The big news for the past fortnight is that my mom came for a visit! Also my oldest friend. They both got vaccinated before me, but I turned official that weekend so we felt comfortable. We excluded the kids from some events because they are not as far along on their vaccination journey. And that is my excuse for skipping my post last week.
We rented a house out in Leavenworth, Washington, a lovely tourist destination in the mountains that I've never been to but my sister and her husband visit fairly often. Everyone over 25 got a bedroom and my sons had to grab the pull out couches. It was a nice big house with a long dining table for cards and games, comfortable seating in front of a fire for talking, and huge windows and a balcony with outdoor chairs for birdwatching and enjoying the view. We went into town for the big meals and had noshes going on at home for the rest of the time.
Then my friend went home but mom hung about for another week. Some dental work she had done ages ago flared up as an infected abscess or something so we had to get her some emergencies antibiotics, but that cooled things down enough that she felt good to fly home. It was nice to finally see my mom after more than a year of pandemic!
Vaccinations are coming along nicely. One son already got his first jab and is due for his next in a week. The other one has signed up to participate in a Gritstone trial (you can google that), so he'll have a jab but we won't know if it actually works. If it does what they hope, it will be even better than the standard ones, but of course, they won't know until later if it works they way they hope. Or if he will develop super powers or turn into a supervillain or what; I didn't ask to hear the full details of the information. But I'm proud of him!
I'm finished up my Nature Journaling class. We did one session with creative nonfiction and watercolor pencils, which was fun but I will need a bit more practice before the thing I make with the pencils is anything like my intention. I plan to have fun trying, though! Then I dragged my mom along for the final session, which involved making a map for the park. Again, my reach far exceeded my grasp but at least I'm learning what questions to ask.
I missed my last birdwatching class while driving back from our vacation. They sent me an email about it, which I didn't read because I was feeling sorry for myself, but that was a HUGE mistake because what the email said was an invitation to go to a different session at a time I could have made if I had read the email. Let that be a lesson to me on the costs of self-pity!
My SIL sent me a big batch of flower roots or bulbs or things that go in the dirt, so I planted them in various places that are supposed to be flower beds around my house. Now let's see how long it takes me to kill them. So far some of them are still a bit green so there's hope!
I had my 4/5 book club, and we discussed Wonder, which was popular. I threw in some of the details from the other books by the author, and then we talked about the differences between our school, homeschooling, and the expensive New York private school Auggie goes to. And we also talked about point of view, and how the book gives us a lot of different perspectives on the the events. I should have had my Foolscap book club, but I missed that driving back as well. Oh well, it was a good lunch in Leavenworth!
I'm typing this up after a high protein Memorial Cookout, courtesy of my BIL -- two hamburgers, lovely and rare just the way I like it, a hot dog, and then grilled crab legs. I meant to have some corn on the cob, but gosh, even I have limits. I went for a run this morning, so my hope is my body is using this meal to make muscles all over the place. I'll go for a walk soon to push that along.
I am currently reading 26 books, which seems slightly too many but I'm OK with it.
Displacement, Kiku Hughes. Cybils finalist.
Stowed Away, Barbara Ross. To be my companion at meals.
Rosie Revere and the Raucous Riveters, Andrea Beatty. I like this series.
The Hidden Land, Pamela Dean. Sequel to Secret Country. Read aloud.
Nine Tailors, Dorothy Sayers. Read aloud.
White Bird, R.J. Palacio. Because the elementary book club is reading Wonder.
Wonder, R.J. Palacio. For my 4/5 book club.
A Murder in Time, Julie McElwain. For Foolscap Book Club.
The Cloud Searchers (Amulet 3), Kazu Kibuishi. Because I like the art.
King and the Dragonflies, Kacen Callender. Cybils finalist.
Arcadia, Tom Stoppard. I heard part of this read aloud and I wanted to see how it ended.
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O.J. Simpson Murder Case, Todd Kortemeier. Cybils nominee.
The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead. Torches and Pitchforks book club pick.
Rattle His Bones, Carola Dunn. Another Daisy Dalrymple audio.
Fake Dating the Prince, Ashlyn Kane. Fluffy romance recced from Romance Series.
The Duke of Olympia Meets His Match, Juliana Gray. Another fluffy romance, this one with an older protagonist.
Gator Bait, Jana Deleon. More fun with Miss Fortune.
Son of Sam Killings, Alexis Burling. 2020 Cybils nominee.
Flamer, Mike Curato. Cybils finalist.
Rival Magic, Diva Fagan. Cybils finalist.
