Lawn Care Is a Delicate Wish

I'm still excited about being accepted as a Round One CYBILS JUDGE for nonfiction! This year we'll look at books from elementary (K-5), middle school (6-8 grade), and high school (9-12). I'm super excited and ready to roll. I'm been warming up by ordering a few dozen old Cybils books to read, and accidentally starting a few zillion random books. 

Oops. I should probably deal with those twenty random book by Thursday, when nominations officially open.If you've read any good kids books (picture books to YA, fiction, nonfiction or graphic novels) that were written in the past year (Oct 16 2019 - Oct 15 2020), then get ready to nominate them at Cybils.com when nominations open on Oct 1st. I'm counting on people to nominate really good nonfiction books for me to read!

The rest of the week rolled along. We got some delightful rain, which has made me forget all about the fires that are probably still raging in other places but aren't making it hard for me to breathe. Since I haven't fixed my sprinkler system after an unfortunate incident involving the corner spigot and my car's  tires, I need enough rain to keep my lawn happy. But not so much that I need to mow that lawn. So I guess I don't want my lawn to be happy so much as not abjectly miserable. It's a delicate balance.

I cooked a good inner of pasta with chicken, spinach and a tomato cream sauce. And mozzarella. I think cream means happiness to my taste buds. I was going to make Mexican lasagna for Friday's dinner, but must as I was starting my nephew came over and whispered the name of my favorite Mexican restaurant in my ear, and that sounded even better, so CASA DURANGO it was.  

My Tuesday book/game club got to playtest the online version of Steve Jackson's Tribes game, which was a lot of fun and my brother did a good job of coding it. Also, I won. We're going to try to break it again tomorrow so that when they try it out on real people at a real virtual convention everyone will look good. Then my Foolscap convention tried out a virtual game night that was also fun, although technically I did not win. 

Oh, I managed to drag myself out running again on Sunday. I went about as slowly as it is possible to go while still technically running (my pace is again lower than my BIL's walks on Runkeeper), but I was in motion for about 30 minutes and that was a good proof on concept. Maybe I'll still manage a 5K in two days. Yikes!

My currently reading has lurched back up to 29 with all the books left over from false starts on the Bingo card, plus some other poor choices. Oh well, sometimes life is like that. 

The Book Date does a weekly roundup of what people are reading, want to read, or have read each week called "It's Monday! What Are You Reading" so I'll sign up there. Ditto for the children's lit version at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers. Most of the books I actually finished are kidlit!

Started

We'll Always Have Parrots, Donna Andrews. A five star from my summer book team. Also, I like these.

Welcome to Your Period, Yumi Stynes & Melissa Kang. ARC from LibraryThing.

Your Own, Sylvia, Stephanie Hemphill. Cybils finalist. 

The Bone Witch, Rin Chupeco. For KCLS 10 to Try -- recommended by staff.

The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum. Another top pick from last summer's book team.

This Promise of Change, Jo Ann Allen Boyce. Cybils finalist.

By Immortal Honor Bound, Danielle Ancona. An ARC from the author!

Deadly Sexy, Beverly Jenkins. For my Cloudy book club.

Completed

Cities in Layers, Philip Steele. Although personally I found it a bit stressful to find all the marked points of interest (I'm like a vampire -- if you scatter a list in front of me I cannot go on until I check them off) I think this would be a big hit with kids. Since I got the book for free I gave it an actual review; I would have handed this to my kids on long trips with great joy. The page cut outs were deeply satisfying and a great way to show that bits of a city's past are still here in the present.

Welcome to Your Period, Yumi Stynes & Melissa Kang. ARC from LibraryThing. This is a great gift for people wondering about periods, which includes probably all people who have or will have them and some of their friends. I liked the tone, the format, and the information. I think it's from Australia, which matters because they aren't afraid of sex. I thought the tone and information were spot on, from cramping to being caught somewhere without supplies to whether skipping a period means you are pregnant. Five stars.

