Time to Vote!

I'm in Washington state, so my ballot was mailed to me. We've had mail-only balloting for years now, so it's a bit baffling to find out that many people think it doesn't work. Well, I think they are lying about it. Many people are apparently unscrupulous anti-democratic types. Go figure. But it's fun to sometimes tune into the conservative radio show where they explain how dangerous mail in ballots are for other people. 

I've been getting some walks in most days, especially since my nephew is fairly scrupulous about dragging me out during his P.E. class. I even did some jogging, but then I gave blood so I get to take a break for a few days. I'm a delicate flower who needs recovery time. And I like to extend that recovery time for a day or two after I need it because it's no fun being lazy when I really am too tired to move. The joy comes when I am just slacking. So maybe I'll go back to my training routine on Tuesday (I gave blood last Friday).

I had my first elementary school book club. Online, of course. This one was for younger kids -- 2/3 rd grades, and I clearly need to refresh myself on expectations for these guys in terms of attention span and types of questions. Being virtual doesn't help with that! But we had fun and we'll have another book next week. 

I joined a trivia team for some SF questions to support Clarion West's writing program. My team did not win. On the other hand, I was a solid contributor, so I didn't feel bad about letting anyone down. And we had fun. The only thing that would have made it better was if the beer for next week's Zoo Brew fest had arrived in time for me to be drinking it during that contest...

I'm attempting to buckle down to my Cybils reading, as the nonfiction nominees have come pouring in. Of course, I'm still reading for too many other books! I've decided to take the advice of credit experts to people who have overextended their credit cards: Pay the minimum of everything, and then pour all the rest on the card with the smallest balance. This will snowball up as you clear off cards. So I read a little bit in most books and then concentrate on one in between reading Cybils books. I hope I eventually see day light! Also, I think next week I should have a seperate post for my Cybils reading, as this one is getting a bit ungainly.

Cooking-wise, I never even went shopping. I supported local businesses for dinners. But I did manage to mostly catch up on cleaning the kitchen so I hope to be a bit more frugal and healthy this week.

My currently reading continues at an ungainly 24 with all the books left over from false starts on the Bingo card, plus some other poor choices, and now all my Cybils reading. Eventually I'll start finishing things and the numbers will come down. 

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 will be eligible there for the next few months for sure!

Started

That Can Be Arranged, Huda Fahmy. To see if I wanted to nominate it for the Cybils.

Flowers In the Gutter, K.R. Gaddy. 2020 Cybils nominee.

Flunked, Jen Calonita. Talbot Hill book club pick.

Surviving the City, Tasha Spillett. Cybils finalist.

They Called Us Enemy, George Takei. Cybils finalist.

Completed

The Gown, Jennifer Robson. This would have been the August pick for Renton's The River Runs Under It book club, but the pandemic put that club on hiatus. This would have been an interesting book to discuss, since some of the members are probably my mom's age and might remember bits of World War II and Queen Elizabeth when she was a princess.  I enjoyed the two women who worked on the gown itself and their surrounding stories -- Ann, who reaches out to the new French worker when she is left alone by her sister-in-laws migration to Canada (all her other family has died, either before or during the war). Miriam, the French embroiderer, wants to start afresh after losing her family to concentration camps and ending the war at Ravensbruck, and enjoys getting to know Ann as she becomes more comfortable in her new country. They both meet men, but their romances have very different arcs. There's also a story set in the present with Ann's granddaughter Heather traveling to London to try to learn more about her recently deceased Nan. I found the modern thread very dull compared to the historical stories, and Heather is a much whinier woman than either of the other two.

All Boys Aren't Blue, George M. Johnson. 2020 Cybils nominee. This YA memoir tells of his childhood through his college graduation. Johnson doesn't try to replicate his youth; he interprets what happens in terms of what he understands now and discusses what was influencing his choices back then, which keeps the reader at some distance but increases clarity. He spells out the places where prejudice against either Blackness or homosexuality made things more complicated (or just harder) and is clearly angry about the ways bigotry twists the lives of innocent kids. I loved reading about his relationship with his grandmother, and the way he appreciates the unconditional love that defines his family; so many memoirs are about abusive homelives and it's good to read this one where a family not only tries hard, but succeeds in nurturing their kids, even the kids they don't understand. I find it amusing as a parent that Johnson didn't come out to his family as gay until his twenties, since it sounds like the whole family understood it long before then. That is a trope I've seen in fiction; where a nervous person finally comes out to his family and friends and they all thought he had been out for ages but try to be supportive. 