The Manson Family Murders, Tom Streissguth. 2020 Cybils nonfiction nominee. I'm working my way through all the Crime books in this series, and this one was a bit disappointing. I didn't feel it set the context of the times well, and some of the information felt more like trivia than relevant details. There also isn't much mystery -- the guilt of the convicted people seems pretty obvious, and there aren't any conspiracy theories lingering. As a true crime story, it doesn't have the same tension as the other stories, which have more controversial verdicts (even the Kennedy assassination has the crackpot theories).
I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher.
From the Desk of Zoe Washington, Jenae Marks. 2020 Cybils Middle Grade fiction finalist. This was an excellent read (and the winner of its category). Zoe is busy on her summer vacation with different problems -- friend issues, cooking explorations, negotiating new boundaries with her parents, and then she gets a letter from her imprisoned father. How she handles all this makes gives a lot of opportunities for her to have adventures and make decisions that demonstrate her growth and agency. Sometimes she made mistakes; sometimes she had to deal with the after effects of the mistakes of the adults in her life. I did wish the author had figured out to indicate the major logical mistake she made when hunting down a possible witness, but that's a me problem, not a kid issue. I'm always happy when kids are independent; in this case, two twelve year olds take public transit by themselves. Their parents are overprotective, so they do this without permission, but it is clearly well within their capability and they are responsible about it, even to the extent of accepting the punishment their paranoid parents inflict.
Curses for Sale!, Steve Brezenoff. Library grab bag book. This is a nicely spooky elementary level book about a cursed kiddy car that strikes at a family. Apparently it's in a series about a creepy town, the kind of town where it's a bad idea to stop at garage sales. I liked the last chapter, where we think everything is all right, but in a Twilight Zone move the curse jumps again.
The Secret Country, Pamela Dean. Another fun time reading a book with a group of book-lovers (virtually -- we're all calling in to hear each other). I read this a long time ago and have only a muddled memory of the feeling it evoked. It's the story of a group of kids who cross over into the imaginary world they've been playing in for years together; the kids are young teenagers (or so it seems, from my lofty age I probably see 17 as "young teen"). The kids don't take it seriously, but that is stressful because *I* do, so I'm glad I had someone reading this to me to calm my anxiety. It's really only part of the story, so we'll start the next book immediately.
Something That May Shock and Discredit You, Daniel Mallory Ortberg. Another read-aloud. Somehow we managed to finish both books on the same day! This was a fascinating collection of essays written as kind of a memoir of his journey through discovering he was a transman. Some of it was baffling, some of it was hilarious, and I never knew whether I was going to feel he described something exactly as it was or in a completely different way that I never considered. It was a good read.
Outbreak, Melissa F. Olson. The FBI stuff continues to be fun, as does the Old Guard nature of the protagonist. I liked how they went underground and all their friends rallied; the TV exposure was funny, and I even liked the final battle. I found the love stuff still rather perfunctory, but it kept all the people in the right places. Olson looks like a good author for fun rather fluffy reads, so I will keep an eye out.
Rosie Revere and the Raucous Riveters, Andrea Beatty. I like this series. Book 4 was the best, as it had people being fantastically kind and respectful to each other, while the rest have fantastically impossible inventions (balloon pants that fly, etc.). But the kids are fun and individual enough, and I like the conceit of echoing famous people in the interests of the kids.
The Consuming Fire, John Scalzi. For my Tuesday book club. I expect snarky dialogue in Scalzi's books, and this one delivered. It's fun, although I think it's not as pervasive in most societies as he seems to think. There are people who talk without sarcasm after all. I mean, not in my family, but I have met them. His characters also tend to be smart, so there are lots of schemes, good scientific work, and insightful moments. What makes his books worth returning to is how he does differentiate his characters -- they have different moral cores, so what they do varies depending on what they value. They may all sound a lot alike, but there's a real feel of different people here. One complaint from my book club is that he has too many fun ideas -- some of them are just touched on and then he never goes back to them. I guess that's a fairly good problem to have.
Wonder, R.J. Palacio. For my 4/5 book club. This is a reread for me, but in the meantime I read the short story book about three of the kids. Of course, I've forgotten almost all of it, but it underline the sense the book gives that all the children have their own stories, not just Auggie. The kids pointed out how many viewpoints there were in the story, so that is a big theme. I also noticed how very different kids at a ritsy New York private school seem; maybe reading this in the same year as Class Act played into that. And another trivial note -- fifth grade does not seem middle school to me! We talked about how the expectations play into behavior for kids at school -- what changes if fifth grade is the youngest in middle school instead of the oldest in elementary.