Reaching For the Moon, Katherine G. Johnson. 2019 elementary nonfiction Cybils finalist. Johnson is of course one of the famous computers from Hidden Figures, and she does discuss the movie, but even more she shows her whole life, where yes her mathematical skill was important but also being Black and a woman and a Christian mattered a lot. I liked her matter-of-fact tone; this is how it was and it was awful and wrong, but we made a life there. I liked the whole book, from her childhood where she worried about her poor dull brother (he was only good at math, not spectacular) to her decision to leave grad school to have children, to the gossip about which bits of the movie were real (she just used white bathrooms instead of walking a mile, but the breaking into meetings really happened). Johnson is a hero and it's fun to read the autobiography to see her achievements, but she also takes care to show what the world as a whole was like with segregation and discrimination and civil rights and sexism, both in the past and currently.

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, Kai Ashante Wilson. Be the Serpent pick. I really liked the worldbuilding and the setting of this one, with the caravan moving through the magical forest and the mysterious captain being everywhere at once while the sorcerer earns both the faith and the uneasiness of the other workers. But there was also sorta a love story between the captain and the sorcerer that I completely didn't buy and it felt like the story fell over and lay lifeless on the floor whenever that came forward. Then the captain would disappear and things would be fascinating. Repeat. Even during the final boss fight this pattern held -- the fight scene was gripping and vivid (is smell imagery an African book thing? It's noticeable in both this and Black Leopard Red Wolf, so there are two back-to-back data points. Could be a gay thing, or just a thing thing. I clearly must read more books) but then attention shifts back to the captain and I yawned and things went according to trope. Now I have to watch Old Guard and then I'm ready for podcast #68.

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 10/12 discs. Hmm. There are 12 discs, not 10. That explains why it isn't hurrying to a conclusion.

Uncompromising Honor 32/??, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. The battle continues.

Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling. I'm listening to celebrities read this to me. Harry goes shopping!

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Sword and Laser pick. I meant to finish this in September since I had already read this months pick. Oops.

A Long Time Until Now, Michael Z Williamson. There is little competence to be had. But they make up for it with dehumanizing women! Wait, that doesn't make up for anything...

Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky. The intersection of humanity and spiders is not going well.

Slippery Creatures, K J Charles. Who should our protagonist trust? I hope it's the hot stranger.

Jubilee, Margaret Walker. Early pick for debut over 50 in SPL Summer bingo. OK, I read the tough chapter, so things should get better. What am I saying? Things will stay hard.

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Ellen Oh (editor). Early pick for retellings in SPL Summer bingo. Enjoyed a few more stories.

The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein, Farah Mendelson. Hugo finalist. Overview of his career is going well.

Skylark and Wallpaper, Anne O'Brien Carelli. Cybils finalist. This started with a character dealing with the flooding of Hurricane Sandy in New York, which is cool, but also has another story of her grandmother's work as a child in the French Resistance in World War II. So two interesting times!

The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton. I suspect that by reading it among so many other books I have doomed any hope I had of noticing clues to the mystery. But I'll enjoy the characters and setting anyway.

Clap When You Land, Elizabeth Acevedo. The poems don't feel like poems, but the story is real.

Someplace To Be Flying, Charles de Lint. One of the books I've been claiming to read, and here I am, reading it!

Picture Books / Short Stories:

 

Αλφαβητάρι με γλωσσοδέτες, Eugene Trivizas. So close to done.

Animal Poems, Valerie Worth. 2007 Cybils poetry finalist. This was fine -- the poems were interesting and the pictures fun, but I know I would have struck out trying to share this with my poetry-allergic offspring. I don't know who to share this with, but it you have friends who like animals and poems, maybe you know!

Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; I use them as palate cleansers between books I'm actually reading.

The Educated Child, William Bennett. Science in junior high.

Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan. 

Wool, Hugh Howey. Where will she go?

The Wind Gourd of La'amaomao, Moses Nakuima. Sweet sweet revenge.

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. Shenanigans at the girl school.

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. Wrap up nonfiction books, and onto diverse classrooms!

