Smoke Rose Up Forever

Woot! I finished the Seattle Public Library Summer bingo card! Full blackout! That's how I spent my Labor Day Weekend. Given that there is a pandemic and a smoke hazard making going outside dangerous to my health, sitting around reading a book seemed like a good idea. 

My poor son is at school in Oregon, luckily in a wet part that is fairly safe from the fires, but still close enough that the air is terrible -- orange skies, darkness all days, real apocalyptic stuff. They've moved all classes to remote and dragged the HVAC filters from the classrooms to the dorms and advise everyone to stay inside. I guess that's the silver lining to the pandemic -- everything is all set up to go fully remote at a moment's notice (students can opt to go to class remotely either on a day-by-day basis or for the whole semester).  And now the smoke has moved up here to Washington as well. The other boy is in Eastern Washington, where the air is Unhealthy. Here in Renton, it's Very Unhealthy. And down in Salem it's Hazardous. Oof.

I had two book clubs, plus the Minecraft weekly one, all online of course. Friday was my group of friends, so I ordered pizza and my sister came over so we could be together while dialling up everyone else. We had fun laughing with the hapless werewolves of our pick. On Saturday I had the Triple Crown of Sword and Laser, Cloudy (spin off of Vaginal Fantasy) and Torches and Pitchforks met to discuss Elysium, Polaris Rising, and a variety of news articles submitted by members. The favorite of the night was Polaris Rising which was charming. I like this club, where people can choose to show up for one or all of the picks. I do them all, of course, but then usually I have a long drive to get there so I have to make it worth it.

Running was canceled due to poor air quality, but my nephew and I are still doing the aerobics and the personal trainer work. I made crockpot falafels (good) with homemade pita (bad)  tortillas and a tomato corn salad that was a bit disappointing; the corn was fresh from the market but it wasn't as sweet as I hoped. I was going to make shrimp enchiladas on Friday but I remembered that it was book club so ordered pizza instead. TRADITION! And I was supposed to make cookies for care packages but I procrastinated instead. 

My currently reading has lurched back up to 28 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 my reading this week is aimed at kids.

Started

Thor and Loki: In the Land of the Giants, Jeff Limke. A shorter retelling for the SPL Summer bingo.

Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder. A shorter debut over 50 for SPL Summer bingo.

Out of the Blue, Sophie Cameron. City of Literature setting for SPL Summer bingo.

Crush, Svetlana Chmakova. Cybils finalist.

Some Were In Time, Robyn Peterman. My friends book club book.

It's Trevor Noah, Trevor Noah. Cybils finalist.

Completed

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong. Epistolary for SPL Summer bingo. This was a tough book, written in waves moving forward and back in time, looking at the complex relationships that built up the character (it felt very real as a memoir but is written as a novel, so I can't say how much the author identifies as the main character. I read it as memoir before noticing it was shelved in fiction). His family loves him, but they are broken themselves and don't always take care of him, even sometimes descending into abuse. He's always an outsider, feeling his Vietnamese accent and features separate him from the "Americans" who taunt his foreignness. He finds a boyfriend, but he struggles with drug addiction and also rejects queerness as an identity, assuming he'll grow out of his attraction to (and love for?)  Little Dog. So the foundations of his life are shifting, and he navigates these even as he pushes onward to college and writing. It's a narration about damage felt and survived, and the contortions that forces upon the victims.

Thor and Loki: In the Land of the Giants, Jeff Limke. A shorter retelling for the SPL Summer bingo. This comic retells the story of the impossible challenges set by the Giants, which is always fun. Thor's supreme confidence is barely dented by their constant failures and since I know the story I could see how they would fail. I was sad that the author didn't give the sister her own moment of awesome, but I guess he felt he should stick to the story from his sources. It did not make me hungry for goat.

Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder. A shorter debut over 50 for SPL Summer bingo. I haven't reread this in a very long time; somehow I never got around to reading this to my boys (I meant to, but as I tore open the seal around my box set I guessed I had not). There are a few racist stumbles (the mysterious absence of Indians, the darky song Pa plays on his fiddle) but Laura is so small that her attention is very limited -- she mostly sees her own family. The details of life are what makes this fun -- the pig slaughtering, the wheat threshing, the cheese making, the meat smoking. And reading it from my new aged perspective I'm astonished at how little baby Carrie appears. Laura never notices her Ma taking care of the baby -- apparently it's effortless. I'm amazed by this!

Kristy's Great Idea, Raina Telgemeier. 2006 Cybils graphic book finalist. I've never read any of the Baby-sitter's Club books, but I know the concept. This comic version seemed like what I expected, but isn't a lot of this anachronistic now? I remember babysitting when I was a kid, but when my own children were small getting twelve year olds to watch them was frowned upon, and I looked in vain for neighborhood lists of kids ready to earn some dough. I would have loved seeing signs for this club! Otherwise it was a pleasant read, with some touches of friend drama and divorced family tensions to keep the pages moving.

Out of the Blue, Sophie Cameron. City of Literature setting for SPL Summer bingo. I kept looking for specific cities, and the library had this tagged for Edinburgh, one of the Cities of Literature. It's a good YA paranormal, with angels falling from the sky. An interesting twist is that no one knows what or where or anything about these people with wings, because they fall to the ground, smash, and die. Our heroine is dealing with a break-up, and dad on an angel hunt, an annoying little sister, and most importantly, the recent death of her mother. She finds a not-quite-dead angel, makes some friends (one of whom is very cute), and processes her grief. It's a fun mix of teen angst and interesting speculation.

Crush, Svetlana Chmakova. 2019 younger graphic novels Cybils finalist. I thought this would be OK, but then once I started reading I didn't put it down. (Usually I read Cybils books while folding laundry, so even a short book might take several days). I found Jorge a really great character -- good and trying to be good, but also realistic and believable. Book slike this make junior high seem less crazy -- yes there are people who make mistakes or are gross, but if you look you can also find people who make great friends and peers. Now I want to go back and read her other books.

Elysium, Jennifer Marie Brissert. For Sword & Laser club. Our local group decided to meet the weekend after Labor Day so we're a bit behind the main group. This was an interesting read, and I think I liked it more than most. I was also the only one to read it on paper instead of as an audio. I thought it came together well at the end and had a big impact, but that it wasted too much time at the beginning letting the reader figure out what was going on. And some of us complained that some of the small stories were so interesting we wanted a lot more of those, and getting zapped into a different version was a big disappointment. 

Some Were In Time, Robyn Peterman. My friends book club book. This is a very silly book, but it doesn't pretend to be anything more than that. We read it as a pandemic chaser -- we could pick any from the series depending on library availability (this is the 2nd) or just show up. There was some discussion -- we critiqued the narrator's approach to gender neutral people but that led to amusement at how smart she thought she and her friends were despite the fact that they were all obvious idiots (with a few magic tricks, like being impossibly rich immortal beings, or being able to hack computer systems off page). Short, silly and non-demanding. But I found the sex scenes rather tedious, so don't read it for those.

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 10/10 discs. OK, I'm back. I don't enjoy the parts where everyone accepts that girls shouldn't complain about being attack, and definitely shouldn't fight back.

Uncompromising Honor 29/??, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. Still stuck in a battle. And with a week between episodes I keep forgetting which accent goes where, so I can't remember which side is which. Now I'm regretting that Weber doesn't make one side angels and the other side mustache-twirling villains. I mean, not really, but it makes this bit hard.

Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling. I'm listening to celebrities read this to me. Harry's off to go shopping! Three people for one chapter!

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Sword and Laser pick. Nope, it languished.

A Long Time Until Now, Michael Z Williamson. Another languisher.

