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...

Foolish Reading Decisions As School Opens

School started this week! I almost wrote opened, but of course they didn't open. We're all distance learning in Renton School District, after a summer of climbing COVID numbers. My nephew is a senior this year and felt he didn't really do a good job with online learning last spring, so I agree to sit with him to start with.

This year they actually show up for each class, sometimes to do work for the whole period and sometimes just to check in and get an assignment. I think this will work better than last year, where they had occasional check ins and the kids were supposed to work through all their assignments on their own. That would be heaven for some but a disaster for the less organized. So I bring over some books and my computer and get work and reading done while helping with technical difficulties and such. There were a lot of games this week as the teachers were mostly making sure that everything worked, so I got a chance to shine by feeding my nephew lots of trivia answers.

I'm also still running on my own, although I've pushed off the interval to have two days of rest in between since I'm old and creaky. Runkeeper, my running app, has a beginner to 5K program that I'm doing, although I'm doing slow jogs for the walking bits and slightly less slow jogs for the running bits in an attempt to get my pace up a bit.

All my reading plans were derailed by noticing that I was only five or so books short of a black out on the Seattle Library Book Bingo challenge. So I rounded up the books and am making a stab at it. Then I'll deal with the overdue library books and the book club meetings next weekend... Oh look, I have a newish K J Charles!

I made it to the library and the farmer's market on Tuesday, as well as swinging by my friend Linda's retirement home for a visit. We have to chat through the glass wall where they've installed an intercom so that no germs can pass. Mostly we talk about all the movies we aren't going to see. Next week I could tell about the movie I did see, though, since my sister bought Mulan from Disney and invited me over for a watch party. My liberal arts son was invited as well, although he watched from Oregon and we texted impressions. I made myself a ginormous bowl of popcorn and happily chomped my way through the film, which we enjoyed but we thought needed more songs.

On Sunday I hosted the usual Family Zoom call and we were delighted when the third generation showed up. My mom and aunt are regulars, and my siblings show up most of the time, but both sons dialed in from college and a nephew made an appearance on his dad's screen. Three rows in my Zoom gallery -- I think that's a record.

Cooking wise I managed to make my two meals. On Wednesday I had a craving for my pasta with a sausage cream sauce, and I served that with two tomato salads -- an Italian one with mozzarella and basil and a Greek one with feta and cucumber. I don't have my son's hand with dressings though; he's got a better eye for the vinegar. And on Friday I made an egg and bagel bake that my kids had turned their noses up at (waste of good bagels was their opinions) but which my sister and BIL appreciated. And even my nephew came over to eat since I had bought pineapple, watermelon, and cantaloupe tubs and those are his favorite. So I felt pleased with myself but I'm exhausted at the idea of doing it all again this week. I think I'm doing a pizza night this coming Friday!

My currently reading has lurched back up to 25 with all the books I'm racing to finish to complete my Bingo card. To make it worse, I started some, liked them but realized they were moving too slow so I started easier options but still want to finish the original choices. 

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've got a picture book section this week so I'm eligible.

Started

Rare Encounters With Ordinary Birds, Lyanda Lynn Haupt. My nature book for my SPL Summer bingo card.

Jubilee, Margaret Walker. Debut over 50 for SPL Summer bingo.

The Secret of Chimneys, Agatha Christie. 1920s book for SPL Summer bingo.

Books For Living, Will Schwalbe. Uplifting book for SPL Summer bingo

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong. Epistolary for SPL Summer bingo.

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

Elysium, Jennifer Marie Brissert. For Sword & Laser club.

Kristy's Great Idea, Raina Telgemeier. Cybils finalist. 

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, Ellen Oh (editor). Retellings for SPL Summer bingo.

Completed

Polaris Rising, Jessie Mihalik. For my Cloudy book club. Much more light-hearted and fun that I was expecting, so I had a great time. It's a light hearted space romance between a high ranking woman on the run from her family over a proposed marriage and an enhanced soldier on the run from just about everyone. Together they take on her fiance and his family, her dad, and the universe. Lots of fun characters, heroic loyalty, and only a few moments to pause for foolish reflection. I'm going off to chase down the rest of the series.

The Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry, ed. Bill Martin Jr. 2009 Cybils poetry finalist. This was a pleasant anthology, with bright cheerful illustrations and bright cheerful poems. I'm not a big fan of some of the illustrators, but then I have terrible taste in art. I really liked the poem "Let There Be Pizza On Earth" and will have to recite it over my next pizza night. But I know I would have been unable to get this past my children when they were young; it's a bit tragic how scarred I am by having such poetry-phobes as offspring. Clearly I need some revenge grandkids.