The Cloud Searchers (Amulet 3), Kazu Kibuishi. The art is still the main attraction, but I like seeing the kids interact with the crazy world and the characters in it, from the fox who has pegged them as the saviors of the universe to the elf prince who needs to team up with them. But probably my favorite is their mom, who keeps trying to revert into comfortable patterns that the kids point out don't really apply here, but her love is still sustaining for the kids even as her knowledge is fairly useless. I suspect this would have bothered me more a few years ago, but now my kids are grown so it's not personal.
Displacement, Kiku Hughes. 2020 Cybils YA Graphic Novel finalist. I struggled with this a bit; I've read some really good memoirs of the camps, so the idea of seeing them again through a time-traveling modern kid grated a bit -- why not get the real story from a character or memory based on the people really there? I was reconciled a bit by way Hughes tied the displacement into the collective memory of the descendents, and how the experience affected them through the generations in ways seen and unseen. Also, since I read a lot of science fiction, I got a bit distracted by the mechanism. On a short visit, the protagonist brings back a cut she receives in the past. Does she also bring back the effects of aging for several years? No one notices any changes. Huh.
A Murder in Time, Julie McElwain. For Foolscap Book Club. Well, I finished it and then we ran over time for our last lunch in our vacation house, so I missed the book club anyway. Humph. It was a bit gorier than I prefer, with a serial killer raping and torturing women. We are only there for a few of them, but it was enough. It was fun to see the displaced FBI agent using her craft -- a murder wall set up in an unused nursery, canvassing with an aristocrat to make people cough up their alibis, but it had a traditional final show-down with the villain which had me disappointed that the baddies are found by having them attack our heroes, not by our heroes figuring out who it must have been. Oh well. I hope to make book club next month!
Arcadia, Tom Stoppard. I'm even sadder about missing the performance; like any play this would have been even better out loud. I really enjoyed the dialogue and the occasional bigger though buried in, and the mixing of time periods worked really well for me.
Styx and Stones, Carola Dunn. Audio for a car ride. Well, the Libby app and I had a disagreement about whether or not this should be downloaded so I could listen while driving across the Eastern Washington connectivity desert, and I did not win. So I had to listen to this while doing my much shorter trips around home after going for a second round (which I did win). This one has good Belinda action, and she gets to hang out with her soon-to-be-cousin, but the mystery Daisy solves is rather weak. Also, (spoiler) the revelation that the rector did the poison pen letters still seems baffling to me; I personally think his wife wrote them and he took the fall. Good thing he didn't know what else he could have tried to take the fall for.
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White Bird, R.J. Palacio. I meant to read this before meeting with the Wonder book club, as it's a spin off, but I misplaced it and had to ransack my house a bit before it turned up. It's a WWII survival story, so obviously completely my jam, even as a graphic novel. It's Julian (the bully) listening to his grandmother on FaceTime as she tells him of his namesake, the boy on crutches whom everyone teased, the boy who saved his Jewish grandmother from the Nazis. The afterwards were also interesting -- an epilogue from someone who wrote a book on fiction and the Holocaust that looks interesting and a bit of history with ideas where to go for more information on different aspects. It's a good introduction to the subject, a gripping story on its own, and a kick in the gut for Julian.
Fake Dating the Prince, Ashlyn Kane. I got this as a security blanket so that when Nickel Boys got grim I could crawl into something cozy before going back out to the evil world of realistic fiction. It did that job wonderfully. This is an flight attendant (hey, my mom was a flight attendant) and the prince of an imaginary but very rich country who meet and are cute together, have a few tiny shenanigans, have the inevitable silly spat but resolve that very quickly and are happy ever after. It's completely fluffy and charming and I probably need extra fluoride to keep my teeth from rotting but I enjoyed it immensely.
O.J. Simpson Murder Case, Todd Kortemeier. 2020 Cybils nonfiction nominee. I think the world changed a bit since this was written, which made the reading experience different. The racial context looms larger -- the book describes the murder trial as more race-conscious than the civil trial, because in the murder trial the defense team was allowed to discuss the racist attitudes of the police while in the civil trial that information was suppressed, and in mostly White Santa Monica the idea that race would have any impact on the justice system was denied. Somehow that doesn't read as race-neutral any more, and wouldn't have read that way to the people not in denial about how Black people are treated by our court system. So the thing I look for in this series -- setting the crime and the reaction to it in context for its time and for ours -- is not really fully present. I'm not as convinced as the author that the juror's explanation isn't quite accurate -- that probably he did it but the standard of proof was not met. It seems more likely that racism played a part in the civil trial -- probably he did it, but possibly even the civil standard of proof was not met and they voted against him anyway.