The Illustrated Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking. For my Tuesday book club. I remember when this stuff was easy. Now I slowly read a section, nod to myself, and realize ten minutes later that I could not explain what I read to anyone. Which means I don't understand it.

Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky. OK, I'm making progress but it's too slow. I'm ordering this from the book store so the library can have their copy back. If I ever get back to the library -- the smoky air has closed even the grab-and-go library hours!

Cities in Layers, Philip Steele. This is going slowly because I'm terrible at Where's Waldo things and each page is a slow search for all the landmarks. But it's fun and I'm enjoying the cut-outs.

Slippery Creatures, K J Charles. Argh, I really want to read this but I keep being distracted by library books.

Jubilee, Margaret Walker. Early pick for debut over 50 in SPL Summer bingo. Unsurprisingly, this book about a slave woman in Georgia has many grim sections that I am taking in small doses because I am a wimp. I substituted a Laura Ingalls Wilder book for the Bingo and am reading this and listening to the audio, depending on what I can handle.

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Ellen Oh (editor). Early pick for retellings in SPL Summer bingo. These are great and I'm enjoying them, but glancing at the page count of this and all the other books, I swapped in a graphic novel about Thor and Loki for the Bingo card so I can finish this at my leisure.

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. I'm in the extra letters -- the digraphs and special blends. Or maybe they are all digraphs and my pronunciation is terrible.

Emily's Balloon, Komako Sakai. 2006 Cybils finalist. I really liked the emotional pitch of this; the child is seen as capable of handling her emotions and the problem, but the mom is there for physical and moral support as needed.

Wolves, Emily Gravett. 2006 Cybils finalist. I would have had great fun reading this book to my kids, especially with the dual endings depending on how blood-thirsty you are. I really enjoy books that play with the idea of reading a book, and this one does it on many levels and with amazing pictures.

Seashells: More Than a Home, Melissa Stewart. 2019  Cybils nonfiction. I've read many nonfiction picture books with my kids, and this would have been a pleasure. And I could have shared it with kids of several ages, which is always a plus -- little kids enjoy the pictures but the big kids and I can delve into the details and the extra information in the back.

Titan and the Wild Boars, Susan Hood. 2019 Cybils nonfiction. There are a lot of great books about these kids! This one had some of the best illustrations/graphs showing the cave and the rescue plan, and did a great job of distilling the operation into the salient bits for this audience. 

Monument Maker: Daniel Chester French and the Lincoln Memorial, Linda Booth Sweeney. 2019 Cybils nonfiction. I like how this biography details how French's childhood led up to his career, both the positive (drawing birds) and the negative (flunking out of college). And it had a lot of good extras, such as the list of his other monuments and where they are in the US.

Sonny's Bridge: Jazz Legend Sonny Rollins Finds His Groove, Barry Wittenstein. 2019 Cybils nonfiction. This biography pauses for a while at the hiatus Rollins took in his career to step away from the pressures of performing to concentrate on his connection to his music. And the illustrations try to steal the show again. I queued up the Bridge album to listen to while I read this, which made it even better.

Memphis, Martin and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968, Alice Fay Duncan. A biography of a little girl watching her father strike for better pay and safer working conditions. I don't know much about this strike, just that King was in Memphis when he was shot, so I enjoyed learning more history as well as the pictures and language of the story. This would have been a good read with my kids.

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. 

Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan. The guy is going full emo.

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. Final bit of advice of how to incorporate other nonfiction texts into learning. It's making me appreciate the nonfiction picture books I'm reading more.

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. I picked up the last picture book! Finished nonfiction picture books. And younger graphic novels.
4. Early Cybils: Read some picture books.
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: 22/51 states. 23 Countries. Picked up Connecticut and North Carolina.
8. Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge. Got Indigenous author! I'm technically done, although a few of my entries are pretty feeble. I'll keep looking to see how often I hit the categories.
9. SPL Summer bingo card. Woot! Pulled it out! Now I'm drowning in books...