I maybe could have done without the details of his college sexual encounters. The pace didn't really work for me, but I agree with him that this is a good book to have available for questioning kids. Both kids questioning their own sexuality and kids questioning what it means for their friends and family.

That Can Be Arranged, Huda Fahmy. I laughed out loud several times during this story of a nerd who finds love, with the unusual for me twist that she follows a strict form of Islam that forbids dating or being alone with a guy so she resorts to time tested techniques that fail a few times before eventually working. It was funny and also showed me a glimpse into someone else's life. I nominated it it in the graphic novel category.

The Wind Gourd of La'amaomao, Moses Nakuima. This translation of a Hawaiian traditional story was a gift from a friend and I've finally read it! It was cool; it felt almost like a science fiction story because the world and culture was very alien and there were lots of Hawaiian words left in. The back half where the son takes vengeance on the father's enemies was the best, as I liked both his cunning victories and the songs he kept breaking into. Still amazed at the loyalty for the King, but that's common everywhere, and I liked how the dad was loyal but cynical. 

Honeybee, Naomi Shihab Nye. 2008 Cybils poetry finalist. Somewhat of a mixed bag. And remember when liberals thought Bush was a bad president? Hold my beer, say Republicans... Some of the poems really resonate, and I loved her story of accidentally wandering into a house thinking it was a museum until the resident owners gently asked what she was doing looking at their wall paintings... The coda to that story seems almost too good to be true, but it's still perfect. I like the idea of a book like this existing, but I'm not sure what the audience is.

Free Lunch, Rex Ogle. 2019 Cybils middle grade nonfiction finalist. A tough read for adults. This is a memoir of Ogle's first year of junior high, where his attempts to hide his poverty and difficult family life from his mostly well-off classmates strains his friendships and his mental health. His parents aren't handling the stresses of their lives well and this rebounds on him, and the adults at school range from indifferent to malicious. But it's a redemptive book; it charts Ogle's emotional growth and ability to differentiate between his parents problems and his own. Once he recognizes that he isn't responsible for their choices, he is able to build his confidence by making his own decisions. He recognizes their abuse and even has compassion for the stresses pushing at them but doesn't attempt to blame himself or excuse them. He pushes back against feeling shame for his poverty which makes eating his free lunch less stressful and allows himself to make new friends and even trust them with a little bit of his true self. 

Surviving the City, Tasha Spillett. 2019 Cybils YA graphic novel finalist. This one was hard for me. It's the story of a First Nations girl who is almost lost to homelessness, which isn't an easy subject to begin with, and the side stories are of her support team and the (not supportive) social services which almost precipitates her disappearance when they threaten to remove her from her home because of family illness. It's realistic and agonizing when the social worker puts down her getting in trouble for texting in class as a sign that her home life is unacceptable, when it is of course merely a sign that she's a teenager. There's also a story about how many First Nation women are lost each year, and we see these women as ghosts in the pictures in a very effective way that is understood through the lens of First Nation cultural norms. But sadly my face blindness kept tripping me up and I kept getting confused with who was speaking because the main characters both had long hair. So I could keep up with the social issues but not with the plot.

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Ellen Oh (editor). Replaced pick for retellings in SPL Summer bingo. I powered through to the end, and give it a solid B. The early stories were a bit stronger than the final ones, which included a few clunkers. But I liked seeing all the Asian tradition stories, most of which were knew to me, and it was fun to learn of them through these retellings and then get the author to tell me the basics of the original in their afterwards. 

Jubilee, Margaret Walker. Replaced pick for debut over 50 in SPL Summer bingo. Another good read. This is a novel about Vyry, who grows up enslaved by her father on a Georgia plantation but lives through the Civil War and a chance to get her own farm for herself and her family. It gets distracted sometimes by being a general history of the Civil War period but that comes almost as a break from the hard times she endures personally. It takes a good look at the complexities of rape and biracialism, as Vyry is often mistaken for white (awkwardly, guests sometimes can't tell her apart from her father's legitimate daughter, which does not endear her to the mistress of the house). It matter-of-factly conveys the horrors of the treatment of Blacks by whites before, during and after the Civil War. Since the protagonist is Black, the author doesn't have to make the point of the injustice; our protagonist is clearly a complex, vibrant, flawed, compassionate and ambitious person who belies all the stereotypes the bigoted southerners toss around in complacent belief of their own nonexistent superiority. 