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2017. None. I just need 3 YA books to be done. But I'm reading all the short books from all the years. 
2. Cybils 2018. Nothing.
3. Cybils 2019. Finished Reaching For the Moon. Started This Promise of Change.
4. Early Cybils: Read some poetry.
5. Reading My Library. Haven't started the next one yet. 
6. Ten to Try. At 9/10. Haven't read it yet, but I've started #10. 
7. Where Am I Reading: 24/51 states. 24 Countries. Katherine Johnson is from West Virginia.
8. Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge.  I'm technically done.
   

Plans

I'm putting this at the end because I suspect it's complete fiction, but seeing as I've just grown my currently-reading pile by a LOT and I'm days away from diving into Cybils reading, I feel I should attempt some structure.

I am reading: 

• Book I own: Officially none.  Up Next: Trash
• Library Book: Clap When You Land. Up Next: Your Own, Sylvia
• Ebook I own: Slippery Creatures. Up Next: One Man
• Library Ebook: Skylark and Wallcreeper. Up Next: an extra. Maybe We'll Always Have Parrots
• Book Club Book: Deadly Sexy. Up Next: Merry Wrath
• Tuesday Book Club Book: from the archives: Somewhere to Be Flying. Next: ??
• Review Book: By Immortal Honor Bound. Up Next: I think this category will switch to 2020 Cybils.
• Hugo Book: The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein. Next: Joanna Russ.

Hard For Me; Good for Kids

Cities in Layers is a picture book that takes you backward in time through six cities and with tiny details and a page full of annotations to find and wonder at for each stop along the way. To add to the fun, the top layer (always roughly the present) has two cutouts letting you see through to the city of the past, because that part of the city lasted through into the future. Turning the page shows the city at an earlier time, anywhere from a hundred to several hundred years ago, and again you can peep through a window into yet an earlier time. A final page shows an even older city, hundreds or even a thousand years old, but still recognizable and with its own set of locations to identify. 

I admit that I got a bit frustrated with locating all the landmarks. I'm just stubborn enough to insist on finding them all (although I never did find one of 1880 London's poor districts) but also not visually acute enough to make this easy. Sometimes they skipped around a bit arbitrarily. I really wished for a bright elementary school kid to turn the task over to, and I've known a lot who would have really enjoyed this and been much better at it. And I felt the cut-outs weren't always used to best advantage; sometimes they were amazing from the front and back, but sometimes the second reveal was just part of a lake or something. I realize that reality constrained some of the choices so this is probably an unreasonable complaint, but hey, if the problem was with reality and not Steele and Lozano is that my fault? 

The pages are stiff enough to be durable, even with the holes cut out, and the art work is cheerful and detailed but doesn't make me reach for a magnifying glass, so a very finely done balance. I really like how the book works on several levels -- it's a great travelogue for six major world cities, it presents the idea of history in a very understanded but powerful way, and it's a fun game for detail-oriented kids to solve by finding every location. The concept that these cities have been around for so much time, adjusting to changing political, technological, and even climatic conditions is fascinating, but so are the pictures themselves and the different buildings, walls, castles, and rivers to identify. 

This would be a great gift for a kid going on a trip to any of these cities; if the parent doesn't mind the extra weight it would be a fun time-killer on the travel part of the trip as well as including the kid in the planning and expectations of the destination. Kids who live in one of the names places would have extra delight in finding some of the locations both on the page and in real life; I can definitely see these on the shelves of my New York cousins. And even children who don't expect to see the streets in real life will enjoy visiting them through this book and turning the pages to see how they changed over the years but kept some of the old monuments and streets while adjusting others to new conditions.

As soon as I'm allowed to see other people I think I'll pass this along to a local elementary school. I can see it fitting in the library's section of things to do on a rainy day as well as just being a rich resource for geography lessons.

Thanks to Candlewick Press for sending me a review copy of this book.

Hooray For Rain!

Exciting news -- I'm a Round One CYBILS JUDGE again! I'm one of the nonfiction judges -- this year we'll look at books from elementary (K-5), middle school (6-8 grade), and high school (9-12). I'm super excited and ready to roll.