The Secret of Chimneys, Agatha Christie. 1920s book for SPL Summer bingo. After a jarring start where the hero threw around various racist and anti-Semitic slurs and expressed his general contempt for non-British people, I pushed on to get to smart women, goofy aristocrats with goofier nicknames, a murder mystery in an old stately house, and laconic detective who shows up to be clever but then leaves so our hero can bustle about, and a cosy feeling of solving part of the mystery (very rare for me, but this is clearly an early Christie). So I had fun, but it would have been better if someone cut out the slurs.

Rare Encounters With Ordinary Birds, Lyanda Lynn Haupt. My nature book for my SPL Summer bingo card. This was a balm to my soul. I have some books on American birds, and I feebly try to identify the ones I manage to see. I'm terrible at it. But this book by a naturalist who is an avid birder both affirms the pleasure of birdwatching but also gives respect to even the people who can barely differentiate a heron from a goose. I got enormous pleasure from it and I'm back to trying to tell a junco from a Stellar Jay.

Books For Living, Will Schwalbe. Uplifting book for SPL Summer bingo. Another huge winner. Schwalbe writes essay chapters about books that affected his life, either because of when he read them or what he associated them with or what they said, and also talks about the importance of one's reading life and the dialogue between reader and book and it was all life affirming and delicious. And then in his acknowledgements he praises my cousin Alice Truax who I knew was an editor but now I like the book even more.

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl, Stacy McAnulty. 2018 Cybils middle grade fiction finalist. Another strong entry! I'm always a bit leery of stories about homeschooled kids discovering that it's better to be bullied than to learn because school is their only hope for friendship, but in Lucy's class she desperately needs to get out of her apartment. I do hope she doesn't stay at the middle school, but the friends that she makes and the awareness of her emotions and capabilities that she gets during the book were great.

Bookmarks Moved (Or Languished) In:

Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan. 10/10 discs. Go Bransa! But I'm pausing to listen to the CD from last week's The Tree that Time Built, where I can hear a selection of the poems.

Uncompromising Honor 28/??, David Weber. Baen Free Radio Hour's serial. Still stuck in a battle.

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

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James. Sword and Laser pick. Finally picked it up again!

A Long Time Until Now, Michael Z Williamson. Those feminists -- wondering if rape counts as abuse. Who has time for that stuff? There's porn to enjoy!

The Illustrated Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking. For my Tuesday book club. Marching along through the chapters.

Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky. Finally getting back to this but I'd better hurry -- the library wants it returned.

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.

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.

I Love My Hair, Natasha Tarpley. Well, I didn't exactly read this one, but I'm watching the Netflix series Bookmarks which is people reading picture books. They show the art but not the real pages, so I'm not going to count the all. But this one felt like it was being read to me, and I liked the cadence and the energy of the pictures. I was a complete failure at hair as a parent (and really, as a person with hair) so I always like books where it's a success.

Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow, Joyce Sidman. 2006 Cybils poetry finalist. A great picture book, combining poems and riddles and science. I think I could have gotten my kids to sit for this one, and even without an audience I enjoyed the pages with their quiet illustrations of the animals and plants that the poems describe.

Snow Bear, Lindsay Moore. 2019 Cybils Elementary Nonfiction finalist. A lovely picture book, colored for bedtime with soft blues and poised illustrations of the bear and the other northern animals. As a bonus, it's also an accurate description of the polar bear's environment and response, with added information at the back.

Nine Months: Before a Baby Is Born, Miranda Paul. 2019 Cybils Elementary Nonfiction finalist. This is squarely in the genre of "So You're Going to Have a New Sibling" but it's a good entry. It's also a good science book about the development from egg to baby, which a poem celebrating both this growth as well as the lives of the family awaiting this baby, including the soon to be big sister. Another book that would work to read in someone's lap or shared in a classroom.

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. 

Wool, Hugh Howey. A barrier has been breached! 

The Wind Gourd of La'amaomao, Moses Nakuima. 

Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho.

Reading and Learning to Read, Jo Anne Vaca. This is interesting to be reading alongside the Cybils elementary nonfiction finalists. It's a good time to learn about how children learn to process facts from books.

Reading Challenges

1. Cybils 2017. None. I just need 3 YA books to be done.
2. Cybils 2018. Finished Lightning Girl. Have the next one on deck.
3. Cybils 2019. I picked up the last picture book! And I'm reading the elementary nonfiction, which are also picture books.
4. Early Cybils: Read a bunch of 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: 20/51 states. 23 Countries. Picked up Washington, Oklahoma, New Hampshire and Sweden.  I clearly lost some data since I know that's not my first Washington book.
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. Somehow I'm suddenly determined to finish this. Wish me luck -- it's due tomorrow!