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 12/12 discs. On the last disc! Wow!

Uncompromising Honor 34-5/??, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. One part of the battle is over? But there is another one going on? Or maybe two? I think the Sollies are about to do something bad? The serialization is not doing any favors to this story, especially combine with Weber's habit of explaining weapons and tactics in long detail that I tend to skim over. In audio that might take up an entire episode or two, so that weeks pass before I need to pay attention again.

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

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

A Long Time Until Now, Michael Z Williamson. 

Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky. 

The Pleasant Profession of Robert A Heinlein, Farah Mendelson. Hugo finalist. 

Skylark and Wallpaper, Anne O'Brien Carelli. Cybils finalist. The historical kids are in danger. The modern kid is worried about the wrong things.

The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton. The plot thickens. Or rather, more people are getting stuck in the plot.

Someplace To Be Flying, Charles de Lint. 

The Bone Witch, Rin Chupeco. Our hero was a foolish child, as she sees now.

By Immortal Honor Bound, Danielle Ancona. 

The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum. 

Trash, Andy Mulligan. Book from my shelves. I like the multiple points of view and the action of the plot.

Picture Books / Short Stories:

 

The Princess in Black, Shannon Hale. For 2nd/3rd grade book club. New faces here! This is my first time engaging younger kids, and I clearly have to rescale my expectations for their attention span and interests. I sure miss having cookies to bribe kids with! But I asked my usual questions: Who would you give this book to? Did you like it? What didn't make sense? If you were a secret superhero, what would you be doing? Why would you keep it a secret? I think the kids liked it.

You're Invited to a Moth Ball, Loree Burns. 2020 Cybils nominee. The pictures are the superstars here, which does not demean the text at all. But the luminous photographs of ethereal or colorful moths, as well as the cheerful pictures of the children preparing for and enjoying their late evening of moth observations really carry this book. It's an indication of how powerful it is that I found myself contemplating looking for a Moth Ball in my area, or maybe even organizing one before I remembered that 1) there's a pandemic and 2) I'm scared of bugs. Burns talks about what to look for when identifying moths, how to entice the two types of moths, and how to tell moths and butterflies apart. The back matter has information on finding science programs, identifying moths, finding the equipment for your own Moth Ball, and taking photographs in tough conditions.

OMG, I just got the joke in the title. Moth ball. Ha ha!

Winged Wonders, Meeg Pincus. 2020 Cybils nominee. I liked the framing of this book -- it tells the story of how scientists solved the puzzle of where Monarchs went by asking who should get the credit and then describing what each individual or group did. Probably everyone's favorite page will be the one crediting the people who lived near the Monarch wintering places and knew all along, but no one knew to ask them! But it also manages to describe how the scientists posed the question, how the tagging program was administered and maintained, who helped with it, what unexpected people suddenly devoted time to the work, and the joy when all the pieces came together. And, because this is where we live, it ends with a description of the dangers threatening the butterfly. The backmatter talks about the inspirational National Geographic article, which stirred up some memories in my brain; I may have seen that article.

Making Their Voices Heard, Vivian Kirkfield. 2020 Cybils nominee. I did not know that Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe knew each other! Actually, it never occured to me that they were contemporaries, because I'm pretty clueless that way. They bonded over the difficulties they had being taken seriously, being both women. Monroe was sexy and pretty, so men figured she must also be dumb. Fitzgerald wasn't skinny, so men figured she didn't really exist. Also, she was Black, so if she wasn't sexy, why was she singing? But Monroe found inspiration in Fitzgerald's records and then managed to pull strings to get Fitzgerald a spot in an LA nightclub. The backmatter consists of a lot of original footage, which is a fascinating way to do a bibliography and I only wish I was reading this book with a kid who would force me to look it all up.

3-D ABC, Bob Raczka. 2006 Cybils picture book finalist. Here are 26 photos of sculptures representing the alphabet, with enough descriptions to start a discussion. Cute book that reminds me of dragging my kids to a sculpture park.

Numenia and the Hurricane, Fiona Halliday. 2020 Cybils nominee. I'm not sure where the line between nonfiction and historical fiction lies, but I suspect this is on the fiction side. It's a charming book about funny looking bird siblings, and one gets lost in a hurricane, and has troubles until they are reunited. It's told in short verses and lovely illustrations, and is based on a true story as told by bird scientists who tagged a whimbrel and saw it blown a thousand miles off course in a hurricane but eventually get back to its migration route. I'm not sure how they knew about the love between the siblings though.