Well, when I say ready to roll, of course I celebrated the month before judging starts by accidentally starting all the books, so I currently have almost 30 books on my currently reading shelf. See, I have all the books I liked best for the Seattle Library BINGO card but then I realized they were all really long so I swapped out short and quick ones, but I still want to read my original picks. And also I'm celebrating my fun summer book team by reading a book from each of their top-rated shelves. And one of these books was a J.D. Robb which reminded me how much fun those are, so I'm rereading a pile of them. And of course
I've now decided to try to read ALL the Cybils finalists ever, so there are a few of those as well. Oops.

But I'm sure by October I will have dealt with that. After all, September has barely started, it must be only a few days-- what? IT'S THE 21 of SEPTEMBER? How did that happen?

I'm also happy to say that we now have air to breathe in my near-Seattle town, and the winds and rain have blown all the smoke away. Apparently the fires are still burning in places but now I can regard that with calm dispassion since I'm no longer advised to stay inside with extra filters on all air moving devices. Now I should just stay inside and away from other people for the usual reasons -- we're still in a pandemic. What a year!

I sent out some care packages of cookies to my college kids and nibling, and at least one got there so a few cookies got devoured. Now I'd better get on the ball to send the Birthday Box. Online school is going well for my nephew and we are also enjoying the weekly personal trainer session with a yoga/personal trainer. I got take out from a local restaurant for Wednesday (Whistle Stop) and then cooked up a storm on Friday -- a tomato/rice/corn salad, ginger chicken soup with rice, banana bread, and bread rolls. I think I'm proudest of the bread rolls, because I had to adjust a bread recipe to cook smaller portions. Real cooks would laugh at how easy that is, but it was stressful for me.

Finally, the convention I'm organizing is trying to figure out how online options work, so we tested a game night internally. It was fun seeing (remotely) friends and then doing word guessing and drawing games. We'll do it again on Thursday and everyone is invited!

My currently reading has lurched back up to 27 with all the books left over from false starts on the Bingo card, plus some other poor choices. Oh well, sometimes life is like that. 

The Book Date does a weekly roundup of what people are reading, want to read, or have read each week called "It's Monday! What Are You Reading" so I'll sign up there. Ditto for the children's lit version at either Teach Mentor Texts or Unleashing Readers. I'm reading picture books almost daily.

Started

The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton. I got this for the Seattle Bingo card but then realized it was really long. After swapping in something shorter I'm going back to read this anyway, since I picked it because it looked interesting and is set in New Zealand.

Reunion in Death (#14), J.D. Robb. I'm going back and skipping around in Eve's past because these are fun books.

Skylark and Wallpaper, Anne O'Brien Carelli. Cybils finalist. 

Aunt Dimity and the King's Ransom, Nancy Atherton. My last task for my book team was to read something from a teammate's shelves. I'm going on to read something from every teammate's shelves, because I can. Or can try.

Don't Call Us Dead, Danez Smith. For Torches and Pitchforks book club.

Ghosts Unveiled, Kerrie Logan Houlihan. ARC chosen because I really liked the previous book (about Mummies).

Moles, Rachel Poliquin. Cybils finalist.

Killer Style, Allison Matthews David. Cybils finalist. 

Reaching For the Moon, Katherine G. Johnson. Cybils finalist.

Clap When You Land, Elizabeth Acevido. Library book that I wanted to read.

The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, Kai Ashante Wilson. Be the Serpent pick.

Completed

It's Trevor Noah: Born a Crime, Trevor Noah. 2019 Cybils elementary nonfiction finalist. A very readable autobiography that is fascinating in its depiction of a very different society -- South Africa during and after apartheid, from the perspective of a child who broke the rules of apartheid by his very existence. Trevor nonchalantly describes beatings and escapes that dwarf the problems of most middle grade literature but the tone of reminiscing and humor keeps things light. I really want to read the adult version now -- preferably on audio.