I received an ecopy of this book from the publisher for review.
Playing With Fire, April Henry. Made it through! I'm still a huge wimp for reading about kids in danger. Even when the genre means things will almost certainly turn out all right. This was a solid read about people dealing with a difficult situation, supporting each other as they can, but worrying about their loved ones first. Everything happens to these guys -- bee stings, crumbling cliffs, you name it. I appreciate Rachel Brown recommending it -- it did everything she told me it would do and did it well. I liked how past trauma interacted with current events, and how in the epilogue we find out how the whole team is doing and see that some of them were profoundly changed by the intense experience.
Flamer, Mike Curato. 2020 Cybils YA Graphic Novel finalist. This is a sensitive and emotionally graphic fictionalized memoir of a summer at boy scout camp where a kid deals with fears of being gay, fears of being known to be gay, and very realistic fears of being bullied for appearing gay, no matter what he finally figures out his identity to be. Set a generation ago, at the same time I was going to girl scout camps, it was a mix of familiar and unknown to me. A lot of the camping experiences was the same, but the boyish aggressions and friendships were slightly on the slant from my girlish memories. There's a very scary section where the protagonist considers harming himself, and I was very impressed by the use of red and fire images to show the emotional journey he goes through. Graphic novels can be amazing when they use their dual nature to best advantage here, and the flame images really gave the sense of fear, hope, and empowerment strength.
King and the Dragonflies, Kacen Callender. 2020 Cybils Middle Grade Fiction finalist. This was a well written book about a few tough months in the life of King, a sensitive boy in Louisiana in a small town with racial tensions, not a lot of LGBTQ representation, and an old fashioned but loving family recently torn apart by the unexpected sudden death of King's older brother. In addition to the grief he is feeling, King has friendship problems spiked by the rising sexual tension among his junior high peer group, which intensifies King's worries that he might be gay. There's a lot going on, and it means that we and King don't really get a chance to deal with it all. King's personal growth is spurred on by the decisions that he has to make, big and small, and his learning how to negotiate trust and loyalty and when to break a promise is engaging, but I was distracted by how many disasters he negotiates which take time away from seeing that interior growth. The ending landed a bit flat for me. It's a worthy book, and I'm glad to see more books with gay Black kids and biracial friendships and friendships between boys and girls, but it does feel like it packed more than it could carry.
Rattle His Bones, Carola Dunn. This one had a better mystery, with a complicated museum that I didn't try to grasp but I had confidence that Dunn did as she had people weaving through all the galleries and side offices and corridors. I really like Daisy's relationship with her soon-to-be stepdaughter, and with her nephew, and I like seeing Alec work to give Daisy autonomy while still wanting to protect him. It's a nice balance between my desire for historical believability and my desire for likable characters.
Stowed Away, Barbara Ross. As a fluffy cosy mystery, this was fine -- interesting murder, interesting enough characters, fun bits of information about random stuff along the way. I was a bit disappointed in it as a meal companion, as my character was not the cook but worked in the front of her family vacation place. So it was more meal adjacent than meal celebrating, which is what I hoped for. But I enjoyed it and I still like having a dedicated book for any solitary meals I take. Makes eating more of an occasion and helps me appreciate what I eat instead of just shoveling the food in while lost in whatever I'm reading.
The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead. Torches and Pitchforks book club pick. This Whitehead guy can really write. This was a short novel that packed a real punch. I found myself reading slower and slower as I approached the end, because there was a lot of signals that this wasn't going to go well, and well, those signals were not accidental. It really brought the life of boys trapped in a racist society into sharp view, and the way that childhood trauma echoes on through adulthood, and the way that a poisonous world view can seep into every molecule of a privileged life. Yikes.
Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:
Uncompromising Honor 66/??, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. I had to finish my library audio books so this got backburnered.
Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Ancient Sword and Laser pick. Nothing.
The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein, Farah Mendelson. Hugo finalist. Nothing.
The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton. Didn't touch it.
The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum. Didn't touch it.
The Wine-Dark Sea, Patrick O'Brien. Didn't touch it.
An Extraordinary Union, Alyssa Cole. Progress!
Seven Sisters, Lucinda Riley. Didn't touch it.
High Cotton, Robin Kristie Johnson. A LibraryThing EarlyReaders book. Made progress. The problem is that I'm very judgmental about people who have affairs, and she spends a lot of time sleeping with people she knows are married to other people.