Patricia's Vision, Michelle Lord. 2020 Cybils nominee. Biography of a doctor who invented some laser techniques to treat cataracts and in general was awesome for pioneering ways to match underserved communities with medical treatment. She had to push her way into fields without women or Blacks and did it with skill and grace. The pages include quotations from Dr Bath is additional decoration, and I really liked the hues of the illustrations. Backmatter includes a timeline of her life, additional details (such as her encounter with Dr Martin Luther King Jr) and other women in STEM, but the library cover obscured much of that last material.

The Cat Man of Aleppo, Irene Latham & Karim Shamsi-Basha. 2020 Cybils nominee. Lathem enlisted Shamsi-Basha to help her write this book because of his work and fluency in Arabic. It's the story of how an ambulance driver fought despair during the war by trying to help stray cats, went viral, and expanded his efforts to include an animal hospital and then an orphanage. The theme is to start to make a difference where you are, and to trust that love will find a way. The illustrations are encouraging and inclusive.

Facts Vs. Opinions Vs. Robots, Michael Rex. This ended up not getting nominated, but I enjoyed it anyway. It's a picture book using robots to demonstrate the difference between facts (the robot has three eyes) and opinions (the three-eyed robot is the most fun to play with), and then introduces the concept of insufficient knowledge (the robot with the obscured name-tag is called Bruce). Tension builds when some robots do not handle conflicting opinions well, but luckily they come with a reboot button and so get several tries. It does not try to cover the concept of alternative facts, but I guess that might be too much for a picture book.

Aliens Are Coming!, Meghan McCarthy. 2006 Cybils picture book finalist. The story of Orson Welles's Martian Invasion radio play, but with the delight of great illustrations of the aliens that weren't really there. As history I prefer the more complex books that I've read more recently, but this is a delightful picture book that I would have enjoyed sharing with my family. 

Guess What Is Growing Inside This Egg, Mia Posada. 2007 Cybils picture book finalist. This would have been another fun read with my kids. It's framed as a simple riddle, and then gives more information after the answer so I could have read it with them from ages 3 to 10 or whenever we stopped reading picture books. (As I am still reading picture books, I kept them going as long as possible. Nowadays I have to hand them the book to read without me.)  

Immigrant Architect, Berta de Miguel. 2020 Cybils nominee. I had to do a double take -- the frame for the book is as a memoir personally told by Rafael Guastavino's son about how his dad came to America from Spain and after tough struggles made a success of a firm making gorgeous and fire-safe arches and vaults in American buildings in the late 1880s through the first half of the 1900s. I was trying to figure out how the guy was still alive! I like how the illustrations echo the style of the buildings to be designed, even when showing their arrival in America. There are some good walking tours of New York in the backmatter for people lucky enough to be near some of the best buildings, and a good secret about the abandoned but amazing subway station that used beauty to lure nervous commuters underground when the subway was first being developed. I also liked learning about vault techniques as useful for fire resistance, and that St Patrick's Cathedral in New York was supposed to replace its lovely vault with a tower but they never got funding.

The Fabled Life of Aesop, Ian Lendler. 2020 Cybils nominee. This enchanted me. I loved the illustrations, with their hints of Greece and the subtle way of connecting communication bubbles between people and between the stories they tell. I liked how it faced straight up to the problems of slavery and how being a slaved shaped Aesop's world from the beginning, and made what he did even more incredible. I liked the selection of fables, and then I really liked the end matter, where it discussed the historical record, the controversy over whether Aesop was a real person or a projection, and what this means in terms of understanding the cultural history that produced him, and then the cultures that kept him popular. I didn't know that Aesop's Fables were the second book printed in Germany, after the Bible went out on the new printing press. So I liked that the book not only shared some of the more famous fables, but also discussed how history and authenticity works and is evaluated. 

Beautiful Shades of Brown, Nancy Churnin. 2020 Cybils nominee. Laura Wheeling Waring was a talented artist of about a hundred years ago, and this biography showcases her career. Another artist who is new to me! I liked the focus on her interest in painting brown people, people who looked like her family rather than the white people she saw in museums. The book discusses the added obstacles she faced because she was Black (and female) but concentrates on her drive and ambition and the series of portraits she made that hang in museums today. The illustrations echo her fascination with painting browns, which contain all the colors of the rainbow in themselves. This is a great way to look at color! I have a bad habit of always getting brown when I mix colors (clearly I need to clean my brushes better) but now I shall see this as a possible strength instead of a sign that art is not for me. And I loved seeing the connection with Marion Anderson, who is a big favorite of mine. 

