party in for me.

I came home with ten books, although one was bought from the library sale table:

• The Rat-Catcher's Daughter, Laurence Housman. Perrin recommends the other brother.
• The Vision of Stephen, Lolah Burford. Another rec.
• Hiss of Death, by Rita Mae Brown. Takes place in Virginia.
• Hot Water, Erin Brockovich. South Carolina.
• Hell Is Empty, Craig Johnson. Wyoming
• Chihuahua of the Baskervilles, Esri Allbritten. Colorado.
• Wild Wild Death, Casey Daniels. New Mexico.
• Rock Bottom, Erin Brockovich. West Virginia.
• The Language of Flowers, Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Not southern after all, but maybe a literary fiction?
• All Seeing Eye, Rob Thurman. Looked like fun, although I'm not sure where it's set. Hey, I could get lucky!

I also got three CDs, chosen in haste without looking at the covers. In the car I discovered that we'll be listening to Bruce Springsteen, the soundtrack to Rio, and something called The Healing Harp. One of these will not be popular.

This left me with 37 items out on my card, under my age but still not very good. I'd really like to bring that number down to the 20's. I'm avoiding the hot picks table for a while, even if they have a rare state. Unless it's Rhode Island, which is really hard.