Sharks in the Time of Saviors, Kawai Strong Washburn. Didn't touch it.
The Lost Orphan, Stacey Halls. A group read with a reading group. I'm behind, so I ignored it.
Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells. I think I'll listen to the audios. So far I've heard the first four, and I'm still waiting on the fifth.
Picture Books / Short Stories:
"The History of England," Jane Austen. It was fun to hear this read aloud (by the same person who read Northanger Abbey). I like this brand of silly parody.
"The Mermaid Astronaut," Yoon Ha Lee. Hugo short story finalist. Good language, but I wanted more conflict. And the final note that you can travel through space while staying at home because your planet is traveling through space did not resonate with me.
Our Friend Hedgehog, Lauren Castillo. 2020 Cybils Early Chapter Book finalist. I think I feel a grudge against this book because I didn't realize Hedgehog's friend was a stuffed animal until they found him again. I would have been much less worried. It was a cosy and sweet book, but I didn't really sink into the blend of fantasy and reality but instead poked at the intersections -- why was mole afraid to go outside where her best friend is an owl? Was the human looking person a child living alone or a short adult or a blend? Why didn't the chicken's chicks speak a language? Why were people so mean to Beaver, those concerns were realistic!
Franklin Endicott and the Third Key, Kate DiCamillo. Franklin is one of my favorite residents of the Deckawoo street, so I enjoyed this chapter book focussing on him. He's a very committed worrier and this is about his search for a way to enjoy life alongside his worries. I like that he has a strong friendship with my most favorite resident, Eugenia, and that she is crabby but basically kind and that she strongly encourages him to face his fears and act anyway. And that she shares some worries with him but not in a way that would be frightening for a child. Even Mercy the pig did well in this one.
The Little Library, Margaret McNamara. A library book about a kid who doesn't like to read, but finds a librarian who supports him anyway, and how he decides to repay that. Basically a book about kindness. The goodreads reviews seem a bit croggled by the apparently nonbinary librarian, and I agree with the person who complained about how the librarian asked to be called. Elementary school kids should call their instructors by their last names, not their first names. But Librarian is a great choice for the honorific!
We Are Water Defenders, Carole Lindstrom. 2020 Cybils Picture Book finalist. I liked the colors and the sentiment, but found the book as a whole overwhelmed by its didactic nature. Pollution is bad, water is good, apparently I have no soul or maybe my expectations were so high that nothing would have satisfied me. I expected to love this and I found it to be just OK. Still think that pipeline was a bad idea and that racism drove the response to the protests against it.
Palate Cleansers
These books I'm barely reading; lately I use them bribes to get me to deal with the mail. Hmm. I should get back to that.
The Educated Child, William Bennett.
Wool, Hugh Howey.
Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. I'm not sure our hero has the ruthlessness he needs.
Under the Eye of the Storm, John Hersey. Still half a hurricane to get through.
Dates From Hell, Kim Harrison & others.
Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. I'm on the last chapter! Luckily there are several epilogues.
Reading Challenges
- Cybils 2020. Finished Zoe Washington, Displacement, Flamer and King and the Dragonflies. Read Our Friend Hedgehog and We Are Water Protectors, so I'm finished with picture books and short chapter books. Also a few more 2020 nominees.
- Early Cybils: Nothing.
- KCLS 10 To Try: 8/10. I did get a recommendation from a librarian, but I'll probably read that with a book club this summer. Epistolary will be hard.
- Tacoma Extreme Reading Challenge. 38/55. Fake Dating the Prince gave me "book with a royal moniker in the title"
- Reading My Library. Finished Stowed Away.
- Where Am I Reading 2021: 21/51 states -- picked up Oregon, Wisconsin, Maine. 11 Countries.
Future Plans
I'm putting this at the end because I suspect it's complete fiction, but I feel I should attempt some structure.
I am reading:
- Book I own: High Cotton. Next: Catfishing
- Library Book: Lost Orphan. Next: Next Year in Havana
- Ebook I own: Extraordinary Union Up Next: Paladin's Strength
- Library Ebook: Gator Bait. Up Next: Luminaries
- Book Club Book: Last Night in the Telegraph Club Up Next: Hmm.
- Tuesday Book Club Book: The Last Emperox (maybe). Next: I need to finish The Wind Dark Sea
- Review Book: High Cotton. Next: Back Home
- Hugo Book: The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein. Next: Joanna Russ.
- Rereading: Patricia Briggs, maybe?
- Meal Companion: something in West Virginia
- Audio: Paladin of Souls Next: Murderbot?