Lightship, Brian Floca. 2007 Cybils picture book finalist. Nice little book showing a working lightship (ship that serves as a lighthouse in places where you can't put houses) with a scene-stealing ship's cat to liven things up in an authentic way.

An Island Grows, Lola M. Schaefer. 2006 Cybils picture book finalist. Basically the story of Michener's Hawaii but told in rhymes and without some of the duller digressions. My favorite parts were the growth of the island; once people showed up they kept obscuring the main character with all their dancing and planting and stuff.

Living Color, Steve Jenkins. 2007 Cybils picture book finalist. Hmm. It was fun for me to read, but it seems like it straddles an age range here. The organization by color skew's low, and there's not an effort to draw any commonalities between the animals other than sharing a color. So it works as a younger kid color book. Yet there's an awful lot of text, most of it looking at explanations of how that color functions to help the animal adapt to life, which is aimed at the older picture book reader. I'm not sure it works doing both. And I'm a bit concerned about how tested some of the assumptions about what the color does for each animal; some seem like scientist just-so stories which make for good hypothesis but not always good conclusions. But the back matter listing for each animal had dauntingly small print so I didn't try to read it all.

 

Lizzie Demands a Seat!, Beth Anderson. 2020 Cybils nominee. Elizabeth Jennings won her battle against trolley segregation in New York in 1854, and started the battle for public transport integration. Well, there had been earlier court battles, but most of them were settled for the segregationists. This sets the fight for freedom in context, and after following Lizzie's suit after being forced off a trolley by an abusive and racist conductor it looks at the next century and a half of lawsuits, optimistically showing that with courage and determination Blacks can force America to trend towards justice. In 2020 I'm finding the pace of that more discouraging than inspirational.  The back matter goes into more detail about major court cases.  

No Voice Too Small, Lindsay H. Metcalf. 2020 Cybils nominee. A group of poets are matched with kids from six to sixteen (or so, that's rhetoric, not accurate) who stood up and tried to make a difference. Some fought personal problems like school bullying or anti-Muslim prejudice, some took personal problems and expanded them to society (anti-Muslim prejudice, immigration cruelties) but all were kids who saw a problem and tried to solve it somehow. The book is also interested in the poems themselves -- there are different formats and it labels them and in the backmatter discusses their definition. The kids each get a page spread, with the poem, a quote, an illustration and a description of their activism.  I liked how some poems were more emotional than explanatory, and others echoed their subject's cries for action. The backmatter has the poetry explanations and also short bios of each poet. It feels a bit more like a book for the poems than a book about the activists though. 

Down Down Down, Steve Jenkins. 2009 Cybils picture book finalist. It's amazing how vividly lifelike Jenkins makes his illustrations, which I think are based on torn paper or something? But the illustrations definitely make this book. I was a little confused by the depth chart on the side at the beginning, but then I figured it out. Lots of cool fish here, and lots of details about them in the back for those wanting more.

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. Wrapping up science.

Give All to Love, Patricia Veryan. Final secrets are coming out.

Wool, Hugh Howey. 

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho. Aftermath of the school visit.

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. Examples of using family and community strength to teach struggling kids.

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. Still working on Skylark and Wallcreeper.
3. Cybils 2019. Finished Free Lunch. Started on graphic novels -- Surviving the City and now They Called Us Enemy.
4. Early Cybils: Zooming through early picture book nonfiction books, since I figure the more I know of the genre the better I'll be as a judge.
5. Reading My Library. Haven't started the next one yet. 
6. Ten to Try. At 9/10. I'm working on the last one #10. 
7. Where Am I Reading: 27/51 states. Picked up New Jersey. 25 Countries.
8. Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge.  I'm done.
   

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: Trash. Up Next: Return of the Thief (it came!)
• Library Book: Up Next: Wolf Rebel.
• Ebook I own: None. Up Next: One Man
• Library Ebook: Skylark and Wallcreeper. Up Next: an extra. Maybe Bourne Supremacy.
• Book Club Book: None. Up Next: Maybe Finder?
• Tuesday Book Club Book: Somewhere to Be Flying. Next: Any Master & Commander book.
• 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.