Moles, Rachel Poliquin. 2019 Cybils elementary nonfiction finalist. Apparently this is part of a series about different animals, enhanced with fun comics and a personalized version of the animal to learn about. It was engaging and had good information put in context, so that learning about moles' ability to handle low oxygen and high carbon dioxide is discussed in terms of atmosphere, circulation, typical ranges, and adaptation. I found it a bit condescending, but then I'm not the target audience. Most kids would like the conversational tone. 

Aunt Dimity and the King's Ransom, Nancy Atherton. These are sweet and silly and a pandemic blessing. Lori never solves the mystery -- in this one she does better than usual because the person she suspects turns out to be a fairly bad guy after all, instead of a pillar of the community. But she gets to wonder about a new place while strangers fall all over themselves to be nice to her and her husband coddles her and her many incompetencies with infinite patience. It's a wish fulfillment book and I always enjoy them.

Don't Call Us Dead, Danez Smith. For Torches and Pitchforks book club. I started this expecting to slog through it; modern poetry is not a genre I seek out. A first look was not reassuring; I tend to find poems that avoid all capital letters pretentious. But Smith surprised me -- his work was painful and raw and vivid; he descriptions of his HIV diagnosis and reactions were gripping, and his poems on the emotional roller coaster of gayness and homophobia moved me. I ended up really appreciating these pieces and rereading most of them. This is why I'm glad for this book club -- it often pushes me out of my comfort zone and then rewards me for that.

Killer Style, Allison Matthews David. 2019 Cybils elementary nonfiction finalist. I can count on the Cybils for at least one deliciously gruesome offering! This book cheerfully shows all the way people have died for fashion, either by wearing dangerous things (long scarfs, tight skirts, poisonous cosmetics) or making things with poison (felt hats, radium watches, sand-blasted jeans). I liked the organization (head to toe) and the wide pages with clearly separated topics. And now I feel virtuous for not liking stone washed jeans.

Ghosts Unveiled, Kerrie Logan Houlihan. ARC. I got hold of this because of my enthusiasm for the previous book in the series (Mummies Exposed) but sadly I think that enthusiasm steered me wrong. This book isn't a look at the science of ghosts, or what people who see ghosts are actually seeing, but instead an exploration of different kinds of ghost stories and the places they are set. That's a fun book, and I would hand this to any kid interested in ghost stories; Houlihan isn't making judgements on these stories but reporting what people have said about what they experience. She isn't looking at the truth of the story but at the truth of the reporting. However, I kept yearning for the science and complexities of the previous book, so I was distracted from enjoying what this one was. I'm not sure what direction the rest of this series will go in, but I'll come back to check for more.

The Illustrated Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking. For my Tuesday book club. This stuff is pretty heavy. I've already forgotten a lot of it, but I remember knowing it so I guess I could go back if I ever needed it. The illustrations were definitely worth it. I'm not really clear on the boundary-less universe (although I get the theological implications) but I think I had it for a while. It was nice of Hawking to end on some gossipy biographies of big names in the universe-building field (Galileo, Newton, Einstein) since that left me feeling like I understood things. Now it's time for some cheesy genre reading!

Reunion in Death (#14), J.D. Robb. It's nice to read about a superhero cop, who maybe breaks some rules but we know she's doing it with a good heart. And the people she's cheating to catch are always very bad! It does have echoes of our real world where things aren't this easy, but I quickly distract myself with the side characters. Peabody and her parents! Charles and Louise! Mira and her husband Dennis! Now I shall grab a in Death in the 20s to continue my merry skip through the series.

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 10/10 discs. OK, I'm back. It is frustrating that the brave, active girl is the one saying that it's OK that most men are rapists, because a few aren't. I guess that's realistic?

Uncompromising Honor 30/??, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. The narrator does a good job having each character sound distinctive. I can tell them apart, I just can't remember which side they are on!

Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling. I'm listening to celebrities read this to me. Some chapter have multiple celebrities!

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Sword and Laser pick. Pushed forward through a recapping conversation (very handy for me, actually).

A Long Time Until Now, Michael Z Williamson. Those are definitely women in that paleolithic village. Maybe not people, but definitely up for sex.

Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky. Spiders rise through the scientific ranks, while humans squabble among themselves. I think I have a better sense of the interiority of Portia the spider (since we spend chapters in her head) than in Lain the engineer (since we only see her from a clueless linguist's perspective).

Cities in Layers, Philip Steele. This is fun -- I've been through Beijing and Paris. I'm a bit sad there are only two cut-outs per city because I like seeing how some buildings go back in time. And I wish the Beijing one went further back in time, but maybe no structures are older than five hundred years.

Slippery Creatures, K J Charles. This is going slowly. Which is sad, because I am saving it as a reward for completing my to-do list for the day, so the sign that I haven't made much progress does not reflect well on how my life is going right now.

Jubilee, Margaret Walker. Early pick for debut over 50 in SPL Summer bingo. The next chapter is going to be very violent, so I am avoiding this book. I'm a wimp.

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Ellen Oh (editor). Early pick for retellings in SPL Summer bingo. Enjoyed a few more stories.

The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein, Farah Mendelson. Hugo finalist. I actually lost this for a while -- it appears in a different place on my tablet that I thought. So I've found it and am reading it for real (rather than the fast skim for voting).

Picture Books / Short Stories:

 

Αλφαβητάρι με γλωσσοδέτες, Eugene Trivizas. Blue jeaned wearing genies in Greek!

Moon's First Friends, Susanna Leonard Hill. 2019 Cybils picture book finalist. This is a fun picture book with cheerful illustrations and a nerdy story of the moon looking down and urging the earthlings to come visit. She cheers on flyers and then various technological advances until finally people come to exchange gifts (moon rocks for the flag). I do quibble about skipping past Yuri Gagarin -- she should have been excited about the first person in space! I like how you can read it as a cosy story or use the illustrations to go off on various nerdy digressions into science.

Waiting For Gregory, Kimberly Willis Holt. 2006 Cybils picture book finalist. A getting-a-new-baby-sibling book about a girl who has to wait and hears crazy reasons why (storks, cabbage patches, etc.) The illustrations seem to have wandered out of a oil painting museum which I found a little off-putting but might appeal to others people. They are definitely colorful!

Twist: Yoga Poems, Janet S. Wong. 2007 Cybils poetry finalist. This would work as a picture book, preferably early in the bedtime process or read during the day, because of course it would be a lot of fun to try out the poses as they are described. Kids and yoga are always a good mix, both for fun and to get them started on self reflection and calming.

Poems in Black and White, Kate Miller. 2007 Cybils poetry finalist. I liked the poems but the sharp illustrations were my favorite part. This would be fun to share with a group or as a family read. 

Here's a Little Poem, Jane Yolen. 2007 Cybils poetry finalist. A fun picture book with cheerful and encouraging pictures along with short (sometimes excerpted) poems that are chosen to read aloud well. The pages are attractive and I can see reading this with my kids (or to a group).

On the Farm, David Elliott. 2008 Cybils poetry finalist. Nice picture book with lots of farm animals and fun-to-say poems on the side giving life to the already vibrant pictures. This would be fun to read, especially with very young kids. The large pages would be enticing to share with any child that can resist tearing the pages.

Palate Cleansers

These books I'm barely reading; I use them as palate cleansers between books I'm actually reading.

The Educated Child, William Bennett. What should science look like in elementary school?

Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan. 

Wool, Hugh Howey. Where will she go?

The Wind Gourd of La'amaomao, Moses Nakuima. 

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho.

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2017. None. I just need 3 YA books to be done. But I'm reading all the short books from all the years. 
2. Cybils 2018. Nothing..
3. Cybils 2019. Finished picture books! Working my way through elementary nonfiction.
4. Early Cybils: Read some picture books and poetry.
5. Reading My Library. Haven't started the next one yet. 
6. Ten to Try. At 9/10. Haven't read it yet, but I've got #10 on my tablet. It's also here in paper. 
7. Where Am I Reading: 23/51 states. 24 Countries. Picked up Georgia and South Africa.
8. Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge.  I'm